Chapter 16
“You’re the one bullying me right now! Me!”
Magia, the Tower Master of the Mage Tower, shouted while hiding her fingers, which showed clear teeth marks.
“You idiot, you’re a human! Not a cat!”
“I’m going to tell Grandma!”
“You’re not even listening to me!”
Just then, Deter appeared carrying some drinks and led Magia toward the annex.
Nibellia and Aref quietly followed behind him, each holding a glass of the beverage.
“Ugh,” Nibellia took a sweet sip of the drink.
Aref glanced at her and quietly drank too, then softly imitated, “Ugh.”
“Tower Master.”
“Why now…”
They had just arrived at the mansion, and Magia was already exhausted.
“Nibellia, why did you come here?”
“Not to see you. I came for work.”
“Tower Master works too? Nibellia works too!”
Nibellia, running ahead of Magia, handed the glass to Deter.
Meanwhile, Aref, left alone, had to handle Magia’s strange gaze all by himself.
“……”
Feeling intimidated for no reason, Aref quickly averted his eyes and ran to Nibellia’s side like he was escaping.
Only then did Magia realize her mistake and withdrew her gaze with a regretful expression.
Nibellia came back and spoke.
“Nibellia doesn’t have debt anymore? Did you pay it off by working?”
“What? You had debt?”
“1,280,000 Uba.”
“What on earth have you been doing?”
When they arrived at the annex, they bumped into Ardorès, who was just about to head to the reception room.
Magia growled at him, showing her finger marked with bite scars.
“Paladin! Don’t you have anything to say about my finger?”
“The bone’s healed well?”
“Your granddaughter bit me! I’m a victim of violence!”
“You pointed a finger at my granddaughter? Serves you right.”
“Scold him, you idiot!”
“Grandpa isn’t an idiot! He’s the captain!”
Nibellia cut in.
“To my 200-year-old eyes, you all just look like idiots.”
“The one calling me an idiot is an idiot!”
“No, it’s true! Everyone except the Tower Master is an idiot!”
The quarrel between the 200-year-old Tower Master and the 4-year-old who used to be a cat in her past life was quite pathetic.
“Well, anyway, welcome. You all listen together.”
Ardorès sneered at Magia and took the kids along to the reception room.
“Let’s start with my face.”
Sitting down, Magia lightly snapped her fingers.
Suddenly, a round hole appeared in the air, and below it, a heavy money pouch loudly dropped.
Aref, unable to believe his eyes, quickly looked up.
But the hole vanished in the blink of an eye.
“Surprised?”
Magia smirked unpleasantly.
“This is what magic is…”
“It’s money!”
“…Sigh. I really hate this cat.”
The pouch that fell from the sky was filled with coins. Not just any coins — pure gold coins.
Nibellia couldn’t take her eyes off the gold coins.
One of the important lessons she learned from two years of failures was that gold coins were the most valuable currency.
“Tower Master.”
“Yes?”
“This is for Nibellia, right?”
“Why do you say it so obviously…”
Magia lightly slapped Nibellia’s forehead as if to wake her from a dream.
This money was the monthly rent for the building and land, which had to be paid regularly to Ardorès.
“This is the rent for this month, Paladin.”
“You didn’t take some off, right?”
“You just proved who your granddaughter resembles: a gangster-like snob who used to be a Paladin.”
“What’s a gangster?”
Nibellia asked, rubbing the forehead Magia had just hit.
“Someone like your grandpa.”
“Then that’s cool?”
“They say even hedgehogs love their own babies, but this is the opposite.”
Ardorès measured the weight and volume of the gold coins with a scale he had prepared beforehand. It was a magical tool made long ago by the Tower Master.
“Grandpa.”
Nibellia, who had quietly approached, asked.
“What’s rent?”
“It’s money that people who can’t afford to buy a house pay to rent someone else’s.”
“The Tower Master doesn’t have a house? At that age, and still no house?”
“Exactly. Even at 200 years old, no house.”
Grandpa and granddaughter were scratching the Tower Master’s nerves together.
Magia desperately suppressed her boiling anger.
“Damn landlord and landowner!”
If it weren’t for the rent, she would’ve already smacked him eight times on the head!
The great Mage Tower — a bastion of knowledge and a huge contributor to the Empire’s technological development — was currently living on rented land.
The landlord and landowner was none other than Ardorès, the former marquess of the Dayamor family.
The Mage Tower had to pay him a large monthly rent.
“I shouldn’t have drunk that day…!”
The Mage Tower building was not originally Ardorès’s.
Forty years ago.
