#99. Go.
The mere fact that he could not stop Olivia from turning away from him twisted his insides in agony.
That figure walking away seemed like the vision of the future he would see only after everything had ended—after he had finally freed himself from the chains of slavery.
—Click.
Regardless of the storm raging within him, Olivia disappeared as planned, leaving Cryer and Greta behind.
She deliberately relaxed her body, subtly letting even Greta’s guard, Keslan, drift away naturally.
So, out of the four of them, two left, leaving only two behind.
Cryer traced the lingering presence of her absence with his gaze, but then he casually shifted his eyes toward Greta, whose stare pierced his cheek like a spike.
At the end of that gaze was something disgustingly endless.
When he first opened his eyes, it was that same vile desire, whispering like a song as it caressed his mark.
“We will purify the entire continent, and in the end, only the two of us will remain.”
It was only after that entity had killed and erased his own father, the magician, from existence that he realized his father had not been inside it.
Even as he looked at Greta, Cryer felt neither hatred nor resignation, despair nor anger.
It was not worth it.
This being before him was, after all, nothing more than a tool wielded by an ancient god.
Even if that tool was extraordinarily troublesome, maddeningly persistent, and endlessly greedy, it remained only a tool.
One wonders, what exactly did the magician plan to do after purifying the continent according to the ancient god’s will?
He had been such a talkative fool, yet he never spoke of it before collapsing in death.
Greta, facing Cryer’s empty, unfeeling eyes, trembled all over from the waist down and opened her mouth in a soft sigh.
“Ah, Cryer… Cryer-sama… to stay here for me… how long has it been since we were alone…?”
Her tearful, desperate voice, under the guise of love, became a sickening obsession that clung stickily to Cryer’s shadow.
A few days after the three-way confrontation between Cryer, Olivia, and Greta, the emperor summoned Olivia.
“I’m putting you in charge of this hunting festival.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Even at the sudden command, without greeting or warning, Olivia bowed calmly, showing no sign of surprise.
The emperor, silently observing her, finally spoke:
“Sit here.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Before the emperor could even gesture, Sebastian, his closest attendant, brought tea.
The emperor rubbed his tired eyes, the scent of the steaming tea wafting faintly, and stared for a long while at his daughter, who bore an equal likeness to him and his wife.
Normally, he could have simply issued the command. The princess would have obediently received it and likely carried it out flawlessly.
Yet the emperor, perhaps driven by a fatherly intuition—or maybe merely a baseless worry—called Olivia to him.
He could not help but ask:
“What’s the matter?”
Suddenly, the emperor’s face became that of a father, standing firm as the greatest pillar of the empire, confronting his daughter.
His usually stern expression softened. Olivia, meeting the bloodshot eyes of a father who worked from dawn until the next dawn, swallowed a wry smile without realizing it.
“There’s nothing the matter, really.”
“No, there must be. I won’t demand you open your heart completely, but at least say something. Sharing it with your father might make it lighter on you.”
Olivia looked at her father, subtly offering her a chocolate-laden chocolatatang, a childhood favorite.
She had witnessed her father’s final moments only once during her regressions.
In her first life, utterly unaware, he personally stood against the monsters of the battlefield until the very end.
“Your Majesty, please take caution. May you guarantee the royal body…”
“Enough. Speak no more.”
“Your Majesty!”
The emperor, drawing a rarely used sword, commanded without even looking at Olivia:
“Take the princess. You know where to go.”
“Y-Your Majesty! I’ll stay too! I—me, me! I am also a bulwark! The empire’s last line of defense!”
Olivia shouted as if screaming, but the emperor did not turn.
“Go.”
The knight caught Olivia in his arms as she struggled and departed as if flying. Only then did she meet the emperor’s gaze.
He was smiling—the face of a father.
Though he spoke no words, Olivia felt as if she had heard far too much, and she ceased struggling, knowing she must see him off one last time.
Olivia was no longer the empire’s bulwark; she had to be the lighthouse.
Thus, from her next life onward, she never witnessed her father’s final moments.
No, she did not. Knowing her father’s feelings as he forced her to leave, she survived and acted to safeguard the future, becoming the empire’s unextinguishable flame while he became the wall.
