Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 95

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 95

Nightmares were an excellent means of shattering even the most fortified mental defenses.
Illusions that repeatedly showed trauma were like pounding meat over and over to tenderize it.
—Valery.
So Valery had grown familiar with nightmares of this kind, and yet—
—Are you still dreaming?
Each one was always new.
Had it been some other fantasy, he would have torn it to shreds mercilessly and escaped this place.
The repeated appearances of a presence that crushed his will to resist flat against the ground prevented him from finding any will to escape, no matter how acutely he was aware of being toyed with.
Sione in the nightmare was beautiful.
Just as she was in his memory.
—My precious little brother.
Those long platinum lashes, those rose-pink eyes tinted with a delicate spring hue, those refined and graceful features, those soft lips curved in a gentle smile—
‘Would she grow like this, when she was older?’
His sister had always seemed solid and tall, but when he compared her to his own hands grown so much larger, she looked impossibly small and fragile.
—You need to wake up, Valery. You have so much to learn if you’re to inherit Halbern.
“Wouldn’t it be fine if you inherited it instead?”
—That man would never allow it.
A faint laugh reached his ears.
Speaking so freely with that beautiful face and such a delicate bearing—that was indeed his sister.
A laugh burst from him, though it turned into something hollow, and Valery clamped his mouth shut lest he begin to weep.
“I knew it.”
I knew that only you could break me, and that the nightmare would show only you.
“So why does it not feel unbearable? Why does it feel almost precious?”
That I can see you like this?
Not a half-broken illusion from a shattered mind, but a complete vision delivered by a nightmare deliberately rushing in to devour me whole?
But—
“What exactly has changed?”
Is this a dream, or a fantasy, or a nightmare, or reality?
Shackled to the past even when his eyes were closed or open, Valery often could not distinguish what was real.
Just like now.
“Do you hate me, sister?”
—I don’t hate you.
“Do you resent me?”
—How could I resent you?
“But—”
If I hadn’t existed, you would have been free.
Valery knew his sister well.
Even without the name Halbern, Sione was a capable woman.
Had she succeeded in escaping, she would have found a way to live well, to thrive on her own terms.
She could have abandoned even their mother, trapped and confined, unable to move without their father’s command—her heart would have ached, but she had the resolve to leave her behind. She would have wanted that, and our sister had the strength for it.
When the political marriage was decided, Sione could have escaped.
“It was because of me.”
Because she could not abandon her younger brother.
Because she knew all too well what would become of a brother left without her protection. Because she knew you wouldn’t abandon your one commoner friend. One child was already a hindrance to flight; two were impossible.
Two children were too much to carry.
—It’s not your fault.
Yes, of course you would say that, sister. You’re too kind.
—My pitiable, pitiful brother.
Since even this must be my own fantasy, there is not a single atom of your true will in it.
Yet I feel comforted, and I despise myself for it—
This hollow comfort tastes as sweet as sweet water drunk after desperate thirst, and I hate my own weakness for not being able to refuse it.
—Valery.
—Live your own life.
—Don’t be bound by anything.
But, sister—
“How can I not be bound?”
You are the one binding me.
I wish you would curse me instead. I wish you would hate me, resent me, despise me, loathe me.
“You always make me weak, sister.”
Your love is too great, too heavy to bear, and left alone I am always dragged back into the helplessness of a child, unable to carry its weight.
Time passed. The child grew. Now there is nothing I cannot do.
I even killed that father who seemed impossible to kill, who didn’t seem human at all.
It was not difficult to kill him—the father who experimented on humans, oppressed them with his Power, who treated even his own children as tools—and yet I could not touch you, not even in this fantasy.
One gesture, one use of my Power, one true effort to escape, and I could make you disappear.
I could not do it.
Because I want to remain in this dream forever.
“Sister.”
I don’t know anymore whether I’ve gone mad, am going mad, have already gone mad—I cannot judge my own state.
Ah, if only I were truly mad. That would be something to see.
Even as hollow laughter escaped me, I could not hide how pitiful I felt.
Despair that wore the face of resignation, familiar defeat grinding me down and breaking me again. The moment was so familiar it no longer even hurt.
“Sister…….”
—…….
“Why didn’t you take me with you?”
—Do you want to come?
A white hand extended toward me as though this moment had been anticipated all along, and empty laughter burst from my lips.
I knew it wasn’t really her, knew it was an illusion meant to swallow me whole to the bone,
yet I wanted to take her hand.
Should I pretend madness and succumb to temptation?
I was already being swept away in that impulse without direction.
Zing—
A faint melody resonated through the darkness-shrouded space.
“This is…….”
A clear, crystalline music he had never heard before. A Power he had never felt before, woven into each harmonious note, each beautiful sound.
Sweet music that washed away nightmares and summoned happy memories dragged him back to reality in an instant.
Focus returned to his unfocused gaze.
“Ah.”
What was I about to do?
My life isn’t even mine to throw away.
I was about to die on a whim.

“Your child will kill you someday too.”

A curse left behind by his biological father.
Only one person in this world could judge him.

“Dad!”

A word never spoken before rang deep in his heart.
The melody flowing from far away swept back the darkness and blurred the delusion. Light breaks through.
Like salvation itself.
“I don’t have dreams like that anymore.”
The fantasy that someone would rescue him was merely a childish dream from his youth.
After losing his sister, he became an adult who no longer hoped for salvation.
And he certainly wasn’t thinking of becoming a savior himself.
That was impossible.
It suited him neither and fit no aptitude he possessed.
But if she is my daughter—
“Then I’ll save her.”
Valery rose unsteadily to his feet.
The day he was first acknowledged as a father was overcast and rather gloomy.

* * *

“Listen to this.”
When Arelin made that request, Fession had no idea what was about to unfold.
What was she about to do?
And so—
Zing—
When the violin strings met the bow, the melody they created struck his very soul with a shock like lightning.
‘It’s beautiful.’
He had never been moved by hearing anything before.
A sensation of something sparkling brilliantly before his eyes.
Naturally, the brightest thing was Arelin herself.
Yet even as she drew such beautiful melodies from her fingertips, Arelin wore an expression of anguish and sorrow.
A graceful, achingly sweet melody contrasted by that tortured expression.
‘Why…….’
Why did she wear such a pained expression?
Fession knew the unspoken rule of Halbern—that it held more secrets than the imperial court, and that one must not pry or seek too deeply to know—but when it came to Arelin, he had no restraint.
He wanted to know.
What she was thinking, what she liked, what she disliked—he wanted to devour it all, from her mind down to her soul, to leave nothing untouched or unsampled.
Such raw desire was neither beautiful nor pure, so he had suppressed it instinctively.
He was struggling to restrain himself.
‘Arelin…….’
Difficult moments like this came often.
Even now, I see only you.
But her gaze was turned elsewhere.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————