Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.9 - Chapter SS2

The Start of a Busy Winter

“You have quite a murderous expression, Cornelius. He will notice if you do not contain yourself at least somewhat,” Leonore quietly warned as she leaned against me, smiling sweetly.

I exhaled and stopped glaring at Giebe Gerlach. We were in the busy grand hall, and the Feast of Beginnings was soon to start. It was my first time participating in winter socializing wearing the clothes of a proper adult knight.

In truth, I wanted to kick the giebe in his smug face here and now—but that wasn’t a wise move. Things weren’t like before, when we had possessed agonizingly little evidence to justify his imprisonment. Now, we had all that we needed. Giving him cause for concern would only complicate things, so I did my best to force a smile.

“I’ll be more careful,” I reassured Leonore. “I just can’t help but tense up when I think about how it’s finally time.”

“One certainly cannot help feeling restless.”

The purge was on the horizon, and although the knights who knew this appeared calm at first glance, there was a particular sharpness in their eyes. Meanwhile, the nobles of the former Veronica faction were having rousing discussions about Lady Georgine’s visit and Lord Ferdinand leaving for Ahrensbach. There was much to pay attention to, such as whether all the key suspects were here or whether they had caught on to our plans.

“Once again, Ewigeliebe the God of Life has hidden away Geduldh the Goddess of Earth,” Aub Ehrenfest announced, beginning the feast. “We must all pray for the return of spring.”

Aub Ehrenfest went on to explain that Lord Ferdinand had departed for Ahrensbach ahead of schedule, with Hartmut having been assigned as the High Priest in his place to support Rozemyne in the temple. Once he had delivered this news, it was time for the baptisms and debuts. Lord Melchior had been baptized in the spring and would be participating in this winter’s debut. He had been practicing the harspiel with Rozemyne, since he enjoyed her playing.

Rozemyne and Hartmut—the High Bishop and the new High Priest, respectively—were already on the stage, preparing for the baptism ceremony. Hartmut helped Rozemyne up onto a small platform, after which she began to speak.

“We welcome the new children of Ehrenfest.”

Using a magic tool to amplify her voice, Rozemyne performed the greeting and told the relevant biblical tales—duties that had previously fallen to Lord Ferdinand. She spoke of the gods in her still youthful voice, keeping the bible closed all the while, in part to deceive those who knew it had been tampered with.

“There has been a noticeable change in how Lady Rozemyne carries herself. There’s a newfound sharpness to her eyes,” Leonore remarked. “She’s looked especially troubled lately—so much so that Rihyarda has started to worry.”

“She looks troubled because she’s still so upset about Lord Ferdinand no longer being here,” I replied.

There had been a dramatic change in Rozemyne’s relationship with Lord Ferdinand on the day that his departure was settled. The two had gone into his hidden room, and since then, Rozemyne had begun expressing her fondness for Lord Ferdinand without hesitation. Their sudden closeness had been apparent in their conversations too; it was our job as guards to stick close to our lord or lady at all times, so we could gauge such changes with ease.

They had also given each other gifts—although this wasn’t unusual in itself, considering the circumstances. One would normally give a present of some sort when someone close to them was being married into another duchy, and the one leaving would give away what they would not be bringing with them. The unusual part had been the actual farewell gift: a meal at the Italian restaurant. It had confused me at first, but after Rozemyne framed it as her thanking both Lord Ferdinand and her retainers for all their hard work, it had seemed a lot less strange.

But what happened next was even harder to understand.

Rozemyne and Lord Ferdinand had then gifted each other feystone charms, each having wanted to surprise the other. Charms on that level were given only by the most overprotective of parents, but there had been nothing that could stop Hartmut after Rozemyne had asked for his assistance.

Had they been normal charms, I wouldn’t be so concerned, but...

Although none of us wanted the political marriage, I found it very problematic that Lord Ferdinand had given Rozemyne feystones of a much greater quality and with so much more mana than the one he had given his fiancée. The gift should have gone to Lady Detlinde instead, and I couldn’t have been the only person who thought so. Had Rozemyne been of age instead of a student, everyone would have interpreted the offering as an outright marriage proposal.

