Who Could Have Loved the Monster Princess? - Chapter 38
“Cheating?”
Carnelian looked a little sheepish at my response.
“You’re an accomplice, so I suppose you’ll forgive me,” he said.
At those words, Sean’s clear eyes turned to me. “Surely… you didn’t offer it to him yourself, did you?”
“Offer what?”
“High Priest, Belienne once accepted a treasure from me. So I assumed she wouldn’t mind if I took hers in return.”
The Crown Prince extended a hand toward Sean. Sean, without answering, tucked the cylindrical container in his hand under his robe.
I knew what he’d hidden. It was the flag container used in this competition. Cheating…?
“Your Highness, did you perhaps check the flag’s location beforehand and come to retrieve it?”
Since the flags were hidden by royal court mages, if Carnelian had wanted to, he could’ve known exactly where each one was.
“That’s correct.”
The answer came from Sean.
The Crown Prince protested, clearly displeased.
“By that logic, couldn’t we also say that the High Priest’s finding of the flag is also a form of cheating?”
“If you’re going to equate something I found with my own power to your actions,” Sean replied coolly, “then why don’t you go ahead and explain to the other participants how you came to be here.”
“That’s… hmm…”
In the end, Carnelian shook his head and conceded defeat. Then, perhaps out of embarrassment, he turned his irritation on me.
“You’re not affected by the wraith’s influence?”
“Most dark-based magic doesn’t affect me because of my curse.”
“Isn’t that rather convenient? You’ve said it also makes you stronger and dulls your pain.”
He wasn’t wrong. The curse was incredibly useful to me. I nodded, and Carnelian gave me a strange look.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I heard rumors that your curse was activated in exchange for your appearance.”
I nodded.
“I can’t help but wonder just how beautiful you were for a curse strong enough to dwarf a high-level wraith to be born of it?”
They say the power of a curse is proportional to the value of what is sacrificed. But there’s another factor too — the ability of the one who casts it.
“It was less about me and more about my father’s abilities…”
As I spoke, Sean cut in, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Darling’s beauty isn’t just what’s visible to the eye. Not that you’d be able to see it.”
“To hear that from a blind High Priest is… rather unfortunate,” Carnelian replied dryly.
At that, Sean fell silent, but a faint smile curled on his lips. He looked serene, but I knew that expression. He was furious.
Sean had lost his sight when he encountered a god at the age of five. But in return, he was granted the ability to see everything that cannot be seen by human eyes.
As a child, he’d said it was a blessing. That it made him happy.
But something seemed to have changed after he defeated the Demon King.
I still remembered the question Sean had asked me the last time we met. It lingered in my mind, strangely vivid.
“Darling, what color is the sky today?”
“Red and yellow, and a bit of indigo. The sunset’s mixing all the colors together.”
“What does indigo look like? Is it like the novice priest robes?”
“It’s darker. Closer to the color of the night sky.”
“The night sky… That’s a color I can’t remember anymore.”
He’d said it like he was frustrated — frustrated that he couldn’t see.
And now that pompous prince and his royal mouth had to throw daggers, not caring for time, place, or company.
“Your Highness, that was far too cruel!” I snapped, furious.
Carnelian shot me a glare, like he was the one wronged. What, was he upset now? After mocking someone’s disability like that?
“I thought you were supposed to be my friend.”
Friend? Since when?
And what did being “friends” have anything to do with calling out someone for saying something horrible?
“What does that—”
I started to ask, but before I could finish, Sean’s staff came down hard on Carnelian’s shoulder.
Thwack!
It sounded like a watermelon cracking open. Carnelian’s knee buckled, dropping one side of him to the ground.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing!”
The Crown Prince shouted, incensed. But Sean, calm as ever, looked him straight in the eye and said mildly:
“Oh dear. A wraith had latched onto you.”
“You call that an explanation?!”
Carnelian tried to rise, but just then, the tip of Sean’s staff flared with light — a brilliant, radiant glow that felt like it wrapped around your entire body. It was Sean Onra’s divine power.
I had to shield my eyes.
‘Wait—was there really a wraith? On his shoulder?’
While I was still disoriented, a sudden silence fell over everything — so complete, it was as though my ears had stopped working entirely.
And then, just as abruptly, the world came crashing back. Sounds exploded around me, and crisp, clear air flooded my lungs, sweet enough to almost taste.
I slowly lowered my hands. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the light, but soon, I could see.
“This place is…” I began.
Carnelian answered, brushing dust from his clothes.
“Pinheim Forest, in the Bittern estate.”
We were standing in a wide clearing surrounded on all sides by trees.
‘So everyone was lured here by the wraith?’
The clearing was about the size of the training yard back at the Staedt estate, and it was filled with people — over a hundred of them, all collapsed where they stood. Groans began to rise as some of them started to come to.
“Urgh…”
Those sitting up were marked with dried blood, but none of them seemed to be wounded.
It was Sean — he had healed them all.
