The Noble Ball
The ball, the ball. It was the nobles' version of a cabaret or a night club... No, not really. It was just rich people with nothing better to do burning through their money.
On the streets, children were starving to death without so much as a scrap of bread, or getting killed after being caught stealing wallets. Yet these bastards were wasting fortunes on parties like this.
Unfortunately, neither Camellia nor Glacia could attend due to their schedules. Only I, Rorsha, and Airi were present. Of course, we weren't attending under our real identities. We had to appear as the Holsted family.
I was Count Holsted, a noble who had struck it rich through mining on the outskirts. Rorsha was my wife, and Airi was my younger sister. Naturally, we had to disguise ourselves to match those roles. It wasn't anything as drastic as plastic surgery. We simply used magic potions to change our hair and eye colors, along with a bit of makeup.
I now had red hair and red eyes, Rorsha had blue hair and blue eyes, and Airi had black hair and black eyes. Fuck, it's the Taegeukgi. The actual Taegeukgi. Ah, may the blessings of Emperor Gojong, creator of the Taegeukgi, be upon us.
However, Airi seemed quite unhappy with her assigned role.
"Wouldn't it be better if I took the wife's role even now?"
"Unfortunately, even if it's just make-believe, I must decline anything of that sort with a minor. Besides, my dear friend Rorsha might not like it."
"Who said I wanted to play the role of your wife? I only accepted because it was an order from His Highness the Crown Prince!"
Rorsha suddenly shouted.
"Aigo, my ears are about to burst."
"I still haven't forgotten what you said to me back then, you know? So if you thought I'd let it go that easily, you're making a big mistake..."
"Pardon the interruption, but we've arrived in front of the ballroom."
The coachman's timely warning stopped Rorsha's sudden outburst. Before entering the ball, I pulled my hair back and tied it neatly.
"It's always a mystery. You're terrible at everything else in life, yet you can tie your hair so well."
"I told you, a friend taught me."
"You had... a friend besides me...?"
Rorsha stared at me with genuine surprise. Airi quickly joined in.
"That's... really surprising. I didn't expect that either."
"He never had friends back then either... This is truly unexpected."
Werner had hometown friends like Irina, and I had my own share of friends too. The armband admins who managed the Dragnity Fantasy 2 gallery with me, that floating troll who kept posting hateful images until I tracked him down and killed him, the people from the same guild in WoW... Yeah, I had plenty of friends.
"I told you, the friend who taught me how to tie my hair is someone else... Tsk. He's dead now, though."
"Ah..."
Rorsha covered her mouth, realizing she'd made a verbal slip.
"Did that friend... die from illness? Or was it an accident...?"
"No, he was murdered. By a real piece of trash. A vile fucking bastard."
"Did you catch the culprit...?"
"I killed him. Personally."
Sometimes he still appears in my dreams, and that's the problem. Every time, I barely hold onto my sanity and kill the bastard again. Disgusting piece of shit. I've killed him so many times, yet he keeps coming back. Is he some kind of Delonz?
"I see... Shall we go...?"
"Y-yes... Master..."
"Both of you, watch your titles from here on. One slip and the entire mission falls apart."
The foundation of disguise is acting. And the foundation of acting is dialogue. They didn't seem to realize that a mistake there would fuck everything up.
"U-understood, brother..."
"Sigh... Understood... You be careful too, dear."
I sensed Airi glaring at the word "dear," but I believed it wouldn't interfere with the mission and decided to proceed inside.
The moment we entered, sweet music tickled our ears as the attendant at the door announced:
"The Holsted Count family has arrived!!!"
The real Count Holsted was a man loyal to the Crown Prince and had never shown his face in high society. Therefore, no one here would be able to see through mine.
I leisurely scanned the room while holding the cane that noble house heads typically carried. As expected, quite a few nobles were left speechless by the appearance of the women beside me. Both Rorsha and Airi were peerless beauties as long as they kept their mouths shut. Thanks to the makeup, Werner's refined features stood out even more, giving him the look of a handsome young man.
One noble approached me and extended his hand.
"I am Ketchup, head of House Mustard. It is an honor to meet you, Count."
I nearly spat out my drink. Fuck, how does someone end up named Ketchup Mustard... This son of a bitch... I could understand having the surname Mustard, but why the hell was his first name Ketchup?