“I truly did not expect Lord Ferdinand to give such a charm in the form of a hair ornament,” Leonore said. “It caught me off guard, to say the least.”

“Eckhart said that it was nothing to be surprised about, since Lord Ferdinand has given her charms so many times before, and that it isn’t our place to comment on their gifts, but... still. It really doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Rozemyne had received five rainbow feystones connected to a hair stick via mana chains. Eckhart, Justus, and Hartmut had been the only ones not shocked to see it; all the other retainers had stared at it with wide eyes. Rozemyne had looked to be surprised as well, but the way she had muttered about being “beaten fivefold” suggested that it was for a different reason than the rest of us.

“Still, does Lord Wilfried really have nothing to say about Rozemyne wearing so many charms from Lord Ferdinand...?” I asked.

Once a pair got married and started mixing their mana, their mana quality would grow to be similar. Their mana would then influence that of their children, so most husbands would be vehemently against their wives wearing something containing the mana of a man other than her father. It certainly wasn’t something I would be able to tolerate; were Leonore to put on a charm from another man, guardian or otherwise, I would ask her to remove it immediately.

“Perhaps he sees that charm as being no different from the others,” Leonore ventured. “I imagine that he sees Lord Ferdinand protecting Lady Rozemyne as completely natural. Not to mention, he is too young for his mana sensing to have developed, so he may not fully understand his place as her fiancé. Once he grows old enough to take issue with the hair stick, perhaps he will choose to give her a feystone of his own.” She then placed a hand to her chest, and a bright smile spread across her lips. “One lovely aspect of being a woman is having the charms and feystones you received from your father be slowly replaced by those from your future husband.”

Beneath her shirt was the proposal feystone that I had given her. All of a sudden, I was struck with the urge to make her even more charms.

“Not to mention,” Leonore continued, “Lady Rozemyne really does need that charm, for her own safety. As her retainers, we should rejoice that Lord Wilfried does not yet find it repulsive. I never would have thought her capable of performing such an advanced blessing...”

Leonore was referring to the blessing that Rozemyne had given before Lord Ferdinand departed. According to Rozemyne herself, she had channeled the joy of receiving an estate to turn into a library directly into her prayer. Rather than unleashing her raw mana with the standard “Praise be to the gods!” however, she had used her schtappe to give a circle blessing of all elements.

The magic circle that Rozemyne had used was known only to High Bishops, meaning that not even Lord Ferdinand had seen it before. It had shone with the divine color of each god as she chanted their names, then finally produced a rainbow blessing that had rained down on its recipients. The sight had been so dreamlike that I had let out an awed breath despite myself—though I was far from the only one who had been so amazed.

It had been my first time seeing a blessing that included every single element; before then, my only exposure to them had been through books that described successful examples. There was normally no need to use such blessings—and, in truth, I had always assumed that Life would prevent them from functioning entirely.

Anyone who witnessed such a tremendous sight would find it hard to deny that Rozemyne was a saint. In the heat of the moment, even I had been convinced that she was the real deal. Hartmut had been so over the moon about it all that dealing with him had been a complete pain. It still was, in fact, since he was still just as excited.

“It really was unthinkable,” Leonore continued. “I do not think there is a single duchy that does not want the Saint of Ehrenfest for itself. The aub told us not to mention the prayer to anyone, but Lady Rozemyne has developed a habit of getting emotional and then channeling those emotions into a prayer. We do not know when she might do it again, nor can we say who might target her as a result.”

Rozemyne had collapsed more than enough times at the Royal Academy due to containing her emotions and not releasing them through prayer. As I understood it, she had stopped passing out now that her remaining mana clumps had dissolved in the jureve, but her tendency to give impromptu blessings was unchanged.

“When you put it like that, it isn’t too surprising that Lord Ferdinand would give Rozemyne a rainbow charm and attempt to bind her to Ehrenfest with a library,” I said. “I can barely handle my worry when she leaves for the Royal Academy without me.”

