Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 266
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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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266
Episode
In the depths of the Ruin.
Mages in black Robes maintained the Magic Circle, cold sweat pouring down their faces, when they all coughed blood simultaneously and collapsed.
Whoooooom—.
The Ruin’s energy shook unstably, rippling with ominous intent.
For a brief moment, the Ruin’s operation ceased.
Cheiyen, the man controlling all of this, wrapped his core in even thicker fog and let out a hollow laugh.
“…Ha.”
There was no way someone could interfere. Was it because his calculated plan had gone awry?
Cheiyen, seized by a sensation that was fresh and new yet deeply unpleasant, murmured the name he’d been turning over in his mind.
“Arelin.”
The Singularity he had discovered.
At the same time, the stubborn child who had rejected his proposal.
A fragile life that possessed the potential to change the Fate of this world, yet was too weak to awaken that power.
Recalling the child who had reverted to a younger form, who had humored his childish games, yet had never grasped his hand to the very end, Cheiyen’s expression hardened.
“She should have been dead.”
In Arelin, Cheiyen had seen a definitive Fate of death.
An ending branded by this world itself, by none other.
Such a definitive death was not something a mere human could escape.
“She’s alive?”
That couldn’t be.
Cheiyen understood the binding force of Destiny that this world wielded.
‘There were essentially only two ways for Arelin to escape death.’
Either she had become an Immortal like him, unable to die even if she died, or else……
“She had become someone’s Servant.”
The former was virtually impossible.
If not, then she had become someone’s Servant.
‘Was it Sloth?’
Cheiyen recalled the most merciful Immortal among those known to exist.
‘No, Sloth doesn’t have the capacity to create Servants.’
Why was her epithet “Sloth,” then?
It was an epithet reflecting the karma she had accumulated, unable to finish what needed finishing.
‘The karma of failing to kill those she should have killed, of sparing them instead. Because of that karma, she had chosen to seal herself, suppressing something beneath her own grade.’
The reason Sloth, using the Central Continent as her base, had not moved a single step from her domain within the Imperial Palace was because she was suppressing ‘something’ lurking beneath her grade through force of will.
If so, the candidates narrowed considerably.
‘Had she fortunately encountered the Wandering Hope?’
The Wandering Hope—an epithet born from the legend that should one encounter her, she would surely grant a single wish.
Yet that same Immortal was impossibly rare to meet.
‘And it doesn’t seem likely that Lemuren’s last god would have helped, difficult as it is to maintain her own grade…’
Besides, if she had become a god’s Servant, Lemuren would have already taken her away.
One of the remaining two despises humans, the other, no word can be had.
The last one left was only my Master.
“No, it’s absolutely not my Master.”
Cheiyen was confident that he knew the Grand Mage Mercedes better than anyone.
After all, she was the one who had made him ‘this way’, only to regret it afterward.
He had absolute conviction that his Master would never break the oath she had sworn never to interfere in mortal affairs again.
Whoooom, whoom—.
The Ruin’s energy wavered dangerously. It seemed something was happening in the abyss far deeper than the depths of the Ruin.
“Cough, our black star.”
Even as they lay convulsing, the mages maintaining the Magic Circle reached out their hands toward Cheiyen.
“What, what should we do……”
Cheiyen observed them with an expressionless gaze.
“Keep it maintained.”
“But, but at this rate we’ll all die!”
Cheiyen looked down at the mage who was barely managing to voice his opinion with a pale, drained face, his demeanor utterly indifferent.
The mage swallowed dryly as he met those emotionless eyes, like staring at a passing pebble.
“And what’s the problem with that?”
“Y-yes?”
“I’ll revive you if you die.”
What this Ruin produced was no mere Revival.
“When a god is born, Revival is nothing at all.”
What was the point of opening Gates connected to Parallel Dimensions, collecting the souls of the living and Sacrifices to present at the Altar?
It was to pay the price for creating a ‘god’ in a world where gods did not exist.
Whoooooooooom.
As the energy pulsed more strongly than before, Cheiyen’s attention turned. Something had indeed gone wrong in the Ruin’s abyss.
It was a place ordinary humans could not possibly reach.
“I’ll have to go myself.”
* * *
Fession had assumed the world beyond the Gate would be a barren, desolate place where no one could live.
