Chapter 178
Faust’s face tightens at my question.
“You mean the Villain Alliance……?”
“Yes. You’re affiliated with the Villain Alliance, aren’t you?”
In my experience, at this point in time, Faust is working with the Villain Alliance.
To be fair, Faust might feel guilty about it, since he’s entrusting them with his personal business…….but in the end, it’s a partnership.
“Faust, are my son’s words true?”
My father’s voice sank low at my words, and I felt the temperature around me drop.
Not another man, but the head of the Corleone, who had recently been at odds with the League of Villains spoke.
His anger was justified but I wonder if that’s all.
“If it’s the Villain Alliance, they’re the ones who recently attacked the Seoul Hero Academy.”
“And Dr. Faust, of all people, joined hands with them?”
Most of the people here are not righteous, but each has their own pride. Some even had children or relatives enrolled in the Seoul Hero Academy.
Feeling the atmosphere around him, Faust realized that things had taken a strange turn and held out his hand.
“There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding, I was going to tell the others later, slowly, but since……things have turned out like this, I have no choice but to introduce you now.”
Mm-hmm.
He clapped his hands together briefly and a bird flew around the garden.
No, one of the fairies I thought was a bird flies over and lands on his shoulder.
“Is it my turn to introduce myself already?”
“…… I don’t think we’re in the mood for much excitement right now.”
“But it’s a festival! Festivals are supposed to be fun!”
The tone and body language were those of a tomboy.
The only thing that made her different from the other fairies that were currently hovering in the air was that unlike the other fairies that were emitting bright light from their bodies, there was a faint glow around her body.
“Allow me to introduce you to Corleone Jr. who I was just talking about……and the executive of the Villain Alliance to whom I owe a small debt of gratitude this time. She runs the guild Midsummer. Peak.”
“Hello everyone, I’m Peak, the Black Fairy, bye bye bye!”
That’s right.
That fairy over there, blowing palm kisses to the crowd, is a high ranking member of the Villain Alliance.
She was called the Fallen Fairy.
“……I see.”
Realizing that it wasn’t Plague, my father’s aura began to fade a little.
Perhaps it was Peak’s appearance and personality that caused him to react this way.
“Alas, Don Corleone, you’ve lost your temper, haven’t you?”
She swept her hand across her chest as she approached him, relieved to see that his expression had softened a bit.
“I heard that Plague has been messing with the Don’s people lately, and he asked me to tell you that our chief is very sorry about that, too! I don’t know about all that hard stuff, but…… Well, I hate Plague, too!”
She leans closer, excitedly voicing her opinion, and extends a small hand toward father.
“So… let’s not fight, Don Corleone!”
As if he understood her personality from that brief exchange, he exhales to clear the air, then gently takes her hand.
“Let’s try …….”
“Okay!”
More than anything, the reason he accepted her handshake may have been the story she’d been building up to.
Midsummer is a group of fairies led by Peak.
They relay fairies to wherever they are needed, and their purpose is to protect animals and nature.
However, what sets her apart from other fairies is that she is willing to go to any lengths to achieve her goal.
The last thing she did was to kill poachers who were trying to catch a protected species by making them drink a frenzied powder that made them shoot each other?
It’s a vague group to call evil.
However, there were many instances where they used force beyond their authority, and in some cases, it led to the overthrow of administrative units, so they are designated as “villains.”
But that’s not all.
The overwhelming power of her Fairy Legion on the front lines was quite powerful, so it wasn’t that strange that she was a member of the Villain Alliance.
“I’m glad it went well, I have a new drug I’ve been working on lately, and I needed some help with it and some fairies to make this party shine, so I asked for her help.”
Faust glances in my direction as he says that.
“I realize that recent events would have been sensitive for the Villain Alliance, and it is my fault that I did not tell you before, so I take this opportunity to apologize, Don Corleone.”
He bows his head, and I accept his apology with a short bow of my own.
Of course he should apologize.
I suppose if we hadn’t talked about it first, he would have blatantly feigned ignorance until the end but he apologized while I’ve accomplished my purpose, and I’m also done with the revelations.
After what I’ve just done, those around me should be able to guess who I am in Corleone and what I’m capable of.
I showed my intelligence by speaking as if it were a matter of course that I knew information that no one but the parties involved knew, and I showed off how much my father cared for me.
I was boldly declaring, “If you mess with me, are you ready for a meeting with Corleone?”
I was pleased to see that even those who hadn’t paid much attention to me up until that point were starting to take an interest in me.
