Ubel, who had just been told to behave, immediately noticed the trays carried by the servants. Letting go of his arm, she walked over and grabbed two glasses of wine.
"You're taking two at once—"
"This is obviously for you," Before he even finished speaking, Ubel had already handed it over. She even raised her glass, forcing him, under the pressure of the atmosphere, to clink glasses with her so he wouldn't look strange, and then drink a sip together.
"Drinking with a lady, and you don't even finish it?"
"I've never heard that wine has to be finished in one go. What do you think this is, chugging draft beer in a tavern? By the way, you didn't forget your mission, did you? And you're still drinking at a time like this?"
"Of course not, but we didn't have lunch, so this is a good chance to eat and drink a little first~"
Even though they were in enemy territory, with a monster at her side who could even defeat Macht, Ubel didn't feel the slightest bit of tension. She simply started tasting the food on the table, occasionally inviting him to toast with her.
There were even nearby nobles who, because she stood out too much, came over on their own to talk to Ash, wanting to see which noble family they were from.
After all, the empire was so vast that not everyone knew each other, and quite a few of the local nobles' children present were meeting for the first time.
At first, with nobles unexpectedly coming over to chat, Ubel was a bit worried they might overdo it and accidentally expose that Ash wasn't actually a noble.
But in reality... her worry was completely unnecessary.
He handled conversations with nobles and officials with surprising ease, talking about everything from military matters to politics. He even smoothed things over for her unnatural behavior, naturally and without effort.
His composed demeanor and speech made him look just like a real noble, leaving Ubel staring in a daze.
After another noble left with a smile, she finally couldn't hold back her surprise and asked in a low voice, "I knew you were important, but are you actually a noble? You don't look like one. Do nobles even travel around like that?"
"I'm not very interested in noble etiquette, and I'm not actually a noble. I just learned a bit about it."
To be precise, he originally found someone to teach Linie etiquette, but she had no interest at all. He ended up being forced to act as an example, learning male noble etiquette himself... and in the end, Linie still didn't learn anything, while he actually mastered it.
Just thinking about that made his stomach hurt for no reason.
But his answer only made Ubel even more curious, "Oh~ then what's your background? A commoner? Or a rich merchant?"
"Neither. And definitely worse than you."
"Then... a war orphan?"
"Something like that."
"Not bad~"
"Are you being polite?"
"Sorry! Sorry! That's not what I meant. I just feel like... you're really amazing."
Even though he only gave a vague nod, Ubel couldn't help showing an expression of admiration.
She had originally thought Ash must have come from a pretty good background, but didn't expect he had risen from nothing, someone who built everything with his own hands.
"That's enough messing around. Shouldn't we get moving?"
"Sorry, sorry. We'll start now~"
She had wanted to play a bit longer, but after learning all this, Ubel surprisingly bowed her head sincerely in apology and then led him away.
They passed through the hall, and on the way to the restroom, Ubel led him upstairs, directly to a secluded corner on the third floor.
But just as they entered the storage room, Ash sensed someone approaching.
Before Ubel could notice him staring at the wall and speak in confusion, he pointed in that direction, "We've been found."
"Oh~ the guards of a noble house are that good?"
"Probably the Imperial Magic Special Forces."
"Are they strong?"
"Pretty strong. They're one of the empire's trump cards for suppressing internal unrest. As expected of a great noble, casually calling them in as guards. But I can take them out before they make any move."
"Really? Then there's no helping it~", Ubel's lips curled slightly into a mischievous smile. Then she suddenly shoved him against the wall and with a smack, planted her hand on it, pinning him in a kabedon.
"Wait, I said—", The sudden reverse kabedon left him momentarily stunned.
Before he could finish speaking, the door was suddenly pushed open. A man and a woman, two members of the Magic Special Forces, stepped into the room one after the other.
Ubel's overly eye-catching outfit made even the Magic Special Forces hidden in the shadows glance at her a few extra times.
And when they noticed the two leaving the venue, they immediately began searching, quickly finding their location.
