The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

Draven had already brought in the first batch of common ingredients from his storage and was currently going through his entire town to find the rarer herbs Celeste asked for.

Serena was already gone. She ran straight out of the mansion and used the Marquis’s teleportation gate to head back to her father’s estate in the capital. But she knew that getting Hugo required going to Oresfall. So her plan was to use Marchioness Vaneira’s gate as a middle point to reach the barren territory.

Sigrid was dealing with a different problem.

She walked down a set of damp stone steps into the estate’s underground holding area. She stopped right outside an iron cell.

Wang Lei was locked inside. Thick iron cuffs kept his wrists and ankles chained tight to a stone pillar in the middle of the floor. His head hung low against his chest. He was still out cold from the fight.

Sigrid just stood there and watched his chest rise and fall. She let out a tired breath and walked back up to the main floor.

Hours dragged on and things started to get better.

Celeste managed to brew the most basic healing potion. She poured it into multiple glass vials and ordered the servants to go feed it to Adrian immediately.

But Draven stopped them in the hallway.

The warlord grabbed the box of vials from the servant. He couldn’t trust random servants with this, so he handed the potion over to two older men carrying leather bags. They were the estate’s official, established apothecaries.

The two local apothecaries shuffled into the master bedroom. They tilted Adrian’s jaw back and poured the liquid down his throat. Then they pressed their fingers to his wrist and pulled his bandages back to look at the damage.

They could see the potion working. The jagged, open cuts on his chest and arms were slowly closing themselves back together at a steady pace.

But it wasn’t enough. The old men knew the truth. A cheap potion was never going to fix shattered bones and internal bleeding.

A few hours later, Caelum pushed the bedroom door open.

He had a heavy wooden board tucked under his arm and it was covered in runic symbols.

Aria who was awake by now, sat in a wooden chair that was right next to the bed.

She looked up when Caelum walked in.

”Is it done?” Aria asked softly.

Caelum nodded.

”Place the board under the mattress.” Aria said.

Caelum motioned for the two servants in the room to help him. They carried the heavy wooden board over to the bed frame.

When they got close, Aria raised her hand.

She used her telekinesis and carefully lifted the entire mattress with Adrian still lying on it. She lifted it straight up into the air, and she did it incredibly slow to make sure that Adrian stayed comfortable.

Caelum and the servants quickly slid the heavy wooden board right onto the wooden bed frame.

Aria lowered the mattress back down over the runes. She looked up at him.

”How does this work?”

Caelum gave a dry, awkward laugh.

”It just runs on mana crystals.” Caelum explained, rubbing his tired eyes. ”Just like every other runic artifact.”

”Does this have a way to increase the healing power if I provide more mana crystals at once?” Aria asked quickly.

Caelum shook his head.

”No.” Caelum sighed. ””I tried to make the rune pathways efficient. So it won’t actually boost the healing output even if you shove more mana into it. It only takes one mana crystal at a time. Each crystal will last exactly three hours. This was the most efficient one I could carve while maintaining a really high output of effective healing magic. If you need one with a much higher mana output, I’ll need a different material. The most optimal one would be mythril.”

Aria nodded.

She reached into her spatial ring and pulled out a mana crystal.

”Where do I put this one?” Aria asked.

Caelum pointed to the edge of the wooden board sticking out from under the mattress.

There was a small, carved circle right next to where Adrian’s head rested.

Aria reached over and placed the glowing crystal directly onto the carved circle.

It would’ve just dropped to the floor if it was any other situation, but the moment the crystal made contact with the runes, it activated the runes that kept it attached to the whole circuit.

Right at that exact moment, Aria felt the mana in the air shift.

She could tell the artifact was working. But there was no way to tell if it was actually doing well or not. She just had to sit there and wait.

She slumped back into the wooden chair and rubbed her tired eyes. Then she remembered about the others.

”Where is your sister?” Aria mumbled, looking at Caelum.

”I can bring her here if you want.” Caelum offered.

Aria nodded slowly.

”Yeah. Please bring her here.”

Caelum nodded and left the room.

A few minutes went by. The door handle clicked and Celeste walked in. She kept her eyes glued to the floor.

Aria looked up at the apothecary.

”What do you think about Papa’s current situation?” Aria asked quietly. ”Is he going to be fine?”

Celeste walked over to the mattress and looked down at his face. The shallow cuts on his jaw and cheeks were already scabbing over.

She pressed two fingers against his bruised wrist. Finding a pulse was tough since his arm was so swollen so she held her hand there for a few seconds. She looked back at Aria once she was done with the diagnosis.

”He is doing better than he was this morning.” Celeste told her. ”He is improving... but it might take him a few weeks to recover to a decent level where he can even move his body.”

Celeste hesitated.

”And even after that... the scars are going to remain.”

Aria just kept her eyes on Adrian’s ruined face.

”I do not care about scars.” she mumbled. ”I just want him to wake up.”

[A/N: I passed out while writing yesterday.... and even now, i’m about to pass out. Very sleepy. But managed to finish this. Good light guys]