TPWTL 72

#72. You Can Never Understand a Madman’s Thoughts.

“Ugh… urgh.”

Olivia wrinkled her whole face and covered her nose and mouth, but there was no blocking the musty stench that seeped from a place that had been sealed for so long.

“Is this… a cave?”

“Looks like it used to be a temple.”

“Too small for a temple, don’t you think?”

“Building it underground like this… they probably didn’t want it seen.”

At Cryer’s words, Olivia voiced the thought that immediately flashed across her mind.

“If it was a temple to an ancient god, of course they wouldn’t have wanted it known. They’re called ‘ancient gods’ now because they’re forgotten, but back when temples like this were built, they must have been despicable, untouchable evil deities.”

Born and raised in an era where the influence of gods was faint at best, Olivia never expected gods to watch over humans or shower them with love.

No—in truth, she had never expected anything from them.

Just once, in her first life, when the Imperial Capital fell, she had prayed for mercy. But…

That day I learned the gods are merciless.

Just as Cryer had said to her once on a rainy day—gods were merciless indeed.

Still, even if that were true, how could anyone forgive an ancient god who proclaimed nonsense about “purifying” the entire continent by slaughtering all its people?

Of course, there was no way to challenge a god directly. Which meant the only way was to hunt down the sorcerers—or in this case, the sorcerer’s daughter—who served such gods and tried to enforce their will.

“Haa… huu.”

Once her nose adjusted to the stench, Olivia smoothed her furrowed brow and glanced into the cave, where cracks in the collapsed walls allowed shafts of light to spill through.

“This isn’t just going to collapse on us, is it?”

“The weak parts already caved in. The rest is held together by tree roots. It should be fine.”

At that, Olivia relaxed and looked around more freely—only to widen her eyes.

“There.”

“Yeah. The end.”

At the far end of the vine- and moss-covered temple, Olivia reached out, meaning to tug on Cryer’s arm, then hesitated.

The sleeve where she had clawed at him in a frenzy was still in tatters.

Luckily, though she had scratched and torn at him with all her strength, his wounds were mostly shallow, with no deep gashes.

Sensing her lingering gaze, Cryer set her down gently.

“Don’t mind it. It’ll heal quickly.”

He shifted so the shredded part of his arm was out of sight. Olivia could only swallow her words, guilty and ashamed.

She tugged lightly at his shirt hem and muttered, “I… I could treat it for you. No, actually, it’d probably be better to let the palace physician handle it.”

She had offered out of guilt, but quickly remembered she wasn’t skilled at healing. Though she’d lived through a war, she’d never had to treat anyone’s wounds herself.

In wartime, sometimes royals had pretended to treat soldiers to raise morale, but the war Olivia had lived through hadn’t even left time for such gestures.

She could summon medicine and bandages through the royal physicians, but personally fumbling through first aid would only make things worse.

“I don’t want palace physicians touching me,” Cryer replied firmly.

Olivia didn’t ask why. She simply accepted it.

A man who had lost his past memories, resurrected suddenly with a slave’s brand carved into his flesh—of course he wouldn’t want strangers’ hands on his body.

She didn’t even realize she was instinctively treating herself as an “exception.”

“Then… fine. I’ll do it. It’ll be clumsy, but still.”

To her uncertain words, Cryer nodded without hesitation.

“That’s fine.”

“Alright, then… let’s take a look around first.”

The temple exploration didn’t take long.

Behind the vines, they found a stone wall covered in inscriptions.

“See this? It’s the crest of House Leuir.”

Olivia pointed at the words carved into the stone, her tone dripping with disbelief.

“‘What the Ancient God has granted us, we thank and thank again. But to our descendants, we cannot help but leave only regret.’”

Cryer read aloud one section. Olivia grimaced.

“If they regret it, why do it at all? And yes, it’s clear—House Leuir must have made some kind of contract or bargain with the Ancient God.”

Just as she suspected.

“‘We shall pluck the fruit of our line and offer it in sacrifice.’”

Olivia pointed to the last line of the inscription, then turned to Cryer.

“That means they promised to offer one child of every generation as a slave, doesn’t it?”

“Put bluntly, yes.”

“Yes…?”

