The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

And here she was, throwing a fake tantrum of sorts about not wanting to be seen by a few passing servants while she was being lovingly carried by her father. When literally millions of other orphaned or neglected kids in other houses would desperately kill to be in her exact place right now.

In fact, her older, past-life self would have absolutely punched her in the face for what she just did right now.

Aria just looked up at Adrian, who just silently and slowly started walking forward again up the stairs.

And even though he was still gently holding her small hand as they walked, it weirdly didn’t feel the same anymore. The warm, playful atmosphere was completely gone, replaced by silence.

Not wanting this stupid joke to be something that actually drastically changed their dynamic, Aria immediately let go of his hand, ran forward, and tightly hugged his leg from behind.

And even though she absolutely did not want it to happen, it did anyway.

Tears just suddenly welled up and spilled out of her eyes. She just couldn’t stop them from falling onto her cheeks.

But luckily enough, she was an adult on the inside, so the crying wasn’t so bad that it impacted the way she talked. She just buried her face in his pants and hugged him tighter.

She could instantly feel that he had completely stopped walking the moment she hugged him.

For a few long seconds, she just stood there silently holding onto him. And then she finally spoke.

Even though there were warm tears in her eyes, she controlled her breathing so she didn’t sound like she was openly crying.

”Papa. I love you a lot. You know that, right?”

Adrian just stood there looking forward at the top of the stairs, and a wide, warm smile slowly appeared back on his face.

It felt almost exactly like he was going back in time for a second, because he had said something very, very similar to her just a few weeks ago. And now she was smartly using the exact same tactic against him.

And even knowing that, it worked flawlessly.

Weirdly enough, it just made him much, much happier than he was a few seconds ago. The sting of rejection completely vanished from his chest.

He let out a soft laugh.

”Yeah. I do know that you love me. But why do you say that so suddenly, huh?”

Aria sniffled quietly and rubbed her face against his leg.

”Well, Papa. I just felt like saying it.”

Adrian just laughed out loud this time. He reached down and gently ruffled her hair again.

”Well. I love you too, sweetie. Now, let’s go out. The others are waiting.”

Aria nodded against his leg.

She looked up at him, opened her small mouth, desperately wanting to say something else to apologize properly. But then she just closed it. Words weren’t really needed right now.

Instead, she just firmly grabbed his large hand again, squeezed it tight, and happily started walking up the rest of the stairs with him side by side.

Claire had been secretly struggling with her daily training for the past few days.

Usually, she confidently trained side by side with the regular soldiers on the open grounds. And unfortunately or fortunately for her, which she truly couldn’t really decide for herself yet, Adrian had casually decided to join them too this week.

And this man had just casually decided to train completely shirtless.

It was almost exactly like he simply did not realize just how much of a massive impact having him practically naked on the training grounds would have on the girls.

Claire honestly wouldn’t have minded it much if the Oresfall army consisted of strictly just men. But there were thousands of female soldiers actively serving too. And she usually proudly trained with them in the same battalions.

And for the past few days, almost half of them, if not almost everyone in her direct line of sight, were surprisingly way more constantly distracted than they usually were.

Claire had personally seen almost a lot of these female soldiers who just kept on subtly glancing at Adrian while they were supposed to be doing drills.

On the first days, she couldn’t really tell them anything though, considering the extremely embarrassing fact that even she couldn’t stop herself from constantly glancing at him when he wasn’t looking.

But the one thing that really annoyed her was the fact that these girls would just, whenever they got a clear chance, actively look at him, share a quick, knowing glance with the ones beside them, and they would just quietly giggle like absolute idiots.

Those soft giggles were just incredibly annoying in a way which Claire really couldn’t put her finger on. It was weird. She couldn’t really objectively tell if it was just them being less militarily disciplined than usual, or if she was just getting jealous of the attention he was getting.

This specific kind of attention wasn’t really something that was entirely new to her though. There were a few handsome guys at the Royal Knight Academy in the capital that definitely did get a similar treatment from the female trainees and knights there too. But back then? She never felt anything like this bubbling annoyance. She had just ignored them and trained harder.

But for Adrian? It was entirely different.

So at the end, even though it was highly hypocritical and deeply unfair; considering the fact that she was fundamentally no different from them, and considering the fact that she was probably one of the top girls out there who definitely glanced at him the most, she still ended up harshly punishing the whole group for being visibly distracted.

That was the power, or one could clearly say an unfair advantage, that she officially had as their commanding General.

It was definitely an unfair advantage, of course.

But who the hell were these low-ranking girls to constantly lay their greedy eyes on their commander’s man? The exact one that their commander had quietly chosen as her best potential suitor? They had no right for that, did they?