Chapter 167
Chapter 167
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 167
Chapter Title: The Pretend Death
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The butler approached and cleared the area around them. Then he pressed a finger to Dave's nape and slowly shook his head.
"His heart has stopped. What a shame for such a young boy."
That was the full extent of his sympathy. Yvon felt utterly bewildered.
How could someone just die like this? No, did he really die? Why? What had Dave even done?
"Looks like he came here after taking a bribe. And he doesn't even have an ID badge."
The butler rummaged through Dave's pockets and said as much.
"W-Wait a minute. The ID badge... D-Dave is still y-young, so he d-doesn't have one y-yet..."
"Everyone's ID is checked at the entrance, isn't it?"
"Th-That's true, b-but...!"
"So how did this boy get in?"
"B-Butler!"
Jane was making excuses on his behalf when a youthful voice rang out from the box seats. Everyone looked up toward it.
Ner... no, the young prince was fidgeting restlessly.
"Yes, Your Highness. What are your orders?"
"Isn't there... some mistake? C-Call a physician or something, at least..."
"Your Highness, a magic contract can't be fooled. This boy clearly took a bribe."
"B-But...!"
The prince's face flushed with confusion and guilt, soon giving way to betrayal.
"It's true...?"
His voice trembled with a torrent of emotions, and at the same moment, a wave of killing intent began to press down on everyone.
His older brother glared down with a ferocious aura. It was on another level from the pressure earlier. For the first time, Yvon realized that mere killing intent alone could stop a heart.
"I'll kill all those ungrateful wretches myself."
"You two took bribes too...?"
The prince's eyes, fixed squarely on Yvon and Jane, brimmed with tears.
"We never intended to show mercy from the start."
Yvon snapped out of it at his older brother's mutter and hurriedly defended himself.
"N-No! We didn't take any bribes! We only learned today that this is called Vernus Palace. Please believe us!"
He quickly uncapped the fountain pen and signed the contract. His hand shook so badly the writing was a illegible scrawl, but he had to prove his innocence somehow.
He was so terrified he wanted to run away right then, but he couldn't risk what backlash might hit the kids back in Sharton.
"L-Look! I've signed it too!"
At that moment, the contract sheet glimmered. Bracing for death, Yvon squeezed his eyes shut—but nothing happened.
Relief washed over him even as despair crept in.
'Dave really did take a bribe.'
Dave had been the one pushing hardest for them to submit the applications. And if the reason he could enter without an ID wasn't the exam pass but someone pulling strings behind the scenes...
"Dave really..."
They hadn't known each other long, but the shock lingered.
Clap, clap. The sound of applause rang out. It was the butler.
"This proves the magic contract is valid. You have five minutes. The exit is that way."
Around five people bolted for the entrance without a backward glance. A woman in a maid uniform offered them pouches of money as expected, but they fled without taking them.
Yvon stared blankly at the scene until the heavy doors thudded shut behind them, finally coming to his senses.
"Sh-Should we have g-gone too...?"
Jane, equally dazed, muttered emptily at the closed doors. Yvon looked around. The remaining people were signing the contracts.
No more deaths followed. Dave was the first and last.
"Aren't you going to sign?"
The butler approached Jane. She hesitated, then remembered Yvon had already signed and shakily scrawled her name.
"That's everyone. You may stand now."
"...?"
Their heads tilted. They were already standing—what did he mean?
Whoosh—!
"Gyaaah!"
Crash!
Jane recoiled in shock and bumped into Yvon. The two tumbled to the floor.
"Ugh, I thought my heart was gonna explode!"
"...Dave?"
Dave shot to his feet, brushing off his clothes with a grumble.
"Jane hyung shook me too hard. Nearly woke me up."
"...You're not dead?"
"Of course not..."
"Your Highness, it's dangerous!"
Everyone stared blankly at the revived Dave when a voice called from above.
The young prince, tears glistening in his eyes, was poking his head over the railing.
"...Dave, you're alive?"
"Yeah—er, yes. I am."
"You didn't take a bribe...?"
"I did take one... sort of."
Dave answered awkwardly, recalling what happened before entering the hall.
Dave arrived at the opera house on 8th Street and scanned for that white-haired kid somewhere in the crowd. After all, it was that little guy who'd told him about "Vernus."
Ah, so those kids were child actors. They'd come out to test their acting skills, and big bro had hired mercenaries to protect them.
He thought that as he gazed up at the grand building. Especially Ner—he was really good at playing the naive kid.
Then he lost his brothers in the crowd and got stopped at the entrance for lacking an ID. Showing his exam pass did nothing.
The hiring condition was "must possess identification" from the start.
Of course, he'd expected rejection. It wasn't hard to guess Nil had pulled some strings for him to pass the paperwork despite not meeting the criteria.
