ORCA 104

Looking at it from this perspective, Orca was clearly an unprecedented ‘oddball’ within the Wair family, leaving them no choice but to place him under special surveillance. Within the Wair family—and particularly to his parents—hovering anxiously and trying to crack down on his every move from head to toe was perhaps only natural given their temperaments. Orca’s circumstances, thoughts, or feelings were a secondary matter. They had absolutely no intention of bringing them to the forefront to resolve them.

Standing behind the chessboard, his parents merely volunteered themselves as guides and remained indifferent to anything else. The grand party hosted under the pretext of Orca’s return and birthday was nothing more than a tool for them to achieve their own goals. Orca was merely a perfect excuse to throw a party.

Hardly had the carriages been cleared away when new guests entered the start of the tree-lined avenue one after another. The servants bustled around at a brisk pace, guiding the guests inside the mansion and informing the attendants of their room locations and today’s schedule. Carrying the luggage, the attendants kept their ears open and followed the servant ahead straight to the rooms without even having a moment to look around. It was their job to arrive before their masters, finish unpacking, and prepare everything for them to rest.

Only after escaping the central hall and climbing the staircase did they catch their breath and exchange introductions. When meeting someone in a similar predicament in a far-off, unfamiliar region, a sense of camaraderie like that of brothers-in-arms was bound to form, no matter if they were complete strangers. At any rate, the ones who had the most grueling time at a party like this were the attendants serving their masters, so there was no harm in encouraging one another and getting along amiably.

A short distance away from his parents, Orca was humoring a barrage of questions from the guests. Perhaps because it was his first time attending a party since entering the military academy, the crowd lingering around him never ceased.

Among them were a few individuals who claimed it had been a while and expressed their delight to see him, but they were faces entirely absent from his memory. He responded with brief answers. The trivial questions were nothing but a nuisance. To avoid showing any signs of annoyance, he gathered every ounce of his dignity.

Most of those surrounding Orca were the children of noble families, ranging in age from very young boys to women of his own age. Whether young or old, they were still nobles, so the conversation flowed elegantly. Occasionally, their parents would approach to drop subtle inquiries.

The young children called Orca “Captain.” Stepping back into polite postures, their chattering voices blurred together, making it completely impossible to understand them. Those who were a few years older or appeared to be his peers called him “Lord Orca” and restrained the children, swiftly speaking their minds the moment a brief silence fell. Even though they spoke in refined tones, it sounded just as noisy and incomprehensible to Orca’s ears. It did nothing but grate on his nerves the entire time.

The area around Orca grew increasingly chaotic. With every arrival of new guests, the crowd only multiplied, never thinning out. They were clearly speaking in gentle voices, but to him, it translated into a cluttered din. He tried to tune out his hearing, but perhaps because he was already on edge, even that was proving difficult to control.

He wondered anew how on earth he used to endure these ridiculous parties in the past. Not only did he have to attend the large and small parties and social gatherings held once every two weeks, but he also had to tag along to events like the banquets hosted at the Imperial Palace.

Back then, he had neither the proper space to escape nor the knack for it, and since acting like an “oddball” only brought repeated discipline and lectures, he had simply endured. He did occasionally display a rebellious streak, but for the most part, he recalled speaking and acting exactly as his parents commanded. He had realized that suffering for a brief moment actually made things easier afterward.

Perhaps because of that, rather than concrete memories of what he had actually done, the memory of the crescent-shaped bloodstains dug into his palms remained far more vivid. Like flushing filth away with clean water, he had only wished for time to pass quickly and set him free.

However, now that he actually had a corner to escape to, enduring and holding back was dozens of times more difficult than it was back then. He regretted readily sending the goldfish away earlier when the boy said he had to go to Bailey or whatever his name was. Since he couldn’t know where the boy was or what he was doing right now, his already uncomfortable mood turned even fouler.

He had to put an immense amount of effort into maintaining his composure. It only amounted to gritting his teeth and standing still, but in its own right, it was a massive torment. Perhaps due to the heat surging from his irritation, he was overcome by a sensation that the capillaries near his jaw were burning up. Orca rolled his eyes to observe his parents.

