Lady Misfortune: Daddy, I'll Be A Righteous Villainess!

Although Hartigan is quite the obnoxious one, Lady finds it a bit different from how everyone else does the thing.

Sure, he would try to embarrass her and stuff. But his contempt is not really directed to her. Whatever his deal is has nothing to do with her being a commoner in the past or how she is not fit to be a part of the family. He is not degrading her, in other words.

But Hartigan does have a huge dirt on Fallon. 

"Oh, what woe! What're you going to do about this now? Your dearest little cousin is falling for me. I might end up taking her away from you if she ever starts to come after me!" he cackled.

"As if she'd come after some imp who'd shamelessly claimed she's still using diapers," he scoffed. 

"I appreciate you defending me, Fallon, but will you please drop the whole diaper thingy already?" she deadpanned. 

The three of them are beginning to make a scene at this point.

It was then that Lady noticed that Hartigan had three of his supporters standing right behind him. They seemed to be too afraid of Fallon, though, so they could not come to his defense. 

"You know, you could say something," he whispered to her all of the sudden, turning a little to give her a glance. 

"Huh?" she blurted out, slightly tilting her head to the side.

"Deny his claims. Make him shut up. Aren't you annoyed?" 

"Well, I am. Do you think he'll stop when I speak up, though?"

"Whether he does or does not, you shouldn't just stay quiet in this kind of situation. The same should go with these other brats. They still kept talking trash about you, right? Still, you're not saying anything, and you're not even telling me. You're not a saint, dumbass. Try to get angry sometimes."

"Errr… R-Right."

Perhaps, Lady could defend herself in this one. Besides, since Fallon is also being targeted this time, she cannot find it in herself to let this continue and just smile at Hartigan like what she has done to their other classmates.

"Hey, you, Hearty! Or whatever your name is," she then finally began, taking all of them aback.

"Hearty?! The heck is Hearty?! It's Hartigan!" he bolted out, disgusted by what he had just been called.

"Look here, buddy, I don't mind it if you say all sorts of bad things about me. Go ahead and claim stuff about me coming from a slump. I don't care. But my cousin here is off-limits. Got that?"

"Huh? You're weird. Why does it sound like you'd rather have me mock you instead?"

"If that's what it takes for you to leave him alone, then do it to your heart's content."

"Ha! Now, I get it! Ugly here is actually an attention seeker! It doesn't matter why or how! She just wants to have everybody paying attention to her! How pathetic!" 

At that, Lady felt a vein in her head pop out. Funny how a narcissist can easily point out such things when it comes to others. Even then, at least, his attention is now completely diverted from Fallon. It's going to be troublesome, but it'll be worth it. Hartigan should just really focus on her instead –

Or so she thought.

"Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!" 

Apparently, he did start to bully her. But it's worse than she expected.

"I thought for sure that you were either deaf or mute since you just kept smiling at those who insulted you. Don't you know that you look like a total creep?! And you look really ugly when you do it! Still, who would have thought that you only wanted attention this whole time?! You're pitiful! Makes sense, though! You don't have no Mommy! I bet that's why!" 

Lady can see from the side that Fallon has gone dark mode. 

She doubts if killing someone with his eyes is enough to satisfy him at this point. Even she herself is already beyond vexed. Unlike their other classmates, this one brat doesn't hold back. He's not afraid of anything – heck, he doesn't even resort to cowardly acts like insulting someone from behind. What's more, he has the audacity to bring up her father's non-existent wife. If she happened to be real, she would truly be offended. 

"It seems Fallon is getting riled, too…" Hartigan sneered, still not letting up despite the murderous look that Fallon was no longer trying to hide.

"So, you only ever get angry when Lady is involved, huh? Could it be that you had a crush on her or something-"

Not giving a damn anymore, Lady went ahead and slapped Hartigan across the face.

It's hard enough to get him shrieking out loud and staggering backward in shock. Everyone else went frozen still right then, wide-eyed and gaping. They all look as if they have been slapped themselves - thunderstruck and at a loss for words.

For one whole moment from then on, there was nothing but stunned silence among them. That's until Hartigan began to cry out in pain.

"Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-You! H-How dare you?!" 

"Children! What's going on here?!" 

It was exactly at that time that their homeroom teacher came rushing towards them – and there, three certain things stood out. 

Hartigan is found shaking and lying helplessly on the floor. Lady is wearing a serves-you-right expression. Fallon is too astonished to even notice that they have already been busted out. 

"I-It was her, teacher! S-She… She s-slapped him!" one of the students who witnessed the whole scene testified.

"I was just going for the fly. I saw one on his face earlier," the accused explained with a straight face.

"Is that true?" their homeroom teacher asked sternly, causing her to start to sweatdrop a little. 

"No, it's not! She slapped me on purpose! I didn't see any fly!" the assaulted exclaimed. 

Lady didn't regret giving Hartigan a taste of it – 

She sure regrets letting others see it, though. She should've held back for a little bit longer. She could've waited until school is over. She wouldn't have to deal with explaining how much of a douchebag he was if she did. 

'That slap already hurts, huh? You should be relieved it's just that, Hartigan Holbein. If I'd known you'd be like this, I wouldn't have given birth to you. I'm beginning to wonder if I should've created you after all, you know. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have existed, you ungrateful jerk. But I get it. Of course, you don't know that. Still, parents should punish their children and discipline them, shouldn't they? You've got a long, long way to go before you become the male lead I've written you to be, asshole,' were the thoughts that she had in mind at that moment as she remained quiet.

Her classmates are all on Hartigan's side at this point. The only one she has left is Fallon.

While she just continues to look up at their homeroom teacher – with silent panic all over her expression, he appears like he is trying his hardest to keep himself from bursting out in laughter. The scene actually turned out to be quite the spectacle for him. Though she feels betrayed to see him enjoying himself while she is obviously screwed, she gets the point that what she has done would indeed greatly amuse the secret sadist in him.

"Well, young lady? Are you going to lie at my face again?" their homeroom teacher started once more, looking very displeased.

"I-I… I was just defending Fallon," she said nervously, choosing to just tell the truth.

"You were defending him?"

"Y-Yeah. Hearty was so mean to Fallon. H-He even said that Lady was in an incestuous relationship with him."

"What?! Incest?!"

"He said he's got a crush on me, and I got really mad."       

The adviser was more surprised that she already knew what incest meant rather than at why she did what she did. In the end, she was able to say something reasonable. Anyone would indeed be enraged with that. What's more, she did it to defend her family. That's quite pure and innocent of her.

But even so, slapping a fellow student is a no-no.

"I wouldn't give you a Thorn for this, Ms. Mireille. But I would still have to punish you…" their homeroom teacher eventually spoke up once more after a brief moment of silence.

"You are going to the Guidance Counselor with your guardian after this tour."

Struck with horror, Lady pales then. She can already imagine how Maximilian will react.

"Consider this a warning. If you raise your hand again next time, I will automatically give you two Thorns."   

And with that, the adviser settled the matter.

---

Lady had decided.

Screw the whole villainess' backstory. She will not let herself or her loved one get bullied again, especially now that she knows that she can't hold herself back from slapping anyone for too long. But other than that, what happened after she made her first victim had given her enough reason to change tactics.

"You're grounded for a month, young lady.. I'm ashamed of you," was what Maximilian said after he got called to the Guidance Counselor's office with Lady later that day – looking like he was about to disown her right there and then.