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Chapter 15 — A Secret That Wasn’t Really a Secret Passage (2)
Anyway, he didn’t like that expression that looked as though she might burst into tears.
“If you’re going to be that anxious, why did you follow me in the first place?”
“I was worried about you… Beyond this tower is the Dark Forest.”
“Who’s worrying about who? You and that teacher are both weird. Stop getting in my way.”
‘Are these kids playing house or something?’
Though she had the youngest body of the three, Estelle was mentally the oldest, and she watched them with a scoff.
For a conversation between the future Master of the Magic Tower and an unidentified saintess, it was absurdly harmless.
Just then—
Noel suddenly stiffened in surprise and stepped back.
Like someone who had accidentally touched something they shouldn’t have.
“Noel?”
Beatrice called out to him cautiously, but Noel raised a hand, signaling her to stay quiet.
Rumble—
At the same time, a heavy sound echoed from somewhere inside the ceiling and walls.
Listening closely to the noise, Noel turned toward Beatrice and Estelle with an alarmingly bright smile.
“Ladies, do either of you know what floor we’re on?”
Instead of answering, Estelle grabbed Beatrice’s arm and spun around to run.
The instinct that had kept her alive in the imperial palace until now shoved her forward.
“W-Wait, Estelle!”
“Forget waiting… just run!”
That bastard definitely triggered something!
But they were already too late.
Bang! Clang!
With a deafening crash, an iron gate slammed down, sealing off the passage they had climbed through.
“Don’t waste your strength. Come this way.”
Even as the floor began shaking beneath them and sharp warning alarms blared from every direction, Noel remained strangely calm, as though he had something to rely on.
But Estelle noticed his sparkling blue-violet eyes were fixed outside the window—
More precisely, on the ground far below.
“No… no. Whatever you’re thinking… it’s not happening.”
The North Tower was the tallest building in Noctua. Whenever an eccentric professor decided to hold class there, so many students dropped the course that it became infamous.
And they were at the very top.
The highest floor.
“Your Highness, you’re sharper than I expected.”
“Anyone would notice after seeing the look in your crazy eyes.”
“The crazy thing is your ears. Can’t you hear these alarms screaming? If the guards catch us on the first day of school and summon our guardians, what’ll happen to your royal reputation?”
Unlike his completely unrestrained mouth—even toward royalty—Noel’s hands moved with perfect composure.
He gently patted both Beatrice’s and Estelle’s shoulders.
Warm magic immediately wrapped around them.
Beatrice looked at him in confusion.
“Why are you casting a protection spell? The guards aren’t going to attack students. We’ll be punished, but…”
As if that mattered.
In her previous life, she’d even been executed by holy judgment.
Punishment at the academy wasn’t remotely frightening.
“Maybe that’s true for you, but I don’t exactly get along with the guards.”
As Noel shoved both girls toward the window, Beatrice finally realized what he intended.
Her face instantly turned white.
“No! We’re not doing this!”
She might not fear punishment—
But that didn’t mean she wanted to fall to her death from the top of the academy.
Being pushed alongside her, Estelle shouted indignantly,
“I told you it wasn’t okay! He’s completely lost it!”
“Relax. I’m not the kind of guy who abandons his accomplices.”
Noel placed both hands on their backs.
He had no intention of listening to any protests.
“No, seriously, you can abandon us! Leave us behind! If you’re going to die, die alone!”
“It’s fine. We won’t die.”
Estelle regretted everything.
I should’ve known when everyone else kept avoiding him.
She had only followed him because she wanted to build connections with the future saintess and future Master of the Magic Tower.
Genius or not—
Trusting the protection spell of a teenage boy and jumping off the top of a tower without so much as a rope was far too unrealistic for someone as practical as Estelle.
“You know this is the attempted murder of royalty, right? That’s straight to the guillotine!”
Beatrice, who had actually stood before a guillotine once, nodded vigorously.
“There has to be another way. There is. Just wait.”
Since returning to the past, Beatrice searched her memories of the North Tower more desperately than ever before.
