The First Run of My Life
Unknown.
Looking at the palanquin bearer who had died without even the chance to close his eyes, a sigh escaped me of its own accord.
“These poor souls…… I should at least pray for their peace.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness? It isn't as though you were the one who killed them. There's no need for that.”
“They died because of me, didn't they?”
If I, sealed as a princess of the Underworld, offered prayers for the dead, their judgment in the afterlife would go far more favorably.
It would pile a bit more karma on my shoulders, but these were humans swept up in my affairs and killed for it—they deserved at least that much blessing.
“Those men did not die because of Your Highness! They died because of those assassins!”
“Strictly speaking, you're right. But emotionally, no. If I offer some form of restitution, they'll at least feel a little less wronged.”
“……Your Highness is far too merciful.”
“Of course I should be. Compared to these frail humans, I'm a deity standing in some unimaginably lofty place. And the greater the god, the more carefully they ought to watch over those beneath them—or so I was told.”
“In any case, let us see to your treatment first.”
Shaking her head with a weary little sigh, Ansi took hold of me and began to sing softly.
The song of a phoenix stills the heart, purges what is corrupt, and hastens the body's healing.
The gashes that had been bleeding slowly closed over. Ansi checked my wounds here and there—every one vanished without a trace—and let out a breath of relief.
“You are outwardly healed, Your Highness, but just in case, I shall treat you once more with the Phoenix Song tomorrow.”
“Mm, thank you.”
After offering prayers in the name of Princess Cheonmyeong for the repose of the dead palanquin bearers, I approached the assassins' corpses.
Now then, let's find out who sent them.
Barely a few hours had passed since word spread that I had survived the night.
Who could have responded so quickly?
Was there some reason I absolutely had to be killed without a moment's delay?
Drawing near the assassin's body, I performed the soul-summoning rite of chohon.
Ordinarily, it was a technique the reapers of the Underworld used to rouse a spirit with a jeokpaeji in hand—a strip of red paper inscribed with the dead one's name and allotted lifespan. But for a princess of the Underworld like me, bare hands were enough.
Even if I'm a half-finished god who can't properly wield my divine power, the authority of my title is no half-measure.
Besides, the assassin's name was written plain as day on that scrawny little Lifespan Cord fluttering from the corpse.
“Kim Mak-jo. Kim Mak-jo. Kim Mak-jo.”
Three quiet calls.
“By command of Princess Cheonmyeong, Sangra Huiyo—rise.”
A translucent spirit rose from the corpse.
The dead man stared down at his own body in confusion, and the moment his eyes met mine, he recoiled in horror.
“WAAAH!”
There was no particular reason to explain the situation to an assassin.
I ignored the way he leapt about in fright, drew out the Eight-Pillar Bell, and drew my karmic record up through the bell linked to the treasure vault.
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
“Ansi, hold him down for me.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Ansi sprang into the air like a swallow and slammed the spirit of the assassin flat against the ground.
“B-but I'm dead! How—how are you—urk!”
“Quiet.”
With her tiny hands, Ansi throttled the assassin's throat—far larger than her own—until his mouth shut.
“Grrk…… kgh……”
The suffocating assassin—or rather, the assassin's ghost—rolled his eyes and foamed at the mouth.
He was a ghost, so it didn't really matter, but it looked uncomfortably like torture to watch.
It's true Ansi has a rougher edge than most phoenixes.
She had begun as an ordinary phoenix who shrank from taking life. The way Ansi turned out like that was entirely my fault. Becoming my phoenix, guarding me through one incident and accident after another—there had been quite a few.
And Ansi is sensitive about situations like this.
So no matter how brutal she looked, I didn't stop her. She needed to vent her fury somehow.
When I cast the karmic record over the assassin, now docile enough, it revealed at once who had given them their orders.
Since the record rewinds a dead man's memories backward from the moment of his death, the answer surfaced almost immediately.
