Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 32

It had been something I said in passing, and since Chase didn’t seem to believe me, I thought he had either forgotten about the stalker or didn’t care at all.

He was a man who didn’t hesitate to tell me to leave even after seeing the marks of abuse with his own eyes. Still, since I had purified the mana and all, was it bothering him a little?

“Are you worried about me, by any chance?”

“No. Not at all.”

The answer to the question I had asked with a hope as small as a raspberry seed was cold.

“I just don’t understand what kind of crazy bastard would follow you around. It’s not like you’re attractive enough for a stalker to chase after, is it?”

Hah. Unbelievable.

I set the fork down with a clink. I couldn’t agree with the part about not being attractive. That was both a subjective and objective judgment. Lately, people around me had been complimenting me quite a bit, saying I’d gotten prettier. Of course, being attractive and being pretty are a bit different, but pretty still falls within the category of attractive!

But since this man wouldn’t acknowledge that anyway, I fumed inwardly before calming myself.

“That’s not why he’s stalking me.”

“Then what is it?”

“Power. He wants my power.”

“Power?”

“Yes. The ability to purify.”

At that moment, Chase’s relaxed demeanor shifted, one brow furrowing as his gaze sharpened.

“Weren’t you branded as the disgrace of your family because of the rumor that you’re incompetent? How would he even know about your power?”

Chase tilted his head as if he couldn’t understand. I pulled the cake box toward me as if hugging it and moved over to the bed. Then I sat down at the edge of the bed across from him. With my fork, I idly stirred the cream stuck to the base of the cake.

“Do you know about the murder case that happened at the Mage Tower about ten years ago?”

“A murder case? Did something like that happen?”

I had asked just in case, but as expected, Chase showed no sign of knowing about the incident. I nodded slightly, as if I understood.

When Michael committed that horrific experiment at the Mage Tower, Chase had been in a period where he was overwhelmed, having lost his parents and suddenly having to adapt to the position of Grand Duke. It was possible he didn’t know about the incident that happened far away in the capital.

Still, I had thought that if he knew even a little about Michael, it would be easier to explain, but it seemed like it would take too long to go into detail about that, so I changed the direction of the conversation.

“The reason I was rumored to be incompetent and hated by my family was because of the way my purification works. Mana enters my body.”

Chase rested his arm on the armrest and leaned his chin against the back of his hand.

“I thought this from the beginning, but why is that even a problem?”

“Because the Grace family wants the image of being pure and untainted, a family that mana cannot invade.”

A small curse slipped out of Chase’s mouth as his expression twisted even more than before.
What a ridiculous thing.

“Maybe the rest of the family doesn’t know, but my parents do. About my power.”

Without realizing it, I tightened my grip on the fork.

“And my stalker too.”

The one behind it all. Michael Raymond. He was both a genius and a madman.

Beautiful silver hair, tall, with a slender build. Skin so pale it almost looked white, and red lips. So excessively beautiful that he could even captivate women who didn’t have that kind of taste. A lunatic.

Mages were generally divided into two types. Those born with special abilities that manifested naturally, like mana purification or healing. And those who didn’t have such special abilities but could use magic by memorizing formulas and deploying magic circles. In truth, even the latter required talent, so not just anyone could become a mage simply by studying.

Michael belonged to the latter. He didn’t possess a special magical ability that could only be gained through manifestation, but unlike ordinary mages who could use one or two magic circles at a time, he could deploy more than five at once.

With that extraordinary mind, he had already been called a genius at a young age and entered the Mage Tower at the age of seven. But because of that, life in the Mage Tower soon began to feel dull to him, and in the end, Michael crossed a line he never should have crossed.