Chapter 46
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Chapter 46
The Magic Tower was such a closed-off place that little was known to the public about the Tower Master's personal life.
"My wife died giving birth to her, so that child is my only family. It's been quite some time since she went missing."
The Tower Master appeared to be well into his sixties. That would make his daughter middle-aged by now.
I answered with a dejected tone.
"My father has been gone for fifteen years...."
"What?"
The Tower Master's eyes widened in surprise.
"Good heavens! Abandoning a child like that—your father is truly hopeless!"
He clicked his tongue and continued.
"Of course, my daughter is no better."
"Is that so?"
"My daughter was born in the Magic Tower and lived nowhere else. She received nothing but doting care, and then one day, completely unprepared, she simply vanished into this harsh world. She must have caused some terrible disaster."
Hearing this from someone who had been living in that harsh world for twenty-three years felt rather hollow.
Still, I spoke carefully.
"Truly? Could it be that this middle-aged child was kidnapped by some criminal organization...."
She had said the girl received nothing but doting care.
Why would the Tower Master's only daughter, raised with such love and affection, leave recklessly and cause trouble?
If it were me, I would have stayed attached to the Magic Tower, never ventured out, and lived like a princess for life.
"Who knows."
The Tower Master sighed deeply and spoke.
"One night, she stabbed me with a blade...."
Patricide?
"Took my blood...."
Bodily theft?
"Emptied my wallet...."
Theft?
"And then just ran straight out of the house."
Runaway?
"That was the last I saw of my daughter at twenty years old."
Good grief.
Even someone raised with nothing but doting care could be this hopeless.
"How about that? Your father's no better, is he?"
"No, sir. Compared to that, my father is practically a model of responsibility."
I drew a clear line in response to the Tower Master's words.
The Tower Master let out a groan and added.
"In any case, the fact that I still haven't found that child makes me think she's gotten tangled up with some dangerous organization. I have no idea when or how she might demand ransom, and I can't even guess what kind of trouble she's caused."
One thing was certain.
The Tower Master's parenting had utterly failed.
"My daughter may have many shortcomings, but I did right by her, you know? I loved her and cherished her."
The Tower Master's shoulders sagged as he muttered to himself.
"But why... why did this have to happen? Even if she was a bit lacking, everything was fine."
The Tower Master's dejected expression overlapped with my father's dejected expression.
[I was actually good to your mother. I told her everything was fine... So why did she leave us?]
I knew the answer.
[Because Mother didn't love Father.]
My answer wounded Father deeply.
But speaking those words wounded me as well.
Because... I was included among the people Mother didn't love.
[If Mother had loved me... she wouldn't have simply abandoned us with nothing but debt.]
A daughter unloved by her mother, who ruined her father's life.
That was me.
Sometimes... it felt as though I had no right to be happy.
If only I could restore my father's life—at least then I could face myself with dignity.
As I fell silent, the Tower Master muttered again.
"The problem is... the more I search for her, the worse the feeling becomes. It seems she's caused something truly catastrophic. Somehow, I need to clean up the mess quickly..."
In the end, it was an admission that family troubles had interfered with his work.
That fact hadn't changed.
The Tower Master's neglect of the Scroll Management Department was why it had fallen into such disarray.
[Still, he did make me Minister. Thanks to that, I was able to scrap the Cinderella Operation.]
I decided to forgive the Tower Master graciously.
In truth, there was nothing I could do even if I didn't forgive him.
"Well, this inadequacy of mine will come back to haunt me as karma later..."
The Tower Master groaned in anguish, then shook his head slowly before looking directly at me again.
"Anyway, Minister, about you."
Though the official appointment ceremony hadn't taken place yet, the Tower Master had apparently decided to call me Minister from now on.
"The Empress said you created a very unique and novel scroll?"
"Ah, yes."
I scratched my ear as I spoke.
"My father wanted to see the stars long ago, so I developed this scroll when I was young. The principle works like this."
I picked up a piece of parchment for scrolls that was lying around on the previous minister's desk.
Then I began quickly drafting the scroll.
Since I had created this scroll, it didn't appear in any books.
As I explained the principle and how it worked, the Tower Master's expression hardened.
"I... when the Empress said she'd never seen it before, I thought it was just an unusually obscure scroll. But it's truly an original personal creation?"
"Ah, yes."
"You really made this yourself? Alone? By reading books? At just... eight years old? Without any mages nearby?"
"Ah, yes."
The Tower Master blinked slowly. Then he murmured gradually.
"Even being extremely generous, you made 160 scrolls in a single night."
"166 scrolls."
"Well, that's possible. Occasionally, geniuses like that appear once every ten years. Even 170 scrolls—let's say someone could activate them all at once."
"172 scrolls."
"Yes. That's possible too. Occasionally, geniuses like that appear once every twenty years."
The Tower Master stared at my scrolls and bit his lower lip.
"But something like this... well, truly... it's genuinely extraordinary."
"Ah, yes."
"...Don't you normally ask what makes it so extraordinary?"
As I tilted my head in confusion, the Tower Master furrowed his brow.
"Creating new scrolls... People outside the Magic Tower don't understand magic well enough to know, but that's something only adults can do. And normally, you'd need to spend more than five years in the Magic Tower, refining your magical essence!"
"Ah, yes."
"But you said you created them when you were eight years old! You've never even been to the Magic Tower! You wouldn't lie, would you? Even you must find this strange!"
I shrugged indifferently.
"Strange or not, I became Minister because of it."
"What?"
"I think that's enough for Scroll Department Minister Namia Loapi."
When I referred to myself as Minister, the Tower Master let out a sigh.
Then, furrowing his brow, he asked.
"...How old are you exactly?"
"I'm twenty-three."
"Tell me more about your parents."
I hesitated for a moment, then began telling him about my parents again.
Today, many people had been asking about my parents.
I'd told the Empress the same thing earlier...
When I finished, the Tower Master studied my face intently.
"Born in the Southern Arvin Region, twenty-three years old... And you're saying you don't know your mother at all? Not even her name?"
"Yes. My father said my mother used an alias. He said she kept getting confused about her own name..."
"Have you heard anything about your mother's appearance?"
"Ah, he mentioned once that my mother, my father, and I all have blue eyes."
Blue eyes were the most common eye color in the Empire.
So it wasn't particularly distinctive.
"And he said she was incredibly beautiful. But what was charming was that she didn't realize how beautiful she was."
When he said that, my father looked truly bashful. Watching him, I made a vow from childhood.
Never, ever, ever be captivated by appearance.
If you only look at beauty, you'll end up like my father.
'That's why I could keep my wits about me even when Crown Prince Kiaros proposed!'
Honestly, just looking at that face was enough to make you feel satisfied...
But still, I managed to refuse rationally, keeping my mind firmly in check.
"Hmm."
The Tower Master furrowed his brow and gazed at me quietly.
It felt as though he were scrutinizing every detail of my face, dissecting it piece by piece.
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