In the latter half of the twentieth century, following those two great wars and who knew how many shifts in the political climate,
Europe of decades past developed amid a surging wave of capital. The rule of monarchies had long passed, and the social classes of the old era no longer existed.
Nobles.
Those who lived in castles, spending their luxurious high-society lives attended by countless servants—the people who could truly be called such—
seemed to have slowly become history in people's minds.
But that did not mean they had vanished. Even if the traditional hereditary nobility had declined,
nobles—or rather, perhaps those who possessed the qualities worthy of being called nobles—still existed.
The night was noisy and extravagant. Paris, not yet what it would become today, still retained traces of the romance of its former golden age. A convertible sports car that would fetch an astronomical price today sped through the old streets on the city's outskirts.
The city's dazzling, intoxicating lights shone across the handsome profiles of the two young men in the car. One glance was enough to tell that they belonged to the upper class.
"Another ball, Mars? You really never get tired of them."
Sitting in the passenger seat, he rested an arm on the car door and lightly propped up his face without the slightest concern for the speed. Even such a casual gesture was filled with poise.
Looking at his like-minded close friend, the young man already dressed in a black tailcoat let out a soft sigh.
"Haha, trust me! Koro, this ball will absolutely, absolutely be different from the others."
Even though Mars had said "absolutely" twice, Koro had long stopped believing the nonsense of this womanizing fellow, who relied on his skill at flirting to take different women home every time.