The Banquet's Endless Feud and Whispers of the Heart
The annual event of the Roman-style fantasy had finally arrived.
Today was the gathering held at the Tornara Barony.
The official reason given was to celebrate the marriage of the eldest son of the Tornara Baron.
But the wedding itself had already taken place three days earlier, and the banquet was now on its third continuous day.
One barony alone could never afford the sheer expense, yet there was no choice.
Because the great families of the Manuel faction were using this venue as their de facto temporary conference hall.
Cash gifts poured in like water, and people flocked from everywhere.
By now it was no longer a simple celebration; it had become the private negotiation ground for nobles everywhere.
And right in the middle of it all, the man who never failed to exhaust the guests was Ruang, today as every day.
“What an utterly tedious business it is. All you have to do is agree.”
Behind the banquet hall, Ruang lounged almost as if he owned the very sofa beneath him, staring down at the assembled nobles with undisguised boredom.
Even though it was a gathering in someone else’s home, he looked more relaxed here than he would in his own sitting room.
“Hmph. No matter how much you insist, I cannot simply hand over such vast lands so easily.”
“The name of the royal family seems to weigh very lightly on your shoulders. Or perhaps you consider the crown itself something you can toss aside without a second thought?”
“W-what?”
The noble’s face turned deathly pale.
Ruang had deliberately built up the tension.
If he had demanded too much from the very beginning, the other party would not have taken him seriously.
To really sink the hook, the bait had to be cooked through slowly.
So he kept prodding, kept scratching at old wounds.
Manuel remained silent.
That silence only made the nobles grow more uneasy.
The demand Ruang had presented was unification limited to the northeast region.
On the surface it seemed simple, yet anyone could sense there was far more calculation hidden beneath it.
Ruang had been a remarkably clever boy before he lost his mind.
Therefore it was only natural to believe that even his current actions had some deeper purpose.
The other nobles interpreted the silence in their own ways.
Perhaps His Highness Manuel is displeased.
Maybe he is refraining from stopping Ruang precisely because he wants to see us humiliated.
Still, no one moved.
The nobles’ wish was simple.
They wanted only a suitable portion of land to be taken from Ruang, while the remaining imperial direct lands would later be divided among them as Manuel saw fit, under the guise of rewarding loyalty.
They were already counting on their future share.
At that moment, one noble quietly beckoned his attendant.
He gave a single short order.
Thanks to Ruang having deliberately drawn every eye toward himself, the subtle movement went unnoticed.
While everyone else stood frozen, only one person continued to stare straight at Ruang.
*That madman’s antics end today. You will fall for your own scheme after all.*
The gaze struck Ruang, and the corner of his mouth lifted in lazy amusement.
“I’m sorry, but I have no interest in the color blue. Even if you look at me with such hot eyes, I cannot accept.”
“…Pardon?”
The air in the banquet hall froze solid.
Ruang delivered the insult with perfect calm, staring directly into the noble’s face.
In this world, religion held immense power.
Monogamy was a virtue, and any desire that crossed forbidden lines was treated as sin.
To stand before a noble house head and label him a homosexual?
Truly, the man was insane.
The affected party, Baron Gandolphy, forced a smile and barely managed to recover his composure.
He had to endure for now. The board had not yet been set.
“Haha, what I saw was the words His Highness spoke to the knights.”
“Hm?”
“Th-that is… the part where he said to value love.”
“So you stared at me that way because of his words? Well, I don’t mind if you confess, but the aftermath will be your responsibility.”
Twice.
Two consecutive humiliations had only sharpened Baron Gandolphy’s vengeful fire.
He had not even begun his full assault, yet this was already enough.
He wanted to repay it properly, once and for all.
“That was not my intention… It is said that my own son has also been sympathetic to Your Highness’s words and has confided his worries with me.”
“Oh? What did you tell him?”
“I told him to try confessing once. Even if the other party is a commoner, as long as the marriage is not unequal, there is no need to stop it.”
“How interesting. You are the first noble to say such a thing.”
