I Was Hired by the Black-Minded Prince for My Life's Ransom - Chapter 14

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 14. Shall we spend the night together from now on?
Sp-spend the night… together?!
I couldn’t believe my ears.
Tousled hair, disheveled clothes… cheeks flushed a deep crimson.
The sweet, sticky scent of heavy perfume made my head swim.
For most of my life I’d been confined to a cage, but even I knew what this was.
‘So this is what they call adult seduction….’
[Stop talking nonsense. Throw her out.]
I flinched.
A voice suddenly pierced my ear, and I shrank back, lifting my gaze.
Yurian sat on the bed with not a flicker of expression on his face.
‘Ah… you won’t spend the night with her, then?’
[Have I lost my mind?]
Right, he’d said he didn’t believe in love or anything like that.
At his sweetly severe tone, I bobbed my head.
He disliked that sort of thing.
I’d even wondered if I should seduce him that way myself… thank goodness I won’t have to.
I spread my arms wide to block the woman’s path as she moved toward Yurian.
“Just a moment, miss.”
Her footsteps faltered.
“…What?”
“Well….”
I hesitated.
How was I supposed to escort her out properly?
“It’s just that….”
“If you’ve nothing to say, step aside. I have words for His Highness.”
“Ah. Fortunately, I do have something to say.”
Huh?
The woman gave me a look of utter disbelief.
Ah, so she just meant for me to get out of the way…?
But I couldn’t do that, so there was only one thing left for me to do.
“Because entering the Crown Prince’s chambers uninvited is a crime, you see.”
“You’re the one who opened it for me.”
“Will you come out holding my hand… or would you prefer to be dragged out?”
“W-what? What are you saying right now?”
The woman’s mouth fell open in considerable shock.
Thinking she hadn’t understood, I gave my clenched fist a slight shake.
To convey the idea that if she was dragged out, she might taste the back of this fist.
It was just as her face flushed a deep scarlet that it happened.
“Pfft.”
A low chuckle pierced my ear.
“Huh?”
Your Highness?
Did he just… laugh?
I turned to look back, but Yurian simply rose from his seat as if nothing had occurred, his expression unchanged.
He retrieved a coat and draped it gently across the woman’s shoulders.
“The weather is still cold.”
“Ah….”
“Dressed like that, you’ll catch a chill.”
It was, quite simply, a gentle refusal.
The woman’s eyes widened, then her head dropped sharply.
“It seems I’ve chosen the wrong day. I shall take my leave.”
“Yes. May the blessing of Heaven shine upon you.”
A light farewell, yet ceremonious nonetheless.
Though the woman turned as if unbothered, the chill in her bearing couldn’t be hidden.
I saw it clearly enough in her profile—the way she bit her lip, as if it had all been nothing but performance.
Squeak―
Click.
When the door shut, silence settled over the room.
Yurian’s gentle expression vanished at once.
I asked carefully.
“Is it the second prince again…?”
“Yes. Things didn’t go well today, so he’s taking it out on someone.”
“Really…?”
“He always does.”
The man shrugged and leaned back deep into the bed frame.
“He’s bent on tarnishing my reputation, so this is just an extension of that crusade.”
“Hmm….”
He’s got a narrow mind.
I thought for a moment, then spoke honestly.
“But that excuse seems weak.”
…….
“It won’t hold up.”
Yurian laughed briefly.
“Of course.”
But his eyes turned cold.
“This sort of tactic has never worked before.”
Those icy eyes fixed on the door where the woman had left.
“It will fade soon enough, I expect.”
* * *
‘I miscalculated.’
Yurian rubbed his throbbing temples with the tips of his fingers.
Had he orchestrated this deliberately?
Contrary to his expectation that it would die down quickly, the women returned with relentless persistence.
One day, two days—and then a week.
The nights repeated in a pattern: one would leave, another would arrive.
Those who had at least knocked at first now didn’t even bother.
When he refused to open the door, they forced their way in anyway.
— Your Highness….
— It will only take a moment.
— Just tonight, I beg you…!
How was their repertoire always identical?
The perfume that seeped in every time the door opened made him sick.
But.
