Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing - Chapter 278

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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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Successor or Bust: All I Want Is Healing | Chapter 278

To make an excuse first: Lion had never gone through adolescence.
To be precise, adolescence had certainly existed in his past, but the accurate description was that he’d simply never properly lived through it—there was no one around to care for him during those years.
Why am I explaining all this in such tedious detail, you ask?

“……I’m too late.”

It meant he’d failed to catch up with Ricshel before he left.
In the span of mere minutes while Lion stood slack-jawed, Ricshel had vanished from the Estate without a trace.
He probably used a Warp Scroll, or so Lion guessed.

“What now.”

Out of desperate hope, he’d searched the entire Estate, even made five separate trips to the Knight Barracks, but Ricshel was nowhere to be found.
His grandfather, who’d gone rigid as a milestone, had offered to search himself, but Lion had refused.

‘If he does that… it’ll really be over.’

He’d already lost his brother’s trust once.
At least the search—that much had to come from Lion himself, or it wouldn’t feel sincere.
And besides…….

‘Ricshel would probably find it easier to come back to me than to Grandfather.’

So he’d boldly declared that there was no need to worry, but now…….
How was he supposed to find him?
Quite a bit of time had already passed, and a creeping anxiety began to settle in.

—Aren’t you being too impatient?
—The boy needs time to clear his head, doesn’t he?

“I know that much…….”

In normal circumstances, he would have given it time.
But the expression on Ricshel’s face had been far from ordinary.

—Hmm.

Tieramatrak observed the wavering contractor.
Honestly, he couldn’t understand why Lion was so flustered about it.
To begin with, Tieramatrak wasn’t human, and his sense of time was different.
To Tieramatrak, this was nothing but a fleeting instant.

‘A year without seeing him wouldn’t be a problem, would it?’

By then, the boy could cool his head and sort through his thoughts, which would be all the better.
Moreover, by that point, Lion’s younger brother Ricshel Asteri would likely mature into an adult—which might be positive in several respects.

‘The human worries far too much.’

The boy wasn’t even born weak, yet here he was. Tieramatrak was more concerned that Lion might exhaust himself searching.
Just look at him now—he’d done nothing but circle the Estate a few times, and already his face had gone pale.

If I use Spirit Summoning, I should be able to narrow down the approximate location.

No, wait. That cursed human who came to my Lair back then.
Right. The one who’s supposedly got some skill among humans?
And he seems to like you quite a bit.

The Second Imperial Prince!

Getting help from grandfather was one thing — getting help from the Second Imperial Prince or the Underworld was something else entirely.
The latter was a network Lion had built himself.
And besides…

‘He’s skilled at tracking locations too.’

Lion reached out immediately.
It was exactly three hours after Ricshel had run away.

* * *

By a stroke of fortune, Kyle received the message right away and promised to send someone well-informed about intelligence the moment he heard the situation.
Fortunately, there were no conditions attached… except.
The issue was that this supposedly well-informed person…

“Ha ha. Oh no, ha ha ha!”

Jake was the problem.
The moment he entered the room after meeting Lion, he was laughing so hard his sides were splitting.
In fact, he’d burst into fits of laughter multiple times on the way to the Asteri Family Estate.
Because really, who wouldn’t find it hilarious that the Asteri Family’s normally composed Successor would lose his composure like this?
And the cause of it all…

‘His most cherished elder brother!’

From Jake’s perspective, it was hard to imagine a more entertaining turn of events happening once in a lifetime.

“Hehehehe.”

Only after Lion gritted his teeth and issued a warning did Jake finally manage to suppress his laughter.

“Oh my, I do apologize. It’s just so remarkable, you see.”

Jake wiped his eyes with a theatrical gesture, still lingering in the afterglow of his amusement.

“It’s simply astonishing that even you can make such a mistake, sir.”
“…”

Lion bristled, but he had nothing to say.
He took a measured breath and asked calmly.

“So, do you know where Ricshel is?”
“Of course I do. I know quite well.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, it’s not difficult to tell you, but what are you planning to do once you find him?”
“That would be…”
“Shall I take a guess? You don’t have any real plan, so you’re simply going to find him and start apologizing profusely without thinking it through, aren’t you?”
“…”

Lion fell silent for the second time.
In fact, Jake had hit the mark.

“Oh no, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Since the Successor treats Lion with special consideration, it’s easy enough to overlook such things. I suspect it will continue to flow as naturally as water from here on. The family will find peace, and everyone will live happily, won’t they?”

A splendid outcome, really!
Jake, whose temperament was anything but pleasant, found the situation quite amusing.
He even felt a flicker of delight.
The man he’d envied was showing him a weakness!

“Indeed. A very clean method. One person holds their tongue, and it’s finished, isn’t it? I prefer such approaches when I work as well.”
“You mean.”
“Yes. What I’m saying is that Lion keeps his younger brother’s mouth shut from a position of advantage. Isn’t that right?”

‘A position of advantage…….’

Jake’s words were sharp and grating, yet there was no fault in them.
Lion exhaled a deep sigh and admitted it cleanly to himself.
Even so, he’d raised Kyle like a true brother, and in this regard, he held the upper hand.
And what that man wanted was…….

‘For me to stumble over my own words.’

It was clear he wanted a situation where Lion would be too proud to find a solution or ask for one.
There was still some lingering resentment from before, after all.
But.

‘Do I have the luxury of being fastidious right now?’

