Human nature generally loves a spectacle.
Especially when a conflict broke out among several young people with exceptionally striking looks and temperaments, and seemingly involved crowd-pleasing romantic entanglements, the spectacle's draw grew exponentially.
Almost the instant Allie's words—“I'm going to kill you~”—fell, over eighty percent of the patrons in the previously quiet Golden Crucible restaurant shifted their gazes in unison, locking onto Greg's table.
A flurry of whispers instantly erupted.
“Listen to that tone... Tsk tsk, is that the real girlfriend catching her boyfriend on a date with other girls?”
“No way, does that blonde beauty have something going on with him too!?”
“Right now there are five top-tier beauties in this restaurant, and four of them are actually involved with him!? That's way too absurd!”
“Where did he even come from? Could he be some big high noble?”
“Regardless of who he is, he's in huge trouble now, hehe...”
Under the gaze of countless curious, envious, and jealous eyes, Allie seemed entirely indifferent to the surrounding commotion.
She merely kept her head slightly lowered, her dark golden hair cascading down to veil half her face, revealing only her tightly pursed lips and the steadily heavy pressure radiating from her.
“Young Master... You're sitting here enjoying a high-end dinner with these... thieving cats, looking so relaxed and happy... You have no idea how hard I've had it... all by myself... ever since I left you...”
Hearing this, Greg felt his heart twitch violently.
Logic told him Allie's claims of hardship were likely an exaggeration.
Yet emotionally, hearing her speak like that flooded him with an uncontrollable, indescribable wave of guilt.
Greg remembered that he really hadn't reached out to her much lately, and barely even knew anything about her current work situation...
I really do feel a bit terrible.
In a rare occurrence, Greg's conscience felt genuine remorse.
Meanwhile, a short distance away, Wendy—having realized her decision had accidentally caused trouble—calmly turned her head away, pretending she hadn't seen a thing while snarking internally:
Lady Allie, doesn't your conscience hurt when you say things like that?
You wake up the latest every day and go to sleep the earliest. Aside from essential meal times, you spend your time in the courtyard practicing slashes with that terrifying greatsword, or lying on the roof soaking up the sun.
Aren't all the tasks of compiling intelligence, analyzing information, and handling chores handled by me?
Besides eating, sleeping, practicing swordsmanship, and occasionally beating me half to death whenever the mood strikes to "guide" me, where exactly has your life been hard?
Of course, she only dared to think these things in her head.
On the surface, she maintained an impeccably elegant demeanor, looking completely uninterested in the storm brewing over there.
“Hey!”
But Victoria didn't care about any of that. She was never one to swallow her pride. Hearing Allie call them thieving cats to their faces, her eyebrows instantly flared. Slamming a hand onto the table with a loud bang, she stood up abruptly, her gray eyes blazing with anger as she glared right back at Allie without backing down an inch:
“Who are you calling thieving cats?!”
Her sudden outburst startled Silvia beside her.
The pink-haired girl quickly reached out, tugging tightly at Victoria's sleeve as she pleaded softly and anxiously:
“V-Victoria! Calm down! Don't... don't do this...”
Her voice trembled imperceptibly, not just because of the confrontation in front of her, but also due to a certain... unexplained guilty conscience.
The little secret maneuver under the table earlier still seemed to burn her nerves, leaving her severely lacking confidence when facing Allie.
Meanwhile, Catherine remained seated upright, her azure eyes calmly scrutinizing Allie, who had appeared out of nowhere, along with the chaotic scene before her.
She seems to be... Allie Hill... Yes, back in first year, she really was the quiet maid who followed Greg Sass around.
Normally, after Greg was banished from the Sass family, her options as a servant tied to the house were limited:
Reassigned by the family, dismissed, or... actively seeking better opportunities elsewhere.
A completely fallen former master was undeniably a liability for a servant. The smart move would be drawing a line as quickly as possible, or even throwing him under the bus to curry favor with a new master to maximize one's interests.
“Yet right now...”
Catherine's gaze swept quickly across Allie's face.
She was still following Greg Sass, even after he lost his noble title, wealth, and status.
Why?
Merely out of past sentiment?
No, that wasn't enough.
There must be something about Greg Sass that was still worth her valuing, even after losing everything else.
At this thought, the corners of her lips curled up imperceptibly in a faint arc.
“This man... really is getting more and more interesting.”
At that moment, aside from a touch of guilt, Greg only felt his scalp go completely numb.
Though he possessed plenty of survival methods, he was deeply worried that his head would hit the floor before anyone could even react.
After all, when there was trouble, Allie was his reliable pillar of strength; when there wasn't trouble, Allie was the insurmountable mountain blocking his way. (That's a great line, I'm stealing it! (⸝⸝ɞ̴̶̷·̮‹⸝⸝ᐡ)⟡.·)
So, to prevent himself from bumping into such an unscalable mountain out of nowhere like this in the future, Greg decided he must find a way to shift this mountain beneath his crotch so it wouldn't block his path!
Of course, that was a matter for later. The pressing emergency right now was figuring out how to extinguish the active volcano right in front of him.
Seeing the tension between Victoria and Allie growing thicker by the second, Greg silently cast Whimpering LV5, buying himself five seconds of explanation time:
“Both of you calm down! Listen to me!”
Greg spoke to Allie first, trying his hardest to make his expression and tone sound sincere:
“Allie, it's really a misunderstanding! Victoria and the others are purely my classmates and friends! I invited them to eat here today because I owed them a favor earlier, and we agreed I'd treat them to a big meal as thanks! There's nothing else to it!”
He spoke at breakneck speed, attempting to explain everything clearly before his invincibility time ran out.
Victoria forcefully shook off Silvia's hand, crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and snorted at Allie, following Greg's lead:
“Hmph! That's right! 'Thieving cats'? What an imagination you have! If he hadn't begged to treat us, do you think I'd even want to eat with this annoying guy?”
However, Victoria's words—which seemed like an explanation on the surface but were actually packed with clear defiance—had the opposite effect on Allie's ears.
“Annoying guy?”
Beneath Allie's skirt, the sharp blade that had been slowly returning to its sheath was suddenly pulled out halfway again, flashing with terrifying cold light!
Terrified, Greg grabbed the very last second of invincibility time to leap in front of Victoria, preventing Allie from losing control on the spot.
Little Gray, how are you already sitting at the same table of stupidity as Lilith?
Don't pick the most ridiculous option in your head to speak out loud right now!
Greg roared wildly in his mind, fine beads of cold sweat instantly breaking out across his forehead.
Rate on N.U.
