Episode 116
Gideon, having forgotten his dignity in front of his niece, gulped and answered quietly.
“I will find someone to act as your proxy. Even if we have to give them a share, if we get money, wouldn’t we be able to get special meals for your mother?”
Cyril looked carefully at Gideon.
He was once the highest-ranking noble in the Empire, but now he was nothing more than a penniless middle-aged man who had even lost his child.
‘Can I trust my uncle?’
But that suspicion soon vanished.
If not for him, she wouldn’t even have remembered that property.
‘Or even if I had remembered, I wouldn’t have been able to find anyone to handle it for me.’
If not her uncle, who else would go to such trouble for her?
If it couldn’t be converted into money, the villa was useless in her current situation, confined to the monastery.
So, Cyril nodded.
“Alright. Then, I’ll leave it to you.”
Gideon received a power of attorney from Cyril to appoint a proxy and promptly left the monastery.
Around the same time, at the Magic Tower
Ren, who had dozed off briefly by his teacher’s bedside, jolted awake with a start.
“Hah, hah….”
During the month or so he had stayed in Edessa to care for Louise, his teacher’s condition had severely deteriorated.
He felt he had no face to even look at his teacher.
‘Pregnancy and childbirth aren’t even illnesses…’
Childbirth is something even common households manage without a single doctor.
Yet, while Ren prioritized the woman he loved, his teacher’s life had become perilously fragile.
In truth, even after returning, for a few days he couldn’t focus on his teacher, worried about the baby and Louise left behind in Edessa.
But fortunately, news came that the baby was healthy and Louise was also recovering without issue.
After that, Ren naturally staked his life on healing his teacher.
Using his maximum magical power for several consecutive days was like sprinting at full speed every single day without rest.
Being human, Lendo was also getting tired, and for the past fortnight, he had barely moved from the healing room to conserve his energy.
Thanks to this, his teacher had finally passed the critical point of mortal danger, but it was more a return to a state similar to before he left, rather than a full recovery.
The reward was unsatisfactory considering the considerable cost.
For the past few days, Ren had been suffering from severe migraines and was also plagued by absurd nightmares.
Relieved that what he had just seen was a dream, he grasped his teacher’s hand.
“Master, wake up. I have something to boast about…”
Despite his words, Ren’s voice sounded anxious and weary.
In the end, he left the healing room and, for the first time in a while, tried to contact Louise.
—Ren, I’m sorry.
She whispered in a small voice.
“……Lou? Is something wrong?”
—It’s not that… It’s just, I’m having some issues with my brother. Can I contact you again later?
It seemed the Emperor was again pressuring Louise to return.
Ren sighed and said he understood.
Returning to the healing room, he couldn’t help but recall the nightmare from earlier.
That day, under the pretext of healing his teacher, he had stayed up all night.
In truth, he was afraid that the memory of that night, so precious to him, would be distorted if he had another nightmare.
However, in the morning, unable to fight the fatigue any longer, he dozed off and was mercilessly sucked back into that dream.
The reason Ren had stayed at the Academy even after the graduation ceremony, the reason he went through the trouble of obtaining a diploma he didn’t really need, was all for Louise.
So, naturally, the day he would return was bound to be the same day she left.
Yet, after inviting Ren to her room, she asked with an air of innocence, as if she knew nothing.
“When are you planning to return to the Magic Tower?”
But Ren liked that naivety of hers.
For years, he had watched her from behind his teacher’s back, and he even liked her obliviousness, how she never recognized him at all.
Louise had been like that since she was young.
Timid, yet eccentric.
She acted cute at unexpected moments.
Despite being royalty, she was hopelessly unguarded, and never looked down on a mage like him from a fallen noble family.
So, she inevitably got his hopes up.
“After you go back.”
He had been honest for once, but that answer didn’t seem to cause any ripple in Louise’s heart.
She seemed to already be lost in other thoughts.
‘Surely she isn’t planning to start talking about premonitions of death again…’
Instead of Louise’s maid, a quiet-looking attendant entered, served tea, and left.
Since the face wasn’t unfamiliar, it seemed to be one of the Academy’s employees.
Ren knew nothing about tea tastes, but he still liked summer’s iced tea.
Thinking that Louise might bring up death again made his throat feel parched, so he downed a cup of tea as if it were cold water.
Then, he refilled his cup himself with what remained in the pot.
Finally, Louise spoke.
“By the way, Ren. Is there really no way to avoid fate?”
Ren swallowed a sigh imperceptibly.
‘I thought she’d been quiet for a while, but it’s starting again.’
Ever since receiving Ernst’s request for cooperation, he had done his best to console Louise.
He had asked his teacher for help as she wished, and had held back many words because she didn’t want to hear them.
“Lou, no matter what the Master said to you, I don’t believe in things like fate.”
His frustrating teacher, citing that revealing another’s destiny was prohibited by the mage code of ethics, had not told him Louise’s fate.
But as he had told her, Ren was no believer in fate anyway.
“You’ve been saying for a long time that your time is running out, but you’re still here in front of me.”
But Louise shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“No… that day is coming. It’s less than a month away. It’s really the end now. But I…”
“Good grief, Lou…”
Ren’s throat was dry, so he gulped down more tea.
Frustrated, he tightly grasped her hand.
“It’s not the end. I’ll protect you.”
“…Ren?”
The expectant red eyes, the delicate strength gripping his hand, the flower-like scent from her…
Ren had always remembered that night as if it were just yesterday.
He recalled it every single day, so much so that sometimes he confused it with an implanted memory rather than a real one.
Had there been some courage-inducing drug in the iced tea?
He couldn’t understand what resolve it was even now, but Ren ended up doing something bold beyond his previous imagination.
Instead of answering her, he leaned in and kissed her.
The red eyes that had widened in surprise soon hid beneath pink lashes.
The body temperature he had only imagined was hotter than he thought, and a sweet scent of flesh came from between her moist lips.
It felt as if time had stopped.
No, rather, he wished it had stopped.
After what felt like a long time, Ren pulled his lips away and repeated.
“I’ll protect you.”
After that, his memory is of Louise clinging to him.
Shedding her innocent expression, she seduced him as if she had been waiting…
The dream, which should have rightly led to that lightning-fast night, suddenly changed, just as it had the past few days.
“Ren, are you hurt somewhere?”
Suddenly, Louise asked with a concerned look, her face now perfectly fine, the tears gone.
She felt Ren’s forehead and somehow guided his large body towards the bed, laying him down properly.
The scent reaching his nostrils was still sweet, like in the dream.
“Have you been overdoing it? You seem very dizzy. You should rest for a while.”
“I haven’t been overdoing it…”
In the dream, Ren muttered like that and fell asleep alone.
He had the bed, filled with Louise’s scent, all to himself, but there was no warmth from another.
“Hah, hah…!”
Ren woke up, startled out of his wits by the dream.
The fact that such an absurd nightmare frightened him so much showed that he had probably overused his magical power trying to heal his teacher.
The image of Louise flickered before his eyes.
‘Lou…’
For a while after that night, Louise had been shy and avoided Ren, but after returning to the Imperial Palace, she called for him as if nothing had happened.
“I… I’m pregnant.”
