I Became the Obsessed Ex-Husband in a Romance Fantasy Chapter 149 - Read Online

Translated Chapter 149. Side Story — Major Requirement (4) '…Is this an eggshell?' 
I did not bat an eye as I calmly chewed and swallowed the sandwich. 
Then I flashed Rose my usual perfect smile. 
"Delicious." 
"Really?" 
"Yes. Across the entire continent, you're probably the only chef who could craft a flavor like this." 
It was no empty compliment. 
Even with a knife pressed to the royal head chef's throat, this violent flavor could never be replicated. 
To put Rose at ease, this time I picked up a golden-roasted chicken leg. 
Basasasak! 
The texture of the fragrant, crispy-fried outer layer was excellent, but… 
'…It's raw inside.' 
The charred scent of the exterior and the metallic stench of blood in the center threw a wild carnival of chaos inside my mouth. It seemed she'd cooked it over high heat for too short a time, producing this disaster. 
Even so, my jaw showed no hesitation. Silently, and at remarkable speed, I demolished the chicken leg. 
Emergency! Emergency! 
My survival instinct and sensitive taste buds screamed in agony. But I ignored them completely. 
Rose was right next to me, hands clasped together, watching me eat with sparkling eyes. 
If I hesitated even for a tenth of a second or furrowed my brow, she would notice immediately. 
"Well then, I'll have one bite too…." 
Fully emboldened by my reaction, Rose excitedly picked up one of the remaining sandwiches. 
"Wait." 
I urgently grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the sandwich and pulled it straight toward me. 
"This is a dish you made for me. I will not yield a single piece. I want every last bit of it to go into my mouth." 
Driven by the sole conviction that I absolutely could not let Rose eat this lethal cooking, I blurted out the first nonsense that came to mind. 
"Dear…." 
Rose's green eyes rippled with overwhelming joy. 
Completely failing to notice my impure intentions (?), she dutifully began placing the sandwich directly into my mouth with a moved expression. 
I felt the surrounding air freeze in an instant. 
"Insane… that Dane Schumichel…." 
"Am I seeing things?" 
Academy students who happened to pass by witnessed the scene—rubbing their eyes repeatedly, or stopping dead in their tracks to stare at us with looks of sheer horror. 
In front of the central fountain at the Academy, bathed in the warm sunlight. 
Duke Schumichel, sitting in the middle of a crowd of dozens, dutifully receiving the food his wife was feeding him. 
It was an unbearably saccharine scene that defied their common sense, even as they witnessed it with their own eyes. 
"Here, say ah. Eat this too." 
But I paid absolutely no mind to the stares of others and quietly accepted the food Rose was feeding me. 
Occasionally nodding as if the food were genuinely delicious. 
"Being like this," 
Rose, who had thoroughly fed me every last bite of the salad, smiled shyly. 
"It reminds me of when I was pregnant and had terrible morning sickness—when you fed me yourself." 
"…I see." 
Although there was a gap more cruel than heaven and hell between the food I had fed her back then and the food I was eating now. 
But what did it matter. 
"Eat up, Dane." 
Rose was smiling so brightly as if she had the entire world. 
What mattered was Rose's devotion—studying a cookbook and cooking diligently just for me. The wellbeing of my taste buds was not what was important. 
Wadeuk! 
No, perhaps it actually was…. 
Chewing what must have been the who-knows-which eggshell, I stared blankly into the air for a moment. 
Kkadeudeuk! 
As for the accompanying dessert cookie—however she had managed to bake it that hard—for an instant I felt like my jaw was going to dislocate. 
'…Right. Let's just call this jaw training.' 
And so, under the watchful eyes of countless Academy students, I succeeded in completely annihilating… no, safely finishing Rose's lunchbox. 
Before long, the bottom of the lunchbox was visible, with only a single small chocolate cookie remaining at the edge. 
"Wow, my goodness. Was it really that delicious? You finished it all without leaving a single crumb!" 
Rose looked down at the empty lunchbox and cradled both her cheeks in blissful awe. 
It was right at that moment when I was wiping my mouth with a handkerchief and reaching for the last remaining cookie. 
"I'll take the last piece!" 
Rose let out a 'Kyareureu~' laugh and snatched the cookie just before it reached my fingertips. 
"My first successful dish! As the chef, I need to taste it too!" 
"Wait, Ro—" 
I hastily reached out to stop her, but her hand was a beat faster. 
She had already popped that rock-hard cookie into her own mouth. 
Kkadeudeuk! 
A rending sound—beyond crisp, frankly terrifying—rang out. 
The next instant, the corners of Rose's lips trembled ever so slightly, then began to crumble in sheer devastation. 
"……." 
Rose's green eyes dilated with shock and horror. 
Unable to swallow or spit out the cookie, she stared at me, her face drained of all color. 
"……Rose." 
I froze, my hand still extended toward her. My mind went completely dark trying to figure out how to salvage the situation. 
Only silence hung between us. 
Gulp. 
After a few labored movements of her mouth, Rose finally forced the cookie fragment down her throat. 
"……Heuk." 
Soon, clear teardrops welled up at the corners of Rose's eyes. She covered her face with trembling hands. 
"…Are you really an idiot?" 
"Rose." 
"Why did you eat every last bit of this awful-tasting thing." 
The tears pooling in Rose's eyes finally streamed down her cheeks. 
