Chapter 107 – Suspicious
Girls were true to their words. They dragged Noah to the dance floor one after the other so much that he felt his legs start to drag. Yet looking at their happy smiles after the dance and the puppy eyes of the next in line for a dance he could not refuse them. While Noah danced with one of them the other four would sit at the Dryad's table giggling and chattering.
Sometimes one of the young men in the room would come over to ask them for a dance but they had none of it. They only wanted their mate to swirl on the dance floor with. Dryads however were not called for a dance by anyone as Noah noticed. It seemed like the divide between monsters and spirit beasts could not be easily crossed in one day.
At least by the male part of society. As for the females, this looked to be a lot easier. Priscilla and Brianna knew some of the people at the ball as they were frequent guests in their aunt's house and had the chance to meet some of her acquaintances. These acquaintances would come over to their table from time to time to say their greetings and chat with them for some time. Which allowed them to have an introduction and a small chat with Dryads as well.
The new people that girls were introduced to this evening, did not stay away and came over to exchange pleasantries as well. Through Priscilla and Brianna Dryads gradually started to get introduced to more and more monsters.
Noah also noticed that many guests in the ballroom would keep the same company without lingering with others as if all they came here for was to dance and eat. Noah figured they were the most respectful, well-known, and established families in the northern region. They did not need to seek others. Others would come to them themselves if they need.
Those who were shuttling from one company to the other, as Noah understood, were the ones that came here in search of something. Establishing new contacts or searching to make some deals.
Priscilla and Brianna of course studied the crowd as well. It was their first ball and they wanted to be careful. While dancing, they quietly exchanged their thoughts with Noah, listening to what he noticed as well. And Noah noticed a lot.
With his view change skill, he could quietly peep and listen to any group of people without them noticing anything. This skill was well tested on one of the best adventurers of the country as well as the strongest monsters like Tessa and Cassandra, without them ever realizing anything. So he used the skill without fear, but on the females only of course as he did not need to see males' asses and nether regions, as this skill had a unique peculiarity of only viewing his targets from the 'panty shot view' as the system called it.
Whenever he felt someone's gaze fall on him and the girls he would peep at them to see what they were talking about and relay some of that information to the girls. Thanks to that, girls quite quickly understood who they would be interested in interacting with later and who to avoid.
"Tired?" Asked Priscilla looking at him with inquiring eyes while they swirled to the music. "Want to take a break?"
"Umm, yeah a little break would be good." Answered Noah as if being roused from deep thoughts. Priscilla noticed his mind running elsewhere and thought she and the girls overly exhausted him, however, this was only slightly true. But that was not the reason for his absent-mindedness. While sneak peeking at the crowd he marked two groups that caught his interest. It was his concentration on the conversation of these two groups that made him look lost in thoughts and lose concentration on the dance and the girl in his hands, which Priscilla mistook for him being tired.
The first group that caught his attention was the one that Cassandra's kin and the only other Nosferatu of her household - Theron mingled in for the whole evening. Noah had a short introduction to him, which was not very pleasurable. From just one look at the vampire, you could say that he is an overly haughty and arrogant guy. It was quickly proven when he came over, souring the faces of the two girls immediately. There was no doubt that he did not like the girls as well and appeared near them for a split moment to make a show of paying respect to appease their Aunt and his household head. Once that was done he turned away and walked off without even saying farewells.
When Noah asked them what was his deal, he quickly understood the reason for his hatred toward the girls. His development after changing to Nosferatu stopped and did not progress up to this day. Not for the lack of talent but because of the lack of trying. He was the usual wastrel that would sink into hedonism once he felt some form of achievement and superiority to others. Which being single Nosferatu among simple vampires provided him with. He was the only Nosferatu that Cassandra managed to 'produce' and he was far from being capable of taking over an evil seed and creating a new household.
In other words, he was useless to the Kingdom and could not be her heir if anything was to happen to Cassandra. Instead of him Cassandra always made it clear to everyone that she would agree to take any of the girls into her household to be her disciple and teach them the know-how of developing an evil seed and managing the pseudo core, making them her heir if such a need ever occurs. Theron, however, deemed himself as a superior being among other vampires, second only to Cassandra. With the ambitions of the usual pompous asshole and stupidity of the usual douchebag, it was not surprising that he felt jealous and unfairly robbed of what was his right. The jealousy of course turned to real hatred over the years.
