I Was Just Having Fun With The Time Limit – Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Ron maintained an indifferent expression.

“I must tell Karin to teach you math again.”

“……Yes?”

“I have not seen a number as small as sixteen. Have you still not learned that seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen are also too small? What are you learning?”

He was angry.

He didn’t want to admit that the biggest number remaining for his child was sixteen.

The words, “Please be tired only sixteen times,” became a knife and stabbed Ron’s chest.

It hurt a lot.

Ron placed his hand on Isabel’s head.

He stroked Isabel’s hair with an unfamiliar touch.

“Touching your hair makes me tired.”

He knelt on one knee beside Isabel.

“Kneeling makes me tired.”

He looked into Isabel’s eyes.

“Looking at you makes me tired.”

He was already tired three times.

Ron lowered the hand that was on Isabel’s head.

“Moving my hand makes me tired.”

He took Isabel’s small hand.

“Holding your hand makes me tired.”

Isabel’s hands were very small.

They were as small as pebbles, but not as hard as pebbles.

Ron couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled Isabel closer.

“Pulling you makes me tired.”

Isabel’s body fell into Ron’s arms.

“Holding you makes me tired.”

As a trained swordsman, he could hear her heartbeat.

It was still a strong beat.

“Hearing your heartbeat once makes me tired.”

That strong beat would stop in 15 years.

Then Ron’s world would stop too.

That’s what he thought.

“Hearing it twice makes me even more tired.”

And he only said it to himself.

‘Thinking about how to make the biggest number left for you not 16 makes me tired.’

He said out loud.

“I’m tired of spending time with the foolish Princess without being able to sleep in a comfortable bed.”

“……”

“I’m tired because I’m wondering why this time, which was clearly not worth it, is so precious.”

His eyes reddened as he spoke.

He realized it naturally.

Even if she couldn’t learn Bilotian swordsmanship, this child was clearly the Princess of Bilotian, and his and Serna’s only daughter.

Someone who had never felt affection for his child began to feel affection for his child.

He learned a completely new emotion.

“I’m tired of learning new things.”

Isabel, in Ron’s arms, started to sniffle.

His tone was blunt, but the content within it was not.

Isabel could fully feel Ron’s emotions.

In all of Ron’s words, there was a lot of affection for Isabel.

“Sob!”

Ron wiped Isabel’s tears with his thumb.

“I’m tired of wiping the tears of the crybaby Princess.”

He said to himself again.

‘I’m tired of holding back my tears.’

He said.

“I’m already tired sixteen times. Do you understand now? I will be tired not sixteen, but one hundred and sixty, no, one thousand six hundred times.”

Isabel sniffled.

She called Ron in a pitiful voice, clearly audible to him.

“Dad.”

“Speak.”

As if responding to that pitiful voice, Ron also looked at his terminally ill daughter with earnest eyes.

The terminally ill daughter opened her mouth.

“It was thirteen times.”

“……”

Isabel, who had been accepted to Korea University through the Math Essay exam, was quite accurate with numbers.

* * *

He said thirteen times out loud, and two times to himself.

So, it was correct that Isabel heard thirteen times.

“No. It was sixteen times.”

But by Ron’s standards, he had expressed his tiredness fifteen times.

He was about to say the remaining one soon.

If calculated that way, sixteen times was correct.

“I clearly remember it being thirteen times.”

“No. Sixteen times.”

“I remember it clearly.”

Actually, Isabel didn’t care whether it was thirteen times or sixteen times.

She just liked Ron saying that to her.

She wanted to hear it one more time.

‘Please say it three more times. Just. I want to hear it more.’

So she said.

“It really was thirteen times.”

“I said it was sixteen times.”

“……Dad, you’re a fool.”

At those words, Ron fell silent.

He never imagined he would be called a fool by his own child.

Isabel, who had blurted out “fool” without realizing it, was startled and chuckled “hehe” to try and smooth things over.

“Hehe.”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I can’t laugh?”

It hurt him to see her laughing like that, fully aware of her impending death.

But he didn’t want to show that he was hurting.

“You must maintain your dignity and decorum.”

“Didn’t you say that dignity can come and go?”

“Now is the time to have it.”

“I don’t want to.”

Ron frowned slightly.

Following “fool,” she blatantly said she didn’t want to.

It was a very disrespectful act.

‘I should be offended, but I’m not.’

Hearing the words ‘fool’ and ‘I don’t want to,’ he felt like he had gotten closer to his daughter.

He came up with a very good idea.

‘I should send a letter to Viaton.’

He couldn’t help but grin.

