## Chapter 97 – The Night of the Social Gathering (3)
Wicked Game.
As the name suggests, it was a game of finding the culprit.
Of course, it didn’t actually mean that any of them were truly bad people; it was more like a Mafia game, following temporarily created rules to find a virtually designated villain.
But as it took place at a noble family’s social gathering, there were definitely differences from ordinary games.
Carla received a blank card out of the blue and stared at it in her hand.
“What… how do you play this…?”
“Shall I tell you?”
Lucas, who had approached her, was explaining it to her as she blinked her eyes cutely, looking puzzled.
“Think of it like tag.
But your role is written on the card!!”
“But there’s nothing on it…?”
“Hehe… that’s where this comes in, right?”
The card had several functions.
Although it looked like nothing was visible on the surface, the first function was that imprints engraved with magic would appear when a special wavelength of magic was infused into it.
“Ah, so if you infuse magic into the card…
You can see it from then on?”
“No? Not the card… that!!”
“That…?”
Carla turned her head in the direction her friend was pointing, as the Proden family’s servants were going around dropping a liquid, like eye drops, into one eye each.
“It’s magic water with a trace amount of magic dissolved in it.
Don’t worry, it won’t affect your health.”
Soon it was her turn, and as something sparkling and transparent was dropped into her eye, the world seen through the eye with the eye drops was dyed in a strange light.
“Whoaaa…”
Carla let out a cry of surprise and admiration at the sight she was seeing for the first time, as Lucas’s kind explanation was added to her ears.
“These eye drops are only given once, but instead, the vials are hidden all over the mansion.
So if you find a vial, you can see other people’s cards later, right?
Now you’ll be able to see the role inside the card, so you have to act while hiding that role as much as possible.
And ultimately, you have to find the ‘villain.’
And the villain must never be caught!!”
“Being caught means…”
“Being caught means losing, got it?”
Clearly, the rules were similar to a Mafia game.
But the fun of the Wicked Game was just beginning.
“Then… now…
What do I have to do…?”
“Now, just enjoy the social gathering!!”
“Huh…?”
“At the very end of the social gathering, the cards will be collected when it ends.
And at that time, you’ll have one chance to guess who the villain is, right?
Then, you point out who you think the villain is!!”
Only one chance to say the correct answer.
Carla’s expression was filled with doubt at the words that if she guessed correctly, she could win the game.
“Then… the villain…
Just has to hide quietly…”
If the villain was determined to maintain a poker face, it seemed like there was no way to get caught, which was, in a way, a sloppy rule, wasn’t it?
Lucas chuckled softly at Carla’s muttering, which pointed out an element that could make the game boring, and began to add an explanation.
“It’s no fun if you just hide, right?
So, I’ve added an interesting device.”
“Device…?”
At Carla’s question, Lucas, standing in front of the platform, snapped his fingers.
And as his voice, shouting loudly, began to echo through the hall, everyone’s eyes began to focus on him.
“The prize for this Wicked Game is this!!
The Tears of Dragon Retrand!! Let me tell you about this!!
It’s a rare material for the Alchemy Department!! A panacea for the Medical Department!!
For the Swordsmanship Department, if you forge your sword with this, the quality will increase!!
It also recharges magic power, so it’s no different from an elixir for the Magic Engineering Department!!
And just selling it would be worth a lot of money, wouldn’t it?”
One could suddenly understand the Proden family’s spending habits.
Although the Tears of Dragon were an element used in advanced alchemical experiments, even Carla, who was still a freshman, widened her eyes at the mere mention of its reputation.
Of course, there were some exaggerations.
The Tears of Retrand were definitely quite expensive, but it was only expensive for something the Count family could afford to put out without too much burden.
A monster of national disaster level that had been caught several times in the past, and a product of magic, the dragon.
Several hundred liters of tears extracted from the tear glands of the dragon Retrand.
It was a liquid made of highly volatile pure magic power, and it could only maintain its magic power like that with a special seal.
If it was stored improperly, all the magic power would leak into the air, and this huge mansion and its surroundings would be transformed into a complete magic power hotspot.
