Chapter 15
Chapter 15. The Next Day
With a half-resigned attitude, Nox thought as Ariane placed her hand on his chest and began chanting a spell. The words were completely foreign, but he could feel his body becoming refreshed as if he had just gotten out of water.
‘That’s amazing.’
He had always thought of magic as just a scam or a trick to deceive children, but this was definitely different.
“Now your body is clean. But your smell is still there. I really like your sweat smell.”
‘No, you need to get rid of the smell!’
That’s the most important thing.
Ignoring Nox’s complaints, Ariane grabbed his hand and led him to the bed. The wrinkled sheets clearly showed signs of someone lying down and getting up.
Ariane tapped the bed as if to tell Nox to lie down, and he was left confused.
What is going on here…?
‘Well, I’m fine with it.’
Until just a moment ago, wasn’t she crying because she was in pain? She couldn’t be forcing herself to do this out of guilt, could she?
Anyway, Nox lay down like a wax doll as Ariane instructed. His body remained stiff, so instead of feeling comfortable, his heart was racing wildly inside his chest.
A little while later, as he expected, Ariane didn’t climb on top of him but instead reached out and used his arm as a pillow, lying down beside him like a couple.
Ariane placed her warm hand on Nox’s bare chest, patting it gently, as if caring for a b*by. The rough sound of her hand and the warmth from her touch eased the discomfort in his heart.
“You must have been lonely and in pain because I didn’t call you yesterday, right? Next time, unless it’s something life-threatening, I’ll make sure to call you.”
‘Is that really necessary…?’
Hearing Ariane speak like that made Nox feel like trash.
Even though it had been an accident, she called him by his real name, and with special meaning, had even tattooed a wolf on him. He wanted to go back in time and scold the past version of himself, who had doubted her and gotten angry.
“Tonight, sleep comfortably with me. After that, I’ll send you back. If I infuse a bit of mana into you, you should be able to move on your own little by little.”
Hearing Ariane’s words, Nox tried to put strength into his body. His limbs were still rigid, but at least he could now turn his head left and right.
Though slightly disappointing, Nox felt grateful that he could at least do this. As if permitted, he began to examine Ariane’s room in detail. Unlike a normal home, the walls were made of an unidentifiable material, perhaps wood or clay. The furniture attached to the walls had strange shapes that one couldn’t imagine or create logically.
The eerie decorations and items that had been there when he first saw it were still unchanged.
‘Is this how all wizard rooms are?’
He wasn’t interested in other people’s privacy, but he thought there should be cute little items for a woman. There was nothing like that here. Instead, there were plenty of things that would frighten even a burly man.
Beast horns, leather, claws, fireflies… It was probably something like that. Maybe it was better that way, but there were insects with strange appearances.
The only thing that looked somewhat decent was the huge gilded frame hanging on the wall.
It was a portrait that one would only see in a noble family mansion. In the painting, a cute blonde girl who looked about three or four years old and a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache were pictured.
The girl in the light green dress was smiling brightly and looking straight ahead, while the middle-aged man gazed lovingly at the girl. It looked as if it captured a moment of love, vivid and full of life.
Nox found the portrait unconventional, perhaps because he was used to seeing portraits of people sitting with noble posture and looking straight ahead.
‘It can’t be her grandfather… Is he her father?’
The man looked quite handsome when he was younger, and he must have been quite popular with women.
But there was something familiar about his face, and Nox found himself staring at it unknowingly.
“Nox, what are you looking at?”
Ariane, who had been checking the wolf tattoo on his chest, noticed what he was looking at.
“Oh, that painting? It’s me and my mentor. When I first came to the Magic Tower, Eva transferred it here with magic. I lost my parents when I was three. My mentor took me in, and that’s how I came to the Magic Tower.”
‘Her mentor, huh. So, she doesn’t have parents. And Eva is not the author but a fellow mage.’
But can a mage really write such absurd adult books and publish them?
Anyway, learning more about Ariane made Nox feel good. He thought that if he kept looking, she might reveal something else, so he moved his eyes around eagerly.
Then, from the blind spot of the portrait, he saw something that looked like fur. Nox, unsure of what it was, froze when he realized what it was.
‘W-Why is that here?’
It was a large beast, a taxidermied, mutated wolf.
As Nox’s eyes started to tremble, Ariane, noticing it, got up and looked at him with concern.
“Why are you acting like this? Oh, that. Don’t be scared. It’s already dead and stuffed. Heh heh, Nox, you’re more of a coward than I thought.”
Ariane poked his cheek with her finger as if finding it cute. Her finger was surprisingly sharp, making it hurt a little. Or was it more the sting in his heart?
‘No, no!’
Nox inwardly protested, feeling completely unjust. He couldn’t even come up with an excuse and found himself, out of nowhere, being branded a coward, drenched in sweat.
To be honest, someone of his caliber could easily take down a mutated wolf like that with his bare hands.