Near the end of the Crepatna war to exterminate monsters.
Magia finally thought the long war was ending, drank for the first time in a while, and got quite drunk.
In his drunken state, he made a fatal slip of the tongue.
“If the Saint and the Paladin… hic! They get close and marry, then, uh? This Tower Master! Will gift the Mage Tower building and land as a present, ugh!”
Everyone ignored it as drunken nonsense.
But Magia got angry at their dismissal and immediately bound himself by an unbreakable magical oath.
And after the war ended.
Saint Muniel and Paladin Ardorès received the Mage Tower building and land as a wedding gift.
Everyone cheered that day, but Magia openly shed tears of blood.
It was the most humiliating moment in his 200-year-long life.
“Tower Master.”
Shivering at his own stupidity as the memory resurfaced, Nibellia tapped his knee.
“Cat…”
Was she trying to comfort him?
Had the warmth of the child’s touch on his knee always been this comforting?
Magia’s eyes welled up.
“Move over a bit. Nibellia wants to lie down.”
“……”
Sulking like a child who hadn’t grown up, Magia got up. Nibellia quickly laid down on the sofa.
“You got the rent, right? I’m leaving now.”
“Before that, I want to ask a favor.”
“If it’s not about reducing the rent, I’m not listening.”
“If you listen, I might consider it.”
“…Since I’m here, at least have some tea.”
Magia, half-rising, sat down again. Nibellia’s legs were pressed against his hip, but he didn’t care.
Ardorès said.
“Can Nibellia and Aref attend the Mage Tower’s affiliated kindergarten?”
“Are you out of your mind? Have you really gone senile?”
“The Mage Tower kindergarten is for the children of mages affiliated with the tower. What do you mean bringing in outsiders?”
“Especially the granddaughter of that stingy paladin who’s relentless about collecting rent? The granddaughter of Dayamor?”
“I really regret not stopping your drunken rant back then, I swear!”
The elders of the Mage Tower furiously opposed Magia’s decision.
They were already mad from having to pay rent for 40 years for a building they didn’t even own, and now they were supposed to take in kids from the Dayamor family too?
The elders raised their voices in protest.
But Magia alone remained calm.
It was as if he had attained some cosmic truth, wearing a peaceful expression.
Magia spoke softly.
“If I take care of the kids, I won’t have to pay rent.”
The elders became even more angry.
“Why didn’t you bring the children earlier?”
“Even though the Mage Tower kindergarten is for the children of mages, if you discriminate against outsiders, is that a kindergarten?”
“That’s absolutely unacceptable!”
“Tower Master, what are you doing? You should buy snacks for the kids even if you have to use your own money!”
The elders suddenly changed their attitude, which annoyed Magia, but she endured it because she had a lot of guilt.
After all, she was the one who caused the Mage Tower’s problems.
‘I wonder if those kids will behave…’
After dismissing the noisy elders, Magia recalled the conversation she had with Ardorès in the now quiet room.
“I can’t keep living like a house cat.”
“Starting by socializing with peers and learning rules and norms…”
“Of course, our daughter-in-law runs a boys-only kindergarten, but if I sent them there, they’d cause trouble looking for their mother.”
‘So it wasn’t just about spoiling them.’
Though tempted by the promise of a few months’ rent waived, Magia began to worry if her choice was right.
‘Will the kindergarten be able to handle that brat?’
Magia only worried about Nibellia.
‘The wolf is fine.’
That guy was relatively gentle even 40 years ago.
‘I should have given him candy when I met him at the mansion.’
Even in this reincarnation, his face looked grumpy beyond his years, but his personality remained quiet and calm.
‘The problem is that arrogant cat who used to boss the wolf around.’
What if that brat causes trouble acting as the leader even at kindergarten?
Magia thought so as she got on the elevator platform.
‘Or maybe she’ll cry? She’s shy around strangers…’
She’d have to check later.
Ding dong, the elevator arrived at the top floor.
Magia stepped out through the opening door and suddenly stopped.
“……”
“……”
Nibellia, who had been wandering around the lab, also stopped.
They stared at each other in silence for a long time.
Magia was the first to speak.
“Cat, what are you doing here?”
“…Doing nothing?”
“Why aren’t you in kindergarten?”
“……”
Nibellia avoided eye contact like a guilty cat.
Even the hand she had reached out to grab something slowly lowered.
“Nibellia is just, um, just here…”
“……”
Magia glanced at the desk Nibellia had looked at.
On it lay the black metal chunk that had been submitted for forensic analysis a few months ago, placed on a brass tray.
