The Princess Wants to Live (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 39
The afternoon sun cast long shadows down the palace corridor.
In that suffocating silence stood three people.
Greta, who had taken it upon herself to guide them, walked ahead, with Olivia trailing a few steps behind her.
And beside Olivia, matching her pace step for step, was Cryer.
The silence was so profound—thanks to the plush carpet swallowing even their breaths—that Olivia felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
Yet what tormented her even more than the stifling quiet was holding back the urge to grab Greta by her hair.
She desperately wanted to seize that crimson mane, shake it violently, and demand the woman spill everything swirling inside her head—but with every ounce of willpower, she suppressed the impulse.
The other was a mage. A mage. A mage. A mage!
Perhaps it was the effect of repeating this mantra like a prayer inside her mind that prevented Olivia from grabbing Greta’s hair and wrenching her neck backward—until Greta suddenly halted.
“This is it.”
Greta stopped before a door that was clearly twice as large and far more ornate than the others, then pulled the handle.
-Click.
Due to her nerves being wound too tightly, even the sound of the door opening boomed in Olivia’s ears like a thunderclap, making her shoulders flinch.
Instinctively, she flailed her hand out in search of Cryer—and her pinky finger instantly brushed against his much larger, rougher one.
Olivia’s reflexive motion to clutch his finger froze abruptly.
Because Greta had turned to face her directly and opened her mouth.
“Your Highness, may I take my leave now?”
A faint crack appeared on Olivia’s brow, previously as expressionless as if wearing a mask.
This wasn’t merely rude—it was downright insolent.
If Greta had been an ordinary guide, she ought to have been bustling about explaining every corner of the room and making arrangements for Olivia’s comfort until the Princess herself dismissed her.
Of course, the dazzling beauty standing before her was anything but “ordinary.”
She was a mage.
However, since only Cryer knew Greta’s true identity as a mage, Olivia had no reason to overlook such blatant rudeness.
In fact, letting it slide might even arouse suspicion.
“Do you not understand the duties of a guide?”
Even Olivia’s sharp words failed to wipe the radiant smile from Greta’s face.
“My duty was solely to guide you. The rest will be handled by others.”
No sooner had she finished speaking than several attendants silently materialized from within the room, bowing deeply.
Just as Olivia opened her mouth again at the sight—
“And you, Sir Knight, must come with me.”
Greta stepped past Olivia toward Cryer, adding,
“His Royal Highness the Crown Prince summons you.”
At those words, Olivia barely managed to choke back the “No!” that had already risen to her tongue.
No matter how much she was the Imperial Princess, she couldn’t possibly keep Cryer—a knight still officially stationed in the Kingdom of Norden—when the Crown Prince himself called for him.
Olivia shot Cryer a fleeting glance, then lifted her chin and straightened her back.
In an instant, she enveloped herself in the dignified, weighty aura befitting the Imperial Princess and addressed Greta, who had already turned away.
“Guide.”
Before Greta could even turn back to face her, Olivia continued.
“See that he is sent back.”
Her voice was chillingly cold enough to freeze bones.
Greta, finally turning toward Olivia, no longer smiled.
“Sent back? What on earth do you—?”
Olivia raised her hand to silence Greta, then openly sized her up from head to toe.
Looking down at Greta—who stood taller than herself—with an expression that clearly said, “Who do you think you are to question me?” Olivia finally spoke.
“He is a knight of the Kingdom of Norden—and my guest. Until I say otherwise, he remains my guest.”
Until I release him, he goes nowhere.
Could anyone else possibly speak so outrageously and imperiously to a knight from another nation?
Only because Olivia was the Imperial Princess could she utter such words.
Conversely, precisely because these words came from the sole Imperial Princess of the Bolshayk Empire—Cryer would return.
Back to Olivia’s side.
“Go ahead as you wished. I wish to rest now; everyone may leave.”
She stepped casually into the room but paused abruptly.
With elegant grace, Olivia turned her head just enough to issue a command to Cryer.
“Don’t mistake where you’re meant to return.”
The moment the door closed behind her, Olivia slumped against it and sank to the floor.
Covering her face with her hands, she silently ground out curses, then let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
“It’s… over.”
Her sigh mingled with genuine despair.
The tense three-way encounter that had set her heart pounding had ended far too swiftly and anticlimactically.
For a fleeting moment, doubt crept in—was this really how it should have gone?—but Olivia quickly shook her head.
If anything had actually happened during that meeting, it would have been far worse.
Because that would mean the mages had already guessed Olivia’s true intentions.
“This is how it should be. It’s right that nothing happened.”
Staring at her trembling fingertips, Olivia clenched them tightly into fists.
“To catch a tiger, one must enter the tiger’s den. And even if bitten by the tiger, as long as you keep your wits, you’ll survive.”
Repeating this ancestral wisdom—now as vital as blood and flesh—she closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again, and rose to her feet.
