Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 266
‘Good.’
The feeling was definitely different from before.
Even in a state close to a grudge, he seemed to respond to his child’s voice.
At this rate, I’d be able to coax him little by little, pull my hand free along with the item.
‘The contamination probably hasn’t advanced that much yet.’
If I used holy water properly, he would surely recover.
If worst came to worst, I could also return to the mansion immediately and ask Licht for help.
The moment Lion tightened his grip and pulled his body back—
Gulp.
The fissure the axe had forced open widened further.
Like a flower bud blooming, the gap that had barely admitted an arm expanded, and black, viscous fluid churned and seethed.
The feeling was bad.
Something surged up.
Something that seemed to be a hand.
It seized Lion’s forearm.
More precisely, it seized the Grand Duke’s Son’s ghostly body and swallowed it whole.
In an instant, the Grand Duke’s Son’s form, which had been holding onto him, was sucked inside.
“…!”
Without even a moment to think, Lion grabbed the Grand Duke’s Son’s nearly transparent legs.
Splash!
He was pulled straight into the black liquid.
That was the last thing Lion remembered from that day.
* * *
“Hrk, cough!”
Lion pushed himself up and instinctively spat out everything that had filled his throat and mouth.
Black, squirming liquid poured endlessly from his mouth, as if it had completely blocked his airway.
There was no time to register the taste, but the texture alone was the worst.
As he coughed and hacked for a long while, someone carefully patted him on the back.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m all right. Are you all right, Grand Duke’s Son…”
…
Only then did Lion lift his head, which had been practically driven into the floor.
‘Where am I?’
Without even pausing to wipe his mouth, he looked around.
His vision was dark, and he could feel almost nothing.
Lion fixed his gaze on the Grand Duke’s Son’s worried and apologetic face.
“You tried to rescue me and got pulled in as well. I am truly sorry…”
“It’s all right. But…”
He understood what had happened.
‘Still, it was force majeure.’
To offer something closer to an explanation than an excuse—it hadn’t been purely a sense of justice.
However it had played out, this was Lion’s last chance, and the Grand Duke’s Son himself was also the key to resolving this incident.
And if the Grand Duke’s Son were to disappear?
‘The timing would differ, but the outcome would be the same.’
Once the disruptive element of the Grand Duke’s Son’s voice vanished, the power of the being presumed to be the Grand Duke would only have grown stronger.
‘If anything, coming along with the Grand Duke’s Son was the better choice.’
Having concluded his rather lengthy self-justification, Lion took a deep breath and brought up a question he had quietly been deferring.
‘So, why are the voices clear?’
Tiamatrak’s voice, and the Grand Duke’s Son’s voice—originally, they hadn’t been something he “heard” like this.
It was very difficult to explain, but it would be more accurate to call it a sensation of will being transmitted.
That was why it had worked with Tiamatrak, but not with the Grand Duke’s Son.
“No. I am truly sorry. In exchange, I will make sure you are not bored from now on.”
“No. It’s fine. And anyway, I’ll soon…”
“…”
“Be going back…”
Partway through Lion’s words, the Grand Duke’s Son, whose speech had trailed off alarmingly, wore an expression that looked ready to burst into tears.
His demeanor was exactly like a child apologizing for a misdeed.
That was why Lion felt uneasy.
No—he already understood the situation, but he was doing his utmost to ignore it.
“At f-first, death may seem frightening, but even in this state, if you keep your wits about you, it’s livable. And do you not have a fearsome dragon at your side? Though I suppose right now, meeting her seems a bit difficult… Ugh. I am sorry!”
The Grand Duke’s Son ultimately pointed in one direction with his hand.
It was a space where nothing had been visible, but only then did something enter his sight.
Pale skin, a lean frame with blond hair covered in black contamination.
In other words: “me.”
‘Son of a…’
No matter how many unusual situations he had experienced, wasn’t this a bit much?
‘An out-of-body experience, really…’
Lion realized, practically for the first time, that the trouble he was in was anything but ordinary.
‘This is… I don’t even know how to begin solving this.’
Even as a sense of helplessness washed over him, Lion walked toward his own body lying on the floor.
Fortunately, being in a soul state didn’t mean his feet sank into the ground or he floated in the air.
‘The helplessness is one thing, but I still have to check what I can.’
Calmly, Lion examined the body.
And then…
“…Hoo.”
Fortunately, it seemed to still be breathing.
The chest was faintly rising and falling.
Was that why the Spirit Sword Fragment hadn’t activated?
However…
‘The contamination is progressing.’
The robe had long since vanished, and the white gloves were black.
The veins on the briefly exposed wrist were dyed dark as well.
The moment that reached the heart or the head, most likely…
‘…it wouldn’t be good.’
So before that happened, I had to find a way!
First, let’s check whether I can return to the body.
Lion swallowed dryly and was about to place his hand on the body when—
[You have not accepted the quest.]
A small spark flared, and his hand was repelled.
‘I haven’t accepted the quest?’
Before the absurdity could even register, an additional notification appeared.
[Find the Missing Child]
-A guardian is desperately searching for their child.
-Why can’t they come in person? Could there be special circumstances?
In other words, it seemed that clearing this quest would allow him to enter his body.
‘The quest probably appeared…’
Because that item belonged to the Hero.
‘It’s fortunate, compared to having nothing…’
Lion slowly looked around.
He was still in darkness, where nothing was visible except his own body and the Grand Duke’s Son.