Among them, if it was just a small amount, just enough to fill that small bottle the size of a finger, then surely, well, if it was a Duchy, they would have the financial power to buy that much material and still have plenty left over.
But who were these people?
No matter how much money the family had, it was the family’s money.
For poor students who were always struggling with a lack of spending money or lump sums, this kind of opportunity was practically like winning the lottery.
Students from Baron and Viscount families who often lacked money due to family circumstances, or students from Count and Marquis families who had some leeway but wanted a pretty attractive side income.
Their eyes were sparkling in many ways, and the eyes of the students from Barmhausen and Chaoxing also began to turn to the name of the rare material, the Tears of Dragon.
It was only natural that the students listening intently to Lucas’s explanation would become serious about the game.
“The person who catches the villain!! Or the villain who isn’t caught will take this prize!!
But it’ll be hard to catch the villain just like that, right? So there’s an additional rule!!”
As a playful smile appeared on Lucas’s face, several drawings behind him began to shine, and soon the surroundings began to quiet down.
“The villain will have to diligently find these three marked medals in this mansion.
First of all, the marks look like this, so please refer to them, and at the same time, you must never be suspected by others, right?
Ultimately, if you have all three marked medals on the day the social gathering ends, you win.”
Find the three marks.
That was the biggest penalty given to the villain.
‘Finding that without anyone else knowing… won’t be easy…’
Openly looking for medals with marks on them would only reveal that you were the villain, so in terms of having to act secretly and suspiciously, no matter what you did, it was definitely a rule that narrowed down the scope of the villain.
Unless you had a considerable level of poker face, or you could use other people who could help you find the medals instead of yourself, it would be difficult for the villain to play an active role.
“Then…!! This starts now!!
And separately, let’s properly enjoy the social gathering from now on!!”
“Yoohoo!!”
“Whee!! Whee whee!!”
With that, along with the shout announcing the start of the full-fledged social gathering, the cheering students began to flock here and there.
And just in case, in Carla’s eyes, carefully looking down at her card, the omen that was brightly illuminated by the magic water was faintly visible.
“Hmm…?”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
A new kind of party that she had never experienced before.
With a mini-game added to the situation, the students were enjoying their own pleasant social gatherings.
The biggest purpose of the social gathering was, after all, to build connections and strengthen each other’s sociability.
Whether it was because the students who coveted the expensive prize had not forgotten that fundamental purpose, they were approaching students from other departments that they had barely known existed until now, or people they had not been close to until now.
In that way, both men and women, temporarily breaking away from the stifling academy life of the past, were having a pleasant time getting to know each other.
Sometimes, there were hot scenes where men and women who seemed to have had feelings for each other met, and even in my eyes, watching quietly while clinging to the soft thighs hidden in Carla’s dress skirt, there was a sense of interest lingering.
‘This is youth.’
Perhaps it was a fragment of the past that could have been mine, but had now passed.
Could it be that the feeling of the corners of my mouth rising for no reason at the sight of the sweet experiences that I, who was now just an old man who had reached the age of maturity, had not been able to have, was just a figment of my imagination?
If you quietly watched the surroundings, you could see male and female students who somehow gave off a ‘what’s going on’ atmosphere, or groups of three or four people sitting comfortably at a table and talking, laughing happily, like a blind date.
It seemed inevitable that I would feel a little bitter while watching that scene, but now I was a person, no, a monster, who belonged to the winning side compared to before, so I felt less jealous.
Although I had become a monster, I had tasted a woman’s body that I had never even imagined before, and now I was enjoying that pleasure like everyday life, wasn’t I?
That’s why, when I looked at the students who were just taking their first steps into adulthood, I felt a sense of smugness for no reason.
‘I’ve done everything…!! You little punks!!’
Well, who’s the real punk bragging about this…?
I shook off the feeling of emptiness that came over me in an instant after feeling smug for a moment, and began to focus on looking around again.
‘Wicked Game… there’s something interesting…’
A strange anticipation began to rise in my head as I looked at the small glass bottle containing the Tears of Retrand, the prize for winning, through the blurry dress fabric.
