Chapter 3

Daughter of the Emperor Volume 1 Chapter 3

The emperor daughter vol 1 ch 3

I heard my mom was a princess of a kingdom in the north somewhere.

She was called Zerina, but that was not her true name. Her name was originally from the northern lands and had a harsh tone to it. Unfortunately, her name was erased when she was sold off to the Emperor and dragged to the palace to spare her kingdom from complete annihilation. Therefore, she received a new name in this foreign land, and that name was  Zerina. As such, she was then referred to as Princess Zerina.

“Ariadna is too long for a name.”

It was morning and Elaine felt bothered by my name for no apparent reason. I just looked away as I sucked on my pacifier furiously.

“Should we call her Ria or Ana for short?”

They both sound weird. I tried to show my displeasure the best I could but my opinion was completely disregarded. I guess that’s what it’s like to be a child. ‘Just because you’re young you get no say in the world. What a shitty world!’

“Then, let’s go with Ria.”

‘Yeah, that one does sound better than Ana, but I hate both of those names!’ I cried inwardly as I sucked on my pacifier.

*Suck Suck Suck*

‘Ah, to think this tastes delicious! It’s all over for me. There no denying it, I am truly a baby.’

“Princess Ria.”

Elaine couldn’t hold herself back as my nurse was trying to burp me after feeding me. My face winced as soon as I saw her face. ‘I said I didn’t like you. Yes, you.’

“Can’t you see how much she dislikes it?”

‘You are my Superman!’ Nanny was a magician who could read my mind. She’s just like my mommy.

‘Ho ho ho! Cerera, I only have you.’

I tried to act cutely by rubbing my cheek against her and threw my body into her embrace. This was apparently a great shock to Elaine. She puffed up both her cheeks and blew a raspberry like a kid.

“The Princess is only mean to me!”

‘It’s not that I hate you, but I find you a bit annoying.’ I was also a bit envious that her body size was bigger and she could chat away. Cerera’s face grew stern as Elaine kept whining excessively. Elaine instantly shut up at the sight of her cold expression. ‘Now that I think about it, I am technically a Princess, why do I only have this one maid?’ In some ways, my situation was also quite negligible.

‘Well, If I think about it, should I have another servant, wouldn’t my irritation be doubled?

So yeah, this is way better.’

“It’s quite fascinating that she never cries in front of his Majesty. Well, she usually never cries, but still…”

“Even if she’s young, she can recognize him .”

Their gazes were entirely upon me, so I let out a loud burp and gave them a huge smile.

It was almost by instinct at this point.

“The fact that he is her father…”

‘Um, however…

I do recognize him, but not just by instinct. I don’t like the feeling of being named as some sort of genius baby who can find her father just by instinct alone. This kind of mistaken acknowledgment is not right!’

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling uncomfortable?”

My nanny was worried as she misunderstood the reason behind my whining.

‘Hah, no, it’s fine… I’ll just take care of my own problems.’

However, nanny kept checking my diaper and picked me up to make sure everything was comfortable. I could see that she had good skills in terms of taking care of young children. Every movement was patient and gentle. She was obviously not a first-time mom.

“…Seriously.”

After getting comfortable in nanny’s arm, I sucked on my pacifier. This pacifier is truly a symbol of babyhood. At first, I was like, ‘Why would anyone want to suck on this?’ But actually, it helps when I’m bored.

“She looks nothing like the Princess.”

As soon as Elaine spoke, Nanny’s face darkened. I kept on sucking as I observed both of their serious expressions.

‘What’s wrong, you guys?’

“She doesn’t have golden hair nor green eyes. Not even the aspect ratio of her….”

‘Oh. It’s just my appearance. Look, I am a life form born just a couple weeks ago, what is the point in discussing who I take after or how I look?’ I know I probably also repeated this stupid routine in front of other babies in the past. Now that I am a baby this whole thing looks ridiculous. ‘That’s right, from a baby’s viewpoint you look like an idiot.’

“Why do you think she did that?”

Elaine looked somewhat depressed. ‘Was she sullen because I kept rejecting her?’ I thought she was high spirited so she wasn’t the type to get hurt easily. I wondered if I should just play with her, even if I found it annoying, until I felt sleepy. Then, I closed my eyes when I heard my nanny’s voice.

“How could we understand her reasons?”

They always discussed the same things over and over. It was either about me or my parents.

Since I had to lie here and listen to the same conversations for the past week I immediately knew what they going to talk about – it was about Keitel, that crazy Emperor.

