Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 127

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 127
An enormous fox wrapped around me with her entire body and bounced playfully.
‘It’s Seok-ran!’
The embrace felt wonderful, but I grew alarmed that her massive frame bouncing about might collapse the wooden floor of Unyeon Hall or punch through the ceiling, so I hastily tried to calm her down.
“Wait, wait—the house will collapse!”
“If it collapses from this, it’s shoddy construction. Kehehng.”
Seok-ran grumbled but obediently stopped. Instead of setting me down, she simply fell backward while still holding me, landing on her back.
I ended up sprawled across the belly of the giant white fox, but since her fur was so soft and comfortable, I decided to stay put. I gazed down at the grinning fox with my chin resting on her plush fur.
“It’s been so long. When did you return?”
“Just arrived a moment ago, kyaeng!”
“You came straight to me without resting first?”
“I missed the Princess so much… Didn’t the Princess miss me? Kehehng, it’s been a whole year!”
“It’s been longer than a year. I missed you too.”
Still lying across her, I stretched out my hand. Despite having grown quite tall, I was so small compared to Seok-ran’s massive frame that my hand couldn’t even reach her head.
‘She’s in an excessively large form right now.’
The fox form she usually showed me was already large, so this must have been her expanded state.
When I stroked her large, moist nose instead of her head, the grinning fox let out an “achoo” and sneezed. Wondering if it tickled, I withdrew my hand, and a tongue as large as a scroll unfurled to lick my hand.
I couldn’t help but laugh. With a smile playing at my lips, I asked.
“How were the foreign handsome men? Your fur seems to have gotten even better.”
“You noticed! Kehehngik, I really nourished myself properly this time. I experienced all sorts of exotic flavors, and spent many passionate nights! Kyengkyeng, the Taoist Priest I seduced at an inn was absolutely incredible—despite his refined appearance, he was quite the—”
“How much longer do you intend to prattle on? You’re a demon with no sense of propriety!”
An-si slammed the door shut, cutting off Seok-ran’s words. Seok-ran laughed with a kehehngik sound.
“True, that’s too early a topic for the young Princess. Kehehngik.”
“Who’s young? Don’t I know what’s what? I’ve grown so much!”
I tried to sit up indignantly. Seok-ran pressed me down gently with her massive front paw and barked.
“That’s right, I was about to say that! The Princess has really grown! You’ve gone from completely tiny to just a little less tiny!”
“I’ve grown this much and you still call me young?”
“How old is the Princess?”
“…By human years I’m twelve, but in reality I’m 212 years old?”
“Oh my, kehehng, you’re still young!”
“In the Heavenly Realm, anyone over 200 is considered an adult. I just look young because of my appearance, but I’m not actually a child.”
“Barely an adult is still young. Besides, the Princess didn’t grow and lived 200 years in a child’s body, so you’re even younger, kyaeng. And I’ve heard through rumors that you’ve only been awake for a short time! Kehehngik, so celestial age is meaningless—let’s just say you’re an adorable twelve-year-old Princess!”
“Ugh….”
This fox was poking at my sore spots. As I felt my emotions welling up, An-si, who had drawn near, kicked the crown of the giant fox sprawled on the floor.
“Kyaeng!”
“How dare you be disrespectful to the Princess!”
“Kyeeeng… This Black Phoenix’s temperament really hasn’t changed… ”
The fox, holding her head with her front paws and whimpering, let out a long sigh.
“Anyway, now that my yang energy is fully replenished, I’ll behave myself for a while by seducing some new junior officials, kehehng.”
“…How is that behaving yourself at all?”
“I’ll just naturally bump into some fresh-faced, handsome official and enjoy a ticklish little romance that fizzles into unrequited love—that’s restraint enough, isn’t it? I have principles and a conscience, you know. I don’t devour innocent children whole!”
“Y-yes, that’s true….”
Her tastes hadn’t changed. Well, for a fox demon whose basic diet involves devouring livers, not eating humans at all is already remarkable.
I reached out and gently scratched the chin fur of the fox right before my eyes.
“Speaking of which, did you manage to resolve that matter about the Xuezu survivors you mentioned in your letter? How are Seol Deung-hwa and Seok-juk doing?”
“Oh, about that. I couldn’t write the details in a letter… Kyarrrgh….”
Seok-ran had started to speak but then closed her eyes and made a strange sound, before hastily shaking her head and pressing my hand down with her front paw.
“D-don’t stroke my chin!”
“You don’t like being touched there?”
“It’s not that I dislike it, kehehing, it just feels too good and makes me sleepy….”
The enormous fox sighed heavily, then lifted me up and gently set me down on the bedding before shrinking her form. Seok-ran, now a moderately-sized fox like I’d seen before, brought over a cushion in her mouth, laid it down, and sat upon it composedly.
“…Khehem, one of the Xuezu survivors that Seol Deung-hwa and Seok-juk were trying to rescue suddenly went missing. But when we investigated that, it turned out more than one person had disappeared.”
“What? So other Xuezu were vanishing too?”
“Not just the Xuezu, kehehing.”
Seok-ran struck the floor with her tail and spoke ominously.
“Throughout Pyeong Kingdom, humans continue to disappear nationwide. But most people don’t know about it. They assume it’s accidents or runaways, and they don’t see the connection between the disappearances. That’s why even the authorities aren’t investigating properly.”
