Chapter 75
“I’ll enter the Academy of Pharmacy as the youngest student and commute.”
“Yes! Since studying won’t be easy… I need to save commuting time to devote myself fully to my studies and read more books.”
Saying it with such seriousness made the emperor’s lips curl upward slightly.
He looked at Sharon Abner.
“Was this discussed with the Duke?”
Sharon Abner nodded.
“I had been thinking of moving to the imperial district soon. I stayed in my territory until now because I am already old….”
Then she turned her gaze to me and continued.
“The child’s enthusiasm for the imperial district and academics is just too strong.”
The emperor nodded as if he understood.
Then he looked back at me.
“You asked for a small residence. Exactly how small are we talking?”
I opened my eyes wide.
After thinking for a moment, I answered.
“Ria is a child who does well on her own, but still, a house for two people would be good!”
The emperor smiled, and I could feel Sharon Abner staring at me intently.
“Why two people? Who do you plan to live with?”
“Uh….”
When I looked around, Sharon Abner was watching me with an intense gaze.
Wendel beside her was the same.
‘Why is everyone acting like this all of a sudden?’
I brushed it off and answered cheerfully.
“Teacher Ann!”
‘Teacher Ann cooks well, sings lullabies, is kind, pretty, and easy to get along with!’
She was the perfect person to live with independently.
Then the emperor asked Sharon Abner.
“Who is this Teacher Ann?”
Sharon Abner, who had been very formal all this time, was silent this time.
I looked at her, and her face was frozen, serious as ice.
“Duke.”
The emperor called her again, but she seemed shocked and didn’t answer for a long while.
Finally, she opened her mouth with great difficulty.
“Are you serious?”
Not the emperor—she asked me.
“You really intend to bring Ann Clark with you?”
“…….”
“Not me?”
Fortunately, the emperor didn’t mind Sharon Abner’s attitude.
He merely looked at me for a long while with curiosity and then spoke.
“I’ll grant you the old southern fortress built during the Unification War. There is no better place for commuting to the Academy of Pharmacy.”
But I couldn’t answer enthusiastically.
Because…
“I… I only need a small house?”
“There’s a small castle on that site.”
“B-But the southern fortress isn’t exactly small…”
“Compared to the imperial palace, it is.”
I was left speechless.
The old southern fortress was one of the most geographically advantageous properties in the imperial district.
With a river flowing nearby and the city just ahead, it was practically the best land in the district.
I fidgeted, recalling my previous life.
‘And there are ancient documents from the Unification War buried there!’
This was exactly why the royal family hadn’t given the southern fortress site to civilians.
They had been excavating it for a long time, but not a single letter of the old documents was found.
So the investigation gradually shrank in scale since the previous generation, and by the time the current emperor took the throne, it had completely stopped.
“I was already wondering what to grant the Abner family. This works out perfectly.”
The emperor murmured, and a servant behind him quickly went somewhere.
Judging by his movement, he seemed to be fetching the emperor’s seal.
“The Abners have served Talanta for generations. There is no family more qualified to be praised for the southern fortress, which defended the district during the Unification War.”
“Uh, yes….”
“Also, it was largely thanks to the Abners that our relations with the Eastern Continent improved. Do not feel burdened.”
I just blinked.
For an ordinary gift, I would have accepted it happily, but the southern fortress was no small token.
“It’s a fortress, so there’s much to repair, but isn’t it splendid enough to be one of the Abners’ residences?”
I still couldn’t answer, so Sharon Abner stepped forward and bowed.
“Thank you very much.”
She added,
“Especially for granting a residence that can house more than one person.”
‘Huh?’
I was briefly puzzled but quickly gathered myself.
I hesitated a bit but followed Sharon Abner to bow to the emperor.
“T-Thank you so much, Your Majesty…!”
The emperor smiled.
“As you said, I, the sun of the empire, must grant at least this much. Study diligently in the fortress. And do not forget to create even better medicines to contribute to the empire.”
“Y-Yes! I will definitely do so!”
“Also, there are rumors that ancient documents are buried in that site. I hear the princess is also interested in magical studies?”
I nodded quickly.
“Yes! Ria studied magic very diligently!”
Pharmacy was technically a sub-discipline of magic studies.
The two subjects had some differences, but that was no problem for me.
I had always been good at both.
“If anything comes up in the future, you can handle it yourself. Though I doubt anything really will.”
“Yes!”
At my energetic answer, the emperor laughed heartily once more.
But his expression said, ‘I doubt anything will really be there.’
However, I knew.
‘Yes. There really is something. Definitely.’
Not on the fortress grounds, but in the fortress itself.
That’s why the royal family hadn’t found it for decades.
The ancient documents weren’t buried in the ground—they were hidden between the walls of the building.
In my previous life, the documents were found in the northern wall of the top room of the fortress.
They were a type of magic book written in an ancient language, containing most of the old magical knowledge.
Some parts had decayed and were lost, but it clearly included “regression magic.”
After this discovery, the academic world gradually published papers on regression magic.
Most were trivial, but there was one.
It was a very impressive paper.
‘Written by the previous Magus Tower Lord.’
I’m talking about the Magus Tower Lord before Owen.
The more I learned, the more fascinating it became, and I even planned to meet the Magus Tower Lord someday.
‘I wanted to meet him, ask questions, and personally examine the discovered documents.’
But in the end, I couldn’t.
The Magus Tower Lord disappeared one day.
The Magus Tower, the imperial palace, and the Academy of Pharmacy all searched for him, but he was nowhere to be found.
As a result, the position of Magus Tower Lord remained vacant until Owen became the youngest to take the position.
‘Now I can comfortably study the ancient documents in this life!’
Since it was a fortress, some parts would need renovation anyway.
So pretending it was a coincidental discovery would be easy.
‘Sharon Abner delegated magic-related matters to Owen and me, so the documents would naturally come to us.’
Thinking about how smoothly everything was going, I secretly wiggled my fingers in delight.
“Your Majesty, I brought the seal and the property certificate for the southern site.”
At that moment, the servant who had left earlier returned with the necessary documents.
In front of me, Sharon Abner, and everyone else, the emperor stamped the documents firmly with his seal.
“Here. The small house you mentioned.”
Then, smiling faintly with his handsome face, he handed me the documents.
I quickly ran over, hiding my excitement, and took the papers.
Then I bowed deeply.
“Truly, thank you so much, Your Majesty!”
‘Thanks to this, the Abner Academy can probably grow ten years faster!’
Attending a party as the daughter of a Duke-level family was more fun than I had expected.
“I heard you received the southern fortress site. The rumors are already spreading.”
The head of the imperial pharmacy academy, an elderly man, had been eager to meet me.
I had seen him once in my previous life, so I felt a subtle sense of familiarity as I greeted him.
“Yes! His Majesty the Emperor gave me a small house!”
“A small house, ha ha ha!”
The head of the academy laughed at my cuteness and then asked subtly:
“By the way, about Lubarina and Lubawen.”
“Yes.”
“I heard they were made from the long-extinct Lubarin grass…”
“Yes! That’s right!”
The academy head’s eyes sparkled.
“Where on earth did you get the seeds? Does the Abner family have a greenhouse specifically for this? That must be difficult to manage, considering the terrible smell of the weeds…”
I widened my eyes and thought to myself.
‘Oh my, look at this old man.’
