Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 226

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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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226
Episode

The air had changed.
There was no other way to describe it.
‘Why is Fession so angry?’
It wasn’t that he was upset because I was hurt. Or was it, really?
As an ominous presence gathered and something terrible seemed about to unfold, the man I thought dead rose to his feet.
“Huck—”
How was he still alive?
The moment everyone had that thought, his eyes met mine precisely.
Eyes bloodshot with burst capillaries, an aura rippling strangely, a body swollen and distended.
Could that be called alive?
‘Why does Mage Runaway come to mind?’
Seized by the question.
Crack.
Something shattered, and at the same instant, my vision inverted.

* * *

Boom—!
A massive explosion swept through the surroundings.
Protected by Shadow’s shield, Sirua managed to avoid being consumed by the blast, and once the sound of the explosion faded, he hastily lifted his head from Shadow’s embrace before swallowing a gasp.
“What in the—”
In the Underground Sewers where Fession and Arelin had vanished, a fissure hung suspended in empty air, then disappeared as if it had never existed.

* * *

“Ow.”
I lost consciousness briefly in the sudden explosion before coming to.
I was certain that at the very end, Fession had held me close and shielded me, but when I woke, I was alone.
“Where is this?”
Everything was pitch-black and strange—nothing like the Underground Sewers.
“The Other Side World?”
Please, anything but that.
Though I wanted to deny it, the complete absence of mana in the air delivered a cold truth: I was here.
I’d never noticed before, but now I could feel it distinctly—this was a place governed by an entirely different set of laws and rules.
“No, ordinary humans are supposed to never set foot here their whole lives, so why do I keep coming back?”
The pitch-black space twisted and displayed various illusions. None of them worked on me, but—
There was one thing different from before.
-Why did you come here?
-Go back.
-No, stay with us.
-Play with us.
-Become one with us.
I could hear voices I’d never heard before—multiple whispers all at once.
I used to wonder why everyone else heard them and became so frightened, running away.
So this is what it was.
-Come this way.
“Not going.”
Hearing sounds that were silent before, seeing things that were invisible—it was odd, to say the least.
So beyond the illusions, there’s just… nothing. What kind of space is this place, really?
‘Is it because I became a mage?’
This Other Side World—known by many names: the rift between worlds, distorted reality, the Shadow Realm—was forbidden territory for mages.
For Star-rank Mages especially, it was nothing short of hell.
As magic grew more advanced, it became increasingly abstract, until high-tier magic worked by formalizing and shaping cognition and perception to manifest them into reality.
When a Star-rank Mage entered the Other Side World, their core cognition and perception would become twisted; they couldn’t use magic or control their mana, and would risk runaway.
Yet I seemed fine.
“Is it because I have a Special Ability?”
Or do I have a body that doesn’t risk runaway?
“Well, good is good, I suppose.”
But what bothered me was what I’d seen before the explosion caught me.
That definitely looked like Mage Runaway.
The fact that he used a Special Ability nagged at me, and the way he suddenly revived and went berserk despite his fatal wounds also weighed on my mind.
I had a feeling there was something even more sinister lurking beneath it all.
“First, I need to get out of here.”
After calmly organizing my thoughts, I reached one clear conclusion: I had to leave this place.
As I understood it, the method for escaping the Other Side World was surprisingly simple.
Normally, the Other Side World and reality overlapped at certain mediums or points, and you could exit by using those as “gates” and satisfying specific conditions—
But I had the Halbern Special Ability, so I could simply find a gate and leave.
“Right.”
When the illusions stopped working on me, they changed tactics—the landscape around me transformed, trying to torment me instead.
“My nightmares never develop.”
Standing on a stage of all places, I gazed at my mother, whom I was seeing for the first time in so long, and tilted my head.
I felt like I was forgetting something—
“Oh!”
Where exactly did Fession go?

