Chapter 552: The Feast After The Tournament

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A beautiful and wondrous gala party began after the tournament. Everyone took a bath and rested, and quickly got into some more decent and refined clothes. The girls sported beautiful dresses of all sorts, making them all look utterly divine. Even Clementine and Harumi were wearing beautiful gothic dresses typical of Vampires of high society, Frank's eyes couldn't stop from being fixated in mother and daughter, who were really hot to be honest.

"Where are you looking at, Frank?!" asked Orb angrily, as she pointed Frank to look down into her, who was wearing a beautiful white angelic dress, making her resemble a beautiful princess.

"To you! Of course to you, my dear Orb… Indeed, you look like the finest lady today, my dear love." Said Frank, as he kissed her delicate hand and Orb quickly stopped being angry a jealous, growing red and nervous.

"Hah… Heheh… I-It's that so?" she asked.

"Indeed… you're looking dazzling. More dazzling than ever before. I think I've fallen in love with you again… Can I kiss you?" asked Frank.

"Uwah!" Orb was embraced in Frank's sudden passion and kissed in the spot. Her jealously and anger at him looking at Harumi quickly went away as she was left happy. Frank was able to easily convince her. This was his talent!

"Wow! Amazing… Frank is… very talented… with women…" said Stein, holding a little cup of wine, at his side there was Bernard looking bitterly at the scene.

"Tch… Like I care." He sighed, averting his gaze.

"You're grumpier than ever today…" said Stein.

"Of course I am grumpy! We lost! Who would be happy over it?! This entire party is just stupid! What are we celebrating?! That we lost miserably?" asked Bernard.

"I think you're… exaggerating a bit… We are celebrating that we did everything we could and had fun fighting with our new friends… I think it's also celebrating the alliance." Said Stein.

"Ah…? W-Well, that's stupid too!" said Bernard angrily.

"Stein! There you are." Hanna suddenly came to Stein, wearing a beautiful yellow and white dress, Stein was startled by the beauty of his wife.

"Ooh…! Hanna! You look so pretty!" he said.

"I-Is that so? Hehe… You're also looking handsome, big guy." Said Hanna with a charming smile, kissing his cheek.

"Hehehe…" Stein laughed dumbly. He was a lovely gentle giant that got happy with Hanna.

Hanna noticed Bernard all down.

"What's gotten with your friend? He's ruining the mood." Sighed Hanna.

"W-Well… he's a bit angry that we are celebrating our lost." Said Stein.

"Oh… I guess I kind of get it… Some Vampires are really prideful…" sighed Hanna.

"Well, some of us didn't had such a wonderful life such as others… The only thing we have left is the pride of our strength… when we lose it, what else is there left for us? We nothing in that moment…" sighed Bernard resentfully, as he walked away.

Hanna and Stein sighed while waving their heads.

"He really needs a friend." Said Hanna.

"Hmm… He's a loner, that seems hard to do... I think I am the closest thing to a friend, but he doesn't want to talk with me…" Said Stein.

"W-Well, I guess you just have to leave him be." Sighed Hanna.

"Yeah, he'll get better with time." Said Stein.

Bernard walked angrily at the food table, as he began to eat a small piece of roasted beef covered in a delicious blood sauce… although eating to him wasn't much, as he didn't liked eating until he had nothing else to do, like now.

"Hahh… I want to go to my coffin and sleep for a decade." He sighed.

"Look, a stick bug!"

"Ooh, he's long…"

"Huh?! Who dares to call me like that?!"

Bernard looked angrily at the origin of the voices, there were two kids looking at him. they seemed normal at first, but they were actually utterly strange, one of them had the upper body of a cute and normal human girl with chocolate-skinned body and long azure-colored hair with bright starlight eyes, but her lower half was that of a massive and rather grotesque scorpion…

Meanwhile, the boy at her side looked like a zombie by how pale he was and had rough and dry black scales across his body, and cracked black horns growing over his head, alongside a small draconic tail with crimson-red eyes and short silvery-white hair.

"These kids… What kind of monsters are they?" wondered Bernard, looking at Selcis and Vritra with angered furrowed eyebrows.

"What do you want?! Don't you realize I am a figure of authority here? Scram off!" he said.

"Don't be rude! We saw you lost to Auntie Cathyl!" said Selcis.

"Yeah!" said Vritra while waving his tail.

"Tch! T-That was just luck! I'll win next time!" he said.

"Ohh, really?" asked Selcis.

"But we have faith in auntie!" said Vritra.

"Sigh… Well, whatever. How can I even reason with kids?" sighed Bernard, averting his gaze from them and drinking some wine, only to feel his clothes grabbed a bit by a tiny hand.

"Tch, what do you want now?!" he asked angrily, as he was suddenly startled…

Selcis offered him a little and sweet candy, it was actually a butterscotch candy, one of Bernard's favorite on his childhood… that was quite the coincidence.

"Mister, maybe you lost but its fine to lose sometimes, we can always keep going as long as we are alive… that's what papa always says! Here, have a candy!" said Selcis adorably, her smile suddenly melted Bernard's cold heart in an instant. Her words were very simple, but there was something in her innocence and her humbleness that Bernard had never experienced before.

"Yeah, cheer up! Losing is not so bad, we can always grow stronger afterwards by training hard and… erm… how was it said?" wondered Vritra.

"We learn from our mistakes!" said Selcis, as Vritra nodded.

"Yeah that!" said Vritra.

Bernard sighed, as a faint smile surged on his lips.

"W-What would kids like you know about adults anyways… But fine, I'll steal this candy from you," he said, as he grabbed the candy.

It was sweet, and creamy, and it made him relax a bit.

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