My Nerdy Neighbor Is the Master of the Magic Tower
Chapter 41
Looking at the family names written on the invitation envelopes, most belonged to the Emperor’s faction.
‘It seems they want to gawk at me like a monkey in a zoo.’
Perhaps they intended to insult the face of the Temple or break her spirit.
‘Well, I’m not going.’
Cecilia flipped through the invitations with an indifferent expression.
She had no desire to jump into the middle of a power struggle, and above all, she needed to lie low, not knowing when the next danger might strike.
However, her hand flinched and came to a stop near the very end.
It was an envelope with a familiar design—gold trim set against a black background.
‘No way.’
Cecilia tore open the invitation to check the sender.
As expected, it was from the Imperial Family, but the sender was not the Emperor.
The one who had invited her was ‘Regina Hill Lishatria.’
The only Imperial Princess of the Lishatria Empire.
Cecilia recalled the information about the Imperial Family she had gathered before leaving for the Capital.
The Emperor had two children in total: an Imperial Princess and an Imperial Prince.
Among them, the Imperial Princess was said to be a brilliant and extraordinary individual who took after the current Emperor, but she was born with a frail constitution.
Because of this, most speculated that the successor would be the Imperial Prince, not the Imperial Princess.
‘But why would someone like that want to see me?’
They had no point of contact, and since they would see each other at the banquet soon anyway, there was no reason to invite her personally. She couldn’t even begin to guess the Imperial Princess’s intentions.
‘It would be great if Lien were here at a time like this.’
Setting aside the issue of trust, his teachings and opinions would be quite useful.
But she soon shook the thought away.
‘I’ll just ask the butler.’
Having reached a conclusion, Cecilia left the room holding the invitation.
For some reason, the mansion felt quieter than usual. It was just as she had nearly finished descending the main staircase.
She spotted a figure standing still near the entrance of the mansion.
The identity of the suspicious man clad in a dark robe, who could enter the mansion without being stopped by the knights, was easy to guess.
Cecilia slowly approached the motionless figure.
“Lien? Did you just get back?”
“I have returned, Cecilia-nim.”
“Where on earth have you been all this time and what….”
And what were you doing that you didn’t show your face once? She had intended to interrogate him like that.
Cecilia stopped mid-sentence. It was because his face, visible beneath the robe, was deathly pale.
Her heart sank at the sight of the cold sweat beading on his skin.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Cecilia hurriedly reached out and lifted his hood. Seeing him under the light, his cheeks, the area around his eyes, and even his neck were covered in red scratches that had yet to heal.
“Why do you look like this? Did you get into a fight? You didn’t get beaten up by someone, did you?”
As she fumbled to examine his cheek in shock, the corners of his mouth curved up weakly into a faint smile.
“……Can you really laugh right now?”
“I’m happy. That you’re worried about me, and that you’re touching me without hesitation.”
I like it so, so much.
Lien murmured softly, rubbing his cheek against her palm.
It was a harmless movement, like a young and fragile animal, but Cecilia flinched and withdrew her hand. His body temperature was startlingly cold. Just like a corpse.
Perhaps he took that as a rejection, for he corrected himself gloomily.
“I misspoke. It’s just… just that your hand was warm. That’s all it was….”
Seeing him walking on eggshells around her even while he was ill made a sharp, prickly thorn pierce her chest.
Feeling complicated, Cecilia finally pulled her hand away.
Lien, having lost the heat source that wouldn’t have helped anyway, looked as sorrowful as a puppy rejected by its master.
Cecilia tightly clenched her fist, where the soft sensation still lingered. Swallowing a rising sigh, she dropped her gaze to her feet, her inner turmoil plain to see.
“…….”
“…….”
The uncomfortable silence did not last long. He called her name in a voice thick with emotion.
“Cecilia-nim.”
“……Yes?”
“Is there something I’ve done wrong to Cecilia-nim?”
She had tried her best to lie low so as not to show her suspicion toward him. It seemed that, conversely, he had noticed a strange sense of distance and discomfort.
Though he could barely even hold himself up, he clutched her sleeve as if clinging to her.
“No, I must have done something stupid again.”
“…….”
“Just tell me, and I will fix whatever it is. So…!”
At his unstable appearance, she opened her mouth fruitlessly and then closed it again.
What should she say? That she suspected him of being the culprit trying to kill her? That because of that, she couldn’t trust any of the emotions he showed anymore? And yet, her heart kept going out to him, and her head was a mess because she wanted to reach out?
She couldn’t utter a single word.
Cecilia forced herself to change the subject calmly.
