I Wish I Could Predict Love, Not Fall Into It - Chapter 18

“What? Why?”
Harry’s eyes widened in shock. Nicole flinched at his raised voice.

“Uh, well… she got stabbed instead of His Majesty.”
“What? Stabbed?”

Harry’s jaw dropped open in disbelief.
Nicole lowered her eyes and answered,
“Yes, about two weeks ago, some intruders broke in. She got hurt while protecting His Majesty.”

Harry looked truly shocked. So, on the day Julia came to the palace, the day of the assassination attempt it was Anier who got hurt instead of his brother?

“Anier is amazing…”
Harry murmured with awe. A woman getting hurt while protecting the emperor. That wasn’t something anyone could do without real courage.

“So what did my brother give her in return? A noble title? A land grant?”
Harry’s eyes lit up as he asked Nicole. She looked very uncomfortable.

“Um… I’m not sure. But there is one thing that changed.”

“What is it?”
Harry raised his eyebrows in interest.

But the answer he got was completely unexpected.
“She’s taking swordsmanship lessons.”

❖ ❖ ❖

Today, I went to the outdoor training ground again. Today’s lesson was sparring.

Wearing armor I had borrowed from a female knight, I stood facing my sparring opponent. The aura around him was overwhelming far beyond anything I’d ever felt from my swordsmanship teacher, Clark.

His perfect posture, balanced lower body, long fingers with a firm grip, and sharp eyes that looked like they could read every move.

I already lost.
I wanted to throw down my sword and surrender, but my legs wouldn’t move. I gripped the hilt tightly with both hands, trying to stay calm.

Clang!
The emperor swung his sword once, and my weapon flew from my hands and clattered to the ground. I clenched my tingling hand and looked at him.

“Excuse me, did I ask for a sparring match? I don’t think I did?”

My voice must have risen a bit, because Clark, standing behind the emperor, glared sharply. He looked ready to stab me if I harmed the emperor even slightly.

Behind Clark, the royal knights were standing in formation.

“Pick it up,”
the emperor said, kicking my fallen sword back toward me. I caught it with my bare hands.

“Whoa, that scared me.”
I checked to see if the blade had cut my hand, but the emperor already had his sword raised again.

In the end, I had no choice but to ready myself once more.

“Ugh!”
We sparred two more times after that but I lost both, of course.

“You’re even worse than I expected,”
the emperor said as he calmly sheathed his sword. I was kneeling on the ground, panting for breath, while he looked completely unbothered, like he was just out for a morning walk.

I brushed my red hair back from my eyes and walked up to him.
“Did you come all the way here just to see how terrible I am?”

“Yes,”
he nodded. But I didn’t believe him.

“I don’t think so.”

He raised one clean eyebrow, a bit puzzled by my answer. I stared into his blue eyes and asked,
“You have something to give me, don’t you?”

As his eyebrow lowered back into place, I held out both hands.
“I saw it in a dream.”

The emperor glanced at my outstretched palms, then smirked.
“So your dream didn’t tell you which direction the sword would come from?”

He teased my poor sword skills with that smug tone and took something from inside his coat.
“Take it.”

It was a silver dagger, about the length of my hand, with an obsidian gem set in the hilt.

I looked up at him while holding the dagger.
“If anyone tries to attack you again, you can kill them with that.”

His sky-blue eyes held my gaze, shining under his golden hair in the sunlight.
“I permit it.”

He wasn’t even offering to kill for me himself, but it still felt so reassuring.

My heart skipped a beat.
Power really was something. No ordinary man would ever say something like that.

Excited, I quickly pulled off the dagger’s sheath. The sharp blade gleamed under the sun.

“If you’re going to aim, don’t go for the stomach. Aim for the neck instead. Clothes and muscle can block the stomach.”

The emperor explained calmly, then took the dagger from my hand. He moved behind me, gently placed the tip of the blade against my neck, and said,
“Like this.”

