Chapter 14

“Have you gotten close enough to him that you’d defend him while insulting me?”

“I only learned his name today. Why do you keep suspecting things?”

A question one of the mages had asked while I was waiting in the lobby suddenly came to mind.

“By any chance, when you got dragged into the office last time, did he put you through some kind of mental torture?”

“…Does the Magic Tower do things like that?”

“If not, then never mind.”

I’d wondered why he asked that.

Maybe Kade harassed not only government officials but even his fellow mages because he trusted no one.

The sooner I return to the Imperial Palace, the better for everyone.

I spread the documents I had carefully selected since last night across the desk.

Kade, who had been standing there with his arms crossed and his mouth shut, tilted his head slightly.

“I thought you’d given up on getting my seal. You acted like you’d come every day, then disappeared without a trace.”

“I had my reasons.”

I tapped the desk, indicating that he should take a look.

Wearing a thoroughly unenthusiastic expression, Kade finally sat down.

It seemed his misunderstanding about Mr. Ben had been resolved. The rigid tension in his face had loosened ever so slightly.

“You only have to stamp one document. Pick any of these. None of them will cause the Magic Tower any losses.”

I spoke confidently, but as he pointed out key passages and read through the documents, my nerves gradually tightened.

“Donates one million gil each month to Melgot Orphanage.”

“Conducts two days of joint training every month with the Coastal Guard.”

“Submits a report whenever a giant-monster extermination operation is carried out for the safety of the Empire.”

“Constructs additional Magic Tower branches in the western and southern regions of the continent and entrusts all management to the Magic Tower.”

Come on. These should be reasonable enough to approve, right?

I watched expectantly, waiting for him to take out his seal.

Instead, Kade gathered all the documents together and flipped them over.

“I read them because I appreciate the effort you put in, but I have no intention of stamping any of them.”

“…You don’t like these either?”

Unable to believe it, I picked one of the overturned documents and held it out again.

“Forget the others. Isn’t building additional branches good for the Magic Tower?”

“Just give up.”

“……”

The document slipped from my fingers.

The official papers I had spent so much time selecting suddenly felt like nothing more than worthless scraps of paper.

The despair was almost as bad as when I thought he had abandoned the Magic Tower because of me.

It felt as though an invisible wall stood firmly between us.

Wait…

There was something I had suspected ever since my first visit to the Magic Tower.

A suspicion I dismissed every time because surely he wouldn’t be that petty.

“Kade. Don’t tell me… you’re rejecting perfectly reasonable documents simply because I’m the one who brought them?”

“That’s not it.”

He denied it immediately with a sigh, but I couldn’t believe him.

“Then what exactly is the problem?”

“You don’t know this, but those documents aren’t the whole story, and—”

His words trailed off.

Then, without warning, Kade abruptly stood and shot a sharp look toward the window.

He cast some unknown spell outside, then violently drew the curtains shut.

Before I could even ask what he was doing, he spoke stiffly.

“You came at a bad time.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

Now he was just saying anything.

“You’re blaming the date now?”

“Even running into you outside the Magic Tower wouldn’t be good. We shouldn’t have met again in the first place.”

“……”

The moment I heard those words, something in my chest ached.

I hadn’t come to Melgot because I wanted to.

I hadn’t sought Kade out on purpose.

Still, we weren’t enemies.

Even if I hated him, he shouldn’t have any particular feelings toward me.

When we met at the banquet, when we rode in the same carriage, the atmosphere hadn’t been suffocatingly uncomfortable, had it?

“I know very well that you got tired of me. I remember that’s why you left.”

“Vivian.”

“Even so, this is work. Official business. No matter how much of a delinquent you are, you should know how to separate work from personal matters.”

“The thing about getting tired of you…”

“It’s not true? Then explain it. If that’s not why you dumped me, then tell me what the reason was.”

My voice trembled as I pressed him.

But Kade ultimately averted his gaze without saying a word.

A surge of hot emotion rose inside me.

I snatched up the remaining documents on the desk and crushed them tightly in my hands.

