The Prince’s Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 221

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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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Chapter 221. The Secret Weapon of the Prince’s Palace (4)

The marble pavilion carved in the center of the central garden was being dyed orange by the sunset light.

The Emperor of the Bentrum Empire was sitting upright at a table prepared inside the pavilion, enjoying some reading.

“Your Majesty, must you really dismiss even the guards?”

“Enough with the nagging, Head Attendant.”

The Emperor of the Bentrum Empire, Cabellius III, received documents from the Imperial Palace’s head attendant with an expressionless face.

“Today is a day when I can finally be completely alone for once. I don’t want to be disturbed in the slightest.”

“…I understand. Then if you need anything, please ring that bell.”

The Emperor did not respond.

The perceptive head attendant bowed lightly and then silently moved away from the pavilion.

Rustle.

Having dismissed all the people around him, it was incredibly peaceful.

The occasional sounds of insects and pages turning made his mind and body feel quietly settled.

So much so that his own fate of being unable to put down documents even during such precious rest time felt newly unfair.

‘The one who was most active in the subjugation war was the 3rd Prince.’

A subtle crack appeared on Cabellius’s indifferent face.

‘Edwin, Edwin indeed.’

His youngest son, born through the body of the Third Empress who had been a princess of Lionel, had nothing in common with him except for his excessively blue eyes.

‘Timid, weak, overly conscious of others, and without any particularly outstanding talents.’

He had definitely thought he wasn’t material to become emperor.

But at some point, Edwin had been showing remarkable growth that overwhelmed the other princes.

‘When did I start to feel he was useful… was it when he said he would participate in knight training?’

No, precisely, it was from when I heard that he had volunteered to participate in that training himself.

‘The Edwin I knew wasn’t the type to say such things with his own mouth.’

How had the timid and fearful 3rd Prince changed so completely?

‘There must have been a trigger.’

Nothing ever happened suddenly.

People could only change when there was a trigger, however trivial it might be.

‘Whatever the process, it turned out as Jerome said.’

He would make him into a useful card.

Duke Jerome Crowner, his friend and the sword of the empire, had said he would make the 3rd Prince into such a person.

‘Though it seems he failed to raise him as his own disciple.’

Honestly, that was also unexpected.

For what reason had Edwin refused Jerome’s offer to become his disciple?

‘I thought he was such an easy-to-understand fellow.’

Prince Adrian and Prince Lloyd were princely in that they were more materialistic and cunning than their age suggested. They were also excellent at hiding their emotions depending on the situation.

‘But unlike those two, Edwin…’

Prince Edwin had pure and innocent aspects that made it hard to believe he inherited his blood.

At first, he thought such aspects made his inner thoughts completely transparent, but now it wasn’t so.

‘Rather, it’s unpleasant that I can’t read his mind at all.’

Who would have thought he’d feel such unfamiliar emotions when facing someone completely different from himself, and from his own son at that.

‘Judging by the results of this subjugation war alone, Edwin would be the prince suited for the crown prince position.’

However, having excellent individual capabilities didn’t mean one could become emperor. From a macroscopic perspective, Edwin had a point he could never surpass the other princes.

“…If only the Third Empress had been alive, that boy would have had possibilities too.”

While one might check maternal relatives to strengthen imperial authority, that was only the story for those who had already ascended to the emperor’s throne and firmly established their own foundation.

‘The absence of powerful maternal relatives ultimately leads to the weakening of imperial authority.’

Even the Emperor himself had a birth mother who was from a branch of the imperial family and from a prestigious noble house.

‘Even if Edwin, that boy, were to become emperor, he would constantly be checked by the Duke of Crowner and the Marquis of Redcliff.’

No matter how upright a person’s character, they would break if those who were like their own limbs constantly attacked them.

‘Human nature doesn’t change. Edwin, who is overly conscious of others’ gazes, would easily crumble.’

So he couldn’t place Edwin on the crown prince’s throne.

For the preservation and peace of the empire and imperial family that he had obtained by sacrificing everything.

Rustle.

At that moment, there was a sound of something moving in the thicket.

From the presence, it seemed to be a person, not an animal.

‘I clearly said not to let anyone in.’

To reveal one’s presence so openly like this – could it be some ignorant young attendant?

Or perhaps some incompetent assassin?

