Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 38

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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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Episode 38
“….”
“My memories come in fragments… The woman in my dreams wasn’t the same person. I wasn’t in my right mind.”
The King laughed hollowly and set down his empty teacup. Unlike before, his gaze grew deep and piercing as it fell upon me.
“I heard you made this tea.”
“Yes.”
“A child with such remarkable skill. Are you a physician’s apprentice? Or perhaps a Taoist? Is the woman who was with me just now your master?”
“….”
What on earth was this father-in-law saying?
Bewildered, I struggled for words before finally finding my voice.
“The woman you were with is my mother.”
“So you’ve been receiving instruction from your mother. Then is your mother a physician? I shall bestow great rewards upon you and your mother.”
The King regarded me with an approving gaze. I barely managed to swallow the sigh threatening to escape.
“I have received instruction from my mother, but she is neither a physician nor a Taoist. She is a noblewoman of the Pyeong Empire.”
“A noblewoman of Pyeong?”
The King’s face grew bewildered. His expression suggested confusion as to why a concubine of a neighboring empire was present in Unryong Palace.
“Your Majesty, do you truly not know who I am?”
“…I do not.”
“I am the eleventh princess of Pyeong, and my name is Se-ru-hwa. About a month ago, I held my wedding ceremony and officially became the Crown Prince’s consort of Yun.”
“What? The Crown Prince’s consort?”
“Furthermore, my mother is of the Xue Tribe, and I am of mixed Xue Tribe descent. Your Majesty trusted in the abilities of the Xue Tribe and granted my mother and me this opportunity. Do you truly remember nothing at all?”
“Wait, hold on… Could it be….”
The King grasped his forehead as if his head were throbbing. After remaining in that state for some time, he suddenly appeared startled, as if something had come to mind.
“That petition… Yes, you accepted it and… told me to do as I pleased.”
As he groped through his memories, he suddenly looked alarmed and examined me from head to toe.
“Are you unharmed?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Crown Prince… You spent the night beside the Crown Prince, did you not. It seems you’re fortunately unharmed, but regardless, the Crown Prince is now….”
The King washed his face with trembling hands, confusion evident in his movements.
“I truly was not in my right mind. How could I have permitted something so dangerous? That was hardly a state marriage but rather….”
From his reaction, I could discern the truth without divination. The King had not approved my wedding with the intention of having the Crown Prince killed. It had truly been fortunate for the Crown Prince.
‘I had suspected as much.’
Seok-ran had told me that the King had continuously ignored countless petitions to depose the Crown Prince. Unconsciously, the King had not wished to cast aside his son. As for the wedding, if he was unaware of the conspiracy behind it, it would do his son no harm, so he had let it pass.
I opened my mouth, feeling inwardly relieved.
“Your Majesty, do you love the Crown Prince?”
“What kind of question is that all of a sudden?”
“There have been many difficulties. Yet do you still love the Crown Prince?”
“Of course I do. A father is one who can embrace his child’s faults throughout his lifetime. All the more so when those matters are not sins the Crown Prince committed of his own will. The Crown Prince is….”
The King washed his face with trembling hands once more, then continued with difficulty.
“My son is merely a victim of a curse, yet he has lived terribly as if he were a criminal….”
“…Your Majesty, it is true that the Crown Prince did not deliberately cause what happened to him, but what afflicts him is not a curse.”
“What did you say?”
I quickly sent out a mental message.
[An-si, are you listening?]
[Yes, Princess! Shall I block the sound from leaking out?]
[Yes. Our An-si is always so perceptive.]
[Hehe.]
Good, now I can speak freely.
“In the history of the Xue Tribe, there are records of cases like his situation. His Highness has become a ‘Dusk Being.'”
“A Dusk Being?”
To restore the Crown Prince’s standing, I had devised several plans. Before executing them, the first thing I investigated was how much humans actually knew about “Dusk Beings.”
‘I needed to make the Crown Prince’s abilities seem natural and acceptable.’
I searched through the books from the Royal Library that Kim Sang-gung had brought, asked Seok-ran and Seol Deung-hwa various questions, and reached my conclusion. Humans knew almost nothing about Dusk Beings. At most, they knew something like: “There’s a yokai called a Dusk Being that appears only at night, and it’s dangerous to approach. It’s best to avoid it since it will disappear on its own if left alone.”
‘In a situation like this, there’s no need to openly declare that the Crown Prince has become a Dusk Being.’
Strictly speaking, a Dusk Being wasn’t even a true yokai, so there was no reason to call him one and have the Crown Prince treated as a monster. That’s why I explained the Crown Prince’s power to the attendants of Unyeon Hall as a type of sorcery. Using the convenient excuse of the Xue Tribe.
