Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.10 - Chapter 7

The Duty of a Zent

As we darted through the forest, Ferdinand instructed that more ordonnanzes be sent out. He intended to reenter the central building through the window we had opened upon our arrival.

“There were Sovereign knights in the hallway outside the dormitories,” Ferdinand explained. “Before we engage them, we should muster whatever forces are available. Heisshitze, contact Dunkelfelger. Cornelius, contact Eckhart and instruct him to bring us more troops.”

Ferdinand then told me to close my eyes again before sending two ordonnanzes of his own. The first