Some time ago.
Jane was on her way to the royal hall after taking a short bath. Her hair was still wet, but Niti had combed them so it wouldn't look messy after getting dried.
SIGH!
"I truly don't want to participate in this function as I already know what's going to happen. I would rather spend my time with Rudy and fool around." She bit her lips and muttered, "Rias will wake up tomorrow, and no one knows what she might do. Rudy obviously loves Rias more than me, and I am not complaining, but if Rias asks him to dump me, he will dump me…"
She placed her hand on her heart and thought, 'I know it… but my heart still aches so badly. Even though it was me who stole him from her, I want to be selfish.'
Jane shook her head and murmured, "Don't worry too much about it, Jane. Otherwise, you will keep worrying about it instead of enjoying your remaining time with him."
Jane hurried her way to the hall where some of the royals and nobles were already present. A few female vampires were singing a song with no vocals, and some of them were playing the instrument to keep the tune.
The hall itself was vast, and it could easily fit over ten thousand people at once. On the sides of the pillars, there were tables filled with various types of dishes, but the most crowded table was where they were giving out the blood moon fruit milkshake.
When Jane entered the hall, no one noticed her. But when one of the female royal members— Jane's grand aunt— saw Jane, she nudged her husband and said aloud:
"Look who is here. The calamity of the vampire world."
Jane ignored her like a professional, as though she was used to that kind of thing, and kept walking. She walked in the middle as everyone's gaze turned on her after noticing her presence. While Jane glanced around as though she was looking for someone but kept walking.
She knew that if she stopped, she would be approached by yet another annoying and arrogant family member who would berate her for no reason.
'Where is Grandma Nyxia?' Jane wondered.
There were only around five hundred vampires present in the hall, excluding the maids and the butlers who were on duty to serve everyone. And it was an effortless task for Jane to find someone between them, but even after gazing around three times, she couldn't stop Nyxia.
'It seems she hasn't arrived yet…'
SIGH!
Jane thought that she would spend the time with Nyxia, and that would be her golden ticket to get away from all the berating she was going to receive at the function. But her plan failed miserably.
Luckily, Virgil entered at the right time and relieved Jane from the stress.
Jane rushed to Virgil, but she was stopped by a few of her cousins, from whom a few of them were younger than her while some were older.
"Jane~ My dear sister~ How are you doing?" her female cousin asked.
"I am fine. Thank you very much for asking me," Jane replied in a haughty tone.
"What's with this unfriendly attitude?" She frowned her face and said, "I am being nice, and there you go again, acting so arrogant!"
Jane squinted her eyes and asked, "What do you want, Miu?"
Miu averted her gaze and muttered, "I wanted you to check the essay I wrote for my academy project."
"I knew it. You only come to me when you need something. And then you act as though you don't even know me," Jane remarked.
"That's not true!" she said with a flushed face. "I have been busy lately."
"Yeah, right." Jane raised her finger and quoted, "Lately."
"..."
"What about the rest of the time, huh?"
"Well…"
SIGH!
Jane patted Mui's shoulders and said, "Come to my room later at night. I will review your essay, happy?"
Miu nodded with a flushed face and muttered, "There is…. one more thing I want to ask. But I will talk about that later."
Jane looked at her other cousins, who seemed agitated that Mio had asked for Jane's help. They thought she was going to berate her. However, Miu was one of the least annoying cousins Jane had, and they weren't actually on bad terms.
One of the male cousins pulled Miu back and whispered something in her ears, but Miu shrugged him off and turned to Jane to say:
"Hey, let's talk later, okay."
"..." Jane was left astonished after hearing that. 'Why is she acting so strange? Not that I am not complaining. But acting so friendly suddenly creeps me out for some reason."
Jane bid farewell to them and glanced around to look for Virgil, who had walked off somewhere while she was talking with her cousin.
However, when she spotted Virgil, he was busy talking with the royal guests who had arrived at the functions.
'It would be improper to disturb him. Argh! I really want to get out of here. Only if Rias was awake, she could have taken my place since she is the oldest princess.'
When Jane was thinking of a way to pass the time, the elders of the royal family were whispering to each other while staring at Jane.
"I can't believe it! Why is that outcast still part of our pure royal blood family?" one of them said.
"Because she is the third strongest vampire alive?" someone responded.
"Yeah. We should feel proud instead." another said.
"Indeed," someone seconded.
"I honestly don't care if she has human blood or if she was born under the blue moon. She has contributed a lot to the royal family. We should be thankful to her instead," the other said.
"And she will be the next Vampire Monarch. So we should learn to respect her," another said.
"Why should we even believe some controversy about the blue moon, though? There is no apparent proof; only the mentions which have no credible source," someone said.
Then, they all turned around to a man holding two big glasses of blood fruit milkshakes in his hands. He had a shade of red on his hair and pinkish-orange eyes.
"What do you say, Vesier?" they asked.
