I Was Hired by the Black-Minded Prince for My Life's Ransom - Chapter 50

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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 50. Were you… back then?
The voice trailed off desperately, as though it might break at any moment.
“Please, save me, please…!”
Thump-thump.
Listening closely, I heard a metallic clang accompanying the sound.
It seemed like someone was striking the iron bars to send a signal.
Was this really the Slave Market?
If not that… a ghost?
A chill crept down my spine, and I clasped my hands together, pressing myself against Yurian’s back.
“Your Highness, did you hear that?”
“I did.”
“It’s not a ghost, is it?”
“A ghost wouldn’t beg to be saved.”
“Well, that’s true…”
I felt foolish and rubbed the back of my head.
Yurian’s calm composure was so complete that it steadied me as well.
I looked up at him cautiously.
“Shouldn’t we go check, then?”
There might be a slave trapped down there.
Yet Yurian’s expression remained unmoved.
“Do you wish to go? There seems little reason for it.”
He withdrew his gaze from the corridor leading to the Detention Cell, utterly indifferent.
As though he’d heard nothing at all.
Caught off guard by his response, I blinked.
“Little reason…?”
“Human testimony is worth far less than one might think.”
Yurian turned his attention calmly toward the direction of the Director’s Office.
“The frightened lie, the coerced betray, and the tortured simply give the answer their captor wishes to hear.”
……
“What I need is not testimony, but evidence. So if a Director’s Office or Record Storage exists, those would be far more valuable.”
Even in a situation where someone might be calling for help, his eyes remained utterly cold.
It was the calm voice of one reciting something already confirmed countless times over.
Trust records over words, results over emotion.
That had always been Yurian’s way of acting.
I fell silent.
He wasn’t wrong, to be honest.
Though Yurian acted so casually that I’d forgotten, he was essentially walking willingly into a trap.
The Second Prince was no fool.
He surely had eyes on Yurian already.
It would be child’s play for him to discover that Yurian had come here.
So before being caught in any more snares, finding the Director’s Office to gather ammunition against the Second Prince was indeed the right move.
But I couldn’t ignore someone begging to be saved, either.
“Then…”
I paused a moment before speaking.
“What if we split up for now?”
That did seem like the best option.
It would save time, and more importantly, if there really was someone in there, I ought to at least confirm it.
“I’ll check the Detention Cell. You go ahead to the Director’s Office first, Your Highness.”
To catch both rabbits, we needed to move faster.
At this point, he’d surely agree and let me go.
“It won’t take long to confirm one person anyway.”
We might even find new evidence of the Second Prince’s crimes down there. It was the right choice.
At least, that’s what I thought.
“Haha.”
Yurian laughed.
It was far more beautiful than usual—a smile like a flower blooming in full.
Wait…?
I instinctively stepped back.
An alarm bell rang in my mind.
“Your Highness?”
“So you’re telling me to go alone right now?”
That smile he showed whenever his mood turned foul.
A chill ran down my spine.
‘What’s the problem?’
The Detention Cell and the Slave Market weren’t that far apart.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to split up for a while?
But at my bewildered response, Yurian closed his eyes as if he found it unbearable.
“I searched for you and came all this way.”
“…….”
“And now you’re saying you’ll leave me behind again.”
His eyes, darkened with intensity, turned toward me.
“Are you asking me to lose you once more?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again.
The way he said it—it sounded as though he truly feared losing me, which couldn’t possibly be true.
Every time he showed me fragments of emotion, I found it unbearable, so strange and unfamiliar.
“Sigh… my head aches.”
He drew his hair back with a light frown, pressing his fingers to his brow.
Then he extended his hand toward me.
“You brought it, didn’t you.”
“Yes? Ah… yes.”
“Give it to me.”
He took the Herbal Cigarette from my hands almost roughly.
Placing it between his lips, he brought it to the flame of a candle.
The red glow of the fire cast dancing shadows across his face.
He exhaled.
Gray smoke poured from his lips as he breathed out.
The haze that drifted around him dissipated into the air, mingling with the rest.
It was an otherworldly, dreamlike sight.
A cigarette, of all things, for this man.
“If you’re that curious, you should look for yourself.”
After exhaling smoke once more, he turned on his heel and walked ahead.
Not toward the Director’s Office marked by the puppy symbol, but in the direction of the Detention Cell indicated by the fish marking.
I blinked, finally breaking free from my daze.
“Wait—are you coming with me?”
He wasn’t stopping me from going?
“What were you listening to all this time?”
He tapped the ash from his cigarette.
Holding the smoke between his lips, he glanced back at me.
“Better I go with you than leave you alone.”
“Uh…”
“Come along quickly.”
I said nothing as I watched him stride forward with his long legs.
For some reason, my heart fluttered.
I could attach any number of reasons to it—it was for safety, he was merely checking himself out of irritation—but…
For once, all those excuses rang hollow.
I hurried to fall in step beside him.
“Your Highness.”
“What is it.”
“You really are a good person.”
Seeing his expression turn baffled, I laughed despite myself.
Looking up at him, my eyes widened.
“Actually, Your Highness might really be a saint.”
“Didn’t you just call me petty a moment ago?”
“…That’s a separate matter.”
“You’re not denying it.”
I laughed again.
Now I couldn’t deny it anymore.
That he had become more than simply my master.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Please, I’m begging you.”
“I won’t let you down!”
“Very well.”
A Master-Servant Relationship bound by a Forced Contract.
The desperate struggle to survive had to be set aside for now.
This was the moment I truly accepted him as my master.
* * *
The Detention Cell was closer than I expected.
Following the fish markings and turning a corner or two, thick iron doors soon came into view.
A row of cells stretched along the walls.
The only opening to the interior was a narrow window through which a face could barely be seen.
Of course, even that was fitted with tightly spaced iron bars.
“Save me, please!”
The cry came from the innermost cell.
A man gripped the iron bars, shaking them desperately.
His face was buried beneath stubble, and his clothes hung in tatters.
His cheeks had grown hollow—the mark of a long imprisonment.
“Hm…?”
I blinked.
I knew that face.
I’d seen it before somewhere, but who was he?
“Please, save me! I’ve done nothing wrong—!”
The man’s desperate gaze fixed on us—no, not us.
Precisely on Yurian.
His eyes went wide as if a corpse had suddenly sprung back to life.
“Yurian…?”
The man, who had stood dazed for a moment, lunged at the bars.
“Yurian!”
Bang!
The iron bars shook violently.
His face blazed with joy.
It was the expression of a man who had finally found his salvation.
“Yurian, do you remember me? It’s me—from that time at the Hunting Grounds!”
The Hunting Grounds.
The moment he spoke those words, the memory crashed back.
“Ah!”
That’s right—the man who tried to kill Yurian before!
The one who received an assassination contract from the Second Prince and attacked so brazenly.
“You’re that person from back then—!”
“Yes, that maid! That’s me!”
Why was he saying that with such pride? He’d just admitted to being a failed assassin.
I stared at him in disbelief.
But the man seemed oblivious to my expression.
His gaze was fixed solely on Yurian.
“Please let me out, Yurian. I’m dying in here…”
“Is that so.”
“I haven’t seen sunlight in months. They hardly feed me at all…!”
“I see.”
He exhaled a long plume of smoke from his Herbal Cigarette, his gaze sweeping slowly across the man’s face.
His lips curved with habitual gentleness.
A compassionate, tender smile—the kind anyone would recognize as coming from a saint.
He smiled faintly and spoke.
“Resilient of you to survive this long.”

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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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