MLHRGD 120

#120. Greeting (2)

Pavel narrowed his eyes and tried to figure out the situation as he looked around.

He quickly recognized the scenery—familiar, but somehow strange.

‘This is the same cliff from before.’

The cliff where his father’s last trace remained. He had blacked out there and woken up again in the same place.

That was a relief.

Loyal Igor must have panicked the moment Pavel collapsed and rushed him to a tent to treat him.

Since he hadn’t been moved elsewhere, Pavel could guess that not much time had passed.

‘Igor must be worried.’

He had, after all, fainted for a moment. He thought Igor would be concerned about his health.

Pavel tried to sit up to reassure him that he was fine.

But—

‘What is this?’

His body didn’t follow his will.

It moved on its own. With one hand on the sword at his waist, it walked, alert to every direction.

He wanted to stop, but his body kept moving as if it didn’t belong to him.

‘A dream?’

Pavel frowned.

As soon as he thought “dream,” the wrongness felt even stronger.

Now that he noticed, his eye level was different. He saw the world from slightly higher than usual.

His stride was different too. So was his walk. Even the feel of his feet touching the ground and the weight of the body felt different.

Piece by piece, Pavel found the differences from his own body.

‘This isn’t my body.’

Even while judging the situation, he carefully memorized everything he saw and heard.

If this was a dream, he needed to know what kind of dream it was.

Pavel realized how strange it was to suddenly faint and then have a dream that felt so real.

Maybe—he could find a clue about his father’s suspicious death.

After walking for a while, the body stopped.

Thud!

With a sudden loud sound, something fell in front of him.

The ground caved in. Whatever it was had fallen fast from above.

He thought whatever fell wouldn’t be fine. Maybe it had even shattered.

But the one who stepped out through the dust was unharmed.

No—could that even be called a person?

“—!”

It was a monster.

A grotesque creature spread its arms and came toward him.

The sight was horrifying and unfamiliar, but the body in the dream didn’t flinch.

Instead, it braced and stepped forward.

Yet the monster’s face, as it drew closer, felt strangely familiar.

A sense like the face of someone known for a long time.

‘Who is that?’

Pavel searched his memory, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t identify the monster.

The more he tried to remember, the more his head throbbed.

‘A headache just from thinking this much?’

It was too much. The wrongness thickened.

‘Something’s interfering.’

Some unknown force was blocking him from remembering.

He wanted to break through it, but the interference grew worse, and even the sounds he heard began to blur.

“-?”

The confusion lasted only a moment. Suddenly, the warped waves aligned, and he heard the words clearly.

“Yes, it’s me.”
“How are you—!”

When the owner of the body cried out in shock, the monster grinned.

A purple tongue flicked from its open mouth.

Disgusting—but Pavel didn’t look away. He stared stubbornly at the monster.

If he observed closely, he might understand.

As he kept watching, the monster spoke again.

“I came back from hell to take back what’s mine.”

Strangely, that line alone came through clearly.

What’s mine. Came back from hell.

It was ominous.

Pavel tried to grasp the meaning while listening to the rest of the exchange between the monster and the body.

But as if mocking him, his hearing blurred again.

“—.”
“—.”

The monster’s mouth kept moving, and the body answered—so the conversation continued.

But Pavel couldn’t hear the words.

‘What are they saying?’

There was no time to ponder.

His body moved on its own again and swung the sword at the monster.

Clang!

But the monster’s long, thick claws deflected the blade with ease.

Crunch! Boom!

A fierce battle followed—on a level Pavel had never experienced.

The owner of this body must be close to a Sword Master.

Even so…

‘This won’t do.’

Barely defending, the body was pushed back step by step. A stone bumped his heel and fell into the abyss below.

A quick glance backward showed the sheer drop.

‘We’re completely cornered.’

A chill of dread ran up his spine.

Shluk!

Terrible claws tore into his chest.

The legs gave out, and the staggering body fell backward.

Whooosh—

He plummeted fast, gaining speed.

The sky drew away, telling him clearly he was about to die.

Pavel felt it. The body in this “dream” sensed death drawing near.

…No.

‘This isn’t a dream.’

Pavel knew it instinctively.

Emotions this vivid couldn’t belong to a mere dream.

This was—

‘A memory.’

Pavel realized his ability had evolved.

Before, he could only read thoughts and feelings through direct contact with living beings.

Now he could read the lingering will left in things that were not alive.

‘Wait.’

He recalled what he had last touched.

The bloodstain before the cliff.

Thud.

His heart dropped.

Then the owner of this memory was…?

‘…Father.’

Pavel was shaken.

He was seeing Dmitri’s memory from just before his death?

He could hardly believe such a thing was possible.

But the emotions he felt silenced every doubt.

At the moment Dmitri sensed death, a stream of images raced through his mind.

Pavel didn’t know the term “life-flashing-by,” but he understood these were the memories of Dmitri’s life.

And so, for the first time, Pavel could see his father’s life.

A boy named Dmitri, growing up alone in the bleak Bellicordo Castle—without affection, without any warm exchange of feelings.

As a child, he looked just like young Pavel. And like that young Pavel, he seemed like someone who wouldn’t mind dying, even though he wasn’t sick.

A dull, gloomy face.

Pavel noticed that boy Dmitri kept a packed schedule without rest and never smiled.

