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Chapter 160: Visiting Home (1)
The day Mira returned to Arkite, she spent the night in the castle after spending the afternoon talking with Solomon.
The next morning, Lily went to Mira’s room like it was the most normal thing to do, waking Mira up and helping her change while her eyes adjusted to daylight. After that she was taken to the dining hall.
Tabatha joined them on their way there, and after a rather boisterous breakfast, the maids insisted on grooming Mira before she could go to Solomon’s office.
「I’ll visit the Tower for a bit before I depart then.」
「Sure, I feel like you’ll be away from home for a while again after that so better go now.」
After deciding she would be going to the Ancient City the day prior, she announced that. Mira was relaying her latest position and mission to the Tower, but she still wanted to see Mariana in person.
「Ah, please tell your wife I’m sorry I keep working you around the clock.」
「Wha- We don’t have such a… relationship…」
「But that instantly brought her to mind, didn’t it?」
Solomon watched as Mira’s face reddened, teasing her slightly with a kind smile.
「I’m leaving.」
「Okay, take care.」
Mira sounded irritated but Solomon simply grinned. But before Mira left, she said goodbye with her usual smile. Once Mira was out of the office, Solomon sighed as he returned to his desk covered with documents.
Silver Horn, the city of spellcasters. The Silver Linked Towers, the city’s landmark and the aim of any spellcaster stood tall and mighty in the center of it. A powerful barrier covered the entire area, stopping any aerial intruders from approaching. The barrier was made so it would not affect anything leaving the area, so Creos’ wagon had no issue leaving the tower. But the barrier would jump into effect when returning.
「Oh, that’s the place Solomon mentioned.」
The area surrounding the Silver Linked Towers had become a tourist attraction, so places like the entrance were terribly crowded, a large volume of people coming and going every day. That made it a bad place to land Garuda. To counteract that, Solomon had told Mira to use a different entrance, which was less common amongst tourists.
Mira noticed an empty space, large enough for Garuda to land, in one corner of the square near the towers. The path there was also blocked by a pond, stopping people from approaching that place.
Mira gave the order to Garuda and landed the wagon on that place. She descended from her ride and walked with a proud stride to the front gates to open them with her Master Key.
They were on land now, so she sent Garuda away and prepared to summon Guardian Ash in its place to pull the wagon.
A crowd of tourists on the other side of the pond looked her way. They began chattering with each other loudly. Some of them were spellcasters who looked at Mira with eyes full of envy.
The Silver Linked Towers. They were Arkite’s biggest tourist attraction, and such crowds enabled other types of entertainment businesses. This entrance was less noisy than the main one, though sometimes Creos, Amaratte, or the vice-elders of the Tower of Onmyoji would pass through there.
So there were many people who would look there too, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone entering the Towers.
(…Sure, landing was easy, but the crowd’s just as big!)
Mira noticed the multiple gazes centered on her, so she quickly shut herself away inside the wagon, quickly summoned Guardian Ash and fled into the Towers’ grounds.
The small bit of activity in the secondary entry made all the tourists in the area start talking with each other. They had thought it was Creos, seeing Garuda carrying a wagon. But someone else had stepped out, making them wonder just who that was.
「I feel like that Garuda looked bigger than Creos’.」
「Yeah, it looked that way to me too. And the coloration was different.」
The tourists were still discussing when she swiftly summoned something else, they could not follow the speed of her spells, which made the spellcasters in the crowd get excited.
「Wait, do you think that was her? That pupil everyone’s been talking about?」
Someone said that, prompting even more noise amongst the tourists as their imagination ran wild.
The only bona-fide pupil of a Wiseman, Danbulf’s specifically. Some thought maybe she was Danbulf’s illegitimate daughter, or maybe Creos’. Others believed she was Danbulf reincarnated, or that she was Danbulf himself. They all had very varied ideas, and they corrected each other with baseless facts, talking about Mira like she was something like a comet passing through the sky.
Mira entered the Tower of Summoning and walked through the empty interiors. She wondered annoyingly where all the enrolled researchers were as she headed to the top floor.
(So-somehow I’m getting nervous. I guess I should just act natural and say I’m back home?) contemporary romance
She was next to her room now. It had been a while since the last time she was there, and standing in front of the door like that brought back all sorts of memories, reminding her of the past. Realizing there was someone waiting for her now gave her an indescribable feeling.
But eventually she had to convince herself that this was her home now, and she finally had the courage to open the door.
「I’m homeee.」
Mira entered her room, feeling like a husband that just returned from a business trip. She waited for a bit, but there was no response. She started looking around the room, then even checked her bedroom, but Mira could not find Mariana.
「Wait, maybe..!」
Mira abruptly turned around, looking at the door leading to the changing room and bathroom. At the same time, the memory of her accidentally and coincidentally running into Mariana while changing surfaced in her mind.
She tiptoed to the door, placing her ear on it just in case. Even with her current appearance, waltzing in would make her look like a degenerate, so she waited until she was certain there were no sounds coming from inside before turning the knob. But she did not open the door right away, instead listening again.
「Still… no sound.」
There was no sound coming from the changing room. She knew there was nothing wrong with it, but her heart still raced a little as she opened the door.
As expected, there was no one inside.
「Hm? What’s that…」
Mariana’s work was clearly visible there, the entire place kept clean and orderly. But Mira noticed something new in one corner of the room. There was a shelf there, with a label that said ‘For Mira,’ which was stuffed with countless sets of cute underwear in all sorts of colors.
Mira walked up to it and attentively looked at everything there, then walked away like nothing had happened.
She silently went to open the door leading to the bath.
「Well, I guess this is it then.」
She knew it was bad to wish for that, so she forced her mind to purge those desires that were only at home in a love comedy, and entered the empty bath to look around. And only then she realized that she was no longer in her old normal life.
She could have saved herself all that time by simply using the Sage Art Life Sensing from the start.
She grimaced realizing just how far her delusions had gone, and then quickly examined her surroundings. Barely a second passed after that when…
「Welcome back, Lady Mira.」
A reading came from right behind her, and Mariana’s kind and pleasant voice reached her ears.
「I-I-I am home-?!」
The very target of her fantasies appeared right behind her. That gave Mira an unnecessary shock, making her flip around and let out a confused and trembling voice.
Mariana looked the same as always, even though more than a month had passed since the last time they saw each other. But Mira felt like it had been ages, making her grin now that they were back together.
「Is something wrong?」
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