Becoming The Badass Father Emperor

Ch 16: Empress choosing competition

"Now presenting Empress Sheila!"

Finally, the moment I waited for has arrived! It was the cut throat competition. But the reason I won was due to my quick presence of mind. Back then...

A few months ago:

I looked in the mirror. Dusky skin, golden-eyed black hair. It was very beautiful.

I am not boasting but I am rather confident in my looks. People say that I am different from the woman they have met so far but the fact is that... I am not. It's just the norms of this place which expect women to be meek and submissive.

My father gambled with the former Emperor of Arnia and lost so I was thrown in to pay off his debts and in turn, ended up marrying the current Emperor. He was drunk at that time so he did this. But later on, he regretted it. He did Apologise but I have no wish to accept his apology. A person who can throw his daughter to pay off his debts is not the one I would want to call a father.

I broke my ties with him back then. Even now, I am cold to him. I don't want to keep any relationship with him but still, he keeps coming back to me for one thing or another. But anyways he was not my cause of concern now.

What was my cause of concern was the announcement which happened in the consorts palace today. It was announced that there will be an Empress choosing competition. The one who wins will become the Empress and those who lose will not be consorts anymore but will get governance work in other territories of the Empire.

Wow! So he got bored with the enormous amount of wives he had and thought of a very efficient way to get rid of them. That doesn't concern me though. This is a win-win situation. Even though I cannot try hard and easily take over the governance post, the Empress's position seems more attractive. I think I will go for that one.

Since we were potential Empress were given the choice to learn martial arts or administration work. We were supposed to be all rounder for the Empire.

The Emperor for some reason knows how to use every person for his benefit. He seemed to be a puppet Emperor but for the past few months with the reforms he introduced, seems like he has decided to make the empire a better place.

Is it because of his daughter? He seems to be close to the first princess... Maybe...

The Empress choosing competition then began soon after the trainers thought that we had become comparatively better at what we chose. Seems like the contestants would be finalised based on who is better in the two groups... The intellectual group or the group learning martial arts.

When only two final contestants would face one another, they would be asked to learn the stuff which they didn't know earlier...

That means if I am learning martial arts now, then if I become one of the finalists, I will have to go through the admin work training and vice versa.

So the Empress needs to be better at everything. There are also rumours about the Queen choosing the competition. That is only available for the consorts who have children. Hmm... Seems like it's the same strategy he applied just that queen would be sent to a queendom later on where she can do whatever she wants.

Interesting...

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The first competition was about to start the next week now. For the group who chose to sharpen their intellect, it was the rapid-fire round. Whoever answers the most questions will get chosen for round two. There were in total 10 contestants of which 3 were to be chosen. Those 3  who give the  most number of right answers were chosen.

For the martial arts team, there were 8 contestants, we were to fight duals, the best 4 were chosen.

My competitor was Samantha. She was the princess of another country. She was sent as a gift to Arnia a few years back as a sign of alliance.

She is said to have learnt martial arts from childhood. Seems like in her empire, every royal is supposed to learn some form of martial arts or defence technique.

It sure is going to be an interesting competition. I grinned in excitement since I had a Trump card up my sleeves which no one knew of till now.

It was the fact that even I was learning martial arts since childhood. Though I did this is secret since I didn't want anyone to know of it, but since I wanted to become one of the finalists m I chose martial arts over brain games.

My mother belonged to an empire which followed matriarchy. So according to her, women should be self sufficient. She forced me to learn martial arts since young and in secret. She said to always have a Trump card up my sleeves.

I think now is the perfect moment to show that card off. In tommorow's competition...