The Low-Ranking Civil Servant Wants to Achieve Success Chapter 46

Because the Mage Tower was such a closed-off place, nothing about the Tower Master’s private life was known to the public.

“My wife died giving birth to her, so she’s my only family. It’s been quite a while since she went missing.”

The Tower Master looked at least sixty, even at a glance. That meant his daughter would now be in her forties.

I responded glumly.

“My dad’s been gone for fifteen years…”

“What?”

The Tower Master’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Ha! To vanish and leave behind a child—your father’s got to be hopeless too!”

He clicked his tongue and added,

“Though my daughter’s no better.”

“Is that so?”

“My daughter was born in the Tower, and spent her entire life inside it. She was pampered and coddled, and then one day, just up and left for the harsh outside world with no preparation. I’m sure she got herself into serious trouble.”

To someone like me, who’d been living in that harsh outside world for twenty-three years, the story didn’t quite hit home.

Still, I offered a cautious reply.

“Really? Could she maybe have been kidnapped by a bad group or something…?”

He’d said she’d been pampered and cared for.

Why would the beloved only daughter of the Tower Master suddenly go off and get into trouble?

If it were me, I would’ve stayed in the Tower forever, living like a princess.

“No idea.”

The Tower Master sighed deeply and continued.

“One night, she stabbed me with a knife…”

Um? Patricide?

“Collected my blood…”

Organ theft?

“Robbed my wallet…”

Theft?

“And ran away from home.”

Runaway?

“That was the last I saw of her—when she was twenty.”

…Wow.

Even a coddled adult could turn out this hopeless.

“What do you think? As bad as your father?”

“No. Compared to that, my dad’s practically a walking answer sheet.”

I drew a clear line at the Tower Master’s attempt to equate the two.

He let out a groan, then added,

“Anyway, the more I try to find her, the worse it feels. I’m starting to think she got mixed up in something real dangerous. Maybe one day someone will come asking for ransom—I have no clue what kind of mess she’s gotten herself into.”

One thing was clear.

The Tower Master’s parenting had been a complete disaster.

“My daughter lacked a lot, but I did my best for her. I really did love her and treasure her.”

The Tower Master slumped his shoulders and murmured.

“But still… why… Why did it have to turn out like this? I was fine with her being a bit slow… I really was okay with everything.”

The sorrowful look on his face overlapped in my mind with my dad’s face when he’d looked the same way.

[I really did treat your mom well. I told her everything would be okay… But why did she leave us?]

I already knew the answer.

[Because… she didn’t love you.]

When I gave him that answer, Dad had looked completely heartbroken.

But telling him that had hurt me too.

Because… I was one of the people she hadn’t loved either.

‘If she’d loved me, she wouldn’t have dumped all her debts on us and run.’

A daughter unloved by her mother, who ruined her father’s life.

That was me.

And in a way… it felt like maybe I didn’t even deserve happiness.

Just one thing—if I could turn my dad’s life around, then maybe I could face my own life with pride.

While I stayed silent, the Tower Master muttered again.

“The problem is… the more I search for her, the worse I feel. I have a gut feeling she’s caused something big. I need to get ahead of it somehow and clean it up…”

In the end, it all came down to family problems keeping him from doing his job.

That fact didn’t change.

The mess the Scroll Department had become was largely because the Tower Master had neglected it.

‘Still, he did make me the department head. Thanks to him, I got to abandon the Cinderella scheme, too.’

I decided to forgive the Tower Master with great generosity.

Honestly, even if I didn’t forgive him, there wasn’t much I could do about it anyway.

“Yes, yes… My failures will come back to haunt me eventually…”

Groaning in agony, the Tower Master shook his head and looked at me squarely again.

“Anyway, Minister—you.”

Even though my official appointment hadn’t taken place yet, the Tower Master had clearly decided to start calling me ‘Minister.’

“Her Majesty the Empress said you created a very unique and original scroll?”

“Oh, yes.”

I scratched my ear and replied.

“It was something I came up with when I was little, because my dad wanted to see the stars… I developed it when I was a kid. The principle works like this…”

I picked up a spare scroll parchment lying on the previous Minister’s desk.

Then I started scribbling.

This was a scroll I’d invented myself, so it wasn’t in any book.

As I explained the principles and activation method, the Tower Master’s expression hardened.

“I thought, since the Empress said she’d never seen it before, maybe it was just an obscure, unusual type of scroll… But this is pure, original creation, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying you really made this? On your own? Just by reading books? At the age of… eight? And without any mages around?”

“Yes.”

The Tower Master blinked slowly.

Then murmured under his breath.

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you made 160 scrolls in a single night.”

“166, actually.”

“Fine, fine. That’s plausible. Sometimes, a prodigy like that shows up once every ten years. Say you also activated 170 in one go.”

“172, actually.”

“Right. Still plausible. A genius like that might come around once every twenty years.”

He stared at my scroll and bit his lower lip.

“But this kind of thing… Hmm… is really, really unusual.”

“Yes.”

“…Don’t you want to know what’s unusual about it?”

As I tilted my head, the Tower Master furrowed his brow.

“Creating a new scroll… People outside the Tower don’t really understand magic, but this is something only adults can do. Usually, you’d have to spend five years inside the Tower refining your mana to even attempt this!”

“Yes.”

“But you said you made this at age eight! Without ever being in the Tower! You’re not lying, right? Even you must admit that’s strange!”

I shrugged indifferently.

“Even if it’s strange, it still got me appointed as Minister, didn’t it?”

“What?”

“As far as Minister Namia Roapia of the Scroll Division is concerned, that’s good enough.”

The Tower Master sighed when I referred to myself as “Minister.”

Then, still frowning, he asked,

“…How old are you again?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Tell me more about your parents.”

I hesitated, then began the same explanation I’d already given earlier today.

Everyone seemed so curious about my parents lately.

Even the Empress had asked.

After I finished, the Tower Master studied my face carefully.

“Born in Arbin, South Province, twenty-three years old… And you said you don’t know your mother at all? Not even her name?”

“No. Dad said she probably used an alias. She kept getting confused about her own name…”

“Did he ever tell you what she looked like?”

“Oh, he said she, Dad, and I all had blue eyes.”

Blue eyes were the most common eye color in the Empire.

So it wasn’t exactly a unique trait.

“And he said she was very beautiful. But what made her really charming was that she didn’t even realize how pretty she was.”

When he said that, Dad always looked so bashful. Watching him then, even as a child, I had made up my mind:

Never, ever be blinded by appearances.

If you went for looks alone, you could end up like Dad.

‘Which is why I was able to keep my cool when Kiaros proposed!’

Honestly, just looking at that face felt like it could keep you full for days…

Still, I stayed rational and turned him down.

“Hmm…”

The Tower Master narrowed his eyes, looking at me intently.

As if analyzing my face—feature by feature.