The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health – Chapter 221

Author: Asternkm

My mother in my previous life had been a meticulous planner.
Mehen, whom I’d newly come to call Mother, was also a planner.
And if you looked at the past I’d seen thanks to the Laplace Devil, Shione’s mother had been no different.

‘Then who did I take after?’

An unexpected kidnapping, and an even more unexpected connection to the black market.

The moment I heard the words black market, my eyes had lit up and I’d charged in without thinking—but the reality unfolding before me was nothing like what I’d imagined.

Originally, my plan had been simple.

If I could steal the relic before the black market opened, great.
If not, oh well.

As long as I could obtain the relic even a single day sooner, I didn’t care how.

That was the mindset I’d jumped in with.

After all, no matter what happened, I was confident I could escape on my own.

But then—

“Ugh……”

This place didn’t only hold human slaves. There were beastfolk, elves, and many other races. There were even children.

‘If I leave like this… I’ll definitely think about it before falling asleep.’

Was I obligated to save them? No.
Did I have a reason to? Not really.

So why was I hesitating like this?

The values I’d been taught in my previous life, my sense of morality—they kept tripping me up.

They stuck in my mind.

“Hah. Just who is it that’s lived in such a gentle world, anyway.”

Was this karma, coming back to bite me for running my mouth at Pession when I was young?

Fortunately, there was someone who helped me sort through this dilemma—the young lady I’d saved by chance: Lady Silvy.

“You’re saying the auction will be held within a week at the latest?”

“Yes. I’d estimate within four days.”

“How do you know?”

“A journalist’s intuition… and information I already had?”

“Oh?”

As expected of the owner of the Albrecht Times.

The quality of her information was on a different level.

Then maybe there was a way to save these people, secure the relic, and escape ourselves.

“How do you plan on getting out?”

“I told you, I’m a mage.”

“There you go again with that joke.”

At first, Silvy absolutely refused to believe that I was a mage.

“You don’t have a mage’s robe, you’re not carrying a wand or staff, and you don’t possess any distinctive magical tools. Saying you’re a mage is completely absurd.”

She’d rattled that off like a machine gun, displaying razor-sharp reasoning like a tiny reaper who dragged incidents along behind her—and she hadn’t budged an inch.

“Hah, there’s a barrier here, so I can’t even demonstrate magic directly!”

“Well… can you at least identify the magic that’s been cast?”

“That much I can do.”

Luckily, I managed to prove I was a mage by correctly identifying the types of magic embedded in the magical tools Silvy was carrying.

Being a mage is rough.

“You got all of them right…!”

“Other mages can’t do this, so don’t even think about asking them to try.”

“Why not?”

“How would I know?”

It worked for me.

Apparently, most people had to read spell formulas or search for distinctive mana traces. The only person who could recognize things instantly like me was my master.

Anyway—

If the auction was coming up soon, I figured it was worth waiting.

‘Mom’s going to worry… sorry, Mehen!’

If it was four days away, they’d definitely move us to the auction site within the next two days.

‘And I still need to secure the relic.’

Then maybe it would be better to move after the auction began?

As I laid out various plans, one thing still didn’t make sense.

‘Could the security forces really not know what Silvy knows?’

They weren’t idiots, and it bothered me that a criminal organization like this was operating so freely.

Silvy answered that doubt.

“I can’t be sure, but… there’s a rumor that’s been circulating quietly.”

“What kind of rumor?”

“That the black market employs espers and mages as sentinels.”

“Es… espers?”

If that was true—

“Does that mean one of the Five Grand Ducal Houses is involved?”

“Most likely, yes.”

“Huh. That’s absurd.”

“Most people suspect it’s Halbern.”

“…?”

Why did this suddenly turn into Halbern?

No matter how secretive our family is, we don’t need to do this—we’re already plenty rich!

“I mean, seriously suspicious. Listen—black market activity started growing exactly fifteen years ago. And coincidentally, that’s when Halbern reduced its public presence…”

I half-listened to Silvy’s far-fetched deductions, letting them go in one ear and out the other.

