Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 273
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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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273
Episode
—Crumble, crumble, crumble.
The Ruins were collapsing from within.
She’d been breaking apart the Ruins while severing the connections to the Parallel World, yes, but she’d never intended to bring them down in such a complete cascade.
“That troll bastard, next time I see him I won’t let him off easy—!”
She didn’t know exactly what Cheiyen had done, but one thing was certain.
The Ruins would collapse entirely, and everyone inside would be buried with them.
But there was an even larger problem.
‘The connections to the Parallel World are breaking apart.’
As the connections severed—click by click—the presence of her father and Fession, which had grown steadily clearer, now began to blur again.
‘This can’t be happening.’
If things continued this way, both her father and Fession would become trapped in the Dimensional Gap—a desperate, life-or-death situation.
Her father’s location.
Fession’s location.
And the countless people trapped in the Ruins, along with the very souls the Ruins had consumed.
‘Can I really save them all?’
Suddenly, Master’s words came back to her.
“I taught you healing magic for a reason, but you’d do well not to use Magic if you can help it.”
“Why not?”
It was something Master had said in passing when she was first learning Magic, enthusiastically casting spell after spell, drunk on the thrill of it all.
“Because your Innate Power is something even I struggle to contain.”
Back then, she hadn’t understood what those words meant.
Thump, thump, thump.
A vast force pulsing from within.
She felt it now—an enormous power sleeping in the deepest reaches of herself, so massive it was impossible even to fathom.
A force that could shatter her body and destroy her if she lost control.
‘I could die.’
She knew it instinctively.
If she tried to draw upon this power, her body wouldn’t be able to endure it.
It wasn’t a failing on her part—it was simply that the power itself was too ferocious, too immense; using it at all would have that consequence.
“Under no circumstances should you ever use it.”
Master’s words—use Magic instead, but never, ever use your Innate Power.
Yet at the same time, the fact that such a ferocious force had lain dormant and quiet within her for twenty-two years made her feel as though there was some will protecting her, some intention behind it.
Help me.
I want to save them.
In that moment.
The world stopped.
* * *
Fession immediately sensed that the path created by the wandering hope was no ordinary thing.
Familiar yet strange landscapes unfolded on either side of the shimmering passage.
Scenes from the Imperial Palace where he’d lived his entire life, from the Albrecht Empire, and from places around the world he’d never visited.
Fession’s childhood, his adulthood, his life until death—all repeating endlessly there.
With each step along the path, another world appeared, and with a few more steps, yet another emerged.
Countless worlds repeated in endless succession.
‘Who is it that keeps repeating these worlds?’
Not that he cared, really.
An ordinary person would never experience in a lifetime what he was experiencing multiple times, yet Fession felt no stirring of emotion whatsoever.
The world’s destruction?
It must have happened at some point. He simply hadn’t known it would be his generation’s fate.
The Abyss in the north being the Dragon’s realm, and them causing havoc?
Humanity had long suspected that something might occur in the Abyss eventually. Wasn’t that the fundamental reason for building the Northern Fortress?
Learning that the cause was Dragons was surprising, but only that.
His mother passing and Emperor Edward becoming a tyrant didn’t surprise him either—Edward was someone who needed Empress Azeni to function properly, after all.
When the Blessing vanished and the Southern Empire collapsed with the death of all its royal line, he’d merely thought that land had always lived complacently, relying only on the Blessing, so it was fitting.
The Uyo Alliance tearing itself apart over tribal conflict, the World Tree burning as a result—it all seemed like things that could plausibly happen.
To Fession, it was all simply ‘misfortune that could occur anywhere’.
From childhood until now, there had been only one being whose nature and truth remained forever mysterious to him.
‘Arelin.’
He’d known from their very first meeting—or rather, before they’d even met—that Arelin was no ordinary person.
She was far too different from the other children her age.
Unlike other children, who were delighted simply that he spoke to them and welcomed his attention, Arelin neither welcomed his words nor enjoyed being seen by him.
How could such a thing be?
Having never encountered “such a person” before, Fession had mistaken her discomfort for shyness.
But Arelin had been genuinely unease in his presence.