"Ah... Yes. I am Johann, head of House Holsted. House Mustard... If I recall, your family has been in the spice trade for generations. A pleasure to meet you."
House Mustard was just an ordinary extra family that mainly sold spices... If this were a romance fantasy novel, wouldn't a Korean woman have reincarnated into this family? Something like The Young Lady of the Mustard Family Turns the Pocket Watch, Hoping Only for a Deadly Ending. If such a person actually existed, I'd be glad to meet a fellow countryman. Of course, if she caused any trouble for the Crown Prince or those around me, I'd have her eliminated.
And she was one of the people I needed to watch carefully at this ball.
"My, my~ I must say, it's quite surprising to see you have such a beautiful wife and sister."
"Surprising?"
"From what I heard, House Holsted resides in a remote area with terrible air, so the rumor was that everyone in your family was frail and suffered from skin diseases."
Snickers rippled through the surrounding nobles. Aha, so this is what they call 'territorial hazing'? It seemed even this world of bastards had that kind of culture. In that case, as someone from another world, I felt like sharing the beautiful culture of the 'knuckle sandwich' from my own.
"I'm also surprised. I didn't expect the nobles living in the capital to have such normal physiques."
"May I ask what you mean by that?"
"Not long ago, a man named Lloyd who acted as a proxy in the capital took bribes and handed over the sewers to child kidnappers, didn't he? And I heard quite a few nobles were working with him."
"Why bring up such an unpleasant topic on a day like today..."
"They receive salaries paid by the hard-earned taxes of the people, then stuff their pockets with bribes on top of that... They gather together, scheming and feasting... With all that feasting, I mistakenly thought the capital would be packed with nothing but pig bastards."
I tightened my grip on Ketchup's hand during our handshake.
"Urk..."
"My apologies. Since I come from a humble background in the mining industry, it seems I used too much strength. Please be careful in the future. I can't guarantee I won't misjudge my power again."
Vermin bastards. Personally, I despised those who acted superior and satisfied their petty egos like this. Parasites that needed to disappear for the sake of a beautiful society. I was beginning to truly understand why the Crown Prince wanted to eliminate these bastards.
"His Highness the Crown Prince will now deliver a congratulatory address. Please direct your attention this way."
At the solemn announcement, everyone turned toward the stairs. From the balcony overlooking the first floor—a space reserved exclusively for the imperial family—the Crown Prince raised a wine glass.
"I express my deepest gratitude to the esteemed guests who have attended this auspicious occasion. Therefore, please enjoy yourselves to your heart's content before departing."
Since this was a gathering personally called by the Crown Prince, the parasites would naturally flock here. Gathering privately would arouse suspicion, but secretly meeting at an official event like this wouldn't seem strange at all.
Soon the music changed to a dance number. People moved to the central area and began dancing.
It was a shame. If the beat had been just a little faster, I could have shown everyone the Poppin Emperor's poppin and moonwalk.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Rorsha poked my side repeatedly. The side was a dangerous spot if stabbed with a knife. Could I take this as a declaration of war?
She whispered quietly.
"Hurry up and ask me to dance."
"Who? You?"
"Then should I tell you to ask your s... sister, you idiot...?"
Even while whispering, she didn't slip up on the titles. Impressive.
"But why?"
If it had been a dance battle request, I would've understood, but a dance duet request left me a bit flustered.
"You idiot, the first dance is supposed to be with your partner."
"But there are nobles who aren't dancing at all?"
"Those people had no intention of dancing from the beginning."
"I don't have any intention of dancing either."
As the successor to Michael Jackson's soul, surrendering my body to this classical music would be a sin.
"No, you idiot... This is how you can ask the young ladies from the target noble families to dance and keep watch over them..."
"Ah. You should've said that earlier."
"Did you already forget what His Highness the Crown Prince said?"
I only clearly remembered the part where that bastard had spat out orders. The rest was rather faint.
As Michael Jackson's successor, I hated surrendering my body to this slow, dragging classical music, but it couldn't be helped.
However, there was one big problem.
"Um, wife..."
Rorsha, having ended whisper mode, smiled brightly.
"What is it, darling?"
"There's a big problem."
"Yes?"
I whispered into Rorsha's ear.
"I don't know how to do social dances."
Unfortunately, neither this bastard Werner nor I possessed that kind of knowledge. Should I just throw caution to the wind, head to the center, and break out the moonwalk and poppin?