Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 59

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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 59
“Two types?”
“One occurs when a deity chooses someone and they suffer until they accept the god. The other happens when someone is born with a constitution naturally suited to serving deities, leaving their body empty and vulnerable to malevolent spirits seeking a vessel, which causes them to fall ill.”
“….”
“The latter is a matter of innate constitution, so it can be anticipated, and since the divine illness manifests when one is mentally prepared, it usually resolves quickly. However, the former is like a bolt from the blue—since it’s unclear whether it’s divine illness or not, it often becomes a serious matter.”
Princess Onseol continued, her gaze fixed on the Crown Prince.
“Much like what Your Highness experienced.”
“…Were there other cases of divine illness similar to mine?”
The Crown Prince asked carefully, with a hint of hope that he might glean information about Eun-jang.
Princess Onseol shook her head with an apologetic expression.
“No, there were no such cases. In Your Highness’s case, it wasn’t divine illness to begin with.”
“How can you be so certain, Aunt? In the end, I suffered like someone with divine illness and eventually accepted the power and stabilized.”
“At first, I too believed Your Highness was experiencing a peculiar form of divine illness. The rumors suggested as much. Though there is a significant difference in that you ultimately became a Taoist rather than a Shaman.”
She laughed awkwardly and continued.
“But after meeting Your Highness in person at the Yongryong Ceremony, I realized there was a fundamental difference.”
“A fundamental difference?”
“Your Highness was not a ‘vessel.'”
“I beg your pardon?”
She gestured toward the teacup.
“For instance, let’s say this represents a human with the aptitude to be a Shaman—a ‘vessel.'”
She then lifted the teapot.
“And let’s call this teapot a ‘deity.’ The tea inside represents ‘divine power’—the strength of the god.”
Princess Onseol brought the tray closer and turned the teacup upside down on it.
“This is the state of divine illness when ‘chosen by a deity.'”
She tilted the teapot. The tea spilled uselessly over the inverted cup, running everywhere.
Soon she flipped the soaked teacup right-side up again.
“The process of turning the teacup upright like this is the descent of the deity.”
The teapot tilted again. Tea pooled neatly in the upright cup.
“This is a Shaman—a vessel containing divine power.”
“I understand.”
“Yes. But in Your Highness’s case.”
Princess Onseol set down the teapot and reached toward the plate of refreshments, picking up a glutinous rice cake filled with sweet red bean paste.
“You were more like this.”
“…A rice cake?”
“Originally, Your Highness was empty inside—like plain injeolmi, dusted with soybean powder. But then one day, suddenly.”
She set down the filled rice cake and picked up the plain injeolmi, then made a slit in it with a silver knife. She scooped up the sweet syrup from beside her and stuffed it forcefully into the slit.
“…You suddenly gained a strange and tremendous power. Not divine power from a deity, but something else entirely—an eerie, bizarre force. So the suffering Your Highness endured was something like this.”
Princess Onseol pressed the injeolmi, now stuffed with syrup, hard onto the plate. The syrup burst out chaotically through the slit and the compressed areas, making the plate a mess.
She held up her fingers, smeared with syrup.
“The injuries to those around Your Highness were likely caused by this explosive force. Is that not so?”
“…It’s almost the same.”
“How fortunate that they’re similar. Then Your Highness must now be in a state like this glutinous rice cake—where the strange force you harbor no longer bursts out arbitrarily, where you’ve completely contained it, where power no longer erupts uncontrollably, and where the sediment is stably held within.”
Princess Onseol pointed to the glutinous rice cake placed neatly beside her, then laughed softly.
“One doesn’t pour tea into a vessel that isn’t a proper vessel, and even if one does pour it by chance, it doesn’t hold—it simply spills. In that sense, Your Highness, you are not ‘a shaman’s vessel.'”
“….”
“What Your Highness experienced didn’t happen because tea was suddenly poured—it’s distant from divine illness. There simply cannot be similar cases among shamans.”
“I see….”
“I apologize for being of little help, Your Highness.”
“Not at all. Simply understanding the difference between divine illness, spirit descent, and my condition has been of great help to me.”
His response was impeccably courteous, yet the Crown Prince appeared slightly dejected. Likely because he’d gained no new information about Eoduksseoni.
I watched Princess Onseol’s explanation unfold, inwardly marveling.
‘The metaphor is a bit odd, but that woman—she understands almost exactly what happened to the Crown Prince, doesn’t she?’
Princess Onseol appears to be quite a skilled shaman. To perceive such things immediately.
