The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 95
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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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Side Story — Episode 2
In the dead of night, when all the servants slept, Cecilia rose quietly from her bed and slipped out of the Mansion through the secret passage Lien had built for her.
This one-way door opened directly into his Entrance Hall.
She fastened her Coat carefully and stepped inside with measured caution.
The door to the Entrance Hall stood unlocked, just as before—and beyond it, a faint glow spilled from his room. It was exactly like that night she’d gone hunting for his secrets, drink in hand, and she couldn’t help but let out a small, hollow laugh.
‘Back then I was full of schemes to uncover the rest of his secrets.’
Truth be told, tonight wasn’t so different. She was walking toward him for a ‘purpose,’ after all.
As she crossed the Corridor with practiced ease, his Bedroom appeared, along with the room where Magical Inscriptions were carved.
Next to the Bedroom, the room emanating that eerie blue light was indeed the Secret Room. She couldn’t remember when he’d made it in this life, but the first time she’d discovered it, she’d gasped despite herself.
If she demanded he open it at once, he’d weep and comply. But his secrets were like Pandora’s Box—so she deliberately ignored the room’s existence.
Tonight’s purpose lay elsewhere, so Cecilia passed the Secret Room as she always did and stopped before his Bedroom door.
Unlike before, when she’d needed to take a deep breath to calm her nerves, she knocked now without hesitation—knock, knock!—and the door swung open at once, as if he’d been waiting.
“You’ve come.”
Lien greeted her, freshly washed and dressed in Pajamas.
Just as he’d often visited her Bedroom, Cecilia found his own unremarkable now.
She stepped inside and settled onto the Bed, the room’s only piece of furniture.
“Did you eat supper? Something proper, I mean—not just bread and tea.”
“Yes, I had cream stew.”
After a brief silence, Cecilia praised him for it.
Like a puppy, he’d crept close and now sat pressed against her side.
“Cecilia.”
“Yes?”
His fingers fidgeted, his eyes darted, his lips quirked and stilled—all signs he had something to say. When she waited with patience, he finally spoke.
“That man… the one I greeted on the Stairs this evening… is he a Holy Knight?”
“Oh, yes, I think he came to see the Marquis.”
“I see…”
Cecilia studied him intently as he answered without conviction.
She had far more questions herself.
Why did his evening meal always match hers? And how did he know to ask about someone she’d only glimpsed in passing?
‘Has he done to someone in our household what he did to Riri?’
She’d thought that having some time apart might ease his anxiety, but—
Cecilia’s brow furrowed.
He’d grown darker, his attachment too intense to dismiss as charming—that was a problem. But it wasn’t her greatest concern right now.
Cecilia untied the Ribbon at her neck and shrugged off the Coat draped over her Pajamas.
Beneath the pale moonlight, the thin Negligee clung to her silhouette, every curve visible. In that instant, Lien flinched as though struck.
In the darkness, his scarlet eyes burned bright, consuming her from head to toe.
But that was all. He drew in a sharp breath, laid her down gently, pulled the Blanket over her, and held her with the care one might show glass.
“Sleep well.”
……
His lips brushed her forehead, then withdrew.
At this bashful goodnight, Cecilia’s face twisted.
This was precisely her dilemma.
His gaze, his touch—both dripped with affection too real to deny.
Yet night after night, despite sharing a bed, they’d done nothing but sleep. Simply held each other, purely and chastely.
Platonic Love—not written in her fate, and utterly maddening.
‘In the last life, we’d kissed, we’d touched, and now he’s playing coy with me!’
As Cecilia fumed alone, a plausible hypothesis occurred to her.
‘Wait. Since the letter I left behind on the First Cycle changed everything, maybe he doesn’t remember the 43rd Cycle at all?’
Whatever the reason, she couldn’t simply give up—not after coming here with resolve.
It wasn’t just her desire to draw closer to him.
Lien still feared this might all be a dream, and his anxiety kept him from sleeping deeply.
She’d hoped more time together would help, but nothing had improved. After wrestling with how to reassure him, this was the solution she’d finally arrived at.