The Emperor lightly gripped the sword leaning diagonally against his chair and looked toward where the sound came from.

“Eeeng, that’s not it either!”

He saw thick, fine golden hair and plump, rosy cheeks.

Large blue eyes that somehow resembled Edwin’s showed clear signs of exhaustion and boredom.

‘…That is.’

The Emperor frowned as he watched the small girl rummaging through the low thicket.

“Aang, Ria, my legs hurt! I want to stop now, so come out quickly!”

At the name Ria, the Emperor’s eyes widened slightly.

‘Emilia?’

The Emperor’s last child born to the Third Empress.

At that time, not long after Lionel had fallen, and with large and small civil wars breaking out across the continent, he was too busy to pay attention even though a daughter had been born.

Moreover, since the Third Empress died after giving birth to Emilia, the celebration of the child’s birth was replaced by a ceremony mourning her mother’s death.

‘I think she was smaller than my forearm.’

The image of the 1st Princess remaining in the Emperor’s mind was only of a white silk swaddling cloth held by a wet nurse at the Third Empress’s modest funeral.

‘She must be about five years old now.’

He had only had three sons.

He had no intention of giving special treatment just because an unexpected daughter was born. Children were all the same – what did gender matter?

‘She can’t inherit the throne anyway.’

To the Emperor, Emilia was just like a son without succession rights, nothing more.

Duke Crowner, who occasionally doted on daughters, would look at such an Emperor with eyes that said he couldn’t understand him.

‘…She’s grown quite a bit.’

The Emperor quietly watched the princess wandering in the central garden.

Like her own brother, Emilia didn’t have much resemblance to him either.

‘Is Lionel’s blood that strong?’

Seeing her appearance that was the spitting image of her mother, he clearly remembered the Third Empress’s face that he had forgotten.

‘She was quite intelligent and beautiful.’

Third Empress Idis Lionel.

Though she said in words that she loved him, she too had essentially used marriage with him to escape from Lionel.

‘If she hadn’t married me, she would have had to enter an incestuous marriage.’

Bien, who was the 1st Prince of Lionel at the time, had been constantly eyeing Idis.

Idis noticed his intentions and persuaded the king to propose marriage to him first.

‘It was somewhat refreshing for a princess of a wealthy nation to offer herself the position of imperial consort rather than empress.’

It was a deal with nothing to lose.

The Emperor readily accepted the marriage proposal, setting the condition of solidifying the alliance with Lionel.

‘If her chronic illness hadn’t worsened, she wouldn’t have gone so quickly.’

The Emperor put down his documents and stared intently at Emilia.

Watching the small, plump thing rolling around here and there, he didn’t feel inclined to scold her.

“Princess Emilia!”

It was around the time he began to worry about the princess being alone.

Two maids appeared and stood beside Emilia.

“Let’s go back now, shall we?”

“Yes, you clearly said earlier that you’d look around just a little and then return.”

“But, but! Ria still hasn’t found a four-leaf clover!”

A four-leaf clover? Why was she looking for such a thing?

The Emperor looked at them with puzzled eyes before turning his head away.

However, coincidentally, right where the Emperor’s gaze landed, a four-leaf clover was sitting there plain as day.

“Waaah, Ria needs to have a four-leaf clover…!”

The Emperor’s fingertips twitched.

The four-leaf clover at the end of his gaze somehow felt like it was getting closer and closer.

“Ria, four-leaf cloverrr!”

The young child’s voice, full of regret and sorrow, echoed softly through the central garden.

“But…”

“What should we do? We searched all around that area just now, but there was no four-leaf clover.”

“I looked all over the opposite side too, but I didn’t see any.”

The troubled voices of the maids attending the Princess echoed in his ears like an echo.

“Sniff.”

The young Princess knew that there were things in this world that couldn’t be solved even by throwing a tantrum. But being sad was still being sad.

“It won’t work, but I need to have a four-leaf clover…”

Emilia fidgeted with her fingertips, making a troubled face.

Her round eyes became moist as if she might cry at any moment.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

It was a calm, low voice.

Emilia blinked and looked up.

The four-leaf clover she had been searching for so desperately was right before her eyes—five of them, no less.

“What are you doing?”

The Emperor held out the four-leaf clovers in front of Emilia with a stiffly hardened face, gently shaking them.

“…Hurry up and take them.”

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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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