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Chapter: 14
Startled by the firm warning, I turned my steps toward the Mage Tower.
“So they really were watching me.”
It was painfully obvious—they were deliberately trying to prevent me from enjoying even this small freedom.
“How petty.”
I let myself show a hint of my disappointment and trudged inside.
“Oh my, there you are. Miss Ophelia, I’ve been looking for you for a while.”
I had intended to retreat to my room and think of a response, but an unwelcome voice called out to me.
Elise approached with a wide smile and held something out.
It was a thin paper envelope.
“What is this?”
“Open it and see.”
I took out the paper inside, and I was genuinely stunned by its contents.
“According to the rules, outsiders can’t stay in the Mage Tower. Miss Ophelia, you’re no longer a formal guest, right?”
It was a receipt for the room I was staying in. The amount listed was in a currency unit I had never seen before.
“How many zeros are there?”
Blinking in disbelief, I didn’t even react as Alice hummed happily, clearly enjoying herself.
“The Mage Tower’s master said that you can stay if you pay for your lodging—or provide some equivalent value in return.”
Her smile deepened as she met my trembling gaze. Seeing her expect the answer she wanted only made me angrier.
“So this is what she considers ‘intellectual harassment.’ It’s like a high-level form of torment. I wish she’d just be obvious about it… Wait a minute—is this really only the tower master’s doing?”
There were quite a few in the Mage Tower who didn’t like me.
The reasons were numerous.
I was a mysterious outsider, my status unclear, and there were probably rumors that I was a fraud.
“Just like when I worked as a maid at the Duke’s residence.”
Thinking back, maybe there wasn’t even a specific reason.
They simply didn’t like me, found my behavior annoying, or were irritated by their own feelings. Perhaps they resented that a fellow maid received special treatment.
In the end, the reasons didn’t matter; all that remained was the feeling of dislike itself.
“Hmm… Well, she’s not the only one capable of playing these games.”
Maybe I could turn my experience at the Duke’s residence to my advantage and make the best of this situation.
“I…”
I finally spoke after much deliberation. From now on, it would be a battle of who could be more unrelenting.
“Wow, that must be the girl everyone’s been talking about.”
“Rumors? What rumors?”
Rasso, a new administrative staff member at the Mage Tower, glanced in the direction his colleague was looking.
A girl was scrubbing at a high window along the corridor, barely able to reach it.
“That face looks familiar…”
“She’s the girl who came searching for the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter.”
“Wait, that’s her? But why is the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter doing that?”
Despite being treated like a VIP, she was cleaning the corridor manually, not using magic. It looked a bit pitiful.
“Some say she’s actually not the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter.”
“What? But she looks exactly like her.”
“I thought the same, but people say she’s just some girl trying to mooch off them for a freebie.”
“No way…”
Rasso shook his head, but his colleague insisted even more strongly.
“If she really were his daughter, do you think the Deputy Tower Master would leave on a mission the very next day? He probably left just to avoid seeing her!”
“Really?”
Shocked, Rasso covered his mouth.
“They say the tower master tried to persuade her with some conveniences out of pity, but she refused to leave and has been stubbornly holding her ground.”
“So that’s why she’s cleaning?”
“Even though she’s not a formal guest, she has to pay for staying. That’s why she’s doing it.”
“Wow, that’s ruthless.”
But, on the other hand, cleaning means she wants to stay in the Mage Tower, right?
“They might as well just kick her out. This isn’t even a psychological torture game. Why is the tower master doing this? It’s unnecessarily cruel.”
She was clearly a non-magic user, so the tower master’s behavior struck me as particularly mean-spirited.
“Wait, she approached the Deputy Tower Master with bad intentions, didn’t she?”
But she looked so much like the real daughter that it made me question if there was truly a blood relation.
“She doesn’t seem bad… but seeing her like this makes me feel uneasy.”
As Rasso passed, he casually dropped a snack from his pocket to the floor.
The girl, looking up from cleaning the window, noticed and picked it up.
When he came closer to retrieve it, she replied coldly,
“Oh, I didn’t need that, so I threw it away.”
She nodded after a moment of blank surprise, and muttered a small thank you—which made him feel oddly good.
“I hope she really is the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter. Maybe I can give her snacks again next time.”
He walked past the corridor, thinking so.
“So ruthless… really ruthless.”
I scrubbed the windows while cursing the tower master in my mind.
“I want to pay my dues with labor.”
“Labor?”
“I’m good at cleaning.”
Seeing I meant it sincerely, she seemed surprised, then laughed, clearly entertained. She even prepared cleaning tools for me herself.
It was obvious she expected me to comply soon, which explained her relaxed attitude. I was grateful she misunderstood me in a way that helped.
I resolved to eventually expel not only the tower master but also the annoying Elise, enduring the arduous labor.
“There are so many windows.”
For a non-magic user like me, cleaning the tower was challenging enough that paying would have been easier.
But even if I sold pearls, the treasures I had brought were far from enough.
“I can’t exactly sell my pearls.”
At least I had enough sense not to do something foolish that would get me kidnapped by the Hexwood dukes.
Cleaning the corridors, washing windows, enduring the mixture of pity and contempt in the stares of tower staff—it had been a week.
I wondered if the tower master was testing how far I’d go, but so far there had been no intervention.
Some even offered words of encouragement or snacks as if by accident, and others secretly helped with magic.
“Surely, it’s just like anywhere else—people are people.”
“One wave of a wand would finish this, yet they insist on being stubborn.”
“They knew I couldn’t use magic when I tried to cling to them, but still… ruthless.”
Where there are good people, there are also those who oppose them.
A complaint posted in front of the frequently used dining hall claimed the truth—that I wasn’t the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter—causing the rumor to spread.
Those who already disliked me now openly mocked me.
But they didn’t know one thing: I was the one who started the rumor.
The reason was simple: I needed to narrow my position slowly so that I’d experience enough difficulty to justify my future actions.
“I need to create a reasonable cause for what I’ll do next.”
People whispered about who could have posted it, but no one could find the culprit.
“It was worth cutting out each letter from the newspaper.”
Since my handwriting wasn’t on it, my identity would never be discovered.
After the rumor spread, Leonar came looking to scold me.
“You really aren’t the Deputy Tower Master’s daughter?”
When I didn’t answer, he glared as if betrayed, then left.
Since then, I had been continuously ignored.