When Ruang responded positively, Gandolphy laughed inwardly.
A noble must bear responsibility for his own words.
He could not simply deny that it had been a tavern joke like to a commoner.
Therefore, this conversation was sure to become a shackle later.
“Then, if the other person already has someone they love, what do you think they should do?”
“M-my thought…?”
Gandolphy suddenly felt every eye in the hall turning toward him.
To be discussing a noble’s child’s romance with the master himself was already strange enough; to have a conversation that long with this mad royal was even stranger.
The surrounding nobles all breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts.
Ruang had not bothered him, so Gandolphy felt he was the one being singled out.
Yet in truth, his own heart burned.
“Would it not be a matter best resolved between the two of them? Still, thinking of the honor and authority of the man who publicly confessed… would it not be better for her to accept?”
He had almost slipped away.
But Ruang’s next words struck him head-on.
“You do not understand a woman’s heart.”
“Eh?”
It was a direct scratch of a man’s pride.
A man who could not capture a woman.
A man who could not even be a man.
It could mean nothing else.
“Ruang, what exactly are you trying to say?”
Finally Manuel spoke.
He could not simply stand by and watch the man begin to poke at the Tornara family.
But Ruang showed no sign of tension at all.
He spoke with the same calm that one might use to explain the most obvious common sense.
“Even a woman does not know that a man can confess to her?”
Several nobles’ faces hardened at once.
It was a statement their common sense could not easily accept, and it also brought back the memory of Angela having confessed to Ruang first.
Manuel could no longer continue.
It was because the person directly involved in the incident, Ruang himself, had nothing to add.
Ruang glanced at the reaction and chuckled softly.
“It is rare in the capital, so I understand. Besides, what I meant was only among the knights; I did not even think about the young ladies.”
With those words, Ruang rose from his seat.
Baron Gandolphy swallowed his curses.
He had only given the order to his attendant moments ago.
He needed more time for the plan to run smoothly.
That was why he had to hold Ruang back.
But Ruang was not the obedient type.
He ignored Gandolphy and tried to leave.
Then he paused and looked back.
“Oh, I need to take the sword.”
“Here… it is.”
Count Gideon reluctantly offered the sword.
“Thank you as always, Count Gideon.”
Gideon was desperately working to secure a position as a close aide to the imperial family.
Especially after Manuel, he had followed him almost everywhere.
But recently, wherever Manuel went, Ruang had appeared.
As a result, Gideon had been forced to play the role of Ruang’s sword sheath far more often than he would have liked.
“Perhaps it would be better to leave it to the servants now. They manage swords with greater expertise.”
Knights normally took their own pages along to handle sword maintenance.
Even nobles learned the techniques, but they rarely practiced daily, so their skill was lacking.
A common servant, therefore, would usually be more efficient if he simply handed it over to a professional.
But Ruang accepted the sword with a carefree smile.
“I can only be at ease if it is from someone with noble blood.”
“…Hah.”
Gideon sighed, utterly speechless.
It was the kind of attitude one could not normally show before a royal prince.
But since the person was Ruang, the conversation had taken a different turn.
If he wished, he could have sighed even more deeply.
“Or perhaps your son is the same. I will bring him along to the next meeting.”
“…I would be honored to meet him.”
In the end, Gideon decided to show his son to Ruang once.
Among the royals, seeing such a madman up close would make him realize, with painful clarity, just how wise Manuel’s choice had been.
And to be honest, he might have to use his son as a shield before his own illness exploded.
Thus Ruang continued to accumulate grudges in the meeting hall, and then emerged into the banquet hall itself.
It was because he felt another explosion was about to happen.
***
Ruang turned his gaze in search of the familiar pink hair.
Blondes like Bianca were everywhere, but only Angela’s pink hair was unique enough to stand out.
And there she was.
Someone was already confessing to Angela.
While Ruang had stepped away for only a moment, the center of the banquet hall had become an excellent spectacle.
“Lady Angela! I hope you will accept my love!”
