[What else should I call him?]

In response to the counter-question, the young alpha snorted and spoke again.

[I actually wonder how he even got to attend this social gathering we’re part of. Let’s be honest. Is Meyer Lilford just a count’s heir like us?]

Everyone nodded quietly at his words as he turned up his nose. This was because it hadn’t even been a year since he was adopted into the Lilford count family.

[Right. They said he was adopted because there are no trait carriers among the current Lilford count’s children, right?]

[There’s not even much to call children. That family only has one beta older brother besides him who was adopted.]

Everyone seemed to know a lot. Valentin nodded blankly as he listened to his friends’ conversation. It was true that Meyer Lilford was an omega, though a passionate one.

Since the omega population was smaller than alphas, noble family omegas were treated as precious. Because the probability of having trait carrier children after marriage was high, everyone wanted to be matched with an omega as an alpha’s partner in the marriage market. Since it was possible to expand family influence through marriage connections this way, it was not uncommon for noble families to adopt omega children from branch families or relatives.

[So is he a relative?]

[I heard he’s not even a proper relative. Like some distant relation buried in a branch… I heard it’s a very distant relationship like an in-law’s distant cousin. Plus he came up from the complete countryside. They say before he was adopted into the Lilford count family, he lived in a house with only a cook and one servant.]

[Oh my! That’s not nobility!]

[That’s what I’m saying. He wasn’t even at the level of gentry until he was adopted.]

[Goodness… So he was a child who lived in such a poor house.]

Poor, they said. The children of noble families who thought their world was everything properly expressed their uneasiness about the ordinary world they didn’t know. It was the innocence or cruelty unique to children that was extremely aristocratic in that they didn’t even think it was wrong.

And young Valentin was just as purely cruel.

It was before his past life memories returned, and when he was full of arrogance from following high society and his peer group.

[That’s why he’s like that every day. I’m sure he’s broken over 100 plates by now.]

The alpha friend who had been continuously despising Meyer clicked his tongue, nodding towards the bowls rolling on the floor.

[He probably didn’t receive proper education… Poor thing.]

[But looking at the level of books he carries around gloomily, it doesn’t seem like he’s completely uneducated?]

[It must be the difference between just filling your head with knowledge and learning manners and culture with your body from birth.]

The omega friend shrugged, saying that was the gap between them and that boy Meyer now.

[Is that the only difference?]

The alpha friend seemed to know a lot and have a lot to say about Meyer Lilford.

The young alpha whispered to Valentin and his friends as if exasperated.

[Is the Lilford count family even in a position to enter our social club in the first place?]

[Russell! The Lilford count family is an honorable family that has proudly put its name on the list of great nobles of Heston!]

Another friend warned the young alpha who kept complaining, whispering in his ear to be careful with his words.

[Of course they were in the past.]

His snort cut through the air.

[But it’s different now. Look at the clothes he’s wearing. It’s already the fifth time with the same coat.]

[Oh my. Have you been counting that?]

[I can’t help it when it keeps catching my eye annoyingly. It’s not like I wanted to count. Anyway, everyone knows that the Lilford count family is struggling financially to the point where their territory’s situation is not good these days. There’s talk that they’re only nominally among the ranks of great nobles, but in reality they don’t even match rural baron or viscount families.]

So Valentin and his friends watched Meyer leave the place sobbing, with eyes mixed with sympathy and disdain.

*

Those memories from that time passed by so vividly.

Cecilia must have recalled similar memories, as she continued speaking while watching him still flustering among people.

“When we were young, we all thought it was because he had just been adopted and come to the capital, and was unfamiliar with the culture and refinement of great noble families… But the fact that he’s still like this now…”

“Yes. As you said, it really seems to be his personality.”

It was just his nature to be naive and clumsy. Valentin agreed as Cecilia shook her head while looking at the accident scene.

But he didn’t want to actively agree.

Because looking at him reminded him of an uncomfortable and painful part of the past.

In fact, after that day he had just recalled in his mind, or more precisely, after Valentin became aware of Meyer Lilford as a person, he remembered. The words he heard from his friends had unconsciously influenced him. From then on, whenever Valentin met Meyer, he looked down on him along with those scornful friends.