‘I even gave it the name “Dark Spirit Art.”‘
And this explanation worked far better than I had anticipated. Everyone began to understand the Crown Prince not as an unidentified man-eating monster, but as a Gwae-ryeok-nan-sin who had unexpectedly awakened sorcery and couldn’t control it.
I had also added a setting more favorable to the Crown Prince since I was fabricating it anyway. Dark Spirit Art was an incredibly magnificent ability granted by the Celestial Deities, and precisely because it was so magnificent, humans had to undergo a trial to accept it.
‘Like how shamans suffer from divine illness before receiving divine descent.’
They say people accept unfamiliar things well when compared to something familiar, so when I said the Crown Prince had been experiencing something like divine illness from two years ago until now, everyone accepted it surprisingly easily.
‘I seem to have a talent for lying. I just hadn’t tried it much before, so I didn’t know.’
I discovered another fact I would never have known if I had stayed only in the heavens.
‘I was right to come down to the human world.’
In any case, after confirming that the explanation of Dark Spirit Art was working well, I established two response strategies for the Crown Prince’s parents, the King and Queen. First, if the two of them felt aversion toward the Crown Prince or treated their son only out of obligation, I would explain the cause of the darkness as “Dark Spirit Art.” But if they still loved the Crown Prince as true parents, I would tell them in detail about the “Dusk Being.”
‘Parents deserve to know their child’s true condition.’
Father once mentioned something in passing. When I was very young, he said he was tormented not knowing what caused my severe illness even as he watched me suffer terribly. He said that time was the most difficult. So I wanted to tell the Crown Prince’s parents as accurately as possible.
“A Dusk Being is….”
As my explanation ended, the King’s expression grew serious.
“Such a thing existed….”
“But I told others it was ‘Dark Spirit Art.'”
“Dark Spirit Art? What is that?”
“It’s a form of sorcery that I created together with my mother.”
I explained why hiding the fact that the Crown Prince was a Dusk Being and classifying his ability as a type of Gwae-ryeok-nan-sin was advantageous for him. I also explained how well the “setting” of Dark Spirit Art had been received.
“…His Highness the Crown Prince can now control darkness almost perfectly during the day. After just one month of practice, he will soon be able to freely manipulate darkness at night as well.”
“….”
“Then he will truly be able to live without being rejected as a sorcerer who practices Dark Spirit Art.”
I had spoken so much that my throat was parched. I closed my mouth and rested for a moment while observing the King’s complexion. The King stared at me with an expression difficult to read, then asked quietly.
“You continued to help the Crown Prince with his training?”
“Yes.”
“And you explained the Crown Prince’s abilities to the attendants under the name Dark Spirit Art?”
“Yes.”
“And you awakened the Queen, who had been in a coma for two years, and cured the Crown Prince’s madness.”
“It was something I did together with my mother.”
“…The ancient sages say that fortune and misfortune are intertwined, that disaster can turn to blessing, and one should never despair but accept what comes. Such is the way of heaven.”
“Your Majesty?”
“The Crown Prince’s descent into darkness was a calamity, yet that very calamity has become a blessing—to receive a Crown Princess such as you.”
The King murmured as if speaking to himself, a faint smile crossing his face.
“Crown Princess.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I am truly grateful. For coming to us….”
His voice trembled slightly with emotion at the end. The King touched his lips, composing himself, then curved them into a diagonal smile.
“It seems I must thank the Empire as well. To send us such a precious princess without even knowing her true worth.”
From the way he spoke, it was clear he had grasped what my marriage to the Crown Prince had meant to the Empire.
“The Crown Princess and Lady Seol Deung-hwa are the benefactors who saved the Yun royal house. I shall bestow upon them great official rewards. And separately from that, if there is anything you desire, speak it freely.”
The King spoke with dignity, his words clipped and formal, yet his gaze upon me had grown soft and tender. The look of someone thinking how adorable and clever I was. The expression of wondering where such a charming and brilliant creature had come from. I recognized it instantly—I had seen it countless times before.
‘He’s become just like Father….’
In any case, everything was unfolding according to plan. I quickly continued.
“If I may, Your Majesty, I have a request.”
“I shall grant whatever you ask. Speak at once.”
“Please look at this.”
I retrieved the document I had prepared beforehand and placed it on the King’s desk. He picked it up and opened the envelope. Three sheets of paper emerged, filled with names. The first was densely written, the second contained barely half as much, and the third far less than the second.
The King asked with puzzlement.
“What is this?”
“From the beginning until now, these are the names of those who are ‘known’ to have harmed Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
The King’s eyebrows twitched.

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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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