The Nerd Next Door Turned Out To Be The Magic Tower Master [Novel] Chapter 3

Cecilia gazed in silence at the woman’s form rippling across the surface of the water.

Lush golden hair, amber eyes, and an aura that transcended mere beauty into something sacred.

Cecilia Weberdin, eldest daughter of House Weberdin — the Empire’s foremost holy family — was a figure whose appearance and status had earned her the title of the Empire’s “saintess.”

That was why she couldn’t go out freely, why she was confined to a marquisate far from the capital, why she was handled with such delicacy — treated like glass that might shatter at any moment.

But no matter how noble and saintly she looked on the outside, the person within was, regrettably, a twenty-first-century Korean who’d grown up seeing every kind of ugliness the world had to offer.

Cecilia swept back the golden hair swaying in the water and shook her head firmly.

“Melanie. You don’t understand. The real terror lives inside me.”

“Pardon?”

You should be grateful I didn’t kidnap that man.

She swallowed the words she could never say aloud. She felt bad for Melanie and her worrying, but Cecilia fully intended to get closer to this “stranger.”

Preferably in a very private and intimate way.

The next day.

Melanie, unable to shake her worry, had lectured and fretted right up until bedtime, so today Cecilia would behave and rest quietly in her room… as if.

The moment Melanie stepped out, Cecilia — who had been watching for her chance — flung off her loungewear.

Then, having apparently sensed the acting lady of the house heading out, the cat came trotting after her. Cecilia tucked it under her arm and dashed from the room.

Perhaps it was thanks to her fluffy companion. Retracing her memory to reach the garden wall proved remarkably easy.

The only problem was…

What excuse do I use to barge into the house next door?

She didn’t have to deliberate long.

The little troublemaker, as if it had never sat still in her arms, raked its claws across the back of her hand.

“Ah!”

Startled, she let go, and the cat landed nimbly on the ground. Then it sauntered through the gap in the wall, making a show of it.

Well, what can I do?

She had no choice but to go after it before it wrecked someone else’s flower bed again.

As if she’d been waiting for just this excuse, Cecilia made her compromise and crawled through the gap once more.

The dainty little paw prints that trailed from the mouth of the hole cut off abruptly at the lawn.

Cecilia crossed the lush green grass just as she had the day before.

Past the tall, long hedge of evergreen boxwood lay the west garden.

I hope the cat isn’t tearing up the flower beds again.

Belatedly seized by worry, Cecilia quickened her pace.

And what she found at the end was not yesterday’s ruined garden but a flower bed brimming with white daisies.

The blossoms swayed freely with the wind, looking for all the world like the foam cresting a wave.

In the middle of that rush of fresh spring fragrance, there stood Rien — impossibly, as if conjured.

Draped in a dark, dreary robe that couldn’t have clashed more with his surroundings.

Isn’t this the part where he’s supposed to be standing there looking like a painting inside a painting? And then the heroine falls for him all over again — that’s the cliché, right?

While she was gazing with mixed feelings at the one blemish on an otherwise perfect picture, he seemed to notice her too and came striding over.

“Lady Weberdin!”

He must have been heading for the west garden as well — a bundle of white fur was nestled in his arms.

“I’m sorry. The cat escaped again… She seems to have taken a liking to this garden. She didn’t tear anything up this time, did she?”

“Not at all!”

At her anxious question, he shook his head urgently.

Relief broke across Cecilia’s face.

“Thank goodness. I was worried she’d caused trouble again like yesterday… Oh, the garden’s gotten even prettier overnight. It’s like magic!”

Cecilia clapped her hands together and offered the compliment. It was half genuine, half a calculated attempt to close the emotional distance between them.

But Rien flinched as though he’d been scolded and dropped his head low.

“Th-thank you.”

Hmm, that didn’t look like bashfulness, exactly.

She couldn’t read his expression because of that robe.

Tch. Cecilia was clicking her tongue inwardly when it happened.

Rien suddenly bent down, snapped a few daisies at his feet, and held them out to her.

“Here — I thought you might like daisies…”

Cecilia stared blankly down at the unexpected gift.

She did, in fact, prefer modest wildflowers that bloomed naturally over showy cultivated varieties.

But more surprising than the fact that he’d guessed her taste perfectly was the simple act of giving her flowers at all.

Wait, is this his way of asking me out?

While she stared at the bouquet with deadly seriousness, his hand began to tremble.

“I-if you don’t like them…”

Cecilia snapped to her senses a beat too late and snatched the flowers from his hand.

“No! I like them so, very, extremely, incomparably much!”

