I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - 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?
S-spending the night… together?!
I doubted my own ears.
Tousled hair, disheveled clothing… cheeks flushed a deep crimson.
The sweet, sticky scent of heavy perfume seemed to cloud my mind.
Though I’d spent most of my life confined, I knew enough to recognize this.
‘So this is what adult seduction looks like….’
[Don’t talk nonsense. Show her out.]
I flinched.
At the voice that suddenly pierced my ear, I shrank back and looked up.
Yurian sat on the bed, his expression utterly unchanged.
‘Ah… you won’t spend the night with her, then?’
[Have I gone mad?]
Right. He’d said he didn’t believe in love or such things.
At his bittersweet tone, I nodded.
So he didn’t care for that sort of thing.
I’d been wondering if I should try seducing him that way too… thank goodness.
I stepped forward and spread both arms to block the woman’s path to Yurian.
“Just a moment, Young Noblewoman.”
Her footsteps faltered.
“…What?”
“Well….”
I hesitated.
How could I get her out of here gracefully?
“It’s just that….”
“If you’ve nothing to say, step aside. I have business with His Highness.”
“Ah. As it happens, I do have something to say.”
Huh?
The Young Noblewoman shot me a look of utter disbelief.
Oh, had she just meant for me to move…?
But I couldn’t do that, so there was only one thing left for me to do.
“Entering the Prince’s Chamber like this without permission is a crime, you see.”
“But you opened the door for me.”
“Would you like to leave holding my hand… or shall I drag you out?”
“What, what? What are you saying?”
The Young Noblewoman’s mouth fell open in shock.
Wondering if she hadn’t understood, I gave my clenched fist a slight shake.
The gesture carried a clear implication: if dragged out, she might just feel what this fist could do.
That was precisely when her face flushed an even deeper red.
“Pfft.”line>
A low chuckle drifted past my ear.

“Hm?”
His Highness?
Did he just laugh?
I turned back, but Yurian rose from his seat as though nothing had happened, his expression entirely composed.
He retrieved a Coat and draped it gently across the Young Noblewoman’s shoulders.
“It’s still cold out, after all.”
“Ah….”
“If you go out dressed like that, you’ll catch a chill.”
It was a remarkably tactful refusal.
The Young Noblewoman’s eyes widened, then her gaze fell abruptly.
“I seem to have chosen the wrong day. I shall take my leave.”
“Yes. May the blessings of heaven attend you.”
A light farewell, yet gracious nonetheless.
The woman turned to go without apparent emotion, but the cold undercurrent that clung to her was unmistakable.
Because I saw clearly the way her lips tightened—as though all of it had been an act.
Creak―
Click.
As the door shut, silence descended.
Yurian’s affable expression vanished at once.
I asked carefully.
“Is it the second prince again…?”
“Yes. Things didn’t go well for him today, so he’s venting his frustrations.”
“Oh… really?”
“He always does.”
The man shrugged and sank deeper into the bed frame.
“He’s obsessed with tarnishing my reputation, so this is just another extension of that vendetta.”
“Hmm….”
How petty.
I thought for a moment, then spoke honestly.
“But that won’t work very well.”
…….
“It doesn’t seem like it will.”
Yurian laughed quietly.
“Of course it won’t.”
But his eyes turned cold.
“It never has before.”
His chilling gaze fixed on the door where she had left.
“It will die out soon enough, most likely.”
* * *
‘I misjudged this.’
Yurian rubbed his aching temples with his fingertips.
Had they resolved to persist this time?
Contrary to his expectation that it would fade quickly, the women came relentlessly.
One day, two days—and then a week.
The nights repeated their pattern: one would leave, and another would arrive.
Those who had knocked at first now didn’t knock at all.
When he wouldn’t open the door, they forced their way in regardless.
— Your Highness….
— Just a moment.
— Just tonight, please…!
How could they all use the exact same lines?
The sickly-sweet perfume that seeped in each time the door opened made him want to retch.
And yet.
“Return to your quarters, Young Noblewoman. The night is cold.”
To all appearances, Yurian remained utterly unchanged.
He still wore that brilliantly crafted smile, still spoke with courtesy, still seemed utterly unaffected.
