Chapter 129
“What should I do?”
He couldn’t reveal his true identity.
Even if he wanted to speak, it was impossible.
Because of the laws of causality, exposing who he really was was out of the question.
Besides, this stranger she was meeting for the first time wouldn’t accept any premature words of comfort.
More than anything, Chris instinctively sensed one thing.
Olivia’s heart wasn’t in a place to be moved by a few words.
He could feel the fortress she had firmly closed around herself.
“I hoped she was doing well.”
Chris sighed.
There was no other way.
He decided to take a drastic approach.
“I asked why you came here.”
“Oh, just out of curiosity.”
“…Excuse me?”
A thoroughly irritating smile crept onto Chris’s lips.
“I heard this was where that cursed prince—what a fool—used to live. I was curious if he really was the devil’s spawn.”
“!!”
Olivia’s face flushed red with anger.
“How dare you! Take back those words and apologize immediately.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll make you kneel at your brother’s grave and force you to apologize.”
It was harsh—uncharacteristically so for Olivia.
But it wasn’t an empty threat.
A cloud-like white glow began to seep from her body.
An intense energy that made her skin tingle with tension.
‘Has Olivia’s power always been this strong?’
In her childhood, Olivia had never once revealed her strength, so he had no idea.
Judging by the power she was showing now, it was at least a four-star level.
‘Though her abilities lean more toward support than combat.’
Olivia’s power was different from that of knights or mages.
It was the power of an awakened one, inheriting the bloodline of the constellation.
‘That power is the key to solving this matter.’
For reference, awakening the sacred bloodline was so rare that even the Argen royal family of the Law Kingdom saw only one every few generations.
Therefore, Olivia was currently the only one capable of wielding the sacred blood’s power.
“I only called the fool a fool. I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”
“Ugh…!!”
Olivia couldn’t hold back and pulled out a small staff, pointing it at Christian.
“He was falsely accused and died without a word. That makes him a fool, doesn’t it?”
Olivia stood firm.
“What… do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. I heard the cursed prince was born carrying the devil’s seed.”
Chris shrugged and glanced around the room.
“But I don’t sense any trace of the devil here.”
“……”
Olivia swallowed hard.
“How do you know that? No one can detect the devil’s trace.”
She was right.
No paladin or inquisitor could identify the devil’s mark just by looking.
The devil concealed it with divine power.
‘That’s why so many innocent victims suffer. Since the mark can’t be seen, they’re branded as devil worshippers, tortured into false confessions, and burned at the stake.’
In a way, Chris was one of those victims.
No demonic aura was found on him, but the people of the Law Kingdom assumed the devil had hidden its traces.
“Our Dark Maga has a secret technique to detect demonic energy. Even using that, there’s no sign the devil’s seed ever lingered here.”
That was a lie.
No such technique existed.
Around the middle of the Age of Destruction, the alliance developed such methods to root out hidden devil worshippers, but not yet.
“Besides, Princess, aren’t you aware?”
Chris smiled slyly.
“That the cursed prince had nothing to do with the devil.”
“!!”
“You knew all along, which is why you’re so despondent. The guilt of not being able to save him.”
Clang!
The staff Olivia held dropped to the floor.
Her face went pale, lips trembling but unable to speak.
Yes.
Olivia knew.
But she couldn’t save Chris.
She was still too young and powerless.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“…So what exactly are you trying to say?”
Olivia growled.
“Who do you think you are, acting all high and mighty?!”
Her cry was almost a wail.
Chris felt a pang in his chest at the sight of his sister’s pain, but there was no other choice.
He had to move her, no matter what.
Even if it meant hurting her.
For Olivia.
Not just to prevent her destruction.
But for her wounded heart.
To prepare her so she wouldn’t be completely broken when the terrible truth came.
“Because I’m tired of you just drowning in sorrow.”
“You don’t know anything…!”
Chris spoke softly, his voice different from before.
“Don’t you want to uncover the truth?”
Suddenly, the room fell silent.
Olivia’s eyes widened.
“What… do you mean?”
“If the cursed prince had no connection to the devil, then someone must have framed him. Isn’t that right?”
“……”
Olivia swallowed again.
It was as if she heard a devil whispering.
“If you wish, I can use my power to reveal the truth. I may look like this, but I have many talents. However…”
Step.
Chris took a step forward.
The distance between them closed, and Olivia stared at him with vacant eyes.
Chris raised a finger and gently wiped the tears from her cheek.
In a low voice, barely above a whisper, he said,
“Are you ready to face the truth? No matter how ugly it may be.”
“!!”
Olivia’s gaze wavered.
From the shadows, Chris’s blood-red eyes glimmered darkly.
There was an unexplainable pain in those pupils.
“What… do you mean by ‘ugly truth’?”
Olivia asked, confused.
‘She still doesn’t know that the Pope is the mastermind behind the slander against my mother.’
When Chris’s mother was branded a devil’s servant, the Pope himself didn’t step forward.
More importantly, the Pope always showed Olivia the face of a good father. Unlike Chris, he loved Olivia as his daughter.
