I Was Hired by the Black-Minded Prince for My Life's Ransom - Chapter 56

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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 56. A Rational Salvation
‘Follow you?’
Why did the light seem so blinding?
As if seeing a halo that didn’t exist, I blinked slowly, as though spellbound.
‘How could….’
How could he speak such words so casually?
His single sentence pierced straight through my heart.
Thump-thump—my chest hammered in my ears.
Not excitement, not falling in love.
Nothing so soft and sentimental as that.
If I had to name it, I’d call it a natural disaster.
[We’re getting separated. Shall we move again?]
Yurian glanced at the Suspicious Person, then turned back around.
His neat silhouette moved forward without hesitation.
As though those words had meant nothing to him at all.
‘Your Highness.’
Grip.
By the time I came to myself, my hand had already moved.
My fingers caught the hem of his coat.
I couldn’t let go—instead, I tightened my grip carefully.
Yurian, who had been about to take a step, stopped.
His calm eyes looked down at me with a question in them.
The moment I met that gaze, the feelings I’d been holding back came surging up to my throat.
[What is it?]
I know we need to chase down that Suspicious Person.
But I already know where he’s headed anyway.
I can’t bear not asking this now.
If I don’t, it’ll stay with me—unbearable.
I stepped closer to him and lifted my head.
‘Why do you speak as though you’ll be by my side forever…?’
My grip tightened a little more.
‘There’s no need for me to worry? You’ll sort everything out for me?’
My brows drew downward in a frown.
Wasn’t it unfair to say such things so easily?
‘What happens after you’re gone?’
You’re not actually going to stay by my side forever.
‘We’re just a contract relationship, after all.’
There was nothing permanent in my world.
I had no memory of my parents’ faces, and my brother—the only family I had—left this world when I was barely five.
Dai died too, but he was never someone I could truly rely on in the first place.
In other words, I’ve always been alone.
But if he speaks that way—as if he’ll do anything at all, just follow me—
‘I’ll start to depend on you….’
I want to pretend I don’t see it, to cling to his back like a fool.
Don’t I want to hide behind those broad shoulders?
And yet I’ll end up alone anyway.
[…….]
A silence stretched between us.
He looked down at me without speaking.
His gaze felt heavy, so I bowed my head, pretending not to notice.
I shouldn’t have said anything.
This wasn’t something I should have brought up.
My eyes dropped to my feet.
Should I ask him to let it go, to treat it as something I said without thinking?
Just as my thoughts began to tangle, he spoke.
[Then simply don’t disappear.]
His tone was matter-of-fact.
As if this wasn’t even worth discussing… no.
More precisely, his voice was calm—the way someone states an obvious truth.
‘Pardon?’
I stared at him with a vacant expression.
Yurian glanced down at the hem of his robe caught in my grip, then turned his gaze forward again as if nothing had happened.
As though confirming the Suspicious Person hadn’t yet left his line of sight came first.
Then he continued speaking in measured tones.
[I’ve looked into the Sacred Contract a bit more.]
‘…….’
[The Contract Bound Person ends their life the moment the Contract Partner—the Royal Blood—dies, or so I’m told.]
‘……What?’
I blinked.
For a moment, my thoughts came to a standstill.
‘What does that even mean right now….’
[In other words.]
Yurian paused briefly to choose his words, then delivered the conclusion with surgical precision.
[There is no possibility of my ceasing to exist before Vanillin does.]
‘…….’
[At least not while Vanillin is alive.]
His tone was steady and dispassionate—as though he were discussing the weather, without a flicker of emotion.
I forgot to answer and merely gazed up at him, dazed.
It wasn’t meant as comfort, nor was it hollow reassurance.
He was simply stating a fact.
And yet, strangely, it brought more peace than any consolation ever could.
The discomfort that had been pressing down on one corner of my heart seemed, somehow, to lighten.
‘Then… can I keep going?’
I swallowed.
Each word came together with difficulty.
‘Can I… keep following you?’
That the day he died would be the day I died as well.
