A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad - Chapter 229

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Powerful Child Searches for Dad Episode 229

 

‘When was it…’

 

Ardiana had once found herself pondering such thoughts.

 

What is it that I desire?

 

The one who had led Ardiana to that contemplation was Adelin.

 

Now the lord of Kaldenbain-Ridge, but once a child who had stayed in the palace as her maid.

 

On the day she left the Imperial Palace, Adelin had grasped Ardiana’s hand tightly and said:

 

‘Princess, you must have one too. A place where you can stay comfortably. Not this desolate Imperial Palace, but a real home-like place, that kind of place.’

 

Watching the carriage grow distant, Ardiana couldn’t continue speaking for a long time.

 

Because she had only then realized that she had been longing for a place to stay.

 

But the answer she arrived at after going round and round was painful.

 

‘Such fortune would never come to me.’

 

She seemed to have wished for it when she was young.

 

To live in a home where there was a mother she could rely on, no father who neglected his children, and no brother who tried to kill his sibling.

 

But it was an impossible wish.

 

So she always had to hold her breath.

 

Ardiana grew up learning resignation first, and then how to survive.

 

She thought that hiding her existence and maintaining a low posture was the only way to breathe.

 

But sometimes, when everything felt overwhelming, there were moments when she wanted to give up everything.

 

Because it seemed like if she just stopped her tiresome struggling, she could sink into some deep and comfortable somewhere.

 

‘But I couldn’t bring myself to do even that.’

 

The world was going through dark times.

 

A chaotic age where Mana Stones sprouted and monsters attacked people.

 

Outside Jedo, dozens, hundreds of people died every day.

 

Someone had said.

 

Don’t worry about it too much.

 

That the lives of imperial citizens outside the boundary weren’t as precious as those of nobles.

 

However, to her, placing importance on lives felt meaningless.

 

If those words were true, then what about her?

 

Ardiana was born a princess, yet suffered from poison every day.

 

Though alive, she had to live with her mouth shut like the dead.

 

They said the higher one’s status, the more precious life one possessed, yet she had never once lived preciously.

 

In the end, there was only one answer.

 

‘Me, or those outside the boundary.’

 

In Ardiana’s view, the essence was the same.

 

That they would meet deaths no one would mourn.

 

That there would be no one to cry for them then, no one to remember them.

 

It was for that reason that she had proposed establishing the association to the Emperor after holding her breath all along.

 

To save even one more.

 

To create a way for mercenaries and paladins to cooperate and protect even one more person.

 

Not knowing when she might die, she did her best.

 

The more she did so, the more she came to think of love as a luxury.

 

She hadn’t even expected that her heart could be moved by someone in the first place.

 

Until she met Tesetan.

 

“Association Leader…?”

 

Her continuing thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

 

Seeing Tie calling her from in front of her, Ardiana clenched her fists tightly.

 

What had happened beneath the clock tower of the Royal Palace came to mind again.

 

After destroying the Heart of the Mana Stone, when that golden something that appeared from within flew and lodged itself in Astie’s chest.

 

Her injuries had all been healed by that light.

 

It was from that moment that memories from who knows where began to surface.

 

‘Your Highness… it might not be as bad as you think. If you said you’d take the baby and leave the palace? If you said you’d cross the continent and never return?’

 

Tears flowing down maid Cadia’s cheeks were wetting the cloth wrapping Tie.

 

‘She’s Your Highness’s daughter, but she’s also His Majesty the Emperor’s granddaughter. Surely he wouldn’t be that cruel? The baby is completely innocent, surely he wouldn’t try to harm even the baby, would he…?’

 

But Ardiana knew the Emperor.

 

She also knew Pides well, who was obsessed with eliminating her.

 

‘Rather, he would become more cruel.’

 

‘That can’t be. Someone this small…’

 

‘They’re people who are bothered by my very existence. But if it’s such a person’s child, they’d try even harder to eliminate her.’

 

She didn’t want her to live like herself.

 

She didn’t want to pass on a life of losing her mother at birth and living as if enduring.

 

But there was no way.

 

She was a being who drew all the misfortune around her.

 

She herself was the noose that would strangle the child.

 

‘It’s okay, baby, because you have a father… your father is a good person…’

 

With a body that hadn’t properly recovered after childbirth, Ardiana whispered again and again while holding the baby.

 

‘You’ll be safe there. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry…’

 

On the way back after entrusting Astie to Tesetan.

 

She had sat down in the forest wet with night dew and cried silently for a long time.

 

She swallowed and swallowed her sobs, fearing that any escaped whimper might catch the two of them.

 

What she wished for was just one thing.

 

Even if she could never see him again for the rest of her life, even if she could never meet him forever, for him to live.

 

For Astie at least to stay in a place safer and warmer than hers.

 

However, Ardiana ultimately drew in yet another misfortune.

 

Because the innocent child’s mother happened to be her, such a thing had happened to the child too.

 

‘What a pity, Ardiana. I heard that Trevaga, whom you’d been using as a good card, was completely wiped out at Elderin Plains.’

 

‘…What, do you mean by that?’

 

‘You’ve been holed up in the palace for the past few months, so you didn’t know yet, it seems. It’s news the intelligence officer delivered while coming to the banquet hall. They say they couldn’t even find the body of the youngest son of Luminen? Ah, were you acquainted with him?’

 

‘…’

 

‘He was unfortunate too. Why did he leave his comfortable and cozy nest with his own feet? If he had stayed with the Luminen family, he would have secured a position by now… What are you doing right now!’

 

Ardiana vomited everything right there on the banquet table.

 

She couldn’t recall what expressions the Empress, Emperor, and Pides had looked at her with.

 

She had frozen like someone who lost her voice while gripping the table.

 

She maintained silence without words, breath, or tears.

 

It was the next moment that an uncontrollable scream began to burst from her mouth.

 

In the white field of vision, she wailed like a beast.

 

She screamed as if the world had collapsed.

 

The Emperor, Pides, everyone could only watch her cry out, having lost all words.

 

The scenes that followed were cut off abruptly, like those of a drunk person.

 

Herself lying prostrate on the bed without a trace of color.

 

The sound of Cadia pleading, crying.

 

Food piling up untouched.

 

One night, the window of her bedroom quietly opened.

 

Assassins breaking in was nothing special.

 

Ardiana could have dealt with the assassin quickly and quietly as she always did.

 

Weapons that Cadia had placed within reach existed for such situations.

 

“….”

 

However, she took no action.

 

Watching death approach from the shadows, she smiled instead of gripping her sword.

 

“Finally.”

 

It had come to find her tediously throughout her life.

 

Why had it come so late when she wanted to end everything?

 

In her final field of vision, a white moon adorned the night.

 

It was the same moon as the day she had handed the child to Tesetan.

 

“I’ll be back.”

 

Her voice came out cracked.

 

Perhaps because she, who always maintained formality, spoke casually, Astie’s green eyes widened.

 

Ardiana carefully stroked the child’s head.

 

His eyes were so clear that she could see her own reflection holding back tears.

 

“Let’s talk when I return.”

 

She straightened her back, drawing in a trembling breath.

 

As she turned her steps, she saw Pides leaving the banquet hall in the distance.

 

Beneath her dress, she clenched her fists until they might bleed.

 

‘This time will be different.’

 

There was a time when she thought leaving to protect was the only way.

 

But in the end, that was nothing more or less than giving the opponent another opportunity.

 

‘This time I’ll definitely take the initiative.’

 

One who had been to the depths of hell could overturn the game.

 

Ardiana had already been to that place.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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