Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.10 - Chapter 3

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We’d already known that the Sovereign knight commander was a threat, but I’d never suspected that the royal family might be working with him. Just how many traitors were there? A stir ran through us all as Alstede continued to spin her slanted tale.

“I-Indeed, the royal family is involved. They know about everything we are doing. D-Do not be surprised if you are the ones deemed guilty of treason! You t-trespassed on the Royal Academy’s grounds and attacked an important villa!”

Even while she protested, Alstede was trembling and desperately fighting back tears. Her husband, on the other hand, seemed especially cocksure; he sneered through the gag in his mouth and shot Ferdinand a ridiculing look.

Ferdinand responded with an even deeper frown, and the Ahrensbach knights continued to mutter among themselves. We had prepared countermeasures for our foes’ instant-death poison, and our overwhelming advantage in numbers had convinced us that our victory was inevitable... but now the atmosphere was deeply uncomfortable.

Before I could dwell any longer, an ordonnanz from Aub Dunkelfelger arrived. “Members of the Sovereign Knight’s Order have begun fighting each other at the royal palace,” it said. “My duchy has been summoned to deal with the matter, and that is what we shall do!”

The ordonnanz started delivering its message a third time. In the background, I saw highbeasts stream out of the villa’s other building and take to the sky. Their speed and coordination were a sight to behold, but that didn’t change the fact they were abandoning us. Ferdinand twitched, then made a new bird without even waiting for the aub’s to finish speaking.

“I must request an update on the situation before you depart for the palace. If you lack the time, leave us a single squad to report in your stead and act as our go-between.”

I could sense exactly what Ferdinand was trying to say: “Do not leave us high and dry when our battle is far from over.” The ordonnanz took flight—and a few short moments later, a group of the knights headed to the palace stopped in their tracks and returned to the villa.

“Justus, Squad Two, Squad Three—stay here and question the Ahrensbach prisoners,” Ferdinand instructed. “Hartmut, Squad Four, and Squad Five are to question the Lanzenavians. I want to know exactly what they have done since they arrived and where Gervasio might be. Be quick, for time is of the essence.”

“Yes, sir!”

Ferdinand waved a hand through the air, spurring the knights to begin moving the prisoners. Then he turned away to look at those who had yet to receive orders. “Squad Six, take Alstede to that building over there and keep a close eye on her. Squads Seven and Eight, resume Dunkelfelger’s investigation. Squads Nine and Ten, continue to search this building. Rozemyne, assemble your guard knights and come with me.”

From there, Ferdinand gestured me onto his white lion and prepared to follow the squad transporting Alstede. Her screams rang out as one of the knights threw her over his highbeast. I couldn’t help but sympathize with her; she was about to have a thoroughly unpleasant journey.

“Ferdinand, why did you order for Alstede to be taken away?” I asked as we took flight. “She sounds so terrified that I actually feel sorry for her.”

“She is used to obeying her superiors, making her our most likely source of valuable information. Isolating her from her allies should encourage her to speak. Furthermore, as she was the true aub acting behind the scenes, she is bound to know at least as much as Detlinde. It made the most sense to prioritize her above her compatriots; Detlinde would not be able to converse with us in her current state, and anyone could see that Blasius had resolved not to cooperate.”

Well, okay then. It’s kind of scary how logical that sounds.

“To be honest,” Ferdinand continued, “Alstede caused this mess. Had she not opened the border gate, Lanzenave’s ships would never have made it into Yurgenschmidt proper. She welcomed chaos across our border, brought about the deaths of countless nobles, and traumatized the young Letizia. Having her dangle in the air for a short while does not even begin to make up for all the sins she has committed. Alstede obeyed orders from Detlinde and Georgine despite knowing how foolish and outright dangerous they were. I see no reason she would not cave to our demands.”

Good thing he’s on our team... Yet another reminder that I should never get on his bad side.