That outfit…… a palace eunuch? No—he can't have been the one orchestrating this. Whoever's behind him must be pulling the strings.
I memorized the face of the eunuch who had commanded the assassins, then pushed the karmic record back into the ghost.
“Ansi, that's enough now.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Ansi released the assassin's throat.
“Hrk—hrk—damn you…….”
“You there…….”
I had just opened my mouth toward the coughing dead man when I suddenly sensed a clear, distinct chill in the air.
The Underworld reapers? What are they doing here so fast?
I snapped my mouth shut in alarm and retreated toward the bamboo grove.
“Your Highness?”
“Come here, Ansi! We have to hide!”
“I beg your pardon? This quickly? But why must we hide?”
“Because they'll find out I ran away from home! Hurry up and come here!”
“Yes, Your Highness……”
Ansi dawdled over, reluctance written all over her.
This wretched little chick. She's actually hoping I get caught running away and dragged back to the palace, isn't she?
“Coming or not?”
I glared, and the moment Ansi reluctantly ducked into the bamboo, the air split apart and the Underworld reapers came swarming down.
“Ugh, seriously. That brat's cost us every chance to catch our breath.”
“What can you do? It's not like the mess he made was some small thing. From here on out it's tiptoeing and forced overtime, all of it.”
“Word is the brat didn't even recognize Her Highness the Princess and grabbed her by the collar? Honestly, ten thousand years boiling in all Eight Great Hells wouldn't be punishment enough.”
“Considering the scale of the mess he actually caused, we should be glad our punishment stopped at this much.”
“That's true enough. The moment I heard, I braced myself to spend years boiling with the whole Eastern Branch in the immortals-only Scalding Hell.”
“We got off easy, so all we can do is keep our heads down for a while. Let's just get the work done.”
Chattering among themselves, the reapers scattered to their assigned corpses.
Speaking of which—wasn't that about that reaper who'd tried to strike Ru-hwa and got caught red-handed by me instead?
Because he got punished, they're all walking on eggshells and working harder than usual, it seems.
The dead only had to be collected within three days of their passing.
No wonder the reapers, who normally dawdled, had shown up strangely fast.
The scattered reapers held up their jeokpaeji and called the dead from their assigned corpses.
“Huh? What's this? Why's this one already up?”
And when a reaper discovered his assigned spirit already standing, he floundered for a moment before questioning the dead man.
“Kim Mak-jo. What's this? Who summoned you?”
That fool must not say anything unnecessary!
He couldn't have heard the summoning rite, so my identity is safe either way…….
Still—please, just let it slide. Let it slide.
As I watched anxiously, the assassin who'd been clutching his throat this whole time drew a ragged breath and spoke up.
“Wh-when I came to, my target was standing before me—or no, a young child. It must have been that child who summoned me!”
“A child? What, how?”
A reaper tending another body nearby cut in to pick up the thread.
“Must've been a shaman or one of those demonic-strength freaks who knew soul-summoning.”
“There's no trace of a ritual, though. Something's off……”
“Hey, we're swamped—why are you conducting an interrogation here? Take him in first. Question him back at the office.”
“Fair enough.”
Just as they had appeared in a swarm, the reapers vanished in a swarm, hauling the dead souls away with them.
Only after they had disappeared completely did I let out my breath in a long sigh of relief.
“I thought for sure we'd be caught……”
“If Your Highness must toil so, it would have been better to simply be found out and sent home.”
Ansi replied with a sulky sniff. I looked up at her in surprise.
Toiling? Did I look like I was toiling just now?
“Subjected to such rude treatment in this wretched place, forced to entrust work to some fox spirit who isn't even a proper immortal, and a so-called king who dares order Your Highness about! And then to be attacked by assassins and wounded on top of it! Of course you are toiling, Your Highness!”
She must have been bottling up plenty, because Ansi let the grievances pour out in a flood. I listened quietly for a while before answering.
“But I didn't take my medicine.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
“I got up this morning and didn't take a single drop of medicine. And I didn't vomit once, I didn't collapse, and I didn't have a single nosebleed.”
