Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 276

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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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276
Chapter

Boom-boom-boom.
The dark mages realized something had gone wrong the moment the Ruin began to shake.
All of them had once been Star-rank mages before becoming dark mages.
This was why they could perceive the current situation faster than anyone else.
‘The Nightmare of Stars has abandoned us.’
“What… what should we do now?”
The dark mages, understanding they had been forsaken, ceased their ritual and stood frozen. An uncomfortable silence fell among them.
Boom!
All they heard was the sound of the Ruin collapsing.
Suddenly, someone burst into laughter.
“Ha ha ha.”
The other dark mages snapped to attention at the sight of their leader laughing as if possessed by madness.
“We have to get out of here now!”
“Does anyone know the way out?!”
“Damn it, which way is the exit?”
As the dark mages scattered, desperately trying to survive, the leader—who had been laughing hollow—fell silent.
“So we were abandoned after all.”
His eyes grew hollow.
“Did we break our convictions only to end up like this?”
Even a rotten fish is still a fish, and he—the most skilled among them—already knew that escaping the Ruin was impossible. Their efforts were futile.
In this moment, when he should sit quietly and prepare for the death that approached, he could not help but feel utterly degraded.

* * *

While the dark mages panicked and searched for their own way out, Gremwart sat lost in thought at the edge of the Altar.
“Jaylo…”
On the Altar lay his eldest son, his eyes gently closed. To the eye, he seemed merely asleep—but the man’s heart had stopped.
Gremwart knew something had gone terribly wrong. Yet he did not search for his own escape. From the moment he had entered this place, he had harbored no desire to survive, no matter how things unfolded.
“Jaylo.”
Truth be told, Gremwart—Gregory by birth—had never much favored his eldest son.
Jaylo was conscientious but lacked ambition, meticulous but lacked boldness.
For a man born into a house of adventurers who explored the unknown across generations, the absence of ambition and boldness was as grave a flaw as any.
Gremwart had shown more affection toward his dissolute but ambitious second son, and his scatterbrained youngest, who possessed a keen instinct and acted with daring.
He had believed his second and third sons would accomplish greater things than his eldest, whose vessel was too small.

“My lord, disaster! The young master—!”

So when word came of his eldest son’s death, Gremwart found himself bewildered in a way he could not understand.
At his firstborn’s funeral—the body far too intact to have died from an accident in a Ruin—the lord still could not accept his son’s passing.
No matter how wanting, how inadequate, his eldest had always been the heir who would follow in his footsteps.
The second son had ambition but lacked the capacity to govern a household; the third was bold but so reckless he could not sit still with documents. Both were far lesser heirs than his dead firstborn.
Only then did Gremwart understand how perfectly his eldest son had suited the role of duke.
While sorting through his son’s effects, he found more than a shelf’s worth of handwritten adventure journals and traces of study. Only then did he truly comprehend what an exceptional heir he had lost.
At the sight of his son’s earnest efforts—laboring day and night to become worthy of the father he admired—Gremwart wept bitterly.
Never once had he offered a kind word, a single word of praise.
When he realized what a wretched father he had been, it was far too late.

“Don’t you wonder what secret lies hidden in your eldest son’s death?”

And so he fell prey to the Grand Duke of Halbern’s seductive whisper, spoken with profound significance—even knowing it would birth fresh discord among his remaining children.
The secret concealed in his eldest’s death was something Gremwart himself had suspected all along.
Something involving the second and third sons…
Gremwart felt only sorrow at the tragedy that had become reality.
He had praised the second son’s ambition rather than reprimand him for openly eyeing the heir’s seat; he had praised the third son’s gains rather than teach him to value human life, even as his companions suffered and perished on their ventures. He felt himself to be the root cause of all these calamities.

“My lord, you must appoint a successor.”

And so Gremwart resolved to pass the duchy to his eldest grandchild.
In so doing, he discovered what he still could do.

“Somewhere in this world, there is said to exist a Ruin capable of reviving the dead.”

Even knowing he was being manipulated like a puppet in the Grand Duke of Halbern, Morden’s grasp, he was powerless to resist.
What the man proposed was something Gremwart himself desired.
Gremwart, who had dwelt in the main manor like a cripple, had taken to seeking Ruins once more for a single reason: the hope that his eldest son might be restored to life.
When Morden fell under mysterious circumstances, the figure who appeared before him—lost and adrift—introduced himself as an Immortal called the Nightmare of Stars.
Gremwart knew that this Immortal too was merely using him, yet it scarcely mattered to him.
“Jaylo, my son…”
His already aged flesh drew ever closer to death.
A man who had been one of the Five Great Duchy Houses, master of the Adventurers Guild, and a legendary adventurer who had conquered Ruins and forbidden grounds across the world—now he staked everything on a final, desperate gamble.
Uuu-boom.
He already knew the method to invoke a miracle. After all, it was he who had excavated this very Ruin.
Now, with the Immortal gone, the moment had come to accomplish what he had deferred.
The blood-soaked Altar shone with ominous light. As Gremwart offered himself, he beseeched whatever god dwelt in this Ruin.
Let my son live.

* * *

I found Father.
It had been desperately close.
There was a moment when I wavered, wondering if I should give up the performance and return with Fession alone—but Father appeared like a miracle.
“Father!”
I had ventured this idea thinking it might be possible precisely because this place was not reality but a sort of Other Side World, and I was astonished that it had worked.
Since I had no direct way to find him, I chose to perform, hoping he would come to me.
Perhaps chance layered upon chance, or perhaps I needed an extraordinary stroke of luck—but in this moment, against all odds, I had found Father.
“Arelin…”
Unlike before, when Father had not recognized me, his eyes changed the moment he saw me.
Why did that fill my chest with such emotion?
“Father, are you all right?”
Father looked in worse condition than when I had seen him last. The Corruption that had ravaged his body was gone, but his physical state was dire.
Had Father not been so strong, it would be strange if he were still alive.
“I need to get Father out of here quickly.”
“Arelin, do you have a way?”
Fession looked at me with worry.
“A way? There is a way.”
Truth be told, this was something I had considered as an escape method ever since I was first trapped in the Ruin. I had not dared attempt it because the danger was too great—but somehow, things had come to this.
“Fession, all of Halbern share a common inherent ability.”
Who am I? The eldest daughter of Halbern.
All those born of Halbern blood inherited this ability across generations.
It was none other than the Secret Keeper and the Key Inheritor.
‘This Key Inheritor is not merely an ability that opens the doors of a secret archive.’
The ultimate reason Father had been able to navigate the Other Side World safely.
Yes, that’s right. Halbern’s ability was to open the door that led from the Other Side World back to reality.
“…!”
Truth be told, had Father been in decent condition, I would have asked him to do it.
‘There’s no other choice.’
I let out a heavy sigh as I watched Father, who lost consciousness the moment he saw me and now leaned against Fession.
My life has never been easy, I’ll say that much.
“Will you be all right?”
Fession asked me, perhaps sensing my hesitation.
“I have to be, whether I’m all right or not.”
I’m already worried because I’ve broken so many of my master’s prohibitions today.
‘Die here or die escaping—’
No, wait. If we escape and die, at least we’ll have saved other people, so that’s something, isn’t it?
Either way, I didn’t want to die in this damned Other Side World.
“Arelin. Perhaps we should seek another way—”
“No. This is the best we have.”
In the moment I felt something slip away and a slight dizziness overtake me.
A long rift opened before me.

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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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