The group he was keeping to the whole evening was a similarly haughty and arrogant bunch. Noah met people like that before. He was not new to the groups of young douchebags when he was still a son of the Count, earning their snides and laughs ever since childhood. One glance at them was enough for Noah to tell that this was one such group as well. Just consisted of monsters instead of nobles. It looked like monsters and human nobles were not so different.
What piqued Noah's attention, however, was not their usual shithead stupidity that he deemed as the characteristic of douchebag groups, but their conversation.
"We got one of them. The other three managed to escape. But Gorig is pursuing them. They won't get away." Whispered one of the monsters in the group.
"Tsk. I told you to be cautious. They are not some bunch of rug rags." Hissed Theron.
"It wasn't our fault. The local idiots thought they are some hot shit and took a swing at them for the prize money, ruining our plan. If not for them we would have had them in the cage by now. Instead of that, we have lost quite a few of our men."
"What of the interfering group?" Asked Theron.
"We tore them to shreds of course."
"Good. Make sure there are no witnesses and evidence leading back to us. Association must not hear of this. The loss of a few pieces of trash is no problem. They will be a gem in the coming auction. As long as they are not injured too much we will make up for the loss."
"Especially that healer bitch. I heard there are some investigations on healers disappearances that were happening recently in all the countries. Because of that, prices on them soar. However, there is always someone willing to buy. That bitch will sell for a hefty price." Whispered another monster.
"No." Said Theron with squinted eyes. "That bitch is mine."
"But Theron…" started to protest the third guy.
"Shut up! I don't care for others, but the sole reason I acted this time is to get my hand on that bitch. If you ruin this for me…" Said Theron, without finishing his threat.
"Do you know the people in that group?" Whispered Noah while he walked Priscilla back to their table, pointing at the douchebags group with his eyes, after listening to their suspicious conversation.
"Theron's bunch? Yeah. Frostgale and Bloodhound family youngsters are his main cronies. The others are from different vassal families. Bunch of useless trash. They think of themselves as some big shots but in reality a bunch of wastrels and outcasts of their households. Their families gave up on them as they have not made any attempts to develop and cross stages in years.
"I see. What about that guy over there?" Asked Noah pointing at the other group. He was interested in one particular individual. A monster that looked like a human-sized feline cat dressed in a suit walking on two back legs."
"It's one of the Keepers' family representatives I think, but I don't know which. We are not introduced. Why are you interested?" Asked Priscilla.
"Just some thoughts. Tell you when I learn some more about him." Said Noah with a thoughtful voice.
The reason that cat monster caught his eye was that among 'The Eager bunch' that shuttled between different groups of guests in the ballroom, he was the only one that tried to converse with the observers, that other monsters tended to simply ignore, slight nodes in rare occasions being the maximum interaction with them.
Owls, cats, bats, foxes, squirrels. There were many beasts inside the mansion that had strange behavior. They simply sat there observing the crowd without fear, with only a few of them, sneaking around like the orange haughty cat that came here on the roof of Noah's carriage. This fella was going around sneakily stealing food from the tables when people weren't looking. They were not here to join the feast, they were here to do the job. Part of their job was to judge the monster families and bring ruin to them if they were found guilty of the crime. No monster wished to have any dealing with them. Except for that cat monster. Which made him look overly eager even among the eager bunch.
When Noah grimacing from displeasure used his view skill on the monster he found out that he was almost pleading with everyone he talked with to help him with something, however only got himself a refusal.
The only one that gave him a meagerly different answer than the outright refusal was the orange cat devouring meat in the corner of the room. Which surprised Noah quite a bit. With their fully normal animal appearance, Noah never thought observers could speak.
"IIt's nnot thaat I donn't wannt to healp youu, buut I caan't act withoouut connsultiing mmy superrriorrrs. I wwill pass onn youur rrrequest." Said the cat, sounding lazy, arrogant, and annoyed at the same time, with his words coming out nozale and overly long stretching letters in every word.
