I grabbed the crown prince's invitation card and got off the car. The gathering was to start at 6 pm. I looked at the palace, which was incomparable to both the Zanuki mansion and their residence in the capital combined.
Before the Royal event celebration, noble children like Ares would be invited to an event hosted by one of the royal family members. The Empress and princess rarely hosted any event.
Only the Crown Prince Leonard liked to host a dinner event by inviting noble children like Ares.
I arrived in front of a palace building where the dinner event was supposed to be held at. The name of the location of gathering was called the La Alegría Palace, and it was built by the emperor to share his happiness of the birth of the crown prince.
'Is this a cliche too?'
It just so happened that someone else arrived at the palace right when I arrived.
"Wow, who is this? Isn't this our famous young master Ares?"
'Sigh.'
I was barely able to held back my sigh. I could feel the distaste coming from the person before me just from their tone. The person approaching me was Sadi Zelt, the successor to the Zelt family.
Ron had given me the list of nobles that would be attending this event along with their pictures and descriptions thus that's why I knew who this supposedly low tier villainous extra is.
Yes, he appeared even rarer than Ares in the novel and only did biddings for high ranking nobles such as managing illegal businesses like human trafficking.
At least Ares could be considered a mid-tier villain just below a few big villains like the Demon King when compared to Sadi.
And Zelt family never liked the Zanuki family. It was because, although their territory were separated only by a single long mountain, the difference in wealth and power were drastic.
However, in the past, they were once friendly with the Zanuki family before they joined one of the noble factions.
They went under Dorga family faction 5 years ago. Of course, they wouldn't say it out loud, but they would stealthily try to take control of the North and especially the Northeastern nobles like the Zanuki during nobles gatherings or events.
Sadi Zelt smiled brightly as he stood in front of Ares.
"You are alone?"
Both of them were still a bit away from the palace entrance, and Ron were currently speaking with the guard to get permission to enter. Ares, who brought only the minimal amount of people with him, looked down on Sadi who purposely aimed at him who seemed weak.
Sadi saw that Ares was alone, and thus pushed his subordinates back.
"I am going to chat with young master Ares for a bit. Go get permission for us to enter."
Sadi sent his subordinates to the guard, and took one step closer to Ares. Once the two of them were standing very close, Sadi started to speak.
"Young master Ares."
Sadi had a warm and friendly smile on his face, as he spoke in a quiet voice that only Ares could hear.
"What is an individual from unknown origin doing here?"
'Sigh, so childish. Is it like this because it is a world inside a book? Or is it because it is a fantasy world? Or is it possible that punks like this exist in the real world too? They must exist since he's provoking me like this.'
In the novel, I think it was also 'Ares' that had to go to this dinner event seeing the other Zanuki were so busy. He must also have bumped into this guy. I wonder how 'Ares' felt at that time since it was not mention in the novel much about this dinner event.
I knew there's a lot of nobles saying Ares was a halfling, not a real Zanuki due to his looks. Ares has a slender figure unlike other male Zanuki that tend to have big and tall stature with obvious muscle.
Despite had been training hard, I realized that this body just couldn't developed the muscle to become like a WWE wrestler. Even his uncle Zenin who was a mage have a body like The Rock from my previous world.
They also said Area wasn't supposed to use Zanuki name when his father was an unknown commoner.
Zanuki was the only noble clan that openly allowed marriage with commoners. Adrian's mom was also a commoner and so does uncle Jinu's mom.
However since my family never said anything or treat me differently, I never really cared about the rumors.
However, the son of a lesser noble dares to speak like this to the grandson of one of the council members and from a prominent noble family. I thought it was only happening because it was a novel, but actually dealing with this made me felt extremely frustrated.
'I'm not even the protagonist. Can I not deal with cliches like this?'
To be honest I really wanted to just tell Ron to kill these stupid villains who didn't know their place. But there's no gain in doing that other than I will have an extra shit to clean up so I just pretend to be deaf.
'Now I know why Karin hate attending this kind of event.'
Ares just continued to look down at Sadi. Sadi's expression brightened even more. To Sadi, Ares was a low born who was equal to trash who just looked fine on the outside and that was why his family had to hide him since it must be hard to teach a halfling like him to be proper noble.
For someone like Sadi, who had to suck up to the Dorga family the entire time he was at the capital, Ares was a good prey to bother. He felt superior when he was with someone like Ares.
There's not much about the Zanuki. They were not real noble in front of Sadi's eyes since Zanuki allowed their descendants to marry anyone they liked even commoners or people of unknown origins. Sadi firmly believed that one of Ares's parents was a commoner and that made Sadi felt that his blood is purer than Ares.
'I'm the real noble and not half blooded like this guy'
"Are you mute young master Ares? Or do you don't know how to reply to me since no one teach you etiquette? Poor lad."
'He's just provoking me. He's doing it on purpose. He can't take any magic items into the palace, so he won't be able to take a magic recording device inside. That is why he's trying to rile me up out here and make me look bad if I get mad. This is 'Ares' first time attending noble event thus I can't ruin this up just because of a childish taunt like this.'
But even if he punched me hard on the face, I didn't think I have the motivation to get mad since I only thought of quickly went back. It's better for me to do something useful like my playing my guzheng, reading some books or do some training than being here.'