Ansi looked down at me as though someone had struck the back of her head with a hammer.
I took a step forward.
“Look, Ansi.”
Gathering up the full hem of my skirt, I set my foot down on the path between the bamboo. One step, and then another, gaining speed little by little.
I ran down the trail with everything I had. I heard the sound of the wind brushing past my ears.
I ran until my breath surged up to bursting, then stopped and turned around.
Ansi was staring at me as though beholding a sight beyond all imagination.
Shoulders heaving, I broke into a wide grin.
“See that? I ran!”
“…….”
“I used to have to be careful even walking, but in this body, I can run!”
Ansi stared blankly with her mouth open, then pressed it shut tight. I came up to her and chattered on and on.
“When I grow up, I'll run even faster than this, right? If I can get this winded without collapsing, then later I'll be able to do all sorts of other things too!”
My cheeks burned hot and stinging. And not only from running my hardest. I cupped them in both hands.
“Riding horses, shooting a bow, playing the flute…… All the things I gave up because I couldn't catch my breath.”
“……!”
“You know, Ansi—yesterday I tasted food for the very first time in my life. I slept deep through the night without waking once, and when I got up, nothing hurt.”
“……Your Highness……”
“My body feels so light it could float away. I've never felt like this in my whole life.”
“Your Highness.”
Ansi's lips pressed together, and the rims of her eyes went red. I squared my shoulders proudly.
“This is a healthy body. Living in a body like this, what mortals do or don't do doesn't matter in the slightest. Not a bit of this feels like suffering to me.”
“Hweeeeng, Your Highness……!”
Ansi burst into tears at once, then flung her arms around me, wailing in the strangest hiccupping sobs.
“Your Highneeeess, this Ansi, hic, who is Your Highness's own phoenix, hweeeeng, understood nothing of your heart, hweeeeeng…… Foolish Ansi deserves, hwee, KWA-K, to die a thousand deaths……!”
“Stop crying. And don't die either.”
I wrapped my arms around Ansi in return, patting her back as I spoke.
“Anyway, that's why I don't want to go home just yet. I want to live in this body for as long as I possibly can. Will you help me?”
“Yes—yes, Your Highness……! Ansi was the foolish one! I shall do my utmost to aid Your Highness, hic, hweeeeeng……!”
Calming Ansi down once she had launched into a full-blown lamentation turned out to be quite the ordeal.
The moment I arrived at the Royal Guest House, I reported to the soldiers that I had encountered assassins in the bamboo grove.
The soldiers flew into a panic and ran off to spread the alarm, and I was promptly brought before the envoy of Pyeong.
Word that I had not died must already have reached him, for the envoy showed no sign of being thrown off balance.
The leader of the envoy looked down at me as though at something filthy and strange, then stroked his beard with an air of arrogance and spoke.
“The Crown Princess has entered a holy order—she is now an outsider to the royal family, and may not receive an audience with Noble Consort Seol.”
So he had heard I survived, but apparently not that I had received the royal writ from the King.
Without a word, I drew out the writ and held it out to him.
“……?”
As he read the document with a puzzled frown, the tip of the envoy's beard began to tremble and blanch.
Naturally enough. A royal writ stamped plainly with the King's seal was not something even an imperial envoy of the Empire could simply brush aside.
Un was a kingdom smaller than Pyeong, the Empire—but it stood as an equal ally, not a vassal state.
Reluctantly, the envoy stepped aside to let me pass.
“Very well. But, Your Highness.”
“Mm?”
“Young as you may be, you cannot be wholly ignorant of the circumstances you now face. Do not attempt anything futile. Even should Noble Consort Seol urge it upon you, you must not comply.”
He was telling me not to run away together with Seol Deunghwa.
“I know.”
I gave a short reply, and as I turned away, I stuck out my tongue.
Right. I'm not going to run away.
But I am going to help Seol Deunghwa escape!