“Or, since they said ‘pluck the fruit,’ it could mean killing the child outright as a sacrificial offering.”

To dress up their greed as “for the family’s sake,” and then feed their descendants to a god—

“Madmen. You can never make sense of how they think.”

Olivia spat the words, pressing her boot against the stone wall.

Staring at it coldly, she asked without turning her head:

“Anyway, this proves that child isn’t part of the Norden sorcerer’s daughter’s scheme.”

“Right. No signs of anyone having been here recently.”

“Unless… some kind of magic?”

“Hard to say. But if magic were truly that omnipotent, they wouldn’t have needed to brand me a slave—they could have drowned the continent in blood with their spells themselves.”

Cryer’s conclusion was shaped by the endless “what if magic could do this or that” speculation.

Olivia nodded but added, as a leader should, “Or maybe they can’t pull off massive destruction. All we know for sure is that damn magic can control people’s minds at will.”

Neither she nor Cryer yet knew that Bonita Hainder and Greta could use enchanted mirrors to communicate instantly across great distances. That knowledge belonged to the previous life, not this one.

“Well, we’ll keep all possibilities in mind. But we can’t let fear of magic stop us from acting.”

Olivia’s crisp conclusion earned a silent nod from Cryer. She returned to scanning the wall.

“No mention of what the bargain itself was?”

“Only the price they paid, written at length.”

“Why can’t people like this ever write in plain terms—who, what, where, when, why, how? There’s no ‘why’ here.”

“Maybe they were forbidden from revealing it.”

Cryer’s mouth twisted.

“Whatever they got, it wasn’t worth hunting down their own descendants to offer them up.”

“Well… looking at the current state of House Leuir, it definitely wasn’t worth it.”

Still pressing her boot to the wall, Olivia’s voice turned colder than a winter lake.

“I don’t know what House Leuir asked of the Ancient God, or what they received. But.”

Her blue eyes gleamed so fiercely they seemed to blaze with sapphire fire.

“I do know what they paid. So first… let’s collect that price.”

Thus, the fate of the crimson-eyed child, Suga Leuir, was decided.

Leaving the foul cave, Olivia and Cryer headed straight to the boy’s home.

This time Cryer went in alone again, but when he returned, he wasn’t alone.

“He fainted?”

“Yes. And I didn’t lay a hand on him.”

Even with that clarification, Olivia only nodded absently and poked the boy’s cheek where he hung limp over Cryer’s shoulder.

He didn’t stir—just lay there, eyes shut, like the dead.

“He just fainted from shock. He’ll wake soon.”

Olivia gazed at the boy, heir to a family’s greed, born to be an Ancient God’s “sacrifice.” She murmured softly, “Shall we go back?”

“Yes. Let’s go.”

***

Deep beneath a temple hidden in the very center of Norden’s royal palace—
a place no one knew of anymore, because all who had known it were gone.

There, a colossal altar loomed.

Greta knelt before it, more focused than ever.

Bulging, ugly blue veins throbbed across her forehead and temples. The blood vessels in her eyes had burst, staining them red.

Blood trickled intermittently from her nose. Her lips were parched, peeling white at the edges.

But she never wavered, not for a second, keeping her gaze fixed on the man before her.

No—not a man.

A “tool.” A “slave.”

“I’m about to carve the brand. Whatever happens, do not move.”

Her voice was hoarse, scraping like claws on glass.

The man knelt bare-chested before her, golden hair falling forward, and nodded sluggishly without asking what awaited him.

Greta pressed her palm forward, barely keeping the writhing brand in her hand under control, and reached for his back between the shoulder blades.

She had to succeed in one try. There would be no second chance.

When she branded Cryer, the Ancient God’s first warrior, her father the sorcerer had stood by her.

But now she was utterly alone. If she failed, the grueling, painful process of preparing the brand would take a very long time to repeat.

Not that she regretted “purifying” her father. If it had been a choice she might regret, she would never have done it.

At last, with painstaking care, Greta pressed the Ancient God’s brand to the man’s back.

—Ssszzzt.

The sound of searing flesh filled the chamber, though no smell of burning followed.

A second passed. Another.

Then the man’s half-lowered eyes flew wide with pain, and Greta’s lips twisted into a smile.

“I told you not to move.”