If they deepened their bond—if he felt her love as intensely as he’d shown her his that night—perhaps then he could truly believe in what they were.
Resolved to try, come what may, Cecilia pressed down on his shoulders and pushed herself up.
Had he resisted, she’d have been helpless, but as always, Lien yielded to her will.
In a moment, she straddled him, bracing herself on the Pillow beside his head with both hands.
“…Cecilia?”
“This won’t do.”
“What—please, come down.”
“Answer me first. Why do you resist when your body burns like this?”
Cecilia swept her hand across his abdomen with bold confidence, and with each touch, his breathing grew ragged.
“If you don’t answer, I’ll stop.”
At her threat, he confessed, his forearm shielding his eyes as he laid bare his heart.
“Once I touch you, Cecilia, I’m afraid I’ll lose all restraint and keep wanting more and more.”
……
“Even now, every glance you give me, every place your hand touches—I grow jealous. If I can’t hold you close, if you came to regret returning to my side, then I…” His voice trailed into barely audible murmurs as his lips trembled with the weight of his need. “How could I bear to lose you again after finally finding you? I don’t want to be hated. Not at all.”
Her abandonment of him had left deeper scars than she’d realized.
Cecilia pulled his arm down, his eyes flushed and wet, twisted as though tears might spill at any moment.
She pressed a light kiss to his eyelid, then looked directly into eyes that wavered like a flame before the wind.
“Lien, I’m a greedy person. Even if you give me everything, it still won’t be enough.”
……
“Give me all of you. And I’ll give you all of me.”
He forgot even to blink as his trembling hands cradled her face.
“Even if I give you everything, even if you take it all—is that truly what you want?”
Cecilia laid her hand over his and nodded.
In an instant, their positions shifted, and she found herself beneath his solid frame.
His kiss descended upon her lips, no longer restrained.
* * *
‘I should have asked for only half,’ Cecilia thought with belated regret as she stirred awake in the pale light of early morning, well past dawn.
For underestimating the depths of his love, her body had paid the price—not merely exhausted, but on the verge of breaking.
She buried her face in the pillow with a soft groan, then cast a glance at the man sleeping soundly beside her.
‘In sleep, he looks like an angel.’
Lien could now rest deeply, whether in his own chamber or hers, as long as she was near. The dark shadows that had haunted the hollows beneath his eyes had vanished.
She should have been purely delighted at his recovery, or perhaps she should have lamented that her own strength was draining as quickly as his was replenished. Instead, she reached over and shook his shoulder to wake him.
“Lien, it’s morning.”
Last night, the moment the household grew quiet, he’d made his way to her room as if it were the most natural thing. It wasn’t the first or second time this had happened, so she’d long since stopped being startled—but Melanie would be arriving soon, and he needed to leave before then.
Cecilia glanced at the window, noting how much brighter it had grown, and shook his forearm once more.
Rather than waking, Lien simply pressed closer against her, adding his weight to the embrace. With his eyes still closed, he began to kiss her exposed shoulder and the curve of her spine.
“Lien!”
She was willing to indulge him—usually—but Melanie had begun waiting outside her door more and more often each morning.
While she could clean away the traces of his presence with magic before anyone noticed, it was only a matter of time before they were discovered at this rate.
“We’ll be caught if you keep this up!”
She pushed his face away, but he was relentless, pressing his lips even to her palm.
‘This really won’t do.’
She was losing her resolve against that aggressive beauty, weakening by the moment—
When suddenly, without so much as a knock, her bedroom door flew wide open.
“Cecilia!”
Her brother’s shout, her own frightened cry, and Lien’s swift use of magic all erupted in the same instant.
With Time Magic alone, he could tidy the bedding and dress them both properly—but it wasn’t enough to hide his presence in her chamber from the morning light.
Nox stood frozen, trembling visibly as he pointed from Cecilia to Lien and back again.
“……Cecilia, please tell me that’s not a man clinging to your back. Surely it’s just a large insect that happens to look like one?”
“Well, I’d say there’s no insect quite as beautiful as this,” Lien replied smoothly.
“Cecilia!”
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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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