The contaminated substance he had coughed up earlier had also completely vanished at some point.
‘Come to think of it…’
Lion looked at the Grand Duke’s Son, who had been holding onto the hem of his clothes for a while now.
“Young master. Is there a reason you’re holding on to me?”
“Well… if I let go, I keep getting sucked somewhere.”
He added that if he’d followed that force, he felt he might have been able to meet someone he missed, but he didn’t.
“Because I must atone for the wrong I committed…”
It seemed drawing Lion into this weighed quite heavily on his mind.
Since Lion also couldn’t bring himself to say it was fine, he resolved to accept a little help from the crybaby Grand Duke’s Son.
And the quest name, after all—
‘It’s “Find the Missing Child.”’
Meaning, he himself might be the one to escort him.
“In that case, could we try moving in that direction together?”
“Really? A-are you sure it’s all right?”
The Grand Duke’s Son glanced furtively at Lion’s body.
“It seems to still be alive… if the connection is severed, you truly cannot return… that was the case, in my experience.”
It seemed this little Grand Duke’s Son had, in his own way, conducted many experiments over fifty years.
Which must have been why he’d found the courage to cause trouble.
Just as he had a moment ago.
“It’s fine. I have to try something.”
“Then… it’s this way.”
Accepting the quest, Lion took the Grand Duke’s Son’s hand and slowly began to walk into the darkness.
‘It’s definitely not an ordinary space.’
Even if a plant’s bud had grotesquely opened wide, it wouldn’t have become a space that required this much endless walking.
As they walked far enough that their bodies were no longer visible, eerie scenery began to form around them.
The entrance of an ancient castle in a semi-transparent state came into view.
No, this was…
‘Dragnas Castle.’
Preserving its noble appearance from before the grand ducal family’s annihilation…
It was probably someone’s memory.
That someone was most likely…
‘The Grand Duke.’
If so, from now on, I had to pass through the Grand Duke’s memory labyrinth and deliver the Grand Duke’s Son.
As long as I kept my wits about me, it was doable.
“This is… Father’s memory, isn’t it.”
The clever Grand Duke’s Son, seeming to have grasped the situation, had also gone markedly quiet.
Strength entered the small hand within his palm.
If he weren’t a ghost, it might even have become damp with sweat.
Even if he spoke with a mature tone, even if he had lived as a ghost for decades, he was still a child.
And the last thing the Grand Duke’s Son had witnessed of the grand ducal family was…
‘Death.’
Without a word, Lion held the Grand Duke’s Son’s hand firmly.
“I-it’s all right. I’m all right. It’s been decades now… so. Yes.”
Having stopped in his tracks at some point, the Grand Duke’s Son began moving earnestly again.
And unlike before, when there had been nothing, many things around them began to appear, to sound, to change.
At the entrance: a figure kneeling on one knee, arms spread wide, sweeping up someone who ran toward them and lifting them high.
On the stairs of Dragnas Castle: a father making a game of climbing the steps with his son, one step at a time.
In the hallway, and in front of a room.
All of it was…
“…Yes. He used to play with me like that.”
The memories of the Grand Duke and his son.
Because his eyes looked as though he were gazing upon a truly precious treasure, Lion simply waited.
Of course, he also needed to complete the quest quickly, before the contamination progressed further.
‘It’s still all right for now.’
And this quest would be extremely difficult to resolve if the Grand Duke’s Son were not cooperative.
And more than anything…
‘Up ahead.’
It was the Grand Duke’s Son’s room.
When the door opened, the Grand Duke would probably be waiting.
However.
‘I don’t know what form he’ll take.’
Would he be the affectionate father he’d been until now, or the one who, having lost his reason to contamination, had even murdered his own beloved son?
‘I can’t say.’
He couldn’t be certain.
That he loved his child was the truth, and that he had ultimately taken his life was also the truth.
But one thing he could be certain of.
‘If I were in the Grand Duke’s Son’s situation.’
And if Grandfather, if my family—if by one in a million chance they came to kill me…
If I learned it hadn’t been out of malice.
“…Even so, I love my father.”
Yes. I didn’t think I could simply bury it and hate them, either.
Because the emotions and affection they had shown me in this short span of less than a year could never have been fabricated.
And for Lion—for Baek Yi-hyeon—they were things he had never once received.
“I feel the same.”
Lion gave their clasped hands a playful swing.
“Still, if it gets too frightening, just go ahead and cry.”
“I-I won’t cry! The reason I cried until now was simply because that voice was the only thing I could hear…”
After desperately making excuses, the Grand Duke’s Son huffed through his nose and bravely opened the door to his room.
Through the slowly widening crack of the door, a murky smoke—one honestly impossible to view favorably—seeped in.
As if to say they had made the wrong choice.
The space was desolate, one no person could easily dare approach.
But the Grand Duke’s Son’s small feet stepped squarely into that room.
Lion followed behind.
And in that place—
“…”
Something in the shape of a being holding a sword stood tall.
The contaminated entity, so ruined it could no longer be called a person, approached them.
And then.
Clatter.
It dropped the sword, awkwardly knelt, and spread its arms wide.
Seeing this, Lion…
“Go to your father.”
Smiled and gently let go of his hand.
The Grand Duke’s Son dashed forward in a single bound and embraced the Grand Duke—embraced his whole world.
Then, gradually…
…the Grand Duke began to regain his true form.