"Wait..." May spoke as if she had forgotten something important. "I'm pretty sure that because Ian Arison died in battle, his wife received the title, making Ava Arison the rightful heir of..."
"Ava Arison is dead." Ellia blurted out nonchalantly. Her face remained stoic and impassive as if carved from marble, giving no indication of the thoughts or feelings that may have lurked beneath the surface.
"Hey!" Alex shouted. "How can you talk about your deceased mother like that?!"
"Does it matter?" Ellia asked, tilting her head to stare into Alex's eyes.
"Wasn't this a sensitive matter to you?" As Alex spoke, his brows furrowed in, and his eyes reflected confusion.
'Oh? This a sensitive to my granddaughter?' Ellia thought with a sigh.
"Let's just say I got over it," Ellia said, shrugging her shoulders.
Listening to Ellia's words, Alex finally relaxed his stern eyes. "That's good to hear."
"Wait...!" May's voice pierced through the thick, heavy air like a bolt of lightning, shattering the serene stillness that had engulfed the surroundings. "Then doesn't that mean you're the heir of Duchess Arison?!"
The collective gaze of the group widened as they became acutely aware of the veracity of May's words. However, amidst the sea of widened eyes, Alex remained unfazed since he knew this from the beginning.
"That's right." Ellia smiled, nodding her head. "I'm the future duke of the Arison."
"Duke?" Aerie spoke.
"I mean, duchess…" Ellia cleared her throat, correcting herself.
"To think you'd be an heir of a duchess," Owen spoke, twirling his fork in the air.
"That's impressive!" Aerie expressed as she felt her respect for Ellia deepening even more.
"But it doesn't even matter here in Everwhite," Ellia spoke.
"Ah, right." A quiet sigh escaped from May's lips as she mumbled, realizing what Ellia was saying was true. In Everwhite, Nobel statutes did not matter.
"That's right!" Owen sprang up from his chair and dashed over to his scattered belongings. He reached down into his worn duffle bag, rummaging through its contents until his fingers closed around the cool, smooth glass of a bottle. Lifting it up, he watched the deep red liquid within slosh.
"What is that?" Levi asked, wondering what kind of liquid that was.
"You don't know what this is? Pinot Noir 5-12." With his eyes gleaming with excitement, Owen tapped his fingers lightly on the smooth surface of the glass bottle, producing a soft clinking sound that echoed throughout the room.
"Wine?" Issac raised an eyebrow. "You do know that wine is strictly forbidden from Everwhite."
"That's why I hid it till now," Owen said, sitting back down on his chair. "But right now seems like the perfect time to drink this."
"Then pour me some," May said, extending her arm with a cup in hand.
Owen shook his head and lifted his hand into the air. The moment he did, a magical transformation occurred before everyone's eyes - the cups held by the gathering were suddenly transfigured into elegant wine glasses, the crystal catching the light in a dazzling display.
"How fancy," Ellia spoke, grabbing the wine glass and inspecting it.
"One drop of this liquid is equivalent to a shot of whiskey," Owen said.
"It's that strong?" With a curious gaze, Ellia leaned in for a closer examination of the crimson liquid. Her eyes fixated on the glass. As she studied the wine, a hidden layer of a delicate layer of mana revealed itself to her discerning eye.
"Yea, but it was expensive as hell."
"Then how did you get it?" Levi asked, judging that Owen didn't have much money.
"I took it out of my father's safe," Owen said, grinning eye to eye. "I figured that if I was going off the war and not coming back, then I might as well enjoy this."
"Drinking is still..." Issac tried to enforce the rules but gave up since Owen wasn't going to listen.
With a delicate motion, Issac released three crimson droplets of wine into the crystal-clear glass, then simply poured a bit of water into it to water everything down.
Owen opened his mouth and down the whole thing in a matter of seconds, leaving a lingering sensation of satisfaction in its wake.
"Ahhh..." Owen wiped his mouth while saying. "It's more like liquor."
By now, the enticing aroma of the aged wine had piqued everyone's curiosity, enticing them to savor its flavor and indulge in its intoxicating richness. Even Aerie had drake, but it was only Ellia who left her glass untouched.
