Seeing that the maid had secretly taken the napkin with coagulating blood and poison, Aki fought against himself not to smile for seemingly no reason and pretty much ruin the narrative they had going.

After a mere day, all those who considered themselves informed knew of his supposed weakness, if only because of the amount of gossips that managed to get their hands on one of the few signs he'd left behind.

The only way for the one who had set up their ambush not to currently know was if they were on the run and not tuned on to the nobles' circles, the latter rather impossible considering the level of their attackers.

Speaking of nobles, however much he had tried to minimize his interaction with the carrion eaters, they were now a constant in his surroundings, and in the days took come, his routine.

Princess Sera had singled out a few nobles of use, a few who were a pain in the ass and the one guy she thought was a traitor. Aside from warning her that if she could pinpoint one specific person as the culprit then it was entirely possible they would instead be a scapegoat, he had also readily nicknamed each of the throwaway characters, so he could even remember most of the people he would actually be meeting and dealing with.

'Fortunately', there were so many nobles scheduled to arrive (despite the relatively short notice of this 'event') that the local Count simply could not house all the minor ones in his mansion, though his direct subordinates were another story.

The main body of this noble detachment consisted mainly of young men and women in their early twenties, plenty acting like they were actual idiots of a fraternity already, though plenty of idiots up to their fifties and seventies were also around.

Despite the few exceptions, the ones to really be worried about were the demon kin past their first century of life however.

Due to a covalence of essence enhancing their base physiques and the general practice of further cultivating their bodies, these humans were capable of retaining peak performance much further into their life expectancy, which was also inflated by those same mystical practices.

While an honorable achievement amongst commoners however, a century of life was pretty much guaranteed for nobles so long as they did not participate in any serious skirmish, something that did happen despite the militaristic society of the demon-kin.

The reason for that was rather simple even. If you somehow managed to reach a hundred years of age without some minimum of competence, then you were already too difficult to remove to begin with.

Similarly for the combatants and the military officers, it was very much so a challenge to find something or someone that could actually get to the old foxes, but there was only one of those people coming around, and he was an ally, while four old nobles who were not nearly as loyal to the crown would be personally coming.

Not that every young demon could only think with their lower parts and pride, but there were only two people in that category he was actually worried about dealing with due to his rather low personal political capital.

Sure, thanks to the specific princess he currently served he could simply ignore the stupid losers that would challenge him while they pretended he was poisoned, as Sera actually had a reputation of fighting her own and her people's fights herself, but some problems could simply not be solved with breaking the bones of one person or the other.

"Spirit Aki, what a coincidence." Because we aren't both living in the same general area and I haven't visited this same place three other times already, sure. "Have you and the princess considered my generous offer?" Asked magic bug number 2.

"Ah, Little countess Kanet. I must apologize, for I have not asked her Highness this morning. She has not so positive matters to deal with, you understand, and this servant dares not bother her with personal matters at a time like this. Would you like some tea?" He offered in faux chinese platitudes, using a bit of organizational level deflecting to deescalate any possibly 'important' offers.

"Indeed, that would not be proper at such uncertain times. It is horrific how this unknown attacker would dare attack royalty after such victory in the battlefield." Opined the young woman sitting down and taking the porcelain cup he'd filled with tea for her.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Foolish too, but I do believe they have learned their lesson after this probling attack. Such types only learn when reality strikes down their fantasies after all, and now it will fall onto those such as you to rebuild what those such as I find abandoned or in need of destruction, for such villains rarely lay down without leaving behind nasty surprises."

And so he discussed nothings on the nature of duty and dealing with traitors while speaking to the young heir of the nearby county, all the while comparing the traitor in question to a mangy and crippled dog who'd been pissing at the nearby water supply.

And in this way, completely ignoring the knowledge exchange the countess-to-be wanted while also putting up a show of overconfidence.

Really, it was easy to talk to these people so long as you had the entire conversation planned beforehand, something which he found himself doing with a growing ease these days despite the lack of familiarity with the social sceneries all around.

Possibly because of his increased charisma stat. While he had yet to figure out wisdom besides for the fact that it increased mana regeneration, he knew for a fact that intelligence increased his thinking speed and a few of the characteristics of his mana, so it was rather easy to tell that it was either WIS or CHA that had allowed him to so much more easily use that speed to learn a new language and to interact with people of entirely new social circles, but considering the names of the attributes, the later likely had a greater hand at having those things happen.

He'd need to look into it later, but even this much made him consider the stat a viable target for future investure, even if he still didn't know what it would do to his mana.

Not like he would be lacking in uses for it in the foreseeable future anyway.

After all, even if he wanted to believe himself moderately social at this point, it was not like he was delusional enough to think that what he could see all the reasons why he was succeeding at the moment, and considering the greater difficulty spike in sight, he could not guarantee that he would remain 'adequate'.

Negativity aside, he was actually dealing with the nobles rather well, starting no scandals and face slapping none of the little shits who deserved it. The latter made him rather constipated due to the constant those in his surroundings suffering from bouts of misogyny, inefficiency, unfounded totalitarian tendencies and just plain suicidal levels of stupidity.

All of which he had to meet with his shaolin car salesman persona, smiling and acting like a knowing elder as he conciliatorily dispensed nuggets of sophistry.

For whatever reason, despite the fact that those that could even speak with him were supposed to be the smart ones, it just kept working, so he kept doing it.

The fact that he said stuff like 'whatever you can take from it' instead of 'whatever you need it to mean' likely helped him remain uncontested in his sayings as all of these interactions were rather heavily structured in the hierarchical sense, and since no one wanted to contest his current position on the risk of sounding dumb and losing ground by suffering the rebutal of someone of his 'eloquence'.

In their world, after all, even friends and lovers were not necessarily allies, and you needed to watch your words and actions lest they be used against you even if doing so does not allow you to rise higher than your current position.

The understanding that these demon-kin had of polite society was underdeveloped from his point of view as an earthling of the twentieth first century, but even if courtly asians of times past would have eaten then spat them out for so many big and small mistakes, it was a fact that they did live a world shared with monsters and beasts capable of razing cities and towns to the ground, nevermind the fact that the general level of education and ethics was lower than he was used to all around, so they had greater leeway unless someone standing in very high ground came to speak them down.

By the fourth day of this shit, it was honestly starting to become difficult to remind himself that these idiot babies could still kill him through subterfuge, and even as he did, it was impossible to see them as anything but pitiable children who lost the chance to actual BE people instead of some stereotypical failure at governance.

Much like they lost the chance of grasping the significance of their leadership by having it normalized through their lives, he had also long since stopped seeing those overtly consumed with politics as people, as it was just not worth the mental investment, no matter the time or place.

At best he was able to be angry at them, like right now.

"My, what a spirited child." He said, his mana revolving five times faster than normal as he infused it with wrath and strength essence and focused on crushing the throat of the bigger man in front of him with a hand. "Leave." He ordered the maid that was being harassed just moments ago in common.

He wasn't so sure he spoke it correctly, but the young woman was clearly more than ready to bolt and took the chance as the noble in his hold suffocated and failed to put his own, obvious strength to work saving him.

Really now, they were just going to have a little talk about manners at the castle butchery, there was nothing be afraid of except the fear and bane essence he was constantly injecting into the little fucker.