Chapter 33: Coming of age ceremony

So far he had yet to earn even a single affection point from the beautiful half-elf, a feat prior to this meeting he thought to be impossible. After all, you can't hold zero affection for someone. You either liked or hated them, yet this woman, this unknowingly seductive bastion of elfish propaganda, proved this belief wrong. She was the exception. Despite being in the same room as Arthur, despite having interacted with the child, she had yet to even change her opinion over the boy's existence, he was like air to the apathetic woman, and he would remain that way until he managed to truly capture her interest, and Arthur knew precisely how he was going to go about performing such a feat. You see, Arthur had initially intended to provoke the owner of this casino, riling them up with his childish impudence to such a degree that they'd threaten him over the pettiest of things even with Vienna's presence, and that was when Arthur would do it, he'd show off his ungodly strength, his otherworldly talent to the man who'd be too enthralled too intimidated by Arthur's insane potential to act against him, in fact, Arthur was hoping that by performing such a bold greeting he'd capture the interest of the supposed fat and greedy man who by then would see him as an absolute treasure he had to cherish.

However, this plan, of course, had to change upon meeting with Sephra. He couldn't intimidate a capture target, not yet and especially not when he was weaker by several orders of magnitude than said target. No, he had to earn their affection, gain their intrigue and eventually steal both their heart and mind claiming them solely as his. And it just so happened that despite this change in plan, Arthur's pawn or instead, knight still provided him with the perfect opportunity to earn this unphased beauty's interest.

So with eager anticipation for the events to come, Arthur remained placid at Vienna's side, her gentle hands wrapped around his scrawny wrist in a futile attempt to capture the boy, restrain him and give her piece of mind. Vienna didn't want Arthur to go, to leave her side ever again. Arthur belonged to her. "*Cough* Cough*" The gentle cough of Sephra resonated throughout the disordered room bringing all the befuddled occupants out of their unique states of mind.

"I see you're still terrible at introductions Vienna," Sephra continued, earning the disgruntled marquis' interest.

"What do you mean? I thought Arthur did quite well-" Vienna responded, her face a mix of embarrassment and confusion, only to be immediately cut off by the seemingly short-tempered half-elf.

"Yes, Arthur did fine, but I wasn't criticising him now, was I? I didn't say that he was terrible at introductions but rather that you were. After all, you still have yet to even tell the poor boy our names…." Sephra facepalmed. Vienna had always been terrible at introductions deeming it an unnecessary greeting and bypassing the whole song and dance whenever possible. In her streamlined mind, it mattered not who she was talking to, whether they were the king of a neighbouring kingdom or even the emperor. The only thing the cold-hearted marquis cared about was herself and her city, so she naturally would just jump right into a conversation about whatever benefits her forced conversation partner could provide, a mindset that slowly began to change with the addition of her favourite servant, now Vienna wanted everyone to know about her beloved boy, she wouldn't skip an introduction for the world.

"R-really?" Vienna stammered her face now a deep shade of beet red. Her beautiful emerald eyes quickly darted around the room, shifting the target of their affection every couple of seconds, too embarrassed to remain fixed on any specific area in fear of an imaginary repercussion that would never arrive. "A-Arthur, the woman you were speaking to earlier, the fox one, her names Luna Adeline and um…she owns the scarlet woman, Zepar cities most popular b-b-brothel," Vienna continued, her beet red face only further darkening with every syllable that spilt forth from her mesmerising lips while her greeting seemed to alert Luna to the boy's presence once again as with a gentle wave and a teasing smile she blew an invisible kiss towards the "Shocked" peasant who only "realised" now what her job offer truly entailed. Arthur's face immediately exploded into an incredible scarlet hue. His eyes seemed to shake in his sockets; all the while, his figure began to shrivel up under the unexpected feelings of embarrassment that befell the young seven-year-old child.

"And the other lady you have yet to speak to is-" Vienna resumed only to again be stopped by the slovenly half-elf.

"My name is Sephra, and I'm the owner of this fine establishment," Sephra greeted, momentarily forcing her apathetic face to spare the awkward child a gentle smile, or at least that's what Sephra pictured her face to look like. You see, the half-elf tyrant wasn't too good at simple greetings like these either, following a similar mantra to Vienna regarding business conversations and directly jumping into a deal that would bring her the maximum benefits as feasibly possible. She never had a need to smile. Her apathetic face and natural beauty were all she needed to get by in this world. She wasn't a natural seductress in the same sense as her dear friend Luna but her body still enchanted those who dared look at it for longer than a millisecond, so when she forced her facial muscles into such a configuration she deemed suitable enough to be considered what many would believe to be a smile she expected Arthur to immediately fall under her inadvertent charms. However, that's not what happened, far from it, as what appeared on the beauty's face was not the kind smile she so thought to have performed but rather the ruthless leer of a tyrant. She was terrifying. Arthur's whole body momentarily froze from the sheer ruthlessness the beautiful woman portrayed. Her bagged eyes leered at the boy with enough ferocity to kill a man, as though he had spited her whole bloodline with his mere existence, her lips curved into a cynical grin while her natural aura of oppression pressed down against the battered boy in full. Though thankfully, this "Smile" was fleeting in nature and disappeared as soon as it came leaving only the dreary expressions of all present as a testament to its existence.

