Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.10 - Chapter 2

The Adalgisa Villa

Ferdinand glanced around atop his highbeast, then slowed to a stop. We were above an expanse of trees as dark and empty as the rest.

“We have reached its rough location, Rozemyne. Use the—”

“I know. You can count on me.”

I pulled out the sheet marked with Anhaltung’s magic circle that Hartmut and Clarissa had made for me, then formed my schtappe and poured mana into it. “O Anhaltung the Goddess of Advice, subordinate to the Goddess of Light—reveal what has been hidden by Verbergen the God of Concealment.”

Light rose from the magic circle, brightening the forest around us, before concentrating on one spot in particular. An elegant ivory villa appeared among the trees. Its architecture stood out in comparison to that of the Ehrenfest Dormitory—the entire villa comprised two look-alike buildings and the raised corridor that connected them. I could also see remnants of a front garden, a fountain, a pond, and some flower beds, but they were all severely overgrown. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how long had passed since they were last tended to.

The villa must have been a sight to behold when it was in use. It was so much more impressive than the dormitories, which were used only during the winter and the Archduke Conference. There was no reason to give them fountains or flower beds; doing so would require nobles and servants to stay at the Academy all year round to maintain them.

So this is where Ferdinand grew up...

I shot a quick glance behind me. His eyes carried not a trace of nostalgia. Instead, he looked openly annoyed, like he really was ready to tear the place apart.

“So there is a villa here!”

“That’s where the foreigners are!”

The knights cried out in awe when they saw an entire villa appear out of nowhere. Aub Dunkelfelger got straight to barking orders at them.

“Find out whether the barrier’s active!”

One of Dunkelfelger’s knights—who was using a drivable highbeast, to my surprise—tossed a shining blue something through his open window. I watched it closely as it arced toward the ground and saw what appeared to be a glowing blue highbeast with a glowing blue child atop it. Before I could even think about rubbing my eyes, it started circling around.

“Huh...? It’s moving on its own.”

“Not on its own—with mana,” Ferdinand explained. “That appears to be a gewinnen piece, though its size is quite simply ridiculous.”

Gewinnen... That was the board game where you moved pieces with your mana. Memories of using the game to help Angelica understand her written lessons for the knight course came to mind; then it suddenly occurred to me what I was looking at.

“Isn’t that one of the decorative gewinnen pieces from Dunkelfelger’s tea party room? It brings to mind one of the twenty mysteries of the Royal Academy—the gewinnen pieces that challenge people to ditter, I think.”

“They are not just similar—they are one and the same. The event responsible for that legend happened not too long ago.”

I stared at him in surprise. “Hannelore didn’t know anything about it, though.”

“How could she? It happened before she was a student, and everyone involved was sworn to silence.”

“I have no further questions.”

The blue gewinnen piece—which was about as large as a recently baptized child—flashed with white light before shooting toward the villa. It smashed through a window with a resounding crash.

“There’s no barrier! ATTACK!” Aub Dunkelfelger roared. “I will strike from above! Heisshitze, strike from below!”

“Understood!”

The assault on the villa began with Aub Dunkelfelger’s charge. He must have thought it best to start with the closest point of entry, for he landed on a third-floor balcony, completely destroyed its sliding door, and then rushed inside. His troops followed suit with equal enthusiasm; half smashed through windows on the same story as the aub while the others crashed through balconies on the floor below.

“Commanders shouldn’t be rushing headlong into danger, should they?” I asked. My impression of aubs was that they stood regally in the background while their troops fought for them, but that wasn’t at all what I’d just witnessed.

“Why did he not leave anyone outside to watch the villa? Did he just assume we would do it...?” Ferdinand muttered with a grimace, then turned. “Strahl, take the first squad and investigate the Sovereign Knight’s Order. I wish to know why they have not reacted to any of the noise we have made.”

“Yes, sir!”

“We cannot allow Dunkelfelger to take all the glory, so let us strike the other building. Second through seventh squads, enter through the second-floor balconies! Focus your attack on the women’s rooms on the third floor! Gather your prisoners in the front garden!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Eighth squad, watch over the prisoners. You are the only ones who will be able to recognize Leonzio of Lanzenave.”

“Yes, sir!”

If the second through seventh squads were targeting the third floor, why were they being ordered to breach the second? I was about to ask, but then I realized that the third floor didn’t have any balconies. The windows had wonderful decorations of plants and animals, but each was covered with sturdy-looking bars.

