I Was Hired by the Dark Prince for My Life's Worth - Chapter 7

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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 7. Shall we make a deal…?
“…….”
Yuri-an’s eyebrows twitched.
‘He didn’t run.’
I thought he’d flee with his tail between his legs.
And what was with that stance—like a five-year-old child, no less.
Confronted with a situation his common sense couldn’t grasp, Yuri-an let out a hollow laugh.
“What are you doing?”
“Couldn’t we… resolve this through conversation?”
Looking at Vanillin’s awkward smile, Yuri-an exhaled slowly.
She wanted to talk it through.
“Fine. That’s interesting.”
Interesting, his foot.
If he were truly that soft-hearted, he would never have killed Desmond.
Yuri-an’s eyes narrowed into slits.
‘How irritating.’
His secret was exposed.
To someone he’d never anticipated.
There was only one gift for someone who had glimpsed the true face of a Saint—the Emperor himself knew nothing of it. Death.
“Next time around, I’ll try talking it through.”
Still wearing that gentle smile, Yuri-an drew the Short Dagger he’d kept hidden at his thigh and swung it.
The target: piercing her slender throat in a single stroke.
Whoosh!
The blue blade screamed toward her unguarded neck.
But in the very instant the steel was about to pierce her skin—
“P-please, let’s just talk….”
An invisible force crushed down upon him.
* * *
I hadn’t stopped him.
As if struck by an incomprehensible power that sealed his movement, he simply ceased.
“…….”
Yuri-an’s pupils frosted over.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m… not doing anything.”
I smoothed my racing heart and spoke as if crawling to explain myself.
‘I knew it might come to this, but still… it’s terrifying!’
My heart thundered in my chest. His speed was the reason.
The blade at my throat before I could blink.
‘For someone who looks like they couldn’t snap a flower….’
I’d known since he took multiple strikes to vital points and stood unharmed—he possessed a Beyond-Human Grade body.
Only hidden beneath that smooth, polished mask did I fail to notice.
“Vanillin.”
A cold voice fell from above my fluffy pink hair.
I lifted my head.
The smile had already vanished from the man’s face.
“Don’t play word games with me. Speak plainly.”
“…Yes.”
“What did you do to me?”
His bare face—the one I’d seen before.
Yuri-an’s eyes without his smile were chillingly cold.
The air pressed like a tightening noose.
I shrank slightly and held out a piece of paper.
“…This.”
Yuri-an took the paper without a word.
Unlike ordinary paper, its texture was oddly smooth and crisp.
His mouth twisted upward.
“Ha— A Holy Contract?”
“Yes… that’s right.”
I forced the corners of my trembling lips upward.
A special piece of garbage: the moment you sign it, your soul is surrendered to the nearest member of the royal family.
Yet as death drew near, a different memory surfaced.
— But why a contract, exactly…?
— Do you use every object only for its intended purpose?
When I’d asked about the Holy Contract, the head maid had said precisely that.
Which meant the original function was indeed a contract.
So then… couldn’t I add clauses to it?
It had been a gamble with my life on the line—
‘Looking back now… it seems to have worked?’
Thank heavens.
I swallowed my tears and looked up at Yuri-an.
He read through the contract in a voice so cold it seemed to chew the words before spitting them out.
“Oswald Yuri-an, as a party to this contract, shall inflict no harm whatsoever upon Vanillin… is that it?”
That voice was so glacial.
One might mistake it for the depths of winter.
“Murder for hire forbidden. Poisoning forbidden. All manner of torture forbidden… It seems you’ve written down every method of killing you could think of, down to the smallest detail.”
“Ha ha….”
“How amusing.”
Though your eyes say nothing of the sort.
I tried hard to ignore the killing intent pouring down upon me and averted my gaze.
A man who speaks in gentle tones while dripping with sarcasm.
“You might as well have written that you’ll die if Vanillin dies.”
“There’s another page. Shall I add that too…?”
…….
Yuri-an pressed his lips together, looking utterly bewildered.
I stumbled over my own words with a start.
“Ah… were you being sarcastic…?”
…….
The look in his eyes grew even more murderous.
I hastily knelt again, properly this time.
“Your Highness, would you spare my life?”
“After all, I can’t kill Vanillin anyway.”
“You seem determined to find some way to do it….”
Yuri-an didn’t deny it; he merely raised an eyebrow.
So he really was thinking that way… how terrifying.
I swallowed both a sigh and my tears at once, laughing awkwardly.
“What if, instead of killing me, you considered making a deal with me?”
“A deal?”
“Yes, I mean… well….”
“Vanillin is more treacherous than I thought.”
The man cut off my explanation mid-sentence.