She walked straight to the bed and threw herself onto it without hesitation.
Hadn’t she learned this through four lifetimes and deaths, ingrained deep into her very bones?
Rest while you can.
While Olivia lay alone on the bed, limp as a corpse,
Cryer and Greta were making their way deeper into the palace.
Soon, they arrived at a place utterly devoid of any sign of life and stepped into a dimly lit room.
-Thud.
The moment the door closed, Cryer asked,
“Where is the Crown Prince?”
“Who knows? He must be somewhere.”
Just as he’d suspected—and just as expected—the Crown Prince summoning him had been a blatant lie.
Then again, since the Crown Prince was merely a puppet of the mage, perhaps it wasn’t truly a lie.
But if even the mage’s presence couldn’t be sensed here…
“Cryer.”
A steady, persistent call cut through his thoughts.
“Cryer, Cryer, CryerCryerCryerCryerCryer.”
Greta, calling his name as though losing her mind—or driving him to madness—reached out her hand toward him.
Unlike others, Greta’s hand carried a faint warmth as it caressed Cryer’s cheek.
“At last… I’ve finally touched you.”
Cryer neither swatted nor slashed away Greta’s whispering hand, yet he didn’t lean into her touch either.
He simply stared down at her with a blank, emotionless expression, as if feeling nothing at all.
Greta gazed at him with wistful, sorrowful eyes as she stroked his cheek, then soon withdrew her hand.
Though the warmth of his skin vanished instantly from her fingertips, even that fleeting contact filled her with such profound satisfaction that her eyes reddened.
“At last, I’m finally with you.”
Her voice brimmed with emotion, her eyes sparkled with joy, and her face shone with pure happiness.
Anyone witnessing Greta and Cryer together might easily mistake them for lovers reunited after a long, forced separation.
Indeed, Greta truly believed this herself.
“It’s been far too long. How unbearable it’s been… without you by my side…”
Greta’s trembling voice echoed softly, but not a single word reached Cryer’s ears.
They dissipated like meaningless noise.
The only time he’d truly heard Greta’s words was the moment she branded her mark onto his clavicle.
Cryer knew well how Greta felt about him.
How could he not?
One night, as he despaired in the darkness, unable to escape the chains of slavery, Greta herself had appeared before him, declaring:
“You alone—the first complete servant of God—are the one destined to remain by my side in the purified world.”
He had no desire to discern whether the fervent emotion shining in Greta’s eyes as she spoke those words was love or something else.
Whether it was love, obsession, or a repulsive illness—
Cryer truly wished to give her not even the smallest crumb of his attention.
That was as true then as it was now—and would remain eternally unchanged.
Without sparing Greta even a sliver of his gaze, he asked,
“Where is the mage?”
At his utterly emotionless, dry tone, Greta’s lips twitched grotesquely for the briefest instant.
But it lasted only a moment.
She smiled again and shook her head.
“He isn’t here.”
“He isn’t?”
He’d suspected it since the Crown Prince’s appearance, but for the mage to actually leave the palace…
He’d assumed the mage would never abandon the place, given the Ancient God’s altar was here.
Cryer’s eyes drifted toward the small, modestly arranged altar in one corner of the room.
How utterly absurd.
That this altar—meant to bathe the continent in blood and purify all humankind through fire—could be so insignificant.
No one would believe it even if told the truth.
“Didn’t you say he wouldn’t leave without the altar?”
“That’s right.”
Greta nodded, adding casually,
“He couldn’t leave until the perfect altar was completed.”
At her answer, Cryer’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily.
Completion of the perfect altar… and then leaving?
Were they constructing another altar, not this childish imitation?
No—since the mage wasn’t here, he must have already finished it and departed.
“Then the mage is at the new altar. To that place…”
Before Cryer could finish, Greta shook her head.
“No.”
At that, Cryer pressed his lips into a firm line.
Greta’s answer clearly contradicted the mage’s whereabouts.
Greta watched Cryer silently for a moment, then spoke.
“That Princess.”
Only one thing made her crimson lips whisper—not the mage’s whereabouts, but Olivia.
Wrapping her arm around Cryer’s like a serpent, Greta glanced toward the room where Olivia was staying and added,
“Doesn’t she bother you?”
The memory of that woman’s voice calling Cryer’s name on a day long past.
And today.
“Until I say otherwise, he remains my guest.”
Greta’s mouth twisted unnaturally.
“She bothers me.”
She bothered her immensely.
What simmered beneath Greta’s whisper wasn’t mere murderous intent.
It was something slightly more vicious, more nauseating—a truly vile something.
And it was unmistakably directed at Olivia.
“Shouldn’t we remove what bothers us?”
The moment Cryer grasped the meaning hidden within that silken whisper, a furious gale swept across his crimson wasteland, fierce enough to swallow everything whole.
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
_____
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