Chapter 208: Coraline?

"DAMN IT!" Zakaer exclaimed in a voice far too loud, startling everyone in the room. At the same time, he quickly wiped his mouth with his arm before taking another swig straight from the bottle and repeating himself. "Damn it."

Gulp, gulp, gulp...

The young dragon frowned when nothing else came out.

He turned the bottle upside down and drank the last remaining drop with a depressed expression before immediately asking:

"Do you have more?"

Cassian made another bottle appear and handed it to him, but just as Zakaer was about to grab it, the bottle moved backward for a moment.

Zakaer looked at him in confusion.

"This is the last one I’m giving you. You should have a good tolerance, but this alcohol is quite special. It’s better if you don’t overdo it."

The young dragon put on a serious expression and nodded, but before he started drinking again, he asked:

"Could you give me a few bottles if you have more? I can give you something in return. There’s an old man back home who I’m sure would like to try this."

Cassian slowly nodded.

On the other hand, King Oreon looked at the bottle with curiosity, but felt uncomfortable asking. Instead, he kept glancing toward the door, wishing for the servant to carry out his order quickly. However, when he turned his gaze back to the front, an identical bottle to the one Zakaer was drinking from had appeared before him.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked toward Cassian, who merely stared back at him with indifference.

Oreon hesitated, but uncorked the bottle and poured some into a glass, wary of what he had heard earlier about how strong it was. He didn’t have much tolerance for alcohol.

Xana, who had somehow remained quiet until now thanks to the food, was receptive to everything surrounding her owner; and when he personally brought out a drink, she already knew it had to be something good. Her tail began discreetly bothering Cassian while, with her cheeks puffed out from food and pleading eyes, she became increasingly insistent.

Cassian frowned. At this rate, he would have to bring out a bottle for everyone present.

But when Xana’s tail began insisting in a more shameless manner, touching places it shouldn’t have in public, his mask finally cracked, revealing a slight hint of annoyance. In the end, he could only give in and bring out a bottle for Xana as well.

The whole matter of the bottles was received differently by each person present in the dining room.

Nereon decided to treat the entire exchange cautiously, but Coraline did not seem happy about the way two foreigners appeared to be dominating everyone’s attention.

To her, the center of this celebration should have been Nereon, the first of his race in a long time to break through the Third Limit, with the exception of their king. He had also survived the corrosion in Hydria; although Thalassa had done the same, she completely ignored that last part.

While Oreon had barely managed to take a sip, Coraline’s sharp voice nearly made him spit out what he was drinking.

"It is truly outrageous," she declared, her voice echoing throughout the room. "Not only do we have to put up with outsiders acting as though this is some kind of joke, but now even a simple human maid is allowed to sit and eat with us, and everyone ignores it as though it were perfectly acceptable. Humans truly deserve to be despised, and dragons..." Her gaze shifted toward Zakaer. "It seems you aren’t as impressive as you claim to be."

The drunken excitement of the horned man with white hair faded, and the temperature in the dining room dropped for a moment.

Coraline knew that what she had said would cause trouble, but she trusted that neither of them would actually dare do anything to her with Nereon and Oreon present. Although her gaze shifted toward the black-haired human as she snorted disdainfully, her only concern was the princess’s fiancé.

Whatever tricks he could perform with the bottles of alcohol, or the strange friendship that had formed between the two despite their initial confrontation on the first day, was not enough to prove anything.

But Zakaer merely stopped for a moment, completely ignored what the woman of the sea race had said, and continued enjoying his drink.

Cassian wasn’t bothered either. There was no point in getting angry; there would always be flies buzzing wherever he went. Although...

"Mmm, they always did like getting rid of these, whether they were real flies or..."

His gaze briefly passed over Adela and Xana before settling on Coraline.

"...fake ones."

The mermaid, as if she had sensed that her end was near, felt a shiver run through her entire body.

She caught Cassian’s eyes as they briefly looked at her, and the hidden darkness beneath the violet glow of the human’s eyes made her swallow hard.

She adjusted herself in her seat despite already sitting perfectly straight and looked away toward the king. When she saw that he had no intention of paying attention to her, her gaze shifted toward Nereon, shining with expectation. If there was anyone who could say something and make them stop ignoring her like this, it was him.

But when even he avoided her eyes, and everyone else present continued with what they were doing without paying any attention to what she had said or making any attempt to support her majesty, she clenched her fist until her nails dug into her skin, drawing small drops of blood.

Her eyes became bloodshot with anger.

Humiliation.

Someone who had always received everything she wanted in life had never been ignored like this before, but she wasn’t going to give up.

She stood from her seat, grabbed a wine glass filled to the brim beside her, raised it forcefully, and hurled it directly at one of the people who had dared to ignore her.

It was no surprise that her target was Cassian. Between a dragon, a king, and the man she admired, he was the obvious choice.

The glass flew through the air and crashed directly into the tired-looking man’s face.

It didn’t stop.

There was no pause in the air just before reaching his face; it slammed into him completely, soaking his hair as a stain of wine spread across his shirt while droplets fell from his black hair, disappearing beneath it.

Some even made their way from his cheek, slowly traveling down his neck before disappearing beneath his clothes.

"CORALINE!" King Oreon shouted furiously, but a calm voice completely drowned out the voice of the king of the sea race.

It resonated throughout the room like music to everyone’s ears, compelling them to surrender to it.

"Coraline?"

It was a question devoid of anger, containing only pure indifference and an eerie composure.

Yet the kind smile on his face made the women present swallow nervously, as though being soaked in wine—or perhaps something else—had somehow made him a hundred times more attractive than before.

"Master?!" Adela exclaimed worriedly, though hints of doubt could be seen in her eyes.

Why hadn’t he stopped the glass?

At the same time, her anxiety grew as she searched for something to clean her master’s face.

Cassian looked at her with a smile and stopped her frantic movements.

Only then, he fixed his gaze on the woman who had thrown the glass and asked once more in an even more softer, gentler, almost unbelievably kind voice:

"Coraline?"