The Princess Wants to Live

White steam flowed from between Olivia’s parted lips as she was held in his arms again. And the next moment. A completely different scene than before unfolded before Olivia’s eyes. A voice filled with madness rang out through the sound of the heavy rain hitting her ears.

“Rejoice! You will be purified and placed in the arms of God!”

A man raising a strange-looking dagger above his head that, at first glance, appears to have been used for ceremonial purposes. And the child trapped underneath, and Ambuch barely able to block the child’s path. Even the mother reaches out for the two, but falls forward helplessly. There was no time to understand the situation or weigh the risks. Olivia literally shook off Cryer’s arm as a reflex and ran in front of her.

“Oh God!”

No!”

For an instant, a bright fire bloomed in the dead eyes of the child who had given up everything and was waiting for death. The flame gently embraced Ambuch, who was blocking the child’s path, and the next moment. The child was held in the flames. The flame that enveloped me was so incredibly big and warm that the child’s eyes fluttered wildly. Olivia jumped towards Ambre and her child without hesitation and hugged them tightly. Soon, the dagger of the man who was aiming for her child was aimed at Olivia’s back, but it never stabbed her. -puck. With a dull sound, the dagger pierced her hard palm instead of her back. 

-Talk. Talk. 

Drops of blood flowed down the blade of the dagger. Cryer applied force to his palm and pulled out the blade that had pierced through it. The man holding the sword hilt reflexively applied strength, but there was no way he could hold on.

“Aaaah!”

The hilt of a dagger decorated with grotesque decorations tore the man’s palm, bleeding. However, the blood of the man on the sword blade, flowing from the hilt of the sword, did not mix with Cryer’s blood, like water and oil, and rolled to the floor. Immediately afterwards, Cryer casually removed the dagger from his palm and threw it to the floor, as if he were shaking off dust from his hands. 

-Puck. 

The dagger was not stuck in the ground that had become muddy from the rain, but in a rock where raindrops were splashing. So deep that the blade cannot be seen, so much so that an ordinary person could never pull it out. Just a few seconds to get here. As soon as the lightning flashed white before my eyes, thunder struck.

-Kwaouk! Rumbling. 

With an ear-piercing roar, Cryer disappeared from the dazed man’s sight. 

-Quarring! 

Cryer, who reappeared with thunder, lightly stepped on the dagger stuck in the stone, and soon the dagger was stuck deep in the stone, not even the hilt of the sword could be found. When Cryer, who had so easily driven his dagger into the stone as if it were soft cheese, turned around, the dark red eyes of the child in Olivia’s arms almost met. The moment her child reflexively closed her eyes as the rain fell.

“Ah…”

A gasp escaped the child’s dry throat, and in the blink of an eye, Cryer was up to the man’s nose.

“Wow!”

Cryer’s grip was merciless. He grabbed the man’s face with his bloody palm and lifted it up, baring his teeth and grinning viciously.

“Where is your God now?”

She was smiling, but it would have been closer to crying.

“Kuh, keuhuh, keuhuhuh.”

The man, whose face was caught, had no time to come to his senses and struggled to escape Cryer’s grasp. However, the man’s fingers slipping in the rain did not make a single scratch on the back of Cryer’s hand, and the animal’s growl rang in his ears.

“Where is your God?”

The man, struggling in pain as his face was crushed, could not even properly hear Cryer’s words. 

-Crash. 

Eventually, the man, who was thrown like trash into the mud, desperately rubbed his face in pain as his face was crushed. But that lasts for a while. The man could no longer feel pain. The murderous body that had crept up from his feet and immediately grabbed hold of his hair and pressed down on it.

“Ugh, wow.”

The man, who was scratching the mud with his bloody hands and gasping for breath, suddenly stopped. As if by magic, the life that had been weighing down his breathing disappeared as if washed away. A long, very long, dark shadow fell over the man who was stroking his trembling neck back and forth. The man raised his head creakingly and looked up at the huge beast in front of him. He had a human form, but he was a human… Can we say that? The beast lurking in the dark was smiling, baring its teeth. The man opened his mouth and searched for God, but not even a breath escaped his throat. 

-Tuk, thud. 

White steam rose like a haze and dispersed from the strong shoulders where raindrops bounced. The sight flowed so unrealistically slowly that the man’s pupils, which had been shaking like crazy, relaxed. The moment when his dark red eyes sparkle in the middle of his new model falling apart in the pouring rain.

“Cry!”

Olivia’s call stuck like the teeth of a comb through the sound of heavy rain that vibrated all around. Immediately after that, the man blinked his eyes rapidly. There was a human in front of him. It was not an unprecedented beast that opened its mouth with the intention of tearing him to pieces in one fell swoop. One human being. When Cryer came to a halt, Olivia took a deep breath.