“Such a grave matter is being covered up? How?”
“Because the Imperial Palace itself is causing the disappearances.”
Doo-eok-sini immediately came to mind.
“…So it’s the new Emperor’s doing.”
“That’s right.”
Seok-ran nodded with a serious expression.
Following the Ping Empire Envoys, Seok-ran had investigated the Imperial Palace for several months using a goblin’s hat and the seductive arts of a thousand-year-old Thousand-Year Fox, then sent me a letter. That letter contained the circumstances of Pyeong’s imperial family.
‘The Crown Prince was originally human. Sickly and weak-willed, he was considered unfit to become Emperor.’
With poor health and a troubled mind, his heart would race whenever he appeared before people, leaving him unable to focus. That’s why in Se-ru-hwa’s past memories, the Crown Prince couldn’t even read the ritual prayers properly and collapsed.
‘Originally he was brilliant and healthy… but when the Empire was conquering other minority peoples before the Xuezu, a clan that was being forcibly relocated committed mass suicide and laid a curse.’
The military suffered great losses then, but the young Crown Prince leading the forces was also cursed and fell ill. So when conquering the Xuezu, they tried to avoid a similar incident by nearly exterminating them, and the few survivors were scattered throughout the kingdom as slaves to prevent them from gathering.
‘Even after experiencing that tragedy, they continued conquering, and Seol Deung-hwa was a clan leader’s daughter, but they spared her because she was beautiful and dragged her into the harem… it’s not even funny.’
And so a princess of Xuezu blood was born, and they tried to dispose of her because they feared she might harbor resentment and cause a similar incident.
‘Sometimes there are humans this vile.’
In any case, the sickly Crown Prince maintained his position thanks to his accumulated merits and the protection of his mother, the Empress, but he was scheduled to be deposed soon.
‘Then one day… the Empress suddenly performed some suspicious ritual and her head exploded, killing her.’
The place where the Empress died was a bizarre altar drenched in blood, and the manner of death was so ominous that the imperial family covered it up. They simply reported it as death from illness.
And after the Empress’s death, the Crown Prince who had been bedridden awoke as a completely different person.
Seok-ran suspected that the Empress had summoned something sinister to cure her son, and as a result, Doo-eok-sini appeared in the Imperial Palace.
‘Doo-eok-sini probably killed the Empress then and took the Crown Prince’s place.’
Whether it was merely mimicking the Crown Prince’s appearance or, like me, possessing his body, I couldn’t say. In any case, Doo-eok-sini as Crown Prince gradually took control of the Imperial Palace, and when Seol Deung-hwa assassinated the Emperor, he quickly became Emperor himself.
After that, corrupting forces in the Imperial Palace steadily increased. Demons were increasingly taking official positions while pretending to be human.
Now I finally understood what Doo-eok-sini, who had infiltrated Pyeong, was actually doing.
‘Mass collection of Gwae-ryeok-nan-sin using state machinery. Conquest and acquisition of divine-blooded minority peoples….’
Those humans Doo-eok-sini had gathered using the Empire’s power—their fate was all too predictable.
‘They’ve all been devoured.’
Doo-eok-sini fundamentally grows stronger through the karma that deities accumulate, but even without karma, he can develop by consuming powerful Gwae-ryeok-nan-sin with divine blood or the caliber to ascend to the Heavenly Realm.
‘Why would the King of Monsters and the deity of all things wicked become a human emperor…’
The shock of suffering fatal wounds at the hands of Kim Satgat and his ilk in Yun Kingdom and fleeing must have been considerable. For a Gwae-ryeok-nan-sin of Doo-eok-sini’s stature to contemplate hiding within the Imperial Palace and cultivating power using human organization and authority.
‘He’s stopped underestimating humans and begun to fear them.’
Seok-ran continued, her tail tapping rhythmically against the floor.
“While investigating the disappearance cases, I got caught by a monster collecting humans, so I had quite the ordeal escaping. Hehehehe, I practically cut across all of Pyeong in the process.”
“That was close. You didn’t get hurt anywhere? Seol Deung-hwa and Seok-juk are both safe?”
“We’re fine. Instead, we decided to lay low for a while. Keh, that human Seol Deung-hwa is remarkable. After enduring such hardship there, most would give up, but not her…”
“She’s continuing the rescue operations? If Doo-eok-sini finds out, it’ll be dangerous. With just Seok-juk and her, the task has become far too massive to handle alone.”
“That’s why she’s gathering the surviving Xuezu and other humans to form an organization for searching and rescuing the missing.”
“What? She’s actually forming an organization?”
“The Princess gave her plenty of funds, so finances are abundant, kehehehe. She said she’d seek cooperation from spirits and supernatural beings living in Pyeong Kingdom too. She’s already made rough plans! Since she’s Xuezu and can distinguish lies, she said it helps tremendously in organizing the group, kehehe.”
“…Seol Deung-hwa really is remarkable.”
“That human said it’s all thanks to the Princess.”
“Hm? Oh, because of the funding?”
“The money is part of it, but she said she’s grateful to the Princess for making it possible to undertake such efforts. Keheeng, after learning what Doo-eok-sini is, she was delighted, saying that preventing him from abducting divine blood is work that benefits the Princess as well.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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