I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - Chapter 43

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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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Chapter 43. That Pink-Haired One
For a moment, my mind went blank.
‘He’s asking Your Highness for me?’
I blinked.
‘I’m not an object.’
I couldn’t begin to understand what he meant by such a question.
“What do you…?”
“Ha, I suppose that was an odd question, wasn’t it?”
The man laughed.
Then he suddenly bowed his head.
“Cough, cough!”
“…! Are you all right?”
I startled forward a step.
It seemed he’d drawn breath too sharply all at once.
A bloodless hand covered his mouth.
The coughing fit stretched on and on.
With each heave of his gaunt frame, he looked as though he might collapse at any moment.
The First Prince finally steadied his breathing and lowered his handkerchief.
A faint smile bloomed across his pallid face.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
He regarded me quietly.
His gaze—appraising, deliberate—lingered across my features and along my neck before slowly withdrawing.
Something felt off.
Though I’d done nothing remarkable, an inexplicable chill crept down my spine.
“It’s simply that I find you a little compelling.”
The man spoke softly.
“It’s been so long since I’ve had a conversation with someone. And it’s been even longer since I’ve spent time in such pleasant company.”
“Ah….”
I swallowed my words.
Even accounting for that, there was something more—something I couldn’t quite name.
Difficult to explain, but the feeling was distinctly different.
Yet the First Prince offered nothing further.
He simply leaned back in his chair and smiled gently.
“Forgive me. I’ve said something unnecessary.”
His blue eyes curved slowly.
“Then let’s meet again next time, Vanillin.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
What was I supposed to do in a situation like this?
I bowed and turned to leave.
Even as I walked the corridor beyond the Archive Room, my unease refused to settle.
‘Ugh… my head’s spinning.’
Was everyone in House of Oswald like this—so cryptic and unsettling and strange?
As I walked the hallway, I found myself constantly aware of the space behind me.
As though someone were watching me still.
* * *
Meanwhile.
Second Prince Kitten Oswald was in a state of considerable rage.
“Damn him!”
Crash!
An expensive flower vase shattered against the wall into fragments.
Already the dozens.
Five years’ wages for an ordinary commoner lay in ruins.
The servants held their breath, waiting for him to calm.
Yet his fury only swelled with each passing moment.
“What? A mine discovered in Valenta? Monthly revenues anticipated at three thousand Gold?”
Bang!
He roared in wrath and kicked the mahogany desk aside.
A chaotic shower of papers scattered across the floor.
“I gave him the most useless land, and he manages to unearth treasure from it?”
“Your… Your Highness….”
“Why does God favor such wretches, hmm? Am I not pitiful enough?”
The attendants trembled with their heads bowed.
The office had already become a complete wreck.
No one dared speak.
Their master had been in this state ever since yielding the island of Valenta.
How much longer would he rage today?
All of them were shaking with one mind and one heart when it happened.
Knock, knock.
A measured knock echoed through the office interior.
The Second Prince turned his head with a sinister expression.
“What is it? If you value your life, get out of here at once—!”
“It’s me, Kitten.”
Creak.
The man who opened the door and stepped inside was pale and sickly.
A wretch so frail he couldn’t walk properly on his own strength and had to rely on a cane at all times.
“Brother.”
It was Nike Oswald.
As always, he wore silver-rimmed spectacles. He surveyed the office and then settled calmly onto the sofa.
“How are matters proceeding?”
“If you’ve come to spout nonsense, leave.”
Kitten openly twisted his expression and hurled the object he’d been gripping carelessly.
Thud!
A desk clock the size of a fist whistled past Nike’s cheek.
A thin line of red traced across his cheek.
Blood trickled out.
Nike sighed.
The attendants, who had barely been breathing, hurried over and wiped the blood away.
“You seem to regret Valenta Island greatly.”
“How could I not regret it? It was my land in the first place.”
“Then you should have been more careful not to be caught in a trap.”
Cough, cough.
