The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 170

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

Side Story 1
Side Story 1. His Imperial Majesty Wishes to Become a Good Father
Two years had already passed since Lionel von Altehaide ascended the throne as Emperor.
During his time as Crown Prince, he had been called the presumptive heir and had received all the lessons necessary to govern the realm without interruption, so the moment he took the throne, he cleanly resolved every problem that had accumulated.
Still, ascending to the throne was something he experienced for the first time. There would surely be moments when he stumbled—or so the nobles thought, and more than one had sharpened their blades to suppress the new Emperor’s authority the instant such an opening appeared.
But contrary to their expectations, the new Emperor proved far less of an easy mark than they had anticipated.
“Your Majesty, if you handle this matter in that manner…….”
“Will it be a problem?”
“What? ……Oh, yes! It will indeed be a problem. It most certainly will!”
“What problem exactly?”
“That is to say…….”
Whenever a noble wrung out answers about what was wrong with the Emperor’s policies or what side effects might occur—desperately seeking some chink in his armor—Lionel would simply shake his head.
“That won’t be a problem.”
Young to the point of seeming almost naive, and despite having only recently assumed the throne, the new Emperor possessed an unshakeable certainty in his own judgment. In plainer terms, he was obstinate.
If he said something wasn’t a problem, then it wasn’t a problem. He would listen to objections, but he would not yield to them. That was simply how he operated.
No matter how many voices around him raised concerns, no matter how many insisted this would surely become a problem, he never wavered.
There had been ample opportunity for the nobles to point and say “I told you so”—to mock him for ignoring their counsel when disasters inevitably struck. It never came.
Frustratingly, Lionel was right every single time. Not once had his decisions led to actual trouble. It was infuriating beyond measure.
But what could one do?
“That won’t be a problem.”
And truly, it wasn’t.
“……Yes, Your Majesty. If you say it will not be a problem, then it shall not be.”
Just once.
If things only went wrong just once, they could milk that failure for years to come!
It had been nearly two years since the Emperor took the throne—ample time for him to have implemented numerous policies—yet still not a single crisis had emerged.
Of course, there had been hiccups along the way. But investigating their roots, they stemmed from sudden natural disasters, or mistakes made by those who implemented his orders. There was no solid ground to blame the Emperor himself, and the moment he became aware of a problem, he managed the aftermath perfectly. The mages had been instrumental in these crisis resolutions.
‘When did the mages become so cooperative with the Imperial Family’s requests?’
The practical administrators the Emperor selected on merit alone proved capable, the mages provided immediate and effective aid in unforeseen crises, and somehow—through sources not even the concerned parties fully understood—the Emperor possessed accurate information about matters the rest of them had yet to even discover.
A perfect Emperor to the point of being unseemly. The nobles would have dearly loved to band together and cause trouble, but even that became impossible.
“I find myself in wholehearted agreement with His Imperial Majesty’s assessment. Ha ha ha ha!”
With no elder left in the Imperial Family, Duke Roheim—the Empress’s own father—strutted about as though he owned the place, asserting dominance over them all!
Not that the other nobles remained idle. They seized every opportunity to whisper into the Emperor’s ears.
Your Majesty, you mustn’t allow Duke Roheim to run rampant like this. He’s already wealthy and beloved by the common folk; if you let him strut about as your Consort Family, he’ll come to regard Your Majesty as beneath him, and then—such were their murmurings and complaints.
Yet even such gossip had no effect on the Emperor. For the Empress herself was deeply attached to her natal family, and the Emperor cherished the Empress to an extraordinary degree.
It was not mere rumor.
Anyone who frequented the Imperial Palace—anyone who had witnessed a moment when the Emperor and Empress were together—had no choice but to believe it.
At official functions, they maintained some semblance of restraint, but in private, the Emperor seized every opportunity to hold the Empress’s hand.
Of course, his motive had nothing to do with propriety or escorting her. The Emperor held her hand whether sitting or standing, and at times his tender gestures—tracing the back of her hand with such affection that even secret observers felt embarrassed—would prompt the Empress herself to push his hand away, flustered.