His demonstration was so fast that I froze in place. One wrong move and that sharp blade would’ve cut me.

He placed the dagger back in my hand and told me to try. I quickly turned behind him and pointed the blade at his neck but he immediately grabbed my wrist and pushed me back.

Even to my own eyes, my grip looked clumsy.

“Phew…”
The emperor let out a very loud and obvious sigh. Then he shook his head in disbelief.

“No matter how I look at it, you have no talent for swordsmanship.”

For a moment, I felt overwhelmed with unfairness. This wasn’t even my real body, and I’d only been training for less than a month!

“Were you born a sword prodigy, Your Majesty?”
I gave him a sharp look.

Behind him, Clark nodded with a serious expression.
“Yes, he was.”

“Indeed,”
the emperor answered at the same time.

I was speechless, my mouth forming a silent “O.”
Oh, I see… This is one of those ‘gifted student can’t understand struggling student’ situations.

Suddenly filled with stubbornness, I gripped the dagger tightly and moved toward Clark. Without hesitation, I reached toward his back but he struck my wrist with the side of his hand.

“Ow!”

I screamed and dropped the dagger. My arm throbbed painfully. I was sure it’d bruise by morning.

Still, I picked it up again without giving up. Clark then showed me how to attack properly. I tried to copy him a few times, but I ended up collapsing on the ground in exhaustion.

Two tall shadows fell over my worn-out face.

“Was that a dance move just now?”
“Please keep it a secret that I was your sword teacher, for life.”

I glared up at the emperor and Clark.
“You two are just too much.”

❖ ❖ ❖

In a village not far from the heart of Danveria, there was a street lined with shops. It wasn’t exactly a bustling area, but one restaurant never seemed to run out of customers.

Not because of the food but because of the underground gambling den below it.

Soon, a man named Flip was dragged out from the basement and thrown onto the ground outside.

“If you’re out of money, get lost!”

Two large men kicked him out and shouted at him. Flip, whose chubby face was always a little red from drinking, pushed himself up from the ground.

“I told you I have money! At home, I have a witch.”

He stopped himself. That was a secret he couldn’t reveal yet.

He quickly changed his words.
“No, I mean I have something valuable!”

“Then bring it, idiot!”

One of the men grabbed Flip by the collar and punched him.

Thud—

Flip’s large body hit the ground again. Covered in dust, he stood up angrily.

“Ugh, what the hell! Just wait, I’ll bring it!”

After shouting, he turned and began climbing over mountains and valleys to get back home.

It had been nearly three months since he last returned.

As he entered the wooden hut, he called out loudly for the girl he had adopted and raised.
“Anier!”

The room was glowing orange from the sunset coming through a small window.

“Give me some money. If you don’t have any, go earn some right now.”

But no answer came.

Furious, Flip opened the door to her room.
Bang!

“Hey, Anier!”

The room only had a bed and no one was in it. Flip ground his teeth.
“That brat don’t tell me she ran away again?”

❖ ❖ ❖

I spent the entire evening staring at the silver dagger the emperor gave me. The obsidian on the hilt looked more beautiful the longer I stared at it.

Such a cold, serious man giving such a cute gift.

“Hehe…”

I couldn’t stop smiling with joy.

“If anyone tries to attack you again, you can kill them with that.”

Suddenly, the emperor’s words came back to me, and my smile turned bitter.

There was something he didn’t know. I was taking sword lessons, but not to kill—to protect.

Because I had once watched my father die right in front of me and couldn’t stop it. That guilt made me hate death just as much as blood.

Me, kill someone? Me?

Sure, Emperor Louisville could say things like that. He was used to war, after all. He had lived a brutal life, constantly on the edge of survival.

Suddenly, my chest began to ache. Wait, why was my chest hurting? I was stabbed in the stomach, not the chest.

Just then, I heard a sound near the door. Instinctively, I grabbed the dagger and turned around.

The emperor’s handsome face appeared in my sight.

Maybe because I had just been thinking about him, my face flushed slightly.

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