She clamped the fresh stems in a death grip and practically shouted.

This time her sincerity must have come through, because the corner of his mouth, just barely visible beneath the robe, curved gently upward.

It had to be a smile as beautiful as these flowers!

What a shame that wretched scrap of fabric hid his face from view.

What if I just ripped it off and played dumb?

She was seriously scheming ways to remove that burlap when, in an instant, the hint of a smile vanished from his lips.

“…Your hand.”

“What?”

“Your hand is hurt!”

Only then did Cecilia glance down at the back of her hand.

The scratch from the cat’s claws was redder and more vivid than she’d expected.

“Oh, she’s quite the opinionated little thing.”

She tapped the nose of the cat — yawning blissfully, oblivious to its crime — and answered as if it were nothing.

It stung, sure, but it wasn’t as though her hand had been sliced off. Just a scratch.

Rien, however, looked more alarmed than she was. He bit down on his lip and seized her hand.

The hand covering her wound felt oddly warmer than a normal person’s.

“Rien?”

She called his name at the unfamiliar sensation, and Rien jerked his hand away.

“S-sorry. I was so startled, I just…”

Apparently thinking he’d committed a grave offense, he flustered and fidgeted before sitting her down on a log bench near the garden.

“Please wait here a moment. I’ll bring medicine.”

“You really don’t need to worry about a scratch like this… Rien!”

He scrambled off before she could even finish.

Cecilia watched his retreating back in a daze, then lowered her gaze to the back of her hand.

It might have been her imagination, but the pain was almost gone.

Maybe because it’s such a minor scratch?

Just as she was losing any remaining sense that treatment was necessary, Rien — who had vanished in a flash — reappeared at an equally astonishing speed.

He spilled out a small glass vial of liquid, bandages, and the like, then dropped to the ground in front of her feet.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Hesitantly taking hold of her fingertips, he uncapped a bottle of pink liquid and poured it straight over the wound.

Just as when he’d held her hand before, there was a surge of heat — and then the scratch healed without a trace.

“Is this… a potion?”

In this other world, ordinary medicines compounded by apothecaries existed, but so did “holy water” and “potions” that guaranteed instant results.

The former was typically produced by clerics, the latter by mages, and both were prohibitively expensive.

In other words, this was not the kind of remedy you wasted on a mere scratch.

“There’s no healer at the manor, so… I’m sorry.”

Her stunned question must have come across as something negative, because his broad shoulders sagged.

To cheer him up — the man who’d healed her and somehow ended up dejected — Cecilia made a show of opening and closing her hand.

“See? Thanks to you, Rien, it doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

“But still…”

“Come on, don’t sit on the ground like that. Sit here.”

She took the wrist of the man sitting at her feet and pulled him up onto the seat beside her.

Setting the warm cat on his grass-stained knees, Cecilia ran her fingers along the fresh wildflowers and asked.

“Do you tend the garden yourself? Are you the gardener?”

She’d brought it up out of genuine curiosity about whether she should keep treating him as one.

After a rather long pause, he began to nod haltingly—

“Master!”

From the direction of the manor, a large man in a snug-fitting suit came barreling toward them.

From a distance, she’d almost mistaken him for a knight — that was how big the butler was.

He was carrying several small bottles that appeared to be additional medicines, but when he belatedly spotted the guest beside his “master,” he stopped dead in his tracks.

“…Where did he go? Ha ha.”

Then he began backing away with exaggerated, deeply unnatural movements.

Only after the butler disappeared behind the building did Cecilia turn and stare up at the man beside her.

Rien had gone rigid, his breathing so shallow with tension it was barely there.

With a cover this flimsy, it’s hard to even pretend I don’t notice.

“You seem to be a better liar than I thought. Master?“

“That’s not what it is.”

He lurched forward and cried out urgently.

So flustered was he that the sudden movement startled the cat off his lap and flipped back the edge of his robe.

“I never, ever intended to deceive or mislead you, Lady Weberdin…!”

“Whoa, calm down. I’m not angry.”

Cecilia threw both hands up to settle him.

The violet eyes she finally met were darting like a child caught doing something wrong.

“But…”

“I mean it. Do I look angry to you?”

“…No.”

She’d already seen through the fact that he was no gardener.

A mere gardener with that face?

In the world of a romance novel, where beauty scaled with power, it was simply impossible.

He must have had his own reasons for lying — reasons that made it necessary to hide his identity.

And yet a single lie seemed to have loaded him with all the guilt in the world.

Cecilia studied him — still so restless he didn’t know what to do with himself — and a brilliant idea struck her.