The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 487: Jinxed

Dominic knew that he should have never mentioned the fact that they had managed to get the ladies into the Manor grounds.

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth, than word came in from the airships on station that there were incoming vessels, and the very first of them to land had an entire group of debutantes from the capital.

Not just a few of them either.

A hundred young women from decent families were all packed into the airship with their belongings in storage items.

That alone was enough to give Sheriff Nate a headache, but the pure number of them was far more than the Manor could hold at this point, which meant that they were going to have to start putting them into the new housing blocks, which meant starting the guard patrols and bringing out the Trolls to keep the creepers out of the ladies’ dorms.

"Lord Dominic, we need your assistance. There is an... uh, incident? I mean, we need you at the residences." A city guard whispered as he struggled to catch his breath after running halfway across town.

"Alright, I will join you. Are they giving you trouble about the crowded rooms?" Dominic asked.

"No, not exactly. You will understand once we get there."

That wasn’t encouraging.

Dominic jogged toward the new developments, and tried to decipher what the sound he was hearing was. At first, he thought it was a secondary party, which seemed like a perfectly normal sort of thing to do at an event like this, when the Manor was packed.

The whole city was in dating mode right now, so there couldn’t possibly be only one party going on.

But what he found was far from what he had expected.

The development that the airship of ladies had been sent to was one closer to town, as the men had been housed starting at the edge of town. But they were already drinking, and this batch of ladies from the Capital were of the wealthy, but nearly common sort.

The families where they hadn’t had a titled Noble in the family for two generations, and were looking at losing their Noble status when even one or two more senior family members passed.

So, they were all determined to meet wealthy and titled Gentlemen, and they were not happy that they had been put anywhere but right next to the Manor.

However, the rooms next to the Manor were taken by the men of the senior Noble families, who weren’t even home to hear the ladies demanding that they move to give them priority.

The city guards were getting no respect, as they were all commoners. But the moment that Dominic showed up with a pair of Mountain Trolls, the whole attitude of the crowd changed.

"Your Grace, please help. We’ve been relegated to some development on the edge of town, and the city guards are not letting us move.

There isn’t anyone in these houses, we’ve knocked and knocked, but nobody answers at any of them. Please make them see sense, we simply can’t afford to be relegated to the sidelines of the debutante event."

Dominic raised his hands to get the crowd’s attention.

"Ladies, you misunderstand. These are not empty dorms, they were reserved for the Noble Sons of the higher ranked families. The reason that nobody is answering is because they’re all at the garden party.

If you would like to put your belongings into one of the assigned rooms, and get prepared for an event, you can come join the garden party with all the other debutantes.

But first, you need to pick a room and get settled in, so that you have somewhere to sleep tonight." Dominic insisted.

That got through to some of them, but others were working on a much higher level of entitlement.

"Your Grace, couldn’t you speak with them?" One of the girls asked hopefully.

"You are looking for husbands, correct? And with this setup, you get to walk right past the residence of the most eligible men in town, correct? So, what is the problem with walking a few more metres to get to the party?" Dominic countered.

They hadn’t thought of it that way. They just wanted the best rooms for their debut, and they hadn’t considered the practical matters.

Now that he had pointed it out, Dominic could see their minds working, scheming on how to use this to their advantage, and he began to realize that it might be the Noblemen who needed protection, not the Debutantes.

At least the Noblemen would have something to lose if they misbehaved in the way that everyone was concerned that they would. The ladies would only stand to gain exactly what they wanted if they could sneak their way into someone’s bed and cause a scandal.

Neither family would want it to get any further than it already had, so the marriage would be essentially guaranteed, and there would be no convincing argument against it when you’d already taken the bride to your bed.

Going by the smile on Dave’s face, this was likely the way that it usually happened, despite all the protocols designed to ensure that it was not the outcome.

For all of their failings, they were remarkably astute when it came to matters of relationship advice. Blunt and crudely spoken, but quite accurate.

His presence calmed the immediate objections, but the complaints that he had initially expected began the moment that the ladies recalled that they would be sharing houses with each other.

They hadn’t brought maids, servants or anything else, due to the space constraints and cost. But only about half of them had any sort of domestic skills.

"There are restaurants in town, including a large market area. If you cannot cook, you can eat there, or do all your eating during the events." Dominic joked.

The ladies looked horrified at the thought.

They usually ate as little as possible during events, both to prevent bloating in extremely tight fitting dresses, and because they didn’t want the others to think that they were starved at home, or simply gluttonous.