♡ Chapter 8 ♡
(The Hidden Disciple Hides His Power)
Kanyak stared at me for a long time.
His gaze was careful and thorough, like a doctor checking a patient’s condition.
“I heard you collapsed and lost consciousness not long ago. Are you feeling a little better now?”
Huh? Why was he suddenly worrying about me?
Of course, my Kanyak had always been a kind and gentle child.
‘Was it really just that the work at the Magic Tower was so harsh that he lost his mind for a moment…?’
Letting that small hope rise again, I decided to trust my disciple one more time and nodded with a warm smile.
“Yes, I’m alright now.”
“That’s good. Starting tomorrow, come to work at the Magic Tower.”
“Yes. Yes?”
Come to work?
What kind of nonsense was that all of a sudden?
As I blinked at the unexpected words, his face relaxed a little, and he spoke kindly.
“You have to work.”
“Work?”
“We signed a contract.”
Then he pointed to the bottom part of the contract I had signed a little while ago.
When I looked closely at the place Kanyak’s long finger pointed to, in pale gray letters about the size of 2pt, it said:
Must successfully launch the first magic tool this summer. If this fails, agrees that the supply of mana stones may become difficult.
This crazy bastard.
Even if you call it this summer, there were only about two months left!
Even you couldn’t do it in four years, so how was I supposed to do it in two months?!
“Th-this is fraud! How dare you pull something like this on an Imperial Princess?”
What had I said earlier? Kind and gentle?
I take that back.
I take it all back!
No wonder he had been smiling like that the whole time!
“Well, I did tell you to read it carefully before signing. Do you know how common contract scams are in the world? And yet you barely read it and signed right away. Especially you, the Imperial Princess.”
…
You are not the one who should be saying that, you scammer.
“I never thought I would say something this childish, but… what are you relying on to act like this?”
“Obviously, myself. I’m the strongest person in this land.”
It was absurd, but it was true, so I couldn’t argue.
Ah, how miserable.
I used to be the strongest one.
“Still, thanks to me, you’ll read contracts more carefully from now on. You should be grateful to me for teaching you caution.”
This was shamelessness at a level that could make even steel cry.
Even Robel stepped back with a face that clearly said he wanted nothing to do with this.
‘I should endure this… since I’m partly responsible for him becoming this twisted… endure… no, I can’t! If I could just smack that broad back of his once, I’d feel so much better!’
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to calm down.
Then I heard his lower, calmer voice.
“Thief, do you know why the Magic Tower still hasn’t launched Master’s magic tool business?”
It had already been five years since I died, so it really was strange that the business still had not launched.
Did something go wrong in production?
‘But I had already designed everything they needed, so they should have been able to make it without any real trouble.’
Since I still couldn’t understand, he answered simply, as if it were nothing.
“First of all, the target customer group.”
“The target group?”
At Kanyak’s gesture, Robel moved again.
Stepping forward, he put on a pair of black glasses that I had no idea where he had prepared, then started explaining while pointing at cute drawings on a white sheet of paper.
“Magic tools made by the Tower are expensive by nature. So no matter how good the product is, it would be difficult to spread it throughout the Empire. But if the price is lowered and the quality drops, the nobles will refuse to use it because of its value, while commoners will naturally avoid it due to concerns about safety.”
Ah, I understood.
This was definitely one of the problems I had overlooked.
Back when I planned it, I cared only about making the products perfect and hardly thought about production cost at all, so it really was a reasonable obstacle.
‘Still, this can be solved. All products released on the market compromise between target customers and cost for similar reasons.’
The real problem seemed to be something else, so I decided to keep listening first.
“Then was there a problem with production?”
“If you look at this, the design is perfect. If it proceeds exactly as Lady Lusha planned, there should be no issue. However—”
When Robel stopped speaking, Kanyak pointed at me instead.
“It’s a much more basic problem. Since products like these have never existed here before, they are very unfamiliar. In other words, there was no leader who could fully understand the theory behind them and then continue the production exactly as intended.”
“…Ah?”
So in Korean terms, it meant a lab with no supervising professor and no head researcher.
Oh. I really hadn’t expected that.
Of course Kanyak, as the Tower Master, couldn’t take that role himself.
That would attract too much attention, and he had too much other work.
“But Kanyak, you understood it.”
“Of course I did. I’m Master’s only disciple. The important part is that I was the only one who understood it.”
“That’s strange. Why don’t they understand it? It’s not difficult at all. Shouldn’t anyone who studied magical theory naturally know this?”
“I wonder the same. They all seem utterly useless.”
