The Princess Wants to Live (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 5
*Thud.*
With a short, forceful slam on the desk, he drew everyone’s attention and then slowly opened his mouth.
“Be silent.”
It was a strange voice. Stranger still was the fact that at his single command, everyone fell quiet.
The man looked down at the now-silent crowd with disdainful eyes, as though regarding insects, and spoke briefly.
“There is a will; we shall abide by the late king’s wishes.”
He gestured toward the back, and from the shadows emerged the figure of the Crown Prince.
With unfocused, vacant eyes, the Crown Prince moved obediently at the Mage’s signal.
The man, having seated the Crown Prince before him, started to place a hand on his shoulder but changed direction and rested it on the chair instead, then spoke again.
“Given the urgency, the coronation will be held simply. Yet there is no doubt the Crown Prince shall become the next King of Norden, and thus he shall govern all state affairs.”
As soon as the man finished speaking, he tapped the chair lightly with his fingertip, and in response, the Crown Prince cried out in a dazed voice,
“It shall be as he says!”
Those gathered in the royal council chamber nodded as if entranced and soon filed out.
A state council swayed entirely by one man’s words—this, mere moments after the current king’s death.
Even a three-year-old child would find the sight absurdly unnatural, yet not a single person present sensed anything amiss.
No one knew when, where, or how this man—whose name and face remained obscure—had come to stand beside the king.
Yet no one, not even the king himself, had doubted him; indeed, over time, they had grown to trust him ever more.
As if by magic.
The first to leave the council chamber was a pale-faced man who now gazed out the royal bedchamber window, his eyes gleaming sharply.
Behind him, a shadowy figure appeared soundlessly.
“Father.”
“You’ve come. Greta.”
“Yes. It’s truly near now.”
The Mage turned toward his daughter, spread his arms wide, and grinned ear to ear.
“Yes. The day has finally come.”
“It’s been so long. If this had been in the Empire… I know. Even a nation slightly larger than this wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.”
“Long indeed. How many years have passed? But the day to purify this filthy world is almost here!”
“A filthy world, yes.”
Greta took a step toward the Mage, her pale face bearing a faint smile.
“But there is still someone pure, isn’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“The man chosen by the Ancient God.”
“You mean the slave.”
“The slave of the god. Having died once and been purified, isn’t he the only one truly clean?”
“True. Thus, as long as he does not set the world ablaze…”
He hadn’t even finished his sentence.
*Squelch.*
With the sound of tearing flesh, the Mage’s eyes bulged wide in shock.
Utter bewilderment filled his eyes at this sudden betrayal.
Without hesitation, Greta twisted the dagger in his abdomen sharply to the right.
The grating scrape of bone grated on the nerves, yet Greta smiled—deeply satisfied.
“Guh… gahk!”
Blood droplets spurted from his mouth onto Greta’s face, but she didn’t even blink—she stared straight into his eyes.
A groan escaped his blood-flecked lips along with ragged breaths.
“Why…?”
The Mage could only stare at Greta in stunned disbelief until his heart stopped completely.
“Why, you ask?”
Greta smiled gently as she slowly pulled the dagger from his belly and tossed it to the floor.
The blade rolled heedlessly across the white carpet, leaving a crimson trail—its origin point, Greta.
She cradled the Mage as he collapsed, blood streaming from his abdomen, and sat down in the growing pool of blood.
Wiping the thick, red blood from his mouth and chin, Greta whispered,
“You, too, Father, are merely part of this filthy world. So I cleanse you through death…”
Greta held the Mage close as he gasped, coughing up blood in her arms. Her fingers, stained crimson from his lips, smeared his cheeks red.
“Farewell, Father.”
Greta’s voice, tinged with a faint thrill, slipped into the Mage’s ear.
That day, the King of Norden was assassinated under the guise of an accident.
The nameless Mage—who had forcibly resurrected Cryer through a pact with the Ancient God and branded him as the god’s slave to purify this tainted world—breathed his last.
Not by any other hand, but by that of his own daughter.
“In the world purified by the Ancient God, only he and I shall remain. It shall become the clean world you always desired, Father.”
Greta smiled radiantly as she kicked her father’s corpse without hesitation.
To her eyes, the Mage—now lifeless and collapsed—no longer existed.
Her strangely gleaming gaze was fixed solely on Cryer, who even now would be overlooking the insect-like humans gathered at the council in the Empire, ready to be purged.
* * *
The death of the King of Norden was dismissed as a mere unfortunate accident.
No one voiced suspicions of assassination or any other possibility. To be precise, no one could.
An assassination of a foreign king within the Imperial Palace?
Even a monkey could foresee the treacherous ice one would tread upon merely by uttering such words.
Besides, wasn’t Norden a nation of negligible influence on the continent?
Even those with vested interests saw no reason to question his death.
No—more accurately, they couldn’t bring themselves to care enough to question it.
Everyone in the council chamber had eyes only for Olivia and Cryer standing right beside her, their eyes as wide as saucers.
“…We extend our deepest condolences to the Kingdom of Norden…”
Hadn’t the Princess just sent all the Norden envoys back while offering her condolences?
“And regarding the upcoming state funeral…”
If all the envoys from Norden had already departed, then why?
Why did that knight alone remain beside the Imperial Princess?