“The two buildings are so similar, but this one doesn’t have any balconies on its third floor,” I mused aloud. “Why is that?”

“Because of their intended residents,” Ferdinand replied. “Do you think new members of the royal branch family would live under the same roof as those destined never to be registered as Yurgenschmidt nobles?”

Ferdinand went on to explain that the side building had traditionally been overseen by the husband and wife of a branch family. The future king of Lanzenave would be registered as their child, as would the girls to be raised as Yurgenschmidt princesses. The Lanzenave princesses and their children, destined to become feystones, would spend their entire lives in the other building. The bars indicated that neither escape nor infiltration were permitted and represented the stark reality of how those who lived in the main building were treated.

“I suddenly understand your desire to reduce this villa to rubble...”

“If only we could use your estate-destroying highbeast to accelerate the process. I suspect that creature of yours would complete the job in the blink of an eye.”

I spun around to look at Ferdinand, not best pleased about his teasing remark. “Don’t act like my Lessy is a creature of untold destruction! The damage done to Gerlach’s estate was the result of a series of very unfortunate coincidences! Nothing more!”

My tormentor chuckled—and at that moment, our first prisoner was thrown out of a window, bound with light. “This reminds me of when Matthias was flung out of the estate...” Ferdinand muttered as he brought his highbeast to the ground.

Our retainers landed as well.

“Stay here, Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said. “I will give further orders from within.”

“Ferdinand, I—”

“You will only be a burden on foot. Stay here with the others and watch the prisoners. If any of them escape their restraints, bind them anew. You have more mana than any of the knights.”

I was basically dead weight now that I couldn’t make my highbeast, yet Ferdinand had still managed to find a purpose for me. He started giving instructions to my guard knights as well.

“Clarissa, instruct Dunkelfelger to bring their prisoners out here.”

“At once!”

“Knights, protect Rozemyne. Do not let any harm come to her.”

“Sir!”

Ferdinand then headed into the villa with Eckhart and Justus. The relevant squads followed after them. I stood in the garden and watched them go.

Clarissa sent out an ordonnanz. A short while later, some of Dunkelfelger’s knights arrived with more prisoners: three in total, all tied up with light. They must not have expected an attack at this hour, as they were still wearing their nightclothes. Even if the light of the magic circle and the gewinnen piece’s loud entrance had alerted them to our presence, they wouldn’t have had time to get changed.

“It would seem the building Dunkelfelger chose contains more people from Lanzenave than from Ahrensbach,” one of the latter duchy’s knights observed while peering down at the newly arrived prisoners. All three of them were Lanzenavian envoys who had apparently been present when Leonzio had given his formal greeting. They looked up at us in complete silence, not even attempting to speak.

“Here come more of them,” someone said and pointed up at the sky.

I gazed up at the prisoners being brought over just in time to see one of them tear apart the bands of light restraining him and attempt to flee from Dunkelfelger’s knights. He must have had more mana than whoever had caught him.

“That’s Leonzio!” one of the Ahrensbach knights next to me shouted, spurring five of the eighth squad’s ten knights to fly up into the air to help with his recapture.

“Do not stand in my way!” Leonzio roared. “I will become the next king of Lanzenave!” He made a highbeast and immediately started brandishing a schtappe.

Wait, what? Why does he have a schtappe? Leonzio is an envoy, not someone raised to be Lanzenave’s next king... Right?

Lanzenavians weren’t given schtappes; only those registered as Yurgenschmidt nobles could obtain them. That was why Lanzenave sent princesses to the Adalgisa villa in the first place and why their next king came of age here in Yurgenschmidt. I also knew from Ferdinand that the last king to be raised in the villa was a man called Gervasio. He was old enough to have left for Lanzenave before Ferdinand was born, so I didn’t have a clue what Leonzio was on about.

Seriously—how on earth does he have a schtappe?

We’d expected our foes to use instant-death poison and silver equipment, not this. I couldn’t help but frown at the unexpected development, at which point our three previously docile prisoners broke free from their own bonds and leapt to their feet. They had schtappes as well, and they wasted no time shooting mana from them as they raced straight toward us. They were employing the same attack that Count Bindewald had used against me in the temple.

“Rozemyne!” Cornelius barked.

