The Obsessive Male Leads Want to Eat Me Alive - Chapter 146

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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 146
* * *
“The young prince is being born today!”
“Ah, what a precious child—surely bearing the Emperor’s likeness and inheriting the Empress’s abilities?”
“…I can’t wait to meet him. I’m so excited!”
Today, Eldorado Palace was filled with anticipation as sweet and fluffy as pink cotton candy.
The attendants gathered in clusters, too absorbed in gossiping about the prince who would be born today to focus on their duties.
“Oh my, we should hurry to the Delivery Room!”
“You’re right. We’ll be late—”
The attendants, who had been excitedly debating which color socks would suit the newborn prince, suddenly realized the time and quickened their pace.
All their cheeks flushed a rosy red.
“Greetings, Your Highness!”
Eldorado’s First Prince, Gerard von Axilpherion, understood in that very moment when the attendants offered their salutations.
‘I’ve succeeded. I’ve returned to the past!’
A lightning-bolt of exhilaration surged through my spine, making every hair stand on end.
Gerard hastily gazed toward the corridor window.
“…!”
The reflection in the glass was unfamiliar.
Skin glowing with vibrant health—nowhere near the charred, withering flesh of before.
This youthful, unblemished face felt strange to me.
Not the body of someone dying. From head to toe, vitality coursed through every fiber. As if I had been born anew.
Act Two of a new life was beginning!
—So then, the first thing I should do to commemorate this second chance at life was…
“…”
I decided to kill my younger brother.
There was a moment I had regretted for a very long time.
The moment when I had bribed an attendant to dispose of the child as stillborn.
The fact that the soft-hearted attendant had ultimately saved Sisrain and smuggled him away—something I had failed to realize.
‘There won’t be a second mistake.’
Since this second opportunity was precious, I resolved to employ an even more ruthless method.
‘This time, I’ll kill him with my own hands.’
Gerard requested entry to the Delivery Room.
“The Empress has granted permission. Please enter, Your Highness.”
“Very well.”
As I stepped into the Delivery Room, I barely suppressed the laughter threatening to burst forth.
—How unfortunate, Sisrain.
A life that will end the moment it begins. You’ll be dead after your first breath.
‘Besides, such a worthless existence—like a mayfly—was always suited to you.’
Give me all your glory and die.
“Gerard. My son.”
“Yes, Mother.”
The Empress in the Delivery Room had grown gaunt from the onset of labor, yet she retained an air of dignity.
Though she occasionally cried out that Gerard was not her son, fundamentally he was a prince of the Imperial Court.
When she was not consumed by that delusion—which happened to be true—she remained lenient toward the still-young Gerard.
“Your younger brother will be born today.”
“….”
“Did you come because you wanted to meet him quickly?”
“Yes, Mother.”
—Unaware that the cuckoo chick hidden within the Imperial Palace had come to push the other eggs from the nest.
Ordinary good people,
lacked the imagination to comprehend just how evil others could truly be.
From the villain’s perspective, it was laughably foolish.
Gerard offered a perfectly composed smile, gazing at the Empress’s rounded belly.
“When my younger brother is born, I will become the most affectionate and dependable older brother, protecting him above all else, Mother.”
“—Gerard.”
The Empress appeared somewhat moved.
‘Foolish woman.’
That dawn, the world was announced the birth of a new prince.
Using a magical artifact that would normally have been given to a maidservant, I concealed my appearance and slipped into the Delivery Room.
More secretive than moonlight itself.
“….”
My eyes gleamed with an eerie light as I gazed upon the small life swaddled in blankets within the cradle.
I cradled the child in my arms and slipped outside.
And deeper, ever deeper into the Deep Forest beyond the Imperial Palace, I ventured.
Thump-thump-thump-thump!
As I ran through the dawn dew, I laughed loudly, intoxicated with exhilaration.
Today was the day! Today!
The day my long-awaited revenge would be realized.
The starting point of my future—killing Sisrain and ascending to a position more noble than anyone else’s.
“Wretched creature.”
I smiled wickedly, cradling the child in my arms.
“Born into a fate worse than vermin, destined only to be slaughtered.”
The life in my embrace filled me with revulsion.
“It cannot be helped. Since God has cast your soul into the abyss—”
Only then did I slowly unwrap the child’s swaddling clothes.
But something felt wrong.
The child was not a newborn.
The child born today already had hair and distinctly formed facial features.
As if several months had already passed since birth.
And that child’s hair was the same silver as mine, and its eyes were red.
“…!!!”
In that instant, I understood.
Who I had been holding and cursing.
It was myself.
More precisely, my past self.
“This… this can’t be! What is happening?”
Gerard stammered in bewilderment.
That was when it occurred.
The imperfect past began to slowly dissolve.
A chill ran down my spine.
* * *
A single day Gerard spent in the past was but a fleeting moment in reality.
The instant I opened my eyes, I saw Anette’s smiling face.
The darkened sky over Akra.
And right beside me was Heinrich, whom I had restrained, exactly as before.
“…!!!”
I had failed. Damn it, I’m back again!
“Recéptus!”
Was that a ‘retrieval’ incantation rather than a ‘buff’?
‘That can’t be.’
It shouldn’t be possible. I had clearly told that damned Mage I had already placed a curse upon him.
And that was the truth.
