He had to be frank with himself, being found dying in a random forest by two kids of completely different species wasn't high, or anywhere at all, on his To-Do List. However, life never played fair, so he had to just roll with the punches. If he could roll in his condition, that is. To start off with, his life wasn't going well (the understatement of the year). After that spell of however many years of possession by the man who resurrected Dracula, Richter would swear that any sane man would be struggling too; himself marginally even more so since he doubted he was sane at this point.

If only mankind could leave things be and not constantly resurrect the bane of their own existence every generation or so, the Belmonts could for once have a peaceful life. Sadly though that would never happen. Richter had just finished vanquishing Dracula the first time when he was seemingly cursed by the Dark Magician Shaft. The effects weren't obvious at first until he started having lapses of memory. That along with the following warping of his reality a few years later. All he could do was watch himself warp into something so twisted that the memories continued to repress themselves.

The bits and pieces were hazy but he finally, after such a long time, managed to wrestle back control once he was flat on the ground with a man, of sorts, named Alucard overtop him with a hand outstretched. Oddly enough Maria was there as well. At the time, he didn't have the darndest clue what could've gotten his adopted sister involved in the raging fire that was whatever he was in at the time. He was struggling to piece anything together anyway so he was sure there's something he missed. Alucard, Dracula's son it seemed and the same one that fought alongside his ancestors long ago, gave him a brief rundown. Apparently Richter had vanished without a trace for several years while the castle began to reappear and unleash hell. Outside of a few raiding excursions where he was spotted leading hordes of monsters, he'd been absolutely off the map. He had been possessed by the Spiritual Magic of Shaft, Dracula's Head Priest and the same Dark Magician he had fought twice years before, and was used in the process of resurrecting Dracula again. Maria had gone off in search of him and Alucard had accidentally encountered Richter, as well as Maria, while trying to kill his father. He devised a plan to tackle multiple goals at the same time, allowing the ragtag group of heroes to vanquish Dracula hopefully once and for all.

What they had to do next was radically unheard of for Richter but he did whatever was needed. Transport into an inverse version of the castle that was partially shaped from his own mental ambitions during his reign as Lord of the Castle, check. Swarm the countless heads, generals, and leaders of the forces of Darkness inside the Castle to fuel Shaft with enough spiritual energy to resurrect Dracula, done and dusted. Regroup with Alucard and delegate who gets the displeasure of putting Shaft into the ground for the third time (of course it was Richter), accomplished. All that was really left was the trek back to the Inverse Throne Room (although why Shaft would be there was beyond him). Launching himself up to the entrance of the Keep , he knew it was time to get revenge for the last handful of years of his life wasted in torment due to the curse. That revenge was far from easy, however. He knew going into the battle that it would be difficult. After all, Shaft was utilizing the souls of each monster killed to empower himself for the resurrection. He was unaware though of the true difficulty of the task that sat before him. Overconfidence was a slow and insidious killer and Richter made the folly of underestimating the magician a third time. The fight was brutal and the years spent out of his control weighed heavily on him during combat. He was out of practice for a fight of this magnitude, weary after the beating from Alucard and all the other bosses he fought up till now, and running low on the magic he had left. It was drawn out and incredibly taxing but the deed was done. With a final crippling blow, Shaft had fallen from his levitating state and collided with a wet thud onto the ornate ceiling; although at this point he might as well call it the floor. There wasn't an out for Shaft like last time and they both knew it. Shaft had already gloated about how Dracula had already been resurrected so the first goal had been accomplished, the deed had been done. Richter knew he had to press the advantage, but he hesitated. All he saw at that point in time was a soon-to-be corpse, so with a sigh of relief he slowly began to navigate his way past the ominous pillars and to the gateway leading home. His breathing hitched, his chest burned, and before he could even get to the slope, he fell to his knees.

His condition wasn't the greatest, a bit of an understatement but he needed to remind himself of his reality. Countless gashes, burns, and magical residue markings littered his body and his overcoat leaving him in what was quite frankly a state of ruin. His outfit was far more ornate than what he had been wearing the years prior to his disappearance (at least it had been) but it offered enough protection for him to have not died up to this point. His luck was running out though and he could feel the life draining out of him. He leaned against one of the walls and ran a gloved hand down the now red frills of his tunic. It was funny, really, how hollow he felt after getting the revenge that had been driving him ever since awakening from the spell. The time for Belmonts had come to an end and the torch for the title of Humanity's savior had been passed on to his adopted sister and the dhampir. The bloodline had been tainted, warped beyond recognition, and deep down somewhere in the back of his mind he knew Annette was gone: no lineage. That was probably for the best. The world needed not the likes of Dracula or himself.

What he had ignored in his moment of reflection was that Shaft, the conniving bastard that he was, had enough magic to launch a devastating spell at Richter. Why every boss he fought did this, he had no idea, but he had not the energy or the health to avoid the orb of endless color that was hurtling towards him; it rebounded and bounced from surface to surface as it closed the distance between them. All he could do was crawl towards the Memorial Altar; the gateway between both versions of the Castle and his only ticket back home. As the orb collided with the altar, everything began to get sucked towards the impact zone. A large rift opened up, absorbing Richter, the extravagant stone slabs along the walls, and the Altar itself. The last thing he saw was Maria running towards the rift and Shaft's corpse crumbling away into dust. Once the rift closed, so did his perception of, well, everything. His body felt like he was going far faster than he had ever gone before, all he could perceive was a perpetual and all-encompassing whiteness. Time seemed to be absent, along with his thoughts, as what seemed to be a moment of eternity stretched from infinity to the present as he and the Altar crashed into a forest a dozen or so feet from the ground. Plowing through the prickly treeline, he landed face first into the soil.