He laughed whenever Meyer caused accidents and openly sighed. He tacitly allowed others to mock him.

No, he didn’t even think Meyer was on his level to begin with. At that time, Valentin was a young boy with an arrogant side, to the point of being called a little devil. He didn’t pay attention to Meyer, and when Meyer approached him because they were both omegas, he turned up his nose and sent him away with perfunctory responses.

And the most uncomfortable point was another part.

It was the story of the original Valentin.

The ‘little devil’ title was because there was someone the arrogantly behaving and evil-doing original Valentin mocked the most. That was Meyer Lilford, the count’s heir. He was very easy prey for the villainous Valentin.

Of course, the person he clashed with most was Evener Luwin. But while that was a relationship of mutual tearing down and fighting on equal footing, this was a one-sided mockery that the villainous Valentin looked down on and ignored. The original Valentin bullied and laughed at Meyer, who was in an extremely weak position.

‘I had been living having forgotten about it…’

Although it was a story about parts that his real self hadn’t done, Valentin felt very uncomfortable with him, as if he was looking into a dirty part written in the dictionary of his life. It felt like revealing the most incompetent and ugly part of himself.

Meyer was now bowing and apologizing to the people involved in the mishap he caused.

Valentin usually helped out when such things happened around him. But from the moment he knew the person who caused the accident was Meyer Lilford, he lost the desire to get close.

‘I just don’t want to run into him as much as possible…’

Somehow his stomach didn’t feel good and his mood became unpleasant.

“Cecil…”

Valentin called his friend, bending over and gently rubbing his stomach. Cecilia was startled to see Valentin frowning.

“What’s wrong, Valentin? Does your stomach hurt?”

“No… It’s not exactly painful, but it’s throbbing a bit…”

“Isn’t that not good?”

“It’s clearly not good… I just need to go home soon.”

“I’ll go find the Marquis of Valkyries!”

Cecilia jumped up from her seat as if she was about to run out right away.

“No. It’ll be faster if I just find him myself and go home right away. You stay until the end. This is the event you’ve been looking forward to.”

Valentin reassured Cecilia, who kept expressing words of concern, and finally said goodbye. Then he started searching every nook and cranny where Reynard might be.

‘He probably won’t be where there are a lot of people gathered…’

That was why he was looking for secluded places like behind hidden pillars or behind the platform. His husband, who was a head taller than others anywhere, would be easily spotted if he was within sight. But not being visible meant he wasn’t nearby.

Valentin stepped into the maze garden where only one or two people were sparsely standing, after going around the rose garden. At that moment, a familiar voice was heard very faintly from inside the hidden maze.

It was a small sound that others would have just passed by, but Valentin knew exactly that this was her husband’s voice.

‘He’s over here!’

So he went deeper into the maze bushes. Towards where the sound of conversation could be faintly heard, without looking for the exit.

“…so in the drug currently developed and in circulation, one ingredient…”

It was a woman’s voice with an exotic accent.

“Reynard?”

Valentin finally turned the corner, discovered Reynard’s back, and called out to him. He was standing tall between the dark green walls.

“…?”

“…”

“…Valentin?”

As soon as Valentin appeared and called Reynard’s name, their conversation was completely cut off as if snipped with scissors. It was as if someone had issued an order of silence and stillness. Reynard quickly ran towards Valentin, turning his back on the people. Unusually, his eyes were wide open.

Then the identities of the figures hidden by his body were revealed.

‘Sir Shane Wilgrave and that noble lady of Turcan origin from earlier…’

Lady Sabina Akal, was it? Valentin recalled her name that he had heard during the speech earlier.

All three of them were staring at Valentin with wide eyes. Still maintaining complete silence.

Reynard came in front of Valentin in one breath and asked in a worried tone.

“What brings you here?”

At those words, his mood suddenly became sharp like a thorn.

“…Is this somewhere I shouldn’t come?”

Even though he knew that he always said those words whenever he walked and wandered around alone a lot, an inexplicable strange uneasiness wrapped around Valentin. This strange situation that looked as if he had interrupted their secret meeting. He felt an unpleasant feeling as if he alone was an outsider and intruder.

“No. Of course not. We should be going now.”