The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master - Chapter 97

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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 4
After a brutal war, Cecilia finally made her way to the Temple.
She arrived at the entrance half-conscious from the predictably dreadful carriage ride, only to have a large hand suddenly thrust into her view.
“I have been waiting for you, Saint.”
It was, of course, Miguel who had come to escort her.
Cecilia hesitated, unable to take his offered hand, and regarded him with obvious discomfort.
“Saint?”
Lien weighed on her mind. It was a trivial matter, but given Lien’s current state, she worried he might take offense—so she tried to decline indirectly.
“You needn’t escort me, really…….”
“Am I not to your liking?”
“That’s not it at all.”
But the denial fell flat.
Perhaps it was because he was meant to be the lover of the true Cecilia, the original inhabitant of this body. When he made that dejected expression, it was difficult to be any colder to him.
Besides, though he had no memory of it, he had suffered alongside Cecilia’s troubles in the previous cycles.
So Cecilia relented and accepted his escort.
“Then I’ll intrude.”
The moment her hand met his, Miguel’s head snapped toward the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I thought I felt someone watching us, but it must have been my imagination.”
Around them were only the simple priests who had come to catch a glimpse of the Saint.
Yet Cecilia was certain that Lien was somewhere nearby, his eyes blazing with intensity as he watched.
Cecilia tried to shake off the presence that had taken hold of her mind and moved deeper into the Temple.
Miguel led her to the same Prayer Room as before. He walked her to the door and bowed respectfully.
“Please wait within. I shall bring the Pope’s representative to you at once.”
Now that she thought about it, she had never heard news of a new Pope being elected.
‘It seems the position is being held temporarily for now.’
She was curious to know what sort of person it was, but rather than detain Miguel with questions, Cecilia entered the Prayer Room alone.
The Prayer Room looked unchanged from before.
Though much had happened there and it was hardly a place she looked forward to visiting, Cecilia strode deep into the chamber. Then she gazed upward at the towering statue of God.
In truth, she had deliberately separated herself from Lien and come to this place not only to discuss matters of sainthood and the Relief Ceremony directly, but because she believed Soltis might provide answers to something that had been weighing heavily on her mind of late.
She knelt before the statue of God, placed her palms together loosely, bowed her head awkwardly, and closed her eyes.
‘Is this how one prays?’
“Um, Soltis, can you hear me? I have something important to ask, so why can’t you use Descent or something? Charles’s form would be fine too.”
“…….”
‘I suppose not.’
Just as a deflated Cecilia lowered her joined hands, it happened.
Sleep crashed over her like a lie, and her body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
‘What?’
When her eyes opened again, the world had become night. No—not night, but the void. She stood in the same dark space she had found herself in after her two deaths.
The one difference was the torrent of starlight pouring down from above and rising up from below. Though she couldn’t tell which was up and which was down, it was an overwhelming sight, as if she herself were one of those stars among them.
Lost in the same shock she had felt upon seeing a galaxy cluster photograph through a space telescope for the first time, she heard a cat’s cry at her feet.
A small cat, no larger than what could fit in one hand, sat before her.
She recognized the creature at once and smiled softly.
“Cecilia, did you get my letter?”
As she gently stroked the space between its ears, Cecilia replied with a soft “meow” of affirmation.
After petting the soft fur for some time, a white cat came padding toward her.
“Charles!”
Charles rubbed his head against her ankle to show his affection.
“I never thought we’d be able to meet like this. It’s fortunate.”
“You said you had something to tell me! What is it?”
Soltis pressed his soft paws against the top of her foot insistently, and Cecilia scratched beneath his chin as she answered.
“There’s something I need to ask you.”
With both cats settled on her lap, Cecilia began in earnest.
“When I didn’t die in the first loop, the entire past was twisted, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right!”
“Then what happened to the world of the original timeline?”
The unease had first struck her around the time Lien was doing his rounds, when she realized he might not have memories of the forty-third loop.
The more she thought it through after that, the more uncomfortable she became.
She had burned God’s Diary and left that note for Lien, so everything from the second through the forty-third loop had been overwritten.
The fact that Lien had dispatched the Pope so easily, that he had chosen Regression while waiting for “her” without being wounded by the true Cecilia—all of these were things that had changed.
