Chapter 52: Discord

Chapter 52: Discord

A man took a seat across from me on the table. Realistically, he looked like any old middle-aged man, with brown hair and a beard. But there was one thing that I must commend to whoever made this guy's sprite.

He had what seemed like a gentle smile on his face, but at the same time also felt fake to a certain extent.

I honestly had no idea what about it made me feel this way. If you forced my hand to describe it, I would say that it made me feel welcomed, but also distant at the same time.

Hm. Now that I say that, I realize it makes pretty much no sense. Well, at least it sounded better in my head.

I think.

Still, seeing this guy sitting across from me made me feel rather unprepared. It wasn't as though I hadn't been familiar with this guy. I had seen every dialogue option he had, after all.

I gave a small bow.

"Hello. A meal will be provided to you shortly."

Bernie gave a quick nod back.

"I thank you for that."

The girls next to me took note of him but didn't really care about him all that much. As for me, I didn't speak to him more, but that was mostly because I wasn't sure how to talk to him.

The main reason being, Bernie had an extreme, and near irrational, hate for nobles.

I never made a plan to talk to him because I never expected to even have the opportunity to in the first place. Instead, I just left it to Nathan to think and deal with. Now that the opportunity had strangely presented itself in front of me, it made me wonder whether or not it was worth acting on.

Yet, no matter how I thought about it, being a noble meant it was highly likely for me to aggravate him. Of course, doing a good deed like the one I was doing right now gave me an advantage in talking to him.

But as I said before, his hate for nobles was both extreme and nearly irrational.

Honestly, I'd rather just not change his mood to give Nathan a better chance of talking to him later.

"Which one of you set all of this up, may I ask?"

But it seemed like it wasn't going to work out too well, as Bernie seemed to come here with the objective of talking. I responded matter of factly.

"I was the one that decided to do this."

He let out a short laugh which didn't have the intention of mocking but still had disdain behind it nonetheless.

"Has your reputation fallen so far that you've found yourself resorting to this?"

Almost immediately, the three girls that were sitting with me all looked at Bernie with both surprise and irritation. Raisa was quick to speak up.

"How dare you say that! If he truly cared about his reputation, then he wouldn't even be doing this! It would be more effective for him to curry favor among the nobles or forcefully suppress the rumors!"

Bernie raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to Raisa.

"Oh? You seem quite experienced in restoring a faulty reputation."

Raisa visibly recoiled. Her mouth hung open as a few stammers came out, but she wasn't able to formulate any full words, much less a sentence.

Another thing to note about Bernie was that he himself was actually a noble before. However, he decided to voluntarily relinquish his status as a noble and join the commoners.

As such, he knew quite a bit about the culture and general rules, which also gave him more grounds to judge nobles. Though, that didn't mean he judged them that accurately.

The guards seemed a little antsy, but given that I didn't order them to do anything, they didn't do anything. Soon enough, a bowl was set down in front of him, with steaming pottage.

He looked at it and scoffed right when it was set in front of him.

"I must ask, is the food that I'm getting different from the food that you and the others are eating?"

...Is this guy dumb? Did it look any different?

"I suppose strictly speaking, as it is pottage, different people may have somewhat different meals."

He narrowed his eyes and peeked into my bowl.

"I can't help but notice the meat in yours while half empty is the same as the amount I was given. It appears that your servants are quite biased in their distribution."

I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath.

"You're probably not going to believe me, but I always eat the meat last in my meal. We were given the same. Besides, even if it were different, does it actually present a significant difference?"

Bernie shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps not. But I guess making sure I know the distance between you and me is quite important, isn't it?"

Jess furrowed her brows.

"If you are displeased by what my brother is doing, you are not obligated to participate. This is something he offered out of his own goodwill."

Bernie let out a hearty laugh, leaning back into his seat. Then, he slammed his hand against the desk, causing the bowl to shake and some of the contents to spill before landing on the table.

"Oh, sorry! It appears I'm not allowed here. That sign you have there never said I had to follow your every single order and pretend to be dirt by the side of the road so how was I supposed to know?"

Arianne put a hand above her heart and looked at Bernie with a gaze of disbelief.

"How could you say things like that? Isn't basic respect something to be expected when someone goes out of their way to perform a favor? Even if you don't thank him, at least you could be grateful!"

Bernie scoffed, but didn't look at Arianne. Instead, he shot me a glare.

"I can't believe you would even bribe a commoner and force her to say good things about you. How screwed up can you be? Look, she won't even sit next to you because she's that afraid!"

I couldn't help but feel a sense of estrangement. Like I was losing balance as a shift went in my head. novE-lB/1n

In the shitty dating game, Bernie was nothing like this when he talked to the main character. Far from being rude, he was very amicable and open to talking. Although he would basically always remain very distant, that fact remained.