He lowered his eyes with a sorrowful expression.
…If not for that blood smudged on his clothes and hands, he’d almost look pure and pitiful.
“I can’t lift a finger against Vanillin, and you want to strike a bargain with me?”
I clenched my lips.
“Yes. Exactly.”
I couldn’t afford to back down here.
“Because I’m someone who knows her place.”
“I see.”
“If you spare my life, I’ll become someone useful to the Crown Prince in every way I can.”
Yuri-an tilted his head slowly to one side.
“Someone useful, you say.”
“I’m actually very capable!”
I pressed my fists together firmly as I spoke.
“If there’s someone you don’t favor, Your Highness, I can handle them quietly and cleanly… I can eliminate all those bothersome nuisances too.”
Well, presumably.
“So couldn’t you possibly take me into your service as the Crown Prince’s own?”
I made my appeal, doing my very best to seem harmless.
I arranged my face into an expression as innocent as I could manage.
My words promised to be useful to him, but truthfully, it was entirely for my own sake.
‘That temper… I’m certain of it. He’ll never leave a potential threat alive.’
After spending so much time with Dai, I’d grown quite adept at reading those with fractured dispositions.
That tenacious man would find every loophole in the contract and use it to kill me, somehow.
So I had to become his ally before that happened.
I needed him to think I was worth keeping alive.
The man studied me intently for a moment, then gave a curt nod.
“What did you do with the other two?”
The question came out of nowhere.
He was asking about Marquis Desmond and Dai.
I answered half a beat too late.
“I hid them in the Grass Field.”
“Why?”
“Because the younger one—Lord Young-sik—is dead, so I wanted to conceal it. As for the Marquis, I wasn’t certain whether you intended to kill him or not.”
I swallowed hard as I spoke, my throat working audibly.
A feeling washed over me.
This was an interview.
‘I have to answer well.’
Was Vanillin worth making an ally?
I had to prove it.
“The blood loss was severe, but not immediately fatal. I don’t know your intentions, but there might be a reason to keep the Marquis alive, so I thought it best not to take further action.”
I continued speaking with measured calm.
“At the same time, it couldn’t become known that Marquis Desmond had suffered harm, so I concealed him. I stopped the bleeding but didn’t treat the wounds—I was simply waiting for Your Highness to wake.”
“Hmm, I see.”
Yuri-an nodded, his expression impassive.
As if to say: that settles it.
But I didn’t stop.
“And—”
My voice emerged unsteady yet precise, trembling with effort.
“I left word at the Banquet Hall. I let them know you’d be delayed tending to your appearance yourself out of consideration for the servants who’d worked so hard all day.”
“Oho.”
Yuri-an’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
As if he hadn’t expected me to think that far ahead.
“So there shouldn’t be any problems if you return an hour or two from now.”
I finished and clamped my mouth shut.
My eyelashes quivered with tension.
Had I passed?
…What if I’d failed?
‘Do I need to strike a vital point again…?’
While my mind churned with taut anxiety, the man rose to his feet, brushing off his clothes.
“That’s decent thinking.”
“…! So then—”
“Let’s take a look, shall we.”
He gestured for me to stand, though I was still kneeling obediently.
Then he turned sharply away.
Without even checking whether I was following.
‘I… I lived.’
For now, my life had been extended.
I scrambled after the Third Prince and led him onward.
“I hid them over here.”
“You’ve hidden them rather well, better than I’d have expected.”
Yuri-an brushed back the grass as he spoke.
Over Dai’s corpse.
Marquis Desmond still lay motionless, right where I’d left him.
Barely clinging to life.
“Well, well.”
Yuri-an’s expression turned pitying, and he swung his Short Dagger down at the Marquis.
“Still breathing, are you? Tougher than I thought.”
“Ugh—kh…!”
The Marquis, whose body had been stirring faintly, went rigid. Then his breathing stopped entirely.
Yuri-an pushed the corpse away with his foot, cold and matter-of-fact.
He kicked it deep enough into the undergrowth that it wouldn’t be found unless someone actively searched.
I asked carefully, watching his expression.
“Was killing her… the answer?”
“No. Leaving her be is the right choice. Vanillin couldn’t know what decision I would make.”
“But what if she had tried to escape…?”
“If she survived in that state, then that too would be God’s will.”
The man spoke without a trace of concern.
Surprised by his manner, I looked up at him and asked.
“Do you… believe in God?”
“What do you think?”
You don’t seem like you believe in anything at all….
As I swallowed my words, Yuri-an smiled—a smile as perfectly drawn as though sketched by hand.
“Follow me. We’re going to the palace.”
“Then… does that mean…?”
“Let’s discuss the details. The matter of our agreement.”

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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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