Chapter 2

Aya looked at Nahal’s gleaming hair and his eyes, dark and deep like pools.

His eyes shone with an intensity that reminded her of a beast of prey capable of swallowing her whole in an instant.

She swore he had never looked at her like this before.

“Aya.”

His voice was chillingly gentle.

“Why did you betray me?”

He looked at her with an expression that seemed genuinely unable to understand.

Nahal carefully examined Aya’s face.

He saw her haggard, pale features and the tears gathered around her reddened eyes.

He saw her lips pressed tightly together.

“Why did you betray me?”

His voice as he asked the question was as cold as the floor on which she had collapsed.

Wrapped in that coldness like a blanket, Aya thought:

He doesn’t trust me.

The obvious truth pierced straight through her.

At last, the lingering attachment she had held inside herself let out a strangled death cry.

Chapter 0

Levar had originally been a kingdom of God.

In the beginning, God loved a child of the earth and raised him above all people. Thus began the great kingdom.

Until the death of God’s child, there was neither drought nor conflict nor famine in that land.

Every sword and spear turned against Levar lost its power, and everyone knelt before the child of God and bowed their heads.

God loved the child so dearly that He even came to love the kingdom where the child’s traces remained.

From the moment God began watching over that kingdom, every king of Levar was chosen through divine revelation.

Countless people passed through the throne where the child had once sat, one after another taking their seats before eventually collapsing.

Some were guided peacefully, lived out their allotted years, and died of old age.

Others, driven by excessive greed, died amid conflict before their lives had run their course.

Then, one day, greed began to grow within the heart of a certain king.

Taking advantage of that opening, an evil spirit came to the king.

[Give the crown to your son. Make sure that crown never leaves your family.]

When the king listened to the evil spirit’s words, it continued to whisper.

[Make sure the crown never leaves your family. If you do so, your family will rule this land forever, and you will be honored even after death. What greater glory could there be?]

Enthralled by the evil spirit’s whispers, the king began to think that he did not want to give up his position or his glory to anyone.

And so, he slaughtered the boy who had been chosen by divine revelation—the child who was supposed to become king after him.

As the child’s blood flowed and soaked the earth, the land cried out.

When the throne was stained with blood, the stain would not disappear.

God departed, leaving only evil spirits behind in the royal palace.

And so, the descendants of that wicked king began to hear the voices of evil spirits.

They never stopped waging war, and consumed by madness, they always met horrific deaths.

And yet, the throne never passed into the hands of another family.

Thus, for hundreds of years, the people suffered and groaned in pain.

At last, the prophecy returned to Levar once more.

Chapter 1

If you were to ask who was the most unfortunate person in the royal palace of Levar, everyone belonging to the palace would answer in unison.

“Aya.”

The mute half-wit, the cripple, the princess afflicted with the royal family’s madness.

Aya was the woman who bore every unfortunate epithet imaginable.

A madwoman who was insane more often than she was lucid.

An ugly woman who was so ashamed of her appearance that she went about with her face covered.

A loner who lived by herself because even the servants were reluctant to approach her.

Aya was the only princess born to the current king, Imrabel, and his third queen, who had once been a priestess.

Unfortunately, however, the third queen died of puerperal fever immediately after giving birth to the princess, and her biological father, the king, hid his daughter deep within the palace and left her there.

The princess was never introduced as a member of the royal family, even after she turned sixteen.

Naturally, numerous rumors followed the princess who had been neglected for so long.

Some claimed that the princess had not even been in the royal palace before she turned sixteen.

Others whispered that she was not the king’s biological daughter at all.

But Aya was unquestionably the king’s daughter.

Her black hair and ash-gray eyes were almost identical to the king’s, and above all, if there had been even the slightest doubt, the king would have gotten rid of her from the palace long ago.

The king lived for years without giving any thought to the utterly useless princess.

Perhaps he thought that if he simply ignored her, she would die on her own.

But Aya stubbornly survived.

She had faced several crises, but she safely reached the age of sixteen and finally revealed her existence to the world.

But was that truly a good thing for her?

Someone who had watched Aya from close by once said, “It would have been better if her existence had never become known.”

If that had been the case, she would never have become the laughingstock of the entire kingdom.

The royal family did nothing to protect the princess’s dignity, and the people had no hesitation in making the flawed princess the subject of their gossip.

Aya became a cheap topic for everyone’s conversation.

Then what did Aya herself think about it?

?

That was about the extent of her reaction.

It would be a lie to say that she did not care at all, but unless the insults were hurled directly at her face, they were hardly enough to wound her deeply.

In truth, there had already been more than enough insults thrown directly at her.

If she had been hurt by every single one of them, she would have drowned in tears and died long ago.

Above all, Aya had many other things she needed to worry about.

She had somewhat special eyes.

She did not know when it had begun, but Aya could see the other side of the world—something invisible to everyone else.

Aya could see evil spirits.

[Heeheehee.]

Those evil spirits grew by feeding on the wicked desires of humans.

They clung to people’s shoulders, whispered desires into their ears, encouraged them to do evil, and seized their arms and legs to prevent them from doing good deeds.

They polluted people’s souls and, once those souls finally fell into ruin, devoured them.

Most of the people Aya knew could neither see the evil spirits nor hear their voices.

And yet they were manipulated by them all the same.

Why am I the only one who can see them?

Aya was the only person who could see them, and the only person capable of stopping them from devouring people.

They were different from monsters.

Monsters could be seen and touched, and could even be killed.

Evil spirits were not like that.

As a result, Aya was always busy.

What she did could be described as voluntarily making herself into a fool for the sake of others, even though no one ever appreciated it.

But Aya did not consider herself a good person.

She simply was not cold-hearted enough to turn away when someone was dying right before her eyes.

This was one of those times.

[Delicious! So delicious!]

An evil spirit with a fist-sized head had sunk its teeth into the back of a servant’s neck.

Apparently, the soul tasted particularly good, because it even cried out in delight.

The evil spirit’s head was still small, but its mouth occupied more than half of its face.

Watching it greedily devour the soul, Aya could easily imagine what would happen if she left it alone.

A person whose soul had been eaten by an evil spirit would forget the emotions that a human being should naturally possess and lose the ability to control their desires.

From this point onward, that person would become completely different from who they had been before.

Feelings such as gratitude and affection toward others, respect, and compassion would disappear completely.

In their place, they would be controlled by insatiable desires they could no longer restrain, eventually committing crimes.

And after spending sleepless days filled with suspicion because they could no longer trust anyone, they would eventually wither away and die.

The person being bitten on the back of the neck was someone Aya recognized quite well.

Of all people, why did I have to see that? Why did it have to be me?

Aya grumbled inwardly as she picked up her cane.

She pursed her lips and blew as though sending out a breath of wind, infusing the cane in her hand with energy.

Then she swung the cane and struck the evil spirit clinging to the person’s body.

When she struck its vital point, it shuddered violently and fell away.

[Gyaaaaaaaaah!]