NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 41 - How to Make the Princess Happy?
Translator: Marctempest
Editor: The Reader
Chapter 41 How to Make the Princess Happy?
The first ones to be surprised were his parents.
“Did you say you could just go?!”
“Really…?”
“Yes.”
Both of them seemed incredulous that he had been separated from Princess Kurumi.
“No, I thought you’d at least play with some fire and come back…”
“What are you saying in front of the child?!”
Smack!
Uncle Seok-gyu, who made the slip, was knocked out cold by a smack from Auntie Rolling, leaving a dent in his skull.
The next ones to show surprise were the three guards responsible for the mansion’s security.
“Thought you were off duty… Were you actually fired?”
“Haha, seems so…”
Joo Sang-ho clicked his tongue sympathetically in place of Han Shin-woo.
“Did something bad happen between you and the Princess?”
“I don’t know…”
Yoo Chae-ran pondered with him, trying to figure out the cause.
But there was no need to find the cause.
“Hmm…”
“Sophia…?”
Finally, there was Sophia.
He had expected her to jump with joy and laugh gleefully, but she wore an unexpectedly serious expression.
“A Beast Hunter distancing himself from Shin-woo…? Is that even possible…?”
“Sophia, are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah?! Oh, I’m fine. Just a bit concerned…”
“Really?”
Anyway, after saying goodbye to the three people he met again, he remembered that his original job was a Hunter Meister.
On his way to the workshop to cool his head and work up a sweat by hammering and tempering iron, he heard a voice.
“Hello?”
“……”
It was the second day he had been outside the mansion.
He stopped by the association branch where the workshop was located.
“Can we talk for a moment, Mr. Shin-woo?”
As if she had been waiting, Branch Manager Jin-ah Lee met his eyes at the entrance of the workshop.
Han Shin-woo knew very well what was hidden behind her smiling mask.
She was not a trustworthy person.
To him, who had experienced life-and-death struggles, Jin-ah Lee was such a person, and naturally, he wanted to ignore her and pass by.
But there was a problem with her position.
“Let’s go to the branch manager’s office together. Right now.”
With a smile on her lips, Jin-ah said so, and as a mere Hunter Meister, he had no choice but to comply with the branch manager’s words.
Thus, he set foot for the first time in the top floor of the Korean branch of the Hunter Association, designed to feel open on all sides.
‘This place looks the same as in the game and in reality.’
“Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee, or even alcohol is fine.”
“Ah… No alcohol for me. I only drink once a week.”
“Oh, really? That’s good. I like that.”
The drink Jin-ah offered him as he sat down was Auroramin C, known to be good for hangovers.
‘But I drank two days ago, not yesterday…’
Would there be any poison in it?
He thought for a moment.
But considering that she had no reason to poison him while he was in his human state, he drank it without much hesitation.
Gulp, gulp.
“…You drink it without even suspecting anything.”
“Well, you’re a friend of my mom. Surely you wouldn’t give me something bad?”
“Hehe. Indeed.”
Hoping to get it over with quickly, he downed the Auroramin C in one shot.
Then, with a smile, Jin-ah began to speak.
“Let me get straight to the point.”
“Yes.”
He wondered if she was going to hold him accountable for being kicked out by Princess Kurumi.
He pricked up his ears, ready to be scolded without much thought.
“Princess Kurumi is going to die soon.”
“……What?”
He suddenly heard something that made no sense.
“Who’s… Who’s going to kill her…?”
“Princess Kurumi. And it’s not that someone is going to kill her. …Oh, maybe? Is it?”
“Is it an attack?! Is there another attack coming…!”
He jumped up from his seat, ready to head back to the mansion where Princess Kurumi lived.
But then came the next words from behind him.
“It’s not an attack, it’s a ‘curse’.”
A curse.
It was known to be the most powerful debuff among the many status ailments in the world of
“A curse…?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“So, you’re saying someone cursed Princess Kurumi?”
“Yes. To be precise, she was cursed from birth.”
“From birth…?”
Seeing his face of disbelief, Jin-ah smiled and revealed the terrible truth.
“Yes. The princess is actually a bastard daughter raised by the Kitsune family to be sacrificed because of the curse.”
Born to be cursed?
A bastard daughter?
It was all new information, even for a seasoned player of the original game like him.
What the hell was she talking about?
He didn’t know where to start, so he just gaped at her.
“The Kitsune family has a lineage of Beast Hunters. You know this already, right?”
Jin-ah took a sip of her bitter espresso with five sugar cubes and continued when he nodded.