Recalling the tragic, heart-wrenching past—or the future that never came—Olivia quickly shook off those thoughts.
Well, everything had failed anyway; maybe it would have been better to have been the wall alongside him.
“Olivia. Your gaze toward your father is a bit…”
“I should have stood by him.”
“What?”
Her father tilted his head at the incomprehensible remark, a fork plunged into the chocolatatang.
But Olivia, mirroring her father, also plunged her fork into the chocolatatang and remained silent.
Looking down at the crown of her head, he finally spoke:
“So there is something troubling you, after all.”
“There’s nothing at all.”
“Honestly, whose stubbornness did you inherit?”
Perhaps it was from the father who held his ground even as the imperial palace crumbled.
Her father’s rough, dry fingertips touched Olivia’s forehead, pressed together with the sweet chocolatatang she had eaten.
“I said you don’t need to speak in detail, but just say something. Anything.”
Smiling faintly at her father’s words, Olivia wondered: would confessing truly ease her heart?
She had regressed—multiple times. The empire fell to a single person, the continent burned. She died again and again, struggling desperately to survive.
If she told everything, her father might believe her.
But the emperor would not.
Even if he was her beloved father, the emperor could not afford to trust words that sounded absurd.
For the ruler of this vast, mighty empire, he had no choice.
Had he believed her entirely as emperor, he could have mobilized the entire court immediately.
But the emperor, the one bearing Bolshake blood, would never do so.
Yet just one word from Olivia could move him.
“Help me.”
A plea she had never voiced before.
That single word could make the empire, Norden, even Greta, kneel before her before she even spoke again.
The empire’s power, the emperor’s word, was that potent.
But it must not be so simple.
If it were, Olivia would have run to the emperor first, not Cryer, and confessed everything.
Yes, she had tried.
It was her third life. As soon as she opened her eyes clutching her neck, she ran frantically.
Servants who saw her crossing the palace in the dead of night could only gape silently, unable to scream, and knights struggled to guard the princess, dressed in thin nightclothes.
That night…
“Your Majesty… Your Majesty… Fa—no, Father.”
Barefoot, Olivia ran in the middle of the night, bleeding words, and the emperor cleared everyone aside to listen.
By dawn, he had secretly sent envoys to Norden…
Olivia bit her lower lip instinctively.
If everything had been resolved then, she wouldn’t even be here, in her regressed state.
And in that life, the empire had collapsed more miserably than ever.
She had no intention of repeating that horrific life.
Swallowing the blood that had risen in her throat, Olivia spoke:
“How is world peace?”
“Hm?”
“You said I could tell you anything.”
Though she knew it wasn’t just ‘anything,’ Olivia shrugged.
“You are incorrigible.”
Her father squinted but answered her question:
“Nothing major. It’s something you insisted must be done—I wouldn’t have done it carelessly, would I?”
Indeed. While investigating Cryer and the ancient god, Olivia had earnestly requested the emperor to secure world peace.
Now, a century after the continent’s wars ended, there was no reason for a princess to risk scandal just for peace.
Yet the emperor willingly coordinated the entire continent for world peace.
Not merely for Olivia’s request, but because even for the unique and powerful empire, choosing peace over war was the wiser option.
“I see.”
“Hm, has your mind changed? I hear the new Norden envoy met the Duke of Hainder several times.”
“You were concerned even about something so trivial?”
“It concerns the palace, does it not?”
Olivia shook her head, returning her gaze to her father’s emperor-like face.
“It went smoothly with the Duke of Hainder. And with Norden as well—we must get along. So.”
“Peace, then.”
“Yes.”
Not just with Norden, but with any nation on the continent, war was unnecessary—indeed, it must never occur.
After all, bloodshed is exactly what the ancient god desires.
Acting on an imperial scale for this, or letting outsiders intervene, would only hinder matters.
“Good. Well, that’s something your father can handle. Though it is tiresome seeing those with nothing quibble and watch my face.”
Calling foreign diplomatic disputes “quarrels,” her father plunged the fork into the last piece of chocolatatang as Olivia spoke:
“Your Majesty… no, Father.”
