Ch#229
A Very Strong Kid is Looking for Dad Chapter 229
'When was it......'
Ardiana had once pondered that.
What is it that I truly desire?
The one who led Ardiana into that contemplation at the time was Adelrin.
Now the lord of Kaldervain-Ridge, but once a child who had stayed in the palace as her maid.
On the day she left the High Palace, Adelrin had tightly grasped Ardiana's hand and said,
'You too, Your Highness, must have such a place. A place where you can stay with peace of mind. Not this barren High Palace, but a real home-like place.'
Watching the departing carriage, Ardiana was unable to speak for a long time.
Because only then did she realize she yearned for a place to belong.
But the answer she arrived at after much circling was painful.
'Such fortune would never come to me.'
As a child, she had wished for it too.
To live in a home with a mother she could rely on still alive, no father neglecting his child, and no brother trying to kill his sibling.
But it was an impossible wish.
So she always had to cower.
Ardiana grew up first learning resignation, then how to survive.
She believed hiding her existence and keeping a low profile was the only way to breathe.
But sometimes, when everything felt overwhelming, there were moments she wanted to give up entirely.
As if stopping her tiresome struggles would let her sink into some deep, peaceful place.
'Yet I couldn't bring myself to do it.'
The world was passing through dark times.
A chaotic era with mana stones emerging and magical beasts attacking people.
Outside the capital, dozens, hundreds died every day.
Someone had said,
Don't worry too much.
The lives of citizens beyond the borders aren't as precious as those of nobles.
But to her, assigning weight to lives held no meaning.
If that were true, then what about her?
Born as the Imperial Princess, Ardiana suffered poison daily.
Even alive, she had to live as if dead, keeping her mouth shut.
They said higher status meant more precious life, yet she had never once lived preciously.
In the end, the answer was one.
'Me, or those beyond the borders.'
To Ardiana, the essence was the same.
That she would meet a death no one would mourn.
That there would be no one to cry for her, no one to remember her.
It was for that reason she had proposed the Frost Association's establishment to the Emperor, always suppressing herself.
To save even one more.
To pave a way for mercenaries and holy knights to cooperate and protect even one more person.
Not knowing when death would come, she did her utmost.
The more she did, the more she thought love was a luxury.
She hadn't even expected her heart to stir for someone.
Until she met Tesetan.
"Association President......?"
Her train of thought snapped to a halt.
Seeing Tia calling to her before her eyes, Ardiana clenched her fist tightly.
The events beneath the High Palace's Clock Tower resurfaced.
When she destroyed the mana stone's heart, and the golden something that emerged pierced Astie's chest.
Her injuries were fully healed by that light.
It was from that moment unknown memories began to surface.
'Your Highness...... it might not be as bad as you think. What if you leave the palace with the baby? What if you cross the continent and never return?'
Tears streaming down maid Cardia's cheeks soaked the cloth wrapping Tia.
'She's Your Highness's daughter, but also the Emperor's granddaughter. Would he truly be that cruel? The baby is innocent—surely he wouldn't harm even the baby, right......?'
But Ardiana knew the Emperor.
She knew Pides well too, the one obsessed with eliminating her.
'He would only become more cruel.'
'No, that's impossible. To such a tiny one......'
'They find even my existence bothersome. If it's my child, they would want to eliminate it all the more.'
She didn't want to make her live like herself.
She didn't want to pass on a life of losing her mother at birth and merely enduring.
But there was no way.
She was a being that drew all misfortune around her.
She herself was the noose that would strangle the child's neck.
'It's okay, baby. You have your father...... your father is a good man......'
With a body not yet recovered after birth, Ardiana whispered to the baby in her arms, over and over.
'You'll be safe there. I'm sorry, so sorry. Truly sorry......'
On the way back after entrusting Astie to Tesetan.
She collapsed in the forest wet with night dew and wept soundlessly for a long while.
Swallowing sobs again and again, lest they catch up to the two.
What she wished for was one thing.
Even if they never met again for life, even if they never saw each other eternally, just to live.
For Astie alone to stay in a place safer and warmer than hers.
Yet Ardiana ultimately drew another misfortune.
Because the innocent child's mother had to be her, something happened to the child too.
'Regrettable, Ardiana. I heard Trebaga, which you've been using well as a good card, was annihilated at Eldrin Plains.'
'......What do you mean?'
'You've been holed up in the palace for months, so you didn't know yet. News from the informant while coming to the banquet hall. They say they couldn't even find the youngest son of Luminen Family's body? Ah, you knew him?'
'......'
'Poor guy. Why leave a comfortable nest on his own two feet? If he'd stayed in Luminen Family, he'd have a position by now...... What are you doing!'
Ardiana vomited everything onto the banquet table right there.
She didn't recall the expressions of the Empress, Emperor, or Pides looking at her.
Clutching the table, she stiffened like a person who had lost her voice.
Silent, without words, breath, or tears.
The next moment, screams she couldn't stifle burst from her mouth.
In her white field of vision, she sobbed like a beast.
Screaming as if the world had collapsed.
The Emperor, Pides, everyone simply watched her wail, speechless.
The scenes after were fragmented, like those of a drunken person.
Herself collapsed pallid in her chambers.
Cardia's pleas, her cries.
Food piling up untouched.
One night, her bedroom window quietly opened.
An assassin breaking in was nothing special.
As always, Ardiana could dispatch the assassin swiftly and silently.
The weapon Cardia had placed for such situations was within reach.
"......"
Yet she took no action.
Facing death approaching from the shadows, she smiled instead of grasping the sword.
"Finally."
After searching so tediously her whole life.
Why had it come so late, just when she wanted to end everything?
In her final vision, a white moon adorned the night.
The same moon as the day she entrusted the child to Tesetan.
"I'll be back."
Her voice cracked.
Perhaps because she spoke casually, abandoning formality, Astie's green eyes widened round.
Ardiana cautiously stroked the child's head.
Her eyes were so clear, reflecting her own image holding back tears.
"Let's talk when I return."
Drawing a trembling breath, she straightened her waist.
Turning her steps, she saw Pides exiting the banquet hall far ahead.
Beneath her skirt hem, she clenched her fist until it drew blood.
'This time is different.'
There was a time she thought leaving to protect was the only way.
But in the end, it was nothing more than giving the opponent another chance.
'This time, I will strike first.'
One who has descended to the end of hell can overturn the board.
Ardiana had already been there.