The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 103

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 103

Those who harbored particularly resentful feelings were the knights and soldiers who had been dispatched to the Northern Region and returned to the capital belatedly.

The cancellation of the glorious homecoming ceremony that had been promised to them—well, that was understandable. The former Emperor had died, after all.

But wasn’t it too much that even the title and medal ceremony that should have followed the homecoming was canceled!

“We didn’t risk our lives fighting just to be treated like this!”

Rather than wanting to receive rewards, they wanted recognition. They wanted to hear that they had truly worked hard. If what they had done became nothing, then what would become of their comrades who died protecting people?

But they couldn’t openly express their dissatisfaction. One wrong move could be considered insubordination.

So several knights and soldiers spread stories about the Second Prince throughout the streets, in a way that wouldn’t constitute insubordination while gaining the people’s sympathy.

“Actually, it was the Second Prince who was recognized as the next Emperor material.”

“That’s right! How does it make sense for someone who fought risking his life to receive an order to retreat to the temple?”

With public sentiment already high toward the Second Prince, as such words spread, support for the new Emperor hit rock bottom day by day.

And for good reason—the only rumor the people had heard about the First Prince was that he was sickly.

No matter how much the woman who would become Empress had chosen him, people’s doubts about whether such a person was fit to ascend the throne, about an Emperor who never showed his face even once, only grew.

“Did you guys hear that rumor?”

“What rumor?”

“Well, they say Cecilia Roheim kidnapped the Second Prince!”

This was a rumor spread by the Former Empress’s side. It was meant to shift the debate about who was the more suitable heir to the throne between Cayen and Lionel to focus on Lionel and the Roheim Ducal House.

Furthermore, finding Roheim’s prevention of Lionel’s retreat to the temple deplorable, it was an attempt to brand them as criminals who defied imperial orders and kidnapped the Second Prince, thereby breaking public sentiment toward Roheim as well.

Though some time had passed, Cecilia’s obsession with Lionel was a famous story.

So the Former Empress thought people would be outraged at Cecilia for daring to deprive a Prince of his freedom and restrict his movements.

But there was something she overlooked. The Former Empress, who had no interest in Lionel whatsoever, didn’t know what he had been doing in the Northern Region.

She didn’t know that he had been going around with a notebook asking people questions.

“Ah… It seems Cecilia Roheim finally reached the limit of her patience.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you know? The Second Prince, saying he wasn’t sure what love was, went around asking married people…”

Lionel’s eccentric behavior—though not really eccentric—was known to everyone among the knights and soldiers dispatched to the Northern Region, as well as among the refugees.

Anyone with romantic experience, from children to the elderly, had all been caught by Lionel at some point.

For the first year or so—yes, generously speaking, about a year—people looked at Lionel with warm eyes.

They thought fondly that while their commander was good at defeating monsters, he was still clumsy with romantic relationships—how innocent, what a good time for him.

But there’s a limit to everything.

Cecilia regularly sent letters to Lionel, always including personally baked cookies, and despite the enormous quantity, he never shared them with anyone. Not even with Belrose, who was Cecilia’s own sister.

Moreover, while Lionel rode his giant horse and smashed monster heads, whenever he saw a single flower blooming in the fields, he would carefully pick it and dry it beautifully between book pages.

That wasn’t the end of it. He would grab people around him asking if they knew the flower’s name, what the flower’s meaning was, and only after confirming that the meaning wasn’t inappropriate as a gift for his fiancée would he write a reply letter.

Needless to say, there were the earrings he absolutely never removed, whether sleeping, washing, or even when injured near his ears.

Honestly, everyone at the Northern Garrison knew that Lionel liked Cecilia—everyone except Lionel himself. People even whispered that Cecilia must have already noticed too.

Yet in the midst of all this, he kept saying he still couldn’t be sure if these feelings were love, grabbing people whenever he had time asking if they had lovers, if they were married.

How many times must the hearts of those watching have burst with frustration?

“We felt that way too, but how frustrated must Cecilia have been.”

“I guarantee it. The Second Prince is the type who would still be saying ‘I’m not sure if my feelings are love’ even after getting married, having children, and when those children have grandchildren.”

Before long, people’s mood shifted to betting on whether Lionel had confessed to Cecilia or not, and if he had, whether he had truly recognized his own feelings when he did it.

While rumors surrounding Lionel and Cecilia were being settled as interesting gossip among people, contrary to someone’s intentions.

Unlike others, there were people who truly believed that Lionel had really been kidnapped and confined by Cecilia, unable to come outside as a prisoner.

The Northern knights who had witnessed in real-time Lionel being carried away in Roheim’s carriage.

* * *

“Your Highness, we’ve come to rescue you!”

“…”

When someone made artificial cuckoo sounds, he wondered if perhaps a new member of the underworld had come looking to make contact without knowing better, so he had simply opened the window.

But what Lionel discovered were Northern knights. Knights who had formed a human ladder by stepping on the shoulders of those below and offering their shoulders as footholds to those above, somehow managing to climb up to the third-floor window.

“We’ve been planning to rescue Your Highness for a while now, but breaking through this manor’s security wasn’t easy… Hueok, Y-Your Highness! What’s that in your hand!”

“Why? Why? What is it?”

“Are you safe, Your Highness? I want to see too!”

“Ugh! Stay still! We’re going to fall!”

“You’re monopolizing His Highness right now… Aaaaah!”

Eventually, the human ladder collapsed right before Lionel’s eyes.

At the loud crashing and banging sounds, Lionel unconsciously frowned.

“You guys…”

Looking out the window, he saw the Northern knights who had collapsed and were piled up like sandwiches, groaning that they were dying.

Lionel was about to say something to them when he suddenly remembered belatedly that this room they had tried to break into was originally Cecilia’s bedroom.

“…”

A chill flashed in Lionel’s eyes as he looked down at the Northern knights. He soon fixed his gaze somewhere and whistled sharply once.

Shortly after, a guard who heard the sound was approaching when he discovered the Northern knights and blew his whistle.

-Tweeet!

“Intruders! There are intruders!”

“Gasp, guys, let’s run for now!”

“We can’t get caught! Run!”

As the guards chased them, the Northern knights instantly scattered in all directions. Lionel watched this scene and coldly closed the window.

At exactly that moment, Cecilia, who had finished bathing, heard the whistle sound and quickly ran into the bedroom.

“What, what was that sound! What is it!”

“What do you mean?”

Lionel looked at Cecilia with a peaceful expression as if he hadn’t seen anything.

But she approached Lionel with frightening speed and interrogated him about why he had been standing by the window.

“You weren’t trying to escape through the window, were you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here? You’ve never looked out the window before?”

“That’s…”

Lionel couldn’t answer immediately. The moment Cecilia approached him, a sweet fragrance—whether it was soap, perfumed oil, or perhaps her natural body scent—wafted strongly from her slightly wet body.

Because she had rushed over without properly drying herself, her thin nightgown, dampened where her wet hair touched it, clung to her skin, revealing her fair complexion.

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