At once, I turned my schtappe into a protective shield. These attacks were a lot stronger than anything Count Bindewald had thrown at me, but I wasn’t the least bit concerned; compared to all the other attempts made on my life, these mana blobs were straightforward and easy to defend against. Not to mention, I was surrounded by knights.

Leonore and Laurenz formed their own shields in short order. Angelica, Matthias, and Cornelius all sprang forward and swung their swords down, cleaving the mana blobs and scattering their remains.

Well, that was no surprise.

Way back when, I hadn’t known the first thing about combat, and Damuel’s mana capacity had paled in comparison to that of Count Bindewald. But even then, we’d managed to defend ourselves against his attacks. Only the most arrogant combatants would use balls of raw mana in a battle such as this. The insinuation that one’s opponents would succumb to such a basic attack was well and truly insulting.

As much as mana blobs could play a minor role during ambushes, they were completely useless otherwise; no Yurgenschmidt noble would even consider using them. These Lanzenavians must not have known how to use their schtappes properly.

“Ngh!”

The prisoners grimaced in frustration and attempted to attack again—but by that point, Angelica had already closed in on them with Stenluke. Her enhanced speed really was something.

“Make sure not to kill them!” Leonore shouted admonishingly as she spread out her cape to block my vision. Her warning must have come too late, however, as what followed was an anxious cry from Angelica.

“Someone! Come heal this person! Quickly!”

“Angelica! Trade places with me!” Cornelius replied. He had an aptitude for Water, meaning he could cast healing spells to at least some degree.

Leonore waited until our injured opponent had been tended to; then she put her cape down and allowed me to see again. Cornelius had used just enough healing to keep the prisoner alive before tying him up and pushing him in our direction.

“Hartmut! We need schtappe-sealing bracelets on this one!” he shouted.

Hartmut rushed over and did as instructed.

That was one foe dealt with. The remaining two were shooting out huge orbs of mana and seemed to be more capable fighters, but they had no other attacks, and they weren’t anywhere near as well trained as the knights. They didn’t even have silver equipment or instant-death poison to rely on, maybe because we’d taken them by surprise or because Dunkelfelger had already disarmed them.

It wasn’t long before Matthias and Angelica took down the last of the prisoners. They broke our captives’ legs to prevent another attempted escape and then bound them.

“Clarissa, send an ordonnanz to Dunkelfelger,” Leonore instructed. “Tell them our opponents have schtappes—though I am sure they already know as much...”

I turned my attention to the building our allied knights had disappeared into and glimpsed the dazzling flashes of a mana battle through its blown-out windows. Even from outside, I was able to hear Aub Dunkelfelger’s exhilarated roar: “Don’t think your feeble shields will protect you from my attacks!”

Dunkelfelger’s knights brought us more and more prisoners. Leonore explained that those bound with light had schtappes and an abundance of mana—in stark contrast to the manaless Lanzenave troops who had ravaged Ahrensbach—and would need to be watched even more carefully. In response, the knights shackled the new prisoners with schtappe-sealing bracelets, broke their legs, and then tied them up with rope.

Leonore kept her shield raised and watched with narrowed eyes as our crippled opponents groaned in pain. “They clearly have some training... They bode their time while pretending to be captured, then acted in unison the moment our forces were divided. So why were they fighting so ineptly? They had enough mana to break the knights’ bindings. They could have done so much more...”

I gazed upon the man who had shouted about becoming the next king of Lanzenave. Leonzio, was it? Like his peers, he was fighting us in his nightwear, his hair still a disheveled mess. Well, it was generous to call it fighting—he was continuously attempting to run away while our knights blocked his every means of escape.

Leonzio’s approach seemed no better than his allies’—he was shooting raw mana from his schtappe while attempting to flee on his highbeast. He moved fast, likely a reflection of his immense mana capacity... but escaping an encirclement of seven knights wouldn’t be easy. Even from a distance, I could see that it was only a matter of time. He would surely be captured soon.

“Perhaps they are simply inexperienced,” I said. “It can’t have been too many days ago that they obtained their schtappes.”

They had experience using highbeasts and could shoot mana, but transforming their schtappes into weapons and using rott were still too much for them. In a sense, they were like me before I’d started attending the Royal Academy. Back then, I’d practiced using my highbeast to gather materials and shot mana from my ring or granted prayers, but I’d not used a schtappe before my classes.

“So they obtained their schtappes just recently...?” Leonore asked.

