The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 273

– Rumble, rumble, rumble.

The ruins were collapsing from the inside.

I was already destroying the ruins by severing their connections to parallel worlds, but I hadn’t planned on bringing the whole place crashing down like this!

“That troll bastard! Just you wait until I see you again!”

I had no idea what exactly Cheiyen had done, but one thing was certain.

These ruins would soon collapse completely, and everyone here would be buried beneath them.

But there was an even bigger problem…

The connection to the parallel worlds is being severed.

As the connections snapped one after another, the presences of Dad and Pashion, which had been growing clearer, were now gradually fading away.

No.

At this rate, Dad or Pashion would end up trapped in the cracks between dimensions. We were in a truly desperate situation.

Dad’s location.

Pashion’s location.

And the countless people trapped in these ruins… along with the souls the ruins had swallowed.

Can I really save everyone?

Suddenly, I remembered what my master had once told me.

“I taught you magic so you could heal people, but I’d prefer it if you avoided using magic whenever possible.”

“Why?”

When I had first started learning magic, I had been so excited that I kept casting one spell after another. That was when my master had casually made that remark.

“Because even I would have a hard time handling your ‘supernatural ability.’”

Back then, I hadn’t understood what those words meant.

Thump, thump, thump.

A tremendous power was pounding inside me.

I could feel an immense power sleeping deep within me, so vast that it was impossible to measure.

A power that could destroy my body and break me if I made even the slightest mistake.

I could die.

I knew it instinctively.

If I drew upon this power, my body wouldn’t be able to withstand it.

It wasn’t my fault. The power itself was simply so fierce and immense that just using it could have such consequences.

“Whenever possible, never use it. Absolutely never.”

Those were my master’s words. She’d rather I use magic than ever resort to my supernatural ability.

And yet, at the same time, the fact that such a fierce power had slept peacefully inside me for twenty-two years made me sense a certain will within it. A will that had been trying to protect me.

Help me.

I want to save them.

At that very moment.

The world stopped.

 

 

***

 

 

 

Pashion immediately realized that the path created by Wandering Hope was no ordinary road.

Familiar yet unfamiliar landscapes stretched out on both sides of the wavering path.

There were scenes from the imperial palace and the Albrecht Empire, where he had spent his entire life, as well as places from all over the world he had never visited.

Versions of Pashion from his childhood, adulthood, and even the time before his death were repeating themselves there.

Every time he walked along the path, another world appeared. A little farther on, yet another world appeared.

Countless worlds repeated themselves like that.

Who on earth is making these worlds repeat like this?

Actually, he didn’t care.

Even though he was experiencing things that an ordinary person might never encounter even once in their entire life, Pashion felt nothing in particular.

The world ending?

It would have ended someday. He just hadn’t expected it to happen in his generation.

The Abyss in the North turning out to be the land of dragons, and the dragons running wild?

Humanity had long believed that something might happen in the Abyss someday. Wasn’t that the very reason the northern fortress had been built in the first place?

The fact that dragons were the cause was surprising, but that was all.

His mother dying and Emperor Edward becoming a tyrant weren’t surprising either. Emperor Edward had always needed Empress Agenia to keep him in check.

Even when all the royals of the Southern Empire died, causing its blessing to disappear and the empire to fall, Pashion thought it made sense. That land had always relied on its blessing and lived carelessly.

The Uyo Alliance splitting apart because of racial conflicts, and the World Tree burning down as a result, also seemed like things that could happen.

To Pashion, all of these were simply misfortunes that could happen at any time.

Ever since he was a child, there had only been one mysterious and unpredictable person in his life.

Arellin.

He had known that Arellin was no ordinary person from the very first few times they met.

Arellin was so different from other children her age.

Unlike the other children, who were happy and welcoming just because he spoke to them, Arellin didn’t like it when he talked to her or even when he simply looked at her.

How was that possible?

Since he had never met someone like that before, Pashion mistakenly thought Arellin was just shy.

In reality, she had genuinely felt uncomfortable around him.

If he had known that, would he have stayed away from her?

No.

There was one thing he could say with certainty. No matter how much Arellin hurt him or tried to keep her distance, he would always have approached her with a smile.