I was worried about how things would go down with the children of the former Veronica faction, and the fact that it was impossible to predict what Rozemyne might do just made it even more terrifying. There was a chance that she might wreak havoc with interduchy relations, but I was even more concerned about the royal family. Given how many times they had gotten involved with Rozemyne already, I saw no reason to believe that they wouldn’t continue the trend this year.

“I will remain on full alert at the Royal Academy,” Leonore assured me. “You must do as Lord Eckhart said; right, Cornelius? Focus your efforts on that, if you would.”

“Yeah. I was reminded just how superior Eckhart is all over again.”

All in all, I considered myself a pretty capable guard knight. I had gotten better at my studies by tutoring Angelica, increased my mana through Rozemyne’s compression method, endured training with Grandfather, secured a role in the sword dance, and performed well enough at the Royal Academy to have been recognized as an honor student each year I was in attendance. Compared to Eckhart, though, I still had a long way to go.

“Confirming the presence of poison is the work of attendants, not guard knights,” Leonore noted.

“Still, it’s hard to deny that a guard knight needs to know how to protect their lord or lady in every way. Plus, if you think about it... Angelica has speed, Damuel has mana control, Judithe has range, and you have strategies and feybeast knowledge. I’m the only one without a specialty.”

Someone more generous might have described me as a jack-of-all-trades, but I clearly lost to the others in every way. I didn’t want to be at the very bottom.

“There is no reason to feel so down,” Leonore said, consoling me with a gentle smile. “If you ask me, being competent in all areas makes you rather strong. You have conquered your weaknesses such that none remain. Is that not wondrous? Furthermore, you have more mana than any of us.” Her praise was genuinely relieving to hear.

“Leonore, how about we start cleaning our estate when spring comes? Just as Lord Ferdinand gave his estate to Rozemyne, Eckhart gave his to me,” I said. Eckhart had once lived there with his late wife, Heidemarie, but his move to Ahrensbach meant that he no longer had much use for it. “In return, we’ve set aside a room in which to store Eckhart’s most precious belongings.”

Eckhart had apparently been told to leave the items that were truly important to him here in Ehrenfest until the situation in Ahrensbach was clearer. He had thus moved everything that reminded him of Heidemarie into one room. I still remembered the way he had regretfully stroked the door before locking it.

“Oh, also,” I continued, “Lamprecht said that furniture is best chosen by the wife, since she spends more time in the estate, but...”

“Cornelius, has Lady Elvira not taught you to only invite your partner to your estate after formally proposing to them?” Leonore asked. “I will tell on you.” Her lips were pursed in a show of dissatisfaction, but there was a mischievous light in her indigo eyes that proved she was only teasing me.

“After your graduation ceremony, then?”

“I am looking forward to it,” Leonore giggled.

Lord Melchior’s performance began soon after. Rozemyne listened with a nostalgic smile as he played a song to the Goddess of Spring which she had composed and Lord Ferdinand arranged.

The baptism and debut concluded without incident—much to my disappointment. I had hoped that someone would make a fuss about Rozemyne not opening the bible, declaring that it must be a fake, but for some reason, nobody had even tried.

After the Feast of Beginnings, Rozemyne made her way to the playroom; she would be visiting every single day until she needed to leave for the Royal Academy. The newly baptized children all greeted her, and she immediately began looking into how things were being run. She was busy motivating the children with sweets, giving instructions to Lord Melchior’s retainers, and going over the year’s study plan with Moritz, on top of doing her own studying.

Lord Wilfried was taking the lead in playing with the children; he was good at making the games exciting and then seamlessly transitioning into studying. As for Lord Melchior, he didn’t seem to consider himself much of an archduke candidate yet and was simply taking this opportunity to play with his brother. He would presumably become more self-aware when it came time for him to join his siblings in the Royal Academy.