“Indeed. Assuming they really are in cahoots with the Sovereign Knight’s Order, they should have requested aid the moment we launched our attack. There’s no other explanation for why they haven’t used rott, the first spell one learns at the Royal Academy.”

Leonore nodded, convinced.

Laurenz kept his shield raised and a stern look on his face as he slipped into our conversation. “If this guy wants to be the king of Lanzenave, then whatever. Power to him. But why is he here in Yurgenschmidt—and at the Royal Academy, of all places? I don’t see why Lanzenavians would want schtappes, the symbol of our country’s nobles.”

“Maybe obtaining a schtappe is necessary to become Lanzenave’s king...” Leonore mused aloud, likewise confused. “But plenty of our foes now have them. Could there really be so many claimants to the throne?”

We didn’t know enough about Lanzenave to draw any reliable conclusions. Foreign politics and the Adalgisa villa weren’t part of the Royal Academy’s curriculum, and our only reason for being here was to capture the Lanzenavians who had abetted Ahrensbach’s previous archducal family’s treason. I certainly hadn’t told my retainers what I already knew about the Adalgisa villa.

“Rather than continue to speculate, we should just ask the prisoners,” I said and pointed at Leonzio, who had now been caught through the combined efforts of Dunkelfelger’s and Ahrensbach’s knights.

Barely a moment later, a tremendous explosion resounded from the third floor of the building Ferdinand and the others had entered. I recoiled, and tension spread through us all as we turned to see the cause of the commotion. Every single window had shattered, showering the ivory footway below with chunks of glass that practically disintegrated on impact.

“Lord Ferdinand! What is the meaning of this?!” came Detlinde’s shrill cry. She was so loud that not even all the noise could drown her out.

I’d secretly hoped that someone else would capture Detlinde; Ferdinand was stuck in such a violent mindset that I worried she might not survive an encounter with him. However, my concerns for her vanished when she continued to speak.

“You may be so desperate for my love that you escaped the jaws of death to find me, but nonetheless! Barging into a lady’s room in the dead of night is unthinkably boorish and cr—”

Detlinde’s furious, hysteric cries were abruptly cut short. Someone had decided to silence her—that much was uncomfortably obvious.

“She took that tone with Ferdinand...?” Cornelius muttered. “I hope Eckhart didn’t just go berserk...” He was worried that his brother might violate our command not to kill any of the orchestrators, and it was easy to see why—Detlinde had made those insulting remarks to the very man she’d poisoned. Had it been me up there with them, not Eckhart, I would probably have gone berserk.

“Ferdinand would have intervened,” I said. “And even if not, he knows how to cast healing spells. Lady Detlinde must be alive.” I sincerely doubted that Ferdinand would allow anyone to contravene an order he had given. His excessively logical approach to everything did wonders to put me at ease.

Ahrensbach’s knights soon arrived with a fresh batch of prisoners. Justus was dragging along an unconscious Detlinde wrapped in bands of light. Her nightwear was covered in dirt, and mud clung to her gorgeous blonde tresses. It was scandalous for an adult woman to have her hair down in public; she would probably throw a fit when she woke up.

“Justus... She is... alive, right?”

“Eckhart’s blow only knocked her unconscious,” he replied. “As much as it pains me to say it, our future plans require that we keep her alive. Her head did strike a few rocks while I was bringing her here, but I see no reason to fret about it; she has nothing between her ears to begin with.”

Justus wore a broad smile, but his brown eyes contained nothing but hatred as he glared down at Detlinde. He wasn’t even attempting to hide his disdain—and the same went for the knights who had arrived with him. That much was to be expected; Detlinde’s foolish actions were the reason countless Ahrensbach nobles had died and the entire duchy was now considered a land of traitors.

“Are the nobles here from Ahrensbach?” I asked as more and more prisoners arrived. It was a necessary question, as I couldn’t distinguish the Lanzenavians from the people of Ahrensbach.

“Yes, Lady Rozemyne,” one of the knights replied. “These are Lady Detlinde’s retainers.”

As per the report we’d received, Detlinde had at least ten retainers with her. Perhaps there were more who had yet to be brought out, but the ones currently bound in front of me looked as though they had no idea how they had ended up in this predicament. Gags prevented them from speaking out in protest; the most they could do was stare hatefully at the Ahrensbach knights who had captured them.

The only one of the bound retainers I recognized was Martina. I must have grown too much for her to immediately recognize me in turn—she had to squint at me for a bit before her eyes widened in surprise.

