Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 85

Chapter 85: The Fairy and her Tyrant Father

[Theon’s Pov]

Five years.

It’s been five years since the heavens themselves decided we deserved a little peace in this death-scented palace.

Five years since the tyrant, Emperor Cassius—yes, that Cassius, the one who used to swing his sword like it was a conductor’s baton and the servants were the orchestra—stopped turning palace corridors into graveyards.

He was a demon in royal robes, a lunatic with a crown, a nightmare given human form. He’d behead a noble for breathing too loud and once sliced a tray in half because the soup was lukewarm. No one dared ask how he knew. He just knew.

And thus... Princess Lavinia was born.

Or dropped by a celestial phoenix. Who knows. She’s too strange to be fully human.

But whatever she is, it worked.

The fairy girl. The god-blessed miracle. The unhinged cherub with two dimples and a sword sharper than her father’s tongue.

Some say she was sent by the heavens. Others say a deity got drunk and thought, "Eh, maybe this will fix him."

And it did. Well, mostly.

Cassius stopped killing for sport. He stopped glaring at people like they were turnips in a stew. The death count dropped. Maids started smiling again. Even the palace cats came back.

Because now?

Now his life revolves entirely around that tiny golden-haired menace.

Oh, don’t let her cute little face fool you. Princess Lavinia Devereux may look like a cherub from a holy painting, but she’s just as insane as her father. Only difference?

She’s better at hiding it.

That kid—five years old, mind you—has never thrown a tantrum. Never cried from seeing blood. She doesn’t fear anyone. Not the knights, not the ministers, and definitely not her father

But now...

Oh, now.

Princess Lavinia—our savior, our pint-sized empress of peace—is on a two-day trip to the Nivale.

TWO. DAYS.

And His Glorious Majesty has OFFICIALLY lost his damn mind.

I’m standing behind him right now, watching this like it’s a staged opera called "The Emperor’s Meltdown: A Tragedy in Floral Minor."

There’s a maid kneeling in the center of the hall, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. Why?

Because—gasp—she moved the princess’s favorite flower vase five inches to the left.

I repeat: Five. Inches. To. The. Left.

Cassius is looming above her like a divine punishment, sword drawn, eyes blazing, looking like he’s about to perform an exorcism with steel.

"With whose permission did you dare—DARE—to move my daughter’s vase?" he snarls, voice low, lethal, and very emperor-y.

The maid makes a squeaky, hiccuping sound. "Y-Your Majesty, I—I’m s-s-so sorry! I didn’t—I mean—I thought maybe the light would catch the porcelain better—"

I swear the temperature in the hall drops five degrees. Cassius raises the sword just a fraction.

He is ACTUALLY about to decapitate someone over a damn vase.

And that’s when Grand Duke Regis—the only person in this entire palace with a functional brain—casually strolls in holding a peach, as if he isn’t about to interrupt a murder.

"Alright, alright, that’s enough," he says, reaching out and pushing down the emperor’s sword like it’s just a spatula.

"Cassius. It’s a vase. Not Lavinia’s beating heart. It can be put back."

Cassius scowls like someone kicked his dog. "She liked it right there."

"Yes, and she’ll like it again if we move it right there again," Regis replies, somehow both patient and exasperated. "Also, I’m fairly sure she doesn’t even remember what direction the vase was facing."

The maid squeaks. I think she’s praying to twelve gods at once.

Cassius exhales like a dragon trying not to burn down a forest.

"Fine," he snaps, sheathing his sword with unnecessary flair. "But next time someone dares touch anything of Lavinia’s without consulting me—"

"—they’ll be beheaded, exiled, quartered, and banned from flowers for life, yes, we know," Regis mutters, now examining the vase himself.

I lean casually against a pillar, arms crossed, one brow raised like the only sane man left in the ruins of a burning kingdom.

I sighed. Loudly. Dramatically. The kind of sigh that comes from a soul that has lived through too much.

I really thought he’d changed.

I did.

Once upon a time, the name Cassius Devereux made people tremble. I mean—he literally blinked, and a noble fell over dead from fear. That’s not a metaphor. That happened.

For five years, I thought:

"Yes! He’s finally become a human man! A functioning adult male of society! A father who loves!"

But alas.

It was all a delusion.

He has a temper worse than a drunk dragon in tax season. Dangerous doesn’t even begin to cover it. He’s one emotional hiccup away from inventing a new form of punishment called "Flowerpot Guillotine."

And yet...YET.Every ounce of that fury just melts when Princess Lavinia appears.

I mean MELTS. Like snow in the sun. Like butter on a hot bun. Like logic in this palace.

No weather pattern on this Earth—no storm, no hurricane, no chameleon—no creature in existence changes its mood as violently and rapidly as Cassius when he sees that tiny, five-year-old goblin he calls his daughter.

It should be reassuring.

It’s not.It’s deeply concerning.

One second he’s threatening to paint the floors with someone’s intestines, and the next he’s on the ground holding her in his arms with a serial killer smile.

That’s not called parenting. That’s called emotional whiplash.

And just as I’m deciding whether to fake a fainting spell to get out of here—

His entire body stilled.

There it is.

"Well, uh, Your Majesty—according to the latest official report, her tour is meant to last approximately... two days. Depending, of course, on fairy sightings, seasonal moonlight rituals, spontaneous woodland tea parties, and... you know, meeting her elf brothers." I added a casual shrug, praying to every known deity that he wouldn’t go full apocalypse mode.

"So," I drawled, "she might... possibly... maybe stay a bit longer? It’s all up to the princess."

"I knew it," he growled, each word dropping like a guillotine blade.

Regis and I looked at each other, visibly confused. Regis raised one brow in question. I answered with a blink that said, I don’t know either, but please make it stop.

Cassius clenched his gloved fists so tightly his rings left marks on his palm. His voice came out low. Dangerous. Unhinged.

"That elf... that ancient goat-spirited tree-dweller of a geezer... has officially... kidnapped my daughter."

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