“Please return to your chambers, young lady. The night is cold.”
Outwardly, Yurian showed no change whatsoever.
His smile remained as painted and brilliant as ever, his manner as courteous, his demeanor as unbothered.
‘I want to kill them all.’
But inside, everything was different.
The more fury rose to the crown of his head, the more he smiled.
A smile was merely the bare minimum device to conceal one’s teeth.
If he could only demonstrate that he suffered no injury, he could flash that radiant grin as many times as needed.
‘Kitten Oswald….’
The most troublesome of his brothers—the second prince.
He had always regarded Yurian as his greatest rival.
The eldest lay bedridden, the fourth was a drug-addled fool—so it made sense.
Of course, by Yurian’s own standards, Kitten was hardly different from them.
But this time….
‘He’s become tiresome.’
Exceedingly so.
He had never slept well to begin with.
It was said to be congenital.
He had been born incapable of deep sleep from the start.
The younger Yurian had merely found it irritating—or so he’d said back then.
But now, a week without sleeping even an hour, things were different.
A savage hunger clawed at him—sharp and cutting, wanting to rend everything to shreds.
It was then.
“Are you… all right…?”
A small, delicate voice pierced his ear.
It was Vanillin, the pink-clad maid, fidgeting nervously yet persistently hovering at his side.
“No. It’s worse than ever.”
“Ah… I see. That’s bad news, then.”
Yurian’s eyes curved at the sight of the maid awkwardly thumbing upward.
Where on earth had she picked that up from?
The moment he focused, her thoughts poured in unfiltered.
‘He really didn’t sleep. His eyebrows are about twenty degrees angrier than usual.’
‘Oh… he’s tuned back in. Did he read my thoughts?’
‘Yurian is the best! The absolute best! …that should do.’
Truly scattered thoughts.
‘Anyway, I saw it again. Gorgeous women throwing themselves at him like this, and he doesn’t even bite….’
‘So he wasn’t just saying he doesn’t believe in love.’
‘Hmm… but having to weather that kind of bombardment… it’s almost pitiful.’
He read the spinning machinery of her mind for a moment longer, then severed the connection.
Pitiful, she’d called it.
‘Of me?’
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d received such consideration.
Yurian let out a soft laugh.
That he’d come to mistrust love and people had nothing to do with philosophy—it was simply that he’d seen far too many two-faced souls.
His mother alone was proof: she’d whispered love to him even as she hated him.
‘How many assassination attempts did she make?’
He couldn’t quite remember.
Not that he blamed her—she was trying to survive, after all.
But if a mother couldn’t love the child born of her own body, what reason did he have to believe in love at all?
Though to be honest, the real reason was simply that he found it tiresome to bother keeping anyone by his side.
‘But—’
Yurian gazed down at Vanillin steadily.
Hair as soft-looking as cotton candy in that pale pink, and eyes the fresh green of a forest captured whole,
her wide eyes and tiny nostrils giving her the impression of a frightened rabbit.
Perhaps because he could read minds.
But she was different from the rest.
A maid as transparent outside as she was within—hopelessly simple.
Honestly, even without reading her thoughts, everything showed on her face.
Take last time.
— Your Highness. Do you… do you think you might ever come to love me?
She’d come barging in out of nowhere and said something like that.
What made it worse was that she seemed to mean it—Yurian had been utterly baffled.
What in the world was inside this tiny creature’s head?
If he could, he’d crack it open and look.
“Um… Your Highness.”
After fiddling with her fingers for a while, Vanillin looked up at him hesitantly.
“What is it?”
“I have a proposal for you.”
Yurian raised an eyebrow.
“A proposal?”
Intriguing.
What nonsense would she spring on him this time?
“What is it?”
“Well… it’s. Please don’t misunderstand me.”
Blink. Blink.
Her large eyes fluttered once or twice, then fixed upon him bright and clear.
They held not a trace of malice—crystal pure.
“Would you consider… sleeping together from now on?”
“…….”
He said nothing.
A brief, perfect silence fell between them.
Yurian looked down at her.
And spoke.
“Are you in your right mind saying that?”
The impudent little rabbit, once more—
had brought a bomb.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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