The Princess Wants to Live (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 8

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Olivia’s fading focus snapped back into place at Cryer’s call.

She shook her head to dispel her scattered thoughts and rose, holding a stack of documents.

“I just like handling information. It’s essential for survival, after all.”

Cryer slowly tapped the armrest once, then again, and nodded.

“So knowledge is power, then.”

“What?”

Before he’d even finished speaking, Olivia’s eyes widened like a startled rabbit as she asked.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That knowledge is power.”

“I recall reading it once in the Bolshayk archives. Come to think of it, the current empire is the Bolshayk imperial house…”

Cryer replied dismissively and fell silent, and Olivia merely blinked.

A brief silence passed between them.

Olivia, staring at Cryer’s tightly closed lips, leaned slightly forward and asked,

“You… remembered?”

She asked with a hint of disbelief, and as expected, his answer was negative.

“No. Only fragments remain. Though I’m not sure if ‘fragments’ is the right word—maybe ‘scraps’ would be more accurate.”

Faced with Cryer’s expressionless, indifferent demeanor as he delivered such a bleak response, Olivia found herself at a loss for words.

After rolling her eyes for a moment, Olivia suddenly seemed to remember something and opened her mouth.

“Want to visit the archives?”

“The Bolshayk archives, you mean.”

“Yeah. Since you recalled even a little, maybe we can trace things back from that point.”

“It’s not impossible.”

“Right? And it’s just a possibility, but…”

Olivia paused briefly before continuing.

“We might find records there of cases similar to your current situation.”

As she spoke, her confidence seemed to grow, and she even gave a small nod.

Cryer, too, nodded without hesitation.

And for good reason…

“From someone who was reincarnated into a novel’s world and then fought against that very world, to someone who hails from a realm where people can split the sea with a sword.”

Counting off on her fingers, Olivia recited Bolshayk’s utterly bizarre history.

“They couldn’t even settle for just one world—they’ve defied the will of gods, and even committed flamboyant crimes as entire noble houses.”

Having finished counting on her fingers, Olivia let out a dry laugh. After all, that still wasn’t the end of it.

“And reincarnation… Honestly, if you’re going to do it, do it properly somewhere else. I myself have died and returned four times already, but according to old records…”

“According to records?”

“They reincarnated infinitely. Meaning, whenever they died at a certain point, they’d return to that point again and again. And supposedly, once certain conditions were met, they could break free from that cycle.”

“Unnecessarily complicated.”

“Well, if you summarize it in one line like that, it doesn’t seem complicated at all… Anyway, that kind of reincarnation existed, and there were also stories of visitors from other worlds, right?”

“The place where they split the sea with a sword, you said.”

At Cryer’s reply, Olivia narrowed her eyes.

“You can split the sea too…”

“No.”

Despite his swift and firm denial, Olivia didn’t seem at all convinced.

“So, about that visitor?”

“Oh, that visitor. There’s also a record of someone coming from a completely different world—not that one. Supposedly, they arrived through dreams.”

When Olivia fell silent, Cryer sank deeper into his chair.

“Listening to all this…”

“Hmm?”

“Compared to Bolshayk’s history, a slave contract with an ancient god doesn’t even seem like much.”

“That’s not true.”

Trending

Olivia shook her head vigorously.

“That’s not true at all.”

She emphasized it twice, even waving her hands rapidly for good measure.

Watching her shake both her head and hands simultaneously, a faint smile briefly flickered across Cryer’s lips before vanishing instantly.

“By the way, Princess.”

“Hmm?”

“You know Bolshayk’s history so well, yet you’ve lost in war and reincarnated four times…”

“Knowing something and being able to put it into practice are different.”

Olivia’s reply burst out before Cryer had even finished speaking.

“Even if you know how to win a war…”

She stared straight into Cryer’s eyes and whispered,

“…it became utterly useless the moment you swung your sword once.”

Crimson twilight reflected in her blue eyes.

Just as the full moon, which had risen bright and clear, momentarily hid its luminous face behind clouds,

a shadow darted swiftly through the interplay of light and darkness illuminating the princess’s palace.

Though corridor lights were present, the absence of moonlight rendered the figure’s movements so stealthy that only someone with exceptional night vision could have spotted him.

Moving as if he owned the place, the man strode boldly into the inner quarters of the princess’s palace—then came to an abrupt halt.

Lowering his torso and focusing intently, he eventually straightened up.

“As I suspected… patrol route’s not coming this way after all.”

His nightly, relentless observation of the palace patrol routes had finally paid off.

As he shrugged and took another step forward—

-CRASH!

A loud, shattering noise echoed through the entire corridor.

“…I said stop!”

A drunken shout followed, clearly slurred from alcohol.

“…Don’t be rash…”

And right after, someone’s desperate plea.

Frowning, the man moved one step farther away from the direction of the commotion.