So he had plunged through with the resolve to endure whatever unbearable thing might emerge.
“This place is……”
But the landscape that unfolded before his eyes was entirely different from his expectations.
Chirping birds, the refreshing sound of water spouting from a fountain, trees and grass meticulously tended and releasing a verdant fragrance.
Warm golden sunlight pouring down and the touch of cool, clear air.
How could he not recognize this place?
‘It’s the Garden of Halbern Manor.’
He couldn’t fathom how he’d encountered such a view from the Gate he’d leapt through searching for Arelin, but this world allowed him no time for contemplation.
“Who are you?”
A small figure hiding in the grass peeked its head out cautiously.
A body so thin it was unclear whether she’d eaten, yet with plump cheeks that were endearingly cute……
“…Arelin?”
A young Arelin, barely six years old, widened her eyes at the sight of Fession.
* * *
For reasons he couldn’t explain, Fession thought he had fallen into the past.
If that weren’t the case, there was no realistic way he could be meeting a six-year-old Arelin right now.
“……”
So cute.
Fession, observing the young Arelin who was pretending not to watch him while peeking from a distance, felt his clenched fists tremble.
The young Arelin was so cute he feared he might accidentally damage the walls of Halbern Manor if he wasn’t careful.
‘Was Arelin always this cute?’
He’d thought she was beautiful, but never cute.
Perhaps that was because he too had been young back then.
“Arelin.”
The Arelin who had been watching him in secret disappeared. The way she hid only her face, the way an innocent child would, was so adorable that Fession was verging on destroying something again.
‘Stay calm.’
Fession clenched his fists tightly and took a deep breath, steadying himself.
Even though Arelin possessed enough cuteness to shatter the universe. Even though his heart seemed already broken and conquered……
He had to overcome this crisis somehow.
She was already wary of him like a kitten with its fur standing on end—he couldn’t do anything more to raise her guard.
“Hello. Your brother isn’t a suspicious person.”
“…Everyone who talks like that is suspicious, they said.”
“Mm.”
The young Arelin spoke well. What she said was right, and Fession couldn’t refute it. If he misspoke here and caused Arelin to misunderstand, something terrible might happen later.
Fession smoothly changed the subject.
“But are you alone here?”
In Fession’s memory, Arelin was always with the Childcare Unit.
How many times had he witnessed the gentle yet resolute smiles of the maids and butlers who were constantly at her side?
‘But why doesn’t anyone appear?’
Arelin opened her mouth to speak, her lips moving uncertainly.
Perhaps it was because he remembered Arelin as always listless and detached. That expression felt strangely unfamiliar to Fession.
“It’s that……”
Arelin, fidgeting with her fingers, clamped her lips shut again.
Unlike the now-serious Fession, worried her lips might be hurt, young Arelin seemed serious about something else entirely.
“…I’m always alone.”
“What? Why are you alone?”
Arelin looked at Fession as if to ask why he was asking such a thing.
“What’s so curious about it? I’m always alone, so what? Who are you, anyway? And what are you doing here? Did you get permission from Mehren?”
“Uncle……”
Her pointed, articulate question directed at a stranger was sharp and endearing, but because it came from none other than young Arelin herself, the blow of being called “uncle” was too great to recover from.
The cruelest part was that he couldn’t even deny it.
‘By her age, I really am an uncle to her.’
Seeing how visibly shocked Fession was, Arelin’s demeanor softened slightly as she issued a warning.
“You shouldn’t be here. Our house has a spell on it—outsiders die… wait? How are you alive?”
Arelin’s eyes widened as she seemed to grasp something. Fession already knew he wasn’t affected by Halbern’s Outsider Magic because he was of royal blood, but to an Arelin who knew nothing, it seemed to be a shocking revelation.
“Want to know?”
Arelin nodded.
“Then promise you’ll do cardio and strength training regularly and eat three square meals with protein as the main part of your diet, and I’ll tell you.”
With a touch of playfulness mixed into his genuine tone, Arelin’s expression changed instantly.
“Uncle, you’re a muscle dummy?”
Arelin quickly backed away, widening the distance, and Fession’s expression turned forlorn.
“Go away.”
…He’d been rejected.
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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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