The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

Chapter 231: Cracked Heart

Serena looked at Aria. Then she looked back at Claire. Claire saw the look on the noble girl’s face, and she just knew. It had to be good news. So Claire swung her good leg off the mattress and grabbed a thick wooden stick leaning against her bedframe. She jammed the wood against the floorboards to act as a crude crutch, limping slowly across the room until she reached the other bed.

And Adrian was frowning. Thick sweat beaded right up on his bruised forehead. And his index finger twitched against the white sheets. He winced hard every single time the muscle spasmed.

Aria grabbed his large hand. She leaned right over his chest.

"Papa," Aria cried softly. "I am here, Papa. Please wake up.... It has been days. I miss you.... please open your eyes."

Tears spilled down her cheeks, dripping right onto the blankets as Serena and Claire stood right behind her. They just watched in silence and waited. They just hoped he would open his eyes.

And he did.

Adrian slowly opened his eyes. The wooden ceiling was blurry. He slowly rolled his eyeballs to the side and saw the three of them standing there. He could read their faces. He saw the heavy worry. He saw the shock and the pure, unfiltered happiness. But he couldn’t feel any of it. The only thing he could feel was pain. Just an immense, suffocating, burning agony covering every single inch of his body. He tried to turn his head to look at them clearly. But his neck muscles refused to work. The only thing he could move were his eyeballs.

Aria pulled his hand up to her chest and hugged his arm tight.

Immense pain shot straight up his shoulder. It felt like his entire arm was about to snap right off and fall onto the floor. He winced. And even the simple act of scrunching his face up hurt like crazy.

Aria saw his expression twist, so she immediately let go and placed his hand gently back down on the mattress.

Adrian breathed heavily. He still looked like he was in absolute agony. But a few seconds passed and his bruised face slowly relaxed back to normal. He looked at Aria right from the corner of his eye. And he just couldn’t stop himself from crying because the nightmare he just suffered through was way too vivid. The vision of that broken, mangled little girl was literal torture. But seeing her standing right here in the real world fixed something in his head. She didn’t look like she was broken down from the inside. She was whole and normal. It just filled him with a weird, massive sense of happiness and relief.

He tried to push a strand of mana toward her to talk, but he felt nothing. Just dead emptiness. It felt exactly like an entire organ went missing. But he didn’t have to panic for long because he heard a familiar voice echo right inside his skull that exact same second.

’Papa, can you hear me?’ Aria asked through the mental link. ’The doctors said you might not be able to talk out loud. But we can talk like this.’

Adrian just looked at her and blinked. He closed his tired eyes and a single tear rolled down the side of his bruised face, dripping right into his messy hair. So he formed the words right inside his head. He knew she was listening.

’Aria.’ Adrian thought. ’Do not blame yourself. It is not your fault.’

He forced his exhausted brain to keep working.

’Just know that Papa loves you a lot. No matter what happens.... even if this whole empire burns down to the ground, your safety is my first priority.’ He told her. ’I do not care if my body is broken down to this pathetic level. I am just glad you are safe.’

His reached his limits and passed out again right there on the pillows.

Aria just started bawling. She buried her face right in the mattress. So Serena dropped to the floor and hugged the little girl tight. Claire just sat down on a nearby wooden stool rested her good hand on Aria’s shaking shoulder. The three of them just stayed there by the bed for a long time.

The next day.

Adrian woke up again and this time, the room was quiet. He could see everyone was asleep. Or at least he caught a glimpse of Serena sleeping in a wooden chair out of the corner of his eye, her head resting on the very edge of his mattress right next to his hand. But he didn’t see Aria or Claire anywhere in his narrow field of vision. So he just stared blankly at the ceiling.

’I can’t even turn my head to see if they are in the room or not.’ Adrian thought to himself. ’What a pathetic state I am in right now.’

He called the system in his head.

’System.’ Adrian ordered weakly. ’Tell me what happened while I was knocked out.’

But he did not expect the system’s answer. A massive blood-red screen materialized right in front of his face. It just hovered in the empty air like it had been waiting for him to finally wake up.

[ERROR: Mana Veins Shattered.]

[Dungeon Link LOCKED.]

[System Skills LOCKED.]

[System will function passively in the background. Host will be unable to call upon active system features unless he recovers his Mana Heart. Status can be called upon, but will not be updated.]

Adrian just stared at the screen.

’So I cannot use the system stuff unless my Mana Heart is fixed.’ Adrian reasoned.

He recalled exactly what happened the last time he woke up. Because he couldn’t sense a single drop of mana inside his body. It felt completely empty, so the very first thing he did was try his standard Mana Breathing method. He felt the mana floating in the room and pulled it inside his body. But the second the raw energy went past his skin, it felt like it had nowhere to go.

There was no container to store it in.

[A/N: I have drafts fro two more Chapters but I’m way too seepy. I drifted thrice already so it’s better If I just sleep... I’ll wake up and edit thse two before I upload them. Sorry guys, coud’nt really keep my promise]