When Ron have finished confirming my identity with the royal guard, I calmly went inside the palace ignoring Sadi as if he didn't exist. Sadi wanted to call Ares but decided not to.
Seeing that more nobles had arrived, Sadi stopped his taunts and went to greet the successor of the Dorga family who just arrived, Romeo Dorga.
He saw me but he said nothing. I also didn't expect him to greet me since we were not from the same region as he was from the west.
Romeo Dorga, the second son of the Dorga family. Due to his cold hearted and vile way of doing things, he even crippled his older brother to become their family successor. To make matters worst, the family head agreed to this way of competition among his children.
"The same bird does flock together" Ron whispered to me after he helped me sit at the table designated for the nobles from the north.
Currently there was five big round tables grouping nobles based on the location of their territory which were the north, south, west, east and center where the capital was located.
"Likewise" I agreed with him before hinting him to wait at the corner of the palace hall until I decided to go back later.
"Hi Zanuki young master. I'm from the Luna family household and my name is Stephanie Luna. Just call me Steph" suddenly someone greeted me.
"Ares Zanuki" I shake her hand lightly.
"Your voice sounded great" she praised me while the other nobles especially from the north started coming and surrounded me, introducing themselves one by one.
Later, Steph sat beside me as her name was put there.
"You might have never heard of our family since our territory is not as big as other nobles and our family have been the vassal of the Soraz for quite some time"
"I've heard our matriarch talked about the Luna family before since we had a business transaction a few times" I said slightly.
"Ohh yes that's true but since our financial is not really stable nowadays, we have to get help from the Soraz to survive"
Luna family was a family purely focused on magic research thus they were not really well of. There's also quite a number of elves living in their territories.
The earrings used by the Zanuki to filter their contaminated aura also one of the result of the Luna's family research along with other group of researchers thus there was even an agreement where the Zanuki was obligue to help the Luna family once when they were in dire situation.
The agreement had no expiry date which means as long as the Zanuki exist the agreement will be valid.
She seem like she wanted to chat with me more but an announcement made her stopped.
-Click!
"Young master Romeo Dorga of Dorga household has arrived!"
With Romeo Dorga entrance, the remaining of the six prominent families entered as well.
"Young master Shizui Kiba from Kiba household has arrived!"
Young master Shizui Kiba, Young master Kris Tadraz, Young master Damien Soraz, Young Lady Amanda Manic and Young master Carion Heizt had all arrived.
They all entered the hall with their subordinates behind them. The door closed after all of them entered, but there was nobody who got up to chat with them as they went and sat on their designated seat.
I leaned comfortably on my chair and looked toward the banquet hall entrance. The clock was getting close to 6 pm.
'I've seen Carion and of course Amanda at the academy and this is my first time seeing the rest even though Kris also studying at HGA From what Nikki told me before, Kris was in the same class as Adrian.'
Click. Click.
The clock reached exactly 6 pm.
Screeeeech-
The large door opened and the main characters for this gathering showed up with their entourage.
The servant was ready to shout louder than he had shouted all night, but the person in front lifted his hand up to stop the servant.
Hargan Empire's crown prince, the eldest prince of the empire, Prince Leonard Von Hargan.
He seemed to enjoy the attention on him, as he headed to his elevated seat without any introduction. All of the nobles got up to greet him, and crown prince Leonard left the second prince and the princess behind as he headed to the highest spot in the hall.
Some of the nobles glanced at me upon seeing the second prince, Theodore Von Hargan since most people knew I have a close realtionship with him. But none of them said anything as the focus for tonight was supposed to be the crown prince, the host of the dinner event.
Bang.
As soon as he stood in front of his seat, the door closed. It meant that everyone was present.
Crown Prince Leonard looked down at the second prince and princess, as well as everyone else and started to speak.
"Welcome. Thank you for responding to my invitation."
This was somewhere where he did not need an introduction. Leonard looked down from the top. I blankly looked up at him, before looking back at the clock.
'It's about time they got here.'
The person who would be the gossip of all of the nobles here for a while had not arrived just yet.
Ares could hear the Crown prince starting to speak.
"Precious individuals who will make this empire shine, the future leaders of our empire, this prince is very happy that all of you have come to this gathering."
The crown prince was slowly turning on the engines of his glib tongue. It was at that moment.
"Hmm?"
The crown prince turned his gaze to the entrance. The closed door was being pushed, as if it was being re-opened. He could hear some chattering through the gap that was created.
I started to secretly smile and luckily no one knew due to the mask I was wearing. At that moment, a servant urgently rushed to the crown prince from a different entrance.
'They're here.'
I was certain.
At that moment, the crown prince seemed to be deep in thought for a moment, before he waved at the knight who peeked inside.
Screeeech-
The large door opened once again.
Since it was after the crown prince, the servant did not dare call out the person's name. But there was no need to do so.
'Right on time.'
A wheelchair entered into the banquet hall.
Ramon Dorga, the paralyzed eldest son of the Dorga family, Romeo Dorga's older brother. He had arrived at the banquet hall with the crazy priestess Maria Lorenzo from the Church Of Eternal Rest. At that moment, Ramon's arrival caused a commotion inside the hall since only one person from each household should be attending.
Even though this kind of scene didn't exist in the novel, the current scene happening inside the hall was the result caused by my interference.