Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 277

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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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277
Chapter

Before the Albrecht Empire was founded, the Central Continent was said to be a cursed land that no one could approach.
Five heroes who aided the first emperor in taming and purifying that barren, cursed earth, laying the foundation stone of the empire.
The houses they established were the Five Great Duchy Houses of the Albrecht Empire—destined to wield eternal power beneath the empire’s radiance.
The process by which they obtained their Innate Powers was recorded nowhere, but by now even the absolute majority of commoners knew roughly what the Innate Powers of the Five Great Houses were.
All save one: Halbern.
‘Most Innate Powers are intuitive, clear, and powerful.’
Halbern’s Innate Power shared only one trait with the others: it was powerful.
Unlike the other Innate Powers, Halbern’s was mostly covert and ambiguous.
Like the Key Successor ability I’m wielding right now.
‘At first, I thought it just meant I could enter secret vaults.’
As long as it was a hidden place, this ability let me slip through anywhere. Until now, I’d only used it to enter the Grand Mage’s Domain without my master’s permission.
“A rift….”
Fession turned his head to look at me, startled by the rift that had suddenly appeared.
I pressed my hand against the rift, my expression even graver than before.
A rift that hasn’t fully opened isn’t yet a “door.” I need to open the rift to the place I want—only then will the true “door” be complete.
And that was the real problem.
‘I have to open the door to the world I came from.’
This task was like anchoring a ghost to a coordinate system.
The problem was that I’d passed through too many worlds. I had no idea where to aim.
‘If I open it wrong, maybe we’ll all die together in some void.’
Or the door could open in the middle of an ocean or buried underground—drowning or suffocation.
‘There’s no time.’
I had to open the “door” before the survivors were devoured by this wretched Other Side World.
‘This is truly awful.’
It felt like we’d just finished basic arithmetic and suddenly jumped straight into calculus.
‘I wish I had some kind of signpost.’
Or even just someone to help me!
I glanced sideways at Father.
Somewhere along the way, he’d become the sleeping princess, leaning on Fession for support.
Right. I abandoned hope quickly.
Father seemed far too incompetent for his title, but it was probably just my imagination.
Almost involuntarily, I thought of my previous life’s father. The one who’d followed my mother around saying, “Our daughter is such a good girl, so you understand your father, right?” at every turn.
‘…Father wins by an overwhelming margin.’
I didn’t even need to compare him to my past-life father—just the thought of Ludwig, the Regent Duke who’d kidnapped me, made Father seem like the victor.
“…Well.”
I forgave him.
After all, he’d ended up like this trying to save me.
Tingle.
The rift began to open further, sending a prickling sensation up my arm.
‘Not yet. I haven’t found the coordinates.’
Finding my way through the void on the other side of the rift felt hopelessly vast—not even like searching across an ocean, but across the entire universe for Earth.
‘The other survivors…won’t be any help.’
These poor survivors, experiencing both the unprecedented ordeal of a Ruin abduction and the rare adventure of touring the Other Side World, were doing their part just by avoiding being consumed by this realm.
I turned my thoughts inward, frantically mobilizing everything I knew.
‘Inside the Ruin.’
This was clearly a space different from reality. Among all the places I knew, the most similar to the inside of a Ruin was probably the Grand Mage’s Domain where I’d recovered under my master’s care.
‘A space that runs by different rules than reality, yet remains stable.’
So what of the Other Side World we’re trapped in now?
‘No rules, dangerous, unstable.’
The “here” that Fession came from was oddly more stable, but only for now.
I turned over the facts I’d learned since arriving here.
Regression, destruction, gods, divinity.
‘Seems like I’ve only accumulated useless knowledge that has nothing to do with survival.’
Suddenly, I had an extraordinary realization.
Maybe I was… a Troll.
A capital-T Troll.
Oh, I might actually be one of those internet trolls who’d set the whole forum on fire.
‘But it’s all true, anyway. I didn’t say a single false thing.’
Even if I was an extra somehow more protagonist-like than the heroine—with secret origins and drawing the love and attention of Immortals—the fact remained that right now I was facing death in this wretched place.
‘Maybe I’ll just have to drop caution and open a door to anywhere?’
My heart began to race.
Quick passage to a strange location versus careful passage that takes longer.
If the Saren Knights were here, this would be an easy gamble to make.
‘Master!’
Why won’t you help me now?
No—if it were just me, Father, and Fession, I’d open the door trusting in our abilities, but thousands of survivors have their lives riding on this. I can’t make that choice lightly.
No matter how great a mage I am, I can’t rescue thousands from the void or the ocean or the earth all at once.
“Maybe there’s no other way.”
Should I accept casualties and just open a door anywhere?
That’s when it happened.
Flash.
In that instant, an overwhelmingly strong call reached me from beyond the rift.