"N-nice to meet you, madame Sephra, madame Luna," Arthur stated, his lips still quivering from Sephra's initial intimidation, before giving a gentle bow of reverence to the two pillars of Zepar city. An action the pair of beauties deemed deserving of a gentle nod of affirmation but nothing more. He wasn't their conversation partner. Vienna was. He was just a servant that appeared unannounced, unknown, and unneeded. They had spent enough time pitying the child with fruitless conversation, wasting their most valuable asset upon his almost worthless existence, and now they wanted to get to the actual point of this sudden meeting, or at least that's what Sephra assumed to be happening. However, it seemed Luna had other plans. She still hadn't had her fill of half-hearted banter yet, or instead, she still had yet to get her fill of Arthur. There was still so much Luna didn't know about the boy. She had never felt this before, this intrigue, this unabashed want. Luna wouldn't feel satisfied until she knew everything past, present and future about the child.

"So~ do you have any plans to attend the fifth prince's coming of age ceremony this month?" Luna blurted, seemingly dropping a bombshell upon the "stunned" Arthur, whose face froze with a mixed expression of intrigue, confusion and reverence. Of course, he knew about the fifth prince's coming of age ceremony. It was an event that every member of the royal family had to perform upon their tenth birthday, similar to that of an idol's first performance. They'd come out upon a colossal stage with an audience entirely comprised of the nobility of the empire, where they'd then proceed to show off their ungodly strength and talent by challenging one audience member of a similar age to a duel. It was pretty much standard for every member of the monarchy to be in the middle of the elemental extraction stage by this point in their lives, so standard in fact that many of the cheers the children would receive wouldn't hold any genuine emotions in the slightest besides maybe disgruntled envy and passive praise. Despite how obvious the answer seemed, Luna's question somehow managed to stun the now furiously blushing marquis, whose eyes proceeded to dart between the boy at her side and the seductive fox, her mind a steaming mess of jumbled emotions. She knew what she had to say. She knew the answer, yet, for some reason, Vienna hesitated. What her thoughts consisted of, Arthur had no idea. Perhaps she was too busy fantasising about the ephemeral night she'd have with the boy to properly form the words her mouth needed to say.

Would they dance the night away locked in one another's embrace, or would they stumble around the ballroom greeting her fellow nobles with taboo smiles of unabashed happiness? Well, whatever Vienna was fantasising about, Arthur had already made sure it would never come to fruition. He was well aware that Vienna had lost her mind to the raging emotions inside of her, losing her cool, calm and strategising temperament in the face of any matters that concerned him.

She was a liability, a hazard that could potentially bring about his own untimely undoing through her own self-serving idea of love.

"Yes…" Vienna finally responded, her tone bashful. Of course, she was going to attend the fifth prince's coming of age ceremony. She had to. It was a mandatory event for all the nobles. Skipping out on it was paramount to committing treachery. "Both my family, I and Arthur will be attending the fifth prince's coming of age ceremony,"

"Really! You're going to bring along a servant you've only had in your care for what? The past seven months to an event of such grandeur, have you gone insane, Vienna! Are you hearing yourself right now? Why don't you take one of your much more qualified servants to act as a valet for you and your family, and if you still refuse to do that, I can lend you one of my staff in security," Sephra sweat-dropped, pointing out the clear ridiculousness in Vienna's statement, sure the sentiment may be nice. Still, the reality of such claims was utterly insane. She wanted to take a boy, a child of all people, with her to act as a valet at such a high-class event. "A child Vienna, you want to take a child with you for the gods sake, a child no older than…Boy, how old are you?"

"Seven", Arthur chimed, a bright smile plastered across his otherwise expressionless face.

"Seven! Vienna, you want to take a seven-year-old with you-" Sephra continued only to be promptly cut off by Arthur's prideful yell.

"Well, actually, I'm seven and a half," Arthur added, wearing a face of mock fury directed at Sephra's clueless misdemeanour.

"Sorry," Sephra half-heartedly apologised, "You want to take a seven-and-a-HALF-year-old boy with you, Vienna. Please use your brain. Can't you see how foolish you're being?" The half-elf continued her mind genuinely perplexed by Vienna's idiotic decision, while Luna likewise watched the scene with distant admiration, not for her friend but for Arthur. She was already curious as to how strong his position was in the Zepar household, but this curiosity only seemed to further blossom after hearing Vienna's foolhardy declaration of stubbornness.

However, Vienna simply ignored her friend's desperate plea for rationality. She had made up her mind that no matter what, she was going to take Arthur with her. Sephra's argument held no sway over the mother's one-sidedly dedicated mind. She was too delusional, too obsessed with the idea of Arthur and the night that awaited her, to care about anything else, a delusion that Arthur would soon shatter. Arthur didn't want to go to the fifth prince's coming of age ceremony, or rather, he couldn't go. Arthur was too strong, too freakish. If he were to attend the ceremony and someone decided to scan his strength with mana sense, he would be culled. His existence lay bare to the world as the monstrous child he was. And that was a risk Arthur wasn't willing to take.

'He should be here any second….' Arthur inwardly sneered, breaking the hold Vienna held over him in a stealthy manner and inching ever closer to the plain wood door that marked his entry into this beautiful portrait. It was here that the boy stopped, his gaze trained upon not the structure that stood behind him but rather the seductive fox that stared at the child with apparent amusement. One would think that the child was trying to break away from the conversation, taking an appropriate amount of distance from himself and the two warring women; however, such a reality couldn't be further from the truth. Arthur's hands opened behind his back, their faces directed to the monolith that lingered behind him as two invisible pulses of energy exited from the centre of the boy's palms. Arthur stood in placid silence, his senses directed not to the seductress that continuously attempted to tempt the boy with her overtly sensual movements but rather to the space behind him.

His ears awaited the roaring of angered footsteps, and his feet attempted to sense any and all vibrations while Arthur's clouded gaze remained front and centre, waiting for the system's alert.