Alstede was soon thrown onto one of the villa’s balconies. She stared up at Ferdinand with wide, terror-stricken eyes, unable to answer his questions; her teeth were chattering too violently for any words to come out.

“Hmm. Perhaps we should consult with Dunkelfelger...” Ferdinand mused. Having entrusted Alstede to the sixth squad, he beckoned over the knights now standing with us on the balcony—Heisshitze and nine others. “Was it really wise of your aub to abandon our operation?”

Heisshitze responded with absolute certainty: “Our greatest priority is safeguarding the royal family and the Royal Academy. How else were we to react to an appeal directly from the Zent?” I could see where he was coming from, but still—it was problematic that his fellow knights had abandoned us halfway through the mission.

As we made our way into the villa, Ferdinand inquired as to how far Heisshitze’s investigation had progressed. Then he instructed the seventh and eighth squads, both comprising Ahrensbach knights, to start with the basement when they scoured the building.

“That reminds me,” Heisshitze said. “We found all sorts of strange devices in the rooms we searched. Let me show you where we put them.”

We were taken to a room containing various tools I’d never seen before. There were silver tubes among them, but the rest were completely foreign to me. Ferdinand warned me not to touch anything as I curiously wandered around; he suspected that they all contained instant-death poison.

“We shall move this all to the scholar building at a later date,” Ferdinand said. “I would receive all manner of criticisms if we took Lanzenave’s belongings back to Ahrensbach and monopolized them.”

I thought it strange that Ferdinand, of all people, would surrender an opportunity to research so many new technologies. But then I caught him muttering something about using the tools to bait other duchies to his side. I wanted to believe my ears were playing tricks on me, but then he stated his intentions more clearly.

“I wish to use them for political bargaining.”

Am I... actually wishing he’d act more like a mad scientist? I never thought the day would come...

I clasped my hands and dedicated a moment of silence to those whom Ferdinand would drag into his “political bargaining.” Then I continued through the villa with him.

As we traversed the building’s many hallways, a single thought ran through my mind: the interior decoration was flawless. To my knowledge, more than a decade had passed since the villa was closed and its occupants executed, but the furniture and such were still perfectly clean. It was strange that the Zent had maintained the place even after deciding to turn away future Lanzenave princesses.

“It looks like this villa was refurbished to host new residents...” I said. “I wonder who took care of that.”

“It matters not; there are greater concerns to be addressed,” Ferdinand replied. He doled out instructions to the knights who had arrived to give updates, then turned to look at Heisshitze. “Aub Dunkelfelger said painfully little in his ordonnanz. What in the world happened at the royal palace?”

Heisshitze stood to attention before starting his report. “Rauffen contacted one of our Sovereign knights stationed in the royal palace. During a change of the royal guard, some of the knights suddenly began attacking the others. It came entirely out of the blue, and it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The situation immediately descended into chaos.”

The Zent had apparently been evacuated to a hidden room of sorts that used mana to isolate him from the outside world. Everywhere else, knights of the Sovereign Order were killing each other.

“I see,” Ferdinand replied. “They need clearly distinguishable allies, so of course they would summon Dunkelfelger’s blue-capes. The royals’ evacuation would also explain why we have been unable to contact them. As a means of preventing assassination, only those with direct authority are allowed into the royal palace. But if everywhere is on lockdown, even those registered to the Sovereignty will need to pass through the villas. Will the Zent break the seal so that Dunkelfelger’s knights can enter?”

“Um... This sounds like the perfect opportunity to sneak someone into the royal palace...” I said. The palace would need to lower its overall security level to accept knights of another duchy. Perhaps our enemies intended to exploit the opening that would create.

Ferdinand gave a light shrug. “I doubt their plan is that simple. The traitorous knights were bait, I would assume.”

“Hm? ‘Bait’?”

“To lure Dunkelfelger to the royal palace and split our force. For there to be infighting to begin with, the knight commander must not have the entire Order on his side. He probably lacked the troops necessary to win back the Adalgisa villa. But by drawing our allies to the royal palace, he has more than halved the size of our army.”

