The Villain Who Invests in a Witch to Survive Chapter 128 : Chapter 128

Chapter 128: Entering

The bluestone path stretched out beneath their feet. The courtyard walls on either side were not very high, and through them one could glimpse scattered lights shining from neighboring courtyards. The night wind carried voices from so open window, mixed with the crisp clink of tableware, only for them to be swallowed again by the music.

Ryan had barely taken a few steps when two figures erged from the fork ahead.

Ice blue.

That was the first color the veranda lamps caught.

Lillian Rosedale wore a full-length gown that brushed her ankles, the fabric light enough that its hem rippled like the surface of a lake when she moved. Whenever the light shifted across it, the folds gave off the faintest cold gleam, as though frost blossoms had frozen upon water.

At her throat hung a teardrop-shaped sapphire pendant, and in her hair were delicate diamond clips of the sa shade, setting off her pale blond hair until it looked even clearer and brighter. Tiny studs like splinters of ice trembled lightly at her ears each ti she turned her head.

Ice-blue eyes, an ice-blue dress, ice-blue gemstones.

It was not so deliberate excess. It was restraint carved into the bones by family taste itself. The whole ensemble carried only that single dominant hue, yet from the fabric to the cut to the ornants, countless subtle gradations of depth and brightness unfolded, like a winter lake under changing hours of light.

Ryan’s gaze slid away from her and settled on the figure beside her.

Rex Holden wore a formal suit in deep gray with silver-threaded patterns. The cut was proper, the shoulders neat and sharp, and the material was clearly expensive. There was just one problem—

He was carefully tugging at his cuffs with two fingers, as though afraid that any extra force might rip the seams apart. His cravat had been tied perfectly straight, but whenever his throat bobbed, the discomfort showed plainly. His neck was held a little stiffly, as if that strip of cloth might tighten by another three degrees at any mont.

He had always been broad and strongly built, and this outfit only emphasized the width of his shoulders and back.

He was not the lean, agile type one usually saw among noble sons. He was solid in a very real way, built from the sort of life that ca from clawing one’s way up from the bottom. Standing beside the slender Lillian, he looked like a mountain—silent and slightly out of place.

A knight and a princess.

That phrase drifted through Ryan’s mind.

Lillian seed to sense his gaze and turned her head.

Her ice-blue eyes landed on him and lingered for a mont.

Then they quickly moved away.

“…Velt, you just got here too?”

“Mm.”

Rex turned around, and his gray eyes lit up. Forgetting all about the struggle with his sleeves, he broke into a wide grin.

“Velt! Your clothes—”

He looked Ryan up and down, smacked his lips twice, and said, “Wow, that looks really good! The fabric, the tailoring… you can tell at a glance it wasn’t cheap!”

He looked down and tugged at his own dark gray formalwear, sounding faintly proud and faintly pained at the sa ti.

“Miss dragged to a tailor just now and insisted I buy this, said my old clothes were too embarrassing to be seen in. This whole set cost almost a month’s worth of my food money…”

“Shut up!” Lillian hissed, her face going red at once. “I-I didn’t drag you anywhere! It’s because you were dressed too shabbily and making the academy lose face!”

“Oh, right, right, whatever you say, Miss.” Rex agreed at once, then turned back to Ryan with a grin. “But yours definitely cost way more than mine, didn’t it? I saw fabric like that in the display window before and didn’t even dare touch it—”

“Rex Holden!!”

Lillian’s voice rose by half a step, and her ice-blue eyes flew toward him. Rex imdiately shut his mouth and mid zipping it closed.

Ryan looked at the two of them.

“…Have fun.”

That was all he said.

Rex nodded hard. “I will, I will! Miss said there’d be roasted at at the banquet, the whole kind—”

“I did not say that!” Lillian cut him off, the tips of her ears now thoroughly red. “You were the one staring at the nu and practically drooling!”

“I wasn’t drooling, I just swallowed a couple of tis…”

Ryan was not inclined to keep listening.

Just as he was about to look away, Lillian suddenly spoke.

“That outfit of yours—”

Her eyes rested for a mont on his shoulders and cuffs.

“The workmanship is quite sothing… It just looks a little familiar. I feel like I’ve seen it sowhere before…”

She frowned slightly, clearly trying to rember.

“Is that so.”

“Maybe I rembered wrong.” Lillian withdrew her gaze and did not pursue it further. In a lower voice, she added, “…It suits you.”

At the other end of the fork, two more figures stepped into the circle of the veranda lights.

Randall Freese wore a finely tailored dark green formal suit, with his family crest pinned at his chest—a silver griffin treading on flas. His blond hair had been combed without a strand out of place, his cravat tied immaculately, every movent of his body a perfect example of noble breeding.

He gave the three of them a slight nod and said nothing.

Evans walked half a step behind him.

Under the lamps, his pale green hair looked like a cloud of silent mist. He was dressed with severe simplicity: a formal suit in dark gray verging on black, with no family crest, no ornantation, and even the cufflinks were the plainest possible silver-white. That pale face of his was hidden in the shadows of the corridor, giving nothing away.

He lifted his eyes and let them rest on Ryan for a single instant, then lowered them again without offering any greeting.

The five of them, the five representatives of Saint Roland Magic Academy’s Lower Division, now stood gathered upon this bluestone path leading to the Main Hall.

Lillian straightened her back and tucked a stray lock behind her ear. Rex finally gave up fighting with his cuffs and let his hands hang honestly at his sides. Randall adjusted the crest at his chest. Evans remained as he always was, like a silent shadow.

No one spoke.

The night wind passed between the veranda pillars, lifting the hems of five different colors—ink blue, ice blue, dark gray, dark green, and plain black—into five different arcs.

Ryan stepped forward.

The other four moved with him.

The great doors of the Main Hall slowly opened before them, and light and heat poured through the widening gap. Ryan stepped across the threshold.

The hall was grander than he had expected.

Its ceiling soared nearly three zhang high. A massive crystal chandelier hung from the center, hundreds of magical candle flas moving among its branches and illuminating the entire hall as brightly as day. Light passed through the cut faces of the crystals, scattering fragnts of rainbow across the walls, the floor, and the hems of the guests’ clothing.

Long tables spread out along both sides of the hall, draped in white tablecloths that fell to the floor. Tiered silver stands held ats roasted to a golden brown, desserts piled like little towers, and fresh oysters chilled in silver ice basins. The wine tower glowed the color of champagne, bubbles drifting upward slowly along the sides of the glasses.

Servers in black-and-white dresses moved through the crowd carrying silver trays, their steps light and quick, their skirts not wrinkling in the slightest.

The air was filled with the charred aroma of roasted at, the llow sweetness of dessert wine, the cold trailing notes of expensive perfu worn by noble ladies and gentlen, and sothing else as well—sothing subtle, taut, and unmistakably belonging to power.

At the center of the hall, a plump middle-aged man was laughing and talking with several guests.

He wore a formal coat of deep red trimd in gold. It pulled a little too tightly across his waist and stomach, but his smile was extrely infectious. His glossy black hair had been combed straight back, his mustache trimd with care, and when he smiled, his eyes narrowed into two crescents.

The Count of Rock Bay.

He seed to sense the stir at the doorway and turned his head.

Sothing sharp flashed in those smiling eyes, and then his grin widened even further.

“Oh my—!”

He strode toward them, the tails of his formal coat almost flying.

“The young heroes of Saint Roland Magic Academy!”