Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 16

***

The next day, the door to Chase’s office was flung open.

“Your Grace!”

It was Logan. Bursting in without a shred of courtesy was enough to be surprising or irritating, yet Chase, as if accustomed to it, did not lift his eyes from the documents as he asked.

“What is it so early in the morning?”

“Sh-she’s disappeared.”

“Who?”

“Lady Nita Grace.”

Chase’s hand, which had been about to turn the page, came to a dead stop.

“What?”

A cold gaze, as if he found it absurd, turned toward Logan.

‘I’ll see her off properly.’

It had not even been ten minutes since Logan had gone out after saying that. And now what? Disappeared? Judging by how clearly flustered he looked, it wasn’t a joke. When Chase didn’t say anything, Logan opened his mouth again.

“Your Grace, did you hear me? Lady Nita Grace disappeared from her room…”

“I heard you.”

Chase, his brow furrowed, set the documents down and leaned back in his chair.

“Didn’t you tell her to return today?”

“I did! I conveyed it stiffly, exactly as you instructed! That’s probably why she disappeared. She didn’t want to go back to Grace, did she?”

Chase’s expression darkened even further.

This is ridiculous. It’s not some child’s prank. Is she suggesting a game of hide-and-seek?

“Any traces of her leaving the castle?”

“…None.”

As Chase irritably ran his hand through his hair, Logan, reading the room, cautiously broached the subject.

“Why don’t we just keep her here?”

“Keep her? What do you mean, keep her?”

“I know you dislike weak people, Grand Duke, but that purification ability. It was real. To the point that I can’t understand why Grace would hide such an ability and spread rumors that she’s powerless.”

“Do I have to understand the internal affairs of that family? She may be acting fine, but she could be suffering from a fatal illness for all we know.”

At Chase’s irritated reply, Logan raised his voice slightly, sounding frustrated.

“She’s not suffering from a fatal illness. If she were, it would have come up when we investigated her background last time. I told you already. She said she felt so energetic she could even fly. And she really did get healthy. See for yourself. Even I was surprised when I saw her. If you meet her, you’ll be shocked too. She’s become very beautiful, to the point you might not even recognize her.”

“Logan.”

“Yes.”

“No matter how energetic someone is, there is no such thing as a person who can fly in the sky.”

“…Who doesn’t know that? It’s a figure of speech! A figure of speech!”

Logan’s eyes were now sharply raised as he thumped his own chest. Unmoved, Chase lowered his gaze as if uninterested and issued an order.

“Find her.”

She can run, but she won’t escape my reach. We don’t have time for games like this.
There is nowhere in my castle where that woman could be.

“But…”

“One hour.”

“Haah.. Understood.”

At a loss for words, Logan let out a deep sigh, then turned and left.

Thud.

As Chase stared at the closed door, what had happened ten days ago surfaced in his mind.

Recently, the north had been experiencing unusual movements of mana. It was impossible to know when or where a mana fog or storm might occur. That day, too, he had been returning from a routine patrol.

At the report that a sudden mana fog had formed, he urgently changed direction and moved. Fortunately, no people had been caught up in it, but magical beasts drawn by the mana had gathered. No one knew where so many had been hiding, but there were quite a lot of them. Thinking it was fortunate that the location was far from any village, he and his subordinates swiftly eliminated the beasts.

That was when it happened.

‘Grand Duke. Over there. Th-the mana is disappearing…?’

‘My goodness. Could that be a purification mage?’

‘Why would a mage come out from there?’

Everyone was left stunned by the presence that appeared as the black fog subsided. It was far too vivid to be a mistake.

A power of purification.

She absorbed the mana into her body in an instant, then purified it and released it as a remarkably beautiful light. And yet, even after seeing that, everyone wavered over whether the other party was truly a mage, because the method was unlike that of an ordinary mage.

‘I’m from the Grace family!’

Grace had said they would send a mage. But the scheduled date was not that day, it was the following day. And even if a mage were coming, the place they should be was not a mountain path, but the Grand Duke’s castle.

Why in a place like this…?
And in such a state…

When Chase approached closer, he examined Nita piece by piece. Her hair was disheveled, making it hard to clearly see her features, and her clothes were loose and far too large, as if she had picked them up and worn someone else’s. There were small cuts scattered across her cheeks, and they looked swollen as well. A small, skeletal, emaciated, filthy woman who could hardly be seen as a mage, a being treated with respect anywhere in the Empire.

If he had to look for traces of Grace blood, there was only that blonde hair.

‘Grace?’

Even granting that she was, it only soured his mood further. Chase had clearly demanded a proper mage, someone sturdy and not weak.

And yet they sent a woman whose bones would break just from being grabbed?