Lady Charlotte was working alongside Lady Florencia to house the children of those guilty by association, so she hadn’t appeared in the playroom since her initial greeting. It seemed that she had taken Rozemyne’s advice and planned to use the orphanage as a template for how to raise them. I had heard that she was deviating from the original plan by combining individual rooms into shared spaces where children could lick each other’s wounds and support each other as fellow victims.

Nikolaus will be going there too.

I looked at my half-brother Nikolaus, who was glancing in my direction as I stood guard behind Rozemyne. His mother, Trudeliede, had given her name to Lady Veronica and was currently leaning more on Lady Georgine’s side.

According to Mother, Trudeliede had been Lady Veronica’s attendant before marrying Father. She despised Lord Ferdinand, whom she saw as the source of her lady’s pain; disliked Rozemyne, whom she believed to be a former commoner due to circulating rumors; and was displeased with the archduke, who had imprisoned her lady in the Ivory Tower.

Our estate had accumulated a great deal of information due to it being Rozemyne’s home and Father being the archduke’s guard knight. Trudeliede was on the chopping block for leaking that information to nobles who had given their name to Lady Georgine. She wouldn’t be executed, but she would end up imprisoned and would continuously have her mana stolen, as I understood it.

“Cornelius, there is a dark look on your face,” Rozemyne said. “Did something happen?”

“No, Lady Rozemyne.”

As long as Nikolaus accepted his mother’s crime and sought to be spared, Father would doubtless take him home and raise him. Personally, though, I wanted to keep him as far away from us as possible. There was no knowing what ideas Trudeliede had put in his head, and we couldn’t yet confirm that he didn’t hold some kind of grudge against Rozemyne.

Heh... I’m pretty overprotective too, huh?

The day for Lady Rozemyne to leave for the Royal Academy came soon enough. Lord Wilfried was already at the teleportation circle, having finished his preparations ahead of time. Aub Ehrenfest was watching him quietly.

“Wilfried, I am leaving the children of the former Veronica faction in your hands.”

“Yes, Father. I will save as many of them as I can.”

It was agreed that no students would return home from the Royal Academy this year, so as to avoid the purge being interrupted or any information leaking. They would only be informed of everything when the archducal family arrived for the Interduchy Tournament.

As soon as Lord Wilfried was gone, it was Rozemyne’s turn. Her luggage was first placed on the circle and teleported. The plan was for her to spread printed stories in the Royal Academy, so she was bringing a great many books with her. There was no hiding the broad smile across her face as she gazed at the boxes they were being stored in. Her expression was the complete antithesis of the solemn resolve that her brother had departed with.

While her luggage was being sent over, Rozemyne exchanged brief words with all those who had come to see her off. This was my first time experiencing it, since I had always left for the Royal Academy before her. “I entrust you with the winter playroom,” she said to Lord Melchior, who was feeling down about being the only one left in the northern building. She then turned to Lady Charlotte and said, “See you tomorrow.”

Hartmut wouldn’t stop giving air to his worries now that Rozemyne had lost her most trusted ally, so it came as a relief to see that she and the aub’s other children were getting along like proper siblings. Hartmut was just overthinking things; Rozemyne had plenty of people supporting her.

“You may leave this side of things to us,” Lady Florencia said with a smile, then peered down at Rozemyne with slight concern. “Take great care, Rozemyne; the jureve has impacted your health and mana in ways that you surely cannot predict.”

“I will,” Rozemyne replied, then turned to face Grandfather. “I know you have many plans for the winter, but do not overexert yourself.”

The purge wasn’t due to take place until after the Lord of Winter hunt, as we didn’t want to sacrifice any of our manpower right before such a critical time of year. The fact that both events were happening back-to-back would already place a heavy burden on the knights—and the struggle was only exacerbated by us having lost Lord Ferdinand and Eckhart, two of our strongest fighters. Grandfather was participating in the hunt and the purge this year to help fill the hole that remained.

