I smiled awkwardly, looking at Rexid, who became speechless.
“You told me there was nothing here I couldn’t have.”
“No, I mean, you were just following me around. When did you picked up all these stuffs?”
“Don’t ask me about any confidential information.”
“What the…”
The bewildered Rexid soon chuckled and led me.
The Life-Loss contract was kept in the deepest part of the safe.
All the treasures thrown on the floor were all valuable, but now, seeing that contract was kept separately with care like this…
Indeed, as I had heard, the value of the contract seemed to be a level that wasn’t worth any money.
Uncharacteristically poking my conscience, I asked again.
“You don’t know if there will be a time when you’ll need to use this for something important… Are you really going to write for me?”
“It’s okay. It’s useless.”
It’s something that I felt again, but Rexid seemed like a man who had no worldly desire nor had greed for power. Had it not been for his noble birth, he might have lived contentedly like how ordinary people live, making a living day-to-day.
A man who has a lot of things but doesn’t have much greed for what he has.
Well…
Wouldn’t he be the perfect target to be eaten by a swindler like me?
But then why did such a man suddenly have the ambition to become an emperor?
That was the most questionable thing.
“Come here.”
Rexid beckoned to me and pulled out three rigid sheets of parchment, transcribing the contents of the contract. The parchment with the contract was no ordinary paper. I wondered what it was because it felt like a magic tool, but I guess it was a paper paired with the Life-Loss contract.
“This is what it looks like.”
There was a hard stone slab on the tall one-legged desk. This stone slab itself was probably a mana stone.
Depending on the usage, the price of mana stones varied.
If you’re forced to sign a contract where you can’t afford to risk your life… it’s really worth calling a price.
The stone slab had a rectangular groove so that it could hold a contract. Rexid fitted parchment into the groove, then pulled out a small dagger out of his arms.
“There’s something I need to do to activate the contract. I have to fill this groove with the blood of the two people…. who are in contract.”
If we have to fill all the grooves of the slabs, it will take quite a lot of blood.
I reached out to Rexid to ask for a dagger.
But he didn’t quickly hand over the dagger; he just stared at me.
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you? I can’t believe your Grace was a person who would go back and forth with his words…”
This contract was the minimum device to my freedom. I was worried about Rexid, who seemed to have changed his mind unwittingly.
Rexid kept his head low as if he were agonizing over the issue and shook his head.
“No, it’s not like that…”
“Then?”
For some reason, his glaring gaze was on my white hands.
“You’d have to cut quite deep to fill this hole…If it left a scar on a woman’s body… wouldn’t it be annoying?”
“…What?”
It was an unexpected range of concerns.
‘Where did the killer on the battlefield go? Where’s the crazy dog?’
As expected, rumors are not to be trusted.
When I heard of Rexid’s ambition to become the emperor, what was the important part about him that I had gathered to be worthy?
Whoever his opponent was, he would ruthlessly cut off their neck, someone who was cold-bloodless with no blood or tears.
I thought that one was the only good thing he had going for him.
“Your Grace, you said you’re going to be the Emperor.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not an easy place to get by only killing the rugged knights and soldiers you meet on the battlefield.”
“…..”
“If I had noticed you were such a soft person, it would have been hard to receive my help.”
I shot him with a pathetic look and took the dagger from his hand.
“There can be situations where you have to kill a woman, children, or even the elderly, if necessary. Will you hesitate like this at times like that?”
“That’s different. I’m confident I won’t hesitate at such times.”
Rexid snatched the dagger as I was about to cut my palm.
“However, I can’t stand seeing the blood of ‘my’ people.”
He said so and cute straight down his forearm without hesitating. The deeply sliced flesh split, and blood flowed, splashing into the grooves of the stone slab.
“Come to think of it, it doesn’t have to be a one-on-one ratio.”
“Ah…”
Rexid filled the groove with his blood in front of me, who was staring blankly at him and stretched my hand.
When I extended my right hand, he held it.
A very cautious touch, unlike when he boldly split his forearm.
It was not long before I felt a slight tingling on my index finger, and a drop of blood fell into the groove of the stone slab.
Drop.
As soon as my blood was mixed, the mana stored on the stone was activated with a dim light.
When the light that lit up the dark underground safe quite brilliantly waned-
The stone slab was in a perfect shape as if it had no grooves from the beginning.
“It’s done.”
With his still bleeding arm, which didn’t stop bleeding, Rexid tapped on the stone slab a couple of times.
He looked satisfied.
“For such an expensive contract, you have to sign it in a fairly primitive way.”
