Please Repay Me with Marriage! - Chapter 40

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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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Please make it a marriage as my reward!
Chapter 40
“Well, that’s the thing, you see.”
Bin opened his mouth as if to smooth things over, then realized it was too late and grumbled under his breath.
“That stingy bastard is holding us back even here.”
“Bin.”
“Hm?”
“You know why I came up to the capital alone, right? I trusted you, even if I didn’t trust the others.”
At that, Bin looked away as if to ask why of all people I had to trust him, while the others stared at Leonard with eyes full of betrayal, as if to ask why he hadn’t trusted them.
Though they did duck their heads and look away the moment Leonard’s gaze fell on them.
“I think I get why you followed me to the capital. You’re sure the Second Prince is going to break his promise, aren’t you?”
“Obviously.”
Hiss jabbed Bin sharply in the side just as he nodded without hesitation.
He’d meant it lightly, but where could that brute strength go? Bin slumped over the table, clutching his side and groaning for a long while, then lifted his reddened eyes to look at Leonard.
“Of all the people who throw a fit about not being able to write a contract even though they can read just fine, I’ve never once met one who wasn’t a swindler.”
“What a coincidence. Neither have I.”
“I’m not joking. We’d already finished talking it over among ourselves.”
“Talking what over? Were you planning to file a complaint that the Second Prince broke the contract?”
“Are we insane? Even if he broke the Seven Commandments of the First Emperor, there’s no way the Emperor would allow a prince to stand trial.”
No matter how wronged we felt, we had no intention of doing anything to the Second Prince.
Only.
“We were planning to sell ‘that’.”
“That?”
“That.”
As Bin nodded, Leonard’s gaze swiftly shifted to Michel.
Michel, moving even faster, turned her head away and poked at an innocent sausage with her fork for no reason.
At the sight, Leonard’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you out of your mind? What if you get caught doing that?!”
“Then we just won’t get caught.”
“How? Let’s hear it. How exactly were you planning to sell something that’s practically a Family Heirloom Sword of a Count’s house without anyone finding out?”
His voice rose and quickened, driven by his agitation.
To calm him down, Michel cleared her throat briefly and cut in.
“We did have a plan, you know…”
“If you had a plan, you wouldn’t say something like that. That finger of yours was lost to a frame-up with no evidence, wasn’t it?”
Michel’s hand slipped beneath the table as if fleeing. Seeing that, Leonard’s voice grew louder, as though it pained him on her behalf.
“If you’d only lost a finger, I wouldn’t say a word. But you ended up in prison at barely a year younger than Zenis is now. And if real proof of theft turns up this time, what then? It’s a death sentence at the very least, a death sentence!”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
In the end, Michel, unable to stand it any longer, shot to her feet.
Hiss reached out as if to hold her back, but Michel roughly shook off his hand and glared at Leonard.
“Listen here, you think I decided this lightly? I’m the one who spent ten years in prison for something I didn’t do, not you! And if I get caught fencing stolen goods and get executed, it’ll be me, not you!”
“That’s exactly why I told you not to come to the capital! If that’s how it’s going to be, why did you say you’d never set foot in the capital even if the world flipped upside down?”
“Like I wanted to come? Who do you think followed you here because some idiot took a job from the Second Prince without even drawing up a contract!”
At that, Leonard also shot to his feet.
“Like I wanted to make a contract with the Second Prince? How was I supposed to defy the Second Prince’s word?!”
“You should never have done anything so conspicuous in the first place! Oh, speaking of which, good that you brought it up. You brushed off our warnings never to go to Weinberg, and now you’re hounding us like rats in a corner!”
Michel, unable to contain her anger, gulped in ragged breaths.
“Didn’t you say back then? That it was your business, so we shouldn’t worry about it. Same goes for this. This is our business, so don’t you worry about it.”
“How could I not worry? If something went wrong because of me, how would I ever face you all?!”
“That goes for all of us.”
It was Hiss who cut in with a calm voice. He glanced at Michel, who faltered, having lost her timing because of him, then turned his gaze to Leonard.
“Camila chose to save you and lose her arm. Feeling guilty about that is your choice, I suppose.”
Since he rarely used it, Hiss’s tongue was razor-sharp when aimed at Leonard.
“Stop tossing your own body around recklessly just to ease that worthless guilt of yours. What you’re doing isn’t sacrifice, it’s just passing your guilt onto someone else.”
“I……!”
“Ray. Are you worried about us, or…”
The look Hiss gave Leonard carried a darker shade than usual.
As though he’d been hurt.
“Are you afraid your guilt is going to grow even heavier from here?”
Whether Leonard had caught that look or not, it was impossible to tell.
Leonard’s head drooped sharply downward.
Seeing that, everyone there remembered Leonard from the past, the boy who had been sold by his birth mother and first came to the mercenary corps.
