"Oh, Happy Birthday dude," Davies spoke like he was talking to the dude next door when he spotted the head of the Lecroy family who was finally visible after the crow had turned their attention to Davies.

The head of the Lecroy family, Rafael Lecroy, was visibly surprised at being congratulated so casually but when he recognized Davies as the guest of honor that his daughter had managed to invite, he quickly began pushing through the crowd to come meet Davies.

Luckily, the crowd majorly moved out of the way so he was able to easily reach Davies,

"Thank you for the well wishes,"

"I'm quite touched that you took some time out of your schedule to come to my banquet," Rafael spoke with visible respect in his tone, surprising the visitors who hadn't been able to catch on because they didn't recognize Davies.

"Don't worry about that, rather do something about your guests, they all look like they want to beat me up," Davies brushed off whatever Rafael was going to say next and focused on the annoying looks he was receiving from the male guests.

"Hahaha," Rafael laughed boisterously.

"Good one," he had taken Davies's words as a joke to lighten the mood.

"Nah, seriously,"

"Tell your bros to stop looking at me like they want to jam a knife up my ass," Davies said, his tone indicating that he wasn't joking.

"Pfffft," Melinda almost lost her composure, as she was enjoying the situation.

"Huh, you're not joking?" Rafael finally looked behind him only for a chill to run down his back due to the unsavory glares that he could see in the eyes of the men looking at Davies.

"Whoa whoa," 

"You guys shouldn't scare Yorkshire's number-one genius like that," Rafael laughed bitterly.

"What Yorkshire's number one Genius… please I'm just your extremely handsome dude who can take your daughters and wives away, Davies Lake," Davies introduced himself weirdly… again.

*SLAP* Davies immediately winced in shock as he just got hit in the back of his head by Melinda who had a hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting out into laughter.

"What the hell was that!" Davies exclaimed with a pained and questioning look on his face as he glared at the culprit behind the slap on his head.

"I should ask you the same thing, what the hell was that introduction!?" Melinda was more amused than shocked as she replied to him with a question of her own.

"I'm just telling it like it is," Davies replied self-righteously, but the guests of the party had various different thoughts running through their heads.

'So, he is the Davies Lake? That Davies Lake?' one of the younger male guests thought amazedly.

'No wonder he dares speak so brazenly to Rafael Lecroy,' an older male guest thought.

'Getting Melinda Ashborne as a companion isn't enough, but now he's targeting our wives and daughters,' a middle-aged guest grit his teeth secretly in annoyance.

'Maybe it's finally time to send my daughter to the nunnery,' a sixty-something year old man, thought with trepidation as he felt that only his daughters could be targeted by Davies as his wife was just as old as he was.

'... I want to be taken away,' a mature-looking woman thought secretly as she eyed Davies's lithe figure.

'Me and my daughters… sounds kinky,' a woman who was holding the hands of her husband thought derisively, already imagining being rammed from behind while being eaten out and having her … Ahem, too much.

'What is this bastard doing here?' Lee Jung, who was also among the crowd, finally realized that Davies was also at the party.

Various errant thoughts were running through the minds of everyone on the scene but the one thing they had all recognized was that he was Davies Lake, someone who they couldn't dare to touch even if he was actually going to make good on his words so all they could do was force out a smile and remove every trace of a hostile look on their face… or at least, most of them did, Lee Jung still had a less than pleased look on his face upon seeing that Davies was at the banquet.

"I must say, you have a very interesting way of introducing yourself, you even add jokes into your introductions," Rafael took everything Davies had said apart from his name as a joke.

"I usually introduce myself differently to different people depending on the situation… also I don't joke during introductions," Davies replied while wondering what was wrong with the family head that he thought everything Davies was saying was a joke.

What he didn't know was that Rafael was sweating bullets internally as he continuously diverted and tried to not terminate anything that could cause a conflict and Davies wasn't helping the matter with the way he continuously said provocating and conflict-inducing things.

'Maybe I shouldn't have invited him,' he thought wryly.

