I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - 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 was the light so blinding?
As if watching a halo that didn’t exist, I blinked slowly, entranced.
‘How could…’
How could he speak such words so casually?
His single sentence drove straight through my heart like a piercing wound.
Thump-thump—my chest pulsed with each beat.
Excitement, falling in love, some such thing.
It wasn’t that sort of soft, sentimental emotion.
If I had to name it… a natural disaster, perhaps.
[They’re getting away. Shall we move?]
Yurian glanced at the Criminal, then turned back.
His composed figure moved forward without the slightest hesitation.
As though those words meant nothing to him at all.
‘Your Highness.’
Crack.
By the time I came to my senses, my hand had already moved.
My fingers brushed the edge of his garment.
I held it firm, gripping gently but with unmistakable intent.
Yurian, who had been about to take a step, went still.
His calm eyes held a question as they looked down at me.
The moment I met his gaze, the emotions I had been suppressing surged up and flooded my throat.
[What is it.]
I know we should pursue the Criminal.
But where he’s headed is already obvious.
I can’t bear not asking now.
Otherwise I fear it will haunt me forever.
I stepped closer to him, lifting my chin.
‘Why do you speak as though you’ll always be at my side…?’
My fingers tightened slightly.
‘That I needn’t worry? That you’ll distinguish everything for me?’
My brows drew down in an arc.
It isn’t fair to speak such things so easily.
‘What happens when you’re gone?’
When you don’t truly intend to stay forever.
‘We’re only bound by contract, after all.’
There was nothing eternal in my world.
I have no memory of my parents’ faces, and my brother left the world when I was barely five.
Dai died as well, but he was never someone I could truly lean on.
In other words, I was always alone.
And yet… if you speak as though you’d do anything if I would simply follow…
‘I can’t help but want to depend on you….’
I’d want to cling to your back, pretending to understand nothing.
To hide myself in the shelter of those broad shoulders.
Even though I’ll end up alone again.
[…….]
Silence hung between us.
He looked down at me without speaking.
That gaze felt too heavy, so I bowed my head, feigning ignorance.
I shouldn’t have said it.
This wasn’t the kind of thing to bring up.
My eyes fixed on my feet.
Should I ask him to let it go, to pretend I’d said nothing?
My thoughts were still tangling when he spoke.
[Then simply don’t disappear.]
His tone was far too matter-of-fact.
As though it were hardly a consequential matter at all… no.
More precisely, he spoke as if stating an obvious truth, his voice perfectly calm.
‘Pardon?’
I stared at him with a vacant expression.
Yurian glanced down at the hem of his garment clutched in my hand, then turned his gaze forward again without particular concern.
As though confirming first that the Criminal hadn’t slipped from view.
Then he continued speaking with perfect composure.
[I’ve looked into the Sacred Contract a bit further.]
‘…….’
[Apparently, the moment the Contractor—the one of Royal Blood—dies, the Contracted Person follows them into death.]
‘……Wait?’
I blinked.
For an instant, thought ground to a halt.
‘What does that even….’
[In other words.]
Yurian paused briefly to choose his words, then delivered the conclusion with stark simplicity.
[I will not cease to exist before Vanillin does.]
‘…….’
[At least not while Vanillin lives.]
His tone was matter-of-fact, as though discussing the weather—utterly devoid of emotion.
I forgot to answer and simply gazed up at him in a daze.
This wasn’t meant as solace, nor was it offered to soothe me with hollow words.
He was merely stating a fact.
And yet, strangely, it eased my heart in a way no comfort ever had.
The weight that had long pressed on some corner of my chest seemed, if only slightly, to lift.
‘Then… I can keep going?’
I swallowed.
Each word came with difficulty, pieced together one by one.
‘I can… keep following, can’t I?’
The day he died would be the day I died.
In other words, it meant he would exist for every single day that I lived.
Like my parents, like my brother… or like Dai—never disappearing from my life, but forever.
[You still don’t understand.]
A gaze that seemed tender yet indifferent held me fast.
[This isn’t a matter of permission or refusal. Vanillin has no choice.]
‘Then…?’
[You must follow. Without question.]
Was this captivity? Or bondage?
My soul was bound, and my very life hung upon his—it was undeniably an unjust contract.
And yet why did I feel so utterly free?
A shapeless mass of emotion welled up, quivering all the way to my throat.
Tears threatened to spill.
‘Then you won’t abandon me, even if I become a burden?’
[Your neediness has grown.]
‘Even if you come to dislike me, will you keep me at 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 have held.]
A complete victory.
He hadn’t tried to persuade me at all.
He offered no comfort, no sweet words of encouragement.
And yet I felt saved.
That shallow belief that nothing in this world lasts forever.
That thin certainty that I would, in the end, be alone.
He had negated all of it.
Without a shred of tenderness.
[Shall we go now? Enough pouting for today.]
He extended a hand toward me.
I looked down at his long, elegant fingers.
This is serious.
If this touch truly feels like a message of salvation….
If that man wearing the mask of a saint truly felt like a saint.
‘Then perhaps my eyes have simply deceived me.’
And yet.
“Yes, let’s hurry.”
I took his cold and warm hand eagerly into both of mine.
What did it matter.
Whatever happened, I was his.
* * *
After confirming that the Criminal was ascending the stairs that led to Kyle’s Office, we made our way toward another exit nearby.
It supposedly leads to a storage room on the second floor.
Perhaps that’s why the stairs seemed twice as numerous.
“Phew… finally… made it….”
I dragged myself forward and pulled the lever installed on the wall.
Creak—
The moment the door opened, a cloud of pale dust came pouring in all at once.
“Ugh… ugh… achoo!”
“I did anticipate this.”
Yurian regarded me with elegant grace as he waved the dust away with a fan-like gesture.
“It never ceases to amaze me—your consistent talent for creating such commotion.”
“Ugh….”
I sniffled and bowed my head in mortification.
“I’m sorry….”
“As I always say, that was no compliment.”
“Well, that’s not fair… achoo!”
I grumbled and raised my hand to wipe away the involuntary tears streaming down my face.
Or rather, I tried to raise it.
If only his hand hadn’t risen along with mine.
“Oh.”
My right hand, and another hand loosely clasping it.
‘Right… I haven’t let go yet.’
As I stared blankly at our interlaced hands, Yurian’s gaze followed mine.
And came to rest on the tightly clasped hands.
A moment of silence fell between us.
I pressed my lips shut, flustered.
The climb had been so exhausting that I hadn’t been aware of it until now….
But now that I was conscious of it, I didn’t know what to do.
Strangely, my fingertips felt warm.
“Are you feeling better now?”
he asked evenly.
Now that I thought about it, the reason he’d taken my hand was for this—because I’d suddenly grown morose.
I blinked.
‘So if I say I’m still not well, will he keep holding it…?’
I fidgeted with my fingers.
It might be greed, but I didn’t want to let go just yet.
“You’re still not well.”
“Well, the thing is….”
“Vanillin. Speak plainly.”
That’s not quite it.
I looked between our clasped hands and his face.
“You see, Your Highness.”
“Yes.”
“It’s about the hand….”
My mood is fine, but I’d like to keep holding it a little longer.
The words that had been circling in my mouth were just reaching the tip of my tongue.
“Nobody move!”
Beyond the door.
A thunderous shout erupted from the Party Hall.
“Give us the money if you want to live. Otherwise, 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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