Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 299

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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 299

Mercedes was one of the few Elves who remembered the old world.
An age when gods still dwelt in the world, tending it with their divine power.
As the Keeper of Records for the World Tree, Mercedes knew how deeply beloved this world had been by the gods.
Though her hunger for knowledge had driven her from her homeland forest and worn away her very identity as an Elf until nearly nothing remained, Mercedes still carried the memory of this world’s history.
“All the discord in this world began with a prophecy of annihilation.”
The gods had tried to depart, and all living things, including humanity, had clung to them.
“This is a tale that came after a hero achieved the catastrophic deed of Godslaying.”
The countless laws and orders that maintained this world.
Rain falls from the sky and gathers in the seas; plants sprout and grow; life is born and dies—the laws that everyone takes for granted, as natural as the sun rising and setting, did not simply persist of their own accord.
All were upheld by Divine Essence.
Yet when one who should have become a god refused that very divinity, the absolute laws of this world twisted.
“For that reason, those chosen are called Immortals.”
Not gods, but beings infinite in their proximity to godhood.
To those who see the Other Side World, this world rolls forward within laws so precarious that its collapse would be no surprise at any moment.
“That is why, despite the destruction of countless religions, Lemuren’s final god still retains temples and faithful followers.”
This is how traces of the divine persist in this world.
“And that is precisely why Magic was born anew.”
The first mage to awaken the first Magic ascended and became the first star.
The shattered fragments of Divine Essence, scattered meaninglessly across the cosmos, gathered together following the first star. Thus were born the stars now adorning this world’s sky, preserving its laws.
The origin of the names attached to these stars comes from here.
Yet since the stars could not exercise their Divine Essence as fully as the true gods could, they ceaselessly sought those who might wield their power in their stead—and thus were born the mages.
“…I thought the talk about mages being born with Stellar Aura was just flattery to inflate their importance.”
Arelin muttered with evident dissatisfaction.
Now that she knew the truth, she understood why mages were so utterly helpless against supernatural ability users, and why they dared not venture into the Other Side World.
‘It was a fundamental problem.’
The Corruption that accumulated in a mage’s body the more Magic they cast was a phenomenon born from the fact that a mage’s frame could not fully wield the Stars’ power.
The reason mages yearned so desperately for the Stars was because it was the very source of their strength.
“When you think about it that way, it really was a revolution.”
“…Hmm?”
Power monopolized by the few—the gods—distributed to the many—the mages.
Wasn’t that a true revolution?
After pondering it a moment, Arelin looked back at her Master.
“But why are you telling me all this?”
“Because it’s necessary.”
The Grand Mage merely smiled at the expression of her youngest student, whose interest had plainly already waned.
“I know well enough that you have no interest in such matters.”
Arelin flinched.
Caught, she offered an awkward smile.
“…That’s not really it.”
As Arelin scratched her head, Mercedes gathered her thoughts.
“You dislike abstract, empty talk.”
“No, that’s not—”
Arelin attempted to protest, but she could not escape Mercedes’ insight.
‘A Singularity.’
A living Singularity, still capable of further awakening.
This world desires no more Singularities. It is too precarious to hope for change.
‘This child, too, was meant to disappear that way.’
A fixed fate had been twisted, and here she stood.
What Mercedes, bound by this world’s laws even as an Immortal, could not do—only Arelin, being a Singularity, could accomplish.
‘Why did you appear before me only now.’
“Hmm?”
Arelin tilted her head in confusion.
“Master, did you just say something to me?”
Mercedes shook her head.
After tilting her head a few more times, Arelin touched her chin and turned back to Mercedes.
“But Master, the story you promised to tell me isn’t this one.”
What about the story of Cheiyen?
Surely you’re not just going to drop it like this?
Mercedes smiled softly as she looked at her impudent student’s openly dissatisfied expression.
“I was just about to tell you.”

* * *

From Godslaying to Cheiyen—it was all one connected tale.
Mercedes, who had ascended to become the first star, came back down to the world.
There was only one reason.
She had to work to rebuild the shattered laws of the world using the Divine Essence of the Stars.
“Finding mages, protecting them, and teaching them true Magic—protecting those scorned as thieves for wielding strange powers—that too was my duty.”
The Sky Tower appeared in the heavens partly to draw closer to the Stars, but also to shelter mages from persecution by those who saw them as aberrations.
At that time, Mercedes came to be called this.
The First Grand Mage.
The Mage God.
Mana infinite in its abundance; power so vast that no mere living creature could claim to possess it.
That awe was what earned her the name “Mage God,” but it was not inaccurate. Magic itself had originated from Mercedes.
The very concept of Magic in this world became hers.
“The more Magic flourished, the stronger and vaster my power became.”
Mercedes did not know it then.
The weight of immortality.
The meaning of watching all she loved age and wither and perish before time, while she herself remained unchanged.
As the disciples she had raised died one by one and became stars, something gnawed at Mercedes from within.
And by the time no one remained at the Mage Tower who knew Mercedes’ true nature, she had grown ill.
A sickness that showed no outward sign, that slowly ate away at her mind.
“I wanted to die.”
No purpose for living remained. No sense of duty.
From that time on, Mercedes struggled against waves of emptiness and helplessness.
For the first time, she thought: how much better it would be to know nothing.
The deferred apocalypse seemed infinitely distant, and her strength of will had long since exhausted itself. Time was a weight that even Mercedes, born of the Elves, could not bear.
Mercedes craved death.
She no longer wished to live.
Yet as long as Magic flourished, no matter how she died, Mercedes would be reborn endlessly. She could only accept with powerless resignation the fate of a being who rose again and again, never to die.
She thought she was speaking calmly, but Mercedes became aware that she was trembling.
Yet she did not stop relaying the truth to Arelin.
“The one Grand Mage who wished for death finally discovered a way to circumvent the laws and achieve it.”
If it was Magic that constantly resurrected her, then if she surrendered the very concept of Magic to another, could she not then die?
Cheiyen had readily offered himself as the sacrifice.

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

Cheiyen, an orphan, had been born with prodigious natural talent for Magic and was loved by countless stars.
Abandoned as an infant, he had been taken in by Mercedes and clung to her like a parent. For Cheiyen, his Master Mercedes was his entire world.
Mercedes often felt the guilt of using her student.
What am I doing to this good child?
Each time, Cheiyen endured every anguish and said this.

“Because it’s what I want… It’s fine.”

She knew it was foolish. Her reason screamed at her to stop even now, but Mercedes herself did not know how vast her own hunger was.
“Knowing it was foolish, tormented by guilt at exploiting my student’s heart, I was blinded by the desire to die.”
How long did it take for her to confess this sin to herself?
“Everything that happened to Cheiyen is my fault.”
If she had not wished for death.
If she had not committed such a foolish act.

“Master, what… what did you make me?”

The experiment was a half-failure—Mercedes did not die. But Cheiyen, having inherited half her power and become an imperfect Immortal, went mad.

“I will kill every mage and every star.”

—Then you will be able to die too, Master.
Those were Cheiyen’s final words.

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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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