Though the disturbance happening elsewhere was convenient for him now, in the long run, palace security would tighten—so it wasn’t entirely good news.

“KYAAAAGH!”

“…Don’t! Please, stop…!”

After an even more piercing scream than the earlier crash, silence fell once more.

“They subdued him quickly.”

The man rolled his eyes—gleaming like a serpent’s scales—and resumed his brisk pace.

Long after leaving the scene, his parched lips finally cracked open.

“Damn it… a palace is a palace, after all.”

Never before had he felt such tension, despite having slipped in and out of the royal palace’s innermost heart—the queen’s quarters—in his own kingdom as casually as eating a meal.

Even after nights of meticulous preparation, his back was drenched in cold sweat from sheer anxiety.

“Lucky break.”

Whoever had caused that disturbance had significantly lowered his chances of being discovered.

At that very moment, a bitter, sardonic smirk tugged at the man’s lips as he silently mocked and thanked the fool who’d caused the ruckus.

“Idiots. With such a shortcut right here, they still go the long way around, complaining about guides and whatnot.”

All those knights who’d gathered from various nations to capture the imperial princess kept saying the same things:

“We can’t even get a glimpse of Her Highness…”

“Our audience requests were denied…”

“Even the walking paths are blocked…”

You need to see the stars to pluck them from the sky. No matter how desperately they wanted to catch the princess’s eye, they couldn’t even get near enough to glimpse a single strand of her hair—so how could they possibly try?

Most likely, the troublemaker was just another drunken fool, demanding to meet the princess outright.

“No, it’s precisely because they lack the skill to move like this that they resort to such foolishness. Just knights in name only.”

Darting through the darkness like a weasel, the man shook his head.

ads

Knights who could move so silently and unseen at night—without making a sound or drawing attention—were surely few in number, if any existed at all.

Truth be told, the man himself had honed this ability less as a knightly necessity and more for his own personal amusement.

“It’s about time I arrived.”

Having reached the innermost sanctum of the princess’s palace, he slyly scanned his surroundings. Though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of her bedroom, he was certain it lay nearby.

“They said she changes rooms daily due to assassination threats.”

Whether or not he could actually enter the princess’s bedroom now depended entirely on luck.

But the man was quite confident—he’d previously tracked down the queen’s chamber with ease, the very same queen who used to enjoy playing with fire alongside him.

“This should be it.”

As he stared up at the tightly shut door and reached without hesitation for the doorknob—

“Lost your way?”

A low voice sounded as if whispered directly into his ear.

The man jerked his shoulders like a speared tuna, instinctively reaching for his waist—but of course, no foreign knight would be allowed to carry weapons inside the imperial palace.

Flustered, he suddenly froze.

If this were an imperial knight, he’d have been seized on the spot without question. The fact that he was still standing on his own two feet meant…

Scowling, the man turned toward the source of the voice.

“It’s you.”

At the end of his gaze stood none other than that knight—

the young upstart from Norden, the one the princess had taken a liking to at first sight.

“What are you doing here…”

The man’s words died in his throat as he snapped his mouth shut.

This was where the princess’s bedroom was located, and that guy was the princess’s…

“Shall I call a servant to help you find your way?”

Leaning casually against a pillar, the knight’s face remained hidden in deep shadow, his voice flat—but to the man, it carried more than enough threat.

If anyone arrived right now, that knight would be fine—but he himself would be…

-Grind.

The man ground his teeth so hard they nearly shattered, struggling to contain his fury.

He knew all too well that a missed opportunity rarely came back.

His perfect chance had just been ruined by some worthless fool—but what choice did he have?

In the end, he turned away and muttered so quietly even he could barely hear himself.

“I’ll definitely come back… Huh—!”

But before he could finish his sentence, he froze completely—Cryer now stood right before him, having appeared out of nowhere.

Half-submerged in darkness, Cryer resembled a predator waiting in the shadows for its prey to walk straight into its jaws.

The man opened his mouth, but only a weak gasp escaped.

Instinctively stepping backward, he felt a chill crawl down his spine as cold sweat began streaming down his back.

Surely, there should have been light in the corridor.

Then why was he trapped in this suffocating darkness, where not a single ray of light penetrated—except for those two glowing, blood-red eyes?

How long had passed in that endless second?

The man’s trembling jaw creaked as it slowly opened.

“What are you— Gahk!”

And before he could finish, his feet left the ground.

“Definitely what?”

Cryer, gripping the man—or rather, the piece of trash—by the throat with one hand and lifting him effortlessly, smiled.

“Gahk! G-gahk!”

As his windpipe constricted, the man’s face flushed red, then deepened to a dark crimson, finally turning black as he thrashed—but Cryer’s grip didn’t budge an inch.

Cryer’s voice, impossibly low, slithered into the man’s ear like darkness itself.

“To think you’d actually be able to come back.”

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