Adrian was now 10 and Alice 9. One day Dirk came home and told them that have been invited to the Royal princess Rosalia Clementine’s 10th birthday party. This was something he knew would happen. After all the princess is another heroine of the story, she was said to be very beautiful with black hair and blue eyes, she possessed powerful fire magic, the bloodline magic of the Clementine royal family.

She was the only daughter of the royal family as her mother the empress became unable to bear any more children after her, so it was natural for her to inherit the throne as such she grew up with great love and care from her parents, never lacking anything, however despite that she had a noble disposition and she didn’t discriminate against others but that doesn’t mean she was unaware of her position.

People usually do their social debut at the age of 10, in case of Adrian his along with his peers’ debut will be at the princess’ party, normally people hold a party to introduce their young ones but, in this case, a big event was already there so what better chance than to make their debut there, everyone important will be present and oh Alice will be able to make her debut too albeit early. The part will be held in the capital which was about 10 days journey from his territory so preparations were made.

It was in the mid of February so it was cold but not too cold so the journey would be comfortable of sorts. On the day of the journey there was a procession of carriages along with their carriage with their house’s emblem which was two horses’ side by side. All 3 of them i.e., Dirk, Adrian and Alice took that carriage. On the way Adrian took a good look at the Hofstader territory. After the main town, the rest of the territory was connected well but was not well maintained, there was poor people everywhere.

He wondered why that is, cuz he knew very well that the budget for maintaining the territory was quite high. Perhaps the people in charge are embezzling the money taking advantage of his father’s absence. He thought he now understood now why his house was on the verge of collapsing in the game. So, he a mental note of investigating it as well as handling the territory affairs as soon as possible.

The capital was surrounded by a huge wall and the gates opened after seeing the emblem and eventually they arrived at the Hofstader’s capital mansion. It was bigger than the one in the territory, also the color was different, the one in the territory was reddish in color while the capital one was fully white, those the design was the same. They were greeted by the maids and servants and each went to their room. After taking a bath and refreshing him and changing into clothes to get ready for dinner, he heard a knock at the door.

He said to come in, a maid came in, she was short and had brown hair, she gave him a piece of page, in it was  the seal of the intelligence agency run by Adis and the current whereabouts of the demon cut’s capital base. He smirked, “So you have already put your network everywhere huh?”, he said staring at the letter. He told the maid to wait and wrote a letter to Adis saying good job and asking him to investigate and prepare a report about the Hofstader territory’s management by the time he returns, he put it in an envelope and sealed it and told her to deliver it to Adis, she nodded and left. Then Adrian ate dinner for the day and slept, after all tomorrow evening is the princess’ birthday.

The next evening Adrian, Alice and Dirk got ready to go to the banquet, they had 3 gifts read to be given to the princess, one from each of the them. Dirk was in a white, blue military uniform, which was the formal wear of the Duchy, Adrian wore all white suit and Alice a flowery while dress with flowery decorations, both Adrian and Alice’s dresses were made for this particular occasion.

Adrian sighed internally, thinking of the upcoming battle with the heroine (by that he means the encounter fells like a battle to him). Adrian and Alice entered the carriage holding  hands together (they have gotten quite close these years). Then Dirk entered and the carriage moved, the street was crowded as nobles from all over the country attended the princess’ birthday banquet.

They finally arrived at the Royal Palace after a long time, it was golden in color and was shinning brightly due to the magic illumination, the emblem of the royal family, two lions facing each other was visible at the front. The palace was huge it took them 1 hour in carriage after entering to reach the center or the party venue, there were many carriages in line and it took some time for their turn to get down.

First Dirk got down and then Adrian and Alicia hand and hand got down. Dirk pointed at some of the standing carriages of important nobles and explained who they were, among them the other 3 Ducal houses were house Lucifer with twin swords emblem, house Pendragon with a single eagle and a sword emblem and finally house Orwell with shield with wings emblem.

The villain of the game was from the Lucifer house, the heir known as Bryan Lucifer, the current head of the house was his father Brad Lucifer. A house with the surname Lucifer being the source of the demon cult, shocking right? Yes, Adrian also thought the same in his previous life, thinking it’s hilarious. Anyway after that they made their way into the party venue.