The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 93

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 93
When she asked the Divine Record how to return to the original world, it answered her.

It was when she realized that this life marked the beginning of Regression, before the first cycle—before the very first iteration. Only then did she truly understand the meaning of that sentence.
Why the word “death” was repeated twice.
So to return, she needed two deaths: the death of the forty-third cycle and the death of the first cycle.
She could have died the moment she understood, but she didn’t abandon the plans she had made.
She didn’t want to suffer at the Pope’s hands, flee from complicated matters, or plunge Lien into despair again.
But only after she put a period to that long, long story—only after the second life ended without her dying—did she realize her own mistake.
The two deaths were not hers alone.
Cecilia’s death and the Pope’s death.
And at the end of those two deaths, she finally stood before the only being who could send her back.
“Charles.”
A void where no living thing existed.
Cecilia reached down and touched Charles at her feet. When she stroked his glossy white fur, Charles made a soft purring sound.
And to her, it sounded like a child’s voice.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the voice she had heard faintly in dreams and when death loomed near.
Narrow pupils turned toward her. Charles—Lesti—the one true god, Soltis—spoke to her.
“Thank you.”
What could she say?
It was too much to say it was all right when she had endured so much, yet her heart clung to someone to blame.
“Because of you, I was able to save this poor child.”
In the direction Charles’s tail pointed, a kitten lay sleeping peacefully in a cradle.
Without explanation, she somehow knew the identity of that cat.
‘So this is the real Cecilia.’
The sleeping Cecilia looked very peaceful.
Thank goodness. As she murmured without thinking, Charles pressed her instep gently with his front paw.
“…It must have been hard on you that I brought you here so recklessly?”
“It was frustrating.”
“W-Well, if you’re curious about anything, ask away! It’s late, but I’ll answer everything. Anything about me, about this world, anything at all!”
Cecilia considered.
There were so many things she wanted to ask. Why it had to be her, what the Pope had eaten to become such a thing, whether he truly had abandoned humanity.
But the question she actually asked was different.
“Does this universe expand too? What are you really? Do you carry DNA information? Are you a lifeform that evolved along a different branch from humans?”
“…Is that what matters?”
“I just got curious all of a sudden.”
After Cecilia stopped her frivolous questions, she finally asked what she truly wanted to know.
“Can you send me back to my original world?”
“Yeah. Do you want to go back?”
Charles asked.
“You always wanted to go back.”
That was true. She had desperately longed to return, no matter what price she had to pay, even if it meant abandoning those she loved, even if it meant dying again and again.
But why couldn’t she nod readily? Why couldn’t she simply rejoice?
“Before that… what happened to that world? Or rather, what happened to Lien?”
Charles released a shallow sigh. When he tapped the floor with his front paw, the surface beneath her feet rippled like water.
And from within it, a familiar figure appeared.
It was Lien. He was embracing Cecilia, anguished.
The real Cecilia had already been killed long ago by the Pope’s hand, and she who had occupied that body was now standing before a god.
That was all, but to his eyes, she would simply appear dead.
If she had known, she should have told him. Like the young prince, she was not dying but merely shedding her heavy flesh to return to her star.
So he need not grieve, need not suffer.
In fact, when she realized that this Lien before her was the real one she had loved, and that he had regressed dozens of times waiting for “her” and not Cecilia, she had considered staying in the first cycle and living with him.
That way he would never repeat the cycles, would not suffer through long ages as a consequence.
But it was impossible. If she remained in the first cycle, the forty-third cycle would cease to exist. Without the forty-third cycle, she would never be murdered by the Pope, never wake in the first cycle.
What this Time Paradox meant was singular.
She had to leave him, no matter what.
But if she disappeared, he would be so heartbroken. He would rewind time all the same. Across dozens of lives he would be rejected and wounded by Cecilia, not her. He would forget his true self and go mad. He would go mad.
Time flowed further in the vision Charles was showing her.
An older Lien discovered the Breath of God. He offered his own body and unleashed Time Magic; divinity etched itself upon his hand in a Magic Circle, and the next life began.
