The Princess Wants to Live

“It’s time to end it.”

The man continued to mutter, laughing from ear to ear.

“The last, the last time. Finally!”

The voice he shouted was full of joy, but his shoulders were shaking. After being stagnant for a while, things broke out and things began to flow so quickly that I couldn’t keep my senses. So fast that even the man who committed this incident, who hoped for the coming of the ancient god, would not know what to do. If Ambuch had not been caught so easily, the man would have proceeded with the matter a little more cunningly and much more insidiously. And he could have spent a little more time preparing for this important ceremony.

“Hurry, we need to get ready quickly. Right now, within today!”

However, because the last sacrifice had been prepared, the man was unable to complete the preparations for the ritual. He hasn’t even finished the previous offering yet, let alone the last one. 

-Rattle, rattle. 

While the half-blinded man was preparing the tools he would use for his ritual. In a dark room with the door tightly closed, three human figures were hanging out as if dead. Two of them were close together, and the other person was lying down a couple of steps away. How long has it been since layers of humid air settled on my cheeks?

“Eww… hmm.”

The eyelids of Inyoung, who was far away, twitched along with a faint groan.

“Ugh.”

As soon as he came to his senses, Ambuch groaned from the overwhelming pain and opened his eyes with difficulty, but closed them tightly again at the spinning vision. Ambuch took a short breath and exhaled, quickly looking at his surroundings from the corner of his eye. A dark and unfamiliar interior. Stuffy air and… 

-Surr. 

Even tied hands and feet. I vaguely realized the moment I lost consciousness, but I was also kidnapped.

“Huh.”

Ambuch calmly took stock of the surrounding situation and his situation. She is ‘Taren’. Naturally, we would have been taught how to respond in dangerous situations from a very young age so that it was deeply engraved in our bones. That’s why she didn’t cry or scream or struggle and waited for the kidnapper to show up. I don’t want to believe it, but it’s probably him. The last time you encountered yourself… One, two and three. How long has it been since I counted the numbers in my head? 

-Kkii. 

The humid air escaped through the open door with the creaking sound of the hinges scratching my nerves. A man entered the room with a dim light. Just in case. How could this upstanding young man, whose sincerity was indescribable even in these unfortunate times, actually be a kidnapper? Ambuch suddenly remembered the story the man had told him in detail before. Was the difficult problem actually not resolved? Ambuch asked calmly, moving very slowly to avoid provoking the kidnapper as much as possible.

“Why did you do this? I told you to tell me anytime if you have a hard time…”

Only by finding out the criminal’s purpose will we be able to deal with future situations. However, in response to the man’s subsequent answer, Ambuch only blinked her eyes rapidly.

“Why? Of course it is for God’s sake.”

The man’s answer was so different from what I expected, it was something I couldn’t have imagined. Unlike Ambre, who kept his mouth shut, the man shouted, waving his arms with grotesque vigor.

“Rejoice! Know with glory! You will be the last sacrifice!”

The man shouted loudly in a voice filled with joy and immediately pointed his finger at his mother and daughter.

“Of course, we have to offer those sacrifices before then, so you’ll have to wait a while.”

The man pointed to her mother and daughter, who were holding each other helplessly with their dead fish-like eyes, as if they had already given up on everything, and laughed as her mouth tore apart. Only then did Ambre realize that there were other victims here besides him, but knowing didn’t change anything. The man continued to brag about things no one asked.

“They would have preferred it to be like this. This world is no different from hell, so it would be better for them to become a sacrifice to God and be purified.”

Isn’t this absolutely nonsense? Even if she had wanted her mother and daughter to die, there was no way she would have welcomed her life with open arms to end her life at the hands of a man like this. Besides, didn’t her mother and daughter follow what the man told them in order to survive? In the end, the man’s words were just sophistry for my own convenience and benefit.

“I closed my eyes and gave thanks for all the offerings I had purified so far.”

The man who was chuckling and showing his white eyes suddenly stopped laughing and turned around and walked out. 

-Thump, gurgle, kigi-gi-gig. 

Not long after, a man came in with a large box and opened it wide.

“This is the first…”

A tattered doll belonging to the daughter of a man who worked with her at the store, a ring belonging to an unknown woman, a piece of clothing torn from an old man, almost worn fingernails, hair caked in blood, etc. As if he were bragging, he took out the items of those who had been sacrificed and told his own story, one after another.

“All of these have been purified for me.”

Ambuch blinked his eyes slowly, looking at the items he was taking out one by one and telling a story about them. Why am I happy… I’m doing it. The relics of those who passed away in his hands were like trophies. Ambre faced the man who was enjoying low-level joy with his shining eyes, and for a moment, nausea welled up inside her, causing her to bend down on her back and cough. The man didn’t pay any attention to such comments and just said what he wanted to say.

“They are all people who found peace only after being purified.”

Those who died by his hands had different pains, like a mother and daughter suffering from debt. But it still remained true that what the man was talking about was bullshit. Ambuch, who was listening to his story like that, realized something. Firstly, that the man who was laughing his mouth torn open before his eyes was the culprit of the serial disappearances and murders taking place in the area. And secondly… He kept talking about things like God and Jeonghwa, so I thought it couldn’t be possible. The reason this man kidnapped her mother and daughter and Taren himself was not about any gain.

