Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 165
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 165
There were exactly two children who stood out at first glance.
A girl with deep pink hair that rippled beautifully, golden eyes that gleamed as though stars had been set into them.
She seemed to be made from every scrap of loveliness the world had to offer, and she greeted us cheerfully.
“Hi, I’m Chloe.”
Her station was as the second daughter of some minor baronial house buried somewhere in the Southern Empire, but Chloe possessed a backing far more formidable than that.
“I’m living at the Mage Tower with my teacher right now!”
The moment “Mage Tower” left her lips, the smirks vanished from the other children’s faces.
They had dismissed her instinctively as someone beneath notice, but now they looked uncomfortable.
‘Right, this place is half wild.’
I’d forgotten, too caught up lately in my peaceful outsider existence.
The lesson that weakness invites predation.
Several others introduced themselves after Chloe.
At last, the final turn.
…….
Even standing in the back, this person had stolen every eye in the room, and now as they stepped forward, I felt the whole assembly hold its breath.
The figure ignored the customary greeting and swept their gaze across us children, and the moment our eyes met, their eyelids curved into perfect crescents.
They appeared to be about eleven years old now, but I recognized them instantly.
‘The stalker.’
It was definitely them.
Absolutely.
That prickling sensation along my spine, the chill creeping up my neck, the sudden sense that my very life hung in the balance.
My S-rank Survival Instinct itself was screaming danger.
“Chaiyen Muon of Gremwath.”
Those sinister golden eyes, which had been fixed on me so relentlessly, shimmered with something unreadable.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
At that faint, seductive smile, I heard the girls around me catch their breath.
Trouble was announcing itself.
* * *
I had expected the stalker to approach me and act as though we were acquainted, but instead they remained surrounded by the girls, busily constructing new social bonds.
“Ha.”
I watched the stalker laugh like a gentleman and behave like an ordinary person, and found myself alone, cold sweat trickling down my spine.
Because at any moment, they might snap and kill everyone here for irritating them.
“Arelin.”
“Hmm?”
Fession, who had been surrounded by other children just moments before, suddenly appeared at my side.
“Do you know that boy from Gremwath?”
“……Hmm?”
I couldn’t fathom why he was asking.
“You keep staring at him.”
“Oh.”
“I thought maybe you two knew each other.”
We do know each other, technically.
But I couldn’t explain the how of it, not without lying outright.
How could I tell him that person had been stalking me since Sharit?
I had no choice but to obfuscate.
“No, it’s just…”
“Just?”
“He’s handsome.”
“You like that kind of face?”
Fession’s brows drew together slightly as he fixed the stalker with a pointed stare.
‘No, stop it! If he notices, we’re dead!’
The sight made my blood run cold, and I hastily tried to placate him.
“No, I just meant objectively he’s good-looking. I—I…”
“You?”
Fession watched me with such seriousness and intensity that I found myself bursting into laughter despite everything.
“I like your face the best.”
“Really?”
Color bloomed across Fession’s cheeks, which was endearing, but then he seemed to think of something and furrowed his brow, which was both funny and strange.
“Why wouldn’t you believe me?”
Fession hesitated before speaking.
“……The Grand Duke of Halbern…”
Ah, my father was indeed famous for his appearance.
“You were worried about that?”
Fession nodded reluctantly.
How sweet.
How could anyone be so adorable and beautiful?
“You’re really cute, you know that?”
“You’re cuter.”
“No, you are.”
“No. You’re the cutest.”
We went back and forth, voices rising, debating who was cuter, until suddenly we both dissolved into laughter.
Everything felt funny and fun now.
Perhaps because I’d been bickering with Fession—my nerves, wound tight by the stalker’s unexpected arrival, finally began to settle.
“I was just noticing something that bothered me. That’s all.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Fession still seemed troubled, but after glancing between me and the stalker, he said firmly:
“I’ll trust you.”
“What about you? Don’t you think Chloe is pretty?”
Perhaps because Fession kept pressing me like this, a petty impulse seized me.
I asked a question that had never been part of the plan.
