I snatched the official document and bag from him.
“I came here to work, sure, but I’ve got a mountain of questions for you too.”
Lost in thought, he looked at me as if telling me to go ahead.
“Where exactly did you bring me?”
“My office.”
The fact that this junkyard was supposedly an office was surprising enough.
“If this is your office... then you're really the Tower Master? The Magic Tower didn’t just put some random guy in the position to mess with government officials?”
“That’s more or less what happened.”
“Since when were you a mage?”
“Since the beginning.”
“That’s ridiculous. You were a librarian.”
“I was never a librarian. I only pretended to be one.”
I stared at him, doubting my own ears.
We had met at the library. We had fallen in love there.
What did he mean, pretended?
“We dated for two years, and you lied about your job? No, wait—that’s not all, is it? Did you lie about your name too? ‘Kay’?”
“Let's call that a nickname. It's not that different from Cade anyway. More importantly, answer my question.”
“...”
“You really seem to know absolutely nothing about me. Are you telling me all of this is just a coincidence?”
Kay...
No, Cade.
Even while I was angrily interrogating him, his attention seemed fixed elsewhere.
Either he didn’t consider my questions important, or he simply found them annoying.
“You expect me to believe you're a Crystal Whale Ecological Investigator? Out of all people, you? You hated Crystal Whales.”
At some point, he had picked up my government identification card.
He held it up.
The four bold words—Crystal Whale Investigator—made me flinch.
A massive fin cutting through raging waves flashed before my eyes.
When humans are born with mana, they're called mages.
When animals are born with mana, they're called magical beasts.
Among them, the largest and most mysterious creatures were whale-type magical beasts with crystal formations growing from their backs.
Crystal Whales.
Creatures I could never feel any affection for.
I shook my head to dispel the lingering image and snatched the ID card back.
“I still have trouble believing it myself, but that's just life. People do what they need to survive.”
“Are you close to the imperial family?”
“...What?”
What kind of question was that?
How could a palace civil servant possibly be close to royalty?
“I honestly have no idea what you're talking about anymore.”
“Is there anyone in the Imperial Palace who would know what kind of relationship you and I had? Someone with enough authority to know I'm the Tower Master and hand you money to send you here.”
“...Are you interrogating me right now?”
I muttered blankly, then finally realized that Cade had been treating me with cold authority this entire time.
A surge of anger rose in my chest.
I wasn't foolish enough to expect him to ask how I'd been after dumping me without warning.
I hadn't expected a warm reunion full of smiles either.
But this?
Pressuring me. Cornering me.
This was too much.
“Nobody knows that! Do you think I’m crazy enough to go around telling people my ex-boyfriend got sick of me and left? I have my pride too!”
“That’s not—”
“You seem to think I’m some fraud pretending to be a civil servant, or some pathetic person trying to exploit an old relationship to get things done! But I’m already in my second year as an official, and like I said, I came here because I didn’t want to keep working with Crystal Whales!”
I fired accusation after accusation without pause.
Cade’s intimidating presence seemed to soften slightly.
Whether he actually believed me was another matter.
I walked over to the cluttered desk, carefully smoothed out the crumpled document, and slapped it down.
“I still can’t believe you're the Tower Master either, but as long as you have the seal, I don’t care. Just stamp this already.”
“Do you even know how much garbage—”
He paused.
“—how terrible the document you brought is?”
“You think I came here without knowing that? Just stamp the least terrible one.”
Honestly, even I thought the palace’s demands were outrageous.
To: The Tower Master
From: Imperial Administrative Bureau
Subject: Agreement for Cooperation in Imperial Palace Security
...
...
The contents were overwhelmingly unfavorable to the Magic Tower.
Every time the Tower refused to sign, the palace simply drafted another agreement and sent it over.
Honestly, I wouldn't agree to this nonsense either.
Still, among the stack of documents, a few weren't completely unreasonable.
If I could get the seal on just one of them...
I could transfer departments.
Cade probably found it just as awkward as I did to keep running into his ex-girlfriend at the place that was both his workplace and his home.
