The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health – Chapter 206

Author: Asternkm

I got scolded.

Half jokingly, I’d said,

“Since things turned out like this, how about I don’t reveal who I am until I get found out?”

—and immediately met Mehen’s icy glare.

I thought it sounded fun.

“Arel. I see absolutely no sign of remorse on your face.”

“But listen to me first. It’s not like I’m deliberately trying to deceive anyone. I’m just saying that until other people notice, I won’t go out of my way to say I’m me, right? It’s kind of like an accident caused by implied intent.”

Mehen pressed his fingers to his forehead.

“Is that how I raised you?”

“Umm… no.”

“Then is this the great archmage’s doing?”

“…I’m sorry.”

As soon as I admitted fault before the innocent master got dragged into this, Mehen’s eyes finally softened.

“I’m in favor of it!”

Seizing the moment, Rena tried to back me up—

“……”

—but was defeated by Mehen’s cold stare.

With a light sigh, Mehen met my eyes. Even under the magic lights, his pale green eyes looked straight through me.

“Do you know what kind of heart I lived with for the past fifteen years after you disappeared, Arel?”

“Uh…”

That was unfair.

Mehen didn’t explain his feelings with words.

Just with his expression, the way he looked at me, the slight tremble in the hand that reached toward me—he showed how hard those years had been.

…I’d hoped he was eating well and living well.

“Even now, it feels like this moment is a dream.”

I grabbed Mehen’s hand, which hesitated as if he didn’t dare touch me, and pressed it to my cheek, rubbing against it.

“How could this be a dream?”

Mehen smiled.

“It’s embarrassing to admit, but I could barely function as a proper human being. That was when I first realized how pathetic and insignificant I really was.”

“Mom, you’re always the best.”

“With neither you nor Valer around, Halbern… had no value to me at all. Even staying in my position—something I’d always done—became unbearably difficult. Being there only made the empty spaces you both left feel larger.”

“Mehen…”

“Anyway, that’s how it was.”

Maybe he got embarrassed after the fact, because Mehen quickly wrapped things up.

“I won’t dare ask you to understand. These are my feelings alone, and you have no obligation to bear them. But…”

Mehen’s gaze sharpened.

“You shouldn’t do that to His Highness. Didn’t you like him too, Arel?”

It was a sharp rebuke.

“At least I knew you were alive. His Highness did not. As I told you, the imperial family hid that fact from the Crown Prince. Even so, he was the one who couldn’t let go of you for the longest time.”

Maybe even now.

As he spoke, Mehen gently explained that he had already seen once how far a person could break after losing someone precious.

“Arel, if you truly wish for His Highness to return to the gentle, kind boy he was in childhood, then that responsibility lies with you.”

I blinked quietly.

“Be kind to His Highness.”

Mehen’s calm voice—

“Just as His Highness was kind to you.”

—melted away my sharp-edged spite.

“I’m sorry. How could he not recognize me? Even with all the impostors, that still hurt. I guess I got angry for a moment.”

“Yes. That’s understandable.”

Mehen hugged me as I complained, empathizing with me.

“I do that to Valer all the time, too.”

Muttering cheerfully that he was going to half-kill Valer when he came back this time, Mehen smiled brightly.

…Really? Would that be possible? Well, she’s Mom, so maybe.

“I’ll do what you say, Mom.”

“Still, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to partially go along with your idea.”

“Huh?”

Mehen crooked a finger.

“If you return to your original status right away, it’ll cause confusion. So for now, let’s have you live under a temporary identity. I’ll return, sort things out one by one, and once Halbern’s influence is restored, we’ll have Arellin properly return after that.”

Smiling at Mehen’s sincere promise to let me walk nothing but a flower-lined path, I nodded.

****

I decided to live for a while under the status of the great archmage’s personal disciple.
My name would be Rel.

“Where exactly are you hiding your identity?”

I did hear comments like that, but I was confident.

“Miss—!”

Even if it didn’t work on everyone.

“Uni!”

Uni had held on after losing her duties at the Halbern estate, but in the end she resigned together with Mehen when he left.

