The Prince's Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 114

Chapter 114: The Knight King and the Third Prince (1)

“Your Majesty?”

Edwin reflexively hid the wooden sword behind his back.

It was embarrassing to think his skill had been exposed in front of the man called the Knight King.

“W-why are you here…?”

“I just happened to pass by and saw you, so I thought I’d at least greet you.”

With an unhurried step, Kayden approached the young prince.

He looked down at the top of Edwin’s head as the boy, ears red, stomped his feet in place.

After standing there without a word for a moment, he finally opened his mouth again.

“…Who taught you swordsmanship?”

“Pardon?”

Edwin’s eyes widened.

He never imagined the King of Adamant would be curious about him.

Even if asking who taught him swordsmanship was a very small question.

“Ah, th-that is….”

He wanted to answer well somehow.

In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Edwin’s small head.

‘It’s still a secret that I’m learning swordsmanship. If I say it for no reason and it gets out, what if it causes trouble for Sir Philip or the other knights?’

Then, as if Kayden had read the young prince’s mind, he changed the subject.

“Well, no matter who taught you, what does it matter so much?”

He smiled gently at Edwin.

“What matters to a swordsman is how well he can wield the sword.”

Kayden quietly looked down at Edwin.

It amazed him how the damp, light blond hair and the raised eyes like a startled rabbit’s so closely resembled his younger sister. It felt as if his sister, who was already dead and gone from this world, had appeared before him again as a child.

‘Parents and children are still clearly separate people. How can they resemble each other this much?’

Is this why everyone strives so desperately to have children?

Hoping that someone endlessly close to them would keep living in this world even after they died and disappeared?

“It’s a fairly ridiculous reason.”

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing.”

Kayden shook his head as if it were nothing and changed the subject.

“Prince Edwin.”

At the voice calling him, Edwin’s whole body tensed.

That stiff movement was so much like a new recruit it almost made Kayden laugh.

“I’ll ask a different question. When did you start practicing swordsmanship?”

At last, a question he could answer.

Edwin opened his mouth with a bright expression.

“Ah, it’s been just a little over a month.”

“…Huh?”

Skill from practicing for only a month? That just now?

Kayden recalled the prince’s sword a moment ago.

‘He still can’t put his full weight into it, but it was a clean vertical cut with no wasted movement.’

It didn’t feel like the swordsmanship of a beginner who had held a sword for about a month.

“So I’m still really clumsy. It’s embarrassing to show Your Majesty, but I ended up showing you.”

Edwin scratched the back of his head with an awkward face.

Watching him, Kayden seemed to think for a moment, then drew his own sword.

Shing.

The blade, with the blue sheen said to be seen only in a sword forged from adamant to its utmost, caught the eye.

Edwin looked at Kayden with flustered eyes.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

Surely he wasn’t planning to swing that sword.

A faint anxiety made Edwin’s gaze tremble.

But unlike his worry, Kayden planted the drawn sword into the ground and held up the empty scabbard in one hand.

“Since coming to the Empire, I haven’t even been able to spar with my men, so my body’s gotten sluggish.”

Kayden stretched his lips into a long smile.

“If it won’t be an imposition, would Prince Edwin be my sparring partner?”

A spar, all of a sudden?

Edwin’s eyes trembled.

‘Me sparring with the King of Knights?’

And the opponent was Kayden Ram, the Knight King said to have won victory after victory in countless wars.

To receive a sparring proposal from him was practically an honor.

‘But….’

At the same time, worry came first.

What Edwin learned over the past month was the most basic imperial swordsmanship taught to the Third Unit knights. It was the foundation of the foundation, without a single applied movement.

‘Can I face this man with that?’

But there was no time left to hesitate.

Because Kayden raised the scabbard he held and aimed it at the prince’s slender neck.

“If you don’t want to, you can refuse right now.”

Separate from how frightening and scary it was, this was an opportunity.

Edwin recalled something Rachel once told him.

“There are steps you have to go through to become strong. One of them is facing the fear inside you head-on.”

No matter how scared and afraid you were, you had to be able to look at it directly in order to either confront it or avoid it. That was her belief.

“People fear the unknown most. Which means, if you can grasp what your fear really is, there’s no fear in this world you can’t overcome.”

The true nature of fear.

Suddenly, Edwin thought of the girl he liked most.

The girl who boldly vowed that she’d keep a snake close and watch it because she was afraid of it.

‘Brigitte faced the fear inside her too.’

Edwin lifted his gaze straight up at Kayden, who stood tall like a wall he couldn’t cross.