Which meant, in another sense, that he would exist throughout every day I remained alive.
Like my parents, like my brother… or like Dai, he would never vanish from my life. Forever.
[You haven’t understood.]
A gaze both tender and indifferent ensnared me.
[It’s not a matter of whether you can or cannot. Vanillin has no choice in this.]
‘Then…?’
[You must follow me. Without exception.]
Was this imprisonment? Or was it bondage?
My soul had been made subject to him, and now my very life depended on his—it was undeniably an unfair contract.
Yet why did I feel so free?
An indescribable mass of emotion rose and stirred in my throat.
Tears threatened to spill.
‘Then you won’t abandon me even if I become a burden?’
[Your complaints have grown worse.]
‘Even if you come to hate me, will you keep me by your side?’
[Vanillin.]
He looked down at me with that beautiful face of his, as he always did.
[Vanillin is mine.]
‘…….’
[And I have never let go of anything I’ve held in my hand.]
I was utterly defeated.
He hadn’t attempted to persuade me at all.
He offered no comfort, no sweet words of encouragement.
And yet I felt rescued.
That shallow belief—that nothing in this world is eternal.
That fragile certainty—that I would eventually be alone.
He had denied all of it.
Without a single tender word.
[Shall we go now? Enough pouting for one day.]
He extended his hand to me.
I looked down at his long, slender fingers stretched toward me.
This is dangerous.
If this hand truly feels like a message of salvation….
If that man wearing the mask of a saint truly felt like a saint to me.
‘Then my eyes must be broken, that’s all.’
Even so.
“Yes, let’s go quickly.”
I gladly grasped that cold yet warm hand in both of mine.
What did it matter?
Whatever happened, I was his.
* * *
After confirming that the Suspicious Person had climbed the staircase leading to Kyle’s office, we made our way toward another exit nearby.
It apparently led to a storage room on the second floor.
Perhaps that’s why it seemed there were twice as many stairs.
“Sigh… finally, we made it….”
I leaned weakly against the wall and pulled the lever set into it.
Creeeeak—
As the door swung open, a cloud of pale dust billowed in all at once.
“Ah… ah… achoo…!”
“I anticipated as much.”
Yurian gazed down at me with elegant grace, waving away the dust with a hand fan.
“It never ceases to amaze me—how consistently noisy you manage to be.”
“Ugh….”
I sniffled and bowed my head apologetically.
“My apologies….”
“As I always say, that was not a compliment.”
“But you’ve never said that before, and honestly, that’s too much… achoo!”
I raised my hand to wipe away the tears that had pooled in my eyes from the dust, muttering in protest.
Or rather, I meant to raise it.
If his hand hadn’t risen along with mine.
“Oh.”
My right hand, and another hand loosely wrapped around it.
‘Now that I think about it… he still hasn’t let go.’
As I stared blankly down at our intertwined hands, his gaze followed mine.
Then settled on our joined fingers.
A moment of silence stretched between us.
I pressed my lips together, suddenly bashful.
I hadn’t been aware of it while climbing those endless stairs—so exhausted was I.
But now that I’d noticed, I didn’t know what to do.
My fingertips felt strangely warm.
“Are you feeling better now?”
he asked calmly.
Now that I thought about it, that’s why he’d taken my hand—because I’d suddenly grown melancholy.
I blinked.
‘If I say I’m still not feeling well, will he keep holding my hand…?’
I fidgeted slightly with my fingers.
It might be greed, but I didn’t want to let go yet.
“You’re still not well.”
“Well, it’s….”
“Vanillin. Speak plainly.”
That’s not quite it.
I looked back and forth between our clasped hands and his face.
“You see, Your Highness.”
“Yes.”
“So about this hand….”
I feel fine, but I’d like to keep holding it a little longer.
The words that had been circling in my mouth had just reached the threshold of my throat.
“Nobody move!”
Beyond the door.
A thunderous roar erupted from the Party Hall.
“Hand over your money if you want to live. If you don’t, I’ll burn this whole building to the ground!”

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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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