Expecting more help would be shameless, though. He just hadn't anticipated getting blocked at the door without a chance. If he'd known, he would've faked being 15 and forged an ID.
'If you're gonna help, make the paperwork pass from the beginning...'
Unable to shake off his disappointment, Dave hunkered down on a quiet staircase. He couldn't go back alone—the carriage fare would double. He'd have to wait for his brothers.
'Dave.'
That's when the familiar kid appeared. Regrettably, the white-haired boy he'd been searching for approached in a suspicious hooded outfit and said point-blank:
'Play dead.'
'...Huh?'
'Go in that way.'
'Wh-What?'
The kid pointed out the one entrance without guards and vanished leisurely.
Dave hadn't understood at first, but the "magic contract" made it click.
He was supposed to be the decoy.
Dave put on an Oscar-worthy performance, thinking of the "Rabbit Pawn Inn." He pondered the best corpse pose, then choked up remembering his sister's body discarded in a brothel alley.
"Waaah, I, hic, really thought, hic, I was dead... Waaah, why didn't Nil, hic, tell me... Sir Evan too, hic, meeeow."
Ner... no, the prince wailed, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Dave had only faked it on Nil's orders, but he hadn't expected genuine tears. Feeling sheepish, he wrinkled his nose. His stomach churned oddly.
The young prince, embarrassed, soon pulled his big bro's—no, the knight's—cloak over himself to hide. Sniffling sounds continued from within.
Then the butler beside them spoke up.
"Isn't our prince just adorable?"
Dave nodded without thinking.
Jane fiddled with the name tag pinned to her chest. After a one-month probation, she'd get a badge emblazoned with the royal crest.
'Main Palace is "Hiems," 2nd Prince's is "Vernus," 1st Prince's is "Aestas," Queen's is "Autumnum"... Why are all these names so hard...'
Jane grumbled inwardly as she copied down the letters. She couldn't risk embarrassing the prince with a mistake later.
Servants' badges changed color by workplace, and surprisingly, Vernus's symbol color was "pink."
Aetas's for the 1st Prince was "green," but everyone hated green, so they'd switched to blue long ago.
'What's wrong with green...'
Thinking of those curly dark green locks, Jane figured the Aetas folks were petty.
"Hiems" was white, Her Highness's "Autumnum" was reddish-brown... The butler had said to stand extra straight at the sight of a reddish-brown badge.
One thing was clear: the butler held a grudge against Her Highness.
The four palaces were unusually similar in scale—a quirk of culture where the heir's palace became the Main Palace.
This dated back 300 years, after the original Main Palace "Tempus" vanished overnight. No new ones had been built since.
How does a massive palace just disappear? The question nagged, but it wasn't useful info, so she let it go.
Just stepping into the royal palace was miracle enough.
The prince must've pulled strings. Otherwise, a penniless kid like her couldn't have entered so smoothly.
Dave the decoy wasn't hired, but the butler gave him a fat pouch, so he left content.
With Yvon—who'd watched the kids—and her both gone, it might even be a relief for Dave.
The kids had sincerely congratulated the boys on their jobs. Of course... they thought it was at the opera house...
"Hey, wanna hear something funny?"
As she wondered how the kids were doing and prepared to leave, the middle-aged man assigned to her room spoke up.
Raymond, was it? His first words to her: "What, you're not a girl?" Next: "You look ugly."
He'd mistaken her girlish name. But putting that aside, who expects same-room assignments for boys and girls? Bizarre.
Anyway, he was rude. Once he learned she stuttered, he looked down on her.
'This guy's my mentor...'
Bad luck, but the butler had said:
'Jane, some advice for getting by in society.'
"Wh-What...?"
'Don't contradict your mentor if you can help it. Got it?'
Standard advice, so she'd nodded. Now it seemed deliberate.
"...Wh-What is it?"
"That pretty page boy. The mute who's a bit slow..."
Raymond twirled a finger by his temple. Jane felt a twinge of displeasure but kept it hidden.
"The y-young master, wh-why?"
"You call him 'young master' every time. But he's a beggar brat."
"......"
"For real. They say the prince picked him up injured."
Jane, a fellow beggar, stayed silent and just nodded.
"Must be his pretty face—rumors are wild. Honestly, hearing the girls gossip is hilarious."
It wasn't funny at all.
Jane had seen Nihil ghosting around, observing servants and scribbling on their evaluations. She knew to watch her words anywhere, anytime.
Especially no badmouthing the prince. No criticism, not even simple judgments.
The moment you evaluated the palace's master, two thick lines slashed across your name—no mercy.
Yvon didn't know yet, but he was too kind to badmouth anyone anyway. No need to tell him.
Hed probably scold others for it.
"If I had to guess, maybe a young beastkin. You know, too dumb to be human."
"...D-Dumb how?"
What on earth was this guy talking about?