“…So, sacrifice yourself as the final sacrifice so that the ancient gods can come!”

Well. This man was a fanatic. If you have religious blind faith, any negotiation to get out of this place will be useless. This must be a ‘mission’ for him. Gritting his teeth, Ambre strained his arms and tried to free his bound hands, but only received scratches on his wrists. And when he saw her move like that, the man came in front of Ambuch and stretched out his hand. 

-Legally.

“Shall I untie his hands?”

He asked with a smile, holding the chain tightly wrapped around Ambuch’s ankle. This probably means that even if his hands are free, he can never get out. Ambuch obediently lost all strength in his body and went limp. Any further attempts would not only be useless, but could also provoke the kidnapper.

“Oh my, you don’t like that again?”

The man stood up, looking down at his silky pink hair that was shaking intermittently.

“You have to get ready, get ready.”

The man hummed to himself as if singing and roughly pulled the back of the child’s neck.

“Ah, baby.”

The mother, who lost the child she was holding tightly in her arms, chased after her child with sunken eyes and barely made any noise.

“Ah, don’t worry. We will purify it together.”

After drawing the distorted pattern of an ancient god on the mother’s forehead, he immediately drew the same pattern on the child’s forehead.

“Now, just wait a little longer. Your brother will help you.”

The man who stroked the child’s lifeless cheek stood up. Eventually, Ambuch’s question flew in from behind the man who was about to leave the door.

“Then why me?”

The man who stopped tall turned back and spread his arms wide like when he first came in. He was smiling from the beginning until now. Like his mouth was going to be torn apart.

“Miss? Because she helped me.”

“What?”

“You said it right? I said I would help. So you get help.”

I definitely said that, but…

“You get help from the young lady, and I help you too. Isn’t it very good?”

“What… I’m just making noise.”

“What? Was what I said difficult? Isn’t it very simple? You help me, and I help you.”

It was a simple story if you just listened to the words. But what is the ‘help’ he is talking about… Ambuch couldn’t understand the man, but he didn’t want to either. It was just at that moment, Olivia’s voice suddenly rang in her ears.

‘Things that start with good intentions don’t always produce good results.’

 He knew very well. There’s no way you wouldn’t know. Nevertheless, Ambreux used her good will to help as many people as she could. Such as painful wounds from the past, atonement for sins, or showing off oneself by helping those in need. There was no such plausible reason. She is good by nature and only offered her hand because she could. And the result was kidnapping by a fanatic. An average person would feel helpless and, even a little more angry, at this moment. But Ambuch was no ordinary person. She was neither disappointed nor angry at the consequences of her good intentions. She just accepted the situation as is, and she just thought about getting through this crisis. The man bowed politely towards Ambre, who had kept her mouth shut.

“Please wait a moment. Soon now.”

The moment he straightened his back, lightning flashed before his eyes, followed immediately by thunder that struck his ears. 

-Rumble! 

Soon, heavy rain started pouring down as if there was a hole in the sky. 

* * *

Olivia braced her quivering jaw and gritted her teeth. Although Cryer is protecting her, she is caught in the rain while being held in his arms as he runs too fast. Olivia’s lips began to turn purple as the heavy rain struck her entire body like a spear. Even though she moved wearing a raincoat, she was drenched by the heavy rain, but she was moving without a raincoat to protect her… By the time she left, the sky was clear without a single cloud. However, black clouds gathered in an instant and ate up the sky, and rain poured down as if the clear sky was a lie. Olivia, who had been blinking her eyes over and over again, having difficulty opening her eyes, suddenly stopped. No, Cryer, who was running while holding her, stopped right on top of her. It was hard to see anything clearly as the rain was pouring down so hard that everything seemed to be covered in a hazy curtain, but his eyes were focused on one direction. Olivia’s whispers were so small that they could hardly be heard even without the sound of rain, flowing through Cryer’s ears.

“Oh, arrived…”

“Okay. It’s here.”

“Yo… You can run faster than a horse… He said it all. Haa… Jang… It wasn’t…”

Cryer carefully set Olivia down as her lips froze and the words stammered out. He touched her bright red hair that was clinging to her bloodless cheek and whispered, wrapping his cloak around her trembling round shoulders.

“I just followed what came out of Bolsheik’s book.”

His cloak was also soaked, but Olivia opened her eyes to the vague warmth he still had. Olivia opened her frozen mouth and got her words out more smoothly than before.

“What on earth were our ancestors doing?”

Olivia clicked her tongue and forced her neck to rotate, which caused her pain due to excessive force. However, in the heavy rain that could not be seen even an inch in front of her, there was nothing that she, an ordinary person, could see, so she immediately asked Cryer.

“This is where they said the culprit was, right? What about the smell of blood?”

“Can you move?”

Olivia nodded her head without hesitation, her lips turning purple and then black at his question.

“I need to move.”

As soon as the answer came, Cryer stretched out her hand towards her.

 

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Translator Note: