Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 298

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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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298
Episode

“I’m back.”
Arelin returned to the Sky Tower and unwrapped a bundle of bread she’d brought with her.
“Everyone, try some.”
The mages would never know the heartbreaking story of how she’d slipped out on a whim, gotten kidnapped, and ended up at the Imperial Palace.
This bread was her ransom—extracted from Sirua for her trouble.
“Ooh, this is delicious!”
“I’ve never had bread like this before.”
“What do you call this?”
“Heh heh heh.”
She’d been waiting for this moment.
“Ah yes, that’s called Pizza Bread.”
“Pizza Bread?!”
This was the handiwork of Emma, who’d returned to work as a maid in Halbern.
She’d overheard Arelin wistfully mentioning she craved it, and Emma had created it from memory alone—perfectly recreating Pizza Bread from nothing but Arelin’s recollections. Her ability was almost frightening.
The recipe had since become a bestseller at Emma’s bakery.
‘Introducing Pizza Bread to a fantasy world.’
Once they tasted this, there was no going back to the old world…….
The moment that first bite touched her tongue, she’d felt a pang of guilt toward the fantasy inhabitants for what she’d done.
But she’d already released automobiles anyway—what did it matter?
They should savor it.
“With all those toppings, you could eat just this and need nothing else. Not bad at all.”
“In my day, there were no shops selling things like this. The outside world is changing so fast.”
“Right? Maybe we should go down more often?”
No matter how obsessed the mages were with magic and research, their taste buds still functioned.
They all sang praises for Arelin’s Pizza Bread.
Delicious food was always right.
“Please eat plenty and buy plenty~ I’m from ~”
She seized the chance to advertise Emma’s bakery shamelessly, then wandered in search of her Master. The one who ended her wandering was the mage Pao, who was eating Pizza Bread.
“The Grand Master is still in the Infinite Archive.”
“Still?”
What was he building up to with all this delay?
“I just wanted to consult about Zailo Glemwat.”
Hari, who’d been eating bread beside her, seemed to remember something as he looked at her.
“Oh! Right, Arelin. You asked about Robert’s whereabouts before, right? We’ve finally heard back, but how should I even explain this…….”
“Robert?”
Who was that?
“Ah.”
She tilted her head before belatedly realizing it was the name of Chloe’s Master.
Now that she thought about it, she had asked about that before—curious about the heroine’s whereabouts.
“Apparently he’s in Shugra for now, but in any case, he’s supposed to return to the Sky Tower soon, so you should be able to meet him.”
“Shugra? That’s the Fairy Empire, isn’t it?”
What in the world was he doing in Shugra……?
Just then, as she turned her head, her eyes met those of someone with dark circles—hollow, exhausted eyes.
“……?”
Wasn’t that Luca?
“Arelin!”
The moment Luca saw her, he rushed over as if he’d found his savior.
“Save me, please!”

* * *

Luca was a newcomer to the Sky Tower.
The Star-rank Mages had welcomed his arrival with unusual enthusiasm, for a simple reason.
“Hahaha. Yes, this is what a newbie should be like!”
“Ah, such freshness.”
“See? Arelin was the abnormal one. A real newbie is supposed to be like this!”
The Star-rank Mages found it delightful to watch Luca stumble about, confused and making mistakes.
Luca couldn’t gather his wits amid all this endless coddling.
“Arelin! Help me! These people are all strange!”
“Calm down. Star-rank Mages being strange is the natural order of things. They’re stuck in corners staring at magic circles all day—how could they be normal? But what happened?”
Luca began pouring out his troubles.
“G-gasp, you said you’d teach me the fundamentals of High-tier Magic, but you gave me this?”
Oh, a Basic Magic Tome.
It was one of those texts Arelin had never even opened before tossing aside long ago.
With a gaunt face, Luca thrust the tome at her.
“It’s too difficult.”
Why would this be difficult?
“The system is completely different from the Magic I’ve used so far! And—do you have any idea this tome contains fifty-two different languages?”
Ah.
“Why would I study ancient Divine Language when this isn’t even a Holy Temple? And why do I have to learn different variations of Divine Language from different eras, plus Sobvere and Dohite and archaic Celron and Old Mordelorese and whatever else? Why on earth would a mage need to learn all this when they can just master Celron Language, the language of Magic, and be fine?!”
Luca’s face had gone pale. He seemed overwhelmed by the tome’s demands for knowledge on an entirely different scale from anything he’d encountered before.
“Hmm. So that was the problem.”
But he’d complained to the wrong person. She’d maxed out her language skills and had no idea what his suffering was like.
“But there’s no getting around it. To use High-tier Magic, you need all of them. Different types and properties of magic require different languages. That’s just how it is.”
“But why do I need all of them?!”
“Well, Magic derives from Dragon Speech itself, and unless you can use Language Magic like my Master can, you ultimately have to rely on magical formulas or Magic Circles, all of which are composed of ‘sentences’—so High-tier Magic necessarily uses multiple languages because of that.”
There was a reason the Star-rank Mages devoted themselves entirely to magical research all day long.
Upon learning the truth, Luca fell into despair.
“There’s no way around it. You have to know it all for High-tier Magic.”
She’d once asked her Master why so many languages were necessary in magic circles.
Her Master had answered:

