Chapter 65: Eyes in The Hall

Chapter 65. Eyes in The Hall

For one brief second, the four of us exchanged glances across the banquet hall. Nobody smiled. Nobody spoke.

There was no need.

We’d already communicated plenty today through holy swords, poisoned daggers, fortress-breaking attacks, and repeated attempts at murder.

Then the moment passed.

They turned away.

Interestingly, they didn’t move together.

Darius went directly toward Elia. He approached her with that familiar protective posture, clearly checking whether she was all right despite being the one who’d gotten battered protecting her earlier.

Raven disappeared toward the quieter edge of the hall.

Naturally.

He found a shadowed corner and stood there pretending to be mysterious.

Typical assassin behavior.

Give them a dark cloak and one mildly underlit corner, and suddenly they believed they were the embodiment of death itself.

Then there was Garr.

He headed for the food.

Finally, one of them made a decision I respected.

Except he kept glancing toward me.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

What?

Still angry?

I calmly continued eating.

Then I noticed his gaze wasn’t actually landing on me.

It was landing beside me.

On Ariel.

I slowly chewed.

Ariel hadn’t noticed. She was focused on me, and when she saw something near the corner of my mouth, she casually lifted a napkin and wiped it away.

Garr’s expression tightened.

Oh, come on.

Seriously?

Go find your own wife.

The man was an SSS-rank hero with a good reputation, powerful backing, a muscular body, and enough fame that women probably threw themselves at him whenever he entered a city.

Unlike me, he didn’t have rumors going around that he’d lost his mind because of forbidden magic.

He was playing romance on beginner difficulty.

I was playing with all difficulty modifiers enabled.

Yet somehow I was the one surrounded by wives while he stared at mine.

That sounded like a personal problem.

Normally, perhaps I would’ve shown mercy.

But after Garr had screamed my name and launched a fortress-breaking ultimate at me?

No.

I slipped an arm around Ariel’s waist and gently pulled her closer.

Her body naturally leaned against my side.

My fingers moved through her hair, smoothing a loose strand behind her ear before lingering there.

Ariel glanced up at me, surprised for only a moment before her expression softened.

Husband mode activated.

Nothing scandalous.

Just enough affection to be unmistakable.

Ariel rested closer against me while I continued stroking her hair as if Garr didn’t exist.

From the corner of my eye, I caught his jaw tightening.

Excellent.

Burn.

I was petty.

I knew.

I accepted myself.

Then I noticed another stare.

Elia.

She looked away the moment our eyes nearly met.

So Garr wasn’t the only jealous one.

I nearly laughed.

What was wrong with these people?

They behaved as though the world owed them whatever they wanted.

To be fair, this kingdom did owe them something. They had fought the Dark Lord. They had risked their lives. Their contributions were real, and pretending otherwise would be ridiculous.

But I had fought beside them.

Rey had bled beside them.

I owed them nothing.

Especially not my wives.

As the banquet continued, I spent more time observing than speaking.

Some people still disliked me.

That wasn’t surprising.

For years, Rey’s commoner origins had irritated a particular type of noble. They could tolerate exceptional talent as long as exceptional talent remembered its place.

Rey never had.

Worse, he had repeatedly interfered with them during the war.

Whenever influential nobles proposed sacrificing common villages for strategic advantages, Darius tended to consider the military logic. Garr cared about winning the battle. Raven didn’t care as long as the mission succeeded. Elia often remained silent if the justification involved the so-called greater good.

Rey was usually the inconvenient bastard who asked why the commoners had to die first.

Then he’d produce another strategy.

Usually a better one.

That hadn’t made him popular.

A common-born Royal Magus humiliating aristocratic commanders by proving their sacrifices unnecessary?

Yeah.

They remembered.

Once the curse consumed him, those people finally received the weapon they’d been waiting for.

Mad. Dangerous. Corrupted. Forbidden.

Destroying Rey’s reputation became easy because enough truth existed around the edges to make the lies believable.

The funny part was that my recovery had made their problem worse.

If I had remained a drooling madman, they could’ve quietly removed me.

Instead, I was standing in a royal banquet with five princesses as wives, a functioning mind, increasingly stable magic, and enough combat ability to survive three SSS-rank heroes.

Now they needed a new excuse.

Good luck.

By the time I finished eating, I was comfortably full.

The banquet was nearing its end when a royal escort stepped forward and announced that the queen was ready to receive the ladies in the palace garden.

The women began gathering.

Ariel moved away from my side reluctantly.

Lily looked excited.

Nia and Liora had finally returned from whatever suspicious business conversation they’d been conducting and joined them.

They followed the escort with the other women.

Which left...

Me.

I looked around.

Darius was occupied.

Garr was eating.

Raven continued his lifelong commitment to standing ominously near walls.

I had no interest in socializing.

Fresh air sounded better.

I took another drink from a passing servant and headed toward one of the palace balconies.

Cool air greeted me the moment I stepped outside.

Much better.

The noise from the banquet softened behind the closed glass doors, becoming a distant mixture of music and conversation.

I rested one hand against the stone railing.

The royal grounds stretched beneath me. Peaceful.

My thoughts returned to King Aldric’s offer.

Soldiers were useful.

But information was more important.

I needed something that could enhance our intelligence gathering.

Seris already had experience with spies, and Nia clearly knew how to gather information through merchants and social networks. Liora understood financial movements well enough to track money.

But after today?

I wanted more.

I wanted to know who was meeting whom.

Which nobles were moving money.

What orders were passing between the Holy Knight Headquarters and Darius.

What the Light Temple was telling Elia.

Whether Raven’s Assassins Valley had more people nearby.

What Garr’s Iron Vanguard planned after his public embarrassment.

Most importantly, I wanted to know what happened before the knife reached my throat.

The previous attempts against me had been crude enough.

Drug the mad magus.

Spike his food.

Tamper with his drinks.

Send spies.

Push him until the curse made him lose control.

Then point at the corpse and say "See? We told you he was dangerous."

Simple.

Except that strategy no longer worked.

They had seen me fight.

They knew the curse wasn’t crippling me the way it used to.

Their next move would be different.

Smarter.

Probably quieter.

I swirled the drink slowly in my glass.

Maybe magical surveillance.

Tiny familiars? No. Too detectable.

Modified formation anchors placed inside ordinary objects? Possible. They could work like modern surveillance cameras. No one in this era had thought of anything like that yet.

If I combined Abyssal Formation Creation with—

"There you are."

My thoughts stopped.

The voice came from behind me.

I didn’t turn immediately.

My fingers remained loosely around the glass while my eyes stayed on the royal grounds.