Whether others saw it that way or not, Lion’s heart was quite anxious.
If not Ricshel, then the Successor would be him.
……Well, he’d had such thoughts in public before, but of course that wasn’t the real issue.
If his younger brother truly didn’t want to be Successor, Lion would even be willing to take that position in his stead.
Family meant that much to him.
So his wish was that conflict wouldn’t arise, and that they could avoid stepping down thorny paths if at all possible.
And of course, he’d prefer his brother not suffer.
But for him to be the source of that suffering…….

‘I won’t do it.’

Lion shook his head.

“How did Jade conduct himself.”
“When the conflict arose?”
“Yes.”
“Would I tell you with my own mouth?”

Jade crossed his legs leisurely, his expression suggesting that their relationship wasn’t quite close enough for such intimacy. His posture was considerably arrogant for a merchant house master, but Lion paid it no mind.
The man’s true identity was the head of the Underworld, after all.

“A desire…… It sounds as though you can grant whatever I ask.”
“That’s right.”
“Ha, and I suppose you know what I would ask.”
“If it’s something I can do, I’ll grant it.”
“…….”

Lion Asteri harbored a deeper obsession with family than one might expect.
Was it because his younger brother, bearing everything alone, moved him to pity?
No, this wasn’t an emotion born from consideration for others.
It stemmed solely from his own anxieties and deficits. That was the reason.

Jake knew this better than anyone.

‘Tsk, that’s what irritates me about him.’

On the surface, Jake and Lion walked entirely different paths.
Jake, master of the Underworld.
And Lion, living in the glory of the light.
Yet, funny thing was—no, irritating thing was—there existed something between them.

‘We’re alike.’

Jake and Lion were fundamentally similar in their nature.
And they both knew it well.
At least Jake did.
The reason Jake disliked Lion Asteri was precisely because of this.

‘Tribal antipathy.’

Jake shrugged inwardly.
That’s why it had felt so satisfying when he’d fought with his brother.
He’d wanted to make sure Lion tasted it too.
But then……

‘I don’t much like seeing him grovel like that either.’

Was it because he recognized the similarity?
Watching Lion Asteri bend his pride made Jake feel diminished somehow, as if something inside himself was shrinking.

“Ah.”

Jake covered his face lightly with one hand and let out a sound that was neither quite a sigh nor quite a lament.
Even he found his own nature difficult to accommodate.

“Very well. Let us proceed this way, then.”

Jake uncrossed his legs and offered a formal proposal to Lion Asteri, clapping his hands together lightly.

“The Imperial Prince is searching for a National Preceptor, I understand.”
“……A National Preceptor, you say?”
“Precisely—the Emperor’s teacher, in other words. Some call it the teacher of the Empire itself; it’s quite a symbolic and authoritative position. It seems the Prince would be pleased to see you occupy that seat.”
“I see.”

He’d suspected something to that extent, but to think Kyle was considering giving him such a position.

‘I suppose someone like me is hard to come by.’

If someone politically biased or as powerful as the Emperor himself were to occupy the position of National Preceptor, Kyle would naturally be unable to carry out his will freely.
But then again, placing someone with no power at all would be equally problematic.
In that sense, Lion taking the seat was an excellent choice from Kyle’s perspective.
Separate from that, though……

The condition was probably to refuse any request that came from Kyle.

That would be the greater gain.

“Take that seat.”
“I understand, but……?”

Fortunately, he managed to close his mouth before finishing the thought.

“What? Why would you do that?”
“Am I obligated to explain myself?”

Jake watched Lion’s stunned face and lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk.
The satisfaction of landing a blow mixed with the regret of having placed Lion beside Kyle with his own hands.
But there was one thing he could say with certainty.

‘It will help Kyle.’

A Hero over anyone else.
And the National Preceptor over a Hero.
That bastard’s future would be lit by their rays.
His path was thorny enough as it was—wouldn’t breathing room help him survive?
Conveniently, Lion held all the decision-making power in his hands…….

“Ah, very well.”

He had no leisure to weigh the matter further.
For Lion, who despised being tethered to anything and wanted only to play, this was a tremendous resolve.

“So now, tell me the method.”
“Well, it’s simple enough.”

Jake smiled at ease and drew a dagger from his garment.
The gleam in Jake’s eyes reflected off the sharply honed blade.

“As the saying goes, brothers must fight each other to grow and mature.”
“…….”
“All this talk of adolescence and caution—there are times when a good exchange of blows works better, don’t you think?”

Well, in such cases, one simply listens to the victor’s words.

“And especially in your case……it seems this process is quite necessary.”

Lion’s voice caught in his throat.
How could such a crude method even work……!
And yet.

“……It’s not a bad idea, actually.”

Beneath the rough phrasing, Jake’s point was sound—venting emotion rather than suppressing it might do more for one’s mental wellbeing.

“Wise counsel indeed.”
“I only fear I’ve been presumptuous toward one who will become a teacher to everyone.”

With those words, Jake withdrew a sheet of paper from his garment and handed it over.

“This is Ricshel Asteri’s current location. Then.”

His words finished, Jake rose from his seat with a respectful bow and left the room.
Once Lion confirmed Jake had gone, he…….

Crumpled the paper with a whoosh.

He quickly drank an Anti-nausea Potion and tore open a Warp Scroll.
When he closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, Ricshel came into view.
Lion hastily opened his mouth, determined not to let Ricshel slip away again.

“Brother.”
“Lion. I apologize, but I have nothing to say to you right now…….”
“Let’s fight!”

Ricshel was at a loss for 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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