This was the shared question arising in everyone’s minds.
“Could it… could it really be…”
Someone’s breathy whisper spread like contagion, and a single hypothesis popped into the heads of all who watched the two.
And finally, someone unable to suppress their curiosity—curiosity said to kill even cats—spoke up.
“Your Highness!”
“Yes.”
“Why… why did that knight not return?”
At the accusatory finger pointed toward Cryer, Olivia’s lips twitched faintly.
She swallowed the words she wanted to say—Don’t point at him like that; if you’re unlucky, you’ll vanish without a trace—and instead offered a smile filled only with pretense. Behind her elegant, composed smile came a brief reply.
“He will remain in the Empire to facilitate smooth relations between our two nations.”
“What?”
“But that’s not… No, ours! Our knights!”
“Nonsense! Our knights are far superior…”
It was sheer pandemonium.
Scarcely had Olivia finished speaking when the leaders of every nation in the chamber simultaneously began boasting about the excellence of their own knights.
“Relations between our nations, you say?”
At Cryer’s quiet murmur, Olivia looked up at him and answered.
“Well, I can’t very well say I fell for you at first sight and simply can’t bear to let you go, so I’ll take you as my consort. Though, of course, you’d interpret anything I say that way anyway.”
An unmarried Imperial Princess, engaged to none, had privately met a foreign knight before the eyes of so many.
“Let’s stick with ‘relations between nations.’”
“No, that’s too much. I didn’t fall for you at first sight, but even if I had, you needn’t recoil in disgust. What’s so wrong with me…”
“A woman I must soon kill whispering of love—how could I possibly enjoy that?”
“…A wise answer to a foolish question.”
“But more importantly, how will you handle this?”
Cryer jerked his chin toward those around him, nearly frenzied as they pushed forward their own knights. Olivia answered simply.
“We’ll have to accept one knight from each nation.”
Olivia had fully anticipated this outcome.
And she knew all too well what wild fantasies they were weaving—and how desperately they clung to them…
“Better than taking them as consorts.”
“Forget that part. Erase it from your memory entirely.”
“As Your Highness wishes.”
“Drop the ‘Your Highness’—it gives me chills.”
Olivia shivered, rubbing her arms, and shook her head.
“By keeping one knight from each nation here in the Empire, we can quietly silence all their concerns at once.”
“Their concerns being, of course, your taking a consort.”
“Consorts, my foot. That’s… not entirely untrue, but the real issue is war. War.”
“They don’t know about your existence—that you’ll ignite a continental war? Unless others have also returned, as you and the Princess have.”
“It’s not the war you’ll start—it’s the war the Empire will start.”
“Ah. The theme of this continental council was world peace, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. And since the Empire abruptly changed the agenda to world peace—despite the original topic being scheduled months later—it’s only natural they’d grow anxious, suspecting we’re preparing something.”
“So you’ll permit each nation to station their knights here—legal spies, in effect?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“But, Princess.”
“Hmm?”
“I have a feeling they’ll send consorts, not knights.”
A smirk formed at Cryer’s lips. Olivia narrowed her eyes and turned her head slowly.
The chamber had quieted somewhat—apparently, the leaders had already sorted things out among themselves.
Beside each nation’s ruler now stood a new figure.
Olivia scanned their faces and spoke in a voice so faint it barely moved her lips—so soft it was almost inaudible.
Yet Cryer would surely hear it.
“How many of them do you think actually hold a knight’s title?”
Cryer leaned down and whispered into Olivia’s ear.
“They’ve all likely received titles, but as for those truly capable of serving as knights… I doubt there are more than you’d imagine. Seems they care more about consort positions than war.”
“Damn it all.”
Not a soul thinking of giving rice cakes—but so many eager to drink kimchi soup before it’s even made. Truly, the ancestral wisdom passed down through the Bolshayk family never misses a beat.
She’d deliberately rushed the council’s timing for the sake of world peace, yet all attention fixated solely on her marital prospects—frustration boiled within her.
“Would you rather start a war to shock those gleaming eyes into awareness?”
“Absolutely not. War must not happen—by any means.”
After all, hadn’t she seen time and again how even a minor skirmish, a local battle, or merely a few people brawling could become the spark for continental war?
Thus, peace must be preserved at all costs. To never die again.
“Because you’re a dove of peace?”
“Yes, I’m a dove. Coo, coo-coo. Happy now? Satisfied… Don’t smile. I said don’t smile.”
Seeing the faint tremor running through his shoulder as he turned his head away, Olivia gritted her teeth—but Cryer, seemingly triggered even more by her words, only trembled harder.
She wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him, but she knew such an act would be useless against him…
She’d likely end up dangling from his chest like a helpless cicada instead.
Yet irritation demanded action, so Olivia slipped her neatly folded hands behind the full folds of her skirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Hitting you, obviously.”
“Felt like a mosquito passed by.”
“Pretend it hurt at least… Ahem. This isn’t the time.”
Olivia quietly retracted her ineffective, feather-light punch—no different from grabbing his collar in futility.
“We still have things left to discuss, right?”
“Maybe.”
“We haven’t even touched on the specifics of your contract or that Mage—or whatever he was.”
“True. But first, we need to deal with this commotion.”
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
_____
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