Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 177

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 177

“So what exactly did you come here hoping to find?”
“A way to become healthy.”
……?
The baby elephant flapped its ears and tilted its head in confusion.
There was an incredible backstory to that answer, but it wasn’t something I could share with a dream sprite I’d only met twice.
I’m terribly shy and wary of strangers, you see.
So what I really wanted to know was…
“How to raise one’s grade or rank.”
“Be reborn.”
…….
When I clenched my fist, the baby elephant squeaked in protest against violence and scampered away.
“Why! I’m serious! Ordinary beings can’t escape the grade they’re given at birth. So the only way to raise your grade is to transcend it entirely and gain a new one.”
“Like how Sword Masters live longer?”
“Huh? Yeah. But you knew that?”
So the answer really was the Sword Master path.
Had Fession’s choice to keep pushing me into training all this time been correct after all?
‘No. I don’t have any talent for swordsmanship.’
If I’d possessed even half of Fession’s talent, I might have tried. But as things stood, it seemed like I’d collapse and die before I ever mastered sword training.
With the straight path blocked, that left only shortcuts.
“Does this place have any Elixir formulas?”
“Elixir?”
I asked half in jest, but surprisingly, it did.
One hundred and twenty million different Elixir formulas that Halbern had confiscated over the centuries!
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
I stood gaping at the overwhelming collection of books before pulling out two formulas that lay nearest and frowned at them.
“Wait, why do these two have different contents?”
“Let me see.”
Each time I opened a different formula, the method and efficacy changed.
“Ah, I see. The alchemists who tried to create a ‘true Elixir’ just slapped the label on anything that produced similar effects.”
“What? There’s no true Elixir formula here?”
A true Elixir had never actually appeared in any story I knew, so I understood it didn’t exist—but my terminal lifespan made me desperate.
“Hmm. Yeah, everything here is counterfeit or imitation formulas that Halbern confiscated.”
“Damn.”
“The real one is probably in the Mage Tower, don’t you think? The knowledge came from there in the first place.”
“Ah, the Mage Tower…….”
The Mage Tower again.
How was I supposed to get into that place?
“But your library is remarkably well organized, despite having so many books.”
“Ahem.”
Mac puffed out his chest proudly.
Dream sprite or not, to my eyes he was just an adorable baby elephant.
“This place… it’s not really useful for me.”
It housed records and evidence of every incident and accident that had occurred in the Albrecht Empire from ancient times to the present.
Among them were several cases that would stir up the common folk the moment word spread outside.
Natural disasters that were actually Ability Runaway accidents, things like that.
Then came a library containing the histories and information of every noble registered with the Albrecht Imperial Family and the Nobility Registry, along with their weaknesses. Next was a library listing the names and types of Ability users and methods to counter them.
Some libraries were off-limits.
“This one’s for the family head only!”
“Ah, I see.”
But I could roughly guess what lay inside.
‘Knowledge of the old world’—so this wasn’t something exclusively passed down in secret to the Holy Temple and Mage Tower?
“When you say ‘old world,’ you mean… the world before the gods died?”
“Oh, you know about that?!”
Mac’s black eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“Well, theology is a nobleman’s basic education.”
This was all knowledge I’d picked up while being forced to attend lessons next to Fession.
Otherwise known as the Age of Divinity.
A time when all continents were connected like Pangaea, when every city had a god it worshipped, when gods delivered oracles directly and descended in person, transmitting knowledge and techniques—a truly “fantastical” age to me, who had lived my whole life in a world without gods.
For some reason, the gods went to war like Ragnarok, and from that destruction the world was reborn. What I now inhabit is called the Age of Twilight.
‘It was strange that all the gods were dead.’
In most fantasy worlds, the ultimate pinnacle of authority is always the ‘god.’
“So inside there are sleeping records and information obtained from the Ruins and Forbidden Zones?”
“Probably so?”
The reason humans living in the Age of Twilight believe in gods despite having never laid eyes on even a trace of them is the countless remnants of the Age of Divinity still scattered across this land.
The Lemuren Holy Nation, the headquarters of the Holy Temple—the only place in this age that has lost divinity yet still boasts abundant Divine Power.
The World Tree, which protects the fairy-kind.
The blessed lands of the Southern Empire, the Divine Beasts worshipped by the demi-humans.
The ruins of the gnomes and dwarves, once prosperous but now impossible to find.
And finally, the Abilities remaining in some humans.
People regarded all of these as relics of the mythic age.
“Why does Halbern hide all this information?”
I’d been curious about this constantly.
Why collect and conceal secrets?
A question I thought I’d wonder about forever was resolved surprisingly easily.
“To protect humanity.”
The dream sprite, who seemed to know nothing about most things, answered me with a gentle laugh.
“Information beyond necessity breaks a human’s will and turns their life to ruin, they say.”
“What counts as information beyond necessity?”
“Well, for example…….”
Soap bubbles floated up and transformed into various illusions.
“Like how the Central Continent, where the Albrecht Empire exists, could shatter today.”
…….
“Or how the moon could fall to earth tomorrow.”
Watching illusions of the Central Continent shattering and the moon plummeting and breaking apart made my stomach turn.
“Is this… really true?”
The baby elephant laughed heartily at my uneasy expression.
“Behind Halbern’s schemes, they hide information that ‘ordinary common people don’t need to know and would be endangered by knowing.’ But someone must know, and someone must bear the weight of this truth, so they willingly became guardians.”
“You speak as if you know it all well.”
“The first Halbern who made a contract with me told me so.”
The baby elephant let out a proud trumpet.
Just from the light in his eyes, I could see how much he trusted and loved them, and I caught a glimpse of why he’d quietly served as the librarian of this secret archive for over a thousand years.
“Humans who have something to protect become strong!”
“Is that so?”
“That’s why I decided to watch all the way to the very end to see how strong you become.”
The dream sprite Mac smiled shyly.
“So please, heir of Halbern.”
……Yes.
I shook hands with his blunt appendages, feeling a peculiar sensation wash over me.
“So what else do you want to know?!”

