"What has he done?! That absolute fool of a son!"
Lucas Ebern, head of the Honorary Viscount Ebern household, roared within the confines of his study. His son, Cedric, had committed a catastrophic blunder. He had led the daughters of the Marquis Rosemary family—Viola and Primula—into the forest, nearly costing them their lives.
They were lucky the monster that attacked them had simply retreated; a few moments more and the girls would have suffered far worse than mere scratches.
"I told him to treat those sisters with the utmost deference... Dammit! My entire plan is in shambles!"
"Dear, surely those girls don't matter now," his wife, Liza Ebern, said with a frown at her husband’s outburst. "More importantly, our son—Cedric is injured! Don't you care about that?"
"This is no time for such trivialities! If this continues, we’ll lose our standing as nobles altogether!"
"Lose our standing? What are you talking about?"
Liza looked genuinely bewildered. Irritated by his wife’s total lack of comprehension, Lucas slammed his fist onto the desk.
"Lady Viola and Lady Primula are the daughters of the Marquis Rosemary house! They are the children of the Captain of the Court Mages—my direct superior!"
The Honorary Viscount Ebern household was technically part of the nobility, but they were worlds apart from a family like the Rosemarys. An "Honorary Viscount" was a title tethered to one's professional office—a position often sneered at as "overnight nobility" or "pseudo-nobles." Lucas held his rank only because he served as a Court Mage; should he lose that post, he would revert to being a mere commoner the very next day.
Had Cedric secured a position as a Court Mage himself, the family would have achieved three consecutive generations in the role, granting them a permanent, hereditary title of "Viscount." But now, that vision of the future was on the verge of collapse.
"If Marquis Rosemary wishes it, he can have me stripped of my rank and exiled from the court with a single word! The moment I’m no longer a Court Mage, we fall back into the gutter as commoners!"
He cursed his decision to invite the girls in the first place. The Marquis had two daughters renowned for their peerless beauty. Lucas had hoped to match Cedric with one of them, but that ambition had turned into a noose.
"If we had secured the Rosemary family as Cedric’s backing, we might have ascended to a Countship, let alone a Viscounty. And yet, that idiot son of mine...!"
Despite his desperate pleas for a meeting—using the fact that they would be entering the Royal Academy together next year as leverage—and his strict orders for Cedric to charm the sisters, the boy had failed spectacularly. When Lucas went to offer his apologies, he was turned away at the gates. There was no room for negotiation; he wasn't even allowed to offer an excuse.
"Th-that... you can't be serious," Liza stammered, finally grasping the gravity of the situation. Her body began to tremble. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Weren't we supposed to become Viscounts? Real nobles...?"
"If Cedric had any sense, that’s exactly where we would be headed! Where on earth did his upbringing go so wrong?"
"B-but he was always such a kind-hearted, good boy... For him to put those girls in danger..."
Lucas and Liza had doted on Cedric since birth, rarely ever scolding him. His innate magical talent had blinded them to his faults. They hadn't noticed his personality curdling into one of arrogance and cruelty toward the weak.
"I thought Cedric was different from that... that failure. How did this happen?!"
A knock sounded at the door, and the butler entered. "Master, a letter has arrived from the Marquis Rosemary household."
"What?! Give it to me!"
Lucas snatched it from the butler's hand, tearing through the wax seal. He scanned the contents and froze.
"What... what in the world is this?"
"D-dear! What does it say?!"
Liza asked frantically, but Lucas remained motionless with the letter in hand. After a long, tense silence, he finally looked up.
"They want to invite that failure... Rest. He's been invited to the Rosemary estate. They explicitly stated that we and Cedric are not to come—only him."
"Pardon?"
Neither of them could process the absurdity of the invitation. While they stood there in a state of mental paralysis, the gears of fate were already turning behind Rest's back.