The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 263

Meanwhile, at the Halbern estate.

This estate, which for a time had been left with only a caretaker and no residents, recently welcomed two people back.

Mehen, who had wrapped up matters in El Sionel and returned as Halbern’s proxy, and Regent Duke Ludwig, who had come back after completing a long period of closed prayer.

The estate without Arellin felt lifeless and somehow cold, but neither of them doubted for a moment that Arellin would return soon, so they waited in silence.

“It’s been… about ten days since Arellin left, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, about that long.”

“So much time has passed already.”

“Indeed. Yet each day feels unbearably long.”

“…It’s taking a while.”

“It may take even longer.”

Recalling the answer he had heard directly after visiting the Mage Tower, Mehen’s expression stiffened.

After all, a grand archmage had openly stated, ‘It won’t be easy.’

‘With Gairen sealed off, the situation has grown even more chaotic.’

At present, the situation in Albrecht was unfolding in an extremely complicated way.

The barrier surrounding Gairen had suddenly turned into a seal, prompting the Sky Tower to step in openly, and voices were rising that this entire incident had been caused by the Mage Tower in the first place.

Long-suppressed resentment toward mages erupted all at once, and some people even began making extreme claims that the mages should be driven out entirely, sustaining an ominous atmosphere.

‘And on top of that, His Highness Pession happens to be in Gairen…….’

Right now, the imperial palace was like walking on thin ice.

Some of the ministers loudly insisted that the seal on Gairen should be lifted immediately and the Crown Prince brought back, while others opposed them, arguing that preparations should be made in case the Crown Prince failed to return.

“It’s as if chaos broke out in every direction the moment we started waiting.”

As if that weren’t enough, just yesterday Empress Azeni had been attacked while attending a charity event.

An unidentified organization had assaulted her using supernatural abilities and magic, and it had been a hair-raising situation where the attackers’ blades pierced even the imperial guards’ protection and nearly reached Empress Azeni herself……

「Thanks to Lady Arellin’s gift, I was able to preserve my life.」

Mehen stroked his chin as he looked at the personal letter from Empress Azeni now before him.

「With my gratitude, I wish to repay this debt. Should Lady Arellin return at a later date, please have her visit the Empress’s Palace with this letter.」

Reading the courteous letter addressed to Arellin as the duke’s proxy, Mehen couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling.

‘She left behind an artifact as a gift…….’

“At least that much is a relief. If Empress Azeni had died or fallen into a critical state in a situation like this, it would have caused far greater turmoil.”

At Regent Duke Ludwig’s casual remark, Mehen nodded in agreement.

“Indeed… it wouldn’t have ended as mere unrest.”

Just imagining it made him shudder.

What kind of chaos would have unfolded?

‘Surely Arellin didn’t foresee something like this.’

Was it really just coincidence?

Mehen sank into thought.

At this point, the minor disturbances rising from across the nation no longer even registered as problems.

Even as he checked the reinforcement request from the Saren Knight Order—complaining that monsters around the northern fortress had been unusually active and that more manpower was needed—Mehen’s attention was elsewhere.

“Your Highness, Regent Duke.”

“What is it?”

“Do you happen to know anything more?”

Seeing Regent Duke Ludwig—who was even more short-tempered and impatient than himself—maintaining such calmness irritated Mehen unusually today. At his pressing, the regent merely shrugged.

“Now that I think about it, the sacred relic you gave Arellin—was it really just a souvenir you bought in Lemren?”

At Mehen’s sudden question, Ludwig let out a dry laugh.

“As if.”

“Then…….”

“It may look like that, but it’s a sacred relic that was consecrated by a saint. A genuine article—with even a fragment of the former saint’s bones inside.”

Mehen’s eyes widened in surprise.

A sacred relic containing a saint’s bone fragment would be something exceedingly rare, even in Lemren.

“How did you obtain something so precious?”

“I was lucky.”

It was not something that could be dismissed as mere luck.

The Holy Kingdom of Lemren was famous for never allowing genuine sacred relics to leave its borders.

Mehen still looked at him with doubt, but Ludwig only shrugged again.

“Even if you look at me like that, there’s nothing I can tell you. A most distinguished person asked me for a favor—told me to pass it on to Arellin.”

“A distinguished person……?”

Ludwig recalled what he had experienced before leaving Lemren.

The private audience he had with seven blindfolded saints.

“…I just hope, as the saints said, that the sacred relic truly helps her.”

 

 

***

 

 

To be honest, I thought my dad wouldn’t recognize me.

“……”

The moment our eyes met, I froze as if bewitched, unable to move. I figured that even if I were injured—or killed—by his hand, it couldn’t be helped.

But then……

“…Dad?”

His reaction was strange.

It wasn’t that he recognized me.

The cold sensation coming from the blade still pressed against my neck was enough to make every hair on my body stand on end.

And yet.

“……”

Even I could see that the hand gripping the sword was trembling.

A face I hadn’t seen in so long was right in front of me. Had he grown a bit haggard? The face everyone used to joke was handsome enough to be a signboard looked sharper now, as if he’d been starving somewhere, his features more angular, his expression colder.

I could hear his ragged breathing.

His chest heaved visibly.

“Run right now! What are you doing there?!”

I could hear Luka shouting desperately at me, but honestly, it barely registered.

I’d come all this way to find someone.

“Dad.”

“……”

“Why are you like this? It hurts to see.”

You were always trying so hard to save me, weren’t you?

That fact pressed down on me heavily.

“Who’s even going to acknowledge all this effort? Huh?”

For a moment, focus returned to my dad’s eyes. As he looked at me, confusion seeped into his gaze.

Those violently shaking eyes made it clear—he was mistaking me for someone else.

“…Sis?”

I’d wondered what would happen if I ever met my dad like this, and now one question had been answered.

“Why are you here… no, this can’t be. It’s a hallucination.”

Shaking his head, my dad suddenly seemed to realize something, his expression turning cold.

“Get lost.”

“Dad.”

I grabbed his arm as he lowered his sword and staggered backward.

‘Cold.’

From the arm I’d seized flowed an aura so ruined it was hard to believe it belonged to a living person.

Wasn’t this like a straw doll drained of all vitality?

‘This is…….’

Just as I tried to focus on examining his energy more closely, another force surged out of his body, as if flowing in reverse.

“Ugh.”

Seeing him clutch his head in pain startled me too.

‘That’s contamination.’

My dad’s body was contaminated? But he isn’t even a mage.

No matter how I looked at it, this sticky, unpleasant energy filling his body was unmistakably contamination.

How could this be?

I tried to step closer to examine him more carefully—but he slapped my hand away and pulled back.

“Don’t come any closer.”

I had no choice but to stop, the blade pointed straight at me.

“Dad……”

Why was he acting like this?

Trembling as if he’d encountered something terrifying, my dad retreated further away.

“……”

And then, just like that, he vanished.

Uuuung.

The moment he disappeared, the necklace began to glow again. As I clutched it and mulled over the energy I’d felt earlier, Luka—who had been watching from a distance—crept closer.

“H-how did that happen? Why did the demon of the ruins just leave?”

So even here, my dad was called the Demon of the Ruins.

“Why on earth…….”

“I don’t know either.”

But one thing was clear now—what I had to do to save my dad.

“Luka, guide me to the Gairen ruins—the ones that erupted.”

There isn’t much time left.

At last, I could see the thread that would lead me forward.