When Noel had once been dragged away by the guards, Klein had clicked his tongue and said something about a passage…
But Noel didn’t wait.
“Once we’re down there, forget everything. We were never here. Got it?”
Estelle shot back sharply.
“You’re not planning to kill us just to keep us quiet, are you?”
“Whew, of course not. Do royals usually kill people that casually?”
She didn’t know about all royals.
But the Emperor certainly did.
Estelle felt wronged.
The knowledge from the original novel had been useless, forcing her to struggle for survival under a tyrant.
And now she was about to go bungee jumping without a rope because of a lunatic classmate.
Just as Noel was about to count them down—
Beatrice suddenly cried out.
“There is one!! A way to get down alive!”
Noel tilted his head.
“I never said we were going down dead.”
Estelle’s face lit up.
“What is it?! Hey, get your hand off me. Bea, hurry and tell us!”
“I’m saying this is the way to get down alive… Are either of you listening?”
No one was.
Instead of explaining, Beatrice acted.
She removed the painting hanging on the west wall beside the barrier stone and pressed the stones hidden behind it in order.
Second from the top.
Fourth.
Sixth.
Rumble—
Something enormous shifted within the wall.
Before the three of them, a narrow passage just wide enough for one person appeared.
“It’s a secret passage. They say it was used as an emergency escape route.”
“How do you know about something like this?”
“…Someone told me. They said they heard it from a senior.”
It sounded suspicious, but Estelle chose not to ask further.
The important thing was that they now had a perfectly normal way to leave the tower alive.
“Noel, let’s go together.”
“Does this passage really lead outside?”
“It does. Hurry! The guards will be here any second.”
“…”
Instead of letting the two girls go first into a passage he’d never seen before, Noel silently took the lead.
He couldn’t trust these two enough to let them walk ahead.
The more I think about it, the more suspicious this is.
A magical trap had just activated to imprison intruders—
Yet a secret passage conveniently opened?
It looked like an intentionally guided route.
Still, since the timid Beatrice had been unusually confident the whole time, he kept his doubts to himself.
As the path became steeper, both girls also fell silent.
They continued through the dark passage in tense silence.
Finally, Noel, walking in front, spotted daylight.
“Looks like we’re finally outs—”
“…What the hell.”
“Ah!”
“Hey! Don’t stop so suddenly!”
When Noel came to an abrupt halt, Beatrice and Estelle crashed into the back of the person in front of them one after another before peeking past him.
“Good afternoon, everyone.”
A gentle voice greeted them first.
As they slowly lifted their eyes, they saw the laurel pin—the symbol of Noctua—fastened to a blue cape robe.
Above it, white-blond hair shimmered under the sunlight.
“Professor Lucien?”
Standing there with the academy guards behind him, Lucien waited for them.
As though he had known from the very beginning that this was exactly where they would emerge.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Of all places, it had to be here.’
Out of everywhere, this was the place Lucien least wanted to come.
Of course, he couldn’t actually lose his composure in front of the students.
Keeping a calm expression, he helped each of them to their feet.
“There have always been students like this, haven’t there? The ones who escaped through secret passages even the teachers didn’t know about. Did someone publish a book called The Secrets of Noctua or something?”
He had only meant it as a half-joking complaint.
But Estelle and Beatrice both flinched as though they had guilty consciences.
Lucien’s gaze carefully swept over them.
They were covered in dust, but thankfully neither seemed injured.
“Professor Filonia, are these the students?”
The captain of the guard standing behind Lucien stepped forward.
The instant his eyes met Noel’s, both of their expressions twisted as though they were mortal enemies.
Every time Noel caused trouble, it was the academy guards who had to clean up the mess alongside the supervising teacher.
They were people Lucien would undoubtedly be seeing a lot in the future.
“This absolutely calls for suspension! The academy’s entire security system was compromised! I know the Magic Tower favors him, but there has to be a limit—!”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to guide him better.”
“No, Professor, this isn’t your fault…”
“No, it is. Thank you for always working so hard.”
“Not at all. You’re the one who has it rough, Professor.”
The two overworked employees, united by shared hardship, exchanged awkward words of sympathy.