Spitting out the dirt in his mouth, he slowly managed to roll over onto his side. There wasn't anything he could do at this point except accept his fate. He could muster one last bout of movement, pushing himself up against the cold surface of the now upright Altar. The blood from his wounds warmed up the stone as he gazed up at the skies above. It was dusk with a set of stars completely foreign to him. There wouldn't be any closure for his sister as his body was lord knows where. Guess she couldn't save him a second time which was a pity, he knew she'd brag about it for as long as she could remember it. They were tied...but he couldn't make everything easy for her, so with a silent apology, he closed his eyes and let himself sink into the numbness overtaking his body. From seconds to hours, he knows not, he had been unconscious until being woken up by a young-sounding voice.

'Are you okay mister?"

The voice drew him from his lulled state enough for him to open his eyes. Standing before him were two children armed with a light of some type, in their teens, one human and one...not? With white fur, a muzzle, long droopy ears, and what looked to be horn growths atop his head, he couldn't place the species. Seeing was a bit of an issue due to the light shined directly into his face, but he knew enough to know that it was definitely nothing he had seen before. The monster child's piercing green eyes remained unmoving, gazing directly into his own. Richter wondered why it hadn't struck him down yet. Something felt off about this one but Richter wasn't given enough time to really detect why as the monster repeated his sentence.

"Hey, are you okay? Do you live nearby? You look really bad".

It just dawned on Richter that he probably looked like he'd been through a grinder. His attempts to stand up and cover his wounds failed, only resulting in increasing the fairly large blood pool beneath him. He hissed in pain as he grinded his teeth in an attempt to settle the overwhelming bone-rending ache that wracked his body. The hunter could see the kids just now noticing the blood if their murmurs of worry weren't telltale signs of that by themselves. Maybe they were too young to be warriors, either way no child deserved to see such a sight. Mustering up enough strength to actually speak, Richter pieced together something hopefully coherent.

"N-no, I'm...actually, I'll be okay. Don't worry about me, just go back to your parents. It's not safe he-"

Interrupted midsentence by what seemed like the ground upending onto himself, he felt reality fade away completely as the darkness overtook what little he could see left. With that, he knew his time had come to an end.

He was warm, hot even. Not the warmth that comes from resting in a pool of your own blood, the warmth that he had always associated with a thick blanket next to a furnace. It was sweltering but he felt so constricted. Flailing out his arms, he fought unconsciousness and somehow, against all odds, won. With a crash, his eyes flew open to see a large albeit modest bedroom and a smashed lamp he had just knocked over. How was he here? This, as the afterlife goes, was very unusual. Before he could even follow that train of thought, the sudden sharp and crippling pain in his side reminded him of his mortality and everything that came with it. He was still alive, still injured, but yet he wasn't dead. Strange. Tensing up, he gave his surroundings a check. He was on a bed far too large for most humans, incredibly plush with lace coverings. He had been tucked into the bed with a set of very heavy and soft blankets. To his left was a large dresser with several picture frames and the spot where the lamp was earlier. His vision was far too blurry to make out the pictures in the frames so he moved on. In front of the bed, at the end of the room, was a desk with what looked to be a journal. A cup of ink quills rested nearby with a stack of paper. To his left were two doors, one of which was just past the bedside table and the other on the leftmost wall. To the right was a large double-set window with royal blue curtains blocking out whatever light could have been lighting up the room. There was little else that he could see but his attention was still on the doors. He was alive, he was given a second chance by whatever gods existed in this realm. He wasn't going to let it be taken away by him dropping his guard. These new surroundings put him on edge.

Getting more of his bearings, he tried to swing his feet off the bed and get his footing on the cold hardwood flooring. Strange, his boots were gone. Standing was easy, walking however...not so much. With his knees buckling underneath him, he slammed into the wall and fell onto the lamp he had knocked over earlier. The glass shattered and the shade completely collapsed inward, the noise was intense and most likely alerted whoever resided in the house he was stashed in. He'd get the hang of it again, he always preferred to run before walking. Ignoring the glass stabbing into his bandages (wait, since when were his wounds bandaged?), he summoned a dagger and slowly pulled himself up on the bed keeping the dagger aimed at the door. The rapid heavy footsteps heading down what he thought a hallway on the other side of the wall gave him enough energy to push himself further as he finally found his feet enough to limp around the bed and to the window. Everything felt so stiff and his head was so light, he couldn't really piece together much outside of the adrenaline. The door was quickly swung inward and in that moment he took the opening to strike. Summoning two more daggers, he threw the trio in a shamefully wide spread as he quickly turned to assess the strength of the window. He only got a brief glance at the figure heading into the room. Tall, fluffy, white, blue robes, definitely not human. Might be a cultist.

"Oh my!"

That wasn't a good sign. It was definitely alerted of his presence. If he was going to fight, he'd prefer to do it outside. For whatever reason he was in that bed, he knows not, he most certainly would rather not die in it. Taking a few steps back, swearing under his breath, he braced himself for the oncoming impact as he dove straight through the glass window into the blinding light beyond. Time to find out where the hell he was and how he could get back home. He'd been running on borrowed time for so long now so what did he have to lose? He felt...alive for the first time since his disappearance and he'd go down holding that feeling close if he had to.