Too Lazy to be a Villainess - Chapter 362

Chapter 362: The Missing Captain —Part 2
[Lavinia’s POV—Imperial Palace—Moments After]

The word “missing” did not echo.

It sank.

Like a stone dropped straight into my chest—heavy, sudden, dragging everything else down with it.

I did not move. I did not sit. I did not ask him to repeat himself.

“Missing,” I said again—not a question. A confirmation.

Zerith nodded, his jaw tight. “Yes, Your Highness. Captain Haldor did not report to morning formation. He sent a letter requesting leave.” His voice hesitated for half a breath. “But his quarters show no signs of departure. His armor, sword, and cloak are still there.”

Still there.

My fingers curled slowly into my palm. A leave request meant nothing when the man who wrote it vanished with everything he considered expendable—and left behind the only things he would never abandon unless forced.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

I clenched my fist, an unfamiliar sensation spreading through my chest—tight, unsteady, almost painful.

Why does my heart feel like this?

This wasn’t anger. This wasn’t fear. It was something sharper. Something instinctive.

“Sera.”

She stepped forward immediately, startled by my tone. “Y–Yes, Your Highness?”

“I want you to summon Rey. Immediately,” I said coldly. “Tell him to abandon every cursed experiment, spell, and indulgence he’s drowning in—and come here now.”

She didn’t hesitate. She turned and ran. “Yes, Your Highness!”

I looked back at Zerith. “How many people know?”

“No one except us, Your Highness,” he replied. “I made sure of it.”

Good.

“Keep it that way,” I said. My voice was calm—but lethal. “No rumors. No whispers. No heroic tales sung by bored servants.”

I stepped forward, past him, already moving.

“Because I am bringing back my captain,” I said, each word sharp with promise. “Wherever he is.”

The doors of my office opened before me, and I strode out into the corridor without slowing—my pulse steady, my resolve absolute.

I don’t know where you are, Haldor. But I feel it—deep, instinctive, undeniable. You need me right now. So wherever you are… I hope you are holding on because I am coming.

***

[Later—Hallway]

Rey arrived like a tear in the air.

One moment the corridor was empty—torchlight flickering against stone—and the next, the space warped, light bending inward with a low hum that made my skin prickle.

He stepped out of nothingness, boots hitting marble, expression already alert.

“You don’t summon me like that unless the world is ending,” he said lightly—then stopped.

He looked at my face.

The humor vanished.

“…Who’s gone?” Rey asked.

“Haldor,” I said.

One word.

Enough.

The air around him shifted. Not magic—focus.

“Missing?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

I turned toward him fully. “I want to know where he is.”

Rey inhaled slowly. “Princess—”

“I don’t care how,” I cut in, every syllable edged with steel. “I don’t care what it costs. I want to know where my captain is.”

He studied me for a long moment, then sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He will return.”

Something in his certainty irritated me.

“I don’t think so,” I said quietly.

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because,” I continued, voice dropping, “yesterday—the vase. The one that rolled down the hallway.” I looked straight at him. “It wasn’t Marshi. And it wasn’t Solena.”

Rey stilled.

“It was Haldor, I think,” I said.

The realization clicked behind his eyes. His posture shifted, alert now, calculating. “Then…” he murmured slowly, “…he must have heard everything.”

“Yes,” I exhaled, a tight sound. “And this is not how I wanted him to find out.”

Not through whispers.

Not through shadows.

Not alone.

Rey was quiet for a beat. Then he said carefully, “Princess… give him a moment.”

I looked away, jaw tightening.

“This is not a small truth,” he continued. “If he learned about his past—about Luke—about what he might be—he needs time. To think. To breathe. To be with himself.”

My fingers curled into my palm.

I hated that he was right.

Silence stretched—thin and brittle. Then the question slipped out before I could stop it.

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

Rey looked at me sharply. “And why,” he asked softly, “do you care so much, Princess?”

I turned back to him. My heart was pounding now—hard, relentless, like war drums in my chest. He didn’t give me time to answer.

