[Just the Beginning]
When Tayte and I arrived at the party venue, it was filled with more guests than before.
“I-I didn’t imagine it would be this crowded…”
“I hear my father and mother also invited their friends this year.”
Hmm… I wondered why they did.
The party had been quite small last year, going by the original Barrett’s memories. Even excluding those from the academy—eg. Cornell and Kleine, Tayte’s friends—there had not been many guests… Things were so different this year.
Why so? As I was wondering, we bumped into Tayte’s parents.
“Oh! You look wonderful, Tayte!”
“Thank you for escorting our daughter, Barrett.”
Lord Alonso and Lady Lilia said, their faces full of smiles.
The two then proceeded to chat happily with Tayte. Seeing that sight, my doubt was instantly resolved.
Perhaps they hadn’t been able to invite many of their friends even if they had wanted to until last year.
The cause was, without the slightest of doubt, me—or more precisely, the original Barrett.
I didn’t care about it, but the nobles in this world were sorted by rank according to their lineage.
There seemed to be a considerable gap in rank between mine and Tayte’s House. That gap only widened with Barrett receiving the Holy Sword and getting hailed as a hero.
That was why the Ehrenbergs couldn’t defy Barrett.
In【The Rise of the Weakest Holy Swordsman】, when Tayte decided to leave Barrett and elope with Raul, her parents supported her. Such a thing was normally frowned upon, but in this case, Barrett brought it upon himself, and the Albers House’s reputation ended up taking a huge hit.
But in this world, things were different.
Lord Alonso and Lady Lilia invited a lot of people knowing that I had changed. I bet they had wanted to hold the party on the same scale last year.
“Ohh, that’s the son of the Albers House and the daughter of the Ehrenberg House.”
“They look so well together.”
“Haha, truly.”
“It reminds me of when I was younger.”
I’d never met most of the guests. However, since I was the fiancé of Tayte, the host’s daughter, many of them were interested in me.
However, some of them showed caution at first—most likely because of my past infamy—but when I talked to them in a gentlemanly manner, they eventually started to warm up. Thus, I made acquaintance with quite a few new faces.
Still, I realized once again how bad the reputation of the person named ‘Barrett Albers’ had been.
Just how nasty was he that people became so afraid of him…? I might have restored my reputation at the academy, but people still viewed me as the same old Barrett outside its boundary.
“Phew…”
After a while, I sat down on the sofa in the hall.
“Good job, Barrett.”
“Yeah, you too, Tayte. But we still have to keep our spirits up, this is just the beginning. There’s still the ball tonight, that’s when the real party starts.”
“Heehee, that’s true♪.”
Tayte, sitting next to me, laughed happily.
Just then…
“Oh? Are those—Jarvis and Andrei?”
I followed Tayte’s line of sight.
There I found Jarvis and Andrei facing each other by the fountain in the courtyard of the Ehrenbergs’ mansion.
“Andrei…”
Don’t tell me… was he going to give it a go?
“…Let’s get closer.”
I said to Tayte, then we went to a hiding spot where we could spy them better.