Expressionless, he rubbed the back of his neck and read the key sentence on the document I had spread out.
The Master of the Magic Tower shall cooperate with the Grand Duke of Melgot in maintaining public order within Melgot.
“Seems reasonable, right? Just stamp it.”
“No.”
Cade's answer was immediate and absolute.
I narrowed my eyes.
“You're the Tower Master, aren't you? The Magic Tower is on Melgot land. Can't you help protect it?”
“That’s something we already do. We don’t need an official document to tell us to.”
“Then what's the problem?”
“Everything.”
As though the discussion was over, Cade flipped the document over and pushed it back toward me.
“You know they send a new document every time you refuse one. That's annoying for you too, isn't it? This one seems fine.”
“...Go back.”
I continued trying to persuade him.
Cade merely shook his head.
If he disliked this document, he would obviously hate the others even more.
And frankly, he had every reason to.
My hair wasn’t on fire, but frustration burned through me anyway.
Could it be... this document is actually acceptable, but he's rejecting it because I'm the one who brought it?
...No.
Surely not.
Our breakup hadn’t been that ugly.
That was just me overthinking.
I was about to make another attempt when—
Crack!
A stone flew into the office.
Startled, I spun around.
One of the windows stood wide open.
I could have sworn I had heard something shatter.
Just then, lace-like magic circles briefly flickered outside before vanishing.
My eyes caught a fractured section of the barrier near one corner, like cracked glass.
A sense of unease crept over me.
I stepped closer to Cade.
“Cade? Could that be...?”
“The barrier isn't in perfect condition right now. Strange things get in occasionally.”
“Get in? It looked like someone threw that.”
“You know as well as I do. The Magic Tower has plenty of enemies.”
I watched him walk toward the window.
Then I grabbed his arm.
“Something's approaching. You said the barrier's damaged. It could be dangerous to get too close.”
“...?”
He looked at me skeptically.
Then he walked right up to the window anyway.
“Cade! I'm serious!”
“When have I ever said I didn't believe you?”
“Then why—”
Before I could finish, the sky outside darkened.
Bat-like magical beasts.
Sharp horns.
Long tails.
THUD! THUD!
SCREEEEE!
The flapping of wings mixed with piercing shrieks.
Unable to pass through the barrier, they repeatedly slammed themselves against the open window.
“...!”
Anger.
Longing.
Attachment.
Fear.
Their emotions struck my mind like arrows.
Heat flooded my head.
My heart raced.
Pressing a hand to my chest, I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.
The situation wasn't truly dangerous.
It only felt overwhelming because I had let my guard down.
I'd been doing this job for an entire year already.
There must be a reason they're angry. What happened?
As I observed both the beasts and the office, Cade suddenly raised his hand toward them.
A familiar glow gathered near his fingers.
The same kind of light I'd seen before he dropped a fireball over my head.
“W-Wait!”
I shoved Cade aside and stepped in front of the window.
He blinked, hand still raised as though he could unleash a spell at any second.
“You were frozen in fear a second ago.”
“I'm not afraid of them.”
“You're literally shaking.”
Rather than explain, I pointed to the stone on the floor.
“I think that's magical beast blood on that rock. The blood of a baby. They think the stone is one of their young.”
Cade listened silently.
Then flames burst to life in his palm.
“Cade!”
“That doesn't change anything.”
“You don't have to kill them.”
“Excited magical beasts are unpredictable. Who knows what they'll do?”
The firelight reflected in his eyes.
Dangerously.
Burning.
What happened to you?
The gaze.
The atmosphere.
Everything about him felt unfamiliar.
Cold fear stabbed into my heart.
He was aiming at the magical beasts.
Yet somehow, I felt like I was the one being hunted.
For the first time, Cade genuinely frightened me.
I swallowed hard.
Seeing that, he frowned and extinguished the flames.
“If you don't want to see something unpleasant, leave.”
I fought the urge to look away.
Then I spoke.
“There won't be anything unpleasant.”
I lifted my chin.
“Because I'm not going to let it happen.”