Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 247

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

Chapter 247

Children’s Day Special Spinoff 1

To a seven-year-old Mehren living on the streets, Halbern Manor was nothing short of paradise.
“Want to come with me?”
The offer came from a well-fed, adorably round-cheeked young nobleman with an unblemished smile and soft, pale hands—an offer that amounted to divine providence for a boy who couldn’t promise himself a tomorrow.
Whether it was childish impulse, curiosity, or some cruel jest hardly mattered.
Halbern Manor, which he came to know this way, proved far grander and more solemn than anything his young imagination could conjure, and everyone who lived within its walls seemed equally magnificent.
“The Young Master brought him here? Is he planning to make him a servant?”
“He said they’re friends?”
A nobleman befriending a commoner? What sort of twisted taste is that.
“Who knows. How would we understand the refined tastes of such a noble Young Master?”
The looks Mehren received upon first arrival at Halbern Manor fell into two categories.
Pity and indifference.
The servants pitied the boy who had become the nobleman’s plaything, while the family itself showed no regard whatsoever.
Morden, Head of House Halbern, assessed him thus:
“An amusing toy you’ve picked up.”

The Duchess of Halbern, whom Mehren saw only once, greeted him with:
“Thank you for befriending that unfortunate child.”

“Mehren, I’ll introduce you to my sister.”
Mehren had already seen Sione—she’d been in the carriage when Valere had picked him up—yet Valere introduced them without hesitation. Sione, whom Valere cherished and followed above all others, wore a complicated expression whenever she looked at Mehren.
“You’re something else.”
“…?”
“You still haven’t run away?”
Mehren couldn’t fathom Sione’s words.
“Run away?”
“Then why do you think I don’t lock the door to your room at night?”
She thought he’d run? Why would he run from a manor as wonderful as this?
“A wonderful manor, you say…”
Sione laughed, as if unsure what expression to make.
“I suppose it must seem that way to you.”
“You feed me, shelter me, and it’s warm. Should I leave?”
“That’s the real question, isn’t it? But if you’re content, there’s no need to go.”
Sione laughed at something, clearly amused.
“You’re the first person I’ve met who doesn’t wish to escape this manor. It’s rather entertaining.”
The more Sione laughed, the more anxious Mehren became.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No.”
Though she was tender and affectionate toward Valere, Sione didn’t seem quite so gentle or kind when addressing Mehren.
This didn’t mean she lacked mercy toward him.
‘No matter how I look at it, she doesn’t seem like the angel Valere describes.’
She was beautiful as an angel, certainly, but each of her actions carried a weight that suggested grave consequences if one were careless.
“If I’ve done something wrong, please tell me.”
“It’s not wrong, so stop acting so submissive. I’m laughing because what you said is right.”
At least of this one thing he could be certain.
Sione did care for Mehren.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have offered such counsel.
“Especially in a rotten household like this—if you keep your head down like that, they’ll devour you whole.”
It was entirely thanks to Sione’s intervention that Mehren could study at all, despite no one in the manor save Valere showing interest in him—that he discovered his own genius.
Though he received instruction alongside Valere, that alone was an extraordinary opportunity for Mehren.
Moreover, the opportunities he gained extended far beyond mere education.
“A commoner? I’ve never seen one before!”
He formed genuine connections not only with Crown Prince Edward, who was Valere’s age, but even with Jaren, Prince of Mubisk.
The process hadn’t been smooth, but Mehren possessed keen intuition even at such a young age, and thus the four soon grew accustomed to one another.
“Do commoners really eat food they find dropped on the street?”
The Crown Prince’s cruel and innocent question caused his attendants to gasp in unison.
“I did eat food I found, but most people buy theirs.”
“Commoners buy food too!”
“Most of us do.”
“Then why did you eat what you found?”
“Because I had no money. I was a beggar.”
“A beggar? What’s a beggar?”
Jaren stepped in.
“Goodness, Your Highness doesn’t know that? A beggar is someone who can’t eat. You can see them in the Capital’s alleyways.”