But the moment they pushed the door open and saw this strange reverse kabedon, they paused in surprise.
"Excuse us," The leading man silently lowered the brim of his hat, then closed the door again and stepped out.
———
Once back outside, the blond young man turned to his female companion.
"What should we do, Kanone?"
"You see people like that all the time at events like this. Just ignore them. Besides, no one's using this storage room anyway," The woman with a side ponytail, Kanone, felt thoroughly disgusted by these nobles.
She could already imagine what would happen next. Probably some intense "conflict" inside the storage room.
After all, she had seen plenty of similar cases.
And anyone who interrupted such private enjoyment would be punished by the noble, sent to guard some remote fortress in the freezing northern mountains of the empire, their life's work rendered meaningless.
"Still, they both look like mages. That boy is suppressing his mana. I can see through it, but I can't tell what kind of mage he is. And that girl is quite experienced too. Judging by her age... she'd count as a prodigy, right?", The young man, Neu, stared at the door with a troubled expression.
Even with their special status, offending nobles would be troublesome. But if they were spies and got away, it wouldn't be something that could be solved by just being reassigned.
"An experienced mage?", Kanone thought for a moment, then quietly pulled out a twig-like standard wand and aimed it at the door.
Experienced mages among nobles were rare, and suddenly appearing in a place like this was suspicious. Asking a few questions before the "conflict" began shouldn't be a big problem, right?
———
Inside the storage room, while the two outside were discussing, the two inside also had a headache.
Well... the one with the headache was really just Ash.
Looking down at the smiling girl in front of him, he also noticed that her face was unusually flushed.
But would Ubel blush just from suddenly kabedon-ing him? He wasn't entirely sure. She was strange, and did have a bit of girlish sentiment, but her personality was too odd to judge clearly. Still...
"If I remember correctly, you're the type who likes fighting, and earlier you wanted me to just solve things with force. So why are you suddenly trying to be clever now? This doesn't sound like you at all. Did drinking too much make you normal?", Ash looked at her expressionlessly, surprised by her unusual behavior.
"What are you talking about? Isn't it a good thing if we can avoid conflict? Why do you make it sound like, in your eyes, I'm just some fight-loving idiot? Am I imagining things?"
"You're not imagining it, and that's not the point. They haven't left yet. Do you really think this will work?"
"Then..."
Ubel deliberately left her sentence unfinished. She stood on tiptoe, about to kiss the corner of his lips, at least making it look like she was going to.
At that exact moment, the door burst open with a bang!, blown apart by magic.
Then the two outside saw a rather bizarre scene.
The girl with the side ponytail was on tiptoe trying to kiss him, while the boy had his hand pressed against her face, forcefully stopping the sudden kiss.
They had considered the possibility that if the two were spies, they might pretend to be a couple, even actually kissing for the sake of the act, but...
"This...", Kanone, who had broken in, unconsciously lowered her hat again like her companion before, stunned by the unexpected scene.
"Sorry for the interruption," Neu lowered his head, pulled her back out, and once again closed the door, leaning against it as he tried to sort out his thoughts, "If they were spies, would they really act like that?"
"I don't know. Normally, spies infiltrating a place like this should have some professional experience. Even if they didn't, they should at least have basic sense, otherwise they wouldn't be assigned here," Kanone was already starting to doubt that they were spies at all.
Their behavior was so unlike spies that both of them were confused.
———
Meanwhile, inside, Ubel, who had done something that even surprised herself under the influence of alcohol, was completely rejected. She felt a mix of confusion, frustration, and displeasure.
"What are you doing? Why is it that when I'm trying to resolve things peacefully, you refuse?"
"You may be an idiot, but you should know this is something you do after calming down... you've drunk too much."
"Hey, are you actually treating me like a child?"
"You are one, aren't you? Don't do something you'll regret," A girl who didn't even know he was a demon, acting recklessly like this, he wasn't going to take advantage of that.
After all, they had traveled together for a while. He didn't want to do something like that... even if Ubel was strange, he had his own principles.
