The courtyard of the royal castle is overflowing with people.

Today is the wedding of the third princess, Sonaris.
She is to be married to the infamous Snakes, the frontier count of Death.

I signed in at the castle reception desk and entered the hall.
The first thing you'll see is a stuffed wyvern.
I heard he was a gift to the king. I've seen stuffed heads before but this is probably the only one in the whole kingdom. The wyvern was killed with only a few wounds, and the wounds were covered with the skin and scales of other wyverns, making it look as if it was alive.
The taxidermy is surrounded by people.
Many nobles are arguing about the stuffing in the hall, which is already crowded with baronies and viscounties.

The senior nobles are waiting in a separate room and will enter later.

'Oh, are you joining us?
You are approached by a baron who is a good friend of yours.

'Yes, you are, aren't you?　Since you're here.

'Well, yes, I am. I'm no longer under house arrest due to the marriage pardon. My family was hurt by him, but we have to participate to show that the royal family has no more rebellious intentions.'

'It's the same for my family, the house that was active in the open was almost destroyed.

'Right now, the royalists and the neutrals, well, the houses that have been keeping a bit of distance, those two factions are the mainstream.

'Even within those two, there are further divisions. Half of the Royal Faction is the Dauphin Faction, a quarter of the Royal Faction is the Third Prince Faction, and the rest don't belong to either faction.

'Because he's in the Dauphin's camp.

'Well, he's the direct brother of His Highness Thornalice, who will be his wife (they share the same mother), so that's why.

'But he's not on bad terms with the third prince, is he?

'That's what I've heard, or rather, there are rumors that the Third Prince is afraid of him.

'It's rumored that he was scared quite a bit during the rebellion against His Highness Henry, I've heard a lot about him from people in the army, and he seems to be quite cruel.

'My soldiers, for example, had a direct fight with him. He's pretty scared.

'To survive, it's best not to go against him.

'It can't be helped.
As they were arguing, the door opened and people came in, one after another.
Looking at the wyvern,
'Oh, so this is the stuffed animal they're talking about!
and so on.

'Oh, the senior nobleman is here, the ceremony is about to begin.

The ceremony began immediately, and the priest from the church conducted the ceremony solemnly and without delay.

However, there was one strange ceremony.
The exchange of rings.
Something glowed purple for a moment, was it some kind of performance?
It seems that as long as two people wear this ring, they pledge to love each other forever, but I've never heard of this ritual before.

After that, the wedding banquet was held in the hall of the royal castle, and each nobleman made a speech. Since our family was at the back of the line, we were served a new sake from the territory of the Snakes Frontier Counts, so we waited while drinking it.

The potato shochu that had become popular the other day was not for me,
There was a kind of sour that was said to be drinkable by women, and it looked like fruit water.
There were many other kinds of sake, but I liked the sour sake. I heard that it was made from pickled plums.
The best was a sake called "Fire".
I thought my mouth was going to catch fire when I took a sip, but when I put a match to it, the sake actually caught fire!　So it's fire!
What the hell was that drink?

I'll admit it now... that house is no match for me. He creates one new brew after another, which is highly praised by the dwarves all over the land, and the merchants flock to him to sell it.
In the national army, he is not only in command of the 2nd and 8th armies, but is feared as the God of Death by the entire royal army, not only in the north and west, but even in the east. These are the same people who are dealing with the wyvern!
If we make an enemy of him, we'll be crushed.
To protect our home, we must put the past behind us.

My father was killed, I was reduced from a viscount to a baron, but I can't fall any further!　I must protect House Hippo. The sooner we take the helm, the better.

With that in mind, I lined up in the greeting line.
The Baron's line.