I Ran Away And The Reverse Harem Started

Chapter 29 I was standing by the window, furrowing my brow. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned my head, there was Daniel with his gaze strangely lowered. “Let’s go too.” “Huh?” “I’ll escort you.” When Daniel looked awkwardly at his outstretched hand, he cleared his throat loudly for no reason. “Come on, grab it quickly.” He was like, ‘Give me the money you borrowed!’ He waved his hand violently towards me as if doing so. Still, it was funny that he couldn’t make eye contact properly. “Ah, okay, okay. Why are you impatient? I’ll do it.” My hand overlapped Daniel’s white-gloved hand. Daniel looked down at our joined hands for a moment, and then, following the etiquette, gracefully pulled me towards him. Daniel said, even his ears turning red. “… Then let’s go.”Is this already partner practice? I looked at Daniel who used honorifics in a strange way and then laughed.  * * * Sapphire Hall, where the party was being held. The servant standing by the door spoke up in a loud voice. “The owner of the Holden company and the Count of Drunia. Daniel Leandro and his brothers are here!” At that sound, the nobles inside the hall murmured loudly. The owner of the Holden company and his brothers were well-known not only among the common people but also among the nobility. Daniel, an orphan-born merchant who proved that dragons could rise from streams, and his beautiful brothers were Holden’s signature figures. “You’re a commoner, but you’re also an orphan, right? No matter how good they are at business, how long do you think they’ll last? They’ll be lucky if they don’t go out of business in five years.” “What are you talking about, Viscount? Everyone here at the party is here to talk to the owner of the Holden company.” “Exactly, and the fact that it’s a party thrown by the king is a lame excuse. Who knows, maybe the brothers’ fashions will be the fashion of the capital the next day? Let’s give them credit for that.” “At least he’s managed to relieve the kingdom of some of the reparations it owed when it was defeated… That’s clever, and it’s got the commoners looking favorably on Holden, which is what a nobleman would do.” “Who says so? I don’t care about the other commoners, I’m only going to talk to the Count of Drunia and then I’m out of here.” The sounds of nobles whispering could be heard through the door. As expected, the reason they were at the party was because of the commoners and Daniel. The party held at the royal palace today was an event to which big names among nobles and commoners were invited. King Leonid III was as interested in the commoners as he was in the current nobility. This was a time when status was no longer everything. The other nobles must have felt the same way, as money could be used to buy a title, or a venerable noble family could be wiped out in an instant, leaving them penniless. Thanks to this, an unknown atmosphere was swirling between the upper class commoners and the nobles inside the Sapphire Hall. Instead of overt hostility, both sides treated each other with masks. ‘The reason why everyone attended this event must be to make a mark on the common people and upper class owners.’ Besides, the king had gotten a taste of the power of capital thanks to the targeted Holden. The servants standing at the entrance flung open the doors on either side to greet us.I stiffened a little, but allowed myself to be led by the servants into the hall where the party was being held. Behind us, Colin and Lucas followed at a distance. As soon as the doors opened, all eyes in the hall turned to the four of us. ‘I tried to act cool in front of Roan and say I wasn’t nervous…!’ As soon as the door opened and many people paid attention, my face hardened as if it had turned to stone. Without looking anywhere, I closed my mouth. As I walked along, staring into thin air, I heard the nobles and high lords chattering. “My goodness, who is that beside Count Drunia?” “Weren’t you supposed to come with the saint? According to the newsletter, there was talk that they were getting engaged soon…” “I’ve never seen her before, she doesn’t look like a noblewoman.” I kept my ears open, even though I didn’t really want to listen, so I could hear what they were saying. “Are you nervous?” Daniel looked at me and asked. Without realizing it, I was holding Daniel’s forearm as if it were being squeezed. Instead of complaining about pain or narrowing his eyes, Daniel looked at me with concern. “I’m sorry.” He looked uncharacteristically sweet, but that didn’t matter to me in my nervous state. “Rose, are you okay?” Colin, who was walking behind me, asked in a low voice. