The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 277

Before the Albert Empire was founded, the central continent was said to be a cursed land that no one could enter.

Five heroes who helped the first emperor, reclaimed and purified the barren, cursed land, and laid the foundation of the empire.

The families they established became the Empire’s Five Grand Ducal Houses, destined to enjoy power forever under the radiance of the Albert Empire.

The process by which they gained their “Abilities” was never recorded anywhere, but by now, even the vast majority of commoners roughly knew what the abilities of the Five Great Houses were.

There was only one exception: Halbern.

“Most abilities are intuitive, clear, and powerful.”

The only thing Halbern’s ability shared with the others was that it was “powerful.”

Unlike other abilities, most of Halbern’s ability was secretive and vague.

Like the Key Successor (S) I was activating right now.

“At first, I thought it just meant I could enter the secret archive.”

As long as it was a hidden place, I could enter anywhere using this ability. Until now, I had only used it to sneak into the Great Archmage’s Domain without my master’s permission.

“A rift….”

Pession turned his head to look at me after seeing the suddenly appeared rift.

With a more serious expression than before, I placed my hand on the rift.

A rift that had not opened yet was not a “door.” Only when I opened the rift to the place I wanted would a true “door” be completed.

That was the real problem.

“I have to open a door to the world I used to live in.”

This task was like fixing a ghost onto a coordinate plane.

The problem was that there were simply too many worlds I had passed through. I didn’t know where to go.

“If I open it wrong, a future where we all die together in outer space is probably waiting for us.”

Or the door could open in the sea or underground, leading to drowning or suffocation.

“There’s no time.”

I had to open the “door” before the survivors were swallowed by this crappy reverse world.

“This really sucks.”

It felt like finishing basic arithmetic and then immediately jumping into calculus.

“I wish there were at least some kind of signpost.”

Or at least a helper who could assist me!

I glanced at Dad.

At some point, Dad had turned into a sleeping princess, being supported by Pession.

Yeah. I quickly gave up hope.

Dad seemed way too incompetent for his reputation, but maybe it was just my imagination.

Without even thinking about it, I recalled my father from my past life. The kind who followed Mom around all the time and constantly said, “Our daughter is kind, so you understand Dad, right?”

“…Current Dad wins by a landslide.”

Even without comparing him to my past-life father, just thinking of Ludwig, the regent duke who had kidnapped me while pretending to be my father, made my dad the clear winner.

“…Mm.”

I cut him some slack.

Well, Dad ended up like that while trying to save me, after all.

Zap.

The rift slowly began to open, making my arm tingle.

“Not yet. I haven’t found the coordinates.”

Trying to find the other side of the rift felt hopeless, like searching for Earth in the middle of outer space, not even on an open sea.

“The other survivors… aren’t much help.”

These pitiful survivors were getting both the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being kidnapped by ruins and the rare experience of touring a reverse world. Just not being swallowed by the reverse world already meant they were pulling their weight.

I rapidly turned my thoughts and gathered every bit of knowledge I had.

“Inside ruins.”

This was clearly a space different from reality. As far as I knew, the most similar space was the “Great Archmage’s Domain,” where I had stayed while receiving treatment.

“It runs on different rules from reality and is stable.”

Compared to that, what about this reverse world we were trapped in?

“It has no rules, is dangerous, and unstable.”

The “here” where Pession was felt strangely more stable, but that wouldn’t last long either.

I went over the things I had newly learned after coming here.

Regression, destruction, gods, divinity.

“It feels like I’ve only gained useless knowledge that isn’t needed to live.”

At that moment, I had a huge realization.

Maybe I was… a T.

And a capital T at that.

Oh, to think I might be one of those T bastards everyone argued about on the internet.

“But it’s all true. I didn’t say a single wrong thing.”

No matter how much I had a secret birth, and even if I was an extra who felt more like a main character than the heroine, loved and watched over by immortals, the fact remained that I was facing death right now.

“Do I have no choice but to give up on stability and open it anywhere?”

My heart started to race.

Open the door anywhere quickly, even if we land somewhere strange
VS
Take more time and connect the door more carefully

If the Saren Knights were here, they would have happily turned this into a betting game.