"Please. Please, do it for us. We will be of use to the kingdom. Please relay this for us." Begged the Cat monster while Observer turned around and walked off.
After Noah listened to his conversation with a few other guests at the venue, Noah more or less understood his problem and what he wanted. However, there was not much they could help him with. Or at least they did not wish to be troubled by a price he offered compared to the problems they might get in return.
However, something clicked in Noah's mind. He suddenly pulled Priscilla to the side instead of returning to the table.
"Let's have a bit of a walk." He said, smiling at her. She raised her eyebrow noticing the direction he took for a walk.
They walked through the room changing their direction a few times, smiling and nodding at the guests they passed, but moved with a purpose to cross the path with the Cat monster.
As they closed to him he was bowing to one of the Guardian family representatives that "tsk'ed" at him with annoyance and turned around to walk off without a word. As he bowed he made a step back and at that moment Noah and Priscilla bumped into him as if he walked into their path.
The cat monster startled whirling around and started to apologize profusely.
"It is no problem, sir. No harm done." Said Noah with a smile. "I am Count Noah McDaniels. And this is my mate Priscilla Threadweaver." He introduced stretching out his hand.
Cat monster looked him over carefully and grabbed his hand with both hands bowing politely while shaking his hand gently.
"Purrils. Purrils Darkmist Cat." He introduced himself. Unlike the Guardians that got themselves a proper last name, Keepers had a given name with their species name as the last name. "It is a pleasure to be acquainted with the sir and lady."
"This is the first ball for my mates and they lack personal connections. So we've been going around introducing ourselves in the hope to receive contact sigils from the other families. May we ask for your contact sigils as well?" Said Noah.
Purrils looked at them surprised for a moment before quickly scratching at his pockets and taking out his introduction card. "Definitely, definitely, please receive my introduction card." He said stretching out the white piece of paper with a few lines and sigils drawn on it while bowing toward them.
Noah grabbed his card with his hands in a bit awkward way and Purrils was surprised to feel a cold object slipping into his palm when Noah grabbed his hand to take the card. However, the cat monster quickly collected himself and hid the object away without taking a look at it, while nodding to Noah and Priscilla with respect.
"We will contact sir Purrils as soon as we get the chance to exchange our contacts with you." Said Priscilla before turning to walk away.
"I believe we might be of great use to each other," whispered Noah so quietly that even Purrils barely heard him with his cat ears twitching from surprise.
"Have a nice evening." Said Noah loudly, walking past him with Priscilla at his side without looking at him a second time.
Purrils followed them with his gaze for a few moments, clenching the object in his pocket, before turning away and walking in the opposite direction. He came to his table where another monster similar to him was seated with a dejected look in his eyes. Sitting down near his friend he took his hand out of his pocket to finally look at the object that the human passed to him while hiding it under the table out of anyone's view.
Opening his clenched fist he saw a round object that looked like a coin but had no inscriptions on it. It was just a dark metal disk with nothing special to it, besides the fact it was a bit heavier than a coin.
Tungsten? Thought cat. Why would he give me this? No matter how long he thought, he had no idea what was the reason for the human to give this to him.
He remembered that one of his elders once mentioned reading some book about magic accumulative materials. Adamant and Tungsten, were one of the best materials that could accumulate magic within them. However, he could not feel a speck of magic within the disc. There were no magic inscriptions either. It was a simple disk with nothing special to it.
How strange. He thought.
Still, he did not dare to dismiss it. He carefully put it back in his pocket, hoping that the human would one day contact them to explain what it was for, otherwise there was no reason for him to behave so suspiciously just to sneak a useless object in his hand.
Purills may have behaved courteous and subservient, but he was Darkmistcat, one of the most elusive monster species. There was nothing he did not notice in the ballroom and saw the pair stalking him, gradually closing on him as if on a hunt. Had he wanted it, they would be circling the room trying to catch him the whole evening. He played along though, hitting them slightly and pretending to be surprised just to see what their game was. However, sitting with this disk in his pocket he could not figure it out.