Olivia grabbed the hem of her dress tightly, her arm trembling noticeably.

“Do you think we could save her now, more than a decade after she suffered from an unidentified disease?”

“Well, if we knew the cause of the disease, maybe. But we still don’t know what Lilliana had…”

“…Fine. Leave.”

Olivia did not lose her smile until she left the study. Once the door closed, she exhaled deeply and headed straight for her room.

“My lady, did the conversation go well?”

“Why did he suddenly bring up Lilliana?”

Margaret’s eyes widened. Even though she knew only she and Olivia were in the room, she cautiously asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why he suddenly mentioned that name.”

Moreover, he had even asked about Lilliana’s disease.

“I thought he would agree to the marriage proposal with the Diaz family just as he had before, but now he wants to postpone it?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Isn’t it fine, my lady? You’ll be away for the subjugation soon. There’s no need to rush the marriage proposal.”

“You sound just like Herman.”

Sitting on the sofa, Olivia snorted. Herman’s suggestion to take the marriage proposal slowly didn’t matter much. Maybe Rosebelia would run into some good luck during the subjugation.

But she didn’t know why she felt so uneasy.

“Did something change in Herman’s feelings?”

“If worst comes to worst, we could try the newly developed medicine on Rosebelia when she returns.”

“My lady, that’s not acceptable. The Empress will never permit it.”

“Who knows? That medicine is…”

Olivia bit off the end of her sentence and smiled broadly.

Ian, who had been tossing and turning, suddenly opened his eyes. It was hard to say how many times this had happened. He had tried closing his eyes, only to startle awake again and again.

He couldn’t sleep due to the noise. Ever since sensing the aura, people’s true feelings seemed to resonate even more clearly with him.

He thought he could only hear the thoughts of those right in front of him, but he was wrong.
Within a certain radius, the inner thoughts of people around him mingled and reached his ears. The problem was that when he moved to a place where he couldn’t hear those thoughts, he would hear hallucinations instead.

“I want to kill. Trust me. You’re starved for blood.”

As if whispering right next to him, someone suggested he should kill. It was all too easy.

Within a few hours of the curse manifesting, Ian concluded that it was better to listen to other people’s noisy inner thoughts than to hear hallucinations urging him to kill.

He recalled the forbidden records he had read for several hours from dawn till morning.

According to the survivors in the records, even after the curse had manifested, it was one of two things.

Either become obsessed with slaughter or lose your mind.

Both options were dreadful. Yet he couldn’t die easily, that was his fate.

“An immortal body, was it?”

He couldn’t kill himself. Even if he commanded someone to stab him, his body would involuntarily defend itself. He wouldn’t die even if he consumed poison.

It was the same for trying to fall from a great height. His feet wouldn’t move, as if glued to the spot.

Ian closed his eyes, letting out a cynical laugh. He could feel a large flow of aura around him.

Furthermore, a Swordmaster?

“Even if I fight sincerely, I’m made to not die easily.”

“Damn this curse.”

Ian slowly lifted his heavy eyelids. He was forcing his eyes open, feeling as if his head would explode, but gradually he felt sleepier.

Leaving his bedroom, he wandered the palace grounds. Trying to ignore the hallucinations, he heard a familiar voice.

“First Prince?”

Turning toward the source of the voice, he saw Queen Evelyn standing gracefully under a parasol held by a maid.

“Your Majesty the Queen.”

“You don’t need to be so formal. I heard you were unwell, are you feeling better?”

Just as he was about to answer,

“It would’ve been better if you just died.”

The sudden intrusion of Evelyn’s voice made Ian swallow a bitter laugh. It was remarkable how her face remained unchanged despite internally cursing him to die.

“Do you genuinely care?”

“Of course. I barely slept last night.”

“I suppose I am fine now, thanks to your intense concern, Your Majesty.”

“What is he saying?”

The elegant smile on Evelyn’s face gradually faded. Meeting her enlarging eyes, Ian smirked and lowered his head.

“I should be going.”

“Do you want to die? Just do it.”

Ian couldn’t go far before stopping. Facing Evelyn wasn’t pleasant, but hearing hallucinations wasn’t any better.

“Killing would be the simplest solution.”

“Ah, shut up. It’s too loud.”

It hadn’t even been a day since the curse manifested, but he was already at his wits’ end.

“Do I have to live like this from now on?”

Ian’s eyes caught something as he roughly brushed his hair back. There were dewy climbing roses in his line of sight. Seeing the red roses naturally reminded him of Rosebelia.

“It rained a lot yesterday; she must’ve gone back by now.”

He wanted to go to the knight’s order and see her immediately. To apologize for what happened yesterday, ask if she got caught in the rain, and how her condition was.

Above all, he wanted to properly convey the words he hadn’t been able to say.

“I was going to confess…”

Feeling his heartbeat loudly, Ian squeezed his eyes shut.

Just thinking of her filled him with such a sense of fullness. Just capturing her in his sight made it seem like everything would be alright.

He couldn’t stand before her like this. The thought passed and his heart sunk as if plummeting into an endless abyss. The sensation engulfed him in an instant.
If Rosebelia stood before him, he would hear her inner thoughts. When her inner thoughts weren’t audible, he would hear the damnable hallucinations like before.

“Hallucinations telling me to kill Rosebelia…”

Ian abruptly stifled his mouth, overwhelmed by the surging nausea. He found this side of himself horrific and disgusting.

Moreover, an immortal body? Meaning he couldn’t die even if he wanted to?

Ian, who had hunched forward, clenched his face in his hands.

“This is simply a monster.”