TPWTL 61

#61. You Made Me Your Concubine

Half in a daze, Olivia returned to her office, only regaining a bit of composure after sinking deep into the soft sofa.

She weakly waved her hands in an attempt to quench her dry throat, but before she knew it, a groan escaped her lips. Reflexively, she curled up and grabbed her bandaged foot.

“Ugh…”

“I told you not to take it off, so I brought clothes… but really, not even for a moment…”

“You couldn’t take your eyes off me? Enough. Can you do something about this?”

Cryer’s low voice came down over her small, curled-up back, accompanied by a faint sigh. Olivia interrupted him with a groan.

“It’ll hurt for a moment.”

“Worse than now? If there’s a way, just do it.”

“If you can’t bear it, just bite.”

With that, Cryer immediately knelt in front of her and grasped her thin, bandaged ankle.

“What? Bite what? Why are you coming this close instead of standing there… ah!”

Before she could finish speaking, Olivia instinctively bit down on Cryer’s shoulder in front of her. He leaned slightly into her bite and whispered:

“Just for a moment.”

Time felt like a thousand years in that single second. By the time Olivia’s nose had turned red, tears forming from the pain,

“What on earth were you doing to twist your ankle like this? I set it properly, so it won’t last long, but it must have hurt a lot.”

“Ugh…”

Clenching her eyes shut and biting his shoulder against the lingering pain, Olivia slowly opened her eyes. Cryer’s voice, vibrating like laughter, reached her ears.

“Feeling better now?”

“Uh… hmm. Yeah, it’s fine. Honestly, it’s just a twinge. So the problem wasn’t the heel.”

She released her bite from his shoulder, letting tiny tears fall onto it. Cryer then pulled back from her.

Olivia stared at her white, bandaged foot as Cryer looked down at her head, glanced at his own shoulder, and finally spoke:

“Lucky that you didn’t bite bare skin.”

“Ah… I’ll get you a change of clothes.”

Seeing the stain on his shoulder, Olivia gave a dry, embarrassed smile and then paused.

“Where did you get that shirt?”

“The servants always keep extras ready.”

“In my office? Your shirt?”

“Yes.”

What? Why does he act like it’s the most natural thing in the world? Why is there a spare shirt of his in my office, the princess’s office?

Olivia’s eyelashes fluttered like a butterfly caught in a storm. As if reading her thoughts, Cryer lightly tapped her furrowed brow and added:

“You made me your concubine.”

“No, I didn’t!”

As soon as he said the word “concubine,” Olivia vehemently denied it. Cryer, however, shrugged nonchalantly.

“Being prepared for such possibilities is part of being a competent palace servant.”

“There’s no such possibility! None! None at all!”

Olivia’s voice rose in disbelief, but Cryer only smirked. She opened her mouth to say something more but instead sank back into the sofa, utterly exhausted.

Rubbing her temples as if her head ached more than her foot, she suddenly asked:

“By the way… about your brand.”

Unexpectedly, unwillingly, but having seen Cryer’s bare body, Olivia finally got a clear look at the brand near his collarbone. She had caught a glimpse of it before, but never properly, as his large hand had quickly covered it the first time he showed it as a “slave brand.”

“The brand?”

At the mention, Cryer paused while undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“Yes. That brand…”

• knock knock –

Before Olivia could continue, a knock interrupted their conversation. Cryer changed into the shirt the servant had brought, while Olivia stared in disbelief at the servant placing the spare shirt neatly inside the office and leaving.

Once the servant, precise and elegant, vanished, Olivia took a deep breath and returned to her previous question:

“The person with the brand… well, the mage applied it, and his daughter was involved, so they wouldn’t have it, right?”

Cryer’s lips curved with a hint of a smile:

“They said they’re not slaves. Technically, they said they’re not ‘warriors.’”

“What do you mean? Only warriors get branded? And if they’re not warriors… then what are they?”

“Think of them as priests, in comparison to a temple.”

“Ah… the priests in the central temple who dedicate themselves only to the continent’s safety, that kind of thing.”

Olivia shivered and shook her head.

“So, you’re the only one with that brand?”

“For now, yes.”

“What?”

“Exactly as I said. For now, I’m the only ‘warrior’ of the Ancient God. But since I mentioned being the first, there may be more slaves in the future.”

As Cryer closed his mouth, three deep furrows formed on Olivia’s forehead. She scowled, staring at him as if recalling something horrific.

“Looks like you have a lot to ask.”

“Not a lot… just one question.”

“Go ahead.”

Cryer nodded calmly, placing a bookmark in the page he was reading.

“You said before that the brand doesn’t make someone stronger. So if that’s true, then it’s just that you’re naturally strong. So if someone else with the same brand appeared, they wouldn’t be a monster like you, right?”

Cryer responded with a question of his own:

“You should know better than anyone else, shouldn’t you?”

“How would I know?”

Cryer pressed his hand to her forehead as she craned her neck in disbelief:

“Before you reset, was there anyone stronger than me, or equally strong?”

“Ah…”

Olivia thought back over her past four lives. She finally relaxed and exhaled in relief.

“No. You were unmatched. I don’t recall seeing anything overwhelmingly formidable besides your name in the battlefield reports.”

“So formidable, huh?”

His tone carried a slight chuckle, but Olivia replied seriously:

“You only parroted your accomplishments—like bringing down the palace walls—but it never quite sank in.”

Olivia would never forget the day he appeared on the battlefield during the continent-wide war of her first life.

‘He was the one who started the war… a knight of Norden?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘Absolutely unforgivable. Kill him at all costs! Use all your strength!’

They went to battle, believing that the empire’s finest knights would cut him down. But hours later, the returning messenger brought not victory, but devastation:

‘Y-your Majesty… we… lost… everyone’s dead…’

The messenger collapsed mid-sentence. Silence filled the battlefield.

The empire didn’t even consider surrender after one defeat. Olivia, in her first life, had been eager to punish Cryer for starting the war. But that desire didn’t last long. Reports soon arrived that Cryer alone had torn through the entire battlefield like a storm, a tsunami, or a consuming fire.

“And then, as I said, the imperial palace… just—boom!”

Making a gesture with her hand, Olivia recounted the incredible feats Cryer had accomplished in her second and third lives.

“Stop.”

Cryer tapped her furrowed brow mid-story.

“I’ve heard enough about the past. Stop reminiscing, and look at me now.”

“Oh? Ah.”

Cryer’s expression softened as he saw her eyes return to the present, reflecting herself fully. But Olivia, still caught in the past, pounded his arm and grumbled:

“If there had been just one more monster like you, the continent war would have ended immediately. Well… even with just you, it was almost that bad.”

“I think one of me alone wouldn’t have ended the war that quickly. I don’t have ten bodies, you know?”

Olivia hit him a little harder in response to his rational comment, though to Cryer, it only felt like light taps.

“If logic worked, the empire wouldn’t have been destroyed by just one person! What kind of man are you? Historians couldn’t even find anyone remotely like you!”

“Were you investigating me?”

Olivia rushed her explanation:

“If we know the past, we can exploit it before the mage’s daughter does anything… especially because it’s your past.”

Cryer chuckled faintly:

“Disappointed you didn’t find anything, huh?”

Olivia sighed deeply and waved her hand:

“Disappointed isn’t even the word. I ordered them to comb through records that were so suspicious they might have been destroyed.”

“Destroyed records?”