In the end, the conclusion was that I had to take the lead myself.
Since I had claimed that I personally heard about the business from Lusha, I must have looked like a new hope to him.
So that was why he told me to come to work right away.
Honestly, if I were him and saw an undergraduate student who seemed to understand my dry and difficult field, I would probably grab onto them first too.
Ugh. I never thought I would end up understanding Kanyak in this way.
While quietly listening to our conversation, Robel suddenly folded his glasses carefully and put them into his pocket.
Then he let out a deep sigh.
“This suddenly reminds me of my days at the Magic Academy, when I was called into a room full of professors and got my soul torn apart…”
As Robel pressed his temple, saying an old trauma had come back to him, Kanyak added one more comment in a dissatisfied voice.
“At least Robel more or less understands these blueprints, so he can be used as an assistant. If nothing else, his memory is useful.”
“Mmm. That’s at least some good news.”
The long sigh of Robel, who had now been confirmed as Lab Slave No. 1, scattered into the air.
…
“I’ll register your identity with the Magic Tower barrier, so you can come and go freely.”
Then I remembered the time I had gone to the Tower and been turned away at the entrance.
“Come to think of it, why did you block ordinary people from visiting the Magic Tower?”
Kanyak answered with a calm face.
“Lately, there have been some people causing trouble related to Master’s death.”
“What…?”
Trouble related to my death?
At that story, which I had never heard before, my brows naturally furrowed.
I was about to ask what he meant in more detail, when Kanyak put down his empty teacup on the table and stood up.
“Make sure you’re not late tomorrow.”
Then he grabbed Robel by the back of the neck while Robel was greeting me, and they quickly disappeared.
Seeing how suddenly he left, it seemed he had no intention of answering my question.
‘What was that about? I can’t even ask the maids about this…!’
According to Sierra’s memories, five years ago the Magic Tower had asked the Imperial Palace for cooperation and quietly buried the matter of Lusha’s death.
So to the public, it was only known as a natural death caused by illness.
Because of that, I couldn’t use the identity of the Princess to investigate Lusha’s death.
‘I was already wondering why my death was covered up like that. I’ll have to find out little by little.’
Soon, I would have to open another route to get the information I needed.
Knock knock.
I had returned to the bedroom and was thinking for a long time when I heard a knock.
“Princess, may we come in?”
“Yes, come in.”
A moment later, Delsi and the maids came in and placed gift bundles full of things on the table.
There were so many that some even had to be set down on the floor.
“These are flowers and snacks sent by His Highness the Crown Prince. And the dresses coming in now are the new spring dresses sent by His Majesty.”
“What is all this all of a sudden?”
“They said they hope you will rest well today. Everyone is very happy because it has been a long time since they last saw you looking this healthy, Princess.”
…
With Ati and the Emperor’s personalities, they probably would have come and delivered them in person, but it seemed they were worried about disturbing my rest.
‘Back when I was Lusha, I had no family, so I never felt something like this before…’
This feeling wasn’t bad.
“Lord Kanyak, it would certainly be good if the Princess starts coming to work at the Magic Tower, since production of the prototypes would become faster… but I’m worried about that unfair contract.”
If the Princess decided to make a legal issue out of it, the Magic Tower would never escape the consequences.
After all, they had dared to tamper with a contract against royalty, so they would obviously be at a disadvantage in court.
More than anything, there was no way the Emperor and Crown Prince would stay quiet.
Even people from neighboring empires knew how dearly those two treasured Princess Sierra.
As Robel’s worry deepened, Kanyak—who had been leaning on the sofa with his eyes closed—opened his mouth with a blank face.
“I can’t just sit there and watch her rampage where no one can see.”
“…Pardon?”
“I have to see her every day to know the state of that damned condition.”
The tone sounded annoyed, but the meaning was not.
Goodness.
So what he had done was actually because he was worried about the Princess?
At that moment, a chill ran down the back of Robel’s neck as he silently looked at Kanyak.
Even if it was because of the contract, Kanyak knew better than anyone that there was no need to go this far.
And yet he still did.
‘Am I imagining things?’
Robel knew very well that Kanyak, who had been infamous since childhood for his cruel nature, was not the kind of person to genuinely care for someone else’s well-being.
And yet, somehow, he felt strange.
‘Everyone except Lady Lusha knew about that rotten personality of his…’
A devil wearing the mask of an angel.
That was Kanyak Lant.
‘Well, he does act on whim sometimes.’
As always, it probably would not last long.
Thinking that, Robel slowly relaxed.