“Because we borrow the power of those who are masters of these languages.”

Magic is the power to impose your will upon the world.
Inevitably it interferes with the ‘existing rules that sustain this world,’ and while the specifics branch endlessly by method, property, and form, the foundation was always the same.
‘And once you reach a certain level of mastery, you can infuse power into your own language rather than borrowed ones.’
She was an exception, though.
A gifted prodigy who’d cleared every stage at light speed the moment she began learning Magic couldn’t understand the suffering of ordinary people.
“Why is this so difficult?”
No wonder the Star-rank Mages had looked defeated when they looked at her.
“U-ugh. U-u-ugh?”
She gazed at the shell-shocked Luca with pitying eyes.
“Hang in there! Luca, just study for about thirty years and you’ll master it all.”
“Thirty years……?”
Now was the time to encourage the disheartened newcomer.
[Arelin.]
Her Master’s voice echoed in her mind.
[Come here.]

* * *

Her Master had summoned her to the Sky Tower’s pride—a repository of all things, commonly called the Infinite Archive.
The Infinite Archive looked like an infinite universe, and every star-like twinkle was knowledge itself.
‘Every time I come here, it feels like I’m looking at Halbern’s secret archives.’
A space created by connecting fragments of the Akashic Record—said to contain all of creation since the beginning of time.
Perhaps because of that, her dead Status Window reacted the moment she entered the Infinite Archive.
[Synchronizing…….]
Even if both belonged to the omniscience category, Laplace’s Demon and the Akashic Record had different qualities, so there shouldn’t have been anything they could sync——
She was staring at the Status Window when——
[You’ve come.]
“Master…….”
Today’s Infinite Archive was different from usual. And her Master looked different too.
‘That appearance is…….’
She’d thought ‘this person is truly incredible’ while being with her Master, but she’d never felt that she was fundamentally a different kind of being——
Starlight of unknown origin scattered across Mercedes’s face—her eyes closed—and blazed white.
Hummmmmm——
The gaze of the stars, sensing the Grand Mage’s tremendous power, converged in one direction.
[The darkly burning star…….]
[Lucky number 777…….]
[Knowledge and…….]
⋮
She always received the interest of the stars, but this intensity of gaze was the first time since she’d cast her first spell.
Back then, the stars had crowded in wanting to bless her, but afterward they’d only appeared when she was in a situation that piqued their curiosity.
Then her Master opened her eyes.
In her Master’s golden irises, usually like starlight, golden specks like star dust now swirled.
An overwhelming presence entirely different from usual. Yet oddly, the air felt only slightly heavier; she felt neither fear nor a desire to worship.
[Arelin.]
“Yes, Master. I hear you.”
[You’ve been through things you shouldn’t have had to endure.]
Was she talking about what happened in Gairen?
“But Father was there. There was no help for it.”
[That’s not what I mean.]
Sparkling starlight fell toward her.
Words couldn’t convey everything—through the starlight, her Master’s true feelings flowed to her.
Fear, remorse, pain, loneliness.
And…….
The faintest glimmer of hope.
Fragile courage.
The starlight faded. Her Master, returned to the form Arelin knew, spoke with firm resolve.
“I will tell you everything.”
Everything……?
As she hesitated, her Master began to speak.
“This world is destined for Doom.”
…She already knew that.

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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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