The Prince's Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 121

Chapter 121: First Prince Adrian (2)

“W-what kind of outrageous thing are you saying?!”

Edwin jolted and started blurting out whatever came to mind.

“Death? Brother, you have to become emperor and live a long, healthy life….”

“Do you think I should become emperor too?”

At some point, Adrian had closed his book and was resting one arm on the table.

“If I become emperor, you might die.”

With his chin propped up, he stared straight at Edwin.

“You know it too. Princes who don’t take the emperor’s seat eventually end up dying.”

The emperor’s brothers could inherit titles from their maternal families.

But even if they showed no interest in state affairs and lived as quietly as mice, most of them didn’t live long and died young.

“Just by existing, the emperor’s brothers are a threat to him, so his close aides won’t leave them alone.”

So unless you went to the Holy Kingdom and became a cleric, the odds of a prince who didn’t become emperor surviving were extremely slim.

“So Edwin, weren’t you planning to go to the Holy Kingdom of Rion as soon as your coming-of-age ceremony was over?”

Edwin clamped his mouth shut, struck right at the core by Adrian’s words.

Just as he said, the only way a prince who didn’t become emperor could survive was to flee to the Holy Kingdom and become a cleric.

“And….”

Adrian paused for a moment, then gave a self-mocking smile.

“No one would be happy if a prince who might die at any time climbed onto the emperor’s seat.”

Why did he keep talking about dying? It was scary.

Edwin looked at Adrian with a dazed expression.

“W-why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Because it’s true.”

Adrian continued, indifferent, like he was talking about someone else, “There isn’t anyone in the palace who doesn’t know I’m not destined to live long.”

“But….”

Adrian glanced at his half-brother, who couldn’t bring himself to continue, then fixed his eyes on his book again.

“Do you know that story?”

“Huh? What story?”

“You know, Father. He was the sickliest among his brothers and sisters. So he wasn’t even considered as a successor candidate.”

Father was sickly?

It was hard to even imagine, thinking of the Emperor as he was now.

“And yet, in the end, he took the throne. He pushed aside all his brothers and sisters.”

He’d used the most refined expression he could, ‘pushed aside,’ but in truth, it was one-sided slaughter.

The story of the Emperor killing all his siblings and ascending the throne was famously well-known.

“I resemble his constitution. I didn’t resemble his temperament, though.”

The sharpness gathered in his ashen eyes gradually lost its light.

In a small voice, Adrian murmured, “And yet the adults want me on the emperor’s seat. Believing it’s what’s right, regardless of what I want.”

He let out a smile that was somehow twisted.

“I really can’t understand it. Even if a sickly prince with no desire for it takes the throne, he’ll be nothing but a puppet.”

Every word out of his half-brother’s mouth was bewildering.

Edwin felt like he might start crying.

“Edwin.”

Then Adrian looked steadily at Edwin, who looked uncomfortable, like he was sitting on pins and needles.

“Do you have a dream?”

“A dream?”

“Yeah, a dream. You can call it a goal too. I just call it that because it seems unlikely to be achieved.”

A dream, or a goal.

Edwin fell into thought.

If you asked what the young prince’s dream was, there was only one.

‘I want to become strong enough to protect the people I like. And….’

If possible, he wanted to become the crown prince.

It was a dream for such a personal reason that he couldn’t bring himself to reveal it in front of his half-brother.

Edwin kept his gaze fixed on his half-brother’s red hair and asked back, “Then what’s your dream, Brother Adrian?”

“What?”

“Listening to you, it sounds like you don’t want to become emperor.”

But as he said himself, a prince who didn’t become emperor would only die.

There was no way he wanted to die, and it was even less likely he wanted to enter the Holy Kingdom and become a cleric.

In a cautious voice, Edwin asked again, “You have another dream, don’t you?”

“….”

Adrian didn’t answer.

He only stared at Edwin, then released the hand propping up his chin.

On the First Prince’s face lay a resignation that didn’t suit his age.

“It’s a pretty funny situation. The one who’s curious about my dream is you, of all people.”

“Yes?”

“If you ask, it’s not like I can’t answer.”

Adrian brushed a hand over the books piled like a tower beside him.

“My dream is to be an archaeologist.”

For someone born into the most noble status in the Empire, it was an absurdly modest dream.