“Master!”

Why won’t you help me at times like this?!

Ha. If it were just me, Dad, and Pession, I would have trusted our abilities and opened the door. But with the lives of several thousand survivors on the line, I couldn’t choose easily.

No matter how great a mage I was, I couldn’t save several thousand people at once if they ended up in space, the sea, or underground.

“In the end, is there no other choice?”

Should I connect the door anywhere, even if it meant accepting casualties?

It was at that moment.

—Flash.

At that instant, an overwhelmingly powerful call reached me from beyond the rift.

 

 

****

 

 

 

The Sealed City, Gairen.

In a back alley of that city, Luka opened his eyes at some point. By the time Luka came to his senses and walked out to the plaza, it was broad daylight, yet there wasn’t a single person to be seen—only the bleak scenery of an eerie city.

‘Why am I here?’

The last memory Luka had ended with him approaching Arellin in the Mage Tower.

Luka moved his hands. For some reason, it felt like he had experienced “death.” And yet, right now, he was alive.

‘Lady Arellin….’

He thought of Arellin, who had been with him until the very end, but there was no way he could find her. It felt like… he had just had a dream. A dream where he kept meeting Arellin.

‘Was that another world?’

Knowledge that was not his own surfaced in his mind.

‘The city’s time has stopped.’

It was such a high-level spell that Luka couldn’t even attempt it.

Luka traced his memories. For some reason, he felt like he had known that ‘this would happen.’

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Luka returned to the Mage Tower and, on its highest floor, discovered the corpse of a mage sitting as if asleep.

‘Jemello.’

Luka recalled the mage’s name without difficulty.

He was a third-rank mage dispatched to this city. Even knowing he would die, that mage willingly gave his life to seal this cursed city.

“Ah.”

His memories came back.

The voice that had been calling him endlessly.

— Luka.

A mysterious and holy call, one that might even have been a demon’s voice.

Entranced by it, Luka left the Mage Tower. And then……

Luka’s gaze moved to Jemello’s staff. He barely had the strength to hold anything, but with trembling hands, he managed to grasp the staff.

— Become a lighthouse.

For a moment, he wanted to run away.

But ironically, he couldn’t.

He didn’t know what this sacred voice wanted from him. But… for some reason, Luka felt that he had to do this.

Holding a high-grade staff that amplified a mage’s mana, Luka took a deep breath.

Wooooong.

The staff began to hum.

There was no fixed spell formula, no grand chant. Like a prayer rather than magic, Luka wished and wished again.

That someone would return to this place.

Mana filled with hope failed to gather and scattered instead. Even so, Luka scraped together every last bit of mana he had and continued to wish. It looked almost like a prayer.

Luka wished for someone to return. He didn’t even know who that someone was, but he hoped they would come back.

So that he could become a lighthouse and shine a light for their return.

But no matter how much mana he gathered, the hope did not become magic.

Then Luka remembered why he had wanted to become a mage in the first place.

He wanted to save people too.

‘Did I want to be a hero?’

No. It wasn’t such a grand reason. He just wanted to prove that even this insignificant life had meaning—that by saving someone, his own life could have value.

To whom?

In that instant, Luka realized the true identity of the voice he had heard.

For some reason, Luka looked upward. To see a sky that could not be seen.

Starlight fell from the sky.

“Ah.”

At that moment, the time of the city—sealed, with even time stopped—began to flow slowly once more.

Along with rifts opening in all directions.

At last, the wish became magic.

 

 

 

****

 

 

 

The first Great Archmage, once even called the God of Mages, the Great Archmage Mercedes, was observing the city sealed by Jemello from within his domain.

Immortals could do more than was known, and also could not do more than was known.

Changing the future was the same.

Immortals, too, were bound by the flow of fate, and so this world would be destroyed as foretold.

And so the Great Archmage Mercedes already knew what would become of this city’s future.

There was no such thing as hope for them.

The overwhelming helplessness of knowing this future while being unable to do anything pressed down on Mercedes’s shoulders.

But now.

Faced with a truly “miracle-like scene” that began with intense starlight and enormous rifts, he could not say a single word.

‘The future…….’

A fate he had believed would never change had been altered.