If I were Rexid, losing that much blood would have made me dizzy.
Pretending not to notice that my gaze was constantly aiming towards his bloody forearm, I shrugged.
“Now that I’ve done this, you must have believed that I’m not trying to enslave you, right?”
“Yes, well.”
“And if possible, I want to trust you. Owen, that jerk told me not to trust you even when the skies are split.”
“I’m certain that butler is smart. He’s a man Your Grace needs.”
Seeing me being passive, Rexid frowned and added.
“I’ll trust you since we are working, sharing a life-or-death contract, so don’t try to deceive me.”
“Do you think someone would reply ‘No, I’ll deceive you.’ here?”
“Seriously!”
“I mean to say I got it. Again, it’s up to you to believe it or not.”
“I’ll trust you. Well, you’re not deceiving me anymore, are you? Confess when you got the chance.”
“Ah…!”
When I clapped my hands, Rexid was surprised.
Since I’d gone this far, I couldn’t help it.
I would have to be stuck near Grand Duke all the time since my kidnapping, so I couldn’t keep deceiving him.
“What else is there?”
I smiled awkwardly at Rexid, who asked nervously, and then slightly touched the corners of my eyes.
As I pulled the skin off the corner of my eye by scraping with my fingertips, smooth skin was wrapped around my hands.
Tu-duk
The fake skin covering the upper part of the nose, eyes, forehead, and scalp was peeled off.
How surprised I was when I heard the rumor that Viper was walking around in special makeup, and suddenly Rexid pulled my cheek in the carriage to check.
Fortunately, it was a half-sized scalp wig with only eyes and forehead lines hidden; otherwise, he would have caught me then.
Well, it’s meaningless now that I’d decided to reveal it.
Drop.
The long, loose gold wig that followed the fake skin fell to the floor. Instead of the peeled wig, pink bobbed hair fluttered around my neck. This was what a ‘real’ Viper looks like.
The look on Rexid’s face facing me was spectacular. His eyes glistened with shock, and his mouth was wide open, so I smiled awkwardly.
“Isn’t it prettier? The color of my hair and also the shape of my eyes.”
“This kind of…”
“I’ve always tried to make it prettier than my face but failed every time.”
When I shrugged my shoulders carelessly, Rexid laughed in bewilderment.
With a nearly gloomy face, he asked.
“Are you a woman?”
“Would you like to check?”
When I slightly pulled the front of the dress and answered back sneakily, Rexid freaked out.
“Are you crazy?! What do I check? If you are, then just say you are!”
“I am.”
“Whoa!”
For some reason, Rexid turned his body around without making eye contact with me. He seemed to be very angry at the thought of being deceived again. His earlobes were red.
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Ah, you’re angry. Please stop being angry. This is something I’ve never shown to anyone since I was six and with a big heart, I have decided to show to your highness.”
“You’ve lived like this since you were six?”
Rexid, who started leaving the basement safe swinging his arms, heaved a sigh and looked back at me.
“It was the cornerstone for the future. As I grow up, the shape of my face would change, so I had to hide it from then… “
“Because you can comfortably hide your face and swindle later?”
Yes, but I couldn’t say yes, so I smiled awkwardly.
“Haha…”
“For me, it was a tremendous decision. I’ve gained your trust a lot, right?”
“I just doubt if there’s anything else.”
“Eyy~ I really haven’t hidden anything else. This is the real me…”
Oh, right.
When I paused, Rexid’s eyes became sharp.
“Anything else?”
I had completely forgotten about this. I pulled out the green colored lenses attached to the cornea with my thumb and index finger.
This world hadn’t invented the lens yet, so I made it myself when I was ten.
The color lens, which I dyed and made by buying a material called Pleon, which is similar to plastic, has been quite helpful for camouflage of my identity.
With both colored lenses removed, the eyes I had were clear blue.
Finally, facing my real face, Rexid was speechless.
“I’m sorry. I forgot because I’d been wearing them all the time.”
“Come here.”
Rexid suddenly raised his hands and pinched my cheeks.
“Argh!”
When he stretched my pinched cheeks to both sides, I felt a tingling pain.
“Ugh! It hurts!”
“Really, really, you’re not hiding anything anymore, are you?”
A confused look like a person who was peeling an onion repeatedly with no end…
Rexid rubbed my cheek roughly for a long time.
“Do you swear?!”
“Y-yes …”
Ugh, it really hurts.
Gushing a look that asked to put trust in me, I muttered with a barely moving mouth.
“For real…”