In the altered timeline, he never suffered deep wounds from the real Cecilia, nor did he have to endure her death again and again.
He hoped she would make a wise choice, but he had left a letter just in case.
In the letter he had written information about the one who sought to kill Cecilia and about the Gifts of God. And he asked her not to forget the request he had made in the Prayer Room—that she was not the real Cecilia.
[I’ll bring her back no matter what.]
[If you must, just die. Don’t search for a way to resurrect her. Live out your natural span and find peace.]
But from that letter, he seemed to have drawn only conviction instead—that if he repeated Regression enough times, he would eventually reach the cycle where “she” first met him.
Watching him endure and repeat this impossibly long existence again, Cecilia suddenly felt the urge to weep.
[If faith is the only thing that can be eternal to humans, if it’s the driving force that lets them live, then I have chosen to believe in you.]
She did not believe in eternity, but this man who proved eternity—she pitied him so deeply, felt so sorry for him.
She clenched her eyes shut.
“Send me back.”
In her life, there were things far more important than love. She had found her purpose and meaning in learning, in inquiry, in growth—never in love.
And yet she could not understand this man who loved just one person so completely that he had chosen to turn back time dozens of times over, who had placed all his purpose and reason for living on that single person alone.
She truly could not understand it at all.
But comprehension with the mind and action with the body belonged to entirely different categories.
“To the world where Lien is waiting.”
For here she was, her mouth moving to choose him—that foolish, pitiful, and beloved man—abandoning all her values in the process.
“You won’t regret it?”
Charles asked.
She might regret it. In fact, she almost certainly would. But leaving him behind would be something she regretted far more.
So there was nothing to do but choose the more rational path.
She nodded, resolved. At that moment, a kitten that had woken from sleep approached Charles’s side, padding slowly forward.
“Since you saved Cecilia, I’ll yield this once.”
“What?”
As if he had intuited her choice precisely, Charles and the kitten rumbled with laughter in their throats.
“Then, I’ll see you next time.”
The ground gave way beneath her and she began to fall.
When that unfamiliar sensation ended.
Cecilia—no, “she”—finally opened her eyes.
* * *
She had awakened not in the Prayer Room, but in Cecilia’s bedchamber.
She threw off the thick quilts with a rustle and set her feet on the floor.
The cool touch of marble and the weight of gravity pressing down on her body confirmed this was real.
Now the golden hair that had become more familiar to her than her original black locks filled her vision.
‘She was willing to yield?’
It seemed Cecilia had willingly ceded this life to her.
“Thank you.”
She murmured it softly, in case she might be listening. Then she quickly changed into fresh clothes.
She combed through her disheveled hair with her fingers, hastily slipped on her shoes, and hurried out of the Mansion.
She squeezed her body through a small dog door hidden in the Garden. She brushed the dirt from herself carelessly and moved deeper into the grounds.
Her pace quickened and quickened until it became a run. Her cheeks flushed hot and her breath came ragged.
Only when she reached a Garden ablaze with daisies did she finally slow her steps.
A man was standing in that sea of flowers.
Draped in a dark robe.
The woman who had unlawfully entered so early in the morning hesitated before parting her lips.
“……Um, hello?”
The figure, stiff with tension, nodded without speaking.
Would he remember her? Could he not? Was he the one she had been waiting for? Or was he someone else?
The crimson eyes that held her gaze wavered with confusion.
“I’m Cecilia Webdin. And you are?”
At this formal introduction that maintained distance, despair flickered across his face. But he quickly gathered himself and spoke his name.
“……I’m Lien.”
“Lien.”
She spoke his name. Just that, and she found herself laughing. Her heart thundered. She could not hold back any longer.
She ran to him and pulled him into her arms fiercely.
Lien caught her reflexively and lost his balance, tumbling backward onto the flower-strewn earth. The scent of flowers intensified as his heavy robe was cast aside.
With her arms wrapped tight around the neck of the man who had shown her eternity, she whispered softly.
“I’ve come to keep my promise.”
Then he crumpled, his eyes distorting as though he might weep, before breaking into a smile that outshone the flowers themselves.
It was another miracle, greeted at the end of a very long life.
End

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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