Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 99

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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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Episode 99

“I’m serious. You’re the first thing I’ve found this captivating.”
“Yes, of course.”
It sounded exactly like “You’re the first delicious meal I’ve ever had,” and instead of my heart racing, my blood ran cold.
‘How did my life end up like this?’
Why was an extra like me the target of such excessive attention?
I wanted to hand it all over to the heroine.
“You’re so cute. Really.”
“?”
I hadn’t done anything. What could possibly be cute about that?
The man who’d been poking my cheeks suddenly softened his gaze as our eyes met, his stern expression melting into something gentle.
“I can’t help it. The one who falls in love first loses, after all.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“Next time, I’ll appear so you won’t be frightened.”
Couldn’t he just not appear at all?
“No. That won’t work.”
His answer, which seemed to have read my mind perfectly, made my entire body stiffen.
“See you soon.”
With that sweet parting, the mysterious stalker vanished the moment he closed and opened his eyes, but my heart pounded as though I’d received a death threat.
“Should I be performing an exorcism or something?”
……Suddenly, I was exhausted.

* * *

[An Immortal doesn’t know everything.]
Valere’s trip to the Imperial Palace had yielded nothing. It was the first time he’d been dismissed without even a hint.
‘He clearly knew something.’
This was why Immortals were so troublesome.
If this continued, he’d have to search through Halbern’s secret archives.
“Duke Valere!”
Fession, meeting Valere in the corridor, didn’t dodge but rushed toward him instead, his eyes still burning with fervent intensity.
Valere recalled the moment he’d seen Fession with Arelin in the Other World.
‘The imperial household.’
It still didn’t sit right with him.
“I wanted to thank you for your help before. I don’t think I ever offered proper thanks.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
He’d only rescued Fession as a side effect of being with Arelin.
Whether Fession knew this or not, his eyes brightened. Those vivid crimson eyes gleamed like rubies.
The cloudless clarity in his expression twisted Valere’s mouth wryly.
The Alermagne Royal Family’s ability was Being Loved.
While the scope and kind varied by individual, receiving unwarranted goodwill and affection was the hallmark of the royal house.
Fession, whose blood ran particularly pure, was precisely the perfect heir the imperial household desired.
‘Why would someone like this…’
chase after Arelin?
Even Valere found that inexplicable.
What could he possibly lack?
The imperial household, obsessive about succession, had already placed so much in this small child’s hands.
All of it flawless and supreme.
A promised perfect future.
And Arelin was…… like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.
‘I don’t understand.’
Yet seeing the way this child had looked at Arelin, Valere found himself incapable of a sharp response.
“Duke Valere, is Arelin……?”
Over the young crown prince’s hesitant question, the image of an emperor at that very age suddenly overlapped in Valere’s mind.
That jaded, apathetic gaze of a ruler made arrogant by having everything easily.
Some emperor who’d possessed everything without effort or will, carelessly played with it all, and only came to his senses after falling in love far too late.
‘Is this one destined to grow the same way?’
“Don’t grow up bored.”
“……Pardon?”
He disliked the thought of this boy becoming someone for whom everything came so easily that nothing in the world mattered anymore.
It seemed it would be deeply unpleasant.
All the more so, thinking of those eyes shining with intelligence right now.
“What do you mean?”
Leaving the bewildered Fession behind with that unexpected counsel, Valere departed the palace.
A sharp pain gnawed at his veins all at once, accompanied by a surge of unknown memories.
With his vision flickering, he staggered to a halt.
The side effects he’d been forcibly suppressing were growing worse. He had to return to his residence quickly.
“Duke.”
Valere exhaled inwardly.
He wanted to ignore the voice calling him, but the speaker was not someone he could dismiss.
Turning, he found Azeni, the Empress, regarding him with eyes full of complicated emotion.
Meeting the one person he least wanted to face, Valere’s mood plummeted.
“Your Majesty. What brings you here?”
“I have something to ask you.”
“Has a peaceful conversation like that ever been possible between us?”
A crack formed in Azeni’s smile.
“……I don’t resent you, Valere.”
“Please don’t lie, Your Majesty.”
Valere’s lips twisted into a bitter smile.
“You’re the one who wants to kill me most of anyone, aren’t you, Azeni?”
Between them remained only hatred and resentment.
“Of course. I hate looking at your face.”
Older sister’s friend, friend’s younger brother.
Their distant relationship had fractured after the most precious person between them disappeared.
Azeni’s gaze dropped. The raw emotion Valere displayed suffocated her.
Resentment that he hadn’t helped her sister when she was needed.
Azeni’s feelings toward Valere were no different.
“I’ll be honest. I still hate you so much.”
If only you’d never existed.
Sione wouldn’t have been unhappy.
“Thinking of everything that child endured for you, I still want you dead.”
The unhappiness of a beloved friend had consumed even Azeni’s heart.
Before becoming empress, her deliberate ascent to the position of house leader to seize power had been born from the trauma left by Sione’s suffering.
“And yet I can’t kill you. You’re the brother that Sione loved.”
“The same goes for me.”
A stifled laugh escaped him.
“You irritate me immensely, but I let you live because you were the friend my sister loved.”
This relationship could never improve unless Sione returned.
Valere hated the friend he couldn’t help his sister protect, and Azeni hated the brother who was her friend’s shackle.
“So. Your question?”
“Is Arelin really your daughter?”
“Believe what you wish.”
“Then.”
A question that stopped Valere as he turned away.
“Is Sione still alive?”
Not how is she, not if she’s doing well—but is she alive.
At that voice, unexpectedly fervent, a distorted laugh spilled unbidden through Valere’s lips.
“Didn’t you already know the answer?”
Beneath long lowered lashes, violet eyes darkened like they were swallowing shadow.