If he’d known that truth, would he have kept his distance?
‘No.’
Of this one thing he could be certain: no matter how much Arelin hurt him or pushed him away, he would have always approached her with a smile.
He simply could not look away.
Sometimes because she seemed so fragile.
Sometimes because she seemed so precarious.
Sometimes because he feared that the moment he blinked, she’d vanish somewhere beyond reach.
When he found himself wondering what this feeling was, the Twins had asked him:
“Your Highness, why do you like Arelin so much?”
It was then that he’d understood.
He was constantly thinking of Arelin, wanting to see her, talking about nothing but her, pondering how he might meet her.
Why? He didn’t know.
It simply felt natural, as though it were a given—and to him, it was entirely self-evident.
So.
“So Your Highness really does love Miss Arelin!”
Hearing those words from the Twins, he’d understood.
Ah, so I love Arelin.
A girl he didn’t even know existed until recently—someone he’d encountered by pure chance, just once.
And yet he could never return to a time when he didn’t know her.
That’s what love was.
“Might it not be merely a passing fancy?”
When Fession had only begun to realize his feelings for Arelin, he’d overheard ladies of the court saying such things, and the memory still rankled him.
Some suggested that, like the wandering hope put it, because everything had come easily to him in life, he’d become fixated on Arelin, the one thing that was difficult.
They claimed that because he’d never struggled or deliberated over anything in particular and found everything effortless, some stubbornness had taken root when faced with the first real hardship of his life.
‘Who lives such an easy life, really.’
It was Arelin who had it easy—her body might be weak, but she could interpret any foreign language effortlessly, and she read difficult texts fluently, things that even he struggled with.
He’d immediately refuted such talk, of course.
But there were moments when he’d wavered, wondering inwardly: ‘Was that true?’
Was he truly drawn to Arelin simply because everything came so easily to him?
But then.
“Fession.”
A soft smile, a tender voice.
Eyes sparkling beautifully in the brilliant sunlight.
He would have given a fortune to live in this moment forever, would have gladly forgone the throne.
A single glance, a single smile—and the world transformed.
So beautiful.
Even the way she called his name was beautiful.
This heart could not be mere stubbornness, could not be something so shallow.
“Fession?”
At her voice calling his name, the world awakened, and at the sight of her eyes, he could breathe again.
Ah, it was finished.
His life was ruined now.
He couldn’t live without her anymore.
This heart had grown too vast to be contained in something as simple as “I love you”.
He should have stepped back then.
Should have run back to a world without her.
But regret, no matter how keen, came too late.
Fession grew afraid.
Terrified.
He’d never trembled the day he first hunted a monster, yet now, facing someone weaker and smaller than himself, he was paradoxically petrified.
What if he lost her?
What if she vanished?
What if she died?
What would become of him without her?
But could he flee now?
How could he possibly do such a thing?
Whether his overwhelming heart spilled out, or the feelings stacked carefully within him finally collapsed—
Fession had always wished for one thing alone.
For Arelin to always be happy.
And if he could add just a touch of selfishness to that wish:
That he always be at her side.
“Arelin…”
Those words he’d spoken—that it didn’t matter if you were a ghost, someone from another world, or a monster come to devour him—had been the truest thing he’d ever said.
After all, someone who wielded Magic so freely, interpreted every foreign language with such ease, and could play music that most people had never even heard of in their entire lives couldn’t possibly be an ordinary person.
Each time he discovered another facet of Arelin’s uniqueness, Fession felt only dread.
Fear that this very specialness would make her leave him.
I don’t care about your identity, nor do I need to know your secrets—I could spend my whole life ignorant of them. Even if I’ve been deceived by some sweet illusion, I don’t mind. In fact, I’d be willing to smile and let myself be deceived forever.
So.
—Thump.
That was when the change occurred.
The moment the rippling landscape suddenly stilled, just as though the world itself had stopped—
A figure appeared.
Like a miracle.
“Fession—!”
How could he not love this person?
“I came to save you.”
Fession took the hand Arelin reached out to him, and he closed his eyes.
Thinking that he would gladly die in this embrace.
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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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