A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 150

Chapter 150

Imperial palace.

Into the banquet palace, where sunlight was streaming, entered Fides, prince of Talochium.

The woman sitting before the oval table lifted her gaze.

It was Ardiana, the empire’s Crimson Princess.

“……Ardiana. You had come already?”

Ardiana rose from her seat.

“I have not waited long.”

At that calm answer, one of Fides’s eyebrows twitched.

He stared at Ardiana for a moment, then roughly pulled out a chair.

“Then that’s enough.”

Contrary to his words, beneath the table he was clenching his fist tightly.

“By the way, your complexion is not good. Are you perhaps sick anywhere?”

Ardiana gave a faint smile.

“As you can see, I am healthy. I am more worried that Your Highness’s honored body may be harmed. You must be busy attending to state affairs.”

Fides let out a sneer.

“Do not worry, I am healthy. Perhaps healthy enough to be a problem. Strangely so.”

Ardiana did not answer.

Instead, still wearing a smile, she folded both hands over her knees.

In Fides’s eyes appeared a look as though he found it displeasing.

‘Why are you perfectly fine. Every single time.’

Ardiana had always been an obstacle in Fides’s path.

Fides was the son of a commoner whom the Emperor had coveted because he could not restrain his lust, but Ardiana was the only daughter of the noble Empress.

‘You can tell just by seeing the pillars of the state cut me to pieces behind my back.’

Fides was the child the Emperor loved most.

But even so, scandals always followed him.

Most of them concerned his mother and his birth.

‘Is that really true? Her Highness the Empress Consort, was she really the late Empress’s head maid?’

‘I’m telling you it’s true! In the first place, it was Her Majesty the Empress who brought Her Highness the Empress Consort into the palace.’

Lavenia, Fides’s mother, was a beautiful woman.

She was a commoner and a survivor from a village on the outskirts of the imperial capital that had been burned down by monsters.

It was the Empress who saved her as she lay dying.

While out on an incognito inspection to look over the attacked area, the Empress happened to discover her.

The Empress brought the injured Lavenia to the imperial palace and treated her.

And she began keeping her by her side and caring for her.

Though that goodwill did not last long.

‘Her Majesty the Empress doted on Her Highness the Empress Consort so much. Why else would she put her in the position of head maid over all the children of noble families.’

But unlike the Empress’s trust, less than a month after becoming head maid, Lavenia became pregnant.

And then he gave birth to Fides.

The Emperor’s first child, one that even the Empress herself had not yet borne.

‘They say Her Majesty the Empress was remarkable too. Even after suffering such humiliation, apparently she went to His Majesty the Emperor every day and begged him. Please, she said, also share a bed with me and help me bear an imperial child.’

Even so, the Empress was a person of cold reason.

She worried about the turmoil that would befall the empire if there were no legitimate heir between herself and the Emperor.

‘I will not beg you to love me. But the Empress does not exist in name alone. The Empress is the foundation of the state, and bloodline is the stability of the empire.’

‘……Huh.’

‘If Your Majesty has children only with Lavenia, controversy will surely arise in later generations. Regarding the child’s legitimacy.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘……Your Majesty, please consider the future of the state. I earnestly beg you.’

One year later.

The Empress became pregnant.

But she was unable to raise the child she bore with such difficulty with her own hands.

Not long after giving birth to the princess and falling ill, she passed away.

Yet even so, the child who was born, Ardiana, was the imperial family’s legitimate daughter.

The Emperor hated Ardiana beyond merely disliking her.

‘Even your eyes resemble your mother. You always keep your chin raised stiffly as though trying to look down on me, the supreme one, from above.’

In front of the pillars of the state, the Emperor often insulted Ardiana without hesitation.

Naturally, throughout Ardiana’s upbringing he remained indifferent to her.

By contrast, the Emperor’s favor toward Fides only grew with each passing day.

‘In my heart, I would like to hand Talochium over to you. If only the pillars of the state had not opposed it……’

He pitied Fides, who despite being his first child could not inherit imperial authority.