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Never mind.” From what I briefly learned, it was against etiquette for a man who was not her partner to take care of a woman. I was afraid that Colin would be criticized for being a man who didn’t know how to behave, so I pretended everything was okay and pushed him away. That was before Colin said anything else. The noble men who had been watching Daniel closely from afar slowly walked over. Colin naturally fell back. “Who is this? Count Drunia.” “Greetings, Count Denvesk.”Daniel skillfully pretended to know the nobles. From the looks of it, he seemed to be from a family closely related to Daniel’s family. Two noble men approached us and chatted about business with Daniel for a moment, then turned their attention to me. “But it’s late to say hello to the lady. I think this is my first time seeing you at the party, but your name is…?” It was a fairly natural change of topic, but he probably wanted to ask about me from the moment he approached me. Daniel introduced me instead. “This is my old friend Rose. I have a very deep connection with her. She is a friend who helped me with a lot of my business, so we attended the party together.” “Hoo, old friend?” The two men’s eyes lit up. Daniel smirked. It seemed to be a common look for the businessman. “Yes. I’ve known her for over five years, and I wanted to give her the experience of attending a great party, so she’s coming along.” “Five years is quite a long time. But I never knew there was a lady like this among the Count’s friends…” Count Denvesk said with his eyes shining. The eyes were looking for gossip, but Daniel drew the line first. “Yes, it hasn’t been long since we reunited. She’s a childhood friend I haven’t seen in a long time.” “Hello, Count, Viscount. My name is Rose.” I slightly lifted the hem of my skirt and greeted them. I also didn’t forget to cleverly change my name to Rose. As Daniel continued to draw the line between being friends, the nobles joked and said that they would get caught for anything. “Okay. What else can I say? I thought the Count was marrying a saint, but was dating someone else, hahaha!” The man next to me, Viscount Renard, narrowed his eyes and looked at me and Daniel alternately. “Hey, are you really friends? You can be honest with us. Count Drunia.” “What do you mean?” “Isn’t marriage to a saint a foregone conclusion anyway, isn’t it? A man’s life is over once he’s married… Don’t you think you should enjoy yourself before then!” “…….” “You are very noble in that respect, Lord.” The Viscount was inwardly proud, as if he had said something very humorous. He didn’t forget to add some bullshit about how all men are the same, and what’s the problem with men being a men. Ugh. Without realizing it, I glanced at the man named Viscount with a chewed expression. ‘I worked at a restaurant for 10 years, met all kinds of vulgar people, and heard all kinds of swear words…’ I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t offended, but I was somewhat immune to the bullshit that comes out of this mouth.But… I secretly looked at the face of Daniel, who was standing next to me. “Haha, you too, Viscount…” The corners of Daniel’s mouth turned up mechanically. But his eyes were darker than a dead dynamic. ‘Hm, those eyes…’ It was the same look in his eyes as when he heard the story of the lord who had asked me to be his concubine. For some reason, I feel like I’m thinking of the assassin guild address… Daniel’s eyes looked like ‘Say whatever you want, you bastards’, but his lips moved mechanically as he dealt with the Count and Viscount. The two nobles seemed to have thought they had had enough of the conversation and then obediently retreated. “Then let’s go.” “Oh, by the way, the garden off to the left of the hall would be a good place for a young couple to have a secret meeting. It’s moderately dark. Hehe.” The two men, who had been talking nonsense until the end, disappeared among the people. As soon as Daniel saw that the two people had disappeared into the crowd, he mechanically lowered the corners of his mouth. And then he muttered darkly. “Say whatever you want, you bastards who are of no help to this society. Even if you tell them to grind them up and use them as fertilizer, it’s not enough. People like that need to be quarantined so they don’t spread the idiot germs.” … It was much more brutal than I thought.  * * * Even before the king’s arrival, the Sapphire Hall was already bustling with nobles and high lords. But it was Daniel and his family who stole the show. There were people who wanted to start a business by just saying a word to Daniel, and people who wondered why he brought me and not Deborah, and so on. In each case, he would recite the same canned repertoire he’d said earlier, “She’s visiting an old friend in the capital.” Of course, even if that is a reason that seems very insufficient for others to hear, so what? The owner of the target says so. “I see, those people are disappointing,” he said, and moved on to other topics of conversation. All I had to do was stare into space next to Daniel or laugh awkwardly when necessary. ‘By the way, why Deborah hasn’t arrived yet?’ Of course, we’d staggered our arrival at the palace to lessen the shock of the unconventional move, but Deborah’s arrival was later than expected. ‘Or is she already in?’ As I was looking around in confusion, the servant standing at the entrance to the Sapphire Hall opened his mouth. “Saint Deborah and Marquis Tezeb are here.” Once again, the hall was in commotion. It wasn’t just the party guests who were surprised. ‘Tezeb? Mikhail Tezeb?’