The Obsessive Male Leads Want to Eat Me Alive - Chapter 142

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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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Chapter 142
Heinrich and I cherished the moment of our reunion, holding each other close.
And then, a moment later.
After barely composing the turbulent emotions that had overwhelmed us, we reluctantly parted—though he remained so close it seemed a shame to let go.
“Heinrich, when I heard you’d been poisoned… I truly thought you would never wake again.”
“I was poisoned?”
Heinrich’s expression held a hint of bewilderment.
“Yes.”
I spoke as though recounting what the physician had told me, but the poison was unmistakable—a fact I could deduce from having read the original work.
Heinrich absently fingered the button on his vest.
“If poison had been within ten paces, this button’s color would have changed. …It must have been a special poison that left no trace whatsoever, sister.”
―A poison that even evaded magical artifacts.
I was somewhat taken aback.
Then again, our adversary was quite a skilled mage.
Someone capable of crafting such a vicious toxin using blood—one that rendered tracking impossible—would certainly be capable of creating a poison undetectable even to magical artifacts.
They would have desired absolute thoroughness.
Heinrich continued toying with his button as he spoke.
“But there was a strange smell.”
“A smell?”
“Yes, something like a metallic ‘scent of blood’… Actually, I followed the smell first, not you.”
“…!”
“When I arrived, there was some madman with eyes rolled back, attacking you.”
Heinrich, pale in a way that somehow made him even more beautiful, furrowed his brow.
‘Ah, so that’s what happened!’
The poison crafted by blending the blood of two houses held no efficacy against those who shared that bloodline—yet it was unmistakably detectable to them by scent.
How remarkably convenient that would be.
For instance, among flowers that all bore identical appearances, one could instantly distinguish which was the poisoned bloom.
‘Even with only half the bloodline mixed in, it produced the same effect.’
The former Mage Tower Master remained unconscious, and the reason Heinrich alone had awakened was likely the same.
The blood of Valentigo flowing through Heinrich’s veins had saved him.
“But I find it strange. I was poisoned, yet somehow I awakened. I have no poison resistance. That’s why I created the magical artifact.”
“….”
“And if it was a poison undetectable even to magical artifacts, it must have been terribly potent.”
“…That is.”
*Gulp.*
I swallowed awkwardly.
‘That’s something I cannot explain…!’
It was information I knew only from having read the original work. And besides, there was no benefit in you learning that you’d been poisoned by your biological father. It could wound you….
“Ah. I’ve figured it out.”
At that moment, Zian’s violet eyes narrowed slowly.
“…!”
My heart dropped with a thud.
Heinrich, rendered even more ethereal by his earlier collapse (what else could I call it but a protagonist’s blessing?), swept his hair back as he spoke.
“This is what happens when you’re a ‘genius.'”
…Pardon? What did you say?
Heinrich’s beautiful, arrogant eyes sparkled brilliantly as he continued.
“If magical detection artifacts can’t sense it, then it’s poison infused with magical properties, which means this ‘genius’ here simply isn’t affected by it.”
“….”
“Sigh, I’ve even overcome poison now―”
Heinrich gazed at me with the expression of a puppy seeking praise.
Ah, no!
“That’s right! Heinrich really is amazing~”
Goodness, this adorable fool.
His shoulders rose with pride that matched the inflated ego of an excited little dog.
The puppy, now strutting about with such smugness, spoke again.
“By the way, Sister….”
“Hmm?”
Heinrich’s expression turned serious.
“I actually witnessed something strange.”
“Something strange?”
“That man made eye contact with Prince Gerard before attacking you. …From that moment on, he suddenly became extremely agitated and went mad.”
“―I already knew.”
I answered calmly.
“Prince Gerard must have cast a curse to control him.”
“…!”
“Prince Gerard is behind all of this.”
I wanted to take perfect revenge on Prince Gerard.
Slowly, I wanted to strip away everything from him—as much as the magnitude of the despair Mother had endured, and as deeply as my own sorrow.
I wanted to tear away that hideous mask of hypocrisy he’d built up through countless misdeeds, and have him receive the punishment he deserved according to Imperial law.
‘A person who destroys others’ lives to achieve their goals and commits illegal acts without hesitation….’
I would bring him down differently than Prince Gerard would.
Through procedures that were utterly righteous and absolutely necessary.
―That seemed to be the way Mother would want it.
And it was my way as well.
“I waited for the Grand Temple to confirm the suspicions as fact, but Prince Gerard’s pace of committing atrocities is faster.”
I stroked my chin quietly.
If that was the case, I couldn’t afford to wait any longer. I needed to adjust my approach.
Then, Heinrich’s eyes gleamed with cruelty.
“He dared to lay hands on you? I won’t let him live. I’ll go kill him right now.”
I grasped his collar and shook my head.
“What I want isn’t for Gerard to die easily.”
“Then?”
“I want Gerard to lose everything and suffer.”
“…!”
