Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 292

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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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Chapter 292

The Grand Mage stood in the corner, observing the party venue in silence.
In Mercedes’s long lifetime, she had attended her share of gatherings, but never one quite like this—where people broke off into separate groups to enjoy themselves.
She had never intended to come in the first place.

“Since it’s the first celebration since Arelin has returned, I do hope you’ll join us, Grand Mage. Please.”

Mehren had asked so earnestly, even bowing, that she’d found herself with little choice but to attend.
‘It’s not as bad as I thought.’
It was rather amusing to watch her youngest disciple chattering away with an ease she never showed around the mages—relaxed, natural, almost carefree.
The Grand Mage, who cared little for drink or revelry, was making her way through the buffet when it happened.
A moment.
Their eyes met across the room.
After that chance encounter, the Grand Mage moved from her corner for the first time since the party began.
“Huh? Where did Master go?”

* * *

Beyond the main hall where most guests gathered, there were other spaces—a Piano Room, a Chess Room—prepared for smaller groups to pursue various activities.
But the room Mercedes entered stood apart from such places, a space where only silence dwelt.
“You came.”
“Did you not call for me?”
“I did.”
A moment of stillness settled between them.
The laughter and chatter from outside naturally screened their conversation from anyone passing by.
“I hear you saved our daughter, Grand Mage.”
The Grand Mage nodded.
Her gaze upon Valere was complex.
A soul more tattered than any she had seen burned with a light as bright as a star in the heavens.
“You knew the cure? The solution was right here all along. Hah….”
As Valere clicked his tongue in frustration, the Grand Mage—who had been observing him calmly—corrected his misunderstanding.
“No, it was not a cure. I merely delayed the deterioration through a method superior to Sloth’s approach. Arelin was never truly afflicted by sickness, after all.”
Had Arelin possessed an Authority of moderate strength, it would have been a blessing rather than a calamity.
But an Authority so catastrophic that a mortal body could not withstand it was itself a disaster.
“That child….”
The Grand Mage chose her words with utmost care.
She understood that her words, unlike those of a mere mortal, left their mark upon this world.
“She can rewrite fixed destiny.”
To possess the authority to unwrite and rewrite already-sealed fate—that was a power no Immortal could claim.
“This world itself bends to her will.”
Yet precisely because she wielded such an Authority, the world’s intent to preserve its predetermined conclusion would never leave her be.
That Arelin had died again and again across Valere’s regressions was surely no accident.
As for why this life had proven different, the Grand Mage had her own theory.
“And your daughter becoming a Singularity stems largely from your influence.”
A life that should have ended and vanished, carried forward through regression alongside Valere via the happenstance born from one man’s will and intricate coincidence—the Grand Mage believed this had somehow disturbed the delicate rules that held this world together.
Hearing this theory, Valere laughed coldly.
“That’s absurd.”
Yet he could not simply dismiss it.
“A common mortal could not maintain mental coherence through so many regressions. The human mind has its limits.”
……
“Even with the Wandering Hope Authority protecting your mind, thousands should have been your maximum. Tens of thousands….”
The Grand Mage left the sentence unfinished, but Valere was already suffering the fallout himself.
“Have all your memories returned?”
“Hardly. Most are lost, and what remains… yes, only those from before the madness took hold.”
So many memories that recalling them individually became torment.
Many had sunk beyond the reach of conscious thought altogether.
“In your memories, where am I?”
“Sealed away in the Sky Tower, for the most part. Even on the rare occasions we crossed paths, I still remember you trapped within it.”
“As I expected.”
The Grand Mage had once attempted to rewrite destiny itself, only to fail. She had brought ruin to the mortals touched by her interference, and in losing so much, she had finally abandoned her own arrogance.
Without the coincidental meeting that occurred only in this life, she doubted she could have saved Arelin.
Saving Arelin had demanded a great price from Mercedes as well.
“But this is the only regression where it will be so.”
A bitter edge colored her voice.
“The only one where Arelin has called me her father.”
Valere smiled ruefully as he recalled the countless lives spent racing to save Arelin, never once becoming a true family to her.
“But why tell me all this, Grand Mage?”
“Because I believe you must live.”
“Me? Why? Arelin is well-provided for with Mehren alone.”
“No. You must be there as well.”
The Grand Mage thought of her youngest disciple, the one who didn’t open her heart easily but, once she did, cherished with absolute devotion.
“Arelin exists now because of your love.”
At that, Valere laughed—a hollow, dawning sound.
So that was what this was about.
“My cute, clever little daughter set this up, didn’t she?”
……
“I never thought she’d enlist her own master to persuade me.”
Valere withdrew a pendant from his breast—the Sealing Relic he had crawled into hell itself to obtain.
But when Arelin saw it, she had said:

