Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 274

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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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274
Episode

The moment I thought I wanted to save everyone no matter what power I used, the world stopped as if by illusion.
Even the stone fragments falling from the ceiling froze, all sound vanished, and the world sank into silence.
‘It’s not Magic.’
And it’s not an ability either.
As the only living, breathing creature in a world where everything had stopped, I could not believe this reality—like a sacred miracle from the gods themselves.
Something impossible had come to pass.
Because I had studied Magic, because I knew more about abilities than anyone else, I could understand just how impossible this situation truly was.
Even the most advanced Magical Engineering had never ventured into the realm of time.
What on earth is this power?
What kind of power could be sleeping inside me?
If just a small manifestation of it could create such a phenomenon, I finally understood why I had been dying simply from possessing this force.
‘What am I?’
Doubt gave way swiftly as my forcibly expanded senses and consciousness stretched out into the world.
‘If it’s now, I think I could do anything.’
Though only for a moment, my existence felt larger than this space itself. Everything in this Ruin seemed smaller than an ant.
So that’s it.
All-knowing, because I could know everything.
All-powerful, because I could do anything.
Perhaps for an instant, I had become a god.
As my being grew so vast, things I had not noticed before became visible. The world beyond the Ruin looked completely different.
‘Were the stars always this close?’
It was a phenomenon my astronomical knowledge could not explain. If the stars were this near, why did they look so small from the ground?
Not just the sky, but the continent too appeared transformed. Beneath the continent, I saw a black power writhing ominously as if ready to devour it at any moment, and lights that fixed the continent and maintained order.
And… several presences as immense and vast as my own.
Two in the north, one in the west, two in the east, one in the south.
‘And one in the sky.’
They were so enormous that ordinary life forms remained ignorant of their very existence, bound by the world’s rules—and that too became visible to my eyes in this moment.
‘……?’
That was when it happened.
As if noticing my gaze, I met another’s eyes.
The instant my eyes locked with those crimson irises, the world trembled.
Thump.
At the same moment, my sense of the world outside the Ruin was severed as if cut off, vanishing entirely.
Thump-thump-thump.
As if urging me on, time began to flow once more within the Ruin.
‘Ah, right. This wasn’t the time to be looking outward.’
I had to save the people.
The hapless souls trapped here in the Ruin, the living people still within, Father, Fession.
Even if it was boundless greed, I didn’t want to watch anyone die in front of me anymore.
‘A way to save them all.’
I wondered if such a thing existed, but there was exactly one solution.
A place that was and was not this place.
I could send them all into the Other Side World.
‘If a Ruin collapses, it’s impossible to extract anyone, but from the Other Side World, getting them out is possible.’
I immediately sent every knight and adventurer wandering through the Ruin, every person brought inside and on the verge of being sacrificed, every soul already harvested by the Ruin—all of them—into the Other Side World.
Only two people remained.
By cruel coincidence, it was Father and Fession.
“I’ll have to find them myself.”
My life is truly never easy.
Click-click-click.
I wedged myself through the collapsing Ruin and forced my way between the rupturing edges of the world.
“Haa…….”
The power that had helped me retreated deep within myself after sending everyone else into the Other Side World, leaving me with nothing to lean on.
I had to find Fession and Father somewhere in this vast, boundless space with only myself.
‘I can do this.’
There was an inexplicable certainty that, even if finding Father would be difficult right now, I could at least find Fession.
Because.
Fession would surely be looking for me too.
‘I can do it.’
To distinguish only the sound I desired from among countless others.
I had practiced this often enough before.
Yet a jumbled sound reached my ears—noise, really, was what it deserved to be called.
It was nearly impossible to perfectly distinguish natural sounds without ‘scale,’ but… I could do it.
Because I possessed Perfect Pitch, able to discern even pitch and timbre.
“-Found you.”

