Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 20

I hid. The timing was unbelievable.
The moment I slipped under the bed early in the morning, Logan came in. As if he had never even imagined that I would be hiding under that bed, the flustered Logan turned around and asked the knights guarding the door about my whereabouts.

“What? She disappeared?”

“That can’t be! She definitely didn’t take a single step out of the room…”

“She’s not here! Find her!”

It was early morning, a relatively quiet time, and having already figured out the maids’ routes over the past few days, I was able to move easily while avoiding people’s eyes. The Grand Duke’s castle had many rooms, so there were plenty of places to hide. Knowing that the servants mostly stayed on the first and second floors in the morning, I headed upward. And when I reached the fourth floor, Chase, wearing a mask, came out of a room and moved toward the center.

I slipped straight into the study and hid.

Logan and the knights would be searching for me, but would they ever think that I was hiding inside Chase’s study?

Inside the study, where faint firewood burned beneath the fireplace, there was a citrus scent. Hiding under the desk by the window, farthest from the door, I slightly peeked my head out and looked toward the garden.

“What? He’s leaving through the front gate today.”

Up until yesterday, Chase hadn’t even shown his face, yet now he was confidently heading toward the main gate.

Did he think that since I had disappeared, there was no longer any need to hide himself? I guess I’ll have to stay hidden here until he comes back.

The study was quiet. As if it were a place completely cut off from the outside.

As my tension eased a little, I slowly looked around the study. There was nothing particularly special. Books tightly filling one wall, piles of documents. Then I noticed a large frame above the fireplace.

It’s a family portrait of an incredibly handsome man, a beautiful woman, and a teenage boy whose baby fat had not yet fully faded.

So those must be the previous Grand Duke and his wife. It seems Chase inherited his black hair from his father, and his blue eyes from his mother. I stared at the portrait for a long time.

Especially at the Grand Duchess.

I didn’t intend to, but somehow I couldn’t look away. She was a very thin woman. Even taking into account some idealization, if she looked like this in a painting…

‘I’m sick of frail people.’

The words he had said came to mind. Could it be that the Grand Duchess had been in poor health?

Come to think of it, the original work didn’t reveal much about Chase’s past. As for his parents, it only mentioned that they lost their lives in a mana storm. The thought of the mana storm, which naturally came to mind, made me frown.

According to the original work, a massive mana storm would soon occur in the north. That storm would engulf the old garden where the previous Grand Duke and his wife had died, along with the nearby village. Because of that incident, Chase would go to Grace to hold them responsible for not sending a mage, and he would learn that Nita in the original work had gone missing. That was also when Vivian and Chase met. Vivian, who mostly spent her time at the Mage Tower, saw Chase and fell for him at first sight. Chase must have felt the same.

But thinking about it again, no matter how much I try to understand it, I just can’t.

In the original work, Chase was never like that. He was a man as strong as he was endlessly gentle, like cream. That was why Vivian fell deeply for him and worked even harder on purifying the north.

Could it be that he was only kind to Vivian? Because she was the woman he fell for at first sight? If that’s the case, that’s really petty. Pulling my gaze away from the portrait, I leaned my head against the wall.

“How am I supposed to persuade that man? Saying I’ve gotten healthier probably won’t work.”

Should I try talking about the mana storm? But it probably wouldn’t help. Chase and everyone in this castle already knew that there were signs of a mana storm.

To gain his trust, I would at least need to know exactly when it would occur, but I don’t know that.

Based on the time when I went missing in the original work and when Chase went to Grace, I can only estimate that it will happen within the next month or two.

Hiding like this will only work once. There’s no way it’ll work twice. Just how am I supposed to endure this?

If I were to show my purification ability in front of people, even as a sort of performance, they might let me stay because of the attention.

Should I injure my hand again? No. That won’t do. If I show weakness, they’ll just want to throw me out even more.

No matter how much I racked my brain, no good idea came to mind, and before I knew it, I was nodding off. It seemed the medicine I had taken on an empty stomach that morning to recover quickly was taking effect. At some point, I had fallen asleep sprawled on the floor. Then, startled by voices coming from the corridor, I snapped my eyes open.

“There’s one more thing that needs your signature, but I didn’t bring it with me.”