Ellia didn't want to drink because she thought the alcohol would damage her granderduther's body.
Suddenly, movement at the periphery of her vision caught her attention. She turned her head and, to her surprise, saw May staggering towards her, her face flushed with a rosy glow, evidence of the ample amounts of wine she had consumed.
"This is for teasing me!" May's voice thundered as she lunged towards the table, snatched a delicate wine glass with a trembling hand, and forcefully jammed it into Ellia's gaping mouth, causing the sweet aroma of the vintage wine to flood her senses.
But the thing that May didn't know was that the wine she decided to shove down Ellia's throat wasn't watered down at all. In a single moment, Ellia was hit by a tidal wave of sensations as if 300 shots of whiskey had erupted inside her, igniting a fierce inferno that blazed through her entire being.
Crash!
With a sharp, piercing sound, the delicate wine glass shattered into a hundred sparkling shards, scattering like glitter across the floor, as Ellia stood up abruptly, clutching her head in agony.
But nobody in the room noticed since every single person lay slumped and unconscious across the table.
As her mind began to slip into a dark and hazy abyss, she felt as though she was floating away on a gentle breeze until a sudden tug on her hand jolted her awake.
"Big sis..." With a sudden thud, Aerie fell to her knees, her fingers gripping Ellia's legs. And with Ellia's hazy mind, she weakly fell onto the floor.
With each movement deliberate and slow, Aerie's lithe body began to ascend Ellia's curves, like a skilled mountaineer scaling the rugged peaks of a mountain range, until they were face-to-face, their breaths mingling in the air between them like tendrils of mist.
"You look so..." Aerie moaned while sticking her tough out reaching into Ellia's mouth.
"AH! AH!" Ruth shouted, causing Ellia to be sober for just a moment, but that was enough time for Ellia to headbutt Aerie in the forehead, instantly knocking her out.
"This is worse than I thought... even Ian is..." Even ruth began to panic. "You need to get back to your personal room!"
"You think I can... do that right... new?" Ellia tried getting up but kept falling down. To Ellia, it was like the worst earthquake known to mankind was taking place.
"I'll help you!" Ruth said as she struggled to regulate the alcohol from reaching Ellia's brain, but this was enough.
"Ughhh..." Ellia groaned while getting up onto her feet. And with short steps, she was finally able to leave the dormitory.
Navigating through the winding hallways of Everwhite, Ellia stumbled and swayed, her vision distorted by the swirling effects of the alcohol, her hand tracing the wall like a blind person feeling their way in the dark, each step a struggle as she fought to keep her balance and find her way.
"God, I hate this." Ellia cursed but suddenly came against a cushioned wall. Well, at least that's what it felt to Ellia.
"…" Jona and the other girls stood frozen, their eyes locked on the shameful display before them, as Ellia's hands wandered hungrily over Jona's body, groping at her breasts and caressing her curves.
"Oi!" With a fierce cry of anger, Jona lunged forward at Ellia by the collar, her fingers digging into the fabric as she pulled her away with a violent force, lifting her up off the ground like a rag doll, her head dangling helplessly swaying left and right.
"Ahhh…" Sara watched with a nervous look on her face.
"A fat… cow?" Ellia answered with a silly smirk on her face. "Moo? Moo? Ehehehe…"
'She's wasted…' Sara couldn't help but think.
But Jona's rage consumed her so completely that she was unable to grasp the situation before her.
"Clam down. I think she's just drunk." Kai's sudden action interrupted the tense atmosphere as he reached out and gently rested his palms on Jona's shoulders.
Looking back at Ellia, Jona realized that Ellia was indeed drunk. The stench of alcohol wafting from Ellai's breath was like a noxious cloud.
"Hm?" Kai swished his head back at Ellia's drunken face. Despite the haze of alcohol that clouded her features, Kai couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about her face.
'Naw, there's no way...' Kai laughed as he got rid of such thoughts from his head.
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A/N: I might or might not slow down my updates to polish up previous chapters.