"Don't let me hold you up, we can have another meeting later," Davies quickly used the opportunity to pull away from the conversation.

Rafael could not be happier that Davies had decided to stop talking before he could finally turn the banquet upside down with his words and quickly replied, "Of course, of course, please enjoy the banquet," 

He was actually quite happy that Davies had mentioned that they could have another meeting later. This could be counted as having established a relationship with Davies Lake, right?

Rafael Lecroy was not an idiot. Like all the heads of the other four great families he was also very ambitious, he also wanted more power and wanted to rise, but unlike the other family heads, his method was different, and he was more cautious and cool-headed.

Sure, he wanted power, but he wanted his peace as well, he didn't want to have to continuously ward off enemies every second of the day just because he was overly greedy for benefits when he could simply share some of the benefits and let everyone involved feel like they were winning.

That was the correct way to grow in his opinion, especially when he wasn't some sort of extremely strong person who could split the ocean with one wave of their hands. Such people were brutes, and brutes were brainless… he was not a brute.

This was a mantra he continuously repeated to himself every day to keep himself in the right frame of mind and to keep his greed and ambition in check before he kicked the nest of a sleeping lion, this was why he was able to get so many important people to come to his banquet to honor him, as he was the kind of person that placed a high value on relationships.

So, the very thought that he had likely managed to secure a good relationship with Davies who could potentially help his ambition, gave him goosebumps and he felt like he had just received the best birthday gift from Davies… which was actually a good thing as Davies had no plans to give him a gift.

"Yeah, I'll set up a dinner, or lunch meeting, or something," he nodded his head repeatedly.

"Yeah, talk to my assistant Daniel, he'll sort it out," Davies replied and went back towards Melinda.

Rafael nodded to himself and made a note to tell his secretary to begin working on that the moment the banquet was over. With such jubilant thoughts in his mind, he was swept back into the festive mood of the party as everything went back to normal and the banquet continued.

Davies and Melinda who were standing together in a relatively inconspicuous location received side glances constantly from different guests constantly.

Davies had previously expected this banquet to be nothing short of a battleground between him and Lee Jung, but who knew that Lee Jung wasn't going to do anything even after everything that had happened?

Frankly, Davies was expecting a more explosive reaction from Lee Jung especially since it seemed like he knew Melinda even before they had met at the banquet, but since it didn't seem like he was going to do anything other than glare at Davies with a "not so pleased" expression on his face, then there was no reason for Davies to wait at the banquet for anything to happen.

'Might as well just force it,' he thought to himself and sneakily sent a message to Daniella to wait around for about thirty minutes before leaving after him, and then,

"Hey, we can leave, right?" he sneakily whispered to Melinda.

"..."

"Well… I don't see a problem with it…" Melinda whispered back hesitantly while glancing around sneakily.

"Let's go then," Davies grabbed her hand without asking for consent, surprising her a bit, then they began to sneakily move through the crowd and towards the doors.

As Davies and Melinda silently made for the exits, Lee Jung immediately noticed their movements and began to follow them, not liking the direction that the situation was heading in. Davies noticed him following as he had obviously known that it would happen which was why he was on the lookout for it, but he didn't care much about it.

After silently maneuvering their way out of the building, Davies and Melinda reached the entrance of the banquet hall and walked out into the darkness of night without calling any attention to themselves from inside the hall.

On the outside of the hall, some valets were waiting and when they saw Davies and Melinda, they went to get their cars. Davies had already left Melinda's hand and was going to say something to her when he suddenly felt a sharp stinging pain on the back of his neck.

It felt like someone had just jabbed a needle into his neck out of nowhere and he quickly wanted to find out what had happened when he suddenly noticed something in the air moving towards Melinda's neck as well.

The sudden pricking in his neck had awakened his alertness so he was able to detect something that would be otherwise undetectable, by reflex he quickly moved his hand in a bid to swipe it away while also trying to use his mana to shield his palm, but surprisingly his mana didn't respond and he felt the sudden sting of being impaled by something sharp again, but from his palm this time.