That crazy bastard killed every woman that had his child. Of course, they technically started it by trying to get something out of him. You could even say that they had it coming by trying to leech off of their unborn child. But no matter what the reason was, the fact that crazy guy killed all of them doesn’t change. There were also some women who tried to hide and bear the child in secret, and yet he somehow found them and then he would cut the baby out of the mother alive.

‘What a crazy fucker!’

When I first heard about this, I kept wondering, ‘How could a man just carelessly throw away his own children!’ Then I started to have serious thoughts about my own life…

The conclusion I came up with was, ‘If you’re going to kill me, then kill me painlessly!’

Yeah, I know. I’m pretty pathetic.

“It’s just that the Emperor…”

With a heavy face, nanny caressed my cheek. When I glanced at her expression, I gave her a cheerful smile. She immediately gave me a gentle smile back.

” I just pray he has enough affection left in him to love such a small child.”

‘Affection…

That’s too high a hurdle for him. There no way he has that emotion.

Ah…

He’s the type of guy who can kill the women who have his child. The most likely reason he would be able to do that would be due to his level-headedness and overly cool mind. Instead of hoping for affection from a guy like that, I would rather waste my hope on more realistic things such as praying to the heavens for rain during a severe drought.’

He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t even care about his own parents, much less own his siblings.

A cold-blooded guy who killed his own father for the throne then sold off all his female siblings to countries far away and gathered all his male siblings in one place and closed them off. After that point, I stopped trying to listen.

He apparently wasn’t satisfied with just that, so he decided to go to war and hunt down even the female siblings he sent away. He swept up the battlefields like a whirlwind and was the main culprit who, in a flash, drove the entire continent towards a corner.

‘Ah, for the busy modern person, I will shorten everything by saying one sentence… This guy basically reminds me of that bastard, Hitler.

To think I’m that person’s child.’

There were a few people who believed that he will be different to his own child. ‘True, there is a saying that even a hedgehog finds it own child cute, but after everyone heard how he cut off one pregnant woman’s head clean, even those people had to take back their words.

Goodbye…’

“Either way, Princess Zerina and the Emperor are both surprising people, that’s for sure.”

My mother, who protected me from the Emperor and such a crazy bastard at that, was incredibly respected in the palace. ‘Well, it’s true that after getting pregnant from a one night stand she went into voluntary confinement in the Ethelon Palace.’ She literary lived in exile. In the deepest corner of the royal palace grounds, she took care of me with such a delicate body. The truth of what she did came out when she was a month away from her delivery date. Obviously, the Emperor tried to kill her, but to be honest, no one really knows what happened.

All I know was that she was able to give birth a month later and my father went to “clean up”  the southern kingdom Izarta during my birth.

I just looked up towards Cerera with big eyes and she smiled back gently. I don’t know how many months ago I entered this body, but at the word mother, I could only think of Cerera who was right in front of me. ‘She is the only lady who dominates my memories and it feels strange.’

“Ah, have you heard the rumors?”

“Huh?”

“That the Emperor has been cursed…”

‘Ah.”

Cerera’s expression darkened at those words.

I glared at Elaine. ‘How dare you make nanny sad!’ But, Elaine also grew depressed, causing me to feel guilty.

‘Ah, I decided to be kinder to you earlier, but I glared at you.’ I felt a bit sorry since she was so crazy in love with me. Then, at that moment, Cerera placed me back in my crib. ‘It seems to be my nap time.’

“It’s not a curse.”

Cerera looked at me as if I was far away. I could tell from her expression that she wasn’t completely here. She was probably reminiscing about the past.

“If you can put a name on that, it would be…”

Her hand clasped my small hand tightly. Even though you could tell from a glance who was bigger, I felt incredibly sorry for her, so I grabbed her pinky finger first.

“I would call it a ‘Lament’.”

‘Lament…

Now that I think about it, I do remember a piece of a memory that was deep in the bottom of my mind.’

With that memory, I also recalled a voice. When I was just born and flapping around like a fish. I heard a wail full of agonizing pain as if she had greatly suffered.

“I hate you, Emperor! My flesh and blood will never forgive you!

When my body crumbles away, this child, with my blood, will curse you in my stead!”

I closed my eyes and started mumbling.

‘I can’t believe you would order a child to do something like that.’

Even I thought our first meeting was way too bloody, but for some reason, the Emperor kept coming to meet me. I found this unbelievably annoying but it made the other two incredibly happy.

Well, it’s not like I don’t understand the reason. Even if I am a princess the truth is that I’m a bastard born out of wedlock, so my status wasn’t stable and my title unsecured. So if everyone claimed I was not a true princess, I sadly lacked a title, or anything really, to throw at their faces to shut them up.

