Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 55

The Banquet of Stars! Part-6.
The Banquet of Stars is an event that’s very famous among the upper-ranking people of this nation.

This banquet typically invites all major family heads.

Every year during the royal family’s reign, all of the ministers and families would gather to greet the king at this banquet.

The banquet served as a pretext for important meetings.

Nobles have always liked to arrange banquets and parities when they need to do a meeting; this has been a long-standing tradition.

However, now that the nation’s ruling body is a government, the royal family arranges this meeting once every five years or so.

On this occasion, many well-known politicians are also invited as chief guests.

In the game, this encounter marks the protagonist’s first meeting with the King.

The principal himself is responsible for bringing the protagonist to this meeting.

…

*Clink*

Jareth toasted the juice glass with Shin’s wine glass.

Shin smirked at Jareth and spoke in a mocking tone.

“You can’t drink wine? Pfff~”

Jareth was surprisingly calm at Shin’s mocking tone. With a thoughtful look on his face, he glanced at the juice glass and replied in a strangely calm voice.

“I have promised someone that I won’t drink wine… can’t break that promise…”

Shin’s smile solidified instantaneously as he posed a serious question.

“Is it a mana contract?”

Hearing Shin’s words, Jareth shook his head and replied,

“No…”

Shin’s facial expression turned complicated at those words.

“You are surprisingly loyal compared to how you look…”

Jareth glanced at Shin and replied,

“You are surprisingly irritating compared to how you look…”

Shin shook his head and continued to sip his wine.

“Tch! Talking to you gives me a headache…”

Ignoring Shin’s words, Jareth glanced at a woman who was talking to other ladies and inquired in a doubtful tone.

“When did you get married, by the way…. Did you kidnap her or something?”

Blood veins appeared on Shin’s face due to anger instantly, and he replied to Jareth in an angry tone.

“You take me for a hooligan or something? Also, I am not like those ‘young master’ type people; we had an arranged marriage, you know…”

Jareth nodded his head and added,

“Indeed, now that I think about it… You really don’t have the face to charm a woman anyway, so the only way must have been an arranged marriage…”

Shin rubbed his forehead to stop the headache.

(Fun fact: After Mark, Shin is literally the most handsome guy in the whole university…)

A smirk appeared on Shin’s face as he said,

“You think too lowly of me; I am literally the most handsome guy in the whole capital city, you know… Just how bad is my image in your eyes?”

Jareth nearly choked on the juice when Shin described himself as ‘the most handsome guy around’.

“Hmm… from my perspective, your face looks the same as that of a pig that rolls around in mud…. Ahem… no, comparing you to a pig will be an insult to the name of pigs…”

Shin almost broke the wine glass out of sheer anger, but decided against it because he knew it would attract too much attention at this massive banquet.

“What about you, then? I don’t see you rizzing up any girls either! Have you even dated someone before?”

Jareth sipped the juice and replied in a calm tone.

“I am a sage; I don’t care about mortal desires… Those who aim to become sages don’t bother themselves with worldly things…”

Jareth’s words rendered Shin speechless.

Before Shin could come up with a proper counter to that sentence, the star of the event, King Reynald, arrived with his family.

The massive inner door opened, and the royal family entered the banquet hall.

All individuals gave a slight bow to the king and the royal family.

Although in today’s modern world everyone is equal and there’s no need to bow, Reynald is still a Grade 1 mage, so showing some respect to his power is not a bad thing either.

A maid handed over a wine glass to Reynald and retreated quietly.

The king smiled at all of the people gathered at the banquet and raised the wine glass to give everyone a big cheer.

“May the empire last forever!!”

Following the king’s lead, everyone else also raised their glasses and cheered along with him.

And thus the banquet party officially started.

The king and the queen both sat on their dedicated seats to greet the guests one by one.

Mark had to deal with all the noble young masters, and Princess Alice assisted the noble young ladies.

Observing all this, Shin let out a sigh and spoke quietly.

“Thankfully, we don’t live in an aristocratic type of society; otherwise, everyone in this party would have been carrying out their selfish hidden agendas….”

Shin sipped his wine and added,

“Truthfully speaking, I don’t really like things like politics and stuff. I would rather stay in my room all day long and research magic spells instead of wasting brain power on such matters…”

Hearing Shin’s words, Jareth nodded his head and replied in a sympathetic manner.

“Indeed, being forced to figure out the hidden politics when you clearly lack brain power, that’s such a cruel task….”

Although Jareth’s words sounded sympathetic to Shin, he kept feeling that something was wrong with them.

But before he could think further, Jareth asked another question.

Why didn’t I receive an invitation to your wedding? Did the Isaz family become so poor that they couldn’t afford a meal for me?”

Shin’s face appeared strange when Jareth asked a question.

“I sent you the invitation; you didn’t come on your own! And now you are blaming me?”

After hearing Shin’s words, Jareth thought for a moment before responding.

“Hmm, perhaps I ended up forgetting about it… or I might have considered that you were joking or something… forget it…”

Ignoring Jareth’s words, Shin said,

“Forget about me…. When are you getting married, by the way? Are you really planning on becoming a real sage?”

“That would be such a waste of your legacy… If you have kids, your children will have amazing fire magic talent, you know…”

Jareth sipped the juice from the glass and nodded his head.

“No, even if I don’t have kids, my legacy won’t be lost…. I am planning on taking a disciple…”

A look of doubt appeared on Shin’s face at those words.

“You know that you can’t take Mark as your disciple, right? He will always be destined for the throne, even if you try to influence him…”

Jareth nodded his head and said in a solemn tone,

“I am not talking about Mark… I have yet to find that disciple, but I am planning to… perhaps in the future, I guess…”

Shin simply shook his head in disappointment.

“Tch, good disciples aren’t just cabbage; you can find them anywhere!” They are rare! You are just daydreaming!”

Jareth ignored Shin’s words and continued to sip his juice with a mysterious smirk on his face.

‘I know where I can find one such student… The main issue is that the guy is a villain-type character too… Also, he is a bit crazy, so I need to get a bit stronger before I can go find him…’

Jareth wanted to go through this trouble because he wanted to leave a legacy of his own behind before he died.

In his previous life, he lived in obscurity, and no one cared about his life or death except for Shiina.

But in this life, Jareth wants to leave some imprints of his journey so that people can at least remember him in the future.

‘But is this really even worth it?…’

In any case, Jareth had lived a life filled with happiness prior to his death, with his only unfulfilled wish being to marry Shiina.

And now that he has a new life, he has basically no real motive to live at all; the real reason he has been trying to survive is because he doesn’t want to die again.

But there’s no real reason to live either.

Currently, he’s like a captainless ship that sails in random directions along with the wind and has no clear destination to reach.

‘First thing I need to do is find my motivation to live… A person with no goals in life is just as good as dead. I better find some goals of my own…’

Although clinging to life like this seemed quite weird, Jareth still wanted to be strong and improve himself.

While Jareth was busy contemplating his future plans, the principal finally arrived, along with Allen and Airin.

(Yeah, even if Jareth changed the plotline, he couldn’t change the principal’s favorability of the protagonist… This is how broken plot armor is…)

Allen hasn’t even achieved anything major in the past few months, but his favorability with the principals is already quite high, which is a very strange thing.

The moment Reynald and Nathan’s eyes met, the whole banquet hall went dead silent, and the temperature dropped in an instant, making everyone feel cold for some reason.

Fortunately, the two of them avoided starting a fight, sparing the lives of many innocent people.