He was a far more nerve-racking opponent than the monster he faced in Luxen Village.

Maybe it was because of Kayden’s huge body that looked like it could overwhelm him, and those golden eyes blazing in the middle of a shadowed face with the sunlight behind him.

‘If that’s the case.’

Edwin’s eyes narrowed slightly.

‘If I spar with him, won’t I be able to understand him better too?’

Sage also gave him the assignment to find out how to take Adamant Castle. Maybe he could find a clue through sparring.

“Do you still need more time to think?”

“…No.”

Edwin finally adjusted his grip on the wooden sword.

A strong will burned in his blue eyes.

“Then please take care of me.”

“Of course.”

As he replied, Kayden lowered his center of gravity slightly.

He gave a smiling look, as if telling him to come at him whenever.

“When you’re ready, start whenever you like.”

***

Thud.

Edwin clenched his teeth as he felt the blades of grass brush his cheek.

He couldn’t even count how many times he’d been driven into the ground.

The pure white shirt he wore was stained with crushed grass, and it had long since turned a filthy green.

‘Why….’

With effort, he pushed himself up and looked back at the opponent behind him.

Kayden was smiling, his breathing unchanged.

It was a smile full of ease.

‘Not once. I couldn’t land a single hit.’

Edwin had sparred plenty of times.

Because Philip, who taught him, said practical experience mattered more than theory, and he often served as Edwin’s sparring partner.

‘When I spar with Sir Philip, if I’m lucky, I still manage to graze him at least once.’

Of course, Philip held back, but even so, every time he took Edwin’s counterattack, he couldn’t hide his surprise.

‘This man really is different.’

With Kayden, there wasn’t even a hint of an opening.

It was a mystery. It didn’t feel like Kayden was even facing him seriously, so why did he still look so completely without openings?

“My goodness, don’t tell me you’ve already given up?”

“N-no.”

“Then get up quickly.”

Kayden let the scabbard in his hand hang down as he continued, “If you showed your back like that on the battlefield, your head would already be rolling over there.”

It was a horrifying thing to imagine.

Edwin frowned and got to his feet.

The arm holding the sword and the two legs bracing him shook uncontrollably.

Kayden clicked his tongue at the pitiful sight, worse than a newborn deer.

‘He’s a prince in name, but he’s nothing but bones. Are they starving the kid or something?’

No, that couldn’t be it.

Kayden shook his head, thinking of Rachel, the prince’s nanny.

With a nanny like her at his side, who would dare starve a prince?

‘Does this weak constitution take after Edith?’

The Emperor was a man with a solid frame, even if he looked small and frail.

So those limbs that looked like they would snap if the wind blew must take after his mother, Edith.

‘Even the useless parts are identical.’

He had hoped only the face would resemble her.

Kayden looked at Edwin, who had only just managed to stand, and said, “If it’s too hard, we can stop here….”

“No!”

At the answer that burst out without hesitation, Kayden’s eyes widened slightly.

Edwin panted roughly, looking like he might collapse again at any moment.

But the fighting spirit in the boy’s eyes was still there.

“Hmm.”

Unlike his mother, it seemed he had some grit and stubbornness.

Kayden crooked one corner of his mouth.

“Prince Edwin.”

He lifted the scabbard toward Edwin, who was standing there with effort.

“From now on, if you land even a single strike on me, I’ll grant you one request, whatever it is.”

“…Pardon?”

It was sudden and completely out of the blue.

When Edwin stared at him with startled eyes, Kayden shrugged.

“Don’t want to?”

“N-no!”

Either way, he had nothing to lose.

Edwin gripped the sword even tighter.

He couldn’t let an opportunity that came knocking like this slip away helplessly.

“Hup!”

Edwin rushed at Kayden right away.

It was the clean vertical cut he had tried over and over.

But it was also the attack he had failed with over and over.

‘No improvement.’

At the same attack as before, disappointment flickered in Kayden’s eyes.

With a bored expression, he knocked away all of Edwin’s strikes.

And then.

“Hyaah!”

In that moment when Kayden felt a brief twinge of boredom, a moment that could be called an opening if you insisted.

Edwin’s movement changed dramatically.

‘Right. What I learned isn’t only imperial swordsmanship.’

The young prince pretended to charge straight in, then lowered his body and sprang upward.

“Hah!”

The sword tip that had been pointing forward now angled down.

A strike that cut upward from below, not downward from above.

Kayden’s eyes wavered slightly as he faced the young prince’s attack.