-continuing off the last chapter-
As the guests kept pouring in, the chefs and the cleaners got to work.
The mountain of empty plates were removed from the tables. The gluttonous trio were taken out to their staying rooms because they looked like complete spheres.
However different from the normal Gatherings, their was no dance or fake smiles greeting each other, only serious faces filled with distrust that formed from centuries long history of war between the kingdoms.
Yet even through they showed their hostility, nobody dared to attack as the presence of three wizard kings(Edward isn't present and Princia went to her room) kept everything with control.
It was socialising event, with so many of Asta's friends present ranging from one of his most trusted mentors Fanzell and his wife and extended up to even his buddies kaito and kahono from the Seabed Temple.
And despite knowing everyone present was trustable from his own memories. Asta was taking every precaution available thanks to a certain hint he got in form of a mission.
He just looked down at everyone from a balcony with in the Hall, standing beside the Julius who looked like just one of the kids of nobility.
They watched the Hall from above, scanning everyone with the pair of goggles which Julius was handling by himself since the Asta would have to focus on suppressing his devil blood as best as he could as well as keeping the anti-magic at edge for use when needed without gathering any attention.
Apparently without a proper devil body that could act us a medium for controlling anti-magic, the nullification power of anti-magic was similar to ticking bomb for Asta since he had mana flowing through his body now.
It was very burdensome to constantly keep it under control and could very well corrode him from within if he wasn't careful.
He had to act natural, carefully keeping anti-magic within his heart with a constant inflow of ki to control it.
However before he could move on, he did just a little confirmation that he wasn't hallucinating and calls the system panel to his vision.
'Astra. Show me the mission again.'
[Of course.]
[Mission- absorb Megicula's fragment controlling one of your friends. (Chain mission 1/4)
[Reward- variable]
[Failure- risk of a spy within the high ranks, a possible death of a friend.]
Apparently since they were both named Asta, the system as the one who lost over 60% of overall and 90% of his last year's worth of memory had to make a compromise on the name.
The two of them decided on the name Astra since it was mostly similar. Even then, currently neither of them could give a single piece of their attention to something as meaningless as a name.
Asta specifically was brewing with stress and had asked Lemiel to find a artifact that could help in case ki sense didn't work just like Asta feared.
The goggle was a artifact but it was also confusing to use, requiring constant visual on a person to scan and even then, it had several modes ranging from friendship calculations to loyalty calculations.
Click
"Which was the last one? " Asked Asta as he heard the noise of the goggles changing mode again.
"Personality categorizer. It's the third failed attempt. " Julius replied regretfully, "At this rate we would run out of time. "
For a second there was silence as Julius tried to figure out what the current mode was.
And in the next instance the goggles lowered from Julius's eyes,making Asta think Julius found the right mode at last.
"Did you find it!?"
Juliuss shakes head, "... I found something worse."
With a gaze akin to a stare of a hungry wolf, Julius slowly shifted his sight towards Asta with pure disbelief evident of his face.
Then with a completely serious expression, the wizard king asked Asta a question, "What sort of womanizer are you, You bastard!?"
....
....
Asta had no answer and no clue about what Julius meant. He looked at Julius with a confused face, making a blanked out expression.
"eh??? womanizer? me? i have been single all my life!" Asta retorts the accusation placed on him with a gentleman's face.
However Julius didn't believe him and since Asta couldn't figure what Julius meant, he had only one choice– to grab the goggles and see for himself.
Snatch!
With a quick swipe of hand, Asta grabs the goggles and put them on his eyes and begans looking around.
Then a wave of shocks overwhelmed him, his mind itself screaming out to himself in denial as his brain refused to believe in the truth.
The mode of Goggles wasn't a loyalty meter yet, instead it was-
"–... A love gauge."
The goggles showed a picture of a person's love interest alongside their name, it could be an item, an person or even a imaginary being embodiment of a hobby or a aspiring candidate.
With both hands, Asta slapped himself over a dozen times, hoping he could erase the moment from his memories as dozens of realisations began hitting at once.
He had just seen who everyone had a love interest in, for every single person down below.
And the truest shock above them all... Was the amount of people who had an interest in him.
"Mimosa. Noelle. And even Nero." Asta's forever single brain (relationship vise) failed to comprehend what the hell the girls saw in a person who was rejected hundreds of times.
(Note: This guy could beat a black hole in a density competition.)
Nevertheless, after receiving knowledge that will change the way he looks at Noelle, Mimosa and Nero forever, Asta reached out to pull off the goggles. Through Asta accidentally made a mistake to look up and almost died standing up on the spot from several other shocks.
You could call it very unlucky timing but the gluttions that left an hour earlier were calmly walking back to the tables for more food. And as his gaze fell on them, Asta saw charmy's love interest in Yuno, he saw Mereleona's love interest being just a face figure with the word rival on it and above them all, he saw Princia literally also having him as her love interest and became a statue, slowly losing his colours by the seconds.
'She-S-She wasn't lying!!?' His mind screamed without a voice.