And perhaps to wash away his own sense of debt about that, he raised Lavenia to the position of Empress Consort.

‘You must assist Fides well. One never knows, does one? If Ardiana falls ill or is injured……’

Most of the words Fides grew up hearing from a very young age were things like that.

If Ardiana fell ill.

If Ardiana was injured.

If Ardiana died.

Then he would inherit imperial authority.

So perhaps it was as natural as the order of the world that he tried to kill Ardiana.

But there was a problem.

‘Why is that life so stubborn. I have already sent assassins several times.’

When he first put poison into her snacks.

Ardiana survived the poison with the body of an eleven-year-old.

After that he sent assassins, but again she survived.

Afterward as well, Ardiana continued to avoid death, again and again, too many times to count.

Several years ago she even managed to reach adulthood.

The more that happened, the more Fides’s anxiety grew by the day.

Because with each passing year, killing Ardiana only became harder and harder.

‘Just what is it, does she perhaps have some wondrous art for avoiding death.’

While he was thinking, dinner was served.

A servant came forward and said,

“His Majesty the Emperor will not be attending. He conveyed that this evening he wishes to dine privately with Your Highness alone.”

“I understand, so withdraw.”

Dismissively sending the servant away, Fides picked up his utensils.

Ardiana had already begun eating.

Seeing her cutting her food, dissatisfaction rose in him again.

Fides deliberately said in a mocking tone,

“Is that Association or whatever going well?”

Ardiana lifted her head.

For the first time since the meal began, a slight hostility had appeared in her eyes.

“……It is going well.”

“And you’re hiding your identity well?”

“I am hiding it.”

“Good. We cannot go around announcing that one of our imperial family is doing work that pursues the interests of vulgar people.”

Ardiana did not answer.

Fides watched her with a sneer.

‘I cannot give you any kind of work. And I cannot yield any sort of credit to you.’

Several years ago.

He remembered the time Ardiana stepped forward saying that mercenaries should be protected.

The Emperor and Fides thought Ardiana was acting arrogant again.

The problem was that several pillars of the state thought differently.

‘Your Majesty. Her Highness the Princess is correct. Are not the cases where holy knights and mercenaries must join forces increasing day by day? There should be a mechanism to mobilize them efficiently.’

Only after having a major quarrel with the pillars of the state did the Emperor permit the establishment of the Association.

And perhaps because he judged that leading that Association would be a disgrace, he handed the position of Association President over to Ardiana as though it were a discarded card.

Yet Ardiana was pleased.

The moment he saw that, Fides felt as though something twisted inside him.

‘Ardiana. You aren’t planning to lead that organization of vermin under your own name, are you?’

‘……I do not understand what you mean.’

‘You are an imperial princess. It makes no sense for the empire’s princess to guarantee the practical interests of lowly mercenaries. Act under another name. Or stay forever behind a veil.’

Ardiana had to be forgotten, unable to make her presence known to anyone.

Since in any case, someday he would be eliminated by Fides.

Fides did not want to be held back by anything of Ardiana’s.

And in the near future, he wanted to receive the throne safely.

“I hear there is some summons or whatever beneath the clock tower today?”

Ardiana stopped moving and looked at Fides.

“Mind your conduct properly. Otherwise, I will speak to Father and have you dragged down from that position on the spot.”

Swallowing a bitter smile, Ardiana smiled as she always did.

“I will keep it in mind.”

* * *

Several hours later.

“Aaahem!”

Tie cleared her throat in the middle of Clock Tower Plaza.

Off in the distance, beneath the clock tower.

Two people wearing sky-blue cloaks were standing there quietly.

Basto said,

“They must be executives of the Frost Association, Tie.”

Tie nodded.

Then he walked over bravely and, upon seeing the face of one of them, opened his eyes wide.

‘Waa……!’

Above the nose and lips covered by a mask.

Sky-blue eyes that shone like jewels were directed at Tie.

Tie swallowed without realizing it and murmured,

“It’s a princess!”

At those words, embarrassment spread in the other party’s eyes.