I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - 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 there at that time…?
The voice trailed off desperately, as though it might break at any moment.
“Please, save me! Please, I’m begging you…!”
Thud. Thud.
When I listened carefully, the sound of metal clanging came through as well.
It seemed like someone was striking the bars to send a signal.
Could this really be the Slave Market?
If not that… a ghost?
A chill ran 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, would it?”
“Well, that’s true enough….”
I felt a bit foolish and reached back to rub the nape of my neck.
Perhaps because Yurian remained so unruffled, I found myself growing calm as well.
I looked up at him cautiously.
“Shouldn’t we go check?”
It could be a slave trapped somewhere.
Yet Yurian’s expression remained unmoved.
“Do you wish to go? I don’t see that there’s any real need.”
He turned his gaze away from the corridor leading to the Confinement Cell without any particular interest.
He looked like someone who hadn’t heard a thing.
I blinked at the unexpected response.
“No need…?”
“Human testimony is far less valuable than one might think.”
Yurian regarded the direction leading to the Manager’s Office with perfect composure.
“The frightened man lies, the corrupted man betrays, and the tortured man simply gives the answer his captor wishes to hear.”
……
“What I need is not testimony—it is evidence. So if a Manager’s Office or Ledger Storage exists here, that would be far more worthwhile.”
Even in a situation where someone might be crying out for help, his eyes remained utterly indifferent.
His voice was calm, as though reciting a fact he had already confirmed countless times.
He trusted records over words, results over emotions.
It had always been Yurian’s way of proceeding.
I closed my mouth.
To be honest, he wasn’t wrong.
Because Yurian acted so naturally, I had forgotten—but he had essentially walked straight into a trap of his own accord.
The Second Prince was not a fool.
He would certainly have eyes watching Yurian.
Discovering that he had come here would be child’s play.
So before we gave him any more ammunition, finding something to strike back with meant going to the Manager’s Office was the right call.
But I couldn’t simply ignore that voice pleading for life.
“Then….”
I hesitated for a moment before speaking.
“Should we split up for a while?”
This really did seem like the best option.
We’d save time… and besides, if there really was someone in there, we ought to at least check.
“I’ll look into the Confinement Cell. You go to the Manager’s Office first.”
To catch both rabbits, we had no choice but to move faster.
At this level, surely he would accept it and let me go.
“It won’t take long to confirm one person anyway.”
We might even discover new misconduct by the Second Prince over there, making this the right choice.
I was certain of it, or so I thought….
“Haha.”
Yurian laughed.
It was far more beautiful than usual—a smile that bloomed like a flower.
Huh…?
I instinctively stepped back.
Warning bells screamed in my head.
“Your Highness?”
“So you’re telling me to go alone right now?”
That smile—the one he showed whenever his mood darkened to its depths.
A chill ran down my spine.
‘What’s the problem?’
The Confinement Cell and the auction house weren’t that far apart.
Wouldn’t it be more efficient to split up for a while?
But seeing my bewilderment, Yurian closed his eyes as though even more exasperated.
“I came all the way here searching for you.”
“…….”
“And now you’re asking me to stay behind alone.”
His eyes darkened as they fixed on me.
“Are you trying to make me lose you all over again?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I started to answer but closed my mouth instead.
Speaking like that—it sounded as though he was afraid of losing me, which couldn’t possibly be true.
Every time he showed me even a fragment of feeling, it unsettled me unbearably.
“Sigh… my head aches.”
He furrowed his brow faintly and swept back his hair.
Then he extended his hand toward me.
“You brought the medicinal herb, yes?”
“Yes? Ah… yes.”
“Give it to me.”
He took the Medicinal Herb Cigarette from my fingers almost forcefully.
He brought it to his lips and held it to the candlelight.
The shadow of the crimson flame danced across his face, brightening it.
Exhale.
As he breathed out, gray smoke billowed forth.
The haze that had circled thinly around him dispersed into the air and vanished.
It was a strange, dreamlike sight.
Cigarettes—for a man like him.
“If you’re so curious, you should go and see for yourself. What else can you do?”
After exhaling smoke once more, he turned first toward the door.
Not toward the Manager’s Office marked with the Dog Mark, but toward the Confinement Cell indicated by the Fish Mark.
I blinked, having stood transfixed watching him.
“You’re… coming with me?”
So he wasn’t stopping me from going?
“What did you hear from everything I just said?”
He tapped ash from the cigarette.
Then, with the cigarette still between his lips, he turned back to me.
“It’s better I follow you than let you go alone.”
“Um…”
“Come quickly.”
Watching him move forward with long strides, I found myself without words.
For some reason, my heart fluttered.
I could have attributed it to any reason—it was dangerous, or he was being thorough, or he simply preferred to verify it himself—but…
This time, every excuse rang hollow.
I hurried after him to his side.
“Your Highness.”
“What is it.”
“You’re… truly a good person.”
At the sight of his bemused expression, I laughed—a soft, breathless sound.
I looked up at him with wide eyes.
“In fact, Your Highness might actually be a saint.”
“Didn’t you just call me petty a moment ago?”
“…That’s a separate matter.”
“You’re not even denying it.”
I laughed again.
I could no longer deny it to myself.
That he had become far more to me than merely my master.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Please, I’m begging you.”
“I won’t let you down!”
“Very well.”
A master-and-servant bond forged by coercion.
I had to set aside, at least for now, the desperate clawing of a mind that wanted to survive.
It was the moment I acknowledged him as my true master.
* * *
The Confinement Cell was closer than I expected.
Following the Fish Mark, we turned a corner twice and thick iron doors soon came into view.
A row of cells stretched along the wall.
The only connection to the interior was a small, narrow window through which a face could barely be seen.
Of course, dense iron bars were installed there as well.
“Save me, please!”
The voice came from the deepest part of the corridor.
A man gripping the iron bars, shaking them desperately.
His face was covered in beard, and his clothes hung in tatters.
How long had he been locked away? His cheeks were sunken and hollow.
“Hm…?”
I blinked.
His face was familiar.
I’d seen him somewhere before, but who was he?
“Please save me, I’ve done nothing wrong…!”
The man’s desperate gaze turned toward us—or rather,
toward Yurian.
His eyes went wide as saucers, as though a dead man had returned to life.
“You…?”
The man, who had been standing dazed, rushed to the bars.
“It’s you!”
Bang!
The iron bars shook violently.
His face blazed with light.
It was the expression of someone who had finally found a way to survive, suffused with joy.
“You remember me, don’t you? It’s me, from that Hunting Ground back then…!”
The Hunting Ground.
The moment I heard those words, memory flashed back.
“Ah!”
That’s right—the man who’d tried to kill Yurian before!
The mysterious assailant who’d been hired by the Second Prince to carry out an assassination, bold enough to strike openly.
“You’re the one from back then…!”
“That handmaid! Yes, it’s me!”
Why was he boasting about that? It essentially meant he was a failed assassin.
I stared at him in bewilderment.
But the man seemed too absorbed to notice my expression.
His eyes were fixed entirely on Yurian.
“Please let me out, I’m dying in here….”
“Is that so.”
“I haven’t seen sunlight in months. They don’t even feed me properly…!”
“I see.”
He exhaled.
Smoke from the Medicinal Herb Cigarette drifted slowly as he studied the man’s face.
A habitual smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
A tender, affectionate smile—the kind anyone would call saintly.
He smiled thinly and spoke.
“Remarkable. Still alive and kicking, I see.”

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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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