*Sob Sob Sob*

So this is the truth, I guess. The fact that the man who’s claimed to be my father is visiting his so-called daughter is actually a good thing. I mean, no matter how you look at it, this guy didn’t seem to be like my father but at least he had a killer body.

He was a feast for the eyes. ‘It’s not like he will kill me for checking him out, right? Since I’m the daughter…’

“She’s not sleeping.”

‘Ah, sorry. I was wrong about you. You are the kind of guy who can kill his own daughter.’

I lifted my chin as I wondered when he came. ‘Our eyes met again. I have really shitty luck.’ Well, since I met his gaze a couple of times before, my body no longer shakes but my heart would beat faster under his gaze, which is, of course, a natural reaction of the body that I can’t control.

‘Ah, I wish it was his beauty that was making my heart race. That would be better than the fact that my heart is pumping because of its natural instinct towards the danger of death.

What is going on here Mr. God?

It’s not like he’s looking at me with killing intent.

I guess that kind of intense gaze is, in its own way, quite at-

No, it’s still terrifying! It’s scary as hell!’

“Is it because I’m here?”

‘I heard that you are free to make your own mistakes, Mr. Customer.’

I made a rotten face at his grin and turned my head to continue to suck furiously on my pacifier. I heard breastfeeding is very important and good for the baby so many times but my mom died so I can’t even get her milk from somewhere.

‘Ah, wait. Is that milk in the bottle breast milk? Ugh, no. It can’t be. It tastes way too good.

Are they using a very high-quality formula?’

“Wah!”

In this way, I was planning to drop off into my own world with my thoughts when the pacifier I was sucking so hard on disappeared from my mouth. I  couldn’t figure out the cause so I looked here and there and into the sky, my pacifier disappeared into- ‘Ah. No!’

“Want it?”

‘………….God, is this feeling I’m feeling what people call a murderous intent?

This fucker called a dad took his own daughter’s pacifier!!!’

I was furious and looked up at him.

Of course, even if I did that, how fierce could I be with such a round chubby face?

Yet, this was the best I could do.

He just stood there hatefully with my pacifier in his hand.

‘Agh! I hate him!

Yes, this is the problem here. It’s good he visits often, and it good his face is so handsome and it all good but-! The problem is instead of treating me like his daughter, that bastard treats me like a toy to quell his boredom.

That Son of Bitch!’

“Your eyes are too red to the point it’s unpleasant.”

‘These eyes were inherited from you. You unpleasant red-eyed monster.’

“Too red.”

‘Sigh, I got it from you, sir.’

“I want to pop them out.”

‘Huk-‘ At that my mouth, popped open’

Seeing my reaction, he gave me a refreshing smile. His smile was so beautiful that it was sparkly and it blinded my eyes, yet I could not find this simply beautiful.

‘There is a demon in there.’

After smiling, he placed the pacifier in my mouth. He did it so seriously I thought for a moment that he was showing consideration.

‘…I’m sorry, but no.’

“Small.”

‘That is some fine speech you’re saying to a baby barely two months old.’ I stuck out my lips and sucked the pacifier. Once again our eyes met.

‘All right, you want to look? Go ahead, look.

Well, I basically already know what you’re about to say. It’s all the same after a while.

Inspect, judge and then react.

Am I just some item?’

I decided from now on to treat everything that came out of his mouth as just gibberish.

‘Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō

Please let me be free from that guy.’

I was retarded to listen to his words just because he spoke only one word every few hours.

“Really small.”

Well, thanks to this guy’s frequent visits I learn something new. It was things I couldn’t learn from nanny and Elaine, so I found it interesting and fun when I discovered anything new about him.

“Hmmm…”

First of all, this guy actually does have more reason then I gave him credit for. ‘That’s right! The truth is he was a reasonable psycho. Not only that, he did have a sense of honor and even morals.’

If there was one problem, it was the fact that he didn’t try to keep any of it nor did he have any desire to.

People called him a crazy fucker and a lunatic, but that wasn’t quite right. What was happening was quite different from what the rumors said.

Yes, it doesn’t change the fact that he is still a crazy bastard, but he wasn’t bathing in blood like Elizabeth Báthory, nor was he like Vlad the Impaler, going around the battlefield impaling people with spikes.

It was good to find out he wasn’t a pervert but I can’t, in good conscience, say he’s not a crazy bastard…

‘If I had to be specific, he was an asshole that was kind of crazy?

Ah. That’s not accurate either.’

“Cry, now.”

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T/n   She compared him to Hitler! The webtoon definitely left that part out.