I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - Chapter 48

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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 48. My Explanation
It was quite some time before the Second Prince released Yurian.
Only after hearing the Brown-haired Maid’s whispered words—words that came without warning—did the Banishment Order finally fall.
…….
On any other day, he would have noticed something amiss, but today that proved beyond him.
Whatever he thought about, his mind always circled back to Vanillin.
Yurian lowered his gaze.
‘That wasn’t what I meant—but saying so sounds like nothing but excuses.’
Round and round it went, and even now, he found himself thinking of Vanillin again.
He was tired of explaining how it had come to this.
All that remained was her melancholy expression, endlessly resurfacing in his mind.
— Disappointed… is that it?
Remembering her wavering eyes made his mood darken all over again.
When he opened the door, would Vanillin be downcast?
Or would she treat him as though nothing had changed?
Bang.
Yurian opened the door.
And peered inside with something approaching haste.
The room was silent.
The blanket lay neatly spread, and the table with a single yellow rose in a vase remained undisturbed.
In other words, there was no trace of anyone having been there.
“Vanillin.”
Yurian called her name softly.
The one who would normally have come pattering out was nowhere to be found.
Even though he had told her to stay quietly in the room.
‘She’s run away.’
His first thought, absurdly enough, was exactly that.
Had she finally grown so tired of him that she’d fled?
But he realized almost at once that wasn’t it.
There was writing on the napkin atop the table—loose, flowing handwriting.
「Your Highness,
You say you’re looking for me urgently… Could this be a scam or a kidnapping?
It seems like I shouldn’t go, but I’m worried there might be something wrong. After all,
You’re my person too….
I really hope you’re the one calling for me.
If this is a kidnapping, please come save me.
Actually, you don’t have to come. I’ll try to escape on my own.
I’m going now.
— Vanillin —」
“Damn it all.”
He grasped the situation at once.
Why the Second Prince, who seemed to dislike him, had kept him occupied for so long without any real business—and that smirking, stupid expression on the Brown-haired Maid’s face the moment she whispered in his ear.
He had never been the target at all.
They’d merely wanted to buy time to kidnap Vanillin.
“Saying that I’d called for her, as if—”
The paper crumpled in his grip.
Vanillin sometimes appeared scatter-brained, but she was fundamentally quick-witted and perceptive.
She would have recognized the trap.
And yet she had gone.
— Until I call for you, don’t come out.
That single instruction weighed on her mind.
“Ha.”
It was fortunate he’d had her sign the Sacred Contract.
Yurian smiled beautifully as he confirmed Vanillin’s location.
The Capital Outskirts, a villa the Second Prince had purchased years ago.
A place where indulgent parties never ceased.
“Predictable, wouldn’t you say?”
Thinking clearly, stepping foot in that place would be madness on his part.
The moment it became known that he—a man called a Saint—had entered such a location, all the reputation he’d built would crumble.
And the throne itself would slip equally far from his grasp.
Is Vanillin truly worth such a price?
‘…No. Not in the slightest.’
Yurian shook his head without hesitation.
Objectively or politically, neither made a difference.
Vanillin held no such value.
It was only a relationship born from a forced contract to begin with.
‘Then why.’
Click.
Yurian shut the carriage door.
Then he smiled at the coachman.
“Please take me to the address written here.”
Why was he growing impatient, as if he couldn’t bear another moment without bringing Vanillin before his eyes?
Yurian posed the unanswerable question to himself while maintaining a luminous smile.
“As quickly as you can, if you would. I’m in quite a hurry.”
* * *
“…So this is the gift I’ve prepared for you, Your Highness.”
Ta-da.
I gestured proudly with both hands toward the secret passage.
A pale gray stone staircase descending into the underground.
When I pulled the lever, the bookshelf slid leftward, revealing a passage leading down.
It was so deep that the bottom appeared nothing but pitch black.
I’d been heavy-hearted all morning at the thought of disappointing him, but surely this might redeem me somewhat.
…….
Yet Yurian said nothing upon seeing it.
He only furrowed his brow as though troubled.
“Vanillin.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“I’m struggling to find the words.”
The way he exhaled seemed weary.
