The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 393

A corner of the Northern Castle.

“Karjien-nim, this is a snack I secretly saved. Please have some. It’s called chocolate, and it’s really delicious—”

“I know what chocolate is. Hm? This is good. Give me more.”

“There isn’t any.”

“Tch.”

Karjien, who had been left unattended by his master and was spending time with his new attendant (nanny), Jaren, suddenly sensed an anomaly in the world and lifted his head.

Quietly, the sensation of the world breaking apart.

“Dragon Lord?”

“Wait.”

When Jaren tried to move at Karjien’s reaction, Karjien stopped him—using even his magic.

Jaren panicked when he saw his body forcibly frozen and the line slicing through the space in front of him.

‘What… is that?’

Even Jaren, who thought he’d experienced every kind of bizarre event in the Northern Castle, had never seen anything like this.

Then, before he knew it, Jaren realized that he and Karjien had been thrown into a completely unfamiliar landscape.

“This place is……”

A vast wasteland with only the ruins of a shattered temple left behind. Even though the grand castle walls had all collapsed, they had been inside the familiar Northern Castle—so what kind of madness was this?

While Jaren stood there in shock, blankly staring, Karjien opened his mouth, still chewing on chocolate.

“This is the scenery from before the Northern Castle was built.”

“Pardon?”

“It is the sight from before this body came north.”

Dragons were beings that did not know forgetfulness. Even events from thousands of years ago could be recalled as clearly as yesterday.

Karjien stood up.

Even in this alien scenery, the dragon showed not the slightest trace of agitation. A world destined for destruction—whatever happened in it was hardly surprising.

Still, he thought this was somewhat unusual.

“Was I sucked into a rift in space-time… or……”

Had the suppressed timelines finally exploded and become tangled together?

As Karjien narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the scenery as if to gauge the truth, the dazed Jaren finally reacted.

‘Wait—before the dragon came north?’

“Just when exactly was that?”

Curiosity mixed with a dread of knowing the answer slipped into Jaren’s uneasy voice. Karjien replied as if asking such a thing were obvious.

“Naturally, before the end of the Mythic Age.”

“…What?”

Even as he heard Jaren’s dumbfounded response, Karjien instantly grasped which space-time he had fallen into, using his superhuman perception.

Because—

「It’s been a while, Dragon Lord.」

A face he could never forget was standing in the distance, facing his past self.

「Is the life you ran away to like a defeated dog still enjoyable?」

It was the very protagonist of the ancient oath—the root cause that had led to Karjien being tamed by Arellin.

“…Esther, you bastard!”

 

 

 

****

 

 

 

That this world was layered was a truth any immortal knew.

The surface where living beings dwelled, the abyss sunk beneath it, and the timelines that flowed differently before becoming tangled.

However, due to the rules and countless stories involving immortal beings, few immortals paid much attention to this fact.

Of course, Mercedes, the First Star who longed for all the truths of this world, was different.

‘The world… is being completely shaken.’

He could hear the fragile world, already abandoned by its master, being torn to pieces.

He felt every seal he had quietly set across the world back when he was still called a great archmage shattering all at once.

At any other time, he would have immediately returned to find a way to resolve this situation.

If it had been any other time.

“Aren’t you going to go check?”

The master of the hidden world that had swallowed the Sky Tower revealed himself.

“Master.”

Just as he had appeared on the day the Immortal Succession Experiment failed, Cheyen emerged from the abyssal hidden world that resembled Mercedes’ inner self.

“We finally meet.”

His deeply moved voice echoed low.

“You kept running away without even showing your face, afraid you’d be devoured if I caught you. Like a defeated dog.”

With an ambiguous expression—neither laughing nor crying—Cheyen stared at Mercedes, his eyes tangled with countless emotions.

Mercedes swallowed his breath.

A time he had prayed would never come.

A moment he had always tried to avoid, even across repeating worldlines.

This instant of facing the monster born from himself, created by his own hands.

The moment of judgment—like finally confronting the sin he had endlessly postponed.

In the suffocating silence, Mercedes was surprised to find that he was not shaken when facing Cheyen.

