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Prologue
Step. Step.
The man striding straight toward me had black hair that shimmered in the light with a bluish sheen.
His gaze was fixed on me. Familiar golden eyes gleamed along with a faint smile.
A face I’d seen somewhere before.
‘Nocturne? No way. Nocturne should’ve been frozen at age eight.’
The man walking toward me with long strides radiated an overwhelming presence. The dark, sinister aura he gave off struck straight at my heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
When the sound of my own heart grew so loud I thought I might go deaf, the man spoke again.
“Red, I told you I’d take responsibility.”
Nocturne? Is it really Nocturne? D-did he… come looking for m-me?
“Why did you run away…?”
“Eek! I-I don’t know who y-you are!”
“Such insolence! Before the great Emperor of the Empire, you dare not kneel at once?!”
The sharp voice of a grand duke sounded from behind.
Huh? Th-the Emperor? Nocturne became the Emperor?
I stepped backward in shock, then snapped back to my senses and prostrated myself before Nocturne, who had become the Emperor.
The footsteps in front of me suddenly stopped. Shiny toes of polished shoes entered my field of vision.
‘He’s going to take me away. To punish me? What do I do? What should I do? Robin! Uncle Bill!’
Just then, a gentle voice lifted me up by the shoulders.
“Red, do you know how hard I searched for you? You’re not trying to run away from me again, are you?”
“I-I’m not Red. My name is Anna…”
“Hah. Lies.”
Nocturne let out a short laugh and took something out of his arms, scattering it in front of me. Tiny torn pieces of paper fluttered down onto the floor.
‘No! I just cleaned this, seriously!’
Unable to stand seeing the freshly cleaned floor getting dirty, I mindlessly grabbed my broom and started sweeping the floor like crazy.
“Red, you really haven’t changed! This is exactly the Red I remember!”
Nocturne pulled me into a hug and buried his face in the nape of my neck.
“This scent of yours… it’s still the same.”
I gently pushed against Nocturne’s chest with both hands and mumbled,
“I’m… I’m just an ordinary cleaner…”
“Red, become my cleaner.”
“What?”
Nocturne lifted his face and looked at me, breaking into a wide grin.
“I’ve dirtied things up a lot for you. If you come, you’ll be satisfied. There’s a whole lot of work for you to do.”
A lot of work… for me?
I swallowed hard. My cleaner’s instincts started to stir.
If he wasn’t trying to punish me…
If he was just looking for a cleaner…
That meant there was a lot I could do, right?
Right. I was now a cleaner equipped with even water-cleaning abilities!
There was no way there was a cleaner in the Empire more capable than me. I’d even heard they were hiring cleaners in the Empire.
And the conditions were supposed to be very generous.
“Is it… very… dirty?”
“Yeah, it’s very dirty. And I’m a very dirty man, so you’ll be more than satisfied.”
I froze for a moment, not really understanding what he meant.
Nocturne—no, Killian, the Emperor of the Empire—curved his eyes as he spoke.
“Let’s go now. I’ve prepared everything.”
Nocturne grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it.
My heart, which had paused for a moment, started pounding wildly again.
“Th-then, Y-Your Majesty Ki-Killian… you’re not going to k-kill me, right…?”
Clutching my startled chest, I asked.
“No. You’ll have to stay by my side until the day you die.”
“Until I die?”
“You just have to become my exclusive hygiene manager and cleaner for life. Red, I’ll employ you until the day you die. Become my one and only cleaner.”