* * *

I had believed I could find him, but when I actually found Fession, inexpressible joy and relief flooded through me.
“Fession!”
It really was Fession.
I had believed I could do it, but to actually succeed—even having done it myself, I felt a bit dumbfounded.
“I came to save you.”
I wondered if it was an illusion, but the warmth I felt in our clasped hands could never be a lie.
“Arelin?”
I carefully observed Fession’s face as he spoke my name, smiling brightly.
Seeing me nod, Fession’s lips trembled.
“Is this a phantom?”
“I’m real.”
“If this is a dream, let me die here in your arms.”
What was he saying?
Fession pulled me into an embrace and spoke nonsense.
“Fession, get your head straight. I went to all this trouble to save you—why on earth are you saying you want to die?”
“It really is you…….”
Fession reached out and touched my face. When I laughed because it tickled, I heard a soft, relieved sigh.
“…It really is Arelin.”
“Yes, it really is me.”
Fession’s lips pressed tightly together. His eyes glistened with welling tears as emotion overwhelmed him.
Even in this dire state, watching Fession display that undying beauty made me laugh for no reason.
“Fession, this is just like the opposite of that time.”
“That time?”
“You know, when I was trapped in the Other Side World at the Imperial Palace.”
The day my entire world turned upside down.
When I shed the shadow of my past life and finally let go of my attachment to my mother.
“Ah.”
Fession’s eyes changed as the memory surfaced.
“You were beautiful then, Arelin.”
“What are you saying? You were beautiful too.”
How radiant and adorable young Fession had been. Even if I forgot everything else, I remembered that much clearly.
Though it feels like such an ancient story now…
“What were you thinking, going to such a dangerous place? Of course I’m glad you came, but…….”
That beautiful voice murmured low.
“Yeah, what was I thinking going there?”
“You’re asking me?”
Fession stared intently at my face.
“I don’t remember. I can’t recall.”
As if genuinely unable to remember, Fession tilted his head.
“…You’re really incredible too.”
As I marveled at this, Fession let out a slight laugh and spoke.
“All I remember is that you cried.”
Fession’s eyes dimmed slightly.
“Saying I was bad.”
When Fession said that, the memory from that time surfaced vividly.
Along with the image of Fession saying he hoped I would be happy.
The same moment, yet what we each remembered was so different.
“You’re still bad now.”
“What?”
“Do you know how much you worried me? I left you behind telling you not to suffer, and then you follow me anyway and put me through all this trouble. You’re the one who’s bad.”
Fession’s expression hardened. Seeing him grow serious, I thought I should stop teasing and let him off—
“Should I kneel?”
At Fession’s earnest words, I burst out laughing.
Ah, really…….
Watching Fession actually kneel the moment the words left his mouth, I laughed again.
Ah, I really shouldn’t forgive him this easily.
“But, Arelin.”
“What?”
“What do we do now?”
Fession pulled me close, watching the surroundings gradually grow more ominous.
The Ruin had not yet fully collapsed.
“I have to find Father.”
Ironically, the reason the Ruin had not completely collapsed was because Father was connected to it.
“How are you going to find him?”
“…Yeah.”
If Father were in his right mind, I could find him the same way I found Fession, but—
“I guess there’s only one way.”
“……?”
I recalled the Corruption that had filled Father’s body. And the other corrupted aura that wrapped around this Ruin.
“Today I’m doing everything Master told me not to do.”
But I had to save Father, didn’t I?
The problem was that the Violin was nowhere to be found.
Should I have left Ether behind and brought it instead?
‘No, there’s a way.’
I had hoped to avoid this method, but…….
The situation was urgent, so I had no choice.
“Uh……?”
Fession’s brow furrowed.
If this place too was the ‘Other Side World,’ then the method I had in mind would surely work.
It was to induce the Other Side World to transform into a ‘Nightmare that could devour me.’
Turning back, a familiar sight greeted me.
The opening scene of an old nightmare.
‘It’s no longer a nightmare or despair anymore, but….’
Because I had overcome it, I could face it this clearly now.
“Fession, do you remember?”
Gleaming stage lights, empty seats, a single blurred figure visible on this stage.
The beginning of my despair.
An old friend who had always waited for me was there.
“Arelin…….”
Even in a grown body, the bow and Violin I grasped for the first time in so long felt utterly natural.
‘I hope Father remembers this music.’
Screeeee-.
A melody full of anticipation, beginning with syncopation in four-four time.
Elgar’s Salut d’Amour resonated far and wide.

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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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