With serene expressions and manners, his parents welcomed the guests and conversed with them. They never conversed with a single person for too long, ensuring no one was left isolated. In the midst of that, they directed the servants to guide the guests based on their arrival order, sending them upstairs with pleasant parting words. It was a masterful performance. Because of this, unlike the scene surrounding Orca, the faces of the nobles lingering by his parents changed from moment to moment, but their numbers remained constant.

To Orca, the nobles at the party looked like chess pieces. He wondered what his constantly smiling parents were actually thinking, what kind of plans they were hatching, and when exactly he would finally be excluded from those plans. The voice that had told him he would never be stripped of his name no matter what he did brushed past his ears.

When their gazes happened to meet, his parents simultaneously gestured with their heads as if they had practiced it. It was so subtle that only he, who had watched such commands for a long time, could barely discern the action. It meant for him to shut his mouth and act exactly as he had been taught.

He began to wonder if their earlier talk about finishing the party enjoyably hadn’t meant for him to stay out of sight or put on a smirk while greeting guests, but rather meant for him to act as a babysitter. Feeling a faint twitch near his eyes, Orca averted his gaze. A sudden impulse surged within him to kill everyone—his parents, of course, and even the innocent guests. He wouldn’t do it, but the reason he refrained was no longer solely because of his parents.

Hilda Grey set foot on Rosselia’s soil the latest out of all the invited nobles. The merchant ship she was aboard had anchored in the waters near Rosselia only early this morning. Even after transferring to a small sailboat to step ashore, it took over five hours of traveling by carriage to finally reach Rosselia.

Thinking she would get scolded if she showed up looking disheveled, she had tidied herself up at a nearby inn, which brought the time close to lunch. Although she recalled her promise to her parents to arrive without delay, she leisurely looked around the town—which she hadn’t visited in years—before finally heading toward the Wair estate.

Having lived like a wanderer, drifting from country to country and intoxicating herself with unfamiliarity, familiar sights were a welcome change. And that included her long-time arch-rival.

“Well, look at you, Orca. Seems you’ve changed careers to a babysitter since I last saw you.”

“…Hilda.”

“How does it feel to be my fiancé? Spectacular, right?”

At Hilda’s boisterous voice, the entire central hall instantly fell into a stir. Standing tall all by herself amidst the noble women adorned in splendid gowns and sparkling jewelry, Hilda wore a reddish suit and flaunted her long locks. Her beige hair, which cascaded down to her waist, fluttered in the breeze blowing in from the entrance.

She grinned, looking Orca straight in the eye. Their gazes locked in a straight line. Even taking into account the fact that she was wearing heels, there was currently no one taller than the members of the grizzly bear Grey family, save for the killer whale Wairs.

“Why the silence? Are you starstruck by this sister’s beauty after all this time?”

Thinking it was an entrance typical of her, Orca simply shut his mouth without offering much of a response. If he snapped at her to stop talking nonsense or told her to get the hell out if she was going to act crazy, it would only draw even more attention than now.

If there was any silver lining, it was the fact that Hilda was also opposed to the engagement. If she had been even the slightest bit positive about it, she wouldn’t have acted out in such a manner. The Hilda Grey he knew was exactly that kind of person.

Although the two families had maintained close relations since they were very young, he and Hilda had never really been on close terms. To avoid causing any troublesome incidents, they only pretended to get along whenever their parents came to watch. Because the directions each pursued and the goals each held were entirely different, they had nothing but one-sided conversations every time they were out of their parents’ sight.

Hilda never hesitated to mock him, saying that while she made the Empire her own by turning it into the Grey family’s trading corporation, he could go ahead, pick up a sword, and become a hollow Imperial Knight, or wrap himself in fish skin and go off to war.

There was no way a woman who chuckled while saying such things would ever get engaged or married to him. It was a hard pass on his end, but as long as her side rejected it as well, it was only a matter of time before the arrangement fell through. Especially since the Grey family doted heavily on Hilda, they wouldn’t force her into something she hated.