She ate the injeolmi covered in syrup, took a sip from the teacup thoroughly soaked with tea, then spoke again.
“Still, it might help, so I’ll tell you in detail about the divine illness I suffered.”
The story that followed wasn’t greatly different from what I’d imagined.
Around fifteen years old, she began running a fever. No medicine could bring it down. Then she heard a voice calling her, and her soul was seized by that voice. Later she learned it was the call of the Underworld Grandmother—the deity destined to descend upon her.
‘Ah, I sensed that strangely familiar aura of the Underworld…so Princess Onseol is a shaman who serves the Underworld Grandmother.’
As her fever worsened, she began wandering like a sleepwalker, seeing hallucinations and hearing phantom voices, continuously having strange dreams until finally she began speaking nonsense. The moment divine illness was confirmed, she was immediately prepared for monastic life by order of the late King.
Seong On, Princess Onseol’s fraternal twin and the current King, opposed her monastic life, but custom was unavoidable, so at sixteen she entered Hoguk Temple. She had been betrothed at the time, but the engagement was naturally broken off.
“…But that doesn’t mean I lived an unhappy life. I lived far more freely than when I was in the Palace, and serving my tutelary deity, living like peers with those in similar circumstances, and being able to use my power where it’s needed—all of it satisfies me.”
Princess Onseol smiled brightly as she said this, then moistened her throat with tea. The young Crown Prince bowed respectfully to her.
“Thank you for sharing such a difficult story.”
“What are you saying? We’re aunt and nephew, after all. Rather, I’m sorry I couldn’t visit you while you were going through such difficult times.”
She apologized with a sorrowful and regretful expression, then hesitated for a moment. Then, as if she’d made a decision, she opened her mouth.
“As I mentioned, only certain people can become shamans. People with a constitution like a ‘vessel’—one capable of holding a deity. A vessel exists to hold something, so misfortune befalls it when it’s empty. And that is the reason I came to see both of you today.”
“A reason?”
“Crown Princess, Your Highness.”
Princess Onseol suddenly addressed me.
I, who had been watching the two of them like someone watching a fire across a river, startled and answered.
“Yes?”
“You are a ‘vessel,’ Your Highness.”
“…Yes?”
“And the largest vessel I’ve ever encountered.”
“Me?”
What on earth was she talking about?
“At first, I thought you might be a young shaman already serving a great deity. With such a large vessel, I would expect to see wandering minor spirits about you. But there were no traces of a descent ceremony….”
Princess Onseol trailed off, clicked her tongue, and looked at me with concern.
“Do you remember the two types of divine illness I mentioned earlier?”
“Yes….”
“If things continue as they are, the Crown Princess will become an empty vessel—a body with a constitution suited to housing a deity, but lacking one. She will suffer from spiritual afflictions brought on by malevolent spirits. I came here because I was concerned about that.”
As I listened to Princess Onseol’s words in a daze, lightning suddenly struck through my mind.
Ah, now I understand what’s happening.
‘This woman has vaguely sensed that my body here and my body in the Heavenly Realm are connected!’
I possessed this body and became Se-ru-hwa. Yet my soul remains that of Princess Cheonmyeong, so I am still connected to my true body in Heaven—that form brimming with immense divine power. It’s similar to a human shaman who serves a great deity as their vessel, except that human shaman is the great deity itself… a truly bizarre situation.
Malevolent spirits haven’t attached themselves because this flesh isn’t an empty vessel—Princess Cheonmyeong already dwells within it. And there’s also the fact that An-si stands guard over me with blazing eyes.
‘Since I’m essentially serving myself, to Princess Onseol’s eyes, I must appear to be an empty vessel with no deity residing within.’
As I grasped the situation, the Crown Prince was expressing his bewilderment, questioning Princess Onseol.
“Are you saying the Crown Princess must receive a divine descent?”
“Yes. Without receiving a divine descent, a vessel like that will soon suffer severe spiritual afflictions or risk having her body seized by malevolent spirits.”
“Good heavens.”
The Crown Prince’s expression darkened. Meanwhile, I found myself entertaining a rather peculiar thought.
‘Wait… if I, the human Se-ru-hwa, receive the divine descent of Princess Cheonmyeong and become a shaman serving Princess Cheonmyeong, what happens then?’
Would I then be able to borrow and use the power of Princess Cheonmyeong, my own divine power, the way human shamans borrow the power of their deities?
‘Since it’s mine anyway, I wouldn’t need to go through the process of borrowing. I could just use it freely, right? I, as Sang Ra-hee-yo, could simply give myself permission to use it as Se-ru-hwa.’

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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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