The voice rang out loud and confident.
On the surface it looked like a passionate confession.
But Ruang instantly saw through it.
It was fake.
It was a performance.
“I have been unable to forget you since the very first moment I saw you!”
A person truly in love would not act like this.
The voice would tremble, the eyes would dart, and the first emotion to surface would be the shock of possible rejection.
Yet this man was too bold.
He had already achieved his goal simply by speaking the words.
So what was the true goal?
To confirm if this woman belonged to Ruang.
How far he could push the boundaries.
What kind of reaction the public would see if he declared it openly in the middle of the hall.
Angela blinked in a daze.
She had just finished a heavy etiquette lesson and her mind was still blank when the real test came.
The sight was absurdly adorable.
Just as Bianca stepped forward, Ruang moved first.
*Clang. Clang. Clang.*
The sound of swords striking the marble floor opened a path for the onlookers.
Ruang was laughing.
But the laughter held no kindness at all.
“While I was gone, quite an interesting scene unfolded.”
The young man’s face who had been confessing paled.
Angela finally looked at Ruang and let out a tiny, almost inaudible breath.
Ruang watched her and thought.
That expression was unfair.
A girl who had known nothing, suddenly flustered, staring only at him.
Seeing it, all the grudges, calculations, and politics he had accumulated earlier felt utterly tiresome.
He wanted to crush them all and simply hide them behind her back.
Therefore he wanted to toy with Angela a little.
Simply chasing the man away would have been too straightforward and boring.
Love should be a little more special and spectacular.
“Your Highness, this is…”
“I know. I said love is important, didn’t I?”
Ruang nodded.
A flicker of hope appeared on the noble’s face for a brief second.
Then Ruang continued slowly, deliberately.
“So is that where it ends?”
“Eh?”
Ruang forcibly pulled the noble to his feet and shouted loudly.
“Is that all your love is worth?! If you only feel relieved because you confessed, then it is not true love at all!”
“...!”
The words struck the noble like a physical blow.
Contrary to his expectation, the man was not completely heartless.
At least his pride had clearly been wounded.
“Then…”
Ruang paused.
The noble, gloves still in hand, finally surrendered the sword with perfect courtesy.
And declared:
“Ruang, Prince! I, Patrick Griffin, second son of the Griffin family, challenge you to a duel for Lady Angela!”
“Oh? Good. This is how a real man should act!”
Ruang accepted the duel with a delighted smile.
A formal, bold, and perfectly justified reason for a duel.
It felt like dopamine flooding his system.
The surrounding crowd stared at him as if he were insane.
Anyone sane would never challenge a man to a duel for the woman he loved.
“W-what?!”
Angela finally lost her composure and screamed.
Because right before her eyes, a duel had actually been arranged for her.
When the dream became reality, she finally tasted the rare thrill of a dopamine rush.
“Haa…”
Bianca beside her simply pressed her hand to her temple and sighed, clearly suffering from a headache.
***
A few days later.
[It was clarified that it was not that Prince Ruang and Lady Angela had actually engaged in physical intimacy on the veranda, but that Lady Angela had clung to Prince Ruang and confessed her love.]
On the day he received a letter correcting the rumor that had been spreading through the banquet hall, the villainess heiress Rachel, who was destined to become Ruang’s fiancé, felt her chest grow hot.
Her fiancé was undoubtedly an extremely popular and deeply loved man.
*Is he crazy, yet loved? What is going on?*
Rachel placed her hand over her heart.
It was pounding as if about to tear through her chest.
Yet the feeling refused to subside.
*Is this love?*
She thought for a moment.
Then she quickly denied it.
No.
It was not love, but a far hotter, sharper emotion.
Jealousy.
A clear heat flooded the long-cold chest.
Normally she would have been flustered, perhaps even ashamed of herself.
But strangely, Rachel did not dislike the feeling.
For someone who had spent her entire life suppressing her emotions, such a vivid and intense sensation was precious.
Of course, no one yet knew what would happen if that emotion ever exploded.