“Well, I…”

Olivia pulled the corners of her mouth into a smile at the call that flowed from between Ambuch’s cracked lips.

“It’s okay now. Everything will be okay.”

She needed to whisper more words and hug her, but Olivia wasted no time in lifting her up. She placed Cryer’s cloak over Ambre and her child, opening her front, then Olivia turned to face Cryer.

“Huh.”

A weak breath escaped from between her still purple lips, and her body, so exposed to the rain, was shaking miserably. But her smile did not waver. Like a flame that never goes out even under the pouring rain, Olivia takes one step, and then another. She stepped towards Cryer. Her white fingers traced the back of her hard hand, where her veins bulged. Because of the endless rain, her eyes were blinded and her ears were deaf, but the sound she felt at her fingertips was clear. Olivia put her own hand into Cryer’s hand. The hands of the two people were intertwined, as if they were trying to find their place. And when Olivia and Cryer’s hands were perfectly interlocked without any gaps. Cryer’s beast fell at Olivia’s feet, holding her breath. And the man who was half-eaten by the beast realized this fact at once and let out all the breath he had been holding.

“Huh, huh, huh, huh.”

As rainwater and air entered his shrunken chest, the man’s blurry eyes began to come into focus. The man, who rolled his glossy eyes here and there, finally understood the situation.

“Ah… failure.”

The fact that the ritual failed. Even if the intruder in front of him disappears right away, the ritual will have to start again from the beginning. But now that it’s like this, I can’t do anything anymore.

“Hah… Hehehehe. Hehehe, hahaha.”

A nerve-wracking laugh came out from between the man’s torn lips. At that sound, a slight tremor arose from the body of the child who was lying dead in Ambuch’s arms, and Ambuch hugged the child. She was holding her child and looking at Olivia, Cryer, and the man without taking her eyes off them for a moment. The man continued to laugh, looking down at his hands covered in blood, rain, and mud. Didn’t it all end in a moment, so vainly and overly simply? The final descent of God was just around the corner.

“What’s funny? He’s going to die soon.”

Despite Cryer’s harsh words, the man did not stop his bizarre laughter. Because he wasn’t afraid of being caught and killed. He only regretted one thing.

“I can’t show the mercy of the Old Gods to this world…”

The corner of Cryer’s mouth twitched before the man’s frantic muttering could finish.

“Ugh, ugh!”

He crushed the back of the man’s hand with his foot and whispered like a purr.

“Mercy? Mercy?”

“Purification is mercy, God’s mercy!”

“Ha!”

Before the man could finish speaking, Cryer laughed bitterly at him.

“Mercy. Mercy.”

Cryer was looking down at the man, but his gaze was looking much farther away.

“You are mistaken. The God you believe in and serve is justice, and God will be merciful.”

Unwanted resurrection and unwanted stigma. He, too, cannot say that he never hoped for God’s mercy. He turns to a god other than the one who branded him. But Cryer did not receive an answer. From any god, any answer… Cryer pressed the man’s neck, not his hands. The man stumbled, but could never escape.

“You don’t know the meaning or meaning of what God does. No one knows.”

That would be a comment not only to the man, but also to himself. Cryer, who was looking far, far away, looked down at the man who was completely unconscious, his white eyes showing, and whispered.

“And people like you won’t tell us until the end.”

Olivia bit her lip and held her hands tightly together. Cryer’s back in front of her looked like… Because it looked like he was crying.

“That God is merciless.”

A low voice that seems to flow from a deep, endless pit. Olivia extended her hand towards him.

Olivia was behind him, stretching out her arms as hard as she could to embrace him. The moment she touched, she pressed her cheek against his numbly cold back. Her warmth spread across his skin and began to gently burn his bones. Cryer closed his eyes, looking down at the transparent white arm wrapped around his waist. His back, which was extremely hard and rough that no one could approach, slowly, little by little, lost strength. And the next moment. 

-Thud. 

Her heart sank all at once from the top to the floor below. The pupils of the dark red eyes were tightly constricted, but the intense beating occurred only once. Soon, another pain came as if taking his place. Every time Olivia’s light breath spreads over a layer of her skin, a sharp, stabbing pain radiates from the brand of her collarbone…

“Cryer.”

However, in the end, Cryer did not say anything to Olivia’s call as the blood flowed down his back, into his heart, and wrapped around his entire body. She just closed her eyes. One day when it rained heavily. The man’s clumsy ritual, hoping for the coming of the ancient god, ended in a failure that no one could know and no one would know about.

 

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Translator Note: