Alicia’s Side Story, Priestess or Witch

Sedas is a country that served many gods. The small country in the northeast had as many temples as there were gods. And there was a place that oversaw and managed the many temples—that was the role of the temple within the royal palace.

“From today, this is where you will spend your life.”

Casia, with white hair and black eyes, entered the temple within the royal palace when she was about four years old. Her parents, a rural couple who lived by hunting, handed over their young daughter without hesitation at the elderly priestess’s promise of compensation. Casia cried for her parents and siblings for several days but soon realized her situation and quieted down.

Casia’s talent was exceptional. In an era when gods had departed and holy power itself had almost disappeared, Casia was the only one who could wield holy power in the Sedas Kingdom, along with her mentor. In particular, the holy power bestowed upon Casia was prophecy and healing, considered the finest among holy powers. Because of this, she received special treatment as soon as she became a priestess and was soon designated as the next high priestess.

‘I, I should have stayed with you longer……’

After her elderly mentor died, Casia began performing the role of high priestess from the age of twelve. Perhaps due to the many tasks and their accompanying responsibilities, she always maintained an expressionless face.

“Casia!”

“Crown Prince.”

However, there was someone who could see Casia’s various expressions—Nolen, the crown prince of Sedas. The two had been close since childhood and could be called friends.

“Mother is looking for you.”

“……Are you coming too, Your Highness?”

“Yes. She asked me to come along. Let’s go quickly. I’ll escort you.”

“Th-thank you. It’s an honor, Your Highness.”

“Why so formal between us? Well, I suppose Mother likes you because you’re so polite.”

Casia smiled brightly with slightly flushed cheeks only in front of the crown prince. And even as years passed and they became adults, her demeanor remained the same.

But not Nolen. He smiled in front of Casia, but his cheeks didn’t redden. Nolen’s flushed cheeks belonged to his beautiful fiancée.

After seeing the crown prince kiss his fiancée, Casia hid her unrequited love deep inside. And she focused on her work.

“Congratulations to both of you. May Sedas prosper!”

More time passed. The former king and queen passed away early, and the married crown prince became a young king. His beautiful wife also ascended to the position of queen alongside him.

“Casia. Bestow your blessing on our first child.”

A young crown prince was born. Casia pretended to be unaffected, but she grew thinner day by day. Then one night, after attending a banquet at the palace, she gave in to impulse.

A man with a smile similar to the young king’s. The foreigner boldly committed the sin of mingling with a priestess and then left abruptly.

As she conceived a child, the magnitude of her holy power gradually diminished. As her belly grew, so did the rumors. It was a great sin for a priestess to bear a child. Soon, Casia was dragged before Nolen, who had become king.

“Casia. Is it true that you are with child?”

“……Yes.”

“You have not only failed in your responsibility as a priestess but have also committed a sin. Therefore, I cannot keep you here any longer.”

After confirming the truth, Nolen immediately expelled Casia from the palace. He showed not even a hint of affection. Rather, it was the queen beside the king who sympathized with her.

Casia bit her lip at the sight of the queen’s clear and beautiful face, which showed pity for her. It was miserable. So much that tears came to her eyes.

‘He’s a cold person. But……’

Casia’s feelings for the king had not yet subsided. So, just before being expelled, she warned him.

“You must not have a third child. Your third child will surely be a princess. You know what happens to the princesses of Sedas. The princess will become your great sorrow.”

As someone who had lived as a high priestess, Casia knew better than anyone about the curse on the princesses of Sedas. Moreover, she could vaguely see the future with her power of prophecy.

The third child between the king and queen should not have been born. That child, born as a princess, would become blind like the princesses of previous generations and die early after living a painful life. Casia hoped that her beloved Nolen would not experience the pain of losing someone he loved.

However, the king did not heed her advice. It was understandable since nearly 200 years had passed since a princess was born. The young king dismissed Casia’s words as mere legend.

Casia worried about him, but there was nothing more she could do. Expelled from the palace, she took refuge in a small mountain village. And not long after, a baby girl was born. Casia named her white-haired daughter Alicia.

“Mom! A guest has arrived!”

Time continued to pass. And when Alicia was about eight years old, a visitor came.

“It’s been a while, Casia.”

The king had four children by then. However, Nolen acknowledged only three of them. Casia immediately sensed that the king had come to her because of the princess.

“……I clearly warned you then, Your Highness.”

Casia refused the king’s request to lift the curse that had befallen the princess. The king quietly left after her answer. However, a few days later, Casia faced the king with a dark expression in the darkness, with her daughter held in his grasp.

“Casia. If you want to save your child, heal my daughter.”

The young king of Sedas was trusted by his people for his fairness and justice. But at that moment, he was a demon. Seeing the king’s sword touch her young daughter’s neck, Casia had no choice but to nod.

‘The curse moves quickly.’

Returning to the palace and examining the blind princess, Casia could see that the princess did not have much time left. The curse manifests the moment one becomes blind. At this rate, the princess would not live past ten years of age.

“I cannot heal the princess with my power.”

Casia advised the king with difficulty to accept fate. However, the king could not give up on a daughter he cherished more than his own eyes. The king became a monster and bullied Casia to find a way. He threatened that the moment the princess died, her daughter would be torn to pieces.

While grinding her teeth at the king’s threats, Casia began to search for a method according to his orders. However, the method she found was too terrible and savage.

To break the princess’s curse required a lot of holy power. But in a kingdom where gods had departed, those with holy power were extremely rare. Then there was only one way. She had to use forbidden magic that stole the remaining life force from children with traces of holy power—they are more common than those who possessed it fully—and converted it into holy power.

A task based on the sacrifice of children. Casia shook her head. But when she showed signs of hesitation, the king wounded Alicia’s neck in front of her.

‘No. I can’t let Alicia die.’

Thus, a terrible deed was carried out in the basement of the Hestia Grand Temple. Casia took the lives of at least one and up to five children each week.

In exchange for the children’s lives, the princess grew up brightly. She ran through the garden smiling and grew up without worries in the arms of her parents and brothers.

Meanwhile, Casia’s daughter Alicia was bound to the Hestia Grand Temple like a prisoner. Growing up with orphans without properly seeing her mother, she gradually lost her smile.

‘Let’s stop here. I can’t do more. This is wrong.’

Two years passed. One day, after taking the lives of three children at once, Casia measured the weight of the remaining curse on the princess and thought it was time to stop.

‘If I sacrifice my remaining life……’

The little remaining curse could be resolved through her life and remaining holy power. So Casia informed the king that the princess’s curse was almost over and made a final request.

“Your Highness. Please take care of the remaining children and Alicia.”

The king, who had brought the sleeping princess, nodded. Believing in the man she once loved, Casia smiled and reached out to the princess. And she transferred the princess’s curse to herself using her life and remaining holy power.

Leaving Casia collapsed, the king quickly left with the princess. Casia leaned against the altar where the children had died and called out her daughter’s name.

“Alicia. My child. I’m sorry.”

Apologizing to her daughter who would live without her, Casia was about to close her eyes. But at that moment, acrid smoke entered the basement with a pungent smell.

‘Your Highness. There are disturbing rumors circulating.’

‘Tell me in detail.’

‘They say an unusually high number of children are dying at the Hestia Grand Temple. Some are saying that someone is doing something sinister in the basement……’

The king broke his promise to Casia. He feared that what he had done to lift the princess’s curse might be revealed to the world, and that people would point fingers at the princess.

Under the king’s secret order, the Hestia Grand Temple, or more precisely, the orphanage where the children were kept, was engulfed in flames. Casia ran and ran. From a distance, she heard the children’s screams for help.

“Save us!”

“It’s hot. Waaah! It’s so hot!”

“Ca-Casia! Please get me out of here!”

“I can’t…… I can’t breathe.”

With what feelings had she given up her life? But by the time she reached the room where the children were, it was already too late. Most of the children had collapsed, and the flames had completely blocked the entrance. Even the surviving children stopped moving after gasping for breath. Casia tried to find Alicia among the children. But the high flames blocked her.

The disgusting smell of burning flesh began to emerge. Staring blankly at the h*ll unfolding before her, Casia smirked and at some point began to laugh loudly.

“Ha, haha. Hahahahaha!”

Casia went near a wall that had not yet burned. And she began to draw something there, biting her fingers.

Alicia! That poor child! My daughter whose only sin was having me as a mother! And the children here! These poor children who died for one princess, and who had been imprisoned here until now!

“To die like this……”

The image of her daughter, who had been held captive like a prisoner because of her and died in these flames, was imprinted on her retina. Madness shadowed Casia’s face. Looking at the bizarre magic circle she had completed with flowing blood, she shouted.

“Ruthless king! Princess! Like me! Like my daughter! Like the children here! You should suffer the same! Isn’t that right?”

The magic circle drawn with blood flashed golden. And a certain light returned to Casia from far away. It was part of the last holy power and life she had used on the princess.

She couldn’t retrieve all the power she had given, but this was enough. The princess had not completely erased the curse. So the curse would soon begin again, at least by the time the princess reached the age of twenty. Looking at the light that had returned to her hands, Casia cackled.

She danced in the flames. In her spinning vision, she saw her daughter. Thinking it was her delusion, Casia shouted.

“Alicia. I’m a witch. A witch. How fortunate.”

So don’t worry, Alicia. This mother is a witch and can avenge you.

The flames surrounding Casia made a hissing sound as her tears fell. But soon, the flames consumed Casia’s dress and burned, chewing the flesh within.

* * *

Alicia fixed her eyes on the flames. Her mother was burning alive.

“Mo-Mom! Mom!”

The young girl desperately called for her mother. But her mother, who had become a pillar of fire, did not answer the call. Eventually, Alicia sat down in place and just stared at her mother, who no longer moved.

Tears poured from her large black eyes, which resembled her mother’s. However, the tears, not flowing as much as the magnitude of her sorrow, were useless in the face of the fierce flames.

Bang.

As part of the ceiling fell, burning wood that was turning to ash jumped up. At the same time, sparks from it attacked both of the girl’s eyes.

“Aaagh!”

The motherless girl screamed. And not long after, the Vistius Empire gained one blind but powerful priestess with holy power.

* * *

King of the heretics. Leader of the beasts. Filthy beast that dared to oppose the Goddess of Light, crawling on the ground.

Did you truly lose your memory? Did you really forget all those cloud-like masses who followed and praised you? Have you forgotten the rain of gold and treasures that poured upon you?

Oh, old man who has now become a mere stable boy. One who laughs miserably while licking the soles of the goddess’s servant’s shoes, being hit with horse dung.

Was the holy water, shining with the goddess’s power, a perfect item? Did it cleanse you so thoroughly that it could be called a curse?

Tell me the truth. Do you really remember nothing?

Or perhaps……

Did you deceive everyone by becoming a fanatic of the goddess, merely afraid of bodily pain?

* * *

With a wave of light, everything remaining in the bottle seeped between the lips that had turned black with approaching death.

“Huuh……”

The shadow of death gradually lifted from Yerena’s body. The invader, the deceiver, called her urgently.

“Yerena.”

Not long after, the dead princess of Sedas, or rather, the hidden second daughter of Marquis Rockzenta, moved her closed eyes. And she opened them as her companion, the emperor of the Empire, had so desperately wished.

“Yerena!”

Her sparkling blue eyes were filled only with questions. The pain and suffering had disappeared. The emperor, overcome with emotion, embraced his companion tightly and called her name.

It was the moment the empress of the Empire was born.