He simply couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Sometimes, she seemed so fragile.

Sometimes, she seemed so vulnerable.

Sometimes, he felt that if he looked away even for a moment, she might disappear somewhere forever.

Just when he was wondering what this feeling could possibly be, the twins asked him a question.

“Your Highness, why do you like Arellin so much?”

That was when he realized it.

He was constantly thinking about Arellin whenever he had a spare moment, wanting to see her, talking about her all day long, and wondering how he could meet her again.

Why? He didn’t know.

It simply felt like the most natural thing in the world. To Pashion, it was just the way things were supposed to be.

And so…

“Your Highness really must like Lady Arellin!”

Hearing the twins say that made him realize it.

Oh, I like Arellin.

A girl he hadn’t even known existed in this world until one day, when he happened to meet her by chance.

The fact that he could never return to the time before he knew that girl existed.

So that’s what it means to like someone.

“Perhaps it’s just a passing interest?”

When Pashion was just beginning to understand his feelings for Arellin, he once overheard the palace attendants saying something like that. He had been so displeased by their words that he still remembered them.

Some people even said, much like Wandering Hope had suggested, that because his life was easy no matter what he did, he had become obsessed with Arellin simply because she was the one person who was difficult to win over.

They wondered if he had developed a stubborn desire to overcome his first real challenge, since everything else came so easily to him and he had never struggled or agonized over anything in particular.

Who is it that actually has an easy life?

Arellin was the one who could easily decipher every foreign language and breeze through difficult books, even though she was physically weak.

Of course, he had immediately argued that his feelings weren’t some kind of stubborn obsession.

But there had been moments when he had secretly wondered, Could that be true?

Was he drawn to Arellin because everything was too easy for him, and she was the one thing that wasn’t?

But then…

“Pashion.”

A faint smile and a soft voice.

Eyes that sparkled beautifully in the dazzling sunlight.

If he could live in this moment forever, he would gladly give up a fortune, or even the chance to become emperor.

Just one glance from her, just one smile, could change his entire world.

She was so beautiful.

Even the voice that called his name was beautiful.

There was no way his feelings were nothing more than stubbornness. They couldn’t possibly be so shallow.

“Pashion?”

The world came alive again at the sound of her voice, and he could finally breathe when he saw the way she looked at him.

Ah, I’m done for.

My life is ruined now.

I can’t live without her anymore.

He had reached a point where the word like could no longer begin to express what he felt.

He should have stepped back then.

He should have fled back to a world without her.

But no matter how deeply he regretted it, it was already too late.

Pashion was suddenly overcome with fear.

He was scared.

He hadn’t even trembled the first time he went monster hunting, yet here he was, terrified of Arellin, who was weaker and much smaller than him.

What if I lose her?

What if she disappears?

What if she dies?

What am I supposed to do without you?

But could he really run away now?

No. How could I ever do that?

Even when his feelings became too overwhelming to hide, and even when the emotions he had carefully accumulated finally came crashing down…

Pashion had always wished for just one thing.

For Arellin to always be happy.

And if he were allowed one small selfish wish…

For him to always be by her side.

“Arellin…”

When he said that he didn’t care whether she was a ghost, someone from another world, or a monster that had come to devour him, he had meant every word.

There was no way someone who could use magic so effortlessly, decipher every foreign language, and play music that other people had never even heard of could possibly be ordinary.

Every time Pashion discovered something new about Arellin’s extraordinary nature, he felt nothing but fear.

He was afraid that her special nature would eventually take her away from him.

He didn’t care who you really were. He didn’t need to know your secrets, not even for the rest of his life. He didn’t care if you had deceived him with a sweet lie.

In fact, if that were the case, he would gladly smile and let himself be deceived forever.

So…

Thud.

That was when something changed.

Just as the wavering scenery suddenly came to a halt, and he thought it was as if the world itself had stopped…

Someone appeared.

As if by a true miracle.

“Pashion!”

How could he possibly not love this person?

“I came to save you.”

Pashion closed his eyes as he took Arellyn’s outstretched hand.

Thinking that if he could die in her arms, he would be content.