“Come on, it looks like everyone has arrived, so why don’t we start the party? I haven’t eaten yet and I’m starving!”
Peak shouted, clapping her hands to rev up the sagging mood.
“Come on, music!”
Peak shouts, pointing to the band that had stopped playing, and the interrupted music magically begins.
“And dance!”
Peak yells again, this time pointing to the sky, and the fairies floating around her begin to giggle and fly through the air.
“And finally, drinking!”
Boom──!
Aura spreads out, and the stacks of champagne begin to move, flying toward the empty hands, her utilization beyond belief.
“Happy Walpurgis!”
The real party was about to begin.
* * *
After exchanging greetings with Faust, I headed to my pre-designated spot in front of the fairies.
At the same time, countless gazes were felt from the surroundings.
In response, my father sighed, then looked at me and said.
“Apparently, this father is going to be quite busy.”
Already, other people had begun to stop to talk to him, to greet him, to say hello.
“I’m sure there are some people who are interested in you…… but you’ll be even more bothered with this father. How can you be expected to look around?”
“I will.”
I had been wondering how to get out of the car, too, but this made it easier to move around.
Each one of them is a powerhouse, and their movements make the area go crazy.
It would be a shame to stay in one place when I had the opportunity to meet them.
“Oh, and don’t get carried away with the cocktails.”
“……Will wine be okay?”
“Wine is fine.”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t until I was told no champagne, but yes wine, that I was finally allowed to leave.
Sometimes I wonder if this is overprotective.
The interior of the forest where the party began was a fairytale.
A banquet for a group of people, sipping gracefully, in a forest with fairies and witches flying around, I’m sure this is what most of us dreamed of as children.
“So, let’s see how many familiar faces are here.”
Even as a player, in the County days, it was impossible to get an invite to the Night of the Walpurgis without doing something crazy.
To be invited to a gathering of global tycoons so County in the game?
‘It’s not easy, no matter how good you are, unless you’re really lucky.
Either that, or you do something really ‘crazy’.
Well, I don’t think I’m the latter, so in this case, I think I had both luck and skill.
As I revel in filling in the missing data, I look around.
‘Maru? He’s still around. Isn’t that an Indian chief from the North American side of the world? Wow, all the weirdos are here.’
I’m looking around the party, soaking in the heavenly scene.
“Huh?”
I spotted a familiar face.
Pale skin, slicked back jet-black hair, and red eyes. He was a man wearing a wrinkled jabot like something out of a medieval drama.
“Dwight Rodman.”
The patriarch of the Rodmans could be seen staring off into the distance as he moistened his lips with the red liquid.
It was certainly not strange for him to be here on the Night of the Walpurgis.
After all, his family, the Rodman family, had been known for their fame and notoriety throughout the past.
In other words, he could be said to be an ancient figure of the Night of the Walpurgis.
But where is he looking?
If he’s staring so intently, there must be something there that’s upsetting him, or at least intriguing him.
I turn my head to follow his gaze.
“Ha.”
Was that our table he was looking at?
His gaze was fixed on my father’s table, surrounded by others, greeting and chatting.
His eyes were not favorable, but rather hostile.
How dare he look at our table like that?
……Okay, I decided.
Slowly, I walk over to his table, and as if sensing my movements, his gaze finally turns to me.
“Count Dwight Rodman. Is that right?”
I start out with a friendly smile.
“Yes, I am, but……I never thought the Crown Prince of the House of Corleone would know me.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, as he had been watching what had happened with Faust earlier but there was still wariness in his eyes so I felt the need to tread a little more carefully.
“I love anecdotes about Count Dwight Rodman. There’s something about……single-handedly stopping a runaway dungeon in the forests of northern Romania back in the day, for example, and the fact that the forest, which had no name after that, was called the Red Forest, that makes a man’s heart boil.”
“Huh?”
He looked surprised at my enthusiastic explanation and turned his full attention to me.
“You must really know a lot about me, because that anecdote is not known by many, even in Romania.”
“Well, I’ve had my fair share of times, and the Count’s story seemed very cool at the time.”
Blood and gore plus nobility and dark races.
Vampires, a morbid collection of keywords, were naturally a favorite race of players and we know a lot about them.
This was the beginning.
Now that I’ve shown him some favor, he shouldn’t mind talking to me a bit more.
I was casually steering the conversation, calculating what I could get out of him, and how to humiliate him in just the right way.
“So, Dad, like you said, I’ve been talking to Gary Frances about……huh?”
“Oh.”
That was it.
