The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master [Novel] Chapter 14

Rien was a mage. That wasn’t speculation — it was certainty.

Cecilia calmly retraced the events so far. The pain from her wound vanishing the instant his hand touched it. The daisies filling the garden overnight.

The latter might have been possible if several people worked together to plant them, but this wasn’t the season when flower merchants visited the region.

And lastly, the sense of wrongness she’d felt at the Holy Temple. When he called her name, it was only a split second, but time had seemed to slow.

No — it wasn’t her imagination. It had definitely slowed.

None of it could be explained unless he was a mage.

Cecilia recalled the rest of their lesson together.

[And the remaining prominent magic family?]

[That would be Chetwind, which has produced Magic Tower Masters for generations. The Magic Tower is an institution unrelated to politics, so it’s ambiguous, but they could be considered neutral.]

According to his explanation, not all mages belonged to the Emperor’s faction. But the prevailing wisdom was that most mages didn’t get along with the Holy Temple.

They believed in provable science over a god whose existence couldn’t be demonstrated, pursuing knowledge in the name of infinite possibility.

In a sense, their philosophy wasn’t so different from hers — someone who’d come from twenty-first-century Korea.

So the fact that Rien was hiding his identity as a mage from the Weberdins, a holy family, and from her specifically, the so-called saintess, wasn’t really a major problem. At least, that was how she saw it.

But there was another issue she absolutely could not overlook.

“No — you’re the Magic Tower Master, aren’t you?”

The fact that he was a loser hiding his power — no, the Magic Tower Master. That was the problem.

Magic that manipulated time itself. And the name of the Magic Tower Master printed in the newspaper.

‘Asilien Chetwind.’

Using part of his real name as an alias. The kind of trick that would only work on novel heroines whose perceptiveness vanished entirely when it came to romance.

Normally, the moment an identity was revealed came long after the first meeting — in novel terms, at least fifty chapters in.

But this man, unskilled at lying, had dropped far too many clues for Cecilia to simply look the other way.

When her question hit the truth dead-on, Rien’s hand clenched into a tight fist. He wavered like a man driven to the edge of a cliff, then shut his eyes in devastation.

“…If I were that Magic Tower Master, would you discard me?”

Did he realize that answer was as good as a confession?

“Can I take that as a yes?”

“…I’m sorry.”

She’d never possessed him to begin with. Cecilia watched with an odd look as he trembled in fear of being abandoned.

“I never intended to deceive — no, I did intend to deceive you, but I absolutely never meant to make a fool of you, Lady Cecilia.”

In truth, when she’d first realized his identity, Cecilia hadn’t been all that surprised.

No human that handsome could possibly be a mere side character. She’d already speculated he might be a prince hiding his power and identity amid a political struggle, a grand duke concealing his status to break a curse, or a Magic Tower Master playing the fool while hiding sinister aims.

Though the fact that it was specifically the Magic Tower Master was somewhat unexpected.

Because even she — only three months into this other world — had heard enough rumors about him to know what a notorious figure he was.

And not in a good way.

Past Magic Tower Masters hadn’t exactly been charitable, but they’d at least been figures suited to the Tower’s purpose of scholarly pursuit.

This generation’s Master, however, was trailed by terrifying scandals: that he’d lopped off the head of his predecessor and mentor to seize the position, that he was trash drowning in gambling, drugs, and women, that he was a monster who went around killing innocent people.

‘That’s why I’d guessed Rien was more likely the Imperial family’s hidden illegitimate child.’

She’d predicted that his gloominess and low self-esteem surely stemmed from a secret birth, an unfortunate past — something like that.

But the nerd next door was that Magic Tower Master.

“I’m truly, truly sorry.”

Cecilia fixed the man — who looked ready to burst into tears at any moment — with a cold stare.

Regardless, a hidden mastermind concealing his true nature was disqualified as a romantic prospect. Weren’t masterminds the type whose default setting was obsessive confinement?

Obsessive men were only appealing on the page. To a modern person from the twenty-first century, they were practically criminals.

She had absolutely no desire to experience human rights violations like being locked in a cage or having her legs broken.

Shuddering at the mere thought, Cecilia asked icily.

“Are you a villain, by any chance?”

