Chapter 1556: Zinnia’s Request
Something from the children’s tables flew all the way to one of them. It was a particularly slimy piece of meat, covered with viscous brown sauce, making it feel extra icky on the skin.
There was silence for a second before the dude who got victimized by the flying food snapped, eyes reddened, and veins popping up at the side of his head.
It was a small piece of meat, but it was apparently enough to trigger a fight!
"DID YOU JUST THROW SOMETHING ON MY FACE?" he—hereby referred to as Drunk Nobleman #1—screamed, glaring at the man in front of him. "I knew you hated me!"
His companion—Drunk Nobleman #2—was also inebriated. He was also confused and angry. "What are you on about?!" he snapped back, whipping away some of the mess that got on his shoulder, too.
He was wearing specially-designed light-colored blue-ish silk from Cloth City! This cost him a huge amount of money and he was happily showing it off just earlier today. What an embarrassment to make a mess of it now.
And what was this now? Someone was even blaming him?!
He was also a bit high and drunk, so his mouth got a bit loose. "You’re stupid. Don’t you see I was dirtied too? No wonder you’re so bald—you’re not using your brain properly!"
The bald man, who was wiping his shiny head with a napkin, gasped at his words. "Says the one who was just begging me for powder a few hours ago!"
"What? You owe it to me, you bastard!" Drunk Noble #2 retorted. "How much do you owe me?!"
"You think I didn’t know you’ve been sleeping with my wife? If the bitch isn’t part of a good family, I’d have killed her!"
There were gasps all around, but for the most part they were curious how it would go. It wasn’t an unusual thing for inebriated noblemen to get into heated arguments.
It usually wasn’t so early into the night though.
Drunk Nobleman #2 flushed in embarrassment. It was extremely embarrassing for a man to be involved with a married woman because they were ’used goods’. To them, it was akin to someone touching someone else’s trash.
Not to mention, that woman was also not very attractive.
How could Nobleman #2 accept the shame so easily? "What?! You let me sleep with her as interest for your debts!"
"You damned orcshit!"
Anyway, the two lunged towards each other, their fight escalating to outright physical violence.
Fights between high-level nobles were no joke. Even if most of them got to their levels by cheating, the aura from their level was not to be ignored. One punch here, one kick there, and relatively sharp auras flying everywhere.
Most powerhouses either avoided or shielded themselves with their own abilities, but the elementalists— who were in the middle of performing—were unable to avoid some of them.
The performances got disrupted, which ended up exacerbating the chaos.
At the time, a fire user was controlling a fire snake around the stage. The disruption caused this dragon to lose control, and end up straight at the back tables, where the youngest generation was positioned.
The young children and the teenagers were taken by their guards, except for Marcus, who did not have a guard.
Marcus was already 14 years old and was a trained individual. However, his level was not too high—at least compared to the other ’princes’ who had the support of their father, allowing them to level up much faster than their peers.
As of now, Marcus had just exceeded level 12, and he definitely did not have a chance against the elementalist who was around level 20.
Not to mention, because of the chaos, some of them even ended up pushing Marcus forward, straight to the attack!
The lad was alone and he could only gape as the elemental snake seemed to open its mouth to eat him up.
And eat him up indeed. Or, at least, it grazed half his body, enclosing his arm.
"Ah!" Marcus yelled as his arm burned, and he tried to jump back, to minimize the damage but elemental damage was not easy to avoid, nor kill. He was unlucky because of the obstacles, and the direction he avoided ended up being the direction the flame was heading.
Still, even if he got away from its path, it was estimated that the fire on his clothing would keep spreading throughout his body!
Swish!
Marcus blinked as he felt himself pulled out of the snake’s path. The snake continued to make chaos in the room before the fire user—now extremely pale and fearing for his life—managed to dissipate the flames.
Later, they’d find out that the snake wasn’t easy to dissipate because the man drank a low-level fire potion, allowing for lesser effort to maintain the thing. The side effect was less control.
The drunk nobles, as well as the elementalist, kneeled down automatically, while the rest of the guests kept away from the chaos, though some ran towards it.
"MY SON!!!" Zinnia screamed, arriving a second later after running from the other side of the room. She had been pushed back by the running audience and the chaos, so she was only able to get here when things had calmed.
The blonde embraced her son and cried, thanking the child’s lifesaver, who revealed himself amidst the dust and smoke.
The person who saved Marcus happened to be Silva.
Seeing him, Zinnia’s eyes flickered as an idea dawned on her.
Esstia—who was watching everything with the others—also gaped, her eyes widening at the sight of Silva.
Silva’s eyes accidentally met hers, but he quickly looked away. He was pretending not to know her, but Esstia’s hands couldn’t help but find her mouth, covering her shock.
However, she did not utter anything, and as the servant of one of the most powerful women in the region, she was quick to school her expression.
Back to the chaos, Evos stepped forward. His aura emanated and the power alone threw the nobles and the elementalists smack to the walls.
He didn’t bother to get up and calm the situation before because he didn’t care enough—and nobles fighting other nobles was nothing new.
They usually waited until the after party when he had gone away, however, presumably with one of his women.
In any case, the chaos grew bigger than he thought and actually got annoying.
Zinnia looked at the Lord, a bit intimidated, but her eyes were clear. "My King!"
Evos’ mood wasn’t very good, and his sharp eyes that shifted to Zinnia made many people flinch in fear.
Not Zinnia, however. "Milord! Please help us!"
"He is still your child! Your other children have guards, why can’t Marcus have one?!"
"Fine," he said, looking at the head guard. "Assign someone to them. At least level 30."
"Can it be the man who saved my child?" she said. "Surely, the Lord can spare one guard."
Evos stared at her, and his eyes passed over Silva.
His eyebrows rose a bit, impressed by his level. For a moment, he was a bit reluctant to give a level 40 to an unnecessary son, but it would make him look better if he did.
"Very well."
Zinnia’s eyes met Silva’s, before bowing. "Thank you for your grace."
Like this, Silva had become legitimately connected to the Golds.
Just as planned.