Aaanyway... Looks like the two groups were staying in separate buildings.

Every single one of the nobles taken from the building Ferdinand attacked was from Ahrensbach. My attention strayed to a woman sprawled out next to Detlinde—her hair was the same indigo hue as Georgine’s and Sylvester’s, and she shared their dark-green eyes. She must have been on edge because she was frantically looking all over the place.

Soon enough, a red-haired man joined our gathering of prisoners. He seemed unusually arrogant for someone who was bound; his purple eyes were firmly locked on us.

“Lady Rozemyne, these are Lady Alstede and Lord Blasius.”

Ooh, these two.

Alstede was Georgine’s first daughter and Detlinde’s elder sister. Blasius was her husband. As I recalled, he and his brother had been demoted to the rank of archnoble in the aftermath of the civil war when their mother, the second wife, was executed.

“The building has been subjugated,” Ferdinand announced upon his return. “How fare things on Dunkelfelger’s side?”

Laurenz sent an ordonnanz to confirm, and a response arrived almost at once: “We have subjugated our building as well. Every hostile of note has been captured. We are currently checking for any hidden doors or passageways.”

“‘Every hostile of note’?” Ferdinand repeated. His eyes betrayed surprise as he gazed upon our prisoners, seemingly looking for someone in particular.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

“I do not see Gervasio.”

“Hmm?”

“The Lanzenavians here are all so young. I recognize most of them from the envoys’ formal greeting... but Gervasio is not among them.”

Gervasio had set out for Lanzenave before Ferdinand was born, meaning he must have been in his forties by now. I started to look around, and indeed, there was nobody that old among our prisoners. It was strange, especially considering that his retainers would probably be about the same age.

Ferdinand removed Alstede’s gag and said, “Where is Gervasio?”

Alstede didn’t answer the question; instead, she stared at Ferdinand with all the grace of a startled deer and then screamed, “How are you still alive?! And why are Ahrensbach knights pointing their blades at me?! To what end have Dunkelfelger’s troops been— GUH?!”

Eckhart had thrust a foot into Alstede’s back. She crumbled under the force of the blow, then coughed and spluttered, having been taken entirely by surprise. He glared at her with eyes full of malice and said, “You are in no position to ask questions. Answer him.”

Alstede recoiled in the face of such unexpected violence. As an archnoble through marriage, and one who had been raised as an archduke candidate, I suspected she had never been exposed to an attack like this before. Only when Eckhart grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up did she tearfully shout, “I do not know! We stayed in a separate building from the Lanzenavians. I do not know how Lord Gervasio spends his nights!”

The woman’s shrieks rang out. She was shaking her head desperately enough that I was convinced she was telling the truth. We weren’t sure how much the people of Ahrensbach had been told about Lanzenave’s plans, and we wouldn’t gain anything from torturing someone who was completely in the dark. I opened my mouth to say that we should stop pressing her, but Ferdinand raised a hand to silence me and stepped forward.

“You speak like you are a victim in all this, which makes no sense to me. Detlinde was chosen to become the next Aub Ahrensbach, so why did you dye the foundation in her place? Could you not have used your newly acquired authority to stop her tyranny? And why did you bring the Lanzenavians here to the Royal Academy? You have reduced your duchy’s fate to that of a traitor working with foreign elements.”

“M-Mother ordered me to, a-and...” Alstede’s face grew paler by the second, but her excuses elicited only a cold sneer from Ferdinand.

“As the archduchess, you registered the Lanzenavians as Ahrensbach nobles, allowed them to use the teleporter in the Lanzenave Estate, opened the Farthest Hall, and foolishly enabled them to obtain schtappes. You cannot pretend to be oblivious to the severity of your crimes.”

“M-Mother is always right. And it was not like I acted alone. A m-member of the royal family opened the Farthest Hall to the Lanzenavians.”

Ferdinand merely frowned, but the knights were quick to voice their outrage. They had captured a former member of Ahrensbach’s archducal family for the crime of treason, only to hear that the royal family was complicit in the whole ordeal.

“The Zent had yet to recognize me as the new archduchess, so I could not open the door to the Farthest Hall,” Alstede continued. “I requested the assistance of the Sovereign knight commander, who managed to secure us help from the royal family.”

Even the royals are cooperating with Lanzenave?! The heck is going on here?!