The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 264

Valer was wandering.

He was certain he had been heading somewhere, but at some point, he lost sight of what he was moving toward in the first place.

His memories flowed backward.

I have to find it.

Find what?

I have to save them.

Save who?

Right. Who was it again?

His sister?

He had failed countless times to save someone, yet within the mountain of memories—far too vast to believe they were all for a single person—the one thing that had been cleanly carved away was who he had been trying to save.

Only the pendant clenched tightly in his left hand, like a lifeline, vaguely told him what he had been doing here.

Even though he couldn’t remember what this pendant even was anymore.

—Valer.

The reason he hadn’t forgotten even his own name—

—Valer, my poor little brother.

—was because of the constant hallucinated voice whispering to him.

Was this his sister’s voice?

My beloved sister.

Even if he couldn’t recall any tender feelings or memories of her, he still remembered how deeply he had loved her.

Sister……

He tried to recall something—anything—about the sister who had once been his entire world, but nothing came to mind.

The memories of his childhood with her were already too distant, eroded by time until they had faded into obscurity.

It wasn’t just his memories of her.

The same was true of himself.

He felt certain he had once desperately wished for something.

Whenever he stopped, unable to understand why he was wandering like this in the first place, darkness swallowed him as if it had been waiting.

A void that erased everything, returning it all to nothingness, leaving not even a sense of self behind.

There were times when he thought that dissolving completely into this place—becoming nothing at all—might not be so bad.

—Are you going to give up again?

But there was one reason he still hadn’t been consumed by the darkness.

Each time he stopped, his sister’s apparition appeared without fail.

—Valer.

—Why are you like this? It hurts to see.

Like a magical incantation that brought about miracles, her voice forced him to move.

—You have to be happy. Okay? My poor little brother.

Why was he always her poor little brother? Why did she always wish for his happiness?

He didn’t know what he had been searching for, nor where he had been headed. His memories did nothing but vanish, never resurfacing. And yet, Valer stared blankly at the smiling apparition of his sister.

Even though he remembered nothing, he couldn’t give up—because that smile made his chest tighten.

“I have to find it.”

And so—

“I have to save them.”

Even if he didn’t know what it was.

How long had he been wandering like this?

Having lost his sanity, drifting purely on instinct, Valer finally noticed someone.

“Dad.”

“…….”

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

It was irresistible. As if some kind of spell had been cast on him, strength drained from his hand.

His instincts screamed at him to cut down the being before his eyes immediately, repulsed by the alien presence and heavy sense of wrongness—but his hand did nothing except tremble.

Was it his sister?

For a fleeting instant, she looked identical.

But once he saw her face up close, he knew instinctively that she wasn’t.

His sister wasn’t this small. His sister didn’t smile like that. His sister didn’t speak like that. His sister—

His sister was already dead.

No matter how many times I turn back time, I can’t save my sister.

An ancient despair washed over him.

Memories passed by—of begging her to live, of crying and pleading, of insisting that he would die in her place—times that could never be undone.

But the warmth he felt from the arm he’d grabbed was real.

It told him this wasn’t a hallucination, but a living, breathing person.

The moment he realized that, more memories surged back.

A sharp, instinctive sense of rejection stabbed deep into Valer’s core.

“Don’t come any closer.”

Someone who didn’t exist in his memories, someone he had never encountered even once throughout all his wandering.

The faint trembling at his fingertips wasn’t just rejection.

It was fear—fear of a person who should not exist.

Retreating abruptly, left alone once more, Valer couldn’t regain his senses as his memories flooded back in a tangled mess.

He clenched his teeth, enduring the pain of his mind turning to mush.

Amid the violent turmoil wracking his body, one fragment of memory finally surfaced.

 

“Shall I make you a god?”

 

Valer remembered—

A man in a black robe he had met while wandering somewhere.

And above all, the man’s striking golden eyes, shining an unnerving yellow.

 

 

****

 

 

 

“Luka, take me to the Gaieren ruins that erupted.”

“Why should I?!”

Luka protested.

“Explain who you are first. What is your connection to the Demon of the Ruins? If you come quietly to the Mage Association, there won’t be any bloodshed.”

I let out a deep sigh at Luka, who was pointing his staff at me and making things harder than they needed to be.

“The Mage Association, my foot. And what’s with the Mage Association all of a sudden? Did the mages in this world split into two or something?”

“Hmph, do you think I’d fall for such leading questions? Fifteen years ago, when the master of the Sky Tower vanished without a trace and the mages split into two factions—every mage in the world knows that!”

“No matter where you go, my master always ends up in trouble.”

“Your master? What are you talking about?”

Whether Luka kept his staff aimed at me or not, my mana was already moving.

Soon, white light flared as the spell activated, and Luka’s body was bound in midair. Even then, Luka seemed more shocked by something else.

“Silent casting?!”

His eyes went wide as he stared at me.

“A star-rank mage?!”

Seeing Luka instantly turn respectful, I nodded.

Easy. Too easy.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Even in the previous world, Luka had completely folded the moment I used high-level magic.

This time was no different.

“I figured I’d try it, just in case.”

Luka guided me to the Gaieren ruins, looking at me with eyes sparkling a bit too intensely.

“But it’s sealed because even approaching it is dangerous—”

“Huh?”

Something was blocking the way, so I made a hole just big enough for the two of us to pass through. Luka, who had been about to say something, froze mid-sentence and just blinked at me.

“…Never mind.”

“What do you mean never mind? Why’d you stop talking?”

“It was nothing. Just nonsense.”

“?”

Anyway, we were able to head toward the ruins without any trouble.

“By the way, Luka, why do you like star-rank mages so much?”

“Usually, you’d say ‘admire,’ not ‘like,’ wouldn’t you?”

“What’s the difference? As long as we understand each other.”

“To think someone this sloppy was chosen by the stars.”

Luka gave me a look like I was hopeless.

“Aren’t star-rank mages still human? They eat food and go to the bathroom too, you know.”

“What are you even saying? Of course I know that.”

“You were staring so hard I thought maybe you didn’t.”

I found Luka fascinating. Maybe because my illusions about star-rank mages had shattered too early, but in every parallel world, the admiration for star-rank mages was always the same.

“Do you want to become a star-rank mage?”

“Any mage would.”

“Well, yeah.”

Given how few star-rank mages there were compared to the total number of mages, it was clear that being chosen by the stars was rare. Most mages came to accept their limits and were satisfied with that.

After all, people want different things, and mages are still people.

“Still, I want to be chosen by the stars someday.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s cool?”

Just for that reason…?
As I was thinking that, Luka continued, his face lighting up as he shared his story.

“When I was little, there was a huge flood in the town where I lived. An entire village was submerged. A passing star-rank mage solved it. The water that swallowed the town rose up into the sky—it was so beautiful. I still dream about it sometimes.”

The way he looked up at the sky, like he was dreaming, was strangely nice.

“I thought I wanted to become a mage who could help someone like that someday. But why are you looking at me like that?”

“No, I was just thinking I’d been pretty narrow-minded. Yeah. That’s cool.”

“…?”

Luka tilted his head in confusion.

Did Luka know that even if he wasn’t a star-rank mage, he was already helping me enough?

“We’re here.”

The ruins appeared before me, their entrance destroyed by the eruption and leaking an ominous aura.

And the moment I sensed the ruins, I realized exactly what I had felt when I met Dad.

“So it really was true.”

Dad and the ruins were connected. Damn it.