If he wrote to Viaton, ‘Isabel called me a fool today. Not only that, she even said she didn’t want to. Isn’t she very rude?’, Viaton would surely feel a deep sense of defeat.

* * *

Some time passed.

Isabel suddenly realized that Serna wasn’t there.

“But where’s Mom?”

“She left early for a financial meeting with Duke Rossild.”

“Ah, now that you mention it……”

Isabel remembered the dream she had last night.

“I dreamt that Mom kissed my forehead in the early morning. She told me to sleep well and that she loved me.”

It seemed like it might not have been a dream.

She suddenly felt happy.

A life where she had everything she couldn’t have before was truly a blessing.

“Aren’t you going anywhere today?”

“I am going somewhere.”

Ron got up from his seat.

He left the book he loved so much and walked towards the door.

“Why are you standing there blankly? Follow me.”

Ron looked somehow angry.

He was holding out his hand with a blunt expression.

However, both Ron, who was holding out his hand, and Isabel, who was looking at him, knew that Ron wasn’t really angry.

“Where are we going?”

“Just take my hand. This is the sixteenth thing that will make me tired.”

Isabel smiled brightly.

She was so happy that her words came out without thinking.

She was still in a 5-year-old’s body, and when she relaxed, her pronunciation also relaxed.

She quickly grabbed Ron’s hand.

“Sung-eun manggokhamida.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Ron felt the small hand in his again.

It was truly small and precious.

“It’s the day you move to your new residence, so I’ll escort you.”

Ron’s tone was very stiff. It was even more so because it was something he had never done before.

“Are you really escorting me, Dad?”

“Don’t make me say it twice. It’s something I really hate.”

“But you just said it sixteen times?”

“I’m tired seventeen times from answering you.”

He said to himself again.

That he would make this seventeen become one hundred and seventy.

“I’m happy.”

Isabel smiled brightly, holding Ron’s hand.

Ron avoided Isabel’s gaze.

“You’re a child who laughs easily.”

“Ah, right.”

Isabel let go of Ron’s hand.

Ron felt a great sense of loss for a moment.

It felt like a hole had been made in his chest, as if something he should have held tightly had disappeared.

Fortunately（?） Isabel came back quickly.

“I took the book. Because you like it.”

“……”

Isabel hugged the book tightly with one arm.

And then she ran back and grabbed Ron’s hand.

His hand was so high up that she had to raise her arm all the way.

‘It’s like a very big blanket.’

Ron’s hand enveloped Isabel’s hand.

Ron slowly started walking.

“Let’s go.”

Isabel headed to the Arena Palace, escorted by the Emperor.

It was the first time in the 500-year history of Bilotian.

* * *

The head of management at the Arena Palace was Chief Attendant Dailtha.

She was a skilled swordsman who had commanded the ‘Black Whale,’ one of the strongest sword units in the Bilotian Imperial Palace, but she had suffered a major injury and taken the position of Chief Attendant.

That was already 10 years ago.

“Your Majesty the Emperor. I greet you.”

“Dailtha. It’s been a while.”

“Did you escort her yourself?”

Dailtha’s eyes turned to the Princess.

Isabel smiled brightly.

“Hello.”

Isabel bowed deeply.

“My name is Isabel, I’m 5 years old, and I’m the Princess. Please take good care of me, Dailtha-gyeong.”

“You don’t have to bow so deeply to me.”

Chief Attendant Dailtha and Emperor Ron were also comrades.

A long time ago, she had saved Ron from danger based on her outstanding martial arts skills.

Therefore, there was a strong bond between them based on camaraderie, and Ron fully respected Dailtha’s authority and power.

It was the same today.

Even though it was like scolding the Princess in front of the Emperor, he didn’t point it out separately because it was the right thing to say.

“Why?”

“Because I am the Chief Attendant, and you are the Princess.”

This was Dailtha’s test, in a way.

In such cases, the Princess had to warn the Chief Attendant with princess-like dignity.

‘I really have entered the Princes’ Palace.’

For 500 years, it had been the Princes’ Palace.

Since I was born after 500 years, that saying should change now, but……

Anyway, this place is different.

She had to show the proper appearance of a Princess.

‘Because I was born as a Princess.’

She decided to do her best in the life she was given.

Showing the appearance of a Princess was also part of that.

Isabel deliberately tilted her head while holding Ron’s hand.

“I didn’t call you Chief Attendant. Did you not listen carefully to what I called you?”

It wasn’t an accusing voice.

Rather, Isabel was smiling brightly.

That’s how the first meeting between Chief Attendant Dailtha and Isabel began.