The Villainess Is Too Difficult

No words came out. No thoughts could be formed. Faced with the sight of the girl standing before him, panting, Heinrich couldn’t say anything, as if his throat was blocked.

“Ariel…”

All he could do was barely call her name. But even that was enough for Ariel to react.

“You’re not turning away, Dad.”

Heinrich closed his mouth again at the sight of her speaking with a smirk.

He had tried to be satisfied with watching from afar. Since their relationship had become so twisted that it was essentially impossible to recover, he had tried to live being satisfied with just watching.

Ariel, too, had been hurt by Heinrich’s reaction at that time and had given up. No matter how much she knocked, the door wouldn’t open, and no matter how much she screamed until her throat was torn, there was no answer.

If he had hated her, it wouldn’t have come to this. If she had heard him say he disliked her, if he had pushed her away telling her to leave, Ariel would have at least held some hope. Because dislike at least means you’re looking at the other person properly.

But Heinrich showed no reaction at all. Even after Ariel changed, he maintained his silence to the end.

That’s why they thought this father-daughter relationship had become too twisted to ever return. When he heard about her memory loss, he somehow ended up going for a check-up, but he thought that would be the end of it.

But Ariel, his daughter who had lost consciousness and opened her eyes anew, had changed, changed too much. There was no sign of her trying to be excessively polite, nor of her crying and screaming.

She was confident.

Despite facing a father she had never properly conversed with since birth, she stood confidently with her shoulders squared, like a man of great stature.

“I tried so hard to meet you. Why did you keep avoiding me?”

“Young Miss! Your manners…”

“You can’t do this to the Duke!”

The maids who arrived belatedly tried to quickly grab Ariel, but she avoided them with swaying movements and quickly entered the study.

“I have something to talk about now. Save the nagging for later!”

“Young Miss, have you come to your senses?”

Ariel flinched for a moment at Muriel’s words. Come to her senses? Only then could Heinrich see Ariel’s condition.

Flushed cheeks, a faint scent of fragrant fruit and alcohol. It was a familiar feeling, if familiar. To be specific, it was a sight he had seen so often at balls and various parties that it was tiresome to count.

‘Alcohol?’

Could Ariel have drunk alcohol now? While there’s nothing she couldn’t drink if told to, Ariel was a child who could hardly be said to have any connection with alcohol, even in jest. What she enjoyed was rather tea and sweets.

‘Did she want to talk so badly that she resorted to alcohol?’

No matter how much she tried with a sober mind, she wasn’t accepted. She unconsciously hesitated. Did she end up drinking alcohol after judging that?

Heinrich was newly aware of how pathetic and shameful he was. His young daughter, who hadn’t even gone to the Academy yet, was desperately asking for a conversation, and yet he, as a father, was still acting like this.

It was an utterly pathetic situation.

“Ariel.”

“Yes!”

Heinrich smiled bitterly at the sight of her raising her hand with somewhat excessive movement. Now that it’s come to this, there’s nothing to be done. No, apart from that, now that he knew the circumstances, he couldn’t just sit still no matter how pathetic a person he was.

“Sit down.”

“Eh?”

Even Ariel blankly questioned, as if she hadn’t expected this development. But that was only for a moment,

“Yes!”

Heinrich’s lips twitched unconsciously at the nonchalant sight of her sitting down with a bright smile. His only daughter’s smile was beyond imagination, almost enough to break his long-worn mask.

Theodore, who had been chasing Ariel, arrived not long after.

“Father.”

“Sit down.”

The door frame flying off as if hit by some bombardment, the father and daughter sitting on the sofa facing each other. Theodore truly couldn’t understand what kind of situation this was.

“What on earth happened?”

“Nothing happened, Brother.”

Theodore’s expression slightly crumpled at the sight of Ariel calmly tilting her teacup. She looked perfectly fine, as if her drunken state from earlier had been a lie. Had the alcohol worn off in the meantime?

But even so, this sight of Heinrich and Ariel facing each other was something he couldn’t adapt to at all.

Of course, the reason Theodore arrived so late was that he had deliberately dawdled to observe once he realized Ariel was heading to the study. He thought that Ariel’s quirky ideas could sometimes be a shortcut.

He thought so, but… this was beyond imagination. He never expected it to be resolved so quickly. When she asked if it wasn’t okay to break down the study door with an axe, he was genuinely worried if something had happened to her head.

“Are you alright?”

When Theodore asked again, Heinrich remained silent. Heinrich’s honest feeling right now was pure bewilderment. He never dreamed, even in his wildest imagination, that a day would come when he would be facing Ariel and drinking tea.

“Just sit down for now.”

“…Yes.”

Theodore decided to sit down according to his father’s words for now. There was nothing to be gained by just standing still anyway.

The study with its door blown off had an extraordinary atmosphere in many ways. Although the interior was intact thanks to the defensive magic Heinrich had belatedly spread, this strange feeling coming from being able to see the corridor clearly did not leave the hearts of those seated.

In the end, it was Ariel, who had decided to be thick-skinned, who spoke first.

“Father.”

Ariel smiled bitterly at the sight of Heinrich, who couldn’t even hide his flinching. She knew that he didn’t dislike her. But even so, she never thought things would turn out like this.

When she barged in recklessly, Heinrich accepted her unexpectedly docilely. She had only thought he didn’t hate her, but it seems that wasn’t quite right. She wondered if he had resigned himself since it couldn’t be helped, but that didn’t seem quite right either…

“Well…”

But for Ariel right now, that didn’t matter much. Her mind was currently in unprecedented chaos and wasn’t functioning properly.

No, it can’t be helped because the other party is ‘Father’. He’s a different family member from Theodore. Although she had been intending to meet him someday, even Ariel herself hadn’t thought she would come by such extreme means.

‘It’s the alcohol’s fault, the alcohol!’

It might sound strange, but Ariel was now sober, as Muriel had said. She was certainly drunk when she was knocking on the study door, but from the moment she blew off the door, she gradually came to her senses. It was a ridiculous story that the alcohol wore off naturally as she manipulated magic to break down the door.

Of course, what happened next was done with a clear mind, but Ariel nonchalantly thought it was because of the alcohol.

But even for the brazen Ariel, words to say to her father in a situation like this didn’t come to mind immediately. The reason for her visit? She just came to meet her father once because she was angry at not being able to see his face for months. There was no particular topic to discuss.

In the end, Ariel decided to be even more thick-skinned. She could just make excuses that there was still some alcohol in her system!

“Why have you been ignoring me until now?”

“That’s…”

“I know that Father doesn’t dislike me. But I want to know why you avoided me so much.”

“Sigh…”

Heinrich let out a deep sigh. Yes. He had thought that something like this might come someday. That’s why he was secretly relieved when Ariel said she was going to the Academy. But even though he knew, he wasn’t prepared for it, so he was at a loss for words for a moment.

‘But, I can’t just stay silent forever.’

The sight of his daughter who came seeking him, even resorting to alcohol, out of a desire to see her father, was showing Heinrich’s fault directly. Despite being turned away so many times, despite being rejected so many times. Ariel was steadfastly standing up and reaching out her hand.
Newly aware of his own patheticness, Heinrich wanted to hide in a mouse hole.

‘I can’t stay silent any longer.’

While the father had done nothing and stayed still, the daughter had already stood up and was approaching. Originally, it should be the parents who do this first. It should be the proper way for parents to guide their children. Instead, he was being led.

But he couldn’t just keep regretting. He couldn’t show such a pathetic appearance anymore from now on. Even if it was out of apology to Ariel who approached first, he now had to approach her.

“I’m sorry.”

For that, he could willingly bow his head to his child.