Did it mean the Mage’s death was irrelevant?
“…?”
Gerard gazed at Heinrich beside him, waiting for the curse to activate.
But then.
Something extraordinary happened.
A male silhouette appeared at his feet, casually crossing his arms.
―Unmistakably, it was Heinrich.
“…There are two Mages?!”
“Ah, this is why foolish people are hopeless.”
Not the bound Mage, but the casually composed one narrowed his arrogant eyes and spoke.
“Would a genius Mage like me have two versions? Use your head!”
Gerard’s face contorted hideously.
―How could this be?!
The night before.
“Let us devise a countermeasure, Heinrich.”
“…What sort of countermeasure?”
Heinrich and Anette had spent the entire night in deep conversation.
It concerned how they might prevent Gerard when he resumed his actions soon.
Several good—albeit rather sinister—methods had materialized in Anette’s mind.
“…It seems you have quite the talent for wickedness, older sister.”
“Oh, thank you for the compliment, Heinrich!”
Within the flow of that conversation, another topic emerged.
“Heinrich, you must be careful with yourself. Gerard might use you again to get to me.”
“‘Again’…?”
Anette recounted events from the past—details that Heinrich had suspected but never fully understood.
That the girl who had abandoned him in the Forest had done so only to protect him.
Heinrich’s eyes grew slightly red.
He had vaguely suspected she hadn’t left him without reason,
but he had never known the full truth behind it.
“Besides, your body is weakened right now. You need to be even more careful.”
“…To use me as leverage for blackmail, he’d have to take away my freedom. Would he resort to kidnapping?”
“It’s entirely possible.”
Heinrich, who had been lost in thought for a moment, suddenly grinned wickedly.
“I can prepare well for that.”
“How?”
“There’s a way.”
Heinrich enthusiastically explained the “puppet-making technique” he had developed.
He spoke with the fervor of a mad scientist celebrating a successful experiment, yet even the clever Anette could barely comprehend half of what he was saying.
“…Heinrich, but can you really create a puppet identical to you so quickly?”
“Ah, don’t worry. Once I’ve found the method, production is instantaneous.”
“But how did you ever come up with the idea to create such a terrifying puppet?”
“…!”
Heinrich, who had been excitedly chattering away, suddenly cleared his throat and feigned ignorance.
Then he merely answered that even a genius mage needed secrets, and revealed nothing more.
Back to the present moment.
An excited Gerard pressed for answers.
“Explain yourself at once! Did you use some form of body-splitting technique?”
In that instant, Heinrich’s puppet, upon which the curse’s incantation had activated, transformed into a swarm of butterflies and scattered in an instant.
Thud.
Gerard’s face went pale as if struck by a blow.
‘I was deceived.’
Was this failure then?
―Without gaining anything at all?
I was certain I could eliminate Sisrain and execute my plan. Yet here I am, failing again right before the finish line?
…Because of that woman—no, because of Anette.
At that moment, Anette spoke with a cold expression.
“I told you. You’re going to fall soon.”
Crackle crackle crackle crackle!
Akra, now bereft of its master’s power, unleashed a violent surge.
Gerard’s soldiers and the foreign mercenaries he had assembled for slaughter rushed forward without hesitation toward Sisrain, Kyle, and the Imperial troops.
“This woman…!”
Gerard himself stretched his hand toward Anette with all his might.
In that very instant.
She knew exactly what she had to do.
How to wield the power she had perfected through her ‘awakening’—the primordial force that now resonated perfectly with her was finally telling her.
Anette gripped Akra with both hands and spoke softly in an incantation.
“Exordium.”
Light drove back the darkness and seeped inward with agonizing slowness.
Akra, which had been emanating that violent surge, fell silent in an instant, then crackled as fissures spread across its surface, and light began to seep through the cracks with deliberate languor.
Crack—
The sound of splitting reverberated across heaven and earth. Fragments of Akra shattered and rained down through the air.
“No, no, no!!!”
Gerard, who had been screaming in anguish, plummeted to the ground as Akra—the very thing sustaining him—vanished.
The light of Exordium that poured forth from Akra engulfed the entire land and illuminated the world.
Everyone ceased their fighting and could only shield their eyes.
“….”
All fell silent.
As though the world itself had ended in an instant.
The first sound to reach their ears was that of birds.
The clear, crystalline chirping of birds taking flight in the newly brightened sky.
One by one, people opened their eyes.
Gerard’s soldiers, who had been compelled by orders alone to kill their opponents, and the Imperial forces alike.
Sisrain, Heinrich, Kyle—all of them.
They gazed upon the sunlight pouring down once more from the cloudless sky.
How radiant and beautiful that light was.
In that moment, as everyone stood entranced by this peculiar exhilaration.
“…The battle has finally ended.”
One soldier spoke.
With those words, cheers erupted from all directions like wildfire. The battle was finally over, they cried. Victory was ours.
The roar of the people shook heaven and earth, and the defeated cast down their swords.
“Anette.”
Amid that fervent atmosphere, Sisrain approached and pulled Anette into a tight embrace without hesitation.
“You did well.”
“…Sisrain.”
Heinrich and Kyle came running moments later.
“Sister!”
“Anette!”
Anette laughed fully among them. For the first time, she let her guard down completely, free from all anxiety.
―Brilliant sunlight streamed down.

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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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