My Nerdy Neighbor Is the Master of the Magic Tower
Chapter 34
It was a physically deep lake, so it wasn’t as if she had struck a reef or some underwater obstacle. Yet, water began to pour through the warped wooden planks with increasing speed.
To make matters worse, the rowboat, which had been moving automatically as if motorized, wouldn’t budge an inch.
Just moments ago, she had been rejoicing over the successful completion of the ritual. What on earth was this disaster?
As the god had said, happiness wasn’t far away. It was just f*cking far.
Her mind went white with panic at the bewildering situation. The water had already risen past the soles of her feet to submerge her ankles, but Cecilia forced herself to stay calm.
‘Calm down. My feet definitely touched the bottom earlier.’
Even if she fell in like this, the water level should only reach her chest at most. Hadn’t she gone into the lake beforehand to prepare for exactly this kind of situation?
Though the ritual’s conclusion would be a complete mess, at the very least, her life wouldn’t be in danger.
Even knowing that, goosebumps rose on her skin as she sank further into the cold lake water. Her body stiffened, and an inexplicable sense of dread spread like wildfire.
And bad premonitions never missed their mark.
The rowboat sank helplessly, and the water level rose past her legs. In an instant, her body was pulled under.
Contrary to her expectation that it would stop at her chest, no matter how much she struggled, her feet couldn’t find the bottom.
In the end, Cecilia was entangled in her heavy, water-soaked clothes and sank endlessly, endlessly beneath the surface.
The thunderous cheers that had erupted at the sight of the blazing holy flames lasted only a moment.
As the Saintess and her rowboat came to a dead halt in the middle of the lake, the cheers gradually died down. It wasn’t because the crowd had sensed something wrong.
Even as she remained motionless, and even as the boat appeared to be sinking bit by bit, the majority still watched her with sparkling eyes.
Because she was the ‘Saintess’ beloved by God.
They didn’t harbor the slightest doubt that anything bad could happen to the Saintess during a ritual to offer gratitude to God.
However, chaos only broke out after the boat finally submerged into the water and the Saintess disappeared completely beneath the surface.
“What? Was there a ritual like this last year?”
“Maybe it’s something new? But… she hasn’t come up for too long. Could she have fallen in…?”
“Hey, don’t say such nonsense! That’s a sacred lake where not even a common priest, let alone the Saintess, could possibly drown.”
“T-that’s true, but…”
The man shut his mouth, unable to argue. Yet even as more time passed, the surface of the water remained still.
Quietly, without a trace of the person it had swallowed.
Meanwhile, Cecilia, submerged in the water, struggled to suppress the rising fear. But with her cumbersome attire and a body that was weak at the best of times, she couldn’t swim at all.
‘Calm down and think.’
She only had a minute or two at most before she ran out of breath. She had fallen in the middle of the lake, quite a distance from the shore.
Could the knights save her in that time? No, could they even swim in this sacred lake in the first place?
She couldn’t just wait for a hand of salvation that might never reach her. Coming to a quick conclusion, Cecilia racked her brain.
The first thing that came to mind was the Divine Power that had saved her life several times. She didn’t know if her power, which seemed to simply strengthen her body, could help in a crisis of suffocation or drowning, but the situation was dire enough that she had to lean on that mysterious power.
Cecilia hurriedly tried to summon her Divine Power. However, it was difficult to manifest, as if her veins were completely blocked. Even when a faint light managed to form, it flickered out helplessly like an ember dropped in water.
Finally, her remaining air ran out, and cold water began to pour into her nose and mouth.
Gack!
Bubbles boiled up around her face as she thrashed in agony.
This is the end. It was the moment she resigned herself to fate.
A blurry figure appeared in her vision. It was getting closer.
It was Sir Miguel, who had thrown off his armor and leaped into the water.
‘I’m saved!’
But her relief was short-lived.
The knight reached the space above her head but did not approach any deeper. No, he couldn’t.
Because for members of the clergy, this was a special lake with a floor.
In other words, the grace bestowed by God was actually preventing Sir Miguel from reaching her.
She saw him flip his body downward as much as possible, desperately reaching out, but Cecilia’s body only continued to sink.
‘If I can just reach that hand…’
Please, please.
‘Move my body, or let out some Divine Power, do something!’
It was the moment she struggled with desperate longing.
Crack! Something shattered, her body felt lighter, and she caught a glimpse of the floor beneath her feet. Cecilia, managed to shed her cumbersome cloak and swam toward the surface.