But if the Multiverse Theory applies to this world, then my choice would have caused it to branch into separate worlds.
Then is Lien still undergoing Regression in the previous timeline? Trapped in a world where he can never meet me, forever?
Moreover, Lien’s anxiety right now seemed excessive, even accounting for the fact that it was the 44th cycle. It was as though he were remembering the original timeline itself.
To confirm what was happening, I asked the question—and Charles stopped kneading and looked up at me.
“But you’re doing well now. Why does that concern you?”
Charles tilted his head quizzically.
“Of course I’m concerned. If my choice really did split this into two worlds, then that Lien—the one from the 43rd cycle—might have been left alone, still undergoing Regression.”
“I didn’t expect you to worry about something like that. You really are unique, aren’t you?”
Charles stretched, extending his front paws and speaking as though it were nothing remarkable.
“The short answer is: the boy beside you now and the boy from then are not different.”
“Explain it properly.”
“Well, you’ve probably figured it out already, but the 43rd cycle you remember is the world from before you burned God’s Diary or left that letter. After that, Regression kept repeating until you encountered the 43rd cycle as you experienced it. But you made a different choice, and that’s where the branching point occurred.”
“So my choice really did split the world into two, then?”
At the time, when I left that letter for Lien in his first cycle, I’d been worried about it. After all, the future would certainly change because of it. When I considered the Time Paradox, I sometimes thought it might be better to say nothing and simply die.
But back then, I’d intended to return to the original world, and I’d wanted this tragedy to stop repeating. So I’d left that letter, prepared to accept that the timeline would become tangled.
“That’s right, but you don’t need to worry. They’ve already merged.”
“You mean the two worlds were combined?”
“Yes. To send you back to the 44th cycle, there was no choice but to merge the world before it changed with the world after. Otherwise, contradictions would arise in the flow.”
Indeed.
If the two worlds had merged, and if Lien carried memories from before he was changed, then his current attitude made more sense to me.
“I got scolded quite severely by the God of Fate for merging the worlds by force. It’s apparently a side effect of drawing you in from another world in the first place.”
Charles drooped his tail and ears pathetically.
Cecilia touched the drooping ears coolly as she replied.
“Isn’t that partly self-inflicted?”
“How cold of you!”
Charles slipped through her grasp like liquid. Her hand closed on empty air, and she fell into contemplation.
“So right now, Lien has double the memories—everything up through the 43rd cycle?”
Could a human even endure such a span of time, accept so many memories?
He’d already seemed far from sane by the 43rd cycle. There was no way a mere human could bear twice that existence.
‘That’s why the boy is so anxious.’
“Isn’t that asking too much of Lien alone?”
Charles, who’d been grooming his paws, answered in a voice that seemed oddly serious for him.
“That boy chose Regression of his own will, defying the natural order. He’s simply bearing the karmic weight that choice demands.”
“But—”
“And I had no choice either. This was the only possible path that could stop him.”
Cecilia was about to acquiesce weakly when something suddenly became clear to her.
“So when you gave up Cecilia’s life this time, it wasn’t because I helped her—it was just to stop the Regression. What would you have done if I’d returned to my own world?”
“…You didn’t return.”
Charles fumbled with his answer like a child caught in a mistake, then hurriedly changed the subject.
“What does the reason matter now?”
“Charles. That’s something I need to say, not you.”
Though she spoke with some reproach, Soltis simply squinted and smiled.
“So you’ll make sure that boy is truly happy. And that time doesn’t turn back again.”
I was about to protest that it wasn’t as simple as that when—
The ground beneath me crumbled away, and my body began to fall like a meteor.
As I watched the two cats watching me descend, my eyes suddenly opened.
I awoke in the Prayer Room where I’d been moments before.
‘I couldn’t even say goodbye.’
Cecilia looked up silently at the statue of God, which smiled benevolently, then rose to her feet.
Though the conversation seemed to have lasted quite long, the fact that my legs weren’t numb suggested that little actual time had passed.
“Saint?”
At the familiar voice calling to me, I turned my head.
The one who had just entered the Prayer Room was none other than Archbishop Kiar.

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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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