Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP

Chapter 361: Daddy’s Little Liar

[An hour ago]The doors to Astrid’s chambers parted without a sound as Lord Claude Aleris stepped inside, and he found his daughter buried beneath a small army of maids and stylists.

Some pinned the fall of her gown into place while others curled her hair and dabbed shimmer at the corners of her eyes. The instant his gaze caught her in the tall mirror his chest went heavy, because the proud woman in the glass was the spitting image of the wife he had lost.

Astrid noticed him through the mirror. "Dad, just give me a minute and I’ll be joining you soon."

His eyes drifted down to her feet. "Those shoes suit you beautifully."

Astrid twitched at the words as panic clawed up from her stomach. ’Shit, I forgot to make a cover story for the shoes. Now what do I do? God, if you’ve got one favor left in you, spend it right here and don’t let him press any further.’

Claude read the worry on her reflected face and pressed in gently. "Where did you get them, though? I don’t recall giving them to you, nor anyone gifting them, and nobody so much as mentioned my daughter coming into possession of something this fine."

Astrid took a moment before answering, her voice wobbling at the edges. "Oh, these? A friend gave them to me recently as a birthday gift. It’s really not a big deal."

By now Claude was enjoying himself thoroughly, since he knew exactly which friend it was. "A friend? Hmm. Was it Seris? Or one of the new ones from your class you keep telling me about. The little demon girl, perhaps. The dragon princess. Or that vampire one."

Astrid nodded far too confidently. "...Seris. Yep. You guessed it right."

Claude kept his curiosity soft and innocent. "Is that so? Strange, then. Seris sent me a request a few days back, begging that her order be bumped to top priority. Naturally I got curious and looked into what had my daughter’s best friend so worked up."

Astrid refused to look at him, frozen where she sat.

"Turns out she was commissioning a gift for you," Claude went on. "And I’m afraid, my dear, that it wasn’t a pair of shoes."

Then came a panicked little hiccup, her body betraying the lie before her dumb brain or her mouth could catch up.

Claude showed no mercy, because his game was only getting started. "My girl is so lucky to have a friend like her. She prepared two gifts for my Ashy, and one of them looks an awful lot like an SSS-rank item, if these old eyes of mine still work the way I think they do."

Astrid lifted her chin with misplaced pride, certain she had wriggled free. "Well, she always goes overboard. That’s just my daughter-in-law for you..."

The words left her mouth and her eyes blew wide. "I mean. Ahem... That’s a slang, a trendy relationship slang, very modern these days. You wouldn’t get it, Dad, it’s a youth thing."

At that Claude let his curiosity sag into the slow theatrical grief of a martyr. "I see. How would I understand. I’ve grown old." He sighed up at the ceiling as though it had personally aged him.

"Old enough that my own daughter doesn’t trust me. Old enough that she hides things from me. Old enough that she’ll look me in the eye and lie, over a present, no less." He turned for the door wearing the face of a man freshly betrayed by his dearest friend. "Forgive me. I’ll leave you to your preparations."

Astrid watched the wounded walk of the father who had never once hesitated to turn the whole world upside down for her sake, and the guilt of it settled over her like a dropped stone. He had caught her lie ages ago, and she had walked herself straight into the rest.

"Dad, wait, I’m sorry." The words tumbled out in a rush. "Please don’t make that face, you know I can’t handle that face. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I swear, I was just... would you stop walking away from me? Dad."

He halted without turning, and Astrid whipped toward the staff. "I need all of you to leave us alone until I call you back."

The maids and stylists filed out in silence, and as they went one of them glanced back and caught a smile Claude was straining to suppress. She had never once seen such an expression on him, not even the cold grin that usually followed him ruining powerful men, and yet here he was fighting down the delight of a man watching a comedy unfold.

Once the staff had evaporated, Astrid met her father’s eyes in earnest. "There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you, Dad. I just never knew how, so I kept waiting for the perfect moment. I guess this turned out to be the worst one instead."

She drew a breath and pushed on. "I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise me you’ll think it through, and that you won’t go do something insane. I know you better than anyone, Dad, so I’m warning you now, I will genuinely go mad if you do something reckless."

A pause stretched between them before she finally picked the thread back up. "I made friends with a professor at the academy. He’s the one who gave me these shoes."

Claude, still secretly playing, escalated his innocence. "Why hide something so small? Why would I be mad that you’ve made a friend? It hardly matters at all, unless this professor of yours is sitting on some ulterior motive. And besides, he’s only a friend, correct? Not, say, a boyfriend. So why on earth would I do anything reckless over a friend?"

Astrid did not like that answer one bit. "I told you not to... Okay, fine. What if he were my boyfriend? Would you not have accepted it? What exactly would you have done then?"

"If my daughter likes someone, I’d never stand in her way," Claude said. "But as a father I have obligations. I’d test him, run a thorough background check, and confirm which noble lineage he descends from. I’d study the family that raised him, because nothing reveals a man’s character faster than the household that shaped him."

He counted off on his fingers, saving the worst for last. "And most critically, I’d confirm he has sufficient wealth to sustain my daughter’s expenses."

Astrid answered with the most venomous pout in her arsenal, not a single word, only a glare loaded with murder.

"What’s that look for?" Claude asked. "I’m merely describing how a responsible father conducts himself. Hypothetically, of course. Although, if you did happen to like this new friend, I suspect he’d clear most of my bar already. A man who gives away treasures like these surely hails from some obscenely wealthy noble house."

That was it for Astrid, and she detonated. "NOBLE. RICH. FAMILY." Each word came louder than the last. "What is it with you and that garbage, Dad? Why are you so obsessed with three of the most meaningless words in existence?"

Claude was openly savoring it now. "It matters a great deal, dear. If he doesn’t fit, noble society will never accept him. They’ll look down on him forever, whisper that he’s a leech, a freeloader latching onto my daughter’s name and wealth. And as I said, family is the foundation of character. There’s no poetic little fairytale about a flower blooming out of the mud. The mud always shows in the end."

Astrid wanted to put her fist through someone, and this time she was the one storming off. "Fuck your noble society. I can’t take this anymore, Dad, you’re living decades behind the rest of the world. And I swear to you, there is no way my man gets looked down upon. Noble or commoner, I’ll make him mine, and I won’t hear a word from you about it, nor give a single damn about your principles even if you disown me."

She paused at the threshold, her voice dropping cold. "And as for the noble circle, I learned plenty from you about when to seal those lowly little mouths and when to shut them permanently."

She was about to leave when Claude spoke. "And this commoner of yours. Would he happen to be Professor Jax?"

Astrid froze mid-step, petrified, unable to make herself turn around. "...How? How did you know?"

Claude’s voice shed its play and settled into the villainous father’s aura and tone. "Come now. On this floating island, not a single leaf falls without first drifting onto my desk. From the very start I’ve known how he tricked you, how the two of you grew close, all of it, right up to this evening."

He let the silence breathe. "So tell me. Why do you suppose a commoner like him is still breathing, even after he played with my daughter’s feelings? Why do you suppose I held myself back, and even helped keep him alive, by executing the assassins who came hunting him over the very shoes you’re wearing right now?"

-x-X-x-

[A/N: truly grateful for the golden tickets Outsxder, Ordici_T and THarper, thank you ????????

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