Edwin’s eyes widened slightly.

“An archaeologist?”

“Yeah.”

“Why an archaeologist?”

He knew he liked ancient civilizations, but that much?

Edwin wore an expression that said he couldn’t quite accept it.

‘I’ve heard archaeology isn’t exactly a promising career. Teacher said it’s basically no different from grave robbing.’

Meanwhile, Adrian looked down at the book in front of him and answered, “Because it resembles me.”

Fragments of the past that remain only in records and ruins.

Traces of glory with nothing left but fame.

When he looked at ancient civilizations and ruins, it felt like he was looking at himself.

Stagnant in place, guarding that place regardless of his own will.

“And because I want to resemble it.”

It was a cryptic answer.

Edwin forced an awkward smile as he tried to hide his cold sweat.

“I, I see.”

“You look like you don’t understand. Is it that surprising? That I want to become a scholar?”

“Ah, well….”

Edwin hesitated, then continued, watching Adrian’s mood.

“Honestly, I don’t really know. You can become anything you want, Brother, so why….”

“Anything, huh. Do you really think so?”

“Of course! You can become emperor, so you can become anything else too….”

“Being able to become emperor doesn’t mean you can become anything. It means you can only become emperor.”

Just because he was born as the legitimate eldest son of the current Emperor, the only future Adrian was allowed was the path of becoming emperor.

Someone might call it a luxurious complaint, but to him, it was nothing but suffocating reality.

“If I don’t become emperor, I’m just worthless trash with no value at all.”

Maybe that was why he was drawn even more to ancient civilizations.

He envied how ruins that were useless in real life could still be treated as genuinely precious by someone.

What does it feel like to be loved just for existing?

“But if you become emperor, there are a lot of things you can do.”

“Sure. I’ll be able to enjoy the greatest power and wealth. But I’ll grow farther and farther from what I want. Because as the emperor, I won’t exist for myself, but only for this Empire.”

Edwin knit his brows as if he didn’t know what to say.

‘Until now, we never really had a chance to talk, so I didn’t know, but Brother Adrian….’

It seemed his half-brother liked talking about difficult things.

“Yeah, this might still be a hard conversation for you. You’ve probably never even thought about it before now.”

As if he’d read his half-brother’s mind, Adrian changed the subject.

“So what about you?”

“Yes?”

“You still haven’t answered. About what your dream is.”

“Ah, mine.”

At the question about his dream, Edwin answered with a bold face.

“I want to become a strong person!”

“…A strong person?”

“Yes! I want to become someone who can protect everyone I love.”

At the Third Prince’s answer, Adrian’s eyes wavered slightly.

“You.”

Staring straight at his half-brother, he continued, “You really have changed a lot.”

“Huh, have I?”

“Yeah. The kid who used to hide behind that old nanny every day and just read the room.”

By old nanny, he wouldn’t mean Rachel, but Emma.

Edwin looked at Adrian with surprised eyes.

‘He knows Emma. I thought he was someone who didn’t care about other people at all.’

Now that he thought about it, on the day of Emma’s funeral, a bouquet honoring the dead had been sent from the Empress’s Palace. And the person who delivered that bouquet was none other than First Prince Adrian.

‘Back then, I didn’t have the presence of mind to think about anything else, so it just passed me by….’

He remembered seeing the First Prince’s figure faintly beyond the window that morning, when he couldn’t bring himself to leave his room even until the day of the funeral. And how the head maid at the time greeted him in Edwin’s place and received the bouquet.

‘Brother Adrian might be….’

Edwin quietly watched Adrian pull out another book.

Maybe First Prince Adrian was a much kinder person than others thought.

“Um, Brother.”

Adrian lifted his gaze slightly at his half-brother’s voice.

“There’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“My dream.”

Bringing up another dream he hadn’t even been asked about.

Adrian recalled the old Edwin, who used to be busy avoiding his eyes, and replied, “What is it?”

“Well, I, I….”

“You what?”

“I, I….”

Something strange was happening.

Edwin’s pale face was flushing redder and redder.

Adrian was just starting to feel frustrated at his half-brother’s inability to finish his sentence.

“I want to marry the person I love!”

At his half-brother’s unbelievably bold answer, Adrian’s eyes went wide as lanterns.