He had expected himself to collapse, beg for forgiveness, or spew hatred toward him—but his heart beat calmly.

Perhaps it was because his master’s composed attitude, who had always shown him only kindness, grated on him.

Cheyen’s expression subtly changed.

That was when Mercedes spoke.

“Yes. It’s been a long time, Cheyen.”

Boom.

The sound of the world breaking crashed heavily between them.

“Is this your doing as well?”

Cheyen merely smiled—a smile so beautiful that anyone who saw it might willingly offer up their soul and heart.

“You already know the answer, yet you still ask me… Is it because you want confirmation that I’m trash? Or because you want to deny that I’m that much trash?”

Neither denial nor affirmation—yet an answer that implicitly acknowledged his guilt.

Mercedes briefly squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Arellin…….’

This must be connected to that child.

“If you’re so worried, why don’t you go back and check?”

Pretending to care for his master, Cheyen put on a show of hypocrisy.

At this very moment, with the entire world falling apart, both of them knew perfectly well what would happen if Mercedes chose to return for Arellin.

Mercedes steeled his resolve.

“It’s fine. There’s no need.”

No matter what situation the child might be in—

“She’s strong.”

“……!”

“Unlike you and me.”

In the past, he would have moved to protect Arellin himself.

But sometimes, even things believed never to change are altered by the passage of long ages.

That was why this incomplete archmage had changed. He now possessed unwavering trust in his final disciple, taken late in life.

A trust that would never change.

 

 

***

 

 

Modern-day Seoul.

Longing and familiarity etched deep into my soul burst forth, mingling with the murky, exhaust-filled air unique to the city.

Wow. This air… it’s been a while. Hard to breathe.

Even if my appearance had changed, the color of my soul hadn’t.

As confusion and familiarity washed over me at once, the Korean language I’d missed so dearly echoed from all around.

“Look over there. Is that some kind of romance-fantasy pop-up event?”

“Cosplay? Look at that dress. It’s gorgeous—but looks heavy.”

“Hurry, take pictures.”

Modern people, indeed. Two otherworldly figures suddenly appearing in dresses in the middle of Seoul, and no one’s even shocked!

The one truly shocked was the fake Chloe—the one who caused all this.

“T-this can’t be…”

Chloe collapsed, her face drained of color. She looked like she’d never imagined something like this could happen.

‘So it’s not an act.’

I’d wondered if it might be acting, but she wasn’t meticulous enough for that. Her current shock and agitation were genuine.

‘Well, if she were good at acting, she wouldn’t have been exposed as a fake in the first place.’

…Still, we’re drawing way too much attention.

At that moment, the collapsed Chloe crumpled the book. As the pages bent slightly, I realized at the same time that we had slipped out of people’s line of sight.

‘……!’

This is like……

“Huh? Where’d they go?”

“Wow, guess it really was some kind of event.”

“That’s wild.”

I feel like I’ve become Cheyen.

The sense of dissonance washed over me—as if we were in the same space, yet on different channels. At least, it didn’t seem like dimensional travel.

‘Then what is it?’

That was when something strange happened to the book Chloe was holding. A title appeared on its once-empty cover.

[ IF Special Side Story. If Chloe…… ]

No matter how hard I stared, the next letters wouldn’t appear.

An IF side story?

Wow. Author, you even finished the main story and wrote an IF side story?

You really milked it dry.

Well, you even made a game out of it!

I thought I heard a thought drifting in from somewhere like, “Still didn’t make much money, though,” but I ignored it.

I’m absolutely not mad that I never got to see the ending and the side story. Absolutely not.

And the moment the title appeared—

“Why… why am I over there…?”

Chloe’s confused voice rang out.

Following her gaze, I turned—and there, in this hyper-realistic modern scenery, stood the only being that felt out of place.

A woman whose face could not be seen.

“That’s me? No—why am I…?”

At the same time, a strange, unfamiliar voice echoed.

[Ah, this game is really fun, but it’s a shame there aren’t many choices at the branching points. The characters are charming and everything else is great, but……]

That was when words began to write themselves into the book Chloe was holding.

The woman’s voice was sucked into the blank white pages, turning into text we both recognized.

That is—

Into Korean.