The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 8

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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 8

However, the option to refuse had long been cut off from him.

“Brother is sick and just lying in bed all the time. Don’t you feel sorry for him? Can’t you even yield something like this?”

“Are you saying that mere object is more precious to you than me? How can you have the nerve to call me brother while saying that?”

“Rio?”

“Yes, brother.”

After turning his gaze away from the wooden box he had been staring at, Lionel looked down at the floor and answered obediently.

“Please take it.”

“Good, I’ll put it to good use.”

After Cayen left, all that remained were two teacups with completely cold tea.

Lionel drank down the cold tea in one gulp, stood up from his seat, and called for an attendant.

“Clean this up.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Lionel sat down at his desk, picked up the fountain pen he had originally been using, and began working on his duties again.

Since he had known this would happen from the beginning and hadn’t even held it in his hands, he felt no regret.

However.

“You can’t lose it or give it to someone else. Think of it as a token of my love and please! treasure it well.”

Like a thorn stuck in his finger, the voice that lingered in his ears continued to bother him.

* * *

“Cecil, how was today?”

The dinner table where all the family members sat together.

Except for me, all my family members were busy, but they still tried their best to have dinner at home.

However, there were inevitably days when they couldn’t return home in time for dinner due to unavoidable circumstances, and today was a rare day when just my brother and I were having dinner together.

“It was fine. I was tested on things I had already learned before, and the teachers were very fond of me too.”

“Who in this world wouldn’t be fond of you?”

My brother nodded as if it were a perfectly natural thing and cut up a steak for me.

“If there’s anything difficult, just tell me. Your brother will help you.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll just be doing simple memorization for a while… I don’t think I’ll need help.”

“Memorization? What are you memorizing?”

“The nobility directory and the imperial genealogy? It seems like I have to memorize the imperial genealogy from the founding ancestor onwards.”

“What? For the imperial genealogy, you should only need to memorize the collateral lines up to 5 generations back, right? Don’t tell me they want you to memorize that entire thick genealogy?”

My brother was indignant, as if he was ready to rush to the Imperial Palace right now to argue.

‘As expected, I’m being bullied.’

To think that someone who’s an Empress would act so childishly.

I was flabbergasted, but since my brother seemed like he would really rush to the Imperial Palace if I left him alone, I waved my hands saying it was fine.

“I can just pretend to memorize and cheat. You know my abilities.”

“Your abilities? …Ah.”

My brother nodded as if he understood. But he still looked at me with a face full of worry.

“If anyone at the Imperial Palace bullies you, tell your brother right away. No, running to your sister would be fastest. Anyway, you absolutely must not bear it alone. Got it?”

“Of course! Do you think I’d just quietly let myself be bullied, no matter who the opponent is?”

Having a reliable family that loves me was really nice at times like this. I could just run to them and tattle that someone was bullying me!

“Right. Come to think of it, I have something I’m curious about.”

“Really? You’re curious about something? What is it?”

My brother, who had been spreading jam on bread for me to eat, looked at me with a brightened face.

Why do intellectuals like it so much when someone asks them something?

Thinking it was an emotion I could never understand in my lifetime, I opened my mouth.

“The Second Prince is currently the heir apparent because the First Prince is sickly, right? Isn’t there any way for the First Prince to suddenly become healthy?”

This was a very important issue.

In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that if I could just prevent the First Prince from getting healthy, I could automatically prevent Lionel’s corruption.

“Hmm… Cecil, you shouldn’t ask such questions to other people. Especially not at the Imperial Palace.”

“That’s why I’m asking my brother now.”

“Right, good job. Here, eat this salad too.”

While I was stabbing and eating the salad sprinkled with refreshing apple dressing with my fork, my brother, who had organized his thoughts, gave me an answer.

“You know the story about how Her Majesty the Empress was poisoned when she was pregnant with the First Prince, right?”

“Yes.”

That’s right. The reason the First Prince was born sickly was because the Empress had been poisoned when she was pregnant with him and gave birth prematurely.

If it had been just a simple premature birth, she wouldn’t have felt such great guilt, but that poison left severe aftereffects on the First Prince, who was in the womb, rather than on the Empress.

As if the First Prince, who was still a fetus, had absorbed all the poison for his mother’s sake.

“But that poison happened to be made by an alchemist.”

“So? Is poison made by alchemists difficult to detoxify?”

“It is. Alchemists use poisons that aren’t commonly known.”

Moreover, even for an alchemist, detoxifying poison made by another alchemist is nearly impossible. Because they don’t know what ingredients were used to make the poison.

“Simply put, if there were recipe records left by that alchemist, the First Prince could be treated, right?”

“That’s right. But seeing as they haven’t found it yet, it probably burned up long ago, don’t you think?”

No. I had a feeling. That thing didn’t disappear.

Probably someone would discover those records remaining somewhere in the empire and treat the First Prince at some point in the future.

‘Then what if I found it first and destroyed it?’

Then the First Prince wouldn’t get healthy, Lionel wouldn’t lose his position as heir apparent, and there would be no reason for him to become corrupted, so wouldn’t it be a happy ending for all of us?

‘…was a dream I had once.’

I swallowed a long sigh inwardly.

I need to know where it is to find it. How could I possibly find something when no one knows who will discover it when and where?

Moreover, it was the recipe for the poison that the Empress had ingested, leaving terrible aftereffects on the First Prince’s body.

If I got caught looking for something like this, I couldn’t complain even if I were charged with treason.

“Then just one more thing. Let’s say the First Prince received some miraculous treatment and became healthy. Would the First Prince immediately be appointed as Crown Prince?”

“That couldn’t happen. The First Prince, being sickly, hasn’t received any of the education necessary to lead the empire, including imperial studies.”

Even if he became healthy now, it would be too late, my brother said firmly.

“If he were the only heir to the throne, it might be different… But there’s already the Second Prince who’s called the heir apparent, so that won’t happen.”

“So currently, the possibility of the First Prince ascending to the throne is very, very low, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then why hasn’t the Second Prince been appointed as Crown Prince yet?”

“Ah, that situation is a bit complicated.”

My brother crossed his arms and thought for a moment, as if trying to explain as simply as possible.

“First of all… the First Prince received an oracle of fate with ‘that kind of content,’ didn’t he?”

“Mm, he did.”

Wait a moment. Before ‘that kind of content,’ what is an oracle of fate?

For generations, the direct descendants of the House of Altehaide receive an oracle from the gods at birth.

This oracle has never once failed to come true. If God says you will become emperor, he becomes emperor, and if God says you will die on the roadside, he really dies on the roadside.

Therefore, the content of this oracle has a very significant influence on imperial succession.

To put it bluntly, if among about ten princes and princesses, the eleventh-born child receives an oracle saying they will become emperor, a Crown Prince appointment ceremony would be held immediately.

In this world where oracles are so important, what kind of oracle was given when the First Prince was born…

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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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