The Night's Breathing

A servant girl was on top of Ritzy while inside the banquet. She was trying to seduce Ritzy for her own selfish desires.

She caressed Ritzy's chin and forced him to look at her. Then she forcefully sat on his lap with her legs almost wrapping around him and said seductively,

"Young lord Ritzy, are you playing hard to get? You know, you already have my full attention. You can just ask and I'll do whatever you desire".

Ritzy looked coldly at the young girl, almost causing her to scream in fright. His cold glare felt like death was coming for her when she looked into them.

Ritzy,

"I want you to leave".

Ritzy words were comparable to a commandment. The servant felt as if she angered a higher being. Completely frightened, she tried to getaway. She forgot she was currently sitting on Ritzy's lap so when she moved back, she fell on her back.

Some people that weren't distracted by their own mischief, saw the servant fall on the floor.

The servant didn't care about the stares or the fact she fell down. She quickly picked herself up and ran out of the tent, not even caring that she was a servant who had to attend to the people at this banquet. Her only thoughts were if that she wanted to live, she had to escape from the young lord she tried to seduce. No matter the cost.

Ritzy seeing the girl leave, he returned to his thoughts as if nothing happened. Ritzy even grabbed some berries off the table and munched on them peacefully.

The people who did see what occurred, stopped paying attention and returned to whatever they were doing. It wasn't too strange that a noble frightened the servant class, so this event wasn't surprising or noteworthy.

After a while, a sudden noise came from the main table at the center of the Banquet. It was Grasso holding a silver wine cup and hitting his fork with it to create the noise.

Benedire was also next to Grasso but he seemed tired and uninterested in the things around him. It was as if Benedire was an obligated child who had to come to an event he had no desire to go to.

Grasso spoke loudly and full-heartedly,

"I welcome everyone to the pre-war banquet. I intended to hold this event to wish us good luck in this upcoming war. To show hope that the only sacrifice we need to give is our farmers. That no noble comes out of this war dead".

Every noble, servant, and invited guess raised their cups. Ritzy didn't know what was happening so he just copied them.

Grasso,

"For the Pheonix kingdom!".

Everyone,

"For the Pheonix Kingdom".

Even Benedire who wasn't interested in the banquet joined in,

"For the Pheonix Kingdom".

They all began drinking and Ritzy followed their actions as well. Benjamin didn't speak about what they were doing when they secretly met earlier so Ritzy blindly copied the crowd.

...

An hour had passed and everything resumed to normal as before. Men trying to catch beautiful women's attention, women trying to get powerful men's attention, and perverts leading servants to the private tents.

The only difference was that Benedire was surrounded by men and women alike. No matter their age or status, they all tried to please Benedire.

Many of the old men that greeted gave many compliments. The older men talked mostly about their past encounters with Benedire or about how they have descendants that are good for marriage. The older men were attempting to get in Benedire's family.

The younger of the men talked about their relationship to Benedire, on how their fathers met Benedire during a particular event or something similar. When the younger men finished introducing themselves, they then boasted about themselves. They were trying to impress Benedire and form a good relationship from there.

Even though they were boasting about themselves, they made sure to compliment Benedire. After saying something good about themselves, they would then follow up with, "Of course, it doesn't compare to you".

The women was a whole other situation. It didn't matter their age because each one did something different. Some of the girls would introduce themselves, trying to create a presence. They desired to be acknowledged and make a friendship between Benedire and her family. These were the best of the bunch.

The other girls had other things in mind. Many of them, no matter if the girl was a quarter of Benedire age, tried to seduce him. Some tried to play hard to get and pretend that Benedire wasn't such a great figure. It didn't work because when they noticed that it wasn't working, they quickly changed tactics as if what happened earlier never happened.

Others tried to flattering Benedire tremendously. If Benedire complemented their dress, they would complement Benedire's eye for fashion.

They would speak for minutes on end about how Benedire's eye for fashion is so great, that it could see every value of her dress. That his eye for fashion was the reason he dressed so great. In reality, Benedire only said, "the dress looks nice".

Also, the thing about his clothes wasn't on purpose. In reality, he was wearing whatever his butler packed for him when he left.

Some of the bold-er girls tried to seduce Benedire in front of everyone. Some went straight to his ear and offered sexual pleasures without hesitation.

Ritzy found this laughable and it was the only thing he found entertaining in the whole banquet.

Benedire noticed that Ritzy would laugh every time one of the people would bloat about themselves or compliment him.

Seeing that Ritzy was watching him, he would have a little fun himself. Every time no one except Ritzy was looking at him, he would pretend that he was dying. Trying to show that the boredom was killing him.

Benedire made cutting his own throat gestures or hanging himself. It was completely disrespectful if anyone saw him doing this, but Benedire made sure to hide his gestures from the people around him.

Even if the people around him saw this, they wouldn't say a thing. Benedire was the highest-ranking noble in the banquet and he could do what he desired.

After half an hour passed by, Ritzy got bored and started to leave. Benedire seeing that Ritzy was leaving reached his hand out, trying to say don't leave since the gestures to Ritzy was his only entertainment. Ritzy gave an apologetic look to Benedire before he left.

The whole time he was there, no one approached Ritzy. Probably because Benedire was there and they were trying to suck up to him. Benjamin and Skira didn't pay the slightest attention to Ritzy either. The duo just spent their whole night mingling with the servants.

Noblewomen would've approached Benjamin and Skira but the duo would never let go of the servants. Even if they did let go of the servants, the servants would've tried their best to get the duo's attention again.

...

As Ritzy was walking out, he saw Skira outside flirting with a noblewoman.

Ritzy's mind,

'This explains why he wasn't with me when I went out to take a breather. It seems like he's been rising up the ranks into nobility'.

The girl was a browned haired woman in her late twenties. The noblewoman would be considered a little behind on getting married compared to other women of similar status.

She was wearing a light brown colored dress with dark-red outlines. There was a light red embroidery that said Doddery on the left side of her chest.

The scene before Ritzy seemed romantic. Junger in his shining reflective armor showing great joy in speaking to the woman while the beautiful girl in her brown dress was trying to hide her laugh at what Junger was saying.

Ritzy decided not to ruin Junger's moment because it would probably be his last since they would be going into battle tomorrow.

To not bore himself, Ritzy meandered around the tents. He looked around and didn't see anything that interested him. As he was walking, he arrived at a nearby pond.

The pond was simple but rather big, almost two football fields. The pond was very clean so it easily reflects the moonlight and created a majestic scenery. Seeming as if it was a spiritual site.

Ritzy remembering that he told himself to enjoy the little moments more, he decided to get to a nearby boulder. The bolder was halfway into the ground so it created a nice place to rest one's back on.

While enjoying the transcendent like scenery, Ritzy began hearing breathing.

Ritzy didn't have his magic presence activated ever since he left the banquet.

From his past experiences, enemies never attacked twice in the same night, especially if undercover scouts or investigators were killed. Ritzy would only be attacked the next morning or at least there would be an eight-hour window before the next attack.

Also, since there was a caravan here, no wild animals would be nearby. Either docile or dangerous, they would be hunted down by the caravan members for their delicious meat.

Knowing that the enemy wouldn't attack again and that there couldn't be any possible dangerous animals nearby, Ritzy decided to begin storing up some mana for tomorrow's battle. Mana couldn't be created if mana presence was activated so Ritzy decided to take the calculated risk. He found it more beneficial to put his guard down now so he could have extra mana tomorrow for any possible scenario.

Hearing breathing behind him completely frightened him.