At The End Of The Hidden Greenery - Chapter 59

Chapter 59

There was another long silence in the rattling carriage. A silence where not even a sigh could be heard.

After a while, the Crown Prince quietly opened his mouth.

“…Akarna.”

Jiwoo turned her head and looked at him.

“The first time I’ve seen you… is not at the temple. As you may remember, the battlefields I fought in and your dispatch overlapped.”

“Was it?”

“You wouldn’t remember. It was a very brief moment.”

Jiwoo had a really hard first year or so of her life.

It was because she was sent to the battlefield before she could adapt to this world. She had to treat the wounded without knowing anything. She couldn’t remember the countless people she passed by.

“I… I thought you were really the one heaven gave me.”

The Crown Prince did not have that position from the start.

After Jiwoo fell into this world, he miraculously returned alive and won the battlefield, where he was almost pushed to death by his opponents.

After the Crown Prince found stability, he looked for the Akarna in the temple. Up to that point, he had no emotions other than curiosity.

It was strange at first, lovable, and at the end she lingered in his mind even when he closed his eyes.

The Akarna of the temple was said to live for a few years here, and then they would go back and would thus find a new body.

How could such an existence stay by his side a little longer?

According to the temple, when God’s presence would return to heaven, He would kill the shell of Akarna, but how could the Crown Prince protect her?

“You may not believe it, but I thought that marriage was a way to protect you. As I somehow survived…”

But I got it wrong. The Crown Prince let out a dry laugh as he spoke quietly.

“…We can’t go back to the way we used to be. I’ve found out that you’re just a normal person.”

The red eyes that had been staring intently at her narrowed down.

“You can die, you can leave me, you can change your mind…”

A normal person.

He didn’t know that he was enduring that time with only love. And how important that was.

The Crown Prince covered his face with both hands.

A blood-smeared bandage was visible through the loosely undone collar of his neck.

He lowered his head as his shoulders shook, but Jiwoo had nothing to say.

Jiwoo moved to a place much wider than the place she stayed in before. The bedroom was especially spacious. However, the structure was not pleasant.

Jiwoo’s bedroom had to be accessed through another room. And the Crown Prince stayed in that room.

This time, even the servants couldn’t easily approach Jiwoo.

The more she didn’t want to run into the Crown Prince, the more she became isolated inside.

Jiwoo’s room had all the amenities, but the windows were not very large, and even those were blocked by several bars.

It was truly as if she was a prisoner.

“Your Highness, please change my room. I won’t run away.”

Unable to bear it, Jiwoo grabbed the Crown Prince and begged him.

“At least the windows… no one can come in. Even if they come, I won’t follow them.”

“I can’t do that.”

However, the Crown Prince was stubborn.

“This is to protect you. Trust me.”

Who was he protecting her from? Did he not believe her even though she declared that she would stay by his side?

But Jiwoo, surprisingly, did not feel as much antipathy as before.

Because as the Crown Prince answered her, he had a frightened face that looked as if he was being chased by something—those were not the eyes that were gripped by dark obsession or madness.

After some time, Jiwoo learned the true nature of what the Crown Prince was so anxious about.

Tension had been rising in the mansion since morning. The Crown Prince, who came to check on Jiwoo’s condition, also seemed uncomfortable.

“Today… someone is coming to visit.”

“…Who am I meeting?”

She never expected to get guests in this situation. Jiwoo asked in bewilderment, but the Crown Prince did not inform him in advance.

“Never listen to what they say. Never.”

Instead, the Crown Prince repeated the same words over and over again.

Never listen to what he says. Never believe him.

The visitor came, and how many times he repeated it, the words lingered in her ears like hallucinations.

The visitor, wearing a long robe that hid even his feet and a hood that was pulled down, seemed to be someone who shouldn’t be known to be here.

And when he opened his mouth, Jiwoo knew the reason.

“Ah… So you were in a place like this, Akarna.”

Just hearing his voice made her heart sink. It was an unforgettable voice for her as Akarna.

He took off his hood. Honey-like blonde hair gleamed. Blue eyes and a good expression.

He looked like a typical priest. In fact, among the criteria for selecting priests, they had to have not just good looks, but exceptionally good looks.

“…High Priest.”

Jiwoo gulped as she felt like she had returned to do her duty as the real Akarna.

The temple had one Bishop and two High Priests. He was one of them.

Whenever the Akarna’s dispatch was decided, the person she had to go through was the High Priest.

Of course, the final mission was decided by the Akarna—by Jiwoo—but before that, the High Priests received requests from various places and selected the options.

In fact, this priest was not that faithful for a High Priest. He liked power more than anyone else, and wealth more than anyone else.

The reason Jiwoo remembered this person even more was that he called her privately a lot in addition to handing out her assignments.

There were many times when Jiwoo healed people introduced personally by this priest, even when this was not part of the Akarna’s official duties.

As a result, this person received a lot of bribe money.

However, it was thanks to this High Priest that Jiwoo was tolerated for meeting the Crown Prince that often.

“Akarna, do you know how worried we were?”

The High Priest was very happy to see Jiwoo, but Jiwoo was just flustered to see this person here.

“Your Highness, please vacate the seat. Or, just the two of us…”

“Do it here.”

“Ah, Your Highness.”

The High Priest smiled brightly with a good-looking face.

Others said it was a face blessed by God, but Jiwoo saw the same smile when he was taking bribe money.

“Did His Majesty approve this, too?”

The Crown Prince did not endure it twice. Jiwoo could only see him reaching out his hand to his waist.

Splat—

And the next moment, a piece of flesh fell to the parlor floor, along with a few strands of the High Priest’s blonde hair.

“Uhh, aaagghh!”

The screams came late.

Jiwoo looked down at the flesh that had fallen to the floor along with the long bloodstains, then turned her head away.

The High Priest’s ear was cut off with a single strike of the sword.

“D-Do you think everything will be alright… His Holiness and His Majesty won’t stay still…”

Holding onto one side of his face that’s dripping with blood, the High Priest knelt on the floor.

He was obviously confronting the Crown Prince, but his voice trembled and his expression was full of fear. The High Priest was a person who had many worldly feelings. That was why he was vulnerable to pain.

“Is that so?”

The Crown Prince said, carelessly trampling the High Priest’s ear who had fallen to the floor. His angry voice was muffled.

“…How long do you think that they will be alive in the future? The conman of the temple and the old man of the throne.”

The attitude he’s showing now is much darker than the murderous intent he wielded against the other race in a fit of jealousy.

Hatred many times more than that, poured into the High Priest.

There was no one who cpi;d be fine while facing the murderous intent of the maned lion head-on.
The High Priest, who had been at ease until he entered this place, lowered his head as he trembled. But the High Priest was clever and he was quick-witted.

The reason he came to this place was to save his life, but he shouldn’t have gone against the Crown Prince’s will anymore.

“Are you going to make me wait longer?”

“I-I understand.”

The High Priest, who staggered up, took out a small bottle from his arms with his trembling hands. Inside the bottle was a reddish-brown liquid.

He drank from the bottle in one gulp, and soon his wounds healed quickly.

‘Akarna’s blood!’

Somehow, this was more disgusting than his ear that had fallen to the floor. After roughly confirming that his ear had been regenerated, the High Priest spoke to Jiwoo.

“The reason I came here today is to prevent you from using an Akarna’s power from now on.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going to do anything to my limbs?”

“Oh, what a terrible thing to say.”

The High Priest waved his hand. He looked at the Crown Prince.

“I’m intentionally teaching you how to block an Akarna’s power. When a new Akarna is summoned, it’s difficult to know whether one still has an Akarna’s power.”

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