Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 286

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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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299
Episode

Mercedes was one of the rare fairies who remembered the old world.
The age when gods still dwelled in this world, tending to it with their own power.
As the keeper of records for the World Tree, Mercedes knew how deeply loved this world was by the gods.
Though an insatiable thirst for knowledge drove her to abandon her homeland forest, and her very identity as a fairy had worn away to nothing, Mercedes still carried the memory of this world’s history.
“All the discord in this world began with the prophecy of ruin.”
The gods wished to depart, and all living creatures—mankind and others—clung to them.
“This is the tale that came after a certain hero achieved the calamity known as God-Slaying.”
The countless laws and orders that sustained this world.
Rain falls from the sky and gathers in the seas; plants sprout and grow; life is born and dies; the sun rises and sets—all these laws that everyone takes for granted did not simply maintain themselves.
They were all upheld by Divinity.
But when one who should have become a god refused that ascension, the absolute laws of this world twisted.
“And so, the chosen ones became Immortals.”
Not gods, yet infinitely close to them.
To those who could see the Hidden Realm, this world rolled forward within precarious laws that might collapse at any moment.
“Thus, even though so many religions were eradicated, Lemuren’s last god still possesses temples and congregations to this day.”
The traces of divinity are preserved in this world.
“And that is precisely why Magic was born anew.”
The first mage to awaken Magic ascended and became the first star.
Fragments of Divinity that had been scattered meaninglessly through the cosmos gathered together, drawn to that first star. Thus were born the stars that now embroidered the sky of this world, preserving its laws.
The origin of the names attached to these stars lies here.
Yet because the stars could not fully exercise their own Divinity as the true gods had, they endlessly searched for those who would serve as vessels for their power—and so were born the mages.
“…I thought all that talk about mages being born with Stellar Aura was just empty praise for them.”
Arelin murmured with a note of skepticism.
Now that she knew the truth, she understood why mages were so vulnerable to those with Special Abilities, and why they stayed far from the Hidden Realm.
‘It was a fundamental problem all along.’
The Corruption that accumulated in a mage’s body with each spell cast was ultimately a consequence of the mage’s form being unable to fully wield the stars’ power.
And the reason mages so yearned for the stars was that they were the very source of their strength.
“When you think about it, it really was a revolution.”
“……?”
Power once monopolized by the few—gods—scattered among the many—mages.
Wasn’t that the very definition of revolution?
Arelin, lost in thought for a moment, looked back at her master.
“But why are you telling me all this?”
“Because it’s necessary.”
Seeing her youngest disciple’s waning interest, the Grand Mage simply smiled.
“I know you have no interest in such abstract matters.”
Arelin flinched.
Caught red-handed, she managed a sheepish smile.
“…It’s not quite like that.”
Watching Arelin scratch her head, Mercedes gathered her thoughts.
“You dislike chasing clouds in the sky.”
“No, that’s not it…”
Arelin tried to object, but she couldn’t evade Mercedes’s insight.
‘A Singularity.’
A living Singularity, capable of further blooming.
This world desired no more Singularities. It was too fragile to bear further change.
‘This child, too, was destined to fade away like that.’
But her predetermined fate had been bent to bring her here.
Even Mercedes, though an Immortal, was bound by the laws of this world—unable to do what only Arelin could, as a Singularity, accomplish.
‘Why did you appear before me only now?’
“Pardon?”
Arelin tilted her head in confusion.
“Master, didn’t you just say something to me?”
Mercedes shook her head.
After tilting her head a few more times, Arelin stroked her chin and looked back at Mercedes.
“But Master, that wasn’t the story you promised to tell me.”
What about the story of Cheiyen?
Surely you’re not going to dodge that entirely?
Mercedes smiled faintly as she regarded her impudent student, whose eyes betrayed open dissatisfaction.
“I was just about to.”

* * *

From God-Slaying to Cheiyen—it was all one connected tale.
Mercedes, who had ascended as the first star, descended back to earth.
For one reason alone.
To use the Divinity of the stars and rebuild the collapsed laws of the world.
“Finding mages, protecting them, and teaching them true Magic—protecting those disparaged for wielding alien power—all of this was my duty.”
The Sky Tower, that holy sanctuary of mages, rose into the heavens partly to draw closer to the stars, but also to shield them from persecution by those who saw them as aberrations.
In those days, Mercedes was called by another name.
The First Grand Mage.
The Mage God.
Bottomless Mana, a force so vast that no mere creature should possess it.
Such reverence led to the title “Mage God,” and it was not entirely wrong. Magic itself was born from Mercedes.
The very concept of Magic in this world became Mercedes’s own.
“As Magic flourished, my power only grew and deepened.”
In those days, Mercedes did not understand.
The weight of Immortality.
The meaning of watching all those she loved age, wither, and pass away before time, while she alone remained unchanged.
While the disciples she had raised died one by one, becoming stars, something gnawed at Mercedes.
And when no one left in the Magic Tower knew her true identity, Mercedes had fallen ill.
A sickness that did not show on the surface, but slowly corroded the mind.
“I wanted to die.”
No purpose remained, no sense of mission.
From that point forward, Mercedes was consumed by a creeping emptiness and helplessness.
For the first time, she thought how much better it would have been to know nothing.
The delayed apocalypse was still too distant, and her own will had long since been exhausted. Time itself was a weight that even Mercedes, born of the fae, could not bear.
Mercedes craved death.
She no longer wished to live.
But as long as Magic prospered, Mercedes would resurrect endlessly, no matter how she died. And so she had to accept, helplessly, her cursed fate of perpetual rebirth, denied even that mercy.
She thought she was speaking calmly, but Mercedes realized she was trembling.
Yet she did not stop laying bare the truth to Arelin.
“The Grand Mage who longed for death finally found a way to circumvent the laws and die.”
If Magic was what kept resurrecting her endlessly, then if she could pass the concept of Magic to another, could she not finally perish?
Cheiyen readily offered himself in sacrifice.

“Master, let me do it. Let me do this.”
“I will save you.”
“Please, let me be of use.”

Cheiyen, born an orphan, was blessed with prodigious magical talent and loved by countless stars.
The child she had abandoned as an infant and taken in, Cheiyen clung to Mercedes like a parent, and to him, Mercedes was his entire world.
Mercedes often felt guilty, wondering if she was using her disciple.
What was she doing to this kind boy?
Each time, Cheiyen endured all suffering and spoke.

“It’s what I wanted… so it’s all right.”

She knew it was foolish. Reason screamed at her every moment to stop, but Mercedes herself did not know how great her own desire had become.
“Knowing it was foolish, tormented by guilt at exploiting my disciple’s heart, blinded by the hunger to die.”
How long had it taken to confess this sin?
“Cheiyen’s fate was entirely my doing.”
If she had not yearned for death.
If she had not committed such a foolish act.

“Master, what…… exactly did you make me?”

The experiment had half-failed. Mercedes did not die. But Cheiyen, who received half her power and became an imperfect Immortal, went mad.

“I will kill every mage and star.”

—Then Master can finally die.
Those were the last words Cheiyen left behind.

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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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