"My goodness, I didn't even realize and force-fed your mouth… hup." 
Rose sobbed aloud as she lightly pounded her fist against my chest. 
It was a cry colored by shame over her abysmal cooking, overwhelming emotion, and guilt toward me for swallowing it without complaint. 
"I genuinely found it delicious." 
I pulled the sniffling Rose by the waist onto my lap. I paid no mind to the countless onlookers' stares. 
Then I carefully wiped Rose's tear-streaked cheeks with my fingers. 
"I'd swallow poison you handed me with a smile. A lunchbox you feed me yourself is a reward." 
"Are you saying my cooking was poison…?" 
"No, no. That came out wrong." 
Rose glared at me as I broke into a nervous sweat, then— 
"I'm sorry, Dane. Next time I'll really practice properly and make something delicious." 
—she buried her face in my chest and smiled warmly. 
"…Thank you. For eating every last bit." 
I wordlessly patted Rose's back. 
'My jaw's certainly going to get stronger for a while.' 
While swallowing my tears inwardly. 
And at exactly the same time. 
"……???" 
Edel, plastered flat against a building pillar, rubbed her eyes again and again. 
'What am I even looking at right now?' 
The exceptional brain of the top student of the Magic Studies Department spun rapidly, yet it could not logically parse the surreal scene before her eyes. 
In front of the central plaza fountain at the Academy, bathed in pouring sunlight. 
There sat the duke and duchess—her own reliable patron and parent-figure. No matter how many times she rubbed her eyes and looked again, they did not disappear. 
'Is THIS why they suddenly gave me a semester's paid leave?!' 
A few days ago, out of nowhere, they said they'd take a semester off from Damian's education and handed her a hefty vacation stipend. She'd happily accepted it, thinking, 'What a windfall!' 
They'd left behind their precious twins—the kind you wouldn't feel even if you put them in your eye—and both re-enrolled at the Academy together? And in the middle of the day, in the center of the Academy, they were acting like THAT—like lovebirds?! 
'They're not even paying attention to anyone else's stares!' 
It was clear they hadn't come to dedicate themselves to their studies—they'd come to legally enjoy a honeymoon at the Academy. 
'Ugh, whatever. None of my business. I already got paid handsomely, so I'll just pretend I saw nothing and quietly earn my graduation credits….' 
Right at the moment when Edel was about to slip away as if she hadn't seen a thing. 
"……!" 
The Duke's eyes, as he affectionately patted the duchess's back, landed squarely on Edel behind the pillar. 
"Heok!" 
Edel immediately whipped around and bolted without a single glance back. 
'I didn't see anything just now!' 
Edel's mind, as she ran frantically, was filled with nothing but the will to survive. 
'A tutor attending the same Academy as her employer—what kind of absurd situation is this?!' 
Edel's desperate internal scream scattered vainly across the blue sky above the Academy. 
** 
The gentle afternoon sunlight streamed into the major lecture hall of the Magic Studies Department. 
As dozens of students held their breath and concentrated, Professor Albert stood at the podium, his nose high in the air. 
"This is the core formula of the Cross-Circuit Theory, which I presented two years ago at the Academy's academic conference." 
The complex formulas and numbers on the chalkboard were extremely precise, while simultaneously interlocking with clockwork precision toward a perfect result. 
"Ooh… incredible. That complex computation reduced to just three lines." 
"Didn't that recently published R-Theorem by Anersen-nim also incorporate that cross-circuit?" 
"Right. They say the cross-circuit was the core of that theorem? Anersen-nim personally praised it in an academic journal!" 
The students whispered to each other in awe and furiously moved their quill pens. Their eyes rippled with blind reverence for the genius of their era, Professor Albert. 
Yet Rose's face, sitting in the premium seat dead center of the lecture hall, was frozen cold as ice. 
"……." 
That cross-circuit formula on the chalkboard was the result she had produced during her days as a Magic Studies Department student, pulling all-nighters for days on end as if vomiting blood. 
Albert, her academic advisor at the time, had seized the original under the pretext of polishing the thesis, then promptly published it to the academic world under his own name. 
At the time, Rose Vikander—a lady from a powerless, impoverished, despised house—could not raise a single protest against such monumental authority. 
But now was different. 
'I will never forgive him.' 
She had been planning this since before re-enrolling at the Academy. She had prepared ample evidence, and finished her preparations to demolish every one of his cunning counterarguments one by one. 
Even so, now that the moment to actually rise from her seat arrived, her heart pounded wildly as though it would burst, and hesitation sprouted up. 
'Is it really okay to do this?' 
Because she knew better than anyone just how reckless and dangerous what she was about to do truly was. 
In the conservative and closed-off magical academic world, a professor's authority was absolute. 
A mere student—and during a formal lecture with dozens of peers and juniors watching—daring to refute a professor's academic achievement head-on and accuse him of plagiarism? 
If she failed, permanent expulsion from the academic world was a given. Even if she succeeded, she would have to weather the aftermath branded with the label of "a student who bit the hand that fed her." 
Kkuk. 
Under the desk, strength flowed into Rose's hand resting on her thigh. It was right at that moment when fear and tension threatened to overwhelm her entire body. 
Seuk. 
Dane's large, firm, calloused hand gently covered the back of Rose's trembling hand. 
"……!" 
Rose startled and turned to look beside her.

I Became the Obsessed Ex-Husband in a Romance Fantasy - Chapter 149