Just before she reached her limit, she finally grasped the knight’s hand.
The rest was up to Miguel. Cecilia’s body was hoisted above the surface and pulled toward the shore.
“Saintess-nim! Are you alright?”
Miguel’s urgent voice echoed hollowly in her ears.
“Cough!”
Cecilia, having practically crawled out of the lake, vomited up the water she had swallowed. Her body, which had rapidly lost heat, shook uncontrollably, and air rushed into her lungs and airway.
I almost died.
A sense of crisis and fear more intense than when the window had shattered over her head or when she had almost been decapitated by an axe surged within her.
Was it because of this terrible pain scraping her bronchial tubes? While gasping for breath repeatedly, Cecilia continued to think through her fading consciousness.
This wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t be an accident.
The boat she had seen a few days ago hadn’t shown a single flaw, and the water level had only reached her chest. It was a structure where drowning should have been impossible.
‘Who, who on earth was it?’
Who is trying to kill ‘Cecilia Weberdin’? No, is it ‘me’ they are trying to kill?
She desperately scanned her surroundings with blurred vision.
People, people, people.
She couldn’t check the faces one by one in the gathering crowd.
Amidst the priests blocking the believers, she saw the pale Archbishop, Knox shouting something, the Pope running over with his vestments fluttering as he abandoned all dignity, the Marquis crying out for her in horror, and for some reason, a soaking wet Lien.
The moment she finally confirmed them, her vision turned pitch black.
When Cecilia regained consciousness, she was in her room at the Weberdin Mansion.
The familiar ceiling, the bed with its accustomed touch, and the cozy scent. While she fumbled through them with her still-dulled senses, only stiff, sharp voices reached her ears.
“Knox Weberdin. Don’t tell me you’re going to call this incident a coincidence as well.”
“……”
“I told you during the window incident too, this is clearly the work of those Delanche bastards! If you had investigated properly back then, this wouldn’t have happened!”
“……I am sorry.”
At the rising voices, Cecilia slowly turned her head to the side. In the heavy atmosphere, the Marquis, his face frozen in a cold mask, was harshly reprimanding Knox.
Seeing that Knox remained silent and offered no rebuttal to the Marquis’s blame, it seemed he too had been quite shocked by this accident.
“Ha, so what does the Temple say? The evidence—no, the culprit? Did they find even a trace?”
“Because of the massive crowd, they couldn’t find the culprit. However…… they said traces of magic were discovered.”
‘……What?’
At the news that instantly jolted her awake, she parted her dry lips.
“What do you mean, magic?”
“Cecilia!”
Contrary to her urgent mind, her voice came out as a faint, cracked rasp. Nevertheless, the Marquis managed to hear her and rushed to her bedside.
“Are you alright? Is there anywhere that feels strange?”
The Marquis’s rough palm touched her forehead. His expression was a chaotic mix of relief and worry, his touch hurried yet careful.
Cecilia gripped her throat, which felt a dull pain, and spoke again.
“I’m okay now. More importantly, what was that talk just now?”
“They say a few high-ranking officials at the Archbishop level sensed the presence of magic at the time of the accident.”
It was Knox, standing stolidly behind the Marquis, who answered. For some reason, his face was clouded with guilt as he added weakly.
“It happened so fast that they aren’t certain. I suppose they’ll have to investigate further.”
‘Magic,’ he said.
As she slowly chewed over that word in her still-dazed mind, a crucial fact suddenly occurred to her.
She had definitely lost consciousness right after being pulled from the lake. If so…
‘The Relief Festival? What happened to the ritual?’
“What happened to the Relief Festival?”
“……His Holiness the Pope wrapped it up well.”
The subtle silence right before the answer and the way his gaze shifted slightly away. Everything proved that Knox’s words were a lie.
‘I thought as much.’
The person who was supposed to be the Saintess assisting the ritual fell into the middle of the Grand Temple’s sacred lake. And hundreds, thousands of people witnessed it.
Her mouth felt naturally bitter at the reality that the days of hard work had turned to trash.
“For now, don’t worry about anything and just focus on recovering. You don’t need to pay attention to anything else, so…”
It was at that moment she spotted a newspaper crumpled and abandoned at the feet of Knox and the Marquis.
‘What is that?’
As Cecilia reached out her heavy arm with difficulty to pick it up, a startled Knox tried to snatch it away.
“W-wait!”
But Cecilia was faster at reading the headline than his hand was at moving.