“The beasts they have controlled through the generations are all renowned enough to be recorded in Japanese history.”
Slurp.
“Especially the four beasts called Shishin-kai (Four Divine Beasts) used by their direct descendants, all of which are classified as A-rank threats.”
Slurp.
“…So, what does that have to do with the curse on Princess Kurumi?”
The greatness of the Kitsune family and the curse imprinted on Princess Kurumi seemed unrelated so far.
But then Jin-ah spoke again.
“Amaterasu.”
“…!!”
Hearing that beast’s name, Han Shin-woo instinctively shut his mouth.
‘Why mention Amaterasu now?’
Amaterasu.
Also known as the Abyssal Giant, it was one of the final bosses in the game
If engaged in battle, it would flood the entire Japanese archipelago, regardless of the outcome, making it one of the worst monsters.
Even Han Shin-woo, who cleared the final boss, had given up on defeating it when he first bought the game.
“The strongest and worst monster in Japanese history, Amaterasu. The Kitsune family, who successfully sealed it and were recognized as one of the world’s top ten families 2200 years ago.”
The direct descendants of the Kitsune family, whom he couldn’t meet even in the game’s DLC, had such a secret.
…So what?
“Does this have anything to do with the curse on Princess Kurumi?”
“Yes, very much so.”
A princess cursed by her family.
The worst monster sealed by the Kitsune family 2200 years ago.
The reason why the four beasts known as Shishin-kai were all inside Princess Kurumi instead of a direct descendant.
It was very simple.
“The Kitsune family claims they sealed it, but that’s only half true.”
“Then…?”
“Amaterasu wasn’t sealed by the Kitsune family. To be precise, it allowed itself to be ‘sealed’.”
“Allowed itself to be sealed…?”
Han Shin-woo tilted his head in confusion.
“Why would it do that?”
“It’s simple. They made a contract.”
“A contract?”
“Yes, a contract.”
The family with the purest spiritual power in Japan at the time.
Amaterasu agreed to reside quietly within the sacrificial body in exchange for consuming the descendants’ lifespans over generations.
Additionally, it made a supplementary contract to share its power with the four beasts known as Shishin-kai during its stay in the sacrificial body.
“Wait a minute. Then…”
“Yes. What Amaterasu consumes is the ‘lifespan’ of the sacrificial human.”
“Lifespan…?”
“In exchange for their lifespan, Amaterasu doesn’t rampage and shares some power with the family’s beasts. It’s mutually beneficial.”
“So Princess Kurumi…”
“Is essentially an energy storage for the contract.”
When Princess Kurumi’s lifespan was fully consumed and she died, Amaterasu would return to the Kitsune family’s underground to await the next sacrifice.
The beasts, having absorbed Amaterasu’s power, would then be controlled by the direct descendants of the pure bloodline, not by a mere bastard.
In other words, Princess Kurumi was a pawn to be discarded from the start.
“This is insane…!”
A person he had never seen in the original game.
When he had visited the mansion, hoping to see her later in the Japanese route, the family members acted as if they knew nothing about the Kitsune daughter who went to Korea.
Initially, he thought it was a bait for future DLC.
But it wasn’t.
By that time, Princess Kurumi had already fulfilled her role as a sacrifice and was no longer in this world.
“Is there no way to deal with this?”
“The curse?”
“Yes! The curse! There must be a way…”
The curse, the worst status ailment in
If that condition was met…
“The curse lifts all the debuffs accumulated so far, right?”
Princess Kurumi’s lifespan would be restored to its original state.
Having asked his question, he pondered the method to lift Amaterasu’s curse.
In most cases, the method to lift powerful curses was straightforward and easy to deduce.
“The way to lift Amaterasu’s curse is…”
“You’re smart.”
“Defeating Amaterasu itself, right?”
“Yes. But it’s the worst of the worst monsters that even the Kitsune family has never dared to control.”
“……”
“So let’s consider that
method as impossible for now. The reason I informed you about this is to make her remaining life as happy as possible…”
While Han Shin-woo was seriously contemplating, Jin-ah was about to get to the main point.
But their conversation ended there.
Riiiing.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Jin-ah’s phone rang in her pocket.
When she answered, a voice boomed through the entire office.
“Boss! We have a big problem!!”
It was unmistakably Joo Sang-ho’s voice.
Then he said,
“Princess Kurumi is missing!!”
Hearing that Princess Kurumi had disappeared from the mansion, both Han Shin-woo and Branch Manager Jin-ah Lee’s faces hardened simultaneously.