The Weight of Gratitude and a Letter of Promise
Memories. Electricity surged through my mind.
“Why, why are you doing this…?”
As I stared blankly into thin air, Uriel asked me cautiously. Asking why.
It was a question I couldn't easily answer.
“It’s nothing….”
That was why I just mumbled an excuse.
Uriel’s appearance was quite different from the descriptions of the Magic Tower Master. And Kian, who hadn't left his name in the original story.
Facts that had only been conjectures were now falling into place.
So. Perhaps, Kian was the Magic Tower Master at the time of the original story.
Then, what about all the harsh treatment I had inflicted upon him countless times under the guise of experiments and training…?
“…….”
You can know the flow of mana for a thousand fathoms, but you can’t know the heart of a person for a single fathom.
Who knew if he was harboring a grudge inside while saying, “This was helpful,” on the outside?
…Of course, no matter how much I had fought with the current Magic Tower Master since our first meeting, I couldn't help the anxiety washing over me.
After all, the trope of people’s personalities doing a 180-degree turn after suddenly succeeding was a very classic cliché.
“*Sigh*… *Hoo*….”
I took a deep breath to clear away the anxiety and analyzed the current situation.
If Kian accepted Uriel’s offer and became the next Magic Tower Master.
The reason that would happen was, first, because Kian had come to the North.
In other words, because he had fallen for my magic, turned his back on the Count, and joined the Grand Duchy.
In the end, I was the cause.
‘Wait, does that mean I’m a character in the original story too…?’
At the sudden thought, I hurriedly shook my head.
No matter how much I retraced my memories, the Magic Tower Master and the North were completely unrelated places.
‘Right… that can’t be it.’
In the original story, Kian must have become the next Magic Tower Master for a different reason.
I steeled my heart and looked once more at the mana resting on my knees.
“…… What are you going to do?”
I asked Kian. Silence returned in place of an answer.
“…….”
It was probably a refusal.
There was no way he could change his legal registration so easily. That was something only someone like Lu Bu could pull off.
I let out a sigh of relief inwardly and nodded.
Everything might have just been my misunderstanding.
“Yeah, then we’ll find another way…”
“I will do it.”
“…W, what?”
A firm voice, different from the answer I had imagined, reached my ears.
“Sh, shouldn’t you think about it a little more…?”
“No matter how much I think about it, there is no better solution than this.”
He was so resolute that it felt like I couldn't sway his intent.
It wasn’t a problem I could argue about in the first place, anyway….
“Do as you please….”
In the end, I accepted fate.
“Then we must start preparing as soon as possible! Before the Count submits those documents to the Imperial Court!”
Uriel clapped his hands once to refresh the atmosphere and stood up abruptly.
“… Is there anything I can help with?”
“Just prepare your heart! You are becoming Kian Uriel.”
Kian Uriel.
It suited him well enough, but it was still a name that didn't easily roll off my tongue because it felt so awkward.
Until just a moment ago, I didn't even know Kian had a surname, so that was only natural.
“We’ll set the adoption date to about six months ago…”
“It certainly is sudden…”
While eavesdropping on the conversation between Kian and Uriel, a sudden curiosity arose.
“By the way, what is your name?”
I had only thought ‘Uriel’ was his name. Had I been calling him that with unintended respect…?
“It is Uriel. Uriel Uriel.”
“… Huh?”
I guess that wasn't the case.
I stared at Uriel, feeling a bit dumbfounded, and he scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“The previous Magic Tower Master heard my name and said, ‘It’s destiny!’ and adopted me on the spot. I didn't even know the ‘Ma’ in magic back then.”
“Aha….”
It was execution and ideation worthy of a wizard.
Indeed, there are no normal people among wizards. Except for me.
***
The meeting ended at a reasonable time.
The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon.
I flew through the sky toward the Solaris dormitory, sorting through my still-cluttered mind.
In the end, the best solution to overcome this situation was the one Uriel had suggested.
