TMLOH 80

Chapter : 80

My lips clamped shut as if glued together.

“Hmm? Try calling me Dad.”

A sudden emergency quest.

Say ‘Dad’ to the man you’ve seen four times!

“……”

“……”

Silence fell once again.

The Duke of Halbern, looking pitiful with drooping eyebrows, launched a face attack at me.

“You’re not going to call me that?”

“……”

Ugh.

Honestly, this was dangerous.

With that face, I felt like I might agree to anything.

But still…

The word “Dad” just won’t come out.

I knew he was my biological father, and I didn’t feel repulsed by it either. But maybe I just didn’t feel like clinging to him while calling him Dad?

As I narrowed my eyes, the Duke of Halbern, who had been studying me closely with his chin propped up, suddenly burst into laughter.

It was a clear, refreshing laugh—boyish, even—making him look younger than he really was.

“Cute. You don’t resemble me at all.”

“…?”

Was that an insult?

I was debating whether I should get offended when the duke, scrutinizing me openly as though I were a painting, gave his verdict.

“Your eyes.”

“……”

“They’re beautiful.”

Ah. Um. Well. Thanks.

Maybe, like Mehen said, he wasn’t as bad as I thought?

Anyone who complimented me for being pretty was a good person in my book.

“Your eyes are beautiful too, sir.”

“Sir.”

The Duke of Halbern roared with laughter.

I’d noticed it before, but really—he laughed a lot. What was so funny?

“You don’t want to call me Dad, is that it?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to…”

“Does it feel uncomfortable?”

“It is uncomfortable, but…”

Whatever I muttered only made my biological father laugh harder.

Which only made it harder for me to call him Dad.

“So.”

“…?”

“I’m curious why Mehen became your mother. Any chance you’ll tell me?”

There wasn’t some big reason, but for some reason, I just didn’t feel like explaining.

“It’s a secret.”

“Already keeping secrets, huh? Very Halbern of you.”

He wasn’t pressing me for an answer. For someone who’d just asked, his attitude was odd. He really was a strange man.

His hand ruffled my hair gently. He didn’t seem the type to know delicate control, but the touch was surprisingly kind.

Duke of Halbern…

An old question I’d long buried suddenly resurfaced.

Why did House Halbern collapse after Arelin died? Why did Mehen leave? Why did the duke appear later as a villain?

What story was behind it all?

I still had no answers.

Maybe if I stayed alive long enough, I’d find out someday. Or maybe I’d lose the chance forever.

Perhaps that’s why, for the first time, I felt curious about this man.

“Why didn’t you ever come see me?”

His hand stilled in my hair.

That warm expression froze. His once-clear eyes grew shadowed, his lowered lashes trembling faintly.

“I thought it was because you hated me.”

I hadn’t said it, but… I had vaguely assumed that much.

“But if that’s not it, why didn’t you come? Not even once?”

It wasn’t like I desperately longed for him. But still, sometimes I wondered. Why wouldn’t he come see me? Did he really dislike me that much?

It was a question I had left unanswered, pretending it didn’t matter, yet unable to fully dismiss it from my life.

His hand resumed moving, stroking my hair with agonizing gentleness. And with a low, resigned voice, he answered plainly:

“Because I thought it would get… dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

“I thought I might want to kill you.”

“…What?”

Did I hear that right?

As I blinked in shock, warmth flickered in the eyes staring straight into mine.

“I was afraid I might kill you.”

“……”

“Without realizing it.”

Despite the chilling words, his voice was calm, utterly flat. With no hint of emotion—yet paired with such tender eyes—that I felt momentarily disoriented.

What? Did he want to kill me? Was he saying he would kill me? Or that he might kill me?

And yet he claimed he didn’t hate me?!

While I reeled, my biological father gave me a bitter smile.

Excuse me? You just dropped a murder notice on me—why are you making that face?!

“Do you want to kill me right now?”

The Duke of Halbern shook his head firmly.

A clear denial.

But still, once fear had been kindled, it couldn’t be extinguished so easily. Especially since this wasn’t exactly a relationship built on trust.