Valere objected.
“Mehren isn’t a beggar! He eats well at our house now. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“And I’m going to make him not a commoner either. Sister said I can do that when I become Head of House later.”
“What? So he won’t be a commoner for much longer. Aw, that’s a shame.”
The Crown Prince, who had taken pure delight in seeing a commoner for the first time, felt disappointed at Valere’s words.
Sione, hearing this exchange, couldn’t pinpoint where it had all gone wrong, and consequently held a serious parent-teacher conference with the professors overseeing the children’s education that very day.
But these three were truly hopeless.
“I don’t like studying! I want to play with Sister. And Mehren!”
Sister-obsessed Valere, for one.
“I hate studying! I hate swordplay! I hate the Crown Prince! I want to play!”
Edward, forever wanting to play.
“Dragons! I love dragons! Dragons!”
Jaren, who knew nothing but dragons.
Abandoned among these three, Mehren began to worry about this nation’s future from that very moment.
These fools would become the pillars of Albrecht one day?
‘What will become of this country.’
Mehren’s remarkable achievements stemmed not only from his own genius, but also from a mysterious sense of duty—born from witnessing this barren environment—that compelled him to study and eventually contribute to the nation.
“Ooh, oh my! Such accomplishments already—truly, a genius appears perhaps once in a thousand years!”
Professor Nicolo, their tutor, favored Mehren above all.
He had labored to teach the frivolous Crown Prince, Jaren who claimed he needn’t study since he was the second son and would never become Head of House, and Valere whose mind was purely innocent—and after losing his hair to the effort, here stood an obedient, brilliant student.
“My brother is just lazy about studying, but he’s actually quite intelligent.”
Even Sione, who spoke these words, eventually abandoned hope for Valere’s progress and decided simply to nurture Mehren as Valere’s future aide.
Perhaps it was from that point onward that Sione, who had once doted on her brother, began teaching Valere with harsh discipline.
“Sniff.”
“Crying won’t help.”
“But…”
“If you’re my brother, you should be able to manage this much, shouldn’t you?”
“Ugh.”
She succeeded in making Jaren, who had abandoned his studies, take them up again, earning the gratitude of the Duke and Duchess of Mubisk, and even threatened Edward—a boy the entire Imperial Family had given up on—never to visit Halbern if he refused to study. All these were Sione’s achievements.
Sione particularly disliked Edward.
Consequently, whenever Edward encountered her—whether in the Imperial Palace or at another noble’s manor—he felt an inexplicable pressure and flinched.
“You’re getting worse by the day.”
“…? You?”
“Yes, you.”
Edward wanted to protest this rudeness, but the moment his eyes met Sione’s, filled with palpable disdain, he flinched.
“You’ll regret how you’re living one day.”
“…?”
“Tsk, tsk. If only you resembled half of what my dear brother is like.”
Edward felt wronged.
What exactly had he done?!
He didn’t study much, true, and he played outside despite servants’ warnings, yes, and perhaps he did take great interest in the outside world and enjoyed mingling with people—but none of that was wrong, was it?
“Am I the problem?”
So aggrieved, Edward appealed to Valere for sympathy, but his words fell on deaf ears.
Valere, who adored his sister, was someone who would agree with her even if she said she had created the world.
“Yes. You’re the problem. Sister wouldn’t say something wrong.”
“That sister is an idiot!”
Some people don’t have a sister, and here you are complaining about it?!
Edward, who had been sulking, suddenly twisted his face.
“Ah, I don’t have a sister.”
Edward, who had never wanted for anything in his life, now felt sorrow for the first time—sorrow at not having a sister.
“Edward doesn’t have a sister!”
“Heh.”
At Valere’s teasing, Edward pouted.
“Sisters are nothing but a nuisance and a burden. I don’t need one!”
“Really? It’s so nice to have a sister.”
“That’s nice? I don’t need one!”
But Edward did not yet know the future.
He did not know that he would one day write a dark chapter in history, falling so desperately for some woman that he’d weep for her like a sister, his scandal known to all the people.

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