As for the other candidates… I would have to wipe out the Count’s household alone or borrow the power of the Grand Duchy to engage in political strife….
“Both are difficult.”
The former was a problem of concealment, and the latter was a massive burden on the Grand Duchy, which was only just beginning to stand back up.
“*Sigh*….”
I sighed at the hopeless situation. And I thought of one name, the cause of this situation and its solution.
“Kian….”
A person I had thought was just a useful graduate student, but who would soon become the next Magic Tower Master.
From a fallen noble, a slave of the Count, to a member of the North. Now, he was the successor to the Empire’s largest Magic Tower.
A meteoric rise, indeed.
Still, since there’s the bond between master and disciple, he wouldn't just cast me aside, right…?
“Ugh….”
Auditory hallucinations of a corrupted Kian rang in my head indiscriminately.
- The North? Why would I stay in such a trashy place? I’m the next Magic Tower Master. Heh heh heh heh.
Even though it was just my imagination, the evil laughter gave me goosebumps.
Then, in the end, I would have to be the one to stay in the North, where manpower is scarce.
“No, no….”
It was too regrettable to leave the academy so early, where I had already laid the groundwork for the future.
“Still, we have memories together… it’ll be fine, right?”
I recalled the memories I had with Kian so far. When developing levitation magic, I slammed him into the ground dozens of times, and when developing the turret, he was my test human target.
Besides that, all the miscellaneous errands like delivering water and chocolate.
“*Tsk*.”
Maybe it’s a lost cause.
I threw open the window of the proctor’s office, which I had become accustomed to, and threw my body inside.
My body landed softly on the bed in a perfect trajectory.
“I’m going to have to give him a bribe….”
I have to turn Kian’s corrupted heart (scheduled) around. For the sake of my future and the North’s.
It wasn't difficult to think of what Kian liked most.
I sat up straight and wrote a letter.
***
“*Hoo*….”
My heart is heavy. It was the weight of the debt I owed to the North and my teacher.
They allowed me to escape the Count’s water-magic, and they allowed me to reach a realm I could not have achieved alone.
“But I….”
Instead, hadn't I almost become a burden? That fact was painfully agonizing.
Also, what was the reason I followed the Count’s orders in the first place? Why did I desire success?
It was only to raise up the fallen Ventus family.
Thanks to my teacher’s grace, I succeeded in that success as well. Since being the Magic Tower Master was the highest position a wizard could achieve.
However, now I must abandon that surname.
That, too, tore my heart apart. But there was no other way.
I couldn't even dare to think of abandoning my new home and my benefactor for my own comfort.
This is….
“Is it not wizard-like?”
It was a selfless thought. I was satisfied with that heart myself.
Even if I cannot be of help, I must at least not become a burden.
Kian stood up from the seat where he had been sitting for a long time even after the call ended, feeling lonely.
It was at that moment.
—*Clatter!*
Inside his room, the window glass shattered, and a piece of letter paper flew in.
Teacher. It was the Professor’s method.
“… Are you trying to reprimand me?”
Even if I am excommunicated, there is no other way.
Kian slowly closed his eyes, opened them again, and scanned the contents of the letter.
Inside the arrived letter, content exactly opposite to what Kian had thought was written.
Encouragement, comfort. Those were the things reflected in Kian’s eyes.
She must have read my heart thoughtfully and reached out again.
“…….”
Kian chewed his lip and slowly flipped the back of the letter.
“… I haven't even finished what you gave me before.”
Kian muttered to himself, as if answering.
Before long, he turned his head away from the letter he had been reading endlessly.
It was because his vision had blurred to the point where he could no longer read the letters.
“Teacher….”
Drip, drip.
The tears that had been flowing down one by one soon….
Plop, plop.
Soaked Kian’s eyelashes and his cheeks completely.
“I will… repay you.”
Kian lifted his sleeve, rubbed his eyes vigorously, and slowly walked out the door.
“For the North, for my Teacher….”
It was to find what he could do.