“I won’t be able to use it anyway. You use it, Father.”

Valere could not accept it easily. What if something went wrong? What if Arelin died?
Then he would have to regress again. To save her once more.
Understanding the war within him, the Grand Mage spoke.
“Even in the next regression, things will not unfold as they have now.”
“How can you be so certain, Grand Mage?”
“Well….”
The Grand Mage smiled.
“This will be the first and last time we face each other and speak like this. Won’t it?”

* * *

After the Grand Mage left, Valere sat alone.
He turned the pendant over in his tightened grip.

“And your soul can endure no further regression.”

A warning left behind by the Grand Mage herself.
Valere had known it already, dimly. He had simply refused to acknowledge it, to use it, driven by anxiety.
……
He had lost Arelin so many times for such absurd reasons. It was almost strange that anxiety didn’t consume him utterly.
“Father?”
Arelin poked her head through the slightly opened door, searching for him.
“Father, why are you in a place like this?”
The moment she spotted him, she hurried over and grasped his arm.
“Did your master send you?”
“No, I came looking for you first.”
“That’s about the same thing.”
Valere leaned his chin on his hand, studying Arelin. The image of her grown—something he could only have conjured in imagination until now.
She resembled her mother, yet was so entirely different from her.
“I don’t regret the time I spent as your father.”
His love had made her into who she was now.
The Grand Mage’s words had been sweet, but Valere remained clear-eyed. He did not believe he had done something so grand for this child.
Only that he was finally giving her what should have been hers all along.
“So how is it that I, calling myself your father, still don’t know what I should be giving you?”
A pathetic thing for a father to confess to his daughter.
“You’re doing fine, Father.”
Arelin smiled brightly, unconcerned.
“Father.”
“What is it?”
Arelin took his hand. When she was small, her palm had barely reached the middle of his own, but now, grown into a proper lady, both her hands together could finally close around his.
“I hope you’ll stay by my side for a very long time. Until I grow old, until I become a grandmother.”
“I don’t think I’ll age much.”
“That’s fine. You look good as you are.”
Valere gazed at her bright, smiling face and remembered the young Arelin who used to stare at him with such blank confusion.
“What if I can’t save you again?”
A fragile heart exposed its raw core. The terror that had haunted him for so long finally took shape.
Yet Arelin only smiled more brightly.
“You’ve raised me this far, Father. The rest is something I have to do myself.”
“I wanted to do everything for you.”
“Then I won’t be able to use it. You have to help me so I can do it alone.”
“All right, my daughter. How could I ever refuse you?”
Valere tightened his grip on the pendant.
A sharp, breaking sensation. A brilliant light burst forth and was absorbed into his body.
Arelin, steadying her swaying father, watched his face carefully.
“Daughter, this is serious. Now I can’t undo anything, no matter what happens.”
“Isn’t that just how life is supposed to be?”
Arelin laughed softly.
“Since I can’t undo it now, you have to treasure me all the more.”
“Of course I will, daughter.”
Valere smiled, brushing back her hair.
A tenderness beyond measure.

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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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