Perhaps out of sheer enthusiasm, Aub Dunkelfelger had mustered a force larger than all of our knights combined. And to nobody’s surprise, his troops were much stronger than ours. By luring them to the palace, our foes had dealt a heavy blow to our combat potential.

“Does this mean we’ve been discovered...?” I asked.

“Dunkelfelger’s troops were anything but subtle; any one of the knights serving Raublut could easily have spotted them. And if someone reported our joint attack on the villa, of course our enemy would recognize them as the main source of our strength.”

Heisshitze nodded. “Moreover, if our opponents wish to eliminate a large chunk of their opposition at once, they could unleash their instant-death poison once my fellow knights are in the royal palace.”

Though we had several countermeasures, the most we could really do against instant-death poison was cover our mouths and make sure we had our jureves at the ready. Even then, there was only so much jureves could do for us, and drinking too much would produce serious consequences. Our opponents, on the other hand, had antidotes and neutralizers for the poison.

“W-We need to warn Aub Dunkelfelger...” I stammered. Just thinking about the potential slaughter made my blood run cold.

Heisshitze met my eyes, contemplated the matter for a moment, and then shook his head. “I will contact him, but I do not believe he will stop.”

“Most likely not,” Ferdinand added. “He will continue his charge no matter what dangers we warn him of. One might consider it quite a convenient outcome for whoever laid the traps... though I doubt whatever they have set up will work as intended.”

Oh, I see what he means. Aub Dunkelfelger is the kind of guy to march straight into a trap and tear it apart with his bare hands. Then he’d carry on fighting like nothing even happened.

My nerves calmed almost immediately.

“Lord Ferdinand—let us reunite once the villa has been fully searched,” Heisshitze said with an overbearing smile. “The royal family will appreciate the news that they have you and your many schemes on their side.”

I paused. Would the royals really want to join forces with a man who had wished death upon them? I was sure he would use the opportunity to advance any number of devious plots, which seemed more like a cause for concern.

Ferdinand shook his head. “The king requested assistance from Dunkelfelger specifically. No such appeal was sent to Ahrensbach, and no good can come of acting independently. That was the reason your aub asked Lady Rozemyne to give the order, was it not?”

Indeed, if acting independently were acceptable, Aub Dunkelfelger would have rushed to the royal family’s rescue the moment he sensed danger in the air. That he’d shown any restraint at all proved the importance of having an official request for aid.

“Furthermore,” Ferdinand continued, “Ahrensbach is being accused of treason. If we involved ourselves in the situation at the palace, the royal family would not know whether we were there as friends or foes. Our arrival would trouble them more than anything else.”

“Certainly not!” Heisshitze declared. “The royal family would welcome you and Lady Rozemyne with open arms!”

I sincerely doubted the royals would welcome Ahrensbach knights. In fact, it would be a serious problem if they did. Were I ever to do something so foolish, Ferdinand would surely smack me with a harisen and tell me to be more suspicious.

“In any case,” Ferdinand said, “considering whether we should arbitrarily unite with Dunkelfelger and arouse unnecessary suspicion can come later, once we have found Gervasio.”

My duty as Aub Ahrensbach was to capture Detlinde and the Lanzenavians, not get involved with the internal affairs of the Sovereign Knight’s Order. I wouldn’t expect the royal family to help out if a similar issue plagued the knights of Ehrenfest. The royals had once said it was up to us to solve our own problems, so I saw no reason to intervene.

“Heisshitze,” I said, “I am far more concerned about Professor Solange, who has not responded to anyone’s attempts to contact her, than about the royals, who have the reliable knights of Dunkelfelger marching to their rescue. I do not doubt your peers in the slightest. Ferdinand, when it gets a little brighter out, I would like to check on the library.”

“We can do that once we are done here. I must first speak with Alstede.”