Heinrich’s expression shifted slightly in surprise. Certainly, these weren’t words I would normally speak.
But I meant every word.
“Gerard will move again soon.”
I had been observing Gerard’s methods for over a decade now. By this point, I had come to read his tactics with clarity.
As if I could see precisely where his next chess piece would move.
I understood the way he played the game.
Gerard had always been a cruel and contemptible player.
“Let’s prepare our countermeasures, Heinrich.”
Heinrich tilted his head at my words.
“…What kind of countermeasures?”
“Well.”
I lifted the corners of my mouth with ease. Ironically, when it came to doing wicked things, I was something of a specialist.
“…I’m thinking of a few rather good options.”
How to exterminate that large and vicious rat cornered in its burrow by now.
* * *
The Emperor’s Chamber was nearly pitch black.
Within that darkness sat a man whose hideously twisted half-face was concealed behind a mask.
Gerard gazed upon the Emperor lying in stillness, then whispered softly.
“Father….”
The Emperor was like a plant blooming from a crevice in stone.
Clinging to life with fierce vitality, yet functionally as helpless as a plant.
Behind the mask, Gerard’s crimson eyes glowed quietly in the darkness.
“You believed in me, Father, lowborn as I am.”
When the Empress shrieked that ‘this child is not mine’ and drove Gerard away.
It was Father who soothed her time and again.
“When Gerard grows older, he will surely awaken his abilities, Empress.”
Gerard whispered with an expressionless face.
“A child conceived for merely fifty thousand gold in a single night…you believed that one day he would awaken his abilities and become Emperor of this realm.”
You said he would sit in the most exalted position.
“I intend to live up to that faith.”
He slowly reached toward his father’s throat and squeezed the breath from him.
The Emperor’s eyes flew open. Gerard was smiling now.
“So please depart, Father. I cannot become Emperor while you still live, can I?”
“…!!!”
The Emperor’s faintly clinging breath extinguished easily. For Gerard, it was as simple as snapping a plant stem and tearing out its roots.
As Gerard left the Emperor’s Chamber, he felt a strange sense of relief.
The corridor was adorned with countless corpses of guards and handmaidens, arranged as though they were decorations laid out for him alone.
This morning.
Prince Gerard gazed at the skin that had now shriveled and burned away, creeping inward toward his heart, and reflected.
That there was truly no more time, no more opportunity.
That he must now execute the ‘Regression’—the plan he had staked his very life upon.
Until now, he had carried out his designs quietly from the shadows, but now he possessed neither the capacity nor the inclination for such restraint.
I will,
burn and destroy the entire Empire if I must, but I shall claim it.
The throne of this nation.
“Avilos.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
His loyal adjutant, stained with the blood of handmaidens and guards, bowed his head.
“Deploy the assault units and all forces to seize control of the Empire.”
“Yes!”
A face devoid of humanity, sculpted like a wax doll, smiled smoothly as eyes gleaming crimson with pooled blood shone forth.
“Today,
….
I shall slay all who oppose me, proclaim my supremacy to the world, and seize Eldorado in my grasp.”
Avilos immediately departed to carry out the orders.
Prince Gerard walked down the blood-soaked corridor with a light gait.
Sunlight streamed brilliantly through every window of the corridor.
[ My foolish contractor, what scheme drives you to undertake something so grand? ]
The Black Snake swam through pools of blood and inquired.
“I shall regress and tear Sisrain to shreds, then return.”
[ Kekeke! The curse that reverses time requires maintenance, you know? The ‘Buff’ from ‘Exordium’ is absolutely necessary! ]
“Yes, I intend to receive that power.”
Prince Gerard smiled with a face slightly hazy, as though intoxicated.
Seeing that expression, one could not help but grow curious.
[ By what means…? ]
Prince Gerard spoke with a low laugh.
“I had forgotten. There exists a method that works exceptionally well on that woman.”
[ …?! ]
“Watch and you shall see.”
The Black Snake wore an expression of curiosity but did not press further. It harbored only the hope that its contractor would entertain it.
―If he fails today, this human dies anyway.
How delightful a wager this is!
A gamble with lives at stake never loses its amusement, no matter how many times one witnesses it.
….
Prince Gerard gazed leisurely toward the bright window and murmured.
“What a beautiful day the heavens have blessed us with.”
* * *
Tap, tap, tap.
I raced through the Corridor, searching for Sisrain.
According to Owen, I should have encountered him around here, yet he was nowhere to be found.
‘I need to find him quickly.’
I had to speak with him immediately.
But it was precisely then—when I suddenly noticed something bizarre and utterly strange, my feet came to an involuntary halt.
“…?”
I walked dazedly toward the window in the Corridor and gazed up at the sky.
‘What is that….’
What in the world was that?!
A sight I had never imagined in all my time in Eldorado was unfolding before me.
Whoooosh—
There, a gem-like object of sickly darkness and overwhelming magnitude was slowly drawing the light from the sky into itself.
As if it would swallow the entire world in absolute blackness.

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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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