* * *

The sealed city of Gairen.
Luca’s eyes opened in an alley somewhere in that city. When he staggered into the plaza, it was bright daylight, yet the city stretched empty and desolate before him.
‘Why am I here?’
Luca’s last memory was of walking toward Arelin inside the Mage Tower.
Luca moved his hand. He felt as though he’d experienced death. Yet now he was alive.
‘Arelin….’
He thought of Arelin, who’d been with him until the end, but she was nowhere to be found. It felt like a dream. A dream where he kept meeting Arelin.
‘Was that… another world?’
Knowledge that wasn’t his own surfaced in his mind.
‘The city’s time has stopped.’
Such an absurdly high-level spell, Luca couldn’t even attempt to comprehend it.
Luca searched his memory. Somehow, it felt as though he’d known this would happen.
Naturally, almost mechanically, Luca returned to the Mage Tower and found a mage in its highest chamber sitting as if asleep—a corpse.
‘Jemello.’
Luca had no difficulty remembering the mage’s name.
A Star-rank Mage dispatched to this city. He’d knowingly sacrificed his life to seal this cursed city.
“Ah.”
The memory returned.
The voice that had called him endlessly.
– Luca.
A mysterious, sacred call—or perhaps the voice of a demon.
Luca had been entranced by that voice and left the Mage Tower. And then….
Luca’s gaze turned toward Jemello’s Staff. He had no strength to grip anything, yet with trembling hands he barely managed to seize it.
– Become a beacon.
For a moment, he wanted to flee.
But ironically, he could not.
He didn’t understand what this sacred voice asked of him. But somehow, Luca knew he had to do this.
Gripping the high-grade Staff that amplified a mage’s Mana, Luca steadied his breath.
Hummmm.
The Staff began to sing.
There were no prescribed incantations or grandiose spells. Not Magic, but something like a prayer—Luca yearned, again and again.
For someone to return here.
Mana carrying his wish scattered, unable to cohere. Yet Luca scraped together his final reserves of Mana, yearning and yearning still. It looked almost like supplication.
Luca hoped for someone’s return. He didn’t know who that someone was, but he wished—desperately wished—for their return.
So that they could come back, so that he could become a beacon and shine his light.
But no matter how much Mana he gathered, his wish would not become Magic.
Then Luca remembered why he’d first wanted to become a mage.
He’d wanted to save people too.
‘Did I want to be a hero?’
No. His reasons weren’t so grand. He’d simply wanted to prove that even this humble life had meaning, that by saving others he could prove his own life held value.
To whom?
In a flash, Luca understood the true nature of the voice he’d heard.
For some reason, Luca looked upward. To see a sky he could not perceive.
Starlight fell from the heavens.
“Ah.”
In that moment, the sealed city’s frozen time began to flow again, slowly.
Rifts opening all around.

At last, prayer became Magic.

* * *

Mercedes, the first Grand Mage and once called a goddess of Magic, observed the sealed city from within her Domain.
Immortals could do more than was known, and do less than was known.
Changing the future was the same.
Immortals, too, were bound by the current of fate, and so this world would perish as destined.
Thus Mercedes had long known how this city’s future would unfold.
There was no hope for them.
An enormous helplessness weighed upon Mercedes’ shoulders—the knowledge that this future was fixed, and yet nothing could be done.
Yet now.
Before a sight that was truly, literally a “miracle”—born from brilliant starlight and a vast rift—he could say nothing.
‘The future….’
The fate he’d believed would never change had changed.

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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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