“You haven’t done anything wrong. Now, we shouldn’t be standing here; let’s go to your room first.”
She had to lay him down, as he looked ready to collapse at any moment. Becoming urgent, she didn’t call for the knights or servants but supported Lien herself.
Leading Lien, whose pace was significantly slower than usual, she headed toward the guest room assigned to him.
She sat him down on the bed, which felt somewhat chilly as it had never been used.
Before he lay down, she reached out to help him off with his robe, but he shook his head slightly with a look even more depressed than before.
“I’m fine now that you’ve helped me. I’ll be okay after a nap. So you don’t need to worry yourself.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
He couldn’t even take off his own clothes, so what was he saying?
His condition was more serious than she had guessed.
His lips, pressed together, were pale blue, and his broad shoulders were trembling like an aspen leaf. His chest, rising and falling roughly, was nothing but unstable.
‘Should I call Sir Miguel?’
With Miguel’s incredible Divine Power, he might be able to improve Lien’s condition quickly.
‘No, Divine Power might be bad for a magician’s body.’
Since they were said to be fundamentally different powers, there was a possibility they wouldn’t harmonize and would instead cause problems. Even if that weren’t the case, in his current state, his identity would be exposed to Miguel.
‘Then I wouldn’t be able to keep him by my side anymore.’
‘……How ridiculous.’
She was pushing him away because she couldn’t trust him, yet here she was worrying about such things.
She was disgusted by her own contradictions. Giving a bitter smile, Cecilia quickly shook off her idle thoughts.
For now, she intended to call a doctor as an emergency measure.
“Just bear with it for a moment. I’ll go get a doctor.”
Cecilia turned around hurriedly. But before she could even take a step, her sleeve was gently caught.
“I’m really fine. It’s no big deal, so I can recover on my own.”
“It’s no big deal? Look in a mirror before you say that!”
Anger rose from an unknown source, and she shouted abruptly.
She didn’t like how he had become strangely disheartened from the moment she avoided his words, and she hated how he was pretending to be fine when he couldn’t even hold his body up properly.
No, what truly dissatisfied her wasn’t actually that.
Why was he suspicious, why did she have to suspect him, and why did that bother her at every turn?
When Cecilia furrowed her brow fiercely, he hesitated like a child who had committed a great wrong before finally confessing.
“Neither a doctor, nor a healing magician, nor a priest will be able to recover me anyway.”
“Why? Has something really serious happened? They say you can’t be treated?”
“No, it’s not that…… occasionally, when I use magic excessively, I fall ill like this. No treatment helps until my mana returns.”
If it was enough to make the Magic Tower Master fall ill, what kind of magic had he used, and why did he have to use it?
The questions rose to her throat, but she ultimately swallowed them.
‘What am I doing with a sick person?’
With a deep sigh, Cecilia trudged toward the door. And instead of leaving in anger, she called a nearby servant.
For him, who was shivering even to his lips, she had a fire lit in the fireplace out of season and asked for warm water and pain relievers to be brought.
After giving him the medicine, she persistently helped him off with his robe and tucked the thick duvet up to his neck.
“Just rest for now.”
However, even at her command-like request, Lien couldn’t even close his eyes comfortably and tenaciously followed her movements with his gaze.
In case she left his side. In case she left him behind.
He couldn’t even hide that anxiety. Eventually, Cecilia pulled a chair to Lien’s side and plopped down.
“I’m not going anywhere, so rest. Please.”
“……Yes.”
Only then did his eyelids slide shut. As expected, he must have been overexerting himself, as he fell asleep instantly as if fainting.
Cecilia carefully wiped away his cold sweat with a towel soaked in warm water.
‘I wonder what happened.’
What exactly does he do? What is his identity, really? Could getting hurt like this perhaps be related to her affairs?
Both the fact that he didn’t return for a long time without explaining the reason and his current precarious appearance were beyond suspicious. And yet, if she felt pity rather than discomfort toward him… what should she do now?
She sat quietly looking down at the sleeping Lien, repeatedly asking questions that had no answers.
The flickering orange fire of the fireplace. Half-bathed in that sunset-like light as he slept, he looked lonely, like a person left all alone in the world. No, he just looked pitiful.
His hair clinging to his forehead, wet with cold sweat; his nose bridge wrinkled in pain; the faint groans swallowed back into his throat; and…….
“……Please don’t throw me away.”
The plea that slipped through his dry lips, sounding as if it might vanish at any moment.
Watching him gloomily, Cecilia finally let her expression crumple.
“……You, what exactly do you want to do with me?”
She murmured hollowly, but there was still no answer.