His coughing gave way to a quiet, composed voice.
Twitch. One of Kitten’s eyebrows jerked.
His mouth twisted savagely.
“What did you just say…?”
Seize!
Kitten grabbed Nike by the collar.
The atmosphere turned sinister in an instant.
Yet Nike’s demeanor remained unchanged.
“Using such a half-baked ploy as an engagement only brought the wind back on you.”
“Should I make it so you can’t walk at all, brother? Hmm? I can do that easily enough if that’s what you want.”
“I would have done differently.”
……
That damnable ghost of a man—what does he know, running his mouth like that?
Kitten swallowed the burning mass of anger rising from his gut.
First Prince Nike Oswald was a defective wretch who could never compete for the Imperial Succession anyway.
A pitiful prince whose face everyone had now forgotten.
The First Prince’s Palace was so poorly maintained it was shameful to even call it a palace, crumbling into disrepair, and Nike within it merely endured in illness, never once properly attending a state council meeting.
“You should have died in the Fifth Subsidiary Palace, brother.”
A pitiful man.
What good was it to merely survive the curse that had ravaged the Fifth Subsidiary Palace?
He lived every day with the agony of his body being torn into thousands of pieces as an aftereffect.
Kitten deliberately split his lips wide in a sneer.
“You know your place, don’t you?”
You, trying to curry favor with me just to keep yourself alive.
“Don’t lose your head and say things you shouldn’t again—or you’ll brush with death once more.”
……
Nike closed his mouth quietly.
But not out of fear.
He merely observed Kitten from a distance, watching him dispassionately.
“You’ve angered me quite a bit.”
Cough, cough.
He tilted his head, coughing.
Even with his collar seized by Kitten, who was considerably larger, he showed no sign of fear.
Only a perfect calm.
“……Ha.”
Kitten had never cared for that about him.
As if this were nothing compared to the suffering he himself endured, meeting those steady eyes fixed upon him kindled an inexplicable irritation.
Tap, tap.
Nike gave Kitten’s knuckles a light rap, a gesture to release him.
“I didn’t come here to fight, so rest easy. I came today because of the third one.”
“…Urian, that wretched bastard?”
“Mm. I happened to meet an interesting child today.”
As the subject shifted, the atmosphere transformed as if it had never been tense.
This was a trait peculiar to those who carried the blood of House of Oswald.
They had no brothers, no family.
Only enemies.
And so, when speaking of another enemy, they could smile freely and clasp hands without hesitation.
Kitten’s brow twitched.
“An interesting child?”
“A handmaid in Urian’s personal service, they say.”
“…Ah, that pretty pink-haired one.”
Kitten released his grip on Nike’s collar.
Then, with a soft thud, he settled down.
He sat across from Nike.
He’d seen that handmaid a few times himself.
She was always trailing after that wretched Urian, so it was impossible not to notice her.
Nike calmly adjusted his clothes and leaned back against the sofa.
“Does Urian care for her greatly?”
“That saint—is there any human he doesn’t care for?”
“True enough.”
Wind drifted in through the window.
His snow-white hair swayed slightly.
Cough, cough.
Nike held the handkerchief that Vanillin had given him and coughed several times.
As expected, a pleasant fragrance lingered.
A scent he favored.
He rather liked it.
“Kitten, about that plan you devised.”
That was why he’d dragged his ailing body all the way here.
Nike’s pale blue eyes turned toward Kitten with calm deliberation.
“How about we make some adjustments?”
“Adjustments, you say.”
“Yes.”
He lifted the corner of his mouth without warmth, roughly.
“I’ve taken a liking to that handmaid.”
So then.
“Let’s use her when we strike at the third.”
The handmaid’s thin, fluffy pink hair came to mind unbidden.
‘It’s not a color I particularly favor.’
When he brought her here, he’d have her dye it first.
And keep her at his side every day.
Nike smiled gently.
“To topple the third, it’s far more effective to strike what he holds dear than to strike him directly.”

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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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