But feeling that wasn't quite enough, he added, "Besides, doing this here is just weird."
"Oh~ the more you say that, the more I want to kiss you~", Ubel, who relied more on instinct than reason, licked her lips, looking like she might actually force a kiss, "Is this what it feels like to have your desire to conquer stirred? Not bad~"
"Didn't you just say you're not some pervert? What is this now?"
"No~ No~ I'm just choosing an outstanding man. Someone as excellent and strong as you must be very popular."
"Think a little about emotional matters."
"That kind of thing can come later. Feelings will grow over time. Anyway, when we first met, you lifted my skirt, right? You'll take responsibility for me properly, won't you?"
"Wait, isn't that normally a line men say?", Hearing such strange lines from this beautiful girl almost made Ash collapse.
Ubel, half-drunk, stood on tiptoe. While he turned his head away with a headache, she suddenly licked his cheek, then smiled and whispered into his ear, as if nibbling it, "Is now really the time to worry about things like that?"
"I know it's not, but it's also not the time for you to mess around. Shouldn't we be looking for documents?"
"Put that aside for now."
"Don't put it aside!"
What should have been a tense and thrilling espionage mission had somehow turned into a drunken girl causing trouble, even giving off the feeling that things might escalate all the way, like skipping straight to the result before formalities.
It made him sigh, 'Alcohol really does mess things up.'
Although Ubel's smile only grew wider the more he resisted, making him wonder if she was just using the alcohol as an excuse to act out and get back at him for earlier.
Whether others would do that was hard to say, but Ubel... she might actually.
'What should I do? It feels like I've somehow attracted a very strange girl's interest,' After sorting out the situation, his headache only got worse.
———
The whispers inside were very muffled, but it was still possible to tell that the boy was resisting while the girl was taking advantage of the situation and acting recklessly under the influence of alcohol.
Even though the two outside couldn't hear the exact content, the emotions didn't seem fake.
"A woman trying to cling to a noble young master, hoping to climb the social ladder?"
"How boring... there are women like that everywhere. Just because they have some looks, they think they can marry into nobility... how foolish. Even as a mistress, she'd probably be tossed aside once he gets bored."
Neu and Kanone stood outside the door, unable to detect anything suspicious, and instead couldn't help complaining.
After all, Ubel's outfit... really did look like she had been dragged in at the last minute. It had nothing to do with nobility.
Her only advantage was being a strong mage, but among the Magic Special Forces guarding the event, which of them wasn't a top mage in the empire? Even so, they were just guards, not even allowed at the main tables.
"So what do we do?", Neu adjusted his hat out of habit, looking troubled.
Kanone answered without hesitation, "We check anyway."
"How so?"
"We've already opened the door twice. We've offended them either way. If we don't find anything, it'll be even worse."
"Breaking the pot since it's already cracked?", Neu could only smile bitterly.
"If we're wrong, we'll go guard the northern border together," Kanone shrugged and blasted open the already damaged door once more.
But this time, inside the room, Ubel had already been pinned against the wall by Ash, her hands pressed behind her back, unable to move.
Seeing them burst in again, she looked like she'd found a savior and urgently called out, "Hurry! Someone help! This pervert is trying to do things to me!"
"Excuse us," Neu didn't even look at Ubel, instead staring fixedly at Ash, "Sir... please forgive us, but we need to confirm your identity first. Bring this woman with us."
"What status do you have, a mere Magic Special Forces unit, to ruin my fun?", Ash didn't even glance at him, directly snapping in anger.
Neu hesitated, but Kanone, who clearly held higher authority, maintained a polite smile without retreating a single step, "For the sake of us carrying out our duties properly, please don't make things difficult for us. We're also thinking about your safety."
"And if I insist on making things difficult?"
"Then we'll have no choice but to take stronger measures."
"Oh~ I'd like to see what kind of strong measures you plan to take," Ash's refusal to cooperate, his demeanor, it perfectly matched that of a noble young master.
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