It’s now the fifth day of the Foundation Festival. Despite the grand banquet planned across the entire Imperial Palace, Halbern was absent again.
“Mehren.”
“Yes, Arelin?”
“Is Father avoiding me?”
Mehren couldn’t answer my earnest question easily.
“I’m not certain.”
“What?”
Mehren—not knowing something?!
“When it comes to that man, I cannot fathom his thoughts either.”
Mehren sighed.
“Besides, there’s an important matter we need to discuss urgently, and his absence makes it difficult.”
“That sounds serious.”
“I think it will work if Arelin helps us.”
“Me?”
Following Mehren, I arrived at a place notorious as Father’s haunt—the Portrait Chamber.
“I’m asking for your help, Arelin.”
“Why can’t you go in?”
“Unlike direct bloodline, a regent is locked out when the highest security clearance is sealed.”
Mehren gave me an encouraging nod.
“Go fetch that bastard and bring him out.”
“Right!”
“Admirable, Halbern’s future!”
The door sealed with the highest security level opened without resistance, just as Mehren had said.
The moment I stepped into the Portrait Chamber, I was overwhelmed by the landscape that unfolded before me.
“Wow……”
What is all this?
Portraits of the first Halbern Duke, successive dukes and duchesses, and direct descendants lined the walls.
Is this really a portrait chamber?
It felt like I’d walked into a famous art museum. I found myself awed, as though the museum had closed for the day and rented out its halls just for me.
“Hmm? Grandeur? I’ve heard that name before somewhere.”
It was the signature of a painter the twins had been raving about, calling him a master of the classical.
“The twins would be thrilled to see this.”
So Halbern had commissioned this master painter to create their portraits? Suddenly, the weight of the Halbern name felt very real.
Wandering like a tourist, I reached the deepest chamber.
For some reason, it contained only damaged portraits, and the one thing that caught my eye was an empty wall—a portrait that had never been hung.
“Wait. That woman……?”
The woman from my dream.
My stomach churned even though I hadn’t met her in person—as if suddenly remembering something forgotten, I grasped a truth unbidden.
‘This woman is my mother.’
A pull of blood? A premonition of intuition?
I couldn’t explain it properly, but the fact that this woman was my mother seemed injected into my mind.
《Sione Sigria Halbern》
“……?”
Why does it say Halbern?
I tilted my head, looking at the nameplate attached to the frame.
Wait. Now that I think about it, aren’t only direct descendants displayed here? No. Surely not.
Close rel—?
No way, right?!
I was reading an all-ages light romance novel!
“A secret of birth.”
I didn’t want something like that……
“Mehren is enough as my mother!”

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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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