As if to ask who had been the one throwing a fit a moment ago, Michel, feeling a bit guilty, told Hiss to ease up and stop.
“Do you have to talk like that? You’re going to hurt someone’s feelings.”
“Who was the one who hurt someone’s feelings just now?… Ow!”
Bin rubbed the shoulder he’d just been smacked on and sighed before speaking.
I don’t know how the conversation ended up here, but to be honest, I’m with him. In my heart, I’m on Hiss’s side.”
“Hey, Bin.”
“I’ve always said it. You need to learn to take better care of your own body.”
That was probably the effect of having learned an assassin’s techniques as a child. Even in situations where he should be defending himself, he swung his sword regardless.
He must have been like that when he killed the giant black lion in the Great Forest, too.
Paradoxically, that was probably why he survived then. Against a beast driven by instinct, the moment you hesitated and stepped back, it would have sunk its teeth into your throat.
But trading flesh to seize the bone was a gamble to be attempted only in a do-or-die moment.
Keep fighting like that every time and you wouldn’t live to see ten more years. No, he could just as easily die tomorrow.
That was the reason Kamila had taught him defensive swordsmanship.
Thanks to her beating lessons into him whenever he refused to listen, the bad habits seemed to have drained out of Leonard’s body, at least until Kamila shielded him and lost an arm.
The Iron Blood Mercenary Corps, once spoken of as the finest among mercenaries.
But that name had nearly been forgotten by now.
Betrayal from a comrade and a surprise attack from a rival mercenary company left most of its members dead or wounded, and they retired.
On paper, even Leonard had withdrawn, so the only ones left were the three people standing here.
Leonard had said they didn’t need to worry about him and should go their own way… but how could they?
The boy they had raised with such care, like a son, had given up on protecting his own body.
‘He came to the capital alone because he meant to take all the blame on himself if things went wrong.’
That’s why he could say such things.
‘If something happens to me, take Zenis and leave the Empire. I’ll find my way to you, so don’t worry about me.’
If he was going to say something like that, at least he should set a specific place to meet so they could pretend to believe him. In reality, he didn’t have the slightest intention of following them.
“I don’t know how you ended up marrying Marquis Blair, but I doubt you made this decision because you love her, right? Though I suppose she’s probably in the same boat.”
“Still, the fact that she treats even us mercenaries as your household, welcoming us like guests, means she’s not just using you as a tool.”
To be honest, Bin didn’t much like this marriage.
Five hundred million lark. Sure, it was an enormous sum. If someone offered that much money to get married, Bin could walk down the wedding aisle hand in hand with them even if they were a wrinkled old grandpa on his last legs.
But Leonard was different. Leonard had seen with his own eyes what it was like to be traded for three gold coins.
Marrying for profit was common enough, among commoners and nobles alike, but people might sell their daughters and sons, yet no one sold themselves. At least, Bin had never seen it.
Yet Leonard had readily thought of selling himself to pay off his debts with the dowry gold, and without any hesitation at all.
How could that have been possible?
Because he himself had already been traded once. A thing sold once has no reason it can’t be sold again.
“Lei, if you don’t want us hovering around you, then build a proper family.”
No matter how much money changed hands, I hope this marriage doesn’t remain a mere transaction for him.
“Someone who can make you feel safe enough that you won’t have to sacrifice yourself, even when we’re gone.”
Not the mercenaries who had simply looked after a pitiful child, nor a half-brother he would leave behind once their status changed. I hoped he could build a true family.
I hoped Leonard would develop a reason to grit his teeth and cling to life, to survive stubbornly, even in moments when he felt he was about to die.
Everyone present sincerely wished for this.

* * *
“Your Highness, a messenger from the Mathias Count House requests an audience.”
“Tell him to go back.”
“But, Your Highness…”
The attendant hesitated because this was not the first time a messenger from the Mathias Count House had been turned away at the gate.
Of course, Lloyd Mathias had been barred from the Imperial Palace, but that was a punishment for him personally, not one imposed on the entire Mathias house.
Under these circumstances, slighting the Second Prince’s messenger from the Mathias house was no different from treating Count Mathias with contempt.
If the Second Prince commanded an authority no one could challenge, that would be another matter, but with the Crown Princess standing squarely before him, practically the next Emperor, he needed to keep on good terms with the nobles. The Emperor could not watch over his back forever.
Yet the Second Prince had never once, from birth until now, bothered to read the mood of the nobles.
Why should he have to? He was born with the precious blood of the imperial family.

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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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