The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

Frankenstein looked at his trembling soldiers and finally nodded.

”Okay, I will go and tell them. But you’re wrong on one thing... they dont have to carry the shields once they get in position. They just need to hold it straight while it’s resting on the ground.”

Adrian sighed, ”That’s true but did you forget the main goal?”

Frankenstein shook his head, his face turning red from both anger and embarassment.

”Oky fine. I’ll go tell them...”

Adrian nodded and turned away, walking toward his own people.

As he approached his men, the visual contrast hit him all over again. His own army was on a completely different level from everyone else in this entire camp.

Apart from the basic shields and crude weapons, the other armies were basically just wearing standard leather armor with some cheap cloth padding underneath. A few of the veteran mercenaries and soldiers had a little bit of chainmail, but that was it.

Compared to them, Adrian’s army looked like a literal army of holy paladins.

They were heavily armored from head to toe. Inside, they were wearing thick, shock-absorbing padded garments along with fitted leather in the joint areas to allow for proper movement. And on top of all that, they were wearing multiple interlocking pieces of polished steel plate armor.

Adrian just looked at them with a sense of pride.

And apart from the pristine armor, there was also a massive difference in their weapons and their shields.

Adrian’s soldiers did have short swords equipped. In fact, they had two of them strapped to their waists. They also had sharp combat daggers securely tied to their thighs just in case they lost their swords in a chaotic melee and needed an emergency weapon for close quarters.

But aside from that, they didn’t carry a single spear even though they knew how to wield one.

Even though Adrian’s men actually had the physical strength and the mana capacity to throw a spear straight over the enemy wall, he didn’t really see a reason to make them do it. There was no reason for him to actually attack the wall today. He just wanted to stall for time and keep his men alive. Throwing weapons at a stone wall was a waste of energy.

But the shields they were holding were the ones that were slightly different from the ones Frankenstein was using.

They were also six foot tall tower shields just like the ones Frankenstein’s army was using. But they weren’t just made of wood and leather.

The core was made of thick, hardened monster leather. But sandwiching all of those dense leather layers were two solid sheets of steel. Adrian had specifically tempered the metal in the dungeon to a point where it was hard but also pretty malleable. This meant the shields could actually bend and absorb heavy kinetic impacts instead of just cracking or breaking when hit by a something that had the potential for great blunt force like a mace, hammer or stone.

They were incredibly heavy, but his men had the physical stats to handle them with both hands. That was the key, they still needed both hands to pick these up comfortably while also being able to move at a decent pace.

Adrian walked over to the front of his army and looked out at the sea of metal helmets.

”We have already talked about the strategy,” Adrian yelled out, making sure his voice carried over to everyone ”And even though I originally didn’t have any plans on sending you guys out there to actually fight, I feel like this is a necessary measure today.”

He scanned the guys in fron of him, his eyes going over every single one of them.

”Just keep what I said in mind and do everything that you can to make it possible. And don’t worry. I will also be coming with you out there.”

The soldiers didn’t cheer. They just raised their right boots up and stomped down onto the dirt at the exact same time.

The massive, synchronized thump echoed across the entire camp, once again gathering the attention of the surrounding nobles and soldiers. But they quickly went back to their own shouting since they knew the war horns were going to blow soon.

Adrian turned to look at Claire who was standing right beside him.

This time she was wearing her full set of plate armor, including the arm guards that she had complained about the other night. She looked strict and professional.

Then Adrian turned to look down at his daughter.

Aria was wearing a custom-fitted set of lightweight leather armor. She stared right back up at Adrian and gave him a bright smile.

Adrian smiled back and gently patted her head.

”Are you ready?” he asked.

Aria nodded quickly. ”Yes Papa. I also made a few changes to the Mana Shield spell while I was practicing last night.”

Adrian raised an eyebrow. ”Okay fine, that’s good. What did you even do to it?”

”I just made it a straight rectangular sheet instead of a sphere,” Aria explained proudly. ”This way I can also protect the soldiers standing next to me instead of just myself.”

Adrian thought about that for a second and nodded.

It made a lot of sense. A standard spherical Mana Shield wasted a huge amount of energy protecting the user’s back, bottom, and sides. But in a siege like this, the arrows and spells were only going to be coming from a single direction directly in front of them. Having a 360-degree defense wasn’t really a necessary thing right now. By flattening the curve into a wide rectangle, she could stretch the exact same amount of mana to help others at the same time.

It was a valid point and Adrian saw no problems with it for this specific scenario.

”Good job,” Adrian said.

He then turned to look at the others in his group.

Thorne was standing nearby in his full plate armor, looking incredibly tense.