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CHAPTER 05
Ji-woo alternated her gaze between his wound, which was being eroded by miasma, and her own wrist. Then she cut her wrist.
She applied extra force on purpose so she wouldn’t have to cut multiple times.
Sshk.
The blade was so sharp she didn’t even feel pain at first. The cut felt cold, like ice brushing against her skin. Fortunately, it didn’t seem shallow—blood poured out heavily.
Ji-woo tilted her wrist and let the blood drip directly onto his groaning wound.
Because there was so much blood, the purification of the miasma happened much faster than usual. It was a bit excessive compared to the “price” of borrowing a dagger, but it didn’t matter anymore. She had already decided to let everything go.
“Ugh… ah… ngh…”
His groans, which had been trembling in pain, gradually subsided.
It wasn’t as if she intended to save him, so she didn’t bother checking his condition carefully.
Even if she tried, her vision was already blurred. Tears streamed down her face until she couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t because of pain—her wrist didn’t hurt that much.
The amount of blood she was losing far exceeded what her body could heal. Before long, her head became dizzy and foggy.
Her legs gave out. She collapsed to the ground without even trying to protect herself from hitting anything.
Ji-woo fell like a wooden plank. Her vision quickly went dark.
She felt someone grab her arm.
Then she simply let go of consciousness.
Ah… everything is just so… exhausting.
* * *
Even after she became aware of her love, nothing had really changed.
Ji-woo’s eyes simply followed the Crown Prince a little more than before.
Because the Empire’s divine mandate stated that “the monarchy and the church work together to protect the world from monsters,” the Crown Prince often visited the capital during times of peace. It was during one of those peaceful periods that Ji-woo met him.
The warm, gentle winds of the Empire only made her feelings grow, never calm them.
Whenever she came to her senses, she was always looking at his back.
She waited for the days he would come to the capital. When he was dispatched elsewhere, she hoped she would be sent near him.
By the time she had learned some of the language and grown accustomed to the culture, she even began to fear that he might stop inviting her to private meetings altogether.
But even when the original purpose of teaching language disappeared, the Crown Prince continued to meet her.
Ji-woo lived each day anxiously, wondering when it would all end.
And so, her fragile connection with the Crown Prince continued—on the edge of breaking, yet never quite severed.
Meeting him in a remote mission area had truly been coincidence. Ji-woo had gone out to a nearby lake to cool off after working hard, and unexpectedly, she found him there.
“Your Highness?”
“……”
His eyes widened. His lips parted slightly. Behind him, the red sky of sunset reflected in his eyes, trembling.
It was a rare expression of confusion from him.
“Ah, well…”
Flustered, he fidgeted and spoke haltingly, as if admitting guilt. One hand covered his mouth while his gaze drifted aside.
“I heard… Akarna had been dispatched to this area.”
“…Yes?”
“…On my own.”
“……”
“And I happened to have business here.”
The area for monster suppression and Akarna’s mission zone inevitably overlapped. In fact, Ji-woo had chosen this region because she knew he would be here.
But instead of saying that directly, the Crown Prince looked strangely lost, like someone who had forgotten how to speak. The usually confident man seemed unusually awkward today.
Unable to continue, he eventually gave up and fell silent.
Then he stared at her.
His face, flushed as if he had absorbed all the summer heat, turned bright red.
Ji-woo wasn’t much different. Her face burned and her heart pounded violently.
But unlike him, she didn’t know how to hide her feelings with vague words.
“Your Highness… did you come all the way here to see me?”
“I shouldn’t have taught you language. You’re too direct.”
He laughed—softly, shyly. It was unlike him.
“If you say it like that, I’ll be embarrassed.”
“And if I don’t say it like that?”
“You…”
He let out a quiet laugh and took her hand.
The sudden contact startled her, but it wasn’t unpleasant. He lowered his head and gently traced her fingers for a while, then suddenly looked up.
His red eyes were too close.
What followed felt unreal.
Swish—
The sound of wind brushing through leaves stopped.
Birdsong, insects, even the flowing water of the lake—all of it vanished.
As if the world itself had gone silent.
Ji-woo closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the heat surrounding her.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her.
When she leaned into him obediently, the kiss deepened. His lips pressed insistently, then parted hers as his tongue slipped inside.
The damp warmth explored her mouth, growing more intense, more urgent.
It felt as if she had stepped into the hottest place in the world, even though she had come here to cool off by a lake.
After a long moment, he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers.
Their breath mingled—hot, uneven.
“…Do you feel the same as I do?”
Ji-woo didn’t answer.
Instead, she kissed him first this time.
She used the excuse that she still didn’t know how to speak properly—but neither of them complained.
She didn’t understand politics well.
But she knew that being with the Crown Prince was not something Akarna’s position would prevent.
The Crown Prince, heir to the most noble bloodline of the Empire, and Akarna, the vessel chosen by the gods to descend to the mortal world.
A union no one opposed. A bond seemingly blessed by the gods themselves.
It felt like everyone was blessing them. Perhaps even the gods. Perhaps even the imperial family.
Maybe she had fallen into this world just to meet him. That romantic thought made her happy.
Instead of carrying the suffering of the world, she believed the gods had given her this love as compensation.
And so Ji-woo loved like she was dreaming.
She did not long for her homeland. She lived fully in the present and imagined a brilliant future.
Was that such an impossible dream?
It was shattered exactly five years later.
“…An engagement to a marquis’s daughter? What do you mean?”
It was like a bolt from the blue.
Worse, Ji-woo didn’t hear it from him directly. She learned it through rumors spreading inside the temple.
The moment she heard it, she confronted him immediately.
She desperately hoped it was a lie.
But the Crown Prince did not deny it.
“Were you seeing someone else while you were with me?”
“Akarna.”
He sighed, as if tired.
“If you think of it like that, it becomes complicated. Noble marriages are political alliances, not matters of personal affection.”
“But at least—”
At least don’t let me hear it from someone else.
She stopped herself, breath catching, then continued.
“At least you shouldn’t have let me find out through rumors.”
“I apologize for that.”
He immediately apologized without excuses.
But there was no real guilt in his expression—only inconvenience at an unexpected situation.
“Akarna.”
He gently placed his hands on her shoulders as she trembled.
It looked almost like he was comforting a sulking lover.
“Can’t you understand? This is purely a political union. My position and my goals are not personal matters. You know I only love you.”
“So you think I’m just throwing a tantrum.”
“Akarna.”
“……”
“Am I wrong? I am not in a position where I can go against the greater good for personal matters. The wise you should know that. Yet you’re acting like this.”
Personal matters. Tantrum.
Ji-woo clenched her fists tightly.
Akarna was just Akarna—she was not nobility. She had no wealth, no lineage, no territory.
The Empire placed the church under the monarchy. Akarna was nothing more than symbolic power used by the temple.
And there was another issue.
Since becoming Akarna, her menstrual cycle had stopped. In five years with the Crown Prince, she had never conceived.
She was clearly infertile.
Telling him not to meet others was effectively asking him to give up an heir.
It would have been better if she had been an ordinary noblewoman. The Crown Prince was, in hindsight, too far above her to be someone she could truly love.
In the end, all she could say was:
“…That woman probably wouldn’t like this either.”