* * *

The library I’d moved into belonged to Sione Sigria Halbern.
I’d come hoping to learn something about her.
“This place… feels different.”
Unlike mine, which resembled a modern library, Sione’s archive was constructed of faded white pillars and white stone, like some ancient secret chamber.
The atmosphere suggested books carved into stone rather than paper or parchment.
The open sides let light filter through, and the half-collapsed state made it look impossibly old.
“Why is it like this?”
“I don’t know.”
Apparently the shape of libraries is influenced by the individual’s nature and inner world, but he didn’t know beyond that.
Perhaps it was just Sione’s mother’s aesthetic.
“You know, Sione’s book is a mess just like yours.”
Mac, who had seemed reliable moments before, suddenly began complaining.
“From here to here is fine? But starting here it’s a problem. Look at this!”
From childhood through marriage, there were no issues, but from a certain point onward, the letters on the pages began to scatter.
As if the pages had been devoured by bookworms, I furrowed my brow.
“And after that, it’s completely blank. Not as bad as yours, but still.”
The book Mac handed me contained only the story of when Sione’s mother gave birth to me.
「An unexpected child. When she decided to give birth to this child, a gift delivered from nowhere, Sione realized something. To save this child, she would have to die.」
Seeing the moment from the past that I’d glimpsed directly rendered in neat sentences felt entirely different.
「A life destined to end anyway—and if it was for the sake of the two people she loved most, wouldn’t it be rather beautiful? Sione willingly chose death.」
How my mother had regarded me hit me anew…….
I stared blankly at the countless white pages unfolding after my birth when Mac made an odd sound.
“Normally when a person dies, the pages end right there, but this is really strange.”
“?”
“Has something gone wrong with my Authority? Every book of the Halbern clan lately has been like this. I don’t know why. I can feel that the previous family head is dead, but his final volume is just filled with white pages like Sione’s.”
Mac, who’d been venting his frustrations, fixed his gaze on me once more, as though these white pages were somehow my fault.
That’s hardly fair.
“But the strangest part is the current family head.”
“Father? What’s odd about him?”
Mac frowned and let out a long sigh.
“See for yourself.”
Mac grabbed my hand and pulled me through a door into another library.
Valere Sirun Halbern. This must be my father’s archive…….
“Wow.”
What in the world was this?
Beyond my initial shock at the overwhelmingly vast library, I found myself speechless before a landscape of ruin.
“……Did a war break out here?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————