Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 263

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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 263

Meanwhile, at Halbern Manor.
Two people had recently returned to this estate, which had long stood empty save for a caretaker—a place where no one lived.
Mehren, who had settled affairs in El Sionel and returned as Halbern’s proxy, and Ludwig, the Regent Duke, who had just completed a lengthy Closed Meditation.
The manor felt lifeless and oddly chill without Arelin, but neither man harbored the slightest doubt that she would return soon—so they waited, patient and unmoved.
“It’s been about ten days since Arelin left.”
“Yes, roughly that long.”
“Time moves faster than I thought.”
“It does, doesn’t it? A single day feels terribly slow.”
“…It’s taking quite a while.”
“It may take even longer.”
Mehren’s expression hardened as he recalled the answer he’d heard directly from the Magic Tower.
The Grand Mage herself had declared that it was “no easy task.”
‘Gairen has been sealed, and the situation has grown more tangled.’
The state of affairs in Albrecht was becoming exceedingly complicated.
The Barrier surrounding Gairen had suddenly transformed into a Seal, the Sky Tower had come to the fore, and voices were rising—suggesting that the entire crisis stemmed from the Magic Tower itself.
Long-suppressed grievances against mages erupted all at once, and some voices grew shrill with extremist demands to drive the mages out, lending the atmosphere an ominous quality.
‘And of all times, His Highness Fession had to be in Gairen when it happened…’
The Imperial Palace now teetered on thin ice.
Some courtiers clamored for the Seal around Gairen to be broken immediately and the Crown Prince retrieved, while others stood in opposition, arguing for contingencies should the Crown Prince never return.
“It’s as though chaos has been waiting for this very moment, striking from all sides.”
Yesterday, no less, Empress Azeni had been attacked while attending a charitable event.
An unknown organization had used Special Abilities and Magic to strike; the assassin’s blade had pierced even the Royal Guard’s protection, bringing the Empress to the very brink of death—a harrowing moment indeed.
But then, thanks to a gift from Arelin, she had survived.
Mehren ran his hand along his jaw as he read the personal letter from Empress Azeni now in his possession.
In it, the Empress expressed her gratitude and indicated her desire to repay the debt—asking that when Arelin returned, she bring this letter and visit the Empress Palace.
As Halbern’s proxy, Mehren read the Empress’s formal letter addressed to Arelin, unable to shake an uneasy feeling.
‘So Arelin gave her an Artifact before she left…’
“At least that’s fortunate. Had the Empress been killed or fallen into critical condition at such a time, the chaos would have been far worse.”
Mehren nodded in agreement with the Regent Duke’s offhand observation.
“Indeed… it would hardly have ended as a minor disturbance.”
The very thought made his stomach turn.
What manner of havoc might have unfolded?
‘Surely Arelin couldn’t have foreseen all this.’
Was it truly mere coincidence?
Mehren sank into thought.
The minor disturbances now emerging across the realm seemed almost trivial by comparison.
Even as he reviewed the Saren Knights’ reinforcement request that had arrived with the letter—claiming that monsters in the Northern Fortress had become too numerous and more soldiers were desperately needed—his mind lingered elsewhere.
“Your Grace, the Regent Duke.”
“What is it?”
“Is there nothing you wish to tell me?”
The Regent Duke Ludwig maintained an air of composure that struck Mehren as peculiar today—more peculiar than usual, given that he was a man of short patience and poor temperament. At Mehren’s prodding, the Regent Duke merely shrugged.
“Now that you mention it, the Sacred Relic I gave to Arelin—was it truly just a souvenir you bought in Lemuren?”
When Mehren posed this question that had suddenly occurred to him, Ludwig let out a hollow laugh.
“How could it be?”
“Then…?”
“For all its appearance, it’s a genuine Sacred Relic, even blessed by the Saint herself. It even contains bone fragments of the previous Saint—the real thing.”
Mehren’s eyes widened in surprise.
A Sacred Relic containing bone fragments of the Saint would be one of only a handful in all of Lemuren City-State.
“How in the world did you obtain such a precious object?”
“Fortunate timing.”
It was a treasure that could hardly be described as mere luck.
The Lemuren City-State was renowned for never allowing genuine Sacred Relics to leave its borders.
Mehren continued to regard him with skeptical eyes, but Ludwig merely shrugged once more.
“I’m afraid I cannot tell you more than that. A most esteemed person made a request of me—to pass it on to Arelin, they said.”
“A most esteemed person…?”
Ludwig recalled what had happened to him before he departed Lemuren.
His private audience with seven Saints, their eyes bound.
“…I do hope the Sacred Relic proves as helpful as the Saints said it would be.”

* * *

Honestly, I thought Father wouldn’t recognize me.

When our eyes met, I froze as though bewitched, and I thought then that even if Father’s blade struck me down, there was nothing I could do about it.
But…
“…Father?”
His reaction was strange.
He hadn’t recognized me.
The cold emanating from the blade still pressed against my neck made every hair on my body stand on end.
And yet.

I could see Father’s hand trembling as he gripped the sword.
A face I hadn’t seen in so long was right before me. Had he grown gaunt?
That face, which had once been so strikingly beautiful that everyone who saw it wanted to make it their shop sign, had changed. Perhaps he’d gone hungry—his features had sharpened, and his expression had grown far colder.
His breathing was rough, labored.
I could see his chest heaving sharply.
“Run! Get out of there now!”
I heard Luca’s urgent voice calling to me, but truthfully, I wasn’t listening.
Why had I come all this way if not to find someone?
“Father.”

“Why are you like this? It’s breaking my heart.”
Father had always been trying so hard to save me.
That realization weighed heavily upon me.
“Who do you think is going to recognize all this effort you’re putting in? Hmm?”
His eyes suddenly seemed to focus, landing on me. Father’s gaze filled with confusion.
His eyes were wildly searching, as though mistaking me for someone else.
“…Sister?”
I’d been curious about what would happen when I met Father, and now I had my answer.
“Why are you here? No… this is an illusion.”
Father shook his head, then his expression hardened as if he’d understood something.
“Disappear.”
“Father.”
I grabbed his arm as he lowered his sword and stepped back.
‘How cold…’
A ruined, unimaginable aura flowed from the arm I was holding—one I couldn’t believe belonged to a living person.
It was like a straw doll that had been drained of all its life force.
‘This is…’
As I focused to examine Father’s aura more closely, a different energy suddenly erupted from his body like a surge.
“Ugh.”
I was startled to see Father clutching his head in agony.
‘This is Contamination.’
Father’s body was Contaminated? But Father isn’t even a mage.
And yet, no matter how I considered it, the thick, repulsive aura filling Father’s body was unmistakably Contamination.
How did this happen?
As I tried to step closer for a better look, Father knocked my hand away and put distance between us.
“Don’t come near me.”
I had no choice but to stop—the blade was pointed directly at me.
“Father…”
Why was he doing this?
Father shuddered as though he’d encountered something frightening, and he withdrew from me.

And then he vanished.
A low, resonant hum.
The moment Father disappeared, the Necklace around my neck began to glow once more. As I grasped it and reflected on the aura I’d sensed, Luca, who had been watching from afar, crept slowly toward me.
“W-what just happened? Why did the Ruins Demon just leave like that?”
So Father was called the Ruins Demon here as well.
“What in the world…?”
“I don’t know either.”
But I knew exactly what I needed to do now to save Father.
“Luca, take me to the Ruins of Gairen where it erupted.”
There isn’t much time left.
Finally, I could see a thread to follow.

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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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