“Daughter.”

If he hadn’t spoken immediately, I might’ve bolted.

But his voice was overly sweet, overly gentle. Like a believer calmly reciting his faith, he whispered the truth to me.

“For your sake, I would do anything.”

The violet eyes holding mine were so filled with sorrow, they looked as though he were about to cry. Whatever else, at least that part felt undeniably sincere.

“Let’s go to your mother.”

As though there was nothing left worth saying, the Duke of Halbern lifted me into his arms.

I got scolded.

Well—actually, maybe Dad was the one who got scolded.

Mehen stood with arms crossed, glaring at us from an angle.

“Why is my lord bringing Arell here himself?”

“Our child said she missed her mother, honey.”

A fountain pen went flying through the air.

Sometime long ago, in the Halbern estate.

Within the mansion, already more faded in memory than in reality, a slightly older Arelin lay there.

Cough, cough.

When a dry cough burst out, the small hand that reflexively covered her mouth came away stained with blood.

Her face was pallid, her illness clear to see.

“You should prepare yourself.”

“There’s nothing more we can do…”

Among physicians murmuring grimly, Mehen, looking more haggard than now, wore a face of despair.

Even strange medicines smuggled from the imperial palace failed to help Arelin’s sickness.

They had realized too late that someone had been stealing her remedies.

Tormented by guilt he couldn’t name, Mehen clutched the communication crystal connected directly to the northern fortress. But the lord never answered.

“Come back. Before she dies, at least see your daughter’s face.”

The one time the line connected, Mehen begged the duke to return, telling him how dire Arelin’s condition had become.

The Duke of Halbern only replied he “had things to do” and postponed his return.

“Damn it, what could possibly be more important than seeing your dying child?!”

Mehen prayed for another chance to connect, threw everything into Arelin’s recovery, but his efforts were in vain.

At the very end, holding the small hand that begged him not to let go, Mehen felt—for the first time—utterly powerless.

Arelin died.

In his arms, the child he had raised, sweet and precious, slipped away.

…Arell.

Mehen, who had always thought himself rational, learned that day how irrational, how emotional he could truly be.

He felt as though Arelin’s death was entirely his fault. Absurd, and yet… he believed it.

But more than anything, he could not forgive Valer.

When the Duke of Halbern finally arrived, far too late for his daughter’s funeral, Mehen’s patience snapped.

“Why are you only here now?! Why only now?!”

His rage seethed like fire.

“Was it really so hard to come just once? She was your daughter. The daughter you abandoned to me. Do you think this makes any sense?!”

The duke offered no excuses. He simply gazed down at the small, cold body.

Even battered, bloodied, still considered among the strongest in the empire, his famed beauty marred, he showed nothing else.

But none of it mattered to Mehen.

“I’m sick of your irresponsibility.”

“Mehen.”

“Let’s end this. No—I’m ending this.”

Mehen was exhausted. He hated the duke who had left him in this wretched situation.

The loyalty and trust he had once held faded the moment the child’s breath was lost.

“Live however you want now.”

Their bond, which had begun twenty years earlier when six-year-old Mehen had foolishly followed him from the streets, ended with Mehen’s unilateral severance at age twenty-six.

“Let’s never see each other again.”

Leaving behind title, mansion, possessions—everything—he took only the wages for his twenty years of service, and walked away from the Halbern estate.

The Duke of Halbern hadn’t stopped him.

And from there, he crumbled.

One winter day, the duke disappeared from the estate.

Dark rumors about his disappearance began to circulate quietly through the capital.

I blinked dazedly, awake yet disoriented.

I… think I just had a weird dream.

“Was it just me?”

No matter how hard I tried to recall, the memory was fuzzy.

All I noticed was that the mark on the back of my hand—which had been quiet for a while—was glowing unusually bright. I felt nervous, afraid someone might notice.

“There’s no stalker around, so why is this shining now?”

Speaking of which—I hadn’t seen him in a while.

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? After a moment’s thought, I decided good was good enough. I was about to enjoy another peaceful day—

“Arelliiiinnn, help me!”

—when an uninvited guest appeared.