Chapter 540: The Princess and the Prince

540: The Princess and the Prince (4)

Thud!

In the wide space that held nothing but a bed,

the sound of something breaking echoed alongside a dull thud.

Oliver, expressionless, silently stared at the fallen girl.

Despite looking like she was in her mid to late teens, she had lived for hundreds of years,

having been sacrificed by hundreds of thousands of humans, she was the Princess of a ruined kingdom.

‘······.’

Blood flowed from one side of her cracked head onto the floor.

Oliver closely observed her eyes, expression, and body.

As per the experience gained from working as a problem solver and medical knowledge from the former Life School Grandmaster Theodore, she was now dead.

Her emotions and life force were fading like a dying candle.

However, the Verdant Forest infused life force into the princess who was birthed through the sacrifice of a whole kingdom, fully reviving her.

Regardless of the princess’s will.

Blood and brain matter that had spilled onto the floor returned to her skull as if time had reversed, and the princess regained her life, standing up.

Not only her wounds but even the dust she had gathered from falling was cleansed to an unnatural degree.

It must be the will of the Verdant Forest.

It was really puzzling. Who was the master and who was the slave, the Verdant Forest or the Princess?

To resolve the question and the annoyance, Oliver lifted one foot and stomped on the princess.

Crunch!

***

How many minutes had passed?

A short yet long time passed.

Just as Claude mentioned, the time flow in the Verdant Forest was strange, giving off a feeling of having been there long but not really.

Or perhaps Oliver was just too focused on killing the princess.

“Does it not hurt?”

Oliver asked while holding up the arm of the princess that he had ripped off.

Opposite him, the princess, who had turned into a smashed tomato, lay collapsed.

It was a scene where dying quickly would be a better fate. But the Verdant Forest, rooted in the princess, selfishly consumed the life force of the kingdom’s people to revive her.

Completely against the princess’s will.

Oliver tossed the princess’s arm, which he had pulled out like one would a bug’s leg, onto the floor.

The arm melted into the floor like butter and soon reattached itself as if by magic.

Not just her body but even her clothes.

“It’s just like playing with a doll.”

Oliver remarked while watching the princess, who revived and restored her body and clothes against her will.

Because she really did look like a doll. Fixing herself without even meaning to.

He had thought the princess was the master of the Verdant Forest, but it seemed it was the other way around.

“So, you can’t feel pain?”

Oliver’s tone was the same as usual, but with a slightly sharper edge.

However, the Princess, who had died over a hundred times, replied with the same gentle smile as always.

“No, I do feel pain.”

Sincerely.

“Is that so? I thought it didn’t hurt since you weren’t screaming.”

“If screaming will ease your anger, I shall do so.”

Once again, she was sincere. She truly wanted to ease Oliver’s feelings. From guilt and regret. However, there was no repentance.

She didn’t regret the nonsensical prank she had pulled on Oliver not in the slightest. In fact, she might even do it again if given the chance.

‘······.’

Oliver stared at the princess imprisoned in the Verdant Forest with a mask-like expression, thinking of Colin.

The child from Martel that Oliver had failed to help.

‘······.’

Due to the wrong information, the child thought of Oliver as his savior and as soon as he saw him, thanked Oliver for coming to save him. Then begged to be saved, saying he was scared of going to hell.

However, coincidentally Oliver didn’t have the ability to save Colin at that time.

Because he hadn’t developed the power to heal people.

‘·······.’

Oliver felt a sense of helplessness during that time. The gap between the children who expected something and his inability to do anything. He couldn’t explain it well, but it was frustrating.

So Oliver unintentionally suggested that Colin confess his sins.

Even though he didn’t have the authority, he proposed it like administering a narcotic painkiller to ease Colin’s fear and anxiety. Without knowing much.

‘······.’

Luckily, Colin believed Oliver’s words. He wholeheartedly believed that if he confessed and sought forgiveness, he could go to heaven.

And so, Colin started confessing his sins.

Breaking the vase, taking extra bread, not returning fallen money, failing to save his sibling out of fear.

And with each confession, Colin felt pain, but also relief from his fear, and in the end, he drifted off to sleep thanking Oliver, believing he could reach heaven.

Oliver was curious about something as well.

With divine power and demons being real, heaven and hell must also exist. So, where had Colin gone?

Did he go to heaven because he sincerely repented during the confession?

Or did he end up in hell for confessing to a black magician?

Oliver had no way of knowing and didn’t ponder deeply about it either.

Colin was already dead, and there was nothing Oliver could do, so thinking about it would only exhaust him.

During such moments, Oliver encountered Colin, made of darkness, hearing his cries again. It was just too…

“······Princess.”

After a long silence, Oliver finally spoke, as if trying to forget the indescribable feelings he was experiencing.

“How do you know Colin?”

In quiet irritation, Oliver asked.

Only a handful of people knew about Colin’s existence, including Oliver, Merlin, Rossburn, the children, and the wizards of the Martel Research Institute.

Among which the Martel-related people were all imprisoned.

How could the Princess, confined within the spell in the castle of the Verdant Forest, know?

