I open my eyes and sit up in bed.

…Today is the first day of the party, err, banquet, with the Knight houses.

I wonder how it will go…

I decided to let Bedo handle things, as he’s certainly more adept at throwing parties than myself…

I admit that it’s an excuse, but at the very least it’s a valid one. At least I’m not going in completely blind, since I listed to his briefing on what the plan is for the banquet.

I’ve never thrown a party in this life or the last. That includes birthday parties. I’ve never had any, since my family, and myself, to some extent, view them as too much of a hassle to be worth it.

I take a look at the clock. It’s of terrible quality compared to modern clocks, but it’s something that are really only widespread among rich nobles. Commoners use sun dials.

It’s around 7 in the morning. My sleep schedule is essentially non-existant, so waking up at an excellent time such as this, is a pleasant surprise.

I’ll have to start welcoming guests soon…

Probably.

I’m not sure when they’ll start arriving. It could be now, but it could also be quite late at night.

I hope it goes quickly.

…It’s probably not a good thing that it hasn’t even started, and I already want it to be over, huh?

Haaaa…

I think, for this Banquet at least, it’s going to last until tomorrow night.

Accommodations will not be provided. For the ones that feel like sleeping, they’re expected to bring their own tents.

…At least they get to sleep.

One’s vitality stat can influence how long one can stay awake. Actually, for a few nobles of this world, their sleep schedules are even worse than mine. That’s saying a lot, since I don’t have one. The ones with the highest vitality stat can last days without sleeping, and then be asleep for multiple days in a row.

This certainly doesn’t apply to all nobles, but nobles, in general, have higher stats than most.

There’s also a sense of pride a noble gets from being able to continue being awake for very long periods of time. It shows their vitality is high. It’s something of a bragging right to be able to stay awake and be at a party, feast, or banquet, or some similar occasion, for long periods of time.

Well, in this world, at least in noble culture, a lot of things are bragging rights. And nobles love to brag. Well, at the very least they seem to. They have to, after all.

A noble that doesn’t brag, doesn’t give a show of strength, and is perceived as weak.

And a noble that is perceived as weak ends up with other nobles looking to take over their house, or at the very least, their land and wealth. Well, their wealth, if they have any.

Nobles aren’t always wealthy.

All the wealthy may be nobles, but not all the nobles are wealthy.

I stretch and yawn as I get out of bed.

I check for the top of my head for any bedhead.

… dangit.

With my hair being shorter, having a bedhead is far, far, far more common. For me at least.

See, when your hair is longer, gravity pulls it down enough that it goes down almost no matter what. It might just be something for me though, since I have really thick hair. Thick enough that if someone has thin skin, and their cutting my hair, they’ll get hair-splinters. I feel bad for those who’ve gotten hair splinters from me…

When it’s shorter, the gravity acting on it isn’t strong enough, and it sticks up.

…At the very least, I think that’s what the situation with my hair is. There’s a good chance I’m wrong.

Actually, I don’t believe it matters much, does it? I’m going to be wearing a hat the entire time anyway.

I take the hat off of my desk and place it on my head. It was incredibly boring, getting this.

It looks pretty basic. Think of a magican’s hat, but triangle-ish in shape.

It’s the generic hat in this world for the rich.

I don’t really like it much, but I don’t like wearing hats in general.

However, my hair being as short as it is, isn’t something I would prefer to show. I like longer hair, since I like looking at least somewhat gender-neutral.

I pull a cloak out of my wardrobe and put it on.

…Alright, I think I look acceptable now.

I wouldn’t really know though, since I’m terrible with fashion.

…I’m quite bad at a lot of things, actually… Most of things I’m bad at though, are things I can hopefully push onto other people. I’ll do what I’m good at, and leave the rest to others.

I reach for the handle, and pull open the door.

If the knight houses aren’t going to come soon, I’ll start my day off with training my body with Saith, and then training my magic with Rosalie.

Saith’s training is kinda boring. It’s just running, since he says I shouldn’t be doing any harder training with how young I am.

I go up to the first servant I see and ask him to get Bedo.

Bedo will surely know if any of the knights are coming soon or not. After all, he essentially runs the place.

…I really really on him far too much, don’t I?

Though he’s a little weird sometimes, he’s incredibly dependable. I’m kinda wondering whether or not he even sleeps…

I head back to my room and sit at my desk.

It’s not long before Bedo enters my room.

“What is it that you wish of me, little master?” Bedo asks

“May I ask how long it shall be before one of the Knights arrive?” I ask him

Bedo doesn’t even need to think for a little. “A few of them are fairly close. 1, perhaps 2 hours of travel.”

…Okay, seems I won’t be training. It takes a while to train, and I wouldn’t want to train with one of them, without training with the other. That might create problems.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat either at the moment.

At the banquet, I’ll be expected to eat a little of each of the 5 courses. Maybe half of each.

I have a habbit of skipping meals anyway, so it won’t be much of an issue to skip two instead of the normal one, so that I can eat the necessary amount at the banquet.

…I wonder what’s to be done with all the leftover food?

…I think it might be good to give it to the church, along with the donation I’m making. Surely, the church could find some use for it?

If I could, I would eat the leftovers as to not waste them, but that would certainly be bad for the Akashi House’s reputation.

For a noble house, reputation is life or death.

I send Bedo out before sitting back on my bed and mentally reviewing what I need to be doing during the banquet.

Mostly, it’s just exchanging pleasantries, but I also need to keep track of what knight houses I believe to be useful.

Also, I need to keep an eye out for whatever my dream’s past self has a feeling about. My instincts are telling me something’s up as well, and my instincts are something that are something that are very dependable.

Not much to lose by keeping an eye out, in any case.