‘I want to kill them all.’
His true feelings were entirely different.
The hotter his rage burned to the crown of his head, the more he smiled.
A smile was merely the smallest mechanism to hide one’s teeth.
So long as he could prove he hadn’t been wounded at all, he could smile brilliantly again and again.
‘Kitten Oswald….’
The second prince—the most tiresome of his brothers.
Kitten had always regarded Yurian as his greatest rival.
The first was bedridden, the fourth was a drug-addled fool—understandable enough.
Though by Yurian’s own measure, they were scarcely more impressive.
But this time….
‘It’s unbearable.’
Profoundly so.
He had never slept well to begin with.
They said it was congenital.
He’d been born incapable of falling into deep sleep.
Back then, Yurian had merely found it irritating—
But now, a week into not sleeping a single hour, the matter stood entirely different.
A vicious hunger burned through him, sharp and feral, desperate to tear everything to shreds.
It was then.
“Are you… all right…?”
A small, gentle voice pierced through his thoughts.
It was Vanillin, the pink-clad maidservant, fidgeting nervously beside him.
“No. It’s worse than ever.”
“Ah… yes. That does sound like bad news.”
Watching the maid hold up her thumb awkwardly, Yurian’s eyes curved with amusement.
Where on earth had she picked up such a gesture.
The moment he focused his attention, her thoughts flooded in unfiltered.
‘He really didn’t sleep. His eyebrows are about twenty degrees angrier than usual.’
‘Oh… he’s back. Did he read my mind?’
‘Prince Yurian is the best! Absolutely the best! …That should do it.’
Truly chaotic thoughts.
‘Anyway, I’m seeing it again. I’ve never seen beauties try to seduce him like this and he just doesn’t bite….’
‘I guess it wasn’t just talk when he said he doesn’t believe in love.’
‘Hmm… but to be subjected to such overwhelming advances like that, it’s almost pitiful.’
After reading the thoughts spinning busily in her own head, he severed the connection.
Pitiful, she said.
‘Am I the pitiful one.’
He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been treated with such sentiment.
Yurian let out a soft laugh.
He had come to distrust love and people alike because he’d seen too many whose words and deeds never matched.
Take his mother alone—she whispered endearments while hating him in the same breath.
‘How many assassination attempts have I survived.’
He couldn’t even recall them all clearly.
Well, she was only trying to survive, so he didn’t consider it wrong, but…
When a mother won’t love the child she bore with her own flesh and blood, what reason could he have to believe in love.
Of course, the real reason was that he found it tedious to seek out someone to keep by his side.
‘And yet—’
Yurian gazed down at Vanillin with a steady, lingering look.
Cotton-candy-soft pink hair, emerald eyes as fresh as a forest set within them—
with her large eyes and small nose, she had the look of a frightened rabbit.
Perhaps it was because he could read her heart.
She alone was different somehow.
A maid as transparent as she was clumsy, both in deed and in spirit.
Honestly, there was no need to read her mind; everything showed plainly on her face.
Just look at last time.
— Your Highness. Do you think you might ever come to love me…?
She had marched straight in and said something like that, of all things.
And since it seemed like she genuinely meant it, Yurian had found the whole thing utterly absurd.
What on earth could be inside this tiny creature’s head.
If he could, he’d like to split it open and look inside.
“Um… Your Highness.”
Vanillin, who had been fiddling with her fingers for some time, looked up at him hesitantly.
“What is it.”
“I have a proposal for you.”
Yurian lifted his eyebrows.
“A proposal, you say.”
It intrigued him.
What nonsense would she spring on him this time to catch him off guard.
“What is it?”
“It’s… well. Please don’t misunderstand.”
Blink, blink.
Her large eyes fluttered several times before fixing on him with perfect clarity.
It was a gaze utterly devoid of malice toward him—clear as spring water.
“Would you perhaps consider sleeping together from now on?”
“…….”
He fell silent.
A brief, but absolutely perfect silence flowed between them.
Yurian gazed down at her.
And he spoke.
“Are you in your right mind saying something like that?”
The impertinent rabbit, once more.
Had brought him 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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