For the sake of my family’s reputation alone, I’d make sure to expose these bastards.

“…And on top of that, the Grand Duke of Halbern hasn’t appeared in public for fifteen years now…”

That was just because Dad disappeared somewhere.

“By the way, Silvy, there’s something I’ve been wondering.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“Why does the Albrecht Times like the Grand Duke of Halbern so much? He doesn’t even do anything, but he’s always on the front page.”

“That’s because if we run the Grand Duke of Halbern on the front page, circulation jumps tenfold.”

So it was just capitalism at work.

“And the Grand Duke of Halbern’s beauty deserves to be recorded and passed down through history! You know that, Arellin?!”

“Hmmm.”

Is he really that handsome?

Honestly, isn’t Pession better-looking overall, regardless of taste?

“Oh! Now that I think about it, Arellin, you’re kind of pretty like the Grand Duke of Halbern too… maybe?”

Silvy stared at my face as if entranced.

“Arell—if we get out of here safely, would you consider modeling for the Albrecht Times—?”

“I decline.”

****

Silvy watched Arellin’s face as she sat quietly in meditation, utterly mesmerized.

‘What a strange person.’

She had met many kinds of people before, but this was her first time encountering someone like this.

When she had first woken up inside this damp, oppressive iron cage, she’d been terrified.
But Arellin—who had been kidnapped alongside her by sheer misfortune—was so calm and composed that Silvy found herself calming down as well.

And once she’d come to believe that Arellin truly was a mage, her trust only deepened.

‘I really didn’t know what to do.’

The sudden death of her parents in a carriage accident.
The funeral.
Her uncle’s betrayal.
And then—

Silvy lowered her gaze to the pendant in her hand, her expression darkening.

The one who had summoned her to the place where she was kidnapped… had been her fiancé-to-be.

‘The fact that he never showed up means… he betrayed me too, doesn’t it?’

Even the betrayal of the man she had trusted.

She had nearly been kidnapped and sold into slavery.
A bleak, cruel fate had come crashing down on her one disaster after another—yet strangely enough, she wasn’t afraid.

That was all thanks to Arellin.

‘What kind of mage walks around without a staff or magical tools?’

According to Arellin, there was something that got jealous, so she had no choice—but Silvy couldn’t really understand it.

Arellin didn’t seem to expect her to understand either.
Her expression hovered somewhere between resignation and acceptance.

“Don’t worry. No matter what happens, I’ll make sure you get out safely, Silvy.”

It was strange.
It was just a verbal promise, yet with that single sentence, all her anxiety, fear, and dread melted away like snow.

Silvy felt certain that things would turn out exactly as Arellin said.

And at last, that day came.

****

Just as expected, two days after they were captured, the slaves were moved.

While being transported, Arellin avoided the barriers and cast detection magic. From what she could tell, the place above them appeared to be the auction hall.

‘They’re managing this more thoroughly than I thought.’

With a strict daily limit on how many times she could use magic, Arellin gathered information as efficiently as possible.

“Such a shame. If you weren’t top-grade merchandise, this big brother here would’ve shown you heaven.”

I’d have gladly shown you hell, you bastard.

Suppressing the urge to beat the drooling guard who kept eyeing her with inhuman patience, Arellin mapped out the location of the relic—and the locations of the captured slaves.

‘Auction order is items first, slaves second.’

Thanks to the information Silvy had provided, she was able to form a precise plan.

And so, D-day arrived.

Even with the unmistakable commotion above announcing the start of the auction, Arellin waited.
And waited.

The moment she was aiming for was when the guards watching the slaves stepped away briefly.

“Hah. Finally.”

Speed was everything in an escape.

From here on out, the total number of doors she needed to open was forty-two.

Even a once-in-a-generation genius like her had two weaknesses as a mage.

A strict daily limit on spell usage, meaning she couldn’t rely on overwhelming numbers.

The inability to use excessively powerful high-tier magic.

Both stemmed from her fragile, glass-like body—more precisely, from the need to avoid stimulating the “ability” carefully contained within it.