Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 88

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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 88

A familiar headache slowed Valere’s footsteps.
That distinctive pain—as if his nerves were being gnawed away—was a side effect of the Halbern Ability.
—Valere.
These Hallucinations (Visual) and Hallucinations (Auditory) too.
The hand pressing against his temple stopped.
His brain, which usually showed him nothing but wretched illusions, occasionally granted him a glimpse of what he actually wanted to see.
—Valere, have you been well?
Platinum-blonde hair falling softly, and warm rose-quartz eyes—along with that gentle smile in them, one he thought he’d never see again.
“…Sister.”
Even if this were only a phantom conjured by hallucination, he felt grateful for this moment.
—My dear little brother.
Valere stared at the phantom drifting toward him and exhaled ragged breath.
“Sister.”
He knew with his Transcendent Sense—gained when his Sword Art reached a certain mastery—that this could not possibly be real, and yet he found himself enchanted without knowing it.
“Sione, sister.”
The one person who always made him feel like a child.
His weakness.
The phantom drew near and cradled his cheek. Though he felt no warmth, it was unbearably gentle.
—You must be happy.
The quieter he remained, the less blood he shed, the more intense the hallucinations became—which was why, at the Northern Fortress, they had been almost bearable.
When he was slaughtering monsters moment by moment, drenched in gore, those visions never appeared.
Perhaps it was partly this that made him instinctively dread returning to the Imperial Capital.
—You must be happy, my little brother. You must.
The voice, repeating like a chain, grew fragile. Afraid he might weep, Valere buried his face.
“I couldn’t even protect you.”
Why did sister always insist he be happy?
As a child, the only one who cared for his neglected self was merely four years his senior—his older sister.
Sione. She had been his mother, his friend, his teacher, his god.
Before he brought Mehren into his life, she was his only humanity.

“This household is insane.”

Sione hated House of Halbern.

“Everyone but you and me is insane.”

More than hate—she despised it.
The obsession with secrecy that kept her trapped indoors, the family custom that saw people as things, the father who was both lord and tyrant, her own powerlessness before him—she despised it all.
Lord Morden could not tolerate anything his daughter did.
Not seeking out her mother locked in the inner chambers, not caring tenderly for her brother, not defying his orders to venture outside, not resisting and opposing his will time and again.
The relationship between Morden and Sione was at its worst, and in Valere’s memory, they were always fighting.

“See that you don’t become a failure like your sister.”

The end of that hateful conflict was a predetermined ruin.
His father, who did not even deign to call the daughter who disrespected him “my child,” finally drew his blade—treating her as a mere pawn to be discarded.
At merely sixteen, without even having had her debutante presentation, he sold her off to the highest bidder without hesitation in a political marriage.
An unwanted union.
Naturally, Sione resisted fiercely.

“I told you I don’t want this marriage!”
“Be of some use for once, Sione Sigria Halbern.”

Her desperate escape failed, her final flight—a suicide in all but name—was thwarted, and Sione was carried away unconscious.
That was the last memory Valere held of his sister.

“Your sister has served her purpose, so she will be happy. Stop your useless worrying and focus on your duties, my son.”

Valere shuddered at his own helplessness—at being able to do nothing.
For the first time, he learned how unbearably painful it was to be powerless, to be weak, to be unable to help.
Only after losing the most precious thing did he understand, bitterly and too late.
Far too late.
And then….

“How dare you, to me.”

He set about correcting everything—belatedly.
At sixteen, the year of Morden’s Accidental Death, Valere inherited the Grand Duke Title of Halbern.
At the same age his sister was forced into an unwanted marriage, Valere placed everything belonging to House of Halbern into his own hands.
For his sister.
“Accident? That’s not funny.”
Though he held all the world in his grasp, there was one thing—
The day the man who possessed everything but his wife’s love finally saw her freed by her own hand, Valere killed him.

“Father.”
“Kgh….”
“I have no mother.”

The lord who had used Sione as bait abandoned her once he’d sent her off to wed, then began to speak of Mehren.
That, paradoxically, snapped Valere back to his senses from the madness of grief.
‘I cannot lose Mehren too.’
The only friend he possessed through his own will, not by House of Halbern’s design.
The last humanity that remained to Valere Sirun Halbern.
That realization swept away all hesitation.
His sister’s legacy, his mother’s means, Valere’s resolve—all converged.
By the time the lord realized the poison he had swallowed, it was far too late.
The curse he left with wide-staring eyes was all the farewell he would give.

“At least then I’ll know I lived that long.”
“But I want to die right now.”

He was simply clinging desperately to the pretense of wholeness.
“Still, I suppose I’m fortunate.”
No one knows I’m mad.
—Poor, dear little brother.
If only my wretched sister had resented me even once.
Watching the phantom fade away left him aching.
He reached out, but his hand passed through empty air. It was never real to begin with.
In that moment of hollow emptiness, a laugh carried on the wind.
Entranced, he followed the sound, and found small figures dancing beneath the moonlight.
Deep violet eyes blinked.
A phantom scene.
Valere watched his “daughter” standing there, arms crossed, laughing.
“I’ve never seen you laugh before.”
Or have I? It does seem he smiled for Mehren at times.
Searching his memory, Valere turned his gaze away again. Arelin was still there, smiling peacefully.
A tranquil, serene sight.
Something he thought he once possessed, something he could never possess again.

‘Is the alcohol too weak?’
He had wanted to use drunkenness as an escape from this wretched reality, but even that mercy was being denied him.
Slumped in place, staring at nothing, he drew another deep sigh that came all the way up from his core.
‘Valere….’
All of this confusion stemmed from the answer he’d heard the day before.

“But she is my daughter.”

“Sharp as always, Mehren.”
“Then who’s her actual mother?”
“If she’s not my biological daughter among House of Halbern’s direct line, isn’t there only one possibility left?”
“Huh?”
“Surely my clever aide isn’t in the dark about this.”

He denied it, averted his gaze, tried to escape the thought—but nothing changed. The remaining possibility was starkly singular.
“Now that I think about it, she does have similar eyes….”
Mehren buried his face in his palms, wracked with despair.

What on earth was that man thinking?
Sione was currently the Grand Duchess of Rok, the Regent Duke of the South Empire’s Phaital, the highest authority there. Which meant Arelin was the Regent Duke’s daughter.
‘Is he trying to start a war?’
If the Regent Duke ever found out, would he really sit idle? And that man didn’t have an even temperament to begin with.
But Valere? Would that Grand Duke of Halbern simply let go of “his sister’s daughter”?
“Maybe I should write a resignation letter.”

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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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