“Don’t you worry. You can count on me,” Grandfather replied. He was so glad to be in Rozemyne’s thoughts that I wanted to openly insist that there really was nothing for her to worry about. Back when we had been planning the purge, he had seemed especially eager, even going as far as to declare “I shall go first!” and “We should prioritize the purge before anything else! All we need to defeat the Lord of Winter are a few rejuvenation potions!” Of course, the Knight’s Order had swiftly refused on both fronts.

“Rozemyne, don’t get too carried away over there,” Father said.

“I look forward to you bringing back more tales about blossoming romance,” Mother added.

After speaking to our parents, Rozemyne turned to us, her retainers. “Damuel, Angelica, Cornelius—I realize it will not be easy for you to visit the temple on top of your usual knightly duties, but I trust you to handle it all without issue,” she said.

“Yes, milady!”

This was going to be my first time carrying out winter duties. I was nervous for all sorts of reasons, but Damuel had mentioned there being sweets that were only served in the winter, so I was a little enthusiastic as well.

“Hartmut, I entrust the Dedication Ritual and the orphanage to you,” Rozemyne said. “Are you... sure that you will be okay without me?”

“You may count on me,” Hartmut replied. “Please focus on enjoying student life at the Royal Academy. If anything happens in the orphanage, I will inform you by letter.”

“I thank you ever so much. I shall be off, then. I will deliver your letter to Clarissa without fail,” Rozemyne said, punctuating this promise with a serious glance at Hartmut. He needed to inform Clarissa that he had entered the temple. I was fairly confident that she would pay the news no mind and come to Ehrenfest anyway, but not everyone shared my view.

As the conversation approached its natural conclusion, Aub Ehrenfest stepped forward. “Rozemyne, you may end up meeting with Prince Hildebrand again this year,” he said. “I want you to avoid going to the library. Er, at least until socializing season, that is.”

“Understood,” Rozemyne replied with a smile and a nod. It was a surprising reaction for someone who had proven her obsession time and time again; even the aub was taken aback. “I intend to go to Raimund and Professor Hirschur’s laboratory when not supplying mana to Schwartz and Weiss—I will need to make magic tools for my library, after all. We can also have Raimund deliver letters to Ferdinand for us, since Raimund is his disciple. So, yeah—understood.”

Rozemyne waved at us with a smile, then stepped onto the teleporter with Rihyarda. They vanished a moment later, and with that, all of us who had gathered to see Rozemyne off started to disperse. We all left the teleporter room and headed back to our own rooms.

I was due to attend a meeting with my fellow retainers about our upcoming plans. Hartmut had been obstinate about not wanting Rozemyne to hear any of the gruesome details, so we had scheduled it for after her departure. We borrowed a random meeting room and then delved straight into our discussion. There was a lot we had to do.

“So, allow me to summarize,” Damuel said. “First, we gather intelligence during winter socializing. Second, we move to the temple for the Dedication Ritual. The Lord of Winter hunt should take place during or directly after the Dedication Ritual, and the purge immediately after that. Finally, we have the cleanup and the running of the orphanage. Hm... Now that I say it all out loud, we really have our work cut out for us.”

I nodded. Our schedules were full to bursting—but we were still prepared to play the role of blue priests to ensure that Rozemyne could spend an entire term at the Royal Academy. Hartmut had rested a hand on my shoulder and said, “As you’re her older brother, offering up a little mana is nothing when it means letting her live properly as a student, no?” He really was ruthless when it was for Rozemyne’s sake.

“Still, why are Giebe Gerlach and the others dedicating their whole lives to Lady Georgine?” I asked, partly out of annoyance that they were making my winter so busy. “The land they rule is here in Ehrenfest, so what’s the point of them being so loyal to someone in Ahrensbach?”

Hartmut shrugged. “They clearly have a reason. Just imagine Lady Rozemyne being in Lady Georgine’s position and you being in Giebe Gerlach’s. Both sides only want to please their lady—it’s as simple as that. Though we’ll absolutely have to eliminate them, since their dedication borders on insanity—and that’s dangerous to Lady Rozemyne.”

Huh. So you’re aware that your own obsession borders on insanity too, then?

That was news to me.