So Olivia had no idea her father was such a monstrous figure.
Not yet.
‘Maybe it’s better if she never finds out.’
But that was impossible.
At the end of this incident, Olivia would face a horrific truth.
“…Can you really reveal the truth?”
“Of course. My abilities are more than enough. But there’s a condition.”
“What kind of condition?”
“First, you must cooperate directly in uncovering the truth behind this outbreak of the Black Plague.”
Olivia nodded.
Though she was in despair and avoiding it, this was something she had to do.
“Is that all?”
“Of course not. There’s a second condition, which is the real one I want.”
Her expression hardened at his ominous tone.
“What kind of condition is it?”
Chris looked at her quietly.
As doubt flickered in Olivia’s blue eyes, he said,
“Please make a ‘pact’ with me.”
“!!”
Caught off guard, Olivia’s eyes widened.
“What do you mean? A pact, all of a sudden?”
“Oh, please don’t misunderstand. This is a proposal to join forces with you, Princess.”
A pact was literally a promise sealed by mutual oaths.
Breaking it came with severe consequences, binding both parties strongly.
The terms could vary widely—from simple contracts to vows between lovers, or master-servant relationships.
What Chris proposed was an alliance.
“I’ll be working within the alliance more often from now on, and I need someone to have my back.”
Olivia was the perfect candidate.
If this went well, she would become one of the most noble figures within the alliance.
Of course, Olivia’s reaction was far from positive.
“…Do you really think I’d accept such a condition?”
Chris was a demon.
The polar opposite of the saintly Olivia.
Besides, she was meeting him for the first time.
What reason did she have to trust him enough to make such a pact?
“I’m not asking for an immediate decision. You can watch me closely as we work through this together, then decide.”
“……”
“I guarantee, Princess, you will come to trust me.”
At his confident words, Olivia furrowed her delicate brow.
‘Annoying.’
In truth, when Olivia first met Christian, she felt as if her heart stopped.
Though he was a stranger, it felt like her chest was being torn apart.
It made no sense.
‘Is it because he shares my brother’s name?’
That was the only explanation.
Besides, her brother Chris and this demon before her had nothing in common.
If anything, they were both handsome, smooth talkers, and geniuses.
‘If only my brother had grown up in a proper environment, he’d have been so amazing that no annoying jerk like this could compare.’
Thinking of Chris again, Olivia’s heart ached.
Only she knew how incredible the brother who was branded the devil’s seed truly was.
More than anything, her brother Chris was warm and kind—a comparison to this obnoxious demon was an insult.
It was always her who had been the one offering help.
Olivia thought back to her past with Chris.
Their first meeting had been by chance.
“I ran away crying, overwhelmed by the weight on my shoulders, and somehow ended up at the tower where my brother was.”
As a child, Olivia carried an immense burden.
She was the awakened bearer of the sacred bloodline—the first in a hundred years.
Everyone in the kingdom expected her to unlock even greater power, and so she spent every day relentlessly honing her sacred energy.
Without a moment’s rest.
Carrying the weight of everyone’s expectations.
For someone not even ten years old, it was a suffocating pressure.
She was constantly trapped in a cage of torment, struggling to breathe, until one day she met her brother by chance.
With an expressionless face, he said simply,
“You can rest for a while, if you want.”
Why did those words strike such a chord deep in her heart?
In front of this brother she had never met, Olivia broke down and cried.
After that, she often went to see Chris, and each time, he silently made room for her beside him.
If it hadn’t been for that warmth, Olivia would have crumbled under the weight of her childhood burdens.
But it wasn’t just that.
Chris had saved her life—more than once.
There was only a 30% chance that an awakened bearer of the sacred bloodline could fully master their power.
Just awakening the sacred blood didn’t guarantee control.
The power of the constellation was notoriously difficult for humans to wield.
One wrong move, and the energy could spiral out of control, or their body could collapse from within, leading to death.
Especially since only one bearer appeared per generation.
So they had to learn to control their power entirely on their own, without anyone’s help.
Olivia had faced death more than once during her training, and each time, it was Chris who came to her aid.
“Try… moving the energy from below your navel to the tension in your right shoulder…”
Inexplicably, Chris knew exactly how to handle the power of the constellation.
When she asked him how, he said he just instinctively knew—he could see how the energy should flow.
It was then that Olivia realized Chris was no ordinary person.
Thanks to him, she survived those life-threatening moments, and it happened several times.
If it hadn’t been for Chris, Olivia would have died long ago.
There was more to the debt she owed him.
As a saint, she couldn’t share her heart with anyone.
Chris had been her friend, offering her emotional comfort when she was utterly alone.
When she grew up and painfully realized the cruel reality of the kingdom, so different from her ideals, it was Chris who sternly helped her regain her resolve.
She still remembered the sound of the whistle he made by rolling up a leaf, playing a tune to soothe her when she was downhearted.
There were countless other things she owed to Chris.
That was why—
Olivia missed him so deeply.
Chris was not just a brother.
He was her benefactor, her teacher, her anchor, her friend—her everything.
“But I was the one who let him die.”