Chapter 36

“Ah…

Herietta groaned and sat up. She looked up and saw a young man brushing off his clothes. Although he looked agitated, he looked like a son of a fairly wealthy family, and his whole body was decorated in expensive jewels.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay, Shawn?”

Another woman secretly appeared from the terrace where the man came out from.

“The crashing sound was very loud, did you get hurt?”

She was wearing a very sensually styled dress that cut through her chest. Perhaps they were quite close, and she didn’t hesitate at all when she put her hand around his waist. He quickly pushed her hand away.

“Be careful. There are many eyes around us.”

“Everyone knows, so what?”

The woman snorted and scoffed. A corner of the man’s mouth curled up.

“Still, there shouldn’t be any blatant disgrace. At least until the day we get married.”

Coupled by his slurred speech, the man’s clothes appeared to be in a state of disarray. The front had several buttons unbuttoned, and his shirt and jacket were wrinkled. It’s as if he hastily took off his clothes and put them back on.

Moreover, his combed hair was also messed up somewhere as if someone had run through it several times by hand.

Herietta slowly looked at him and the woman standing next to him. A man and a woman with slightly reddish faces. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were doing on that terrace a while ago.

“Shawn. The woman in front…”

The woman whispered to the man named Shawn. Then, Shawn looked down and saw Herrietta lying on the floor.

Herrietta trembled without realizing it. It was creepy that his gaze scrutinizing her seemed to stick to her like a snake stalking its prey.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen your face.”

Shawn, who was looking at Herietta, grinned with an unpleasant smile.

“Then it must be one of the two. Either you’re not from this area, or you’re from a lesser-known family.”

‘Face?’

Herietta listened to him and groped her face. Soft skin was touched under the palm of her hand. She then realized that the moment she fell, the mask she was wearing had come off.

Herietta hurriedly looked around and started looking for her mask that might have been lying somewhere. She didn’t know why, but her instincts were saying that she shouldn’t be involved with the man in front of her.

“Are you looking for this?”

At Shawn’s question, Herietta looked at him. Suddenly, her mask was in his hand. He flicked his hand holding her mask at her.

“Give it back.”

“Of course I should.”

He replied with a smirk.

“But I think the first thing to do is get up first. There is also the gaze of the people around you.”

As Shawn said, the people around her began to murmur. Well, it must not have been common to see a noble girl lying on the floor like this in a ballroom.

Herietta was forced to stand up with Shawn’s support. She then snatched back the mask he was holding in his hand.

“Let me be clear, this is the fault of both parties. It was a coincidence that we did not properly check each other, that is.”

Shawn didn’t apologize until the end.

“Well. If you hadn’t been too distracted by the other side, you would have been able to recognize who was passing in front of you.”

And Herietta had no intention of offering her apology to him.

“And when a person falls, isn’t it the first thing to check how they are? It’s not about checking the condition of your clothes.”

She glared at him and fired fiercely. He laughed at how interesting her reaction was.

“I’m sorry, but these are pretty expensive clothes. Unlike your clothes.”

What’s wrong with that?

When she got an answer that was too common sense, Herietta thought she had only heard it wrong.

‘Is this man treating me like a poor person now?’

She gasped and her nose was stuffed. Soon, her eyes sharpened.

“Ahh. So that was it. Now I know.”

Herietta clapped her hands and said. Shawn furrowed his eyebrows.

“What do you know?”

“Yes. I originally thought that people wear clothes, but in your case, clothes wear the people. So you have no choice but to show such a lowly attitude.”

Shawn frowned at Herietta’s sarcastic remark.

“Miss, it would be better to be careful. Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t have to know about that. But you, you buttoned your clothes wrong. From the middle to the bottom.”

Herietta said while pointing her finger from his upper belly to his lower belly. Embarrassed by her words, Shawn hurriedly checked the buttons on his clothes. She was sneering at him when he glanced back at her

“Those are such expensive clothes. You didn’t even have time to check that you were wearing it properly, did you?”

“Wh, what?”

“Were you doing something fun out there?”

“Hey!”

Shawn screamed as he couldn’t stand it any longer. His face twisted like a beast. It seemed that he was angry to the top of his head. He trembled as his neck was dyed red.

“This cheeky woman!”

Unable to contain his anger, he raised his hand upwards. Surprised by his reaction, which was much harsher than expected, the people around him held their breaths. But no one came forward to stop him.

Herietta flinched as she looked at his bear paw-sized hand raised high. Even thinking about it herself, she too, was agitated that she was a bit sarcastic. Still, she didn’t expect that he would scold a woman in such a public place.

Seeing the hand slamming towards her, Herietta tightly closed her eyes and waited for the pain that would soon overtake her.

Tak! A loud clap of skin against skin was heard. At first, Herietta thought it was Shawn’s hand hitting her cheek. But it felt too dull for that. Moreover, the pain she was expecting did not come.

‘What?’

Was it because she was hit so hard that she passed out? Herietta, who was breathing a little quickly and thinking about everything, opened her eyes and looked. The first thing that caught her eye was Shawn’s face that was as hard as a stone. And next to him was the face of a woman with a surprised expression on her face.

Shawn’s hand, which was about to hit Herietta, was still in the air. It didn’t stop voluntarily. It was forced to stop due to the intervention of others.

Since when was it? Another man stood next to them. It was a man wearing a mask. He grabbed Shawn’s wrist as he was about to hit Herietta, stopping him from moving.

“What, what, this bastard?! Let, let me go?!”

Shawn complained.

“Let go! This bastard! Hurry, this… Acckk!”

Shawn’s face was crumpled as he let out a scream of pain. The masked man must have applied force to the hand holding his wrist.

“Argh!”

“St, stop it!”

Herietta stopped the man as Shawn whimpered like a dying beast because she thought that something really big would happen if it went on like this.

Then, the blue eyes of the man, visible through the eye sockets of the mask, turned towards her for a moment. His eyes were as cold as ice. Just the touch of his gaze caused chills to run along her spine.

The man released Shawn’s wrist. He held it so tightly that there were red handprints on his wrist.

Bam! The man grabbed Shawn by the collar and pushed him against the wall. Then he put his masked face very close to Sean’s face and looked into his eyes. He didn’t say a word, but what he meant was clear.

It was an implicit warning.

“Da, dare you… who I am…”

Sean tried to threaten him, but it didn’t even reach the power of a knife made of wet paper. He struggled to get out of the man’s grasp, but he wouldn’t budge.

‘What kind of monster is this?’

Shawn was choking and gasping, but he couldn’t believe the situation. Of course, the man in front of him had a very good physique. But he was not a weak person. Yet, how could there be such a difference in power?

‘Who the hell are you?’

Feeling increasingly confused, Sean tried to figure out who the man was. Golden hair that the mask couldn’t cover. And he could see blue eyes staring at him through the eye sockets of the mask.

It was both cold and hot. If there is a flame that burns with blue light in this world, he wondered if it would be like that.

‘Wait a moment. Those eyes, somehow they look familiar…?’

When a little doubt began to creep into Shawn’s head, the man let go of his collar.

“Cough! Cough”

As his tight airway opened again, Shawn took a quick breath in. The man who was staring coldly at him as he experienced great pain turned back and grabbed Herietta’s hand as she stood there blankly.

“Wa, wait!”

Herietta rushed to say something, but the man’s patience was not very much. Without waiting for her next words, he led her out of the ballroom.