“He is just a captain,” Rey went on, deliberately provocative. “So what if he vanishes? Another captain can replace him. Another man can take his post. Another sword can stand at your side—”

“NO ONE,” I snapped, the word cracking through the room like a whip, “CAN EVER TAKE HIS PLACE. I WILL NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN.”

The air went still.

Even the torches seemed to flicker uncertainly.

Rey blinked—then slowly, slowly smiled. Not mocking. Knowing. I closed my eyes, breath uneven, fury and fear tangling so tightly I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

“Listen to me,” I said, voice low, dangerous, and absolute. “If Haldor does not return by tomorrow morning—”

I opened my eyes and fixed Rey with a stare that had made generals bow and nobles sweat.

“—I will drag you by the collar if I have to, and you will find him. By spell. By blood. By fate itself.”

I stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the edge of my resolve.

“Whether you want to or not.”

Rey let out a soft laugh, equal parts resigned and impressed. “Do I have any choice?”

“No,” I said simply.

Because this was no longer about magic.

Or secrets.

Or bloodlines.

This was about mine.

And whoever thought they could take Haldor from me—whether fear, fate, or gods—had just declared war on a crown princess who never lost what she claimed.

***

[Haldor’s POV—Beyond the Palace Walls—Before Dawn]

I did not flee.

I walked.

Because running meant fear—and what burned in my chest was not fear. It was confusion. The kind that cracks the ground beneath your feet without warning.

The palace lights faded behind me, gold bleeding into shadow as the night swallowed the road ahead. My boots struck stone, then dirt, then gravel—each sound too loud in the silence I had chosen.

The words I overheard would not leave me.

Valencourt.Astreyon.A child.A carriage rolling down a hill.

Blood.Lineage.Father.

I pressed my fingers into my palm until the pressure anchored me.

No.

I needed distance before those thoughts turned into something dangerous. All my life, I had known exactly who I was.

An orphan.A soldier.A captain who earned his place blade by blade.

Simple.

Clean.

And now—now that certainty felt like glass beneath my boots. If what I heard was true… then my past was not empty.

I stopped at the edge of the old road overlooking the valley. Moonlight spilled across the land, silver and cold, revealing paths I had never walked—because I never believed there was anything waiting for me at the end of them.

I leaned against the stone marker there, breathing slowly.

“So…the General Luke is my…” I couldn’t finish; the words were left stuck in my throat.

Did it explain the way generals looked at me too long? The way Luke—

I closed my eyes.

His eyes had felt familiar. Not comforting—recognizing. I had dismissed it as battlefield instinct.

I should not have.

The thought settled heavily—not as grief, not as anger—but as something unfinished. Unanswered. Like a door I had passed all my life without realizing it had been ajar.

“Valencourt…” I murmured into the night. “Huh. Should I go there?”

The word felt strange on my tongue. Like a place that remembered me even if I did not remember it.

Silence stretched in answer.

The wind moved through the tall grass, whispering against my boots, but offered no direction. I ruffled my hair in frustration, staring down the empty road as if it might suddenly decide for me.

All I remembered clearly was my mother.

Her face—soft, tired, smiling even when she was in pain. Her hands, always warm. Her voice, low and steady, telling me stories that never included herself. Never included where we came from. Never included him.

I did not remember my father’s face.

Which meant—If Luke was truly my father…Then he had been a stranger my entire life.

“So… you’re really my father?” I muttered bitterly, the words sounding absurd in the open air. “If that’s true… then what?”

What was I supposed to do with that truth?

Walk up to him and call him father? Ask him why I grew up alone, fighting for every scrap of belonging? Why didn’t he found me sooner?

My jaw tightened.

No. Not yet. There were too many unanswered questions. Too many loose threads pulling in opposite directions.

And then—another thought surfaced. Quieter. More dangerous.

If I am really his son… do I need to leave for Astreyon?

The question hit harder than I expected.

Astreyon. A land of priests and bloodlines. Of borders sealed tight and loyalties older than empires. If my blood tied me there… did that mean my place was no longer in Eloria?

Did it mean I would have to leave her?