It didn't take long as Asta failed to keep up, his single and rejected mentality not finding a single reaction he could do and overloaded his head.
He fell backwards, his eyes just a bunch of swirls as he unknowingly began releasing Anti-magic with his body.
And soon, The anti-magic flooded out, flowing out like a literally tsunami as it grew by devouring every person's mana in the room for a second, causing a great sense of weakness and pressure to descend upon everyone.
But just when Asta was completely blanked out, he heard something, a slight ping, waking up from his stupor to fund Julius just kneeling beside him with a pale face.
"Crap! I blanked out!"
For Asta, the ping earlier could mean either one of two things- success or failure.
He stops for a second, hardening his resolve with deep breaths.
"Hufff~ *takes deep breath* phew... I hope it's the latter. " He said and turned his sideways, finding the panel right in front of him.
[Mission partial-Success]
[Megicula's fragment has been extracted from Fana, absorb it before it flees]
The message brought a new objective alongside it, but the risk of someone losing their life was gone so that was a relief.
The next second, Asta heard a scream and a barrage of yelling from below, followed by unsheathing of artifacts and weapons making it easy to figure out what was going on.
BOOMM!!
The balcony crumbles as all the anti-magic floods back to Asta, revealing a black cocoon for second.
However that was a distraction, as the real Asta had near instantly released into his hybrid form and used Acceleration magic to appear behind guests below with anti-magic formed into a mantis blade from his right arm.
He looked at the dark shadow trying to retreat towards the gate from fana's back, his eyes meets the shadow's for a second as the dark entity gets surprised.
"A dev/ il?"
With a quick slash, Asta cuts through both Megicula's fragment and it's words, sending behind a half formed deformity of a spirit that slowly slides into two equal halves, revealing a crude stone core split down the middle as the darkness gets devoured by anti-magic.
Ding
[Mission complete]
[Reward: mission Rating function unlocked]
... Asta sighs, "I was worried for no reason. This is pathetic."
The crowd turns towards him Asta, their eyes stuck on his appearance as they were left speechless.
But contrary to Asta's expectations of being attacked by one of the guests, the one reacted first was Princia as she throws a quick punch to the back of his head.
"DON'T RUIN THE FUN! YOU KNOCKED OUT THE CHEFS!!" Princia yelled, her hand 'gently' grabbing onto Asta shoulders, "Now who is gonna make me food??"
"Is food the only thing on your mind?" Asta questions backs.
Yet as she tried to hit Asta again, Princia felt a cold blade touching the back of her neck and turned around like a mad demoness.
"Now which f**ker has a death wish?" She said, her eyes glaring bullets as she slowly notices the dozen of eyes staring at her.
"Only the blackbulls can bully Asta, the same applies even if you are a wizard queen." Magna proudly declares to Princia.
The other black bulls nodded after Magna, each ready to face Princia despite the strength difference and the lack of reason.
However Princia only smirked, the black bulls's warning only served to raise her fighting spirit as she prepared to enjoy a little spice of battling after her dinner.
The sound of grips tightening followed. A low noise of approaching trouble whistling into Asta's ears as he perked his senses up.
He could sense the event was going to end up in bloodshed since he knew none of the sides were ready to back down for peace.
But that's when his senses were wierded out and confused as a his evolved and accurate ki sense picked up a sort of hostility that wasn't hostility either, dumbfounding him.
That's when Princia used her secret move. She turned towards Noelle, smirking menacingly as she began using her knowledge of rumors she heard from Charmy.
"Hey, white-hair... I heard some rumors you see." Princia casually walked up to Noelle despite the spells casted at her.
"Rumors? " Noelle Confusingly asked back.
But that ended up being her mistake as Princia leaned forward and whispered something into her ears, turning Noelle's earlier calm and straight face into a cherry tomato.
"LIES!! YOU ARE LYING!"
Princia didn't bother with Noelle's retorting. Instead she walked back to Asta, her military outfit waving as she slowly moved closer to Asta.
With each step Princia took, Noelle's face grew more red and hot, each footstep hurting her like a burning stake.
Then without warning, Princia makes final strike to declare her Victory... Princia hugs Asta(without his consent) before—
-kissing him in front of everyone before he could react after being suddenly hugged.
At that moment, Asta could see the shocked faces of Noelle, Nero and Mimosa and since he was still wearing the goggles, he also manages to sees Sol looking at him with disgust.
But contrary to what he thought of as disgust, The goggles revealed her to be not disgusted at all, but rather forming of a envious sort of love interest on the spot for some reason.
That was the only thing he could comprehend before he finally remembers that Princia was still kissing him and faded into unconscious out of overthinking.
What happened next was unknown to Asta, his head just straight up going fully blank from kiss as he faints standing up.
Meanwhile from several corners of the hall, dozens of surprised gasps moving out almost everyone's mouth while some felt like their were beaten in a fight before even entering a ring.
One thing was for sure, the moment Asta wakes up from his stupor, he would have another problem to deal with– the problem of relationships that he couldn't solve with neither swords, strength or magic.
_________
Next chapter- Revealing the truth+claiming rewards.