His gaze swept across every corner of my body.
“Your hair is a mess, and rope marks are scored into your wrists.”
“That’s….”
“And your clothes are caked with soot.”
Ugh.
That was only natural—I’d burned through the rope with matches to escape.
As for my disheveled hair… it must have gotten tangled while they were dragging me here.
I awkwardly averted his gaze and absently combed my fingers through my hair.
They were trivial things, yet I felt oddly exposed, as though he’d glimpsed something private.
“You look like a vagabond, yet you’re standing here grinning brightly. It’s quite vexing.”
“A vagabond….”
“Or shall we say a wild animal instead.”
Ugh.
I disliked that even more.
I pushed out my lower lip.
A vagabond, a wild animal—was that really what one should call a person?
But the way he said it with such a radiant smile left me uncertain whether it was meant kindly or cruelly, so I couldn’t even manage proper indignation.
He sighed.
“You came prepared to be discovered, yet here you are boasting about finding a secret passage.”
“You don’t like it?”
“No. Which is precisely why I can’t be angry.”
Then what was all that before, if not anger?
That puzzled me even more….
I let my lips curl upward awkwardly.
Either way, wasn’t that just another way of saying he approved?
“It’s a decent gift, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.”
“At least it’s not disappointing, surely?”
I spoke with a sheepish smile, and for some reason, he fell silent.
His eyes deepened, a sigh escaped him, and he ran a hand through his hair with evident frustration.
After a moment spent gazing out the window, his attention returned to me.
Then he spoke.
“Were you upset?”
“Pardon?”
“Did my words about disappointment hurt you?”
“I…”
I blinked.
Why was he asking such a thing out of nowhere?
Surely he wasn’t genuinely curious whether I’d felt upset.
My fingers fidgeted.
‘If he’s asking whether I was upset… that would be a lie to deny it.’
But if he’s asking whether I was hurt—
“No, Your Highness. Not that.”
His brow furrowed slightly.
“I was sorry, is all.”
I looked up at him, my eyes wavering a little.
“Sorry?”
“Your Highness doesn’t easily place expectations on others.”
Disappointment only exists where expectation does.
In truth, Yurian never spoke of being disappointed in anyone.
Yet he’d said it to me,
which meant that he—who trusts neither people nor love—had placed even the smallest measure of faith in me.
“I felt I’d failed to repay Your Highness’s trust. So I wanted nothing but to make amends.”
“Trust, you say. Did I do that?”
“You still are.”
I nodded and continued.
“Your Highness never entertained the thought that I might have been bought by the Second Prince.”
……
“That’s why you came to rescue me, isn’t it?”
Speaking the words aloud, I understood them myself.
I’d always believed that given the chance, Yurian would kill me.
So this time too, I’d been certain he would never come.
But I was wrong.
He truly regarded me as his own.
Perhaps it was because of the clauses forbidding betrayal written in that contract… and yet.
“Your Highness placed trust in me.”
Even if only in the smallest measure.
It was something infinitely precious and dear.
All the more so because he trusted neither parent nor sibling, nor anyone at all.
“So I don’t wish to disappoint you.”
……
At my firm answer, he said nothing.
As if turning something over in his mind, or tracing the contours of his own heart.
His rare smile faded, his gaze lowering slightly.
Whissssh—
Wind seeped through the window he’d left open when entering, tousling his platinum hair.
A beauty so striking it made one forget the circumstances entirely.
I found myself staring, my mind half-gone.
His full lips parted slowly.
“I was not disappointed.”
Eyes the color of custard cream, gazing at me with absolute directness.
Trapped in their depths, I couldn’t move, could only blink.
“What?”
“That was a slip of the tongue.”
He stepped closer.
“I didn’t know what to say all this while, but thanks to you, it’s become clear.”
A scent both crisp and sweet drifted toward me.
It was dangerous. Though I couldn’t say why.
When I retreated a step, he advanced again, closing the distance once more.
“Before I came here, I asked if you were angry.”
“Yes…”
“I wasn’t angry, nor was I disappointed. I simply—”
His face wore an unfamiliar softness, stripped of all levity as he confessed.
“I was worried about you, Vanillin.”

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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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