CHAPTER 01

Have you ever killed someone?

I hadn’t. I swear to heaven, not even once.

…Then why on earth had I ended up in a situation like this…?

On a dark night, the only light came from a tiny crescent moon no bigger than a fingernail.

Dark clouds swallowed the moon’s shadow, and pitch-black darkness descended.

This was deep inside the Imperial Palace,

in an abandoned garden that no one ever visited.

“Haah….”

No one saw me, right…?

I clutched my heart, which was pounding like crazy.

Everything was a complete mess.

“First… first, I need to hide him somewhere no one can see… Hic!”

A hiccup forced its way up my throat.

My mind wasn’t working properly, and my fingertips were cold as though they had frozen solid.

Three men were lying collapsed in front of me.

First of all, the first one.

Dai, my master—the back-alley fixer.

He lay sprawled out, staring blankly into space with his eyes half-open.

Blood was gushing from his chest.

I placed a trembling hand against his neck.

There was no pulse.

“…He’s dead.”

The moment I uttered those words, reality came crashing down on me.

I covered my mouth and staggered backward.

I desperately wanted to run away just like this, but….

‘…Then I’ll die too.’

So I couldn’t afford to just stand there.

Almost mechanically, I dragged the fixer’s body toward the edge of the bushes.

His clothes trailed along the ground, becoming filthy.

I had worked so hard washing those clothes with my hands dipped into icy winter water… but now even that was all over.

I pushed his body deep into the bushes.

The untrimmed grass was more than enough to conceal his entire body.

And next—

A fat, middle-aged nobleman.

A decadent man whose mouth was surrounded by the plump flesh characteristic of the wealthy.

“Ugh. It’s damp….”

He, too, had collapsed after suffering a stab wound.

I bit down hard on my small lips and dragged his body into the bushes, burying him there.

And with that, the second man was taken care of.

And finally—

The man lying on the ground.

Platinum-blond hair that gleamed even in the darkness of night, with neat, gentle, sculpture-like features.

A person I had seen for the first time today, yet could never possibly forget.

The Third Prince of the Oswald Empire, Oswald Yulian.

My hands trembled.

I could hardly breathe, afraid that the man might open his bright yellow eyes at any moment.

I didn’t want to check….

But I had to.

After taking a deep breath, I cautiously reached out with my trembling fingertips and checked whether he was breathing.

I felt a faint movement of air against my fingertips.

…He was alive.

“Haa, haa….”

Thump—!

All the strength left my body, and I sank to the ground.

It felt as though all the blood had drained from my body.

“Vanillin, you idiot….”

You idiot…!

I covered my cheeks with both trembling hands.

Was it a good thing that the Third Prince was alive?

…Or was it the worst possible thing?

“How on earth did I end up getting the Third Prince into this state, me…?”

I lifted my head and looked up at the sky, which was still dark and gloomy.

As though it were foretelling my future.

“How did things end up like this?”

Sniff.

Trembling beside the fallen Third Prince in the middle of the abandoned garden of the Imperial Palace,

I remembered that morning—the morning when everything had begun to go wrong.