Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 57

A healthy person, someone who isn’t weak. I understood at once why he would attach that reason. But that wasn’t all I was curious about.

“How sick was she?”

“Various things. To be honest, I was young back then, so I don’t remember clearly, but every time I visited the Grand Duke’s residence with my father, I remember she was always ill. I found out later that her body had been very weak.”

As if recalling the Grand Duchess, Logan fiddled with the biscuit in his hand.

“Still, the Grand Duchess was an incredibly kind person. Gentle, full of love, and beautiful.”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think so too. When I saw the portrait, she was so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”

“Right?”

At my agreement, Logan smiled brightly.

“The Grand Duke, Anthony, and I have been close since we were young. So Her Grace also cared for us very much. Even while she was ill, she was a lovely person who never lost her smile. His Grace loved Her Grace very much as well.”

At that timing, my eyes lit up. It was time to ask what I had really been curious about.

“Logan. The Grand Duke passed away after being caught in a mana storm, right?”

“Yes.”

Logan nodded.

“It was a sudden storm. That land beneath the mountain range that you purified, Miss Mage. It used to be a very beautiful place, and in spring, it would be filled with flowers.”

Thinking I didn’t know anything, Logan kindly added his explanation, but then suddenly stopped. At the abrupt silence, I paused while breaking another biscuit in half without thinking and looked up.

“Our parents were there too.”

“…Ah.”

I hadn’t expected that at all.

“I’m sorr-”

“No. It’s alright. It happened when I was young.”

A trace of bitterness briefly passed through Logan’s eyes, but he soon smiled as if it were nothing.

The garden that had once been considered the most beautiful place in the North before the mana storm. It had been spring that day, and the previous Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, Chase, and the knights they cherished had gone out together. Then, suddenly, a mana storm occurred, sweeping away countless people. Logan and Anthony’s parents had been among them.

“It was hard for us too, but His Grace, who witnessed his parents’ deaths right in front of him, suffered a great shock. I thought it was incredible. After crying for exactly three days at the funeral, he immediately began carrying out his duties as Grand Duke. He handled everything so coldly, as if he had completely forgotten grief. It was hard to believe he was the same age as me.”

Suddenly, the vision from the day I purified the mana storm resurfaced. Chase’s despair as he had to kill so many of his own subordinates with his own hands. And not only the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, but even Logan and Anthony’s parents had died there. So that’s why he was even more…

The more I learned about the circumstances, the more my head seemed to heat up for some reason.

“Logan.”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t Heinrich receive the blessing of the wolves?”

“Yes, they do. That’s also why mana doesn’t affect the Grand Duke.”

Logan raised and lowered his brows as if asking what the issue was.

In the northern region of the Empire, there was a vast mountain range. The very one I had used as a reference point when I first arrived in the North. It was so high and expansive that if someone wandered in carelessly, they could go missing without a trace in its complex terrain.

Within that mountain range lay an enormous grassland, the very place where the World Tree once grew. The people of the Empire called it the Forest of Prosperity. And within it lived wolves.

Originally, the wolves had been beings that protected the World Tree. However, after the tree withered and the land began to fall into ruin, the Imperial family judged that the tree could no longer be revived and abandoned the forest.

After that, people began invading the Forest of Prosperity at will, seeking even fragments of the tree to sell for profit.

The damage fell entirely on the wolves. Because of the treaty made with the first Emperor at the time the Empire was founded, the wolves could not attack the people of the Empire.

Knowing this, people threatened the wolves who stood guard with swords to block entry into the forest. It was pressure, saying they would not hesitate to do anything if the wolves continued to interfere. So the choice the wolves made was to form a contract with the strongest family in the Empire, the Heinrich family, to stop the people.

The previous Grand Duke, Chase’s father, prevented people from harming the wolves, and in return, he received their blessing. A special ability that made mana ineffective.

So this was the part that puzzled me. As far as I knew, the blessing of the wolves was said to be passed down through bloodlines. The Grand Duchess wasn’t of Heinrich blood, and since she was weak, it made sense that she was swept away by the mana storm and turned into a monster. But then why did the Grand Duke die? Even Chase, who had been there as a child, was perfectly fine.

“His Grace should have received the blessing, so how did the two of them pass away on the same day?”

Logan hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“There are several reasons. But in the end, I think it’s because he didn’t imprint. Actually, if His Grace had just imprinted, the two of them might have survived…”

Imprint? What’s that?

My eyes widened at the unfamiliar information. At that moment, the door to the drawing room burst open. When I turned, it was Anthony.

“Miss Mage, you weren’t anywhere to be seen all day, so I came looking for you. You were here-”

But he trailed off, his expression stiffening.

“Goodness. Miss Mage, do you have a fever?”

“A fever? Not at all.”

“No, your face is red right-”

Anthony stopped again. Then he quietly stared at the table in the drawing room before quickly approaching and picking up the bottle filled with blue berry juice.

“Don’t tell me you got drunk from drinking this… right?”

Drunk? Who gets drunk from just drinking juice?

“Come on. No. I’m perfectly fine.”

I waved my hand.

For some reason, I felt cheerful, and a silly smile kept slipping out.