“The banquet was just a coincidence, so don’t worry. From now on, we won’t meet outside the Magic Tower unless it’s for work.”

Without even saying goodbye, I turned around.

No voice called after me.

Even though we’d broken up, it seemed I had been somewhat happy to see Kade again after all these years.

A faint sting lingered in my chest.

If he’s rejecting these documents simply because I’m the one bringing them, then I’ll need a different strategy.

I tried to cool my head by thinking of everything as part of work.

Just as I managed to regain control of my emotions and reached for the office doorknob—

Knock. Knock.

A knock sounded right in front of me.

“Tower Lord, another government official has arrived…”

It was Ben’s voice.

What did I just hear?

Another government official?

I hadn’t heard anything about that.

Startled, I glanced back at Kade.

Judging by his expression, he didn’t know either.

“Send them in.”

At his command, I stepped aside near the door.

Then I saw the person entering the office alongside Ben.

My heart dropped.

“Wh-Why are you…?”

As I involuntarily stepped backward, the man, dressed impeccably in a government uniform, smiled gently.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tower Lord. My name is Aster, dispatched from the Imperial Palace. I’m a terrestrial magical-beast ecology investigator.”

While I stood frozen, Kade looked Aster over suspiciously.

“There was no need to send two government officials.”

“Before we discuss anything, please allow me to apologize on our side’s behalf.”

“There are far too many things to apologize for.”

At Kade’s indifferent response, Aster’s eyebrow twitched.

Then, unexpectedly, he looked at me.

A terrible premonition tightened my chest.

Please. Don’t say that word.

Anyone else would be fine, but not in front of Kade…!

My desperate wish was utterly ignored.

“I never imagined our little ‘parachute hire’ would come to see the Tower Lord without even wearing a proper uniform.”

Kade’s puzzled gaze immediately shifted toward me.

My mind went blank, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“…Parachute hire?”

“Oh, my apologies. The term just slipped out. Though I suppose you didn’t know?”

Apparently, Aster had no intention of stopping there.

Smiling faintly, he prepared to continue.

I hurriedly grabbed his arm and whispered,

“Aster. Stop.”

“Stop what? The Tower Lord seems curious, so I’m simply explaining.”

The amusement in Aster’s voice was chilling in an entirely different way from Kade’s.

Despite his model-student appearance and gentlemanly manner of speaking, to me he was no different from a demon.

“Do you really have to do this? This is Melgot. Not the Magical Beast Ecology Department. This is the Magic Tower.”

“So what? I came here to work too. Surely you don’t think I came all this way to harass you because my promotion got canceled after you parachuted into the position?”

He deliberately raised his voice for everyone to hear.

I felt the blood drain from my body.

“There’s no need to make a scene here.”

“Vivian. Look around. The only person causing a commotion here is you.”

“……”

I couldn’t even argue with his lecturing tone.

Everything had already been exposed in front of Kade.

I had loudly insisted on separating work and personal matters, yet my professional credentials had collapsed before they could even be distinguished from my personal life.

Embarrassment burned through me so intensely I felt like I might faint.

Honestly, I wished I would.

I clenched my trembling hands and lowered my gaze, unable to meet Kade’s eyes.

“Do you have no intention of answering my question?”

There was unmistakable irritation in Kade’s voice.

Only then did Aster rummage through his bag and approach the Tower Lord.

Though he looked tense, he didn’t seem particularly frightened.

“It’s been quite some time since the Imperial Palace dispatched someone here, yet we’ve received no reports whatsoever. I was concerned that our parachute hire might be causing trouble for the Tower Lord, so I was urgently assigned as additional support.”

I couldn’t understand why Aster wasn’t afraid of the Tower Lord.

I distinctly remembered him worrying about being assigned to the Magic Tower.

“AAAH!”

Suddenly, Aster screamed while pulling documents from his bag.

The papers had burst into flames.

“…!”

Startled by the sudden heat at my fingertips, I instinctively shook my hand.

The documents I had been clutching were also burning fiercely before I even realized it.