* * *

At the instant something exploded.
Fession’s body reacted before his mind—he wrapped Arelin close, and then he felt something swallowing both of them.
When he opened his eyes, the landscape before him had transformed completely.
“What is this—”
The Other Side World.
There was no shock. Having been here once before, he grasped his location quickly.
Normally, an ordinary human would lose their mind or go mad to the illusions of the Other Side World, but Fession was unharmed. The Blessing of Sloth he’d received long ago still remained with him.
Yet he wasn’t sure how to escape from here—
If he couldn’t escape on his own,
‘such matters’ were usually handled by the Grand Duke of Halbern, but with him absent now, Fession grew anxious thinking what methods the Imperial Family could possibly employ.
“Was I the only one caught in this?”
He wished that were true.
The Other Side World was a space no ordinary human could survive without the Blessing of an Immortal or an equivalent Special Ability. That meant an ordinary person could go mad or die.
So even as Fession prayed he alone had been caught, he couldn’t understand his own feelings.
It was false, unmistakably so, yet it nagged at him, kept surfacing in his thoughts, and he couldn’t keep ignoring it. Why?
……
Fession closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, running a hand through his hair.
His mind grew tangled.
Everything had become a mess, as if he’d sunk into a mire.
Everyone asked him what the problem was, but even Fession couldn’t identify any flaw in himself.
Except that Arelin was no longer by his side.
-Fession.
A voice he’d never forgotten for a single moment called to him.
-Fession.
He knew it was an illusion.
He knew this was a sweet lure conjured by the Other Side World to hold him, to seduce him, to devour him.
-Shion.
Yet Fession was willing to surrender to it.
Those eyes, soft pink like spring itself, the gentle smile she sometimes showed—they were so radiant he couldn’t speak for a moment.
Even if the whole world lost its color, you would remain so vivid.
Everyone calls this a nightmare, but with you in it, how could this ever be a nightmare to me?
“Arelin.”
Arelin smiled.
She was exactly as she appeared in his memory—seven years old, unchanged, smiling at him.
He had already grown into an adult, but Arelin remained a child.
That was because Fession couldn’t imagine Arelin grown up.
Unconsciously, he’d conjure the false versions he’d seen before, and so he clung all the more desperately to the single true image of Arelin he’d beheld.
“Arelin—”
He reached toward the phantom he could never touch or hold. The absence of warmth or sensation at his fingertips pierced him, and Fession closed his eyes.
No matter how hard I pretend to be fine, I collapse all the same.
I.
Was I that afraid of losing you?
So I clung to you so desperately, thinking that if you loved me, you’d never leave?
Not knowing that you would vanish beyond the reach of my hand, so foolishly.
The arrogance of that younger self—believing that if I only had your heart, everything else would somehow work out—had seeped into his very bones.
Fifteen years had passed in vain.
So much time had elapsed, yet Fession’s time had never moved forward even a single day since that moment.
“Arelin.”
This is the limit.
“I don’t want to go back to a world without you.”
Somewhere along the way, he couldn’t breathe properly. Even alive, he didn’t feel alive.
No matter how beautiful things were, how magnificent—nothing stirred in him. Even joy felt joyless.
It had been this way ever since Arelin vanished.
“Take me with you instead.”
How much longer must this go on?
How much longer?
I’ve never been fine, not once.
“I don’t care where.”
He didn’t want to spend another meaningless day alive.
“Please, don’t leave me alone.”
The world crumbles.
Fession realized the Other Side World was devouring him, that it was delighted to be chewing him up, entranced by the taste.
He didn’t mind. He had no reason to live anyway.
And yet.
“Fession.”
A hand suddenly seized his arm and pulled.
“It’s all right. Rest. Good boy.”
A warm, gentle hand.
“Arelin—?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
His vision blurred so much he couldn’t make out the other person clearly.
This had to be another illusion.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
Why was it so vivid?
Arelin held the sobbing Fession to her chest and whispered softly.
“I won’t leave you again.”

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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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