“……You’re prettier.”
Fession blinked at me with wide eyes, his expression suggesting he didn’t understand why I would ask such a thing.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Truly?”
“Arelin, are you insecure?”
“No.”
“Then why are you asking?”
Fession’s question came with a wounded expression. Fair point, that.
“Just…”
“……?”
“I suppose I wanted reassurance.”
I trusted Fession, but trust and the simple fact that the main characters remained two people were separate things.
‘I don’t ask for anything more.’
Just this.
If I could continue living beside Mehren, beside my father, beside Fession—that would be enough.
Was such a simple wish really so difficult to grant?
‘It’s too early to despair.’
I steadied myself.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Hmm? Yes.”
First, I needed to find out why the stalker had appeared here.
* * *
The newly restructured gathering was no longer the casual social club it had been before, but rather organized around study, various activities, and exchange.
Empress Azeni must have disapproved of us simply playing around.
In any case, thanks to the changes, I was able to find an opening for a private conversation.
“Can I have a word?”
“So you finally deign to acknowledge me, our little lady.”
Was this person seriously asking me to pretend we knew each other openly?
The suspicion was reasonable, because though they had grown younger, their appearance was exactly as I remembered it.
The Gremwath line all supposedly had green hair and green eyes, but this one had nerve too.
“It’s fine. Everyone will understand if I say I outsourced the introduction.”
Did they just read my mind?
I took a small step back, and the stalker laughed softly.
“Call me Chaiyen.”
“……Is that your real name?”
“Do you want to know my True Name?”
“Not particularly.”
I didn’t wish to become close enough for that.
I deliberately maintained distance and remained vigilant, but Chaiyen continued to smile pleasantly down at me, undeterred.
There was nothing different about them from before, but looking at them in this younger form made it harder to maintain my guard—an effect I couldn’t quite resist.
“What are you thinking?”
“I wonder what I could possibly be thinking about?”
But there was one thing that hadn’t changed, even now that they were younger.
They still smiled that gentle smile, yet something about it sent chills down my spine—a tension that only certain beings could project.
“How did you falsify your status?”
“Does that seem difficult to you?”
……
I mean, how could anyone with the Gremwath name manage such a thing?
I was genuinely curious, but I’d learned not to dwell on unknowable things. It gave me a headache.
When I shook my head, Chaiyen chuckled.
“Talk informally. We don’t seem close like this.”
“We’re not close, though.”
Chaiyen tilted their head, their expression sunny.
“Truly?”
What part of this could possibly be close?
I’d forgotten about them during this time apart and lived well, and now they showed up in this unexpected form, doubling my headache.
I almost preferred when I was alone and noticed the stalker watching me.
“Am I really so frightening?”
“Don’t you look terrifying?”
“Curious.”
Those golden eyes gleamed with predatory light.
“I don’t recall doing anything particularly threatening. So why?”
……
“Should I come back even younger?”
I nearly started at what might have been a joke, then quickly shook my head. If this person said such a thing, they’d genuinely show up a few days hence, even more diminished.
“Is it important to you that I’m not afraid?”
“It is.”
Chaiyen laughed with their eyes and leaned their handsome face toward me.
“I came because I couldn’t bring you with me.”
I didn’t have time to ask what that meant. A smaller hand grasped mine, and I felt my breath catch at the fingers tracing gently across the back of my hand.
“It seems much has happened while we were apart.”
“……Yes, quite a lot has happened.”
“You’ve met the Grand Mage, it seems.”
……
The Grand Mage?
A forgotten memory stirred. The memory of a mage who had told me that what was on the back of my hand wasn’t a Location Tracker but a Blessing.
‘That mage was the Grand Mage?!’
That would explain why they seemed so unusual.
Now that I thought about it, I recalled them saying something important to me.
“Whatever you come to understand, forget it.”
“A Mortal entangled with an Immortal is always destined for sorrow.”
The very moment I recalled those words—
—the golden eyes before me softened and curved.
“Don’t you want to live longer?”
A whisper, devilish and low.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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