‘Who spread that rumor that the Empress was obsessed with the Emperor? Anyone with eyes can see it’s the Emperor who’s obsessed with the Empress!’
‘Wasn’t that rumor something His Majesty spread himself when he was still Crown Prince? To prevent her marriage?’
In any case.
With no public or private vulnerability to exploit in the Emperor, what choice remained? For now, only to lie low.
‘Surely someday an opportunity will come. A chance to humble that Emperor, to flatten his arrogance!’
Of course, this sentiment was held by only a minority. Most had long since abandoned any contest of wills with the Emperor.
After all, hadn’t his heir been born already bearing a Divine Prophecy that he would be “a Sage-King whose name would endure throughout history”?
And what did this Sage-King business entail? In precise terms, it meant the Emperor would grip the reins so tightly around the nobles’ necks that none could pursue their own selfish interests.
‘In other words, even if we manage to suppress the current Emperor’s authority with all our efforts, once the Crown Prince ascends, we’re as good as dead.’
What if the Crown Prince one day thought, “You troubled my father”—and held a grudge?
Trying to rise above the Emperor only to have one’s family utterly destroyed by a future generation would be a catastrophe.
Most of the nobility chose to accept the fate that Heaven had ordained rather than resist it, and some even took a step further, seeking to win the Emperor’s favor. If they could not tame him, they would be tamed by him instead.
‘The current Emperor, to be sure, keeps his public and private affairs strictly separate, but……! Even so, making an impression versus making none are two different things, aren’t they?’
Fortunately, even this stern and rigid Emperor possessed one weakness—something to exploit.
Not anything sordid or material, like bribes, of course.
Before his marriage, he was known to have pestered every person he encountered, asking whether they’d ever been in love, whether they’d ever married, what moment they thought true affection begins. But of late, what had deeply captured this Emperor’s interest was something altogether different.
“Oh dear! I’ve gone and dropped my handkerchief—the one with my little daughter’s precious fingerprint on it! She’s just turned three!”
Directly after the National Council adjourned, while those who had attended were busily gathering their things, a nobleman called out loudly.
His calculated ploy was transparent to all. Some of the other nobles wore expressions of “here we go again,” others clicked their tongues with open disdain, and those few who had already cultivated firm friendships with the Emperor cast pitying glances at his efforts.
Yet the majority of the nobles’ faces fell with a single thought: “Too late!” Their despair was especially keen when they saw the Emperor take an interest in the handkerchief that had fallen to the floor.
“Your daughter’s fingerprint, you say?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. To prevent any misunderstanding, I should explain—this fingerprint was not intentional on my part. My daughter is rather fond of chocolate, you see…….”
The nobleman eagerly explained, holding the handkerchief bearing the chocolate-stained print to the Emperor.
He emphasized how devoted he was to his daughter, personally attending to her snacks, and how much she adored him in turn—her first word had been “Papa,” and she could only fall into a deep sleep at night if he read her a storybook.
Indifferent to the wide-eyed stares of the other nobles, he chattered on enthusiastically, for he could see that the Emperor was hanging on his every word.
“Your daughter is only three years old—is it wise to give her sweets like chocolate?”
“Of course, one mustn’t give her too much. I only offer her a little on special occasions. In fact, the day she made this fingerprint, I was scolding her to stop eating…….”
The nobleman’s manner was subtly calculated to emphasize that he cherished his young daughter dearly and that she returned his affection in kind. There was certainly some exaggeration layered in for effect.
Though young, the Emperor had manipulated enough nobles to know when he was being played. Surely he perceived it.
Yet he listened carefully to every word the nobleman spoke, and even asked various questions in between.
“Has the child developed any cavities?”
“Not yet, Your Majesty. I’m quite diligent about her dental care.”
The nobleman, emboldened, launched into story after story about his young daughter, while the other nobles gathered meaninglessly at the periphery, making silent vows to themselves.
‘Damn it, does he think I have no children……!’
‘I’m going home at once and bringing back my son’s handprints—no, his footprints, too!’
In this way, countless nobles found themselves spurred to greater devotion to child-rearing, which was itself sufficient grounds to say that the future Sage-King was already laying the foundations for an achievement worthy of being remembered in the annals of history.

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