The Villain Who Invests in a Witch to Survive Chapter 131 : Chapter 131

Chapter 131: Hey, Bro

Rex was dragged all the way to the edge of the dance floor.

At last, Lillian released his wrist and stepped back half a pace, her ice-blue eyes sweeping over him from head to toe.

“Give your hand.”

Rex obediently held it out.

Lillian took his hand and placed her other hand on his shoulder. They stood very close, close enough to make out the curve of each other’s eyelashes.

“Follow my steps. One, two, three, four—”

“M-Miss…”

“What now?”

“You stepped on my foot… not the one from before, this one…”

“…”

The tips of Lillian’s ears turned so red they looked ready to drip blood.

But she did not let go.

She bit her lower lip and swallowed the apology that had nearly reached her mouth. Then she lifted her head and glared at him.

“…So I stepped on it. Keep dancing.”

Rex stared blankly for two seconds.

Then he suddenly smiled. It was the sa simple, honest smile as always, touched with a bit of helplessness, but sothing deep in his eyes lit up.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll dance.”

So they kept stepping through the pattern.

Soone still stepped on the other person’s foot. Soone still got fiercely glared at. But neither of them let go.

Ryan withdrew his gaze. He lowered his eyes to the last strawberry left on his plate.

He speared it with his fork and put it into his mouth.

The sweet-and-tart juice burst across his tongue, carrying with it a faint lingering sweetness.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

The curve was extrely faint, so faint that no one would notice it unless they were looking straight at him. But in that instant, sothing in his gray-blue eyes loosened.

He reached for another crab leg.

On the other side of the dance floor, Randall was surrounded by several noble girls.

His dark green formalwear was tailored without a single fault, and the silver griffin crest on his chest shone brilliantly beneath the candlelight. His blond hair had been styled without a single strand out of place, and even the arc of its ends looked as though it had been calculated in advance. On his face was a standard smile—not the smile of perfunctory politeness, but the sort that made others feel ward by a spring breeze. One degree more would have been excessive, one degree less distant.

He was saying sothing to a red-haired girl. She wore a wine-red gown that made her skin look white as snow, and her amber eyes shone brightly as she looked at him. She covered her mouth and laughed, and the other girls beside her did the sa, though all of their eyes remained fixed on Randall.

Randall handled them with perfect ease. He tilted his head slightly as he listened to the red-haired girl speak, nodding now and then, offering a comnt every so often, drawing even more laughter from them.

Ryan withdrew his gaze and looked toward Evans.

Evans was still sitting exactly where he had been. The food on his plate had scarcely been touched. The piece of bread with one corner torn away had already gone a little dry. His eyes were still fixed on so empty direction, his pale green hair hanging down to cover half his face, revealing only a sliver of pallid chin.

Crowds passed back and forth around him through the hall, but not a single person stopped to speak to him, and he himself gave no sign whatsoever of wanting to speak to anyone.

He was like a forgotten shadow in the corner.

Ryan took another strawberry for himself.

“Hey, brother!”

At that exact mont, a bright voice exploded beside him.

Ryan paused and turned his head.

A young man with short blue hair was standing next to him, both hands shoved into his pockets, his body leaning forward slightly as he cocked his head to look at him. His face wore a grin so broad his eyes had narrowed to slits, showing a row of even white teeth.

A neat cropped haircut, dark blue hair so deep it was almost black, picked out by the veranda lights with a faint cool sheen. His features were not exactly refined—thick brows, large eyes, a straight nose, lips a little on the full side—but they ca together into a very agreeable face, carrying a warm energy that did not feel much like that of a noble.

He wore a sharply cut suit of dark gray. The material looked good, but there was no family crest, no ornantation, and even the cufflinks were the simplest round silver ones.

Tucked into the breast pocket was a white flower. Its petals were slightly crumpled, as though it had been picked from so corner in passing.

“You’re from Saint Roland Magic Academy, right?” The young man ca closer, familiar as if they had known each other for years, and sat down beside him. The chair let out a protesting creak under the force of how heavily he sat. “I saw you all co in together just now! The ones the Count personally introduced!”

Ryan looked at him.

Those eyes were light brown, bright enough to seem almost too bright, like mountain stream water, so clear one could see straight to the bottom.

“…I am,” Ryan said.

“Ha! I knew it!”

The young man slapped his thigh, his smile growing even brighter. He held out a hand, palm up and fingers spread, the sort of casual handshake one only used between friends.

“My na’s Allen! Allen Harris!”

Ryan glanced at the hand, then reached out and shook it. The man’s palm was large, dry, and warm, and the grip was solid and honest—not too weak, not too strong, just enough to make a person feel that he was genuinely sincere.

“Ryan Velt.”

“Velt… Velt…” Allen repeated the na twice, then scratched the back of his head, the motion so guileless he looked like a country boy newly arrived in the city. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that surna before. Where’s your family from?”

“The Northern Border.”

“The Northern Border!” Allen’s eyes lit up at once like two lamps being kindled. “I’m from the Eastern Region myself—well, not really, I’m from the east, but I’ve got a cousin-uncle doing business up in the Northern Border! I went there once, and my heavens, it was freezing!”

He hunched his shoulders and did an exaggerated full-body shiver, wrapping both arms around himself and curling up into a ball.

“How do you people survive winter up there? That wind hit my face like knives. I stood outside for less than a quarter of an hour and already wanted to dive straight back indoors and sit by the fire!”

Ryan looked at him.

He talked too fast, with the energy of soone who had been bottling it up for a long ti and had finally found soone to chatter at. And when he talked, his hands were never still—hugging his arms one mont, slapping his thigh the next, then scratching his head again—like a rabbit that simply could not sit still.

“…We light the fireplace,” Ryan said.

“Right, right, the fireplace!” Allen slapped his thigh again. “My cousin-uncle’s place had one too! But that didn’t help at all! You can burn as much firewood as you like, but the second you step outside that wind still slices right into your face! How do you northerners manage to wander around out there all day?”

“You get used to it.”

“Get used to it…” Allen smacked his lips. “You’d have to start young for that, right? I could never get used to it, not in a million years. My cousin-uncle wanted to stay longer, but I refused no matter what. I climbed right back into the carriage the very next day and left.”

He laughed twice, utterly unembarrassed by the admission.

Ryan said nothing. He watched the man’s eyes.

Those light brown eyes really were clean.

Not the sort of clean that ca from pretending to be simple, or from deliberately playing the fool. They were genuinely free of scheming.

When Allen spoke, he smiled. There was no inferiority in him, no bitterness either. He was simply stating a fact that he himself had already made peace with.