“…Pardon?”

“Like, planning to commit treason if the opportunity arises, or killing your subordinates when you’re in a bad mood, or thinking the world is beneath your feet and it’d be fine if it all burned… Is that you?”

“What?! Wh-who could possibly be so brutal?”

‘That’s you, though.’

She stared at him pointedly with that meaning, and Rien’s face went white. So frantic was he that his head and hands shook back and forth simultaneously.

“I-I know my reputation isn’t good, and it’s true my personality wasn’t the best when I was young, but that’s not who I am now! Please believe me!”

But he concealed far more than necessary to simply nod along. And he lied frequently.

Unable to let go of her suspicion and wariness, Cecilia continued her interrogation-like questioning.

“Hypothetically, if the person you liked said they liked someone else, what would you do?”

“…Is there someone you like?”

Wait — did he just confess?

She was caught off guard for a moment, but his eyes remained as guileless as ever.

‘Is this some ploy to lower my defenses?’

But she wouldn’t be fooled again. Unmoved even by the assault of that spectacular face, Cecilia answered firmly.

“I said hypothetically.”

“I would… probably ask to at least be allowed to stay by your side.”

‘Not confinement?’

The unexpected answer left her completely speechless.

‘This is really that infamous Magic Tower Master?’

Cecilia barely held together her crumbling defenses and pressed once more.

“And if that was refused too?”

“Then…”

Abruptly, the man bit down hard on his lip.

‘I knew it — confinement!’

“…I think I would cry.”

As if the mere thought pained him, those violet eyes — like wisteria blossoms — grew damp.

‘Mm. Pass.’

Cecilia stared at the man who waited in breathless silence for her verdict.

Truth and lies are difficult to tell apart. Even so, she decided to trust the actions and emotions he’d shown her thus far, and even these answers now.

It wasn’t because his words pierced her chest with an unfamiliar depth. It wasn’t because those anxious eyes were as beautiful as a purple magnolia. And it certainly, absolutely wasn’t because that teary face and those pitiful answers perfectly matched her taste.

…At any rate, it wasn’t.

Cecilia deliberately relaxed the stern set of her eyes and asked, like a sigh.

“I’ll trust that you’re different from the rumors, Rien. But I’d like you to explain why you tried to deceive me.”

That was a matter directly tied to trust. No matter how obvious his tells were, if he kept lies on his tongue as a habit, a day of genuine, profound disappointment would inevitably come.

She pressed for an answer with her silence. Breathing with difficulty, as though someone had hands around his throat, he finally parted his lips.

“Because you’re a Weberdin and the saintess, Lady Cecilia. I was afraid that if I told you I was someone who uses magic, you’d hate me.”

“Is that also why you tried to pass yourself off as a gardener?”

“…Yes.”

His hands clasped together anxiously. Cecilia gazed down at the back of his hands, where veins stood out in sharp relief. He was gripping so hard that the skin where they overlapped was rapidly draining of color.

It occurred to her that the real Cecilia Weberdin might well have done exactly that.

There was a strong chance she would have suspected, resented, and ultimately shut out a mage from the capital — and the Magic Tower Master, no less.

Just like the head of House Weberdin, who’d openly displayed his hatred.

“You must have hidden your identity from my father as well.”

That was a realization that struck her in the moment.

If the Marquis had known Rien was the Magic Tower Master — no, even if he’d merely known the man was a mage — he would never have permitted him to serve as Cecilia’s tutor.

“Then what you said about being a professor…”

“I never lied about my career! It’s just that the history major I put on my résumé was actually… theoretical magic.”

Right. If he was skilled enough to have risen to the position of Magic Tower Master at such a young age, then the title of Academy professor wouldn’t be a lie either.

But the issue wasn’t what titles or credentials he held.

Why was a man of such a lofty position here, hiding his identity? That was the issue.

“What reason does a Magic Tower Master, one who even held a professorship at the Academy, have for being all the way out in Weberdin? And right next door to the Weberdin estate, of all places.”

His hunched shoulders jolted sharply. The man who’d been desperately stringing together excuses could not answer so easily this time, and fell silent.

But the confession was not yet over. The sinner bowed his head low once more, and spoke a belated truth.

“That’s…”