After that, she crossed over to El Sionel and, using her experience managing me, started a beauty business that provided exercise programs and nutritional meal plans for young ladies—and it became a huge success.

Uni, now a proper businesswoman, came running over brightly, then froze the moment she saw my smile.

“Who are you?”

“What?”

“Our young lady is not someone who greets people like this. She frowns at falling leaves, gets irritated if you so much as speak to her, finds breathing itself bothersome, and believes life is suffering! Someone who smiles this brightly and cheerfully cannot possibly be our young lady—so who are you?!”

“Do you want to get scolded?”

“…You are our young lady.”

“Oh, seriously.”

“I missed you.”

Is there no such thing as a touching reunion for me? Why is everyone like this lately?

“Get off.”

“Wow, it really is our young lady. Heehee.”

“Don’t be moved by something like that.”

“It really is our young lady!”

“Hey, seriously.”

“More! Be even more irritated!”

“Ugh, this is annoying!”

“That’s it!”

Ern had joined the Saren Knights, and Ember was so busy she couldn’t possibly get away, so only Uni came running—but instead of feeling disappointed, I felt the passage of time.

“Miss, do you need a maid? I can still work as one.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Ahem. Uni. I’m already the young lady’s head maid.”

“What?! That’s a scam!”

The two of them started bickering.

Normally, at times like this, Ember would hand out snacks to distract everyone.

I heard she’d opened a bakery and hit it big.

I felt briefly sentimental, then returned to the matter at hand.

So.

“Dad… is he dead?”

“That’s unlikely,” Mehen said, shaking his head.

“If he were dead, the power of the Halbern family head would have passed to you, Arel.”

“Would I notice that right away?”

“Well, they say it feels like all the eye-realms you’d kept closed suddenly expand at once, so it’d be hard not to notice.”

Mehen had tried in his own way to find my father’s whereabouts.

He’d scoured information from adventurers’ guilds and information guilds across the world, even sending out private agents.

“The whole world? Well, strictly speaking, not the entire world.”

The Sky Tower and Infinite Archive of the Mage Tower.

The Great Forest of the Shugra Empire.

The holy lands of the Kingdom of Lumeren.

The great ruins of the Yuyo Federation.

And the Abyss of the north and the Forbidden Lands of the south.

Even the other side of the world.

Countless places beyond human reach scattered across the world—places even Mehen couldn’t know about.

“My daughter finally comes back alive, and the man who’s supposed to be her father doesn’t even show his face.”

I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but honestly—

Dad is always late.

Well… I still love him, though.

“By the way, what’s Godfather been up to lately?”

“He’s in the Kingdom of Lumeren.”

“Why?”

“He’s in seclusion.”

“……”

The regent duke—who had once looted the Southern Empire’s treasure vault and sent me all sorts of rare artifacts and elixirs when I was weak—had apparently become a wreck after I went missing. Then, after learning I was alive, he went all the way to the holy kingdom to pray for my safe return.

What should I say?

It’s kind of…

“That’s not really his personality, is it?”

Mehen shrugged.

“I’ve already sent him a letter, so once he finishes praying, he’ll probably read it and come back.”

“Well… yeah, probably.”

“So, you’re going to the Mage Tower?”

“Ah, yeah.”

I wanted to meet the others too and have some happy reunions, but—

“I can’t just leave Dad like this.”

When I smiled brightly, Mehen made that strange expression again.

Thoughts like she looks like Shione, no, she looks like Valer, no, her features are similar but her aura is completely different, so maybe she’s like neither seemed practically audible.

“I think my master might be able to find him.”

It would take a planet-scale search spell, but if it was my master, it might be possible.

“So then…”

Mehen looked at the shopping bags filling both of my hands with a complicated expression.

A truly impressive amount of luggage for someone supposedly just going to the Mage Tower.

Rena had practically screamed, asking if I was going on a trip. I wasn’t, but still—

“Oh, what. Why. What.”

I went shopping for the first time in fifteen years—are you saying that’s a waste?

“No, that’s not it.”

“Mom, we’re not that poor now, are we?”

“No, but…”

“This is all bribery. Bribes for smooth social living. You know how it is, right?”