I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - Chapter 61

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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 61. Awakening
“I… what?”
I found myself opening my mouth without thinking.
To the Langslot Estate?
“Can I really go there?”
To the place where I might have been born?
My fingertips trembled faintly at words I’d never dared imagine.
As Yurian had said, until now it had all been mere speculation.
Perhaps this way. Perhaps that way.
Nothing but a litany of suspicions devoid of certainty.
So what he meant was that he would help me see the end of all these doubts.
I gripped the teacup tightly.
The lingering warmth enveloped my hand.
Truthfully, I hesitated a little.
‘Should I even confirm it?’
For fifteen years I had wanted to know the truth about my brother’s death, and now it seemed to be within reach.
Hope, which I’d thought long dead, began clawing its way back to the surface.
But then again, it might mean nothing at all.
After all this hoping, I might only discover that I have no connection to any of it.
Then everything would return to the beginning.
The greater the expectations, the greater the collapse that would follow.
A tangle of emotions washed over me all at once, leaving me unable to speak, when Yurian continued in a measured voice.
“Of course, I don’t mean you can go right now.”
I slowly lifted my gaze.
He lifted the teacup lightly with his fingertips.
“The grounds of House Langslot are currently sealed under Imperial Court jurisdiction. To enter, one requires proper justification.”
“Then….”
“Since it falls outside my purview, we would need to obtain permission and follow the proper procedures.”
I remained silent.
Just hearing about it gave me a headache—the matter was that complicated.
Far more than one should expect to give a mere maid out of kindness.
And yet…
“Still, if Vanillin wishes to go, I will find a way.”
He didn’t test me.
He made no demands in return.
Even though unraveling the truth of my brother’s death would bring him no benefit whatsoever.
His amber eyes held me with unwavering steadiness.
…I felt as though I couldn’t breathe.
Because I kept finding myself expecting something from him.
He glanced at my empty teacup, then silently poured more black tea for me.
He had noticed that I’d finished it without realizing.
……
In that moment, I truly couldn’t hold back any longer.
After a long silence, I asked carefully.
“…Your Highness.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing all this?”
I didn’t understand anymore.
The warmth of the teacup against my fingertips felt lukewarm, like Yurian’s own body heat.
I looked up at him, steadying my voice against its tremor.
“Is it because I belong to you?”
……
He closed his mouth for a moment.
Silence flowed between us.
Yurian regarded me as if savoring my question.
…His gaze was so intense that I could barely manage to blink.
Presently, he tilted his head.
“Could there be another reason?”
It was the response of someone who’d been asked “why do you breathe?”
As though he’d received the most self-evident of questions, his expression held not the slightest hesitation.
“I have decided to accept Vanillin as my own.”
“…….”
“So it is only natural. There is no reason not to help when I am able.”
Sincerity seeped from every word he spoke.
My chest ached strangely.
It was the sort of thing that would have moved me under normal circumstances, yet somehow it did not.
I toyed with the teacup in my hands.
‘I’m happy. I’m certainly happy….’
So why did something feel lacking?
I could not understand it myself.
I had achieved my original goal.
To become someone he could never abandon, wholly “his person,” and thereby preserve my life.
Had I not worked earnestly toward that very thing?
So that should have been enough.
And yet why was there this hollow ache in the corner of my chest?
“Is it not the same for you, Vanillin?”
His quiet voice settled against my ear, and I looked up at him.
Not the same? What did that mean?
As I blinked at him in silence, he continued.
“Your concern for me, taking on the danger in my stead—you do these things because you believe yourself to be my person, do you not?”
“Ah….”
I had no reply. My lips fumbled for words as I lowered my gaze.
…Was that it?
Had I been afraid only because he was “my person”?
Because he was my contractor, simply because he was my master?
‘…No. It doesn’t feel that way.’
Suddenly, the day we first met came to mind.
The terror of death I had felt then, the desperate hunger to live.
Despair and panic, anxiety and desperate gasping for breath.
Back then, Yurian had been nothing but “a frightening man” to me.
Someone who would unhesitatingly draw his blade to kill me the moment opportunity arose.
But he had changed.
─ Vanillin is my person, is she not.
A man who had professed to trust neither people nor love had willingly accepted me as his own.
…What had I been thinking then?
‘I had been happy, surely.’
So why could I not feel that happiness now?
The more reasons I tallied in my mind, the stranger the sensation became.
When had my heart first plummeted at the sight of him wounded?
When had I nearly wept seeing his back, marked by glass shards he had taken for me?
─ I will never disappear before you do. Not while you yet live.
His cold, gentle certainty had made my heart race.
No single phrase—not “my person”—could explain it all.
‘What am I to do.’
I fidgeted with my fingers.
The warmth of the teacup in my palm felt pleasant.
Feeling that lukewarm, tender sensation and thinking it was like Yurian himself.
‘What am I to do?’
I was ruined.
I clenched my eyes shut, then opened them.
The kindness falling upon my head, I had mistaken for drizzle and carried no umbrella.
And when I came to my senses, I was already drenched.
The black tea in my cup swayed gently.
‘It seems I….’
That man.
Yurian….
“…….”
I pressed my lips firmly together.
‘It cannot be.’
I shook my head firmly from side to side.
‘I mustn’t think about it anymore.’
The moment I do, I’ll give myself away.
He can read my thoughts, after all.
“Vanillin?”
“…Yes.”
I lifted my chin, concealing the tremor at the corners of my mouth.
Pretending indifference came easily enough.
‘Don’t think.’
Don’t worry. Don’t deliberate.
Let the feelings slip away.
At least while standing before this man.
I quickly changed the subject.
“I’m grateful for Your Highness’s kindness.”
It was fortunate that I had another topic to focus on.
“If I may be bold… I’d like to visit the Langslot Estate.”
I bowed my head, half asking a favor, half wishing to hide my expression.
It was true that I was confused by this feeling I’d only just discovered, yet my desire to visit the Langslot Estate was genuine as well.
I wanted to go there and see for myself.
Whether I truly was descended from House Langslot’s bloodline… and.
Why my brother had to die.
The time had come to unravel the thread of an old dream.
“I understand.”
Yurian nodded lightly.
As though there was nothing difficult about it.
“Obtaining permission will take a little time, I’m afraid.”
“Is it under Your Majesty’s jurisdiction…?”
“No.”
He set down the teacup with a soft clink.
His smile was luminous.
“The Capital is currently divided into four districts, each administered by one of my brothers.”
“Oh, then…”
“The Langslot Estate falls under one of their jurisdictions as well.”
I blinked.
Which one?
Excluding Yurian, that left three.
None of them had made a particularly good impression, but still—I hoped it wasn’t the Second Prince.
He was hardly the sort to do Yurian any favors.
Yurian must have read that suspicion in my eyes, for he smiled faintly.
“Fortunately, it’s not my second brother.”
“Oh… that’s a relief.”
“He wouldn’t be greedy enough to claim land that’s vast but useless.”
That was true, certainly.
I blinked.
A ducal estate would indeed occupy an immense expanse.
…And having suffered annihilation of the clan, it would be nothing but ruins now—utterly without value.
“In the end, such land always falls to the most useless person.”
The most useless person.
I looked at him.
Yurian’s eyes curved as he smiled radiantly.
“For instance, someone like my eldest brother.”

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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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