The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

And Adrian just stared at her.

He was completely unable to look away.

”I am your knight.” Claire growled, and leaned closer. ”I am supposed to keep you safe. That is my entire job... but you just do your own thing and leave me behind with the regular soldiers.”

She punched the wooden frame of the bed in pure frustration.

”They are your soldiers. And they are the ones who should be dying for you.”

She grabbed her wooden crutch and squeezed the smooth wood until her knuckles popped.

”Because I am your knight.” Claire repeated with a cracking voice. ”I should be the one dying for you. You do not get to just run off and throw yourself right into danger. You are not a child.

”There are thousands of people who heavily depend on you for their livelihood.” Claire yelled right at his face. ”So if something bad happens to you today, then tens of thousands of people are just going to end up starving on the streets.

”No one actually knows what happens to your dungeon if you die, and we already have way too many enemies out there.

”And the only reason the empire has not openly attacked us yet is because you are legally the Lord of this territory.”

She gulped and sucked in a massive breath of air.

”Because if you drop dead tomorrow, there is nobody left to stop them from invading.” Claire shook her head slowly. ”But forget the politics right now. Forget whose fault this is. What about your daughter? What is she supposed to do if something happens to you? You cannot be this irresponsible.”

She looked down at her own lap and stared at the thick, bloody bandages wrapping her ruined leg. Then she just stared at the heavy wad of white gauze covering the missing chunks of flesh on her right hand.

And then she looked right back up into Adrian’s eyes.

”But I do not regret what happened to me.” Claire told him.

Her voice dropped into a fierce and raspy whisper.

”I don’t regret these injuries at all. Because these are trophies to me. I got them while doing my duties as a knight... but when I saw Lord Draven carrying your dead looking body out of those woods...”

She stopped talking for a second. Her bottom lip trembled.

”I felt helpless.” Claire whispered. ”I just could not take it. And maybe I was incredibly lucky that my brain just gave out and I fainted right after that. I don’t know.”

She sniffled and wiped her running nose with the back of her good hand.

”But I hate seeing you look like this.” Claire muttered quietly. ”It actually hurts me.”

She opened her mouth to keep talking.

But the brass door handle suddenly clicked loudly.

So Claire completely snapped her mouth shut. She immediately looked away from him. And she used her good hand to aggressively wipe the wet tears right out of her eyes.

She rubbed her face violently and completely erased all the sad emotion from her features just as the door swung open.

Serena walked right through the door. And Aria was trailing right behind the noble girl.

But Aria didn’t even look at the other two women inside the bedroom. She just walked straight up to the mattress and locked her eyes directly onto Adrian’s.

And a cold, familiar sensation instantly washed through Adrian’s brain.

’Papa.’ Aria’s voice echoed in his head.

Adrian didn’t waste a single second.

’Bring Caelum here.’ Adrian said through the mental link. ’Tell him I need a runic array. Tell him to make me a runic circle specifically designed to increase the efficiency of mana training. I want to be able to pull in a lot more ambient mana than what I currently can. It needs to be specifically for knights, if that’s possible.’

Aria gave a small nod and opened her mouth to relay the orders to Serena.

”Wait.” Serena blurted out.

She stepped closer to the bed and looked down at Adrian.

”I talked to the Dragon of Prosperity down in the basement.” Serena told him. ”She told me something really weird before she cut the connection completely.”

Adrian just stared at her.

”She said that you cannot use your mana heart.” Serena frowned.

She scrunched up her face as she tried to remember the exact wording.

”But she also said that it does not mean that you are completely blocked from using mana. What do you think that means?”

And Adrian just stared up at the wooden ceiling for a second.

He let out a slow and painful breath right through his nose and looked right back at Aria.

’Tell her I already figured it out.’ Adrian projected his thoughts to the kid. ’Tell her I can still use the Knight training methods. I can completely bypass my broken mana heart and store the mana directly inside my blood and muscle tissue. And by using that tiny bit of physical mana, I can slowly push it into my chest to heal the cracks.’

Aria just listened quietly.

’That is exactly why I want Caelum in here.’ Adrian continued. ’I need his runic magic circle to literally force feed me the ambient mana. Because my current intake speed is way too damn slow. It will take years to heal if I do it on my own.’

Aria gave a firm nod. She fully understood the assignment and she turned around to leave the room.

’Wait.’ Adrian called out in her head.

Aria stopped walking.

’How are you feeling?’ Adrian asked. ’Serena said that you were down in the basement training.’

But Aria didn’t turn around. She just stood completely still with her back facing him.

’Because the only reason you are this badly injured is because I was too weak to actually do anything.’ Aria’s voice echoed right in his mind.

Her tone sounded incredibly bitter and cold.

’I want to get strong enough so I am never a burden to you ever again.’

And Adrian instantly felt a massive spike of pure frustration.

’No.’ Adrian fired back instantly.