Yet, right now, he was going out of his way to provoke me. His opinion of me had already been set before he had even taken a seat at this table, and he had no plans of changing it. A bubbling feeling of disdain gradually rose up in me.

I once commended this person for indirectly saving Minori, but now I couldn't really do so anymore.

A frown formed on my face.

"Do not spill the food on the table."

I said this because his hitting the table made him waste his own food. It wasn't that big of a deal, but this still pissed me off a little. On the other hand, Bernie didn't seem to care about my warning at all.

He began smiling extremely cockily like he was better than every other person in the world.

"Oh? Don't spill it on the table? I see then."

Bernie picked up the bowl as he was talking before throwing it at me, splattering steaming hot soup and food all over me and my clothes. I could feel a chunk of meat in my hair, the still hot contents burning my skin.

However, the hatred in me was burning far greater.

I realized now why I felt a sense of bubbling disdain.

The girls sitting with me along with the servants were all terribly surprised by what happened and looked at Bernie with anger. The person in question still had a smile on his face, clearly proud of what he had done.

Several of the guards immediately unsheathed their swords with the intention to seize him. But when I saw them take the first step forward, I raised my hand up into the air, prompting them to stop.

Then, I looked Bernie dead in the eye.

"Leave. Your kind is not welcome to sit at this table."

Bernie stood up without another thought.

"Hah, that's it? Not going to send your guards to bring you my head? Huh? And what's supposed to stop me from coming back? You will simply enforce your power to send me out?"

I narrowed my eyes, glaring at him with genuine disdain.

"I will not permit you to be here if you do not apologize. Should you attempt to come anyway, you will not be served any food."

Bernie belted over in laughter, throwing aside the chair that he was sitting on.

"Like I would ever need to come to this shitty place! Have you ever thought there's a reason why so many seats are empty despite the fact you are offering free food?"

Spittle was flying from his mouth as he spoke.

"That's because they all know that you're just putting on a pretense to improve your status! I'd rather die than apologize to someone like you!"

I took a deep breath, and without changing my expression, I spoke.

"I never said to apologize to me."

Bernie raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? So do I apologize to your feet?"

I spoke in a flat tone, almost like I had become a robot.

"Apologize to the cooks that took the time to proportion the ingredients so that the meal tasted fine.

Apologize to farmers that drove away pests from their crops so that that food could be in front of you now.

And apologize to the maid that set up the chairs with a smile on her face, hoping that someone in need would sit down upon it and have a warm meal."

I heard one of the maids behind me gasp. She probably felt embarrassed getting directly called out like that. The three girls all stared at me in shock.

As for Bernie, the smile had disappeared from his face. However, the disdainful look in his eyes remained. He scoffed.

"What does a noble like you even know? How dare you even pretend to understand others."

Yes, the reason that I disdained him so much...

"You think you're a step higher than the aristocracy because you voluntarily abandoned it? While you hate nobles for what they are, you still haven't done anything to correct the very habits that make them hateful. You are wasteful of food, speak as though you are above everyone around you, and forget to even consider that someone might be more than their label, whether it be commoner or noble."

I casually brought a spoonful of soup to my mouth and drank it. Then, I added one last comment.

"You're a hypocrite. Someone that can't even follow his own values."

Bernie stared at me silently for a good bit of time.

"You use so many flowery words, but at the end of the day, you're just a noble that feeds off those working under you. Treating them as your slaves."

I drank another spoonful of soup and responded after taking note of the taste.

"And you pretend to be above nobles despite being no better than them yourself."

Bernie narrowed his eyes before turning around to leave.

"Che! Arrogant as always, just assuming you know who I am."

Well, I may not know entirely, but I still had a good idea.

Bernie was a noble that didn't have high magic power, but was very creative and was able to create spells, giving him a high status despite being a lower noble and being overall fairly weak.

One of those spells was one that could better preserve food that was widely used among nobles. However, the archdukes decided to ban that spell among the commoners. It made him feel rather sad, but what was the kicker was that the commoners that did end up using the spell so that they could survive winter were killed.

From there, he decided to shed his noble identity. But other than doing that, he no longer did anything to help the commoners.

In the game, you were supposed to convince him to overcome his trauma and once again create a new spell that would modify the soil making the crops grow abundantly faster and larger.

Of course, if he did make that spell now, I wouldn't even have to be doing this.

But now, I refuse to rely on a person like that.

When confronted with an obstacle, the first thing that guy does is run away and thinks he's doing the right thing.

Someone that pathetic will always be useless when it matters most.

He wasn't worth making an ally.

Sorry, Nathan. I messed up the plan again.