Perhaps because of his boredom, Dmitri’s memories were colorless, like black and white film.

Time passed, and Dmitri became an adult—but his daily life stayed the same.

Even when the previous duke and duchess—Pavel’s grandparents—passed away, nothing changed.

Not grief, but burden and responsibility rested on Dmitri’s shoulders.

Still, one thing was different from his childhood: he finally had people near him with whom he could share emotions.

“My lord, I will serve at your side!”

Igor Medvedev, the retainer who stayed loyal to him until death.

“Brother, I’m sorry for the past. But now there are only the two of us as family. Shouldn’t we rely on each other?”

His younger brother, Grigory—who, though he had his schemes, once approached him with feigned warmth.

And then…

“Please take care of me, dear. I may be lacking, but I’ll do my best!”

A wife with a liveliness and sweetness he had never known.

“May I call you Dmitri?”

In that moment, the world flipped.

Pavel realized Dmitri’s memories were no longer monochrome—they shone in full color.

It was the change that came after Dmitri met his wife.

Memories sped by, and now Pavel saw a room he had never entered.

He somehow knew it was the only forbidden room in Bellicordo—the bedchamber of the former Grand Duchess.

Dmitri sat beside a very pregnant woman rocking gently in a chair, his eyes only on her, filled with soft, loving light.

“Do you think the baby will be a son or a daughter?”
“…I’m not sure.”
“Either would be fine—but I hope the baby looks like you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Your beauty makes life much easier.”
“…”
“You want to deny it, don’t you? It’s true. You don’t know yourself at all.”
“No, I think you’re more—”
“Hm?”
“Nothing. …A son would be better. If there’s an heir, people will stop bothering us.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
“Yes.”

Pavel listened to a gentle voice he had never heard from his father, as the warm talk continued.

“…But what if it’s a girl? And what if I never bear a son? Wouldn’t that be a problem?”
“…”
“Well? Dmitri, what about me and our child then?”
“…There’s no need to worry. But if that happened, then after a thousand years, a woman would become head of the Volkov family.”
“…Hehe, you really are kind.”
“You’re the only one who says that.”
“Really? No way! Hasn’t anyone told you how gentle and cute you are?”
“You’re also the only one who thinks such nonsense.”
“Is that so? Well, soon there will be two of us. Our baby will surely say Papa is kind, too.”

But such a colorful, beautiful world would not last.

Knowing the disaster to come, Pavel found the room’s warmth painful.

“When this child is born, there will be three in our family. Hehe. I can’t wait.”
“…Me too.”

The memories sped on.

Months passed, and at last the day of Pavel’s birth arrived.

The Grand Duchess, who had longed to hold her baby, died from the hard labor.

Staying by his wife’s side, Dmitri fell into despair. Pavel could feel his father’s fierce wish to follow her at once.

But her dying words held him back.

“Please… take good care of our child…”

Unable to betray his wife’s last request, Dmitri could not kill himself.

Instead, he went to the battlefield.

Hunting monsters on the frozen border was the rightful duty of the Volkov Grand Duke—but doing it for only one season a year had always been enough.

Choosing to add more seasons was Dmitri’s own will.

He lived because he could not die. He longed for death. The battlefield suited such a man.

Even that one season when he had to return to Bellicordo each year was agony.

In a castle full of memories of his wife, he had nightmares every night.

Even seeing his son—who bore only Dmitri’s features and none of his mother’s—was painful in itself.

The thought that his wife had died to bear his “other self” drove him further to madness.

It was not rational, but in deep despair and grief, Dmitri could not think clearly.

Just holding back the boiling emotions took everything he had.

Fearing he would do something terrible if his son stayed near, Dmitri deliberately averted his eyes from the boy.

But when he learned the boy was fatally ill—

He could not ignore his wife’s child anymore.

He could not allow the child she had died to bring into the world to fade away before adulthood.

He would use everything he had to save his son.

In that struggle, Dmitri’s heart began to change.

Pavel felt it too.

In eyes once filled only with pain and sorrow, a pure love for Pavel began to shine.

Dmitri had to admit it.

He loved his son.

‘…Father.’

But the years of neglect were too long.

The son had already grown crooked beyond easy reach.

Dmitri could not change his actions to match his changed heart.

Father and son seemed doomed to walk on parallel lines, never touching—until a certain girl appeared and changed everything.

Alexandra.

The silver-haired girl was more different than alike to Dmitri’s wife, yet in the most important way, they were the same.

A warmth that came from within.

Seeing how Sasha changed Pavel, Dmitri couldn’t hold back the swell of feeling.

The new family life that Sasha brought gave Dmitri vigor.

He felt love again—family love he had forgotten.

With each moment, thoughts that once leaned toward death began to turn, a little, toward life.

But…

‘So this is where I die.’

Dmitri thought.

Pavel felt exactly what ran through his father when he was mortally wounded and fell from the cliff.

Knowing he could not escape death, Dmitri did not tremble.

Instead of fearing what was coming, he—

‘He’s worried.’

About what?

‘About me.’

His son, still too young to carry everything.

‘And about Sasha.’

His daughter-in-law, whom he secretly cherished like a daughter.

Why?

Why, at the edge of death, did his father think only of them?

The truth cut Pavel to the bone.