“Did you see it with that foresight?”

Oliver, recalling the princess’s foresight shown during the shadow puppet show, asked. The unique combination of his expressionless face and emotionless eyes released an indescribable pressure.

It pressed down on the lungs, making it impossible to lift one’s head, ultimately making one feel like they were being crushed.

The Princess couldn’t escape it either, but she forced a smile and answered, familiar with the pain.

“I saw it in a dream.”

“Please refrain from making jokes. It’s a bit annoying.”

“It’s not a joke. People call me a prophet, a seer of the future, but I’m just a mere human who speaks of dreams. Weak and helpless.”

Sincerely······. Oliver had many things he wanted to argue, but his patience was lacking, so he moved on to the next question.

“Why······ why did you pull that prank earlier?”

Oliver asked, chewing over the discomfort he felt. Because he was genuinely curious. What exactly did she want·····.

“Is it driven by a desire to die?”

The Princess, whose emotions had been seen through, was silent for a moment before slowly shaking her head.

“No······.”

“Don’t lie.”

Oliver, who usually respected and listened to the words of others, firmly denied it.

He had picked up on the fatigue, pain, and intense desire to rest that the Princess had radiated. She wanted to rest. In any form.

“It’s true that I want to rest, but it’s not that I wish to die immediately. There is something I need to do first······. I swear.”

Sincerely. But that didn’t make Oliver’s discomfort disappear.

“Then why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to have an honest conversation. A person burdened with an unreasonable fate.”

“Why do you refer to me that way?”

“Do you really want to know?”

The Princess asked back after hearing Oliver’s question.

Her question was as abrupt as a dagger thrust, which left Oliver momentarily speechless.

Because he didn’t even know if he was truly curious.

An existence beyond the world,

The Great One,

A noble being.

These phrases used to refer to Oliver sparked both curiosity and a contradictory desire to turn away.

Much like how he had subconsciously ignored the fact that his blood played a special catalytic role.

But at this moment, Oliver was confronting the problem he had been avoiding, forced by the Princess before him. It was an indescribably unpleasant experience.

Whether sensing Oliver’s emotions or not, the Princess spoke.

“If my actions displeased you, I apologize once more.”

“······Is the reason you want to have an honest conversation with me related to the memory you showed me through your eyes?”

Oliver asked, recalling the shadow puppet play he had seen earlier.

Through the shadow formed by emotions and memories, Oliver indirectly learned of the fear people felt when the Pied Piper appeared centuries ago and the political situation in the central continent.

An extensive amount of information, akin to a page in history.

No, it was more than that. Beyond simple information or text, he could feel the sadness, fear, terror, and madness the people had experienced.

And intertwined with those memories and emotions was the Princess’s knowledge.

Knowledge of black magic that transformed the concept and space called a kingdom into a creature, barrier magic, and even spatial magic that hadn’t appeared in academic circles back then.

Not to mention forbidden knowledge of sacrificial magic using humans as offerings, the esoteric black magic that strengthened rituals and granted rules through relationships and karma, the magic based on memories, and more.

Originally, this knowledge belonged to the witches, but over the centuries of being confined within the castle, the Princess studied, analyzed, and reinterpreted it, constructing her own complete theory.

Knowledge unlike anything else in the world, known only to her.

She passed this knowledge to Oliver. In a form similar to but distinct from Theodore.

He was curious about her intention.

The Princess answered.

“At the core, it’s similar.”

“Why do you want to have an honest conversation with me?”

Oliver paused in his attempt to kill the Princess and asked.

“Because there isn’t much time left.”

The Princess responded vaguely. But Oliver, recalling the Burned One he met on the New Continent, understood her exact meaning.

“There really isn’t much time left…”

The Princess, who had been smiling, spoke with a voice full of fatigue. Oddly, she seemed to want to say more but couldn’t.

“Are you, by any chance, the black magician who prophesied the doom?”

Oliver asked, recalling the conversation he had with Ewan when they first met.

Ewan had mentioned that the Doomsday Prophecy or the Judgment End Time was supposedly foretold by some Princess or black magician.

And both of those figures were now in front of Oliver.

It was a fairly important question. However, the Princess wore a sorrowful expression.

“That’s not important······. What matters is that a huge hole has opened at the end of the world, a giant black sun has risen underground, and a monster that will swallow everything will soon awaken. There really isn’t much time.”

“······.”

“The reason I’m telling you this is—”

“—I just got curious. Princess.”

“······?”

“If I were to destroy every one of the kingdom’s people who make up this forest… would it hurt?”

Oliver speculated based on the emotions he saw in the shadow puppet show and the current situation where the Princess wanted rest but couldn’t get it.

It was hard to understand, but the Princess wanted to save the people of the kingdom who had sacrificed her.

From a curse-like spell.

So Oliver asked. If burning this entire Verdant Forest, made up of her people, or feeding it to shadows would hurt her.

Just like when he had murdered the Flesh Cook’s sister in front of her.

At Oliver’s purely malicious question, the Princess smiled and asked in return.

“Just like you did with Hansel and Gretel? Prince.”