Chapter 39: Friends?
While Douglas didn't want to give up on the meat just yet, he didn't continue harping on it. Though there was still quite a bit of talk about what had gone down among the nobles, it slowly began dying down as the people spread out at the banquet.
As for those below dukes, they seemed tempted to approach me, but it seemed like they were too afraid. On the other hand, the other dukes were all showing interest in talking to me but were still a little intimidated by Douglas.
All of a sudden, when Douglas stopped looking at me, one of the dukes directly approached me almost like a lightning bolt, wasting no time to strike up a conversation.
"Son of the Arden Family, I would like to have a discussion about how you will prioritize the sale of this wonderful product you have promoted."
Before I could even respond, another duke spoke up as well.
"Hold on, I believe I have an interesting proposal you might want to he-"
"I have a truly revolutionary idea if you would just talk with me privately!"
Before the second duke could finish, another one cut him off. The other ones were also very eager to talk to me as well. I felt a headache coming on. Jess was also displeased by them and spoke up a little, but they ignored her completely.
It was at this time Raisa grabbed onto my arm, she looked a little displeased by the people bothering me, but smiled shortly after and spoke with me.
"Although I can't show you anything better than what you brought, I should still pay you back by showing you around!"
A smile formed on my face, as I nodded.
"Ah, well if it's like that, then I can't really decline, can I?"
From there, I turned to the others and sucked in a cold breath, pretending I wanted to talk with them but couldn't.
"Sorry! Looks like I gotta go."
Without letting them get another word in, I let myself get dragged around by Raisa to show me her favorite foods.
"Try a slice of this cake! The frosting is one of a kind!"
"Huh? Shouldn't this be for after the main course?"
"The what?"
"Never mind."
It felt a little weird, but I decided to go along with it. Especially because there were several dukes and/or their children hover handing around me like an extremely introverted person determined to confess to their crush, but too afraid to take that first step.
Before I could worry about it, Raisa once again dragged me around for a tour.
"This is a special fish that can taste even better than certain heavy steaks!"
"Oh, fish sticks?"
"Huh?"
"Sorry, I was thinking about something else."
Raisa continued to lead me around. She talked about what she liked whether they were already widely popular, or underrated in her opinion. We would both take a bit to try and comment on them before moving on to something else.
Occasionally, she would point at one food disdainfully and tell me to never try it.
I still did try one of them out of curiosity, but right after I followed her advice and never touched anything she mentioned.
At first, it was mostly just to avoid the other dukes, but I found myself enjoying myself the more it went on. Unlike when she first showed me around, Raisa didn't have any real plan, she was just stumbling upon something she liked and showing it to me.
It felt quite refreshing.
Honestly, it made me feel like I was back on Earth, just having fun with friends. After transmigrating, I honestly felt a little lonely. Of course, it was far less lonely because of Nathan, but we weren't really able to carelessly have fun with each other like we used to.
That didn't mean we weren't having fun in our own ways still, but it was limited.
Still, the reason why we were doing this was that we wanted to have more fun in the future, and it would be a little hard to do that with a ruined kingdom.
Yet, while it was refreshing, I couldn't help but feel the smile disappearing from my face on occasion.
Raisa was a little scared of that.
"Ah, did you not like it? W-Well, you don't have to! It's not particularly special or anything."
I let out a laugh and waved at her dismissively.
"No, no, it's fine. I'm just thinking about some things."
Raisa tilted her head to the side.
"Is it those dukes that are following you? I can tell them to leave if you want!"
With a chuckle, I shook my head.
"Nah, no need to be so dramatic. They're not as creepy as before and it's not really them that I'm thinking about."
Raisa looked at me strangely, taking a step closer. Her voice grew a tiny bit softer.
"So... what are you thinking about?"
I blinked a few times.
"It's not really important."
Raisa looked uncomfortably curious but thankfully didn't push it.
"Alright then."
We continued on without too much of a care, and soon enough I got too full to try anymore. Although Raisa did want to show more, in the end, she didn't really feel up to it either.
In the end, we found a random spot without too many people and just stood there. A lot of people were talking and quite a few snuck glances our way, but other than that it was peaceful.
At some point, Jess approached with a stern expression.
"Brother, it's time for us to go. The dance and after that the sparring will start soon. It will be too disrespectful to leave at that time."
I blinked a few times. Honestly, I had no idea what she was talking about.
In the game itself, the main protagonists sometimes sneak into more obscure places where a ball is happening to accompany a girl, but never really get to see what happens in the ball itself.
Actually, now that I think about it, Jess probably shouldn't have been here this early. She was supposed to encounter the protagonist on one of the balconies as she took a break. From there, they would have some casual talk, but Jess would eventually go back.
I had actually seen her leave, but she came back rather quickly, meaning she didn't really have a conversation.
In other words, Nathan chose not to meet her.
While I don't think either of us had memorized the game down to a tee, I'm very sure Nathan has memorized almost everything there is to memorize about Jess. He would even tell me about slight inconsistencies in her clothes as she changed between sprites that bugged him.
Not anything jarring like a button missing in one sprite and in another. But rather more like the button itself is a little too big in one shot compared to the other.
He definitely knew what he had to do to meet with Jess and remembered it. I doubted he could forget if he wanted to.
But he chose to avoid it.
All of that when normally I'd expect him to be throwing himself at any opportunity to see Jess. Though, I didn't think about it too much.
In some ways, I guess that was expected.
Although she was technically 2D, she is 3D now. The appeal falls dramatically for people like us when that change happens.
Speaking of Jess, she was staring at me strictly the entire time I was thinking about that. I coughed and hurriedly responded.
"Ah, right. Uh sure, let's leave."
Though, the moment I said that Raisa tightened her grip on my arm considerably.
"Eh? Wouldn't you prefer to stay? We can still spend time together! And... I can't leave, so you'd be leaving me alone, you know?"
I could feel a headache coming on. My eyelid was twitching rather rapidly on its own, a testament to my anxiety.
"Why can't you leave? Nobody will really stop you, right?"
Raisa frowned and looked down at the floor.
"I guess I could leave, but my father would get mad. Not to mention, my place is far from here and I wouldn't be able to use the carriage without my father, so I would have to walk there."
Hm.
Those were definitely some compelling reasons. I looked at Jess awkwardly, who also looked back at me awkwardly.
She seemed to be just as conflicted as I was.
While I didn't want to stay here any longer, it did feel a bit rude to just ditch her.
After a bit of thought, I eventually let out a long sigh.
"I'll stay because you asked me as a friend."
A small smile formed on my face.
"It would be too much to abandon a friend like that, I guess."
Jess looked slightly disappointed but wasn't against that decision. In the end, she relented and left, but still kept her relative distance. There were some related to dukes that approached her, but they seemed to be influenced by her uncaring responses and gave up pretty fast.
Nothing was publicly declared, but people began funneling out of the room one after another, heading off to a separate, but similarly large room. From what I remember, I heard many different people asking others if they wanted to dance.
Though, with Raisa bringing around, nobody really approached either of us to ask that.
A decent amount of nobles went to the center of the room and appeared to begin dancing. The majority of them remained on the sidelines and watched. Seeing as all of the archdukes and other dukes were dancing, I guess this was also somehow seen as a status thing in some way.
There were some musicians on
I was ready to just comfortably wait at the sidelines, but that was when Raisa tugged on my sleeve sheepishly.
"Um, would you like to dance with me?"
A bitter smile formed on my face. Considering that I haven't really danced ever, much less in the way that nobles do, there was no way in hell I was going to do that.
"I... am very unfamiliar with dancing. As you heard from my sister, I don't stay for dances and things like that."
Raisa pouted, twiddling with her fingers a little bit.
"You don't have to be the best! It's alright if it's a little flimsy, it just has to be seen as a dance."
I shook my head rapidly, showing how against this I was as a non-party person.
"More than that, I'd rather not put the effort into doing something like that."
An awkward expression formed on Raisa's face. It warped several times, as conflicting emotions collided with one another. Right when she looked like she was about to drop it, she looked at me with a shaky smile.
"I-It's just that if a member of an archduke's family doesn't have a dancing partner, they see it as a loss of status. My father would be really angry if I didn't have anybody. I had forgotten about asking a person, and asking anyone else right now would also be seen as desperation and lower our status."
Raisa was trembling slightly as she looked up at me.
"I'm really sorry, but could you please dance with me?"
...Well shit. If you put it like that, declining makes me feel like a huge asshole. To be honest, all things considered, I still really wanted to just say no. In fact, I wasn't actually all that far off from just shutting her down right then and there.
Although I still had to get close to her to investigate, I knew I could just patch things up later and it would still work out. I was confident in doing that much.
I closed my eyes, getting lost in my own thoughts for a moment. The mana in my body became really clear to me by the way, but I didn't focus on that. After thinking about it for a while, I eventually sighed for what felt like the hundredth time today.
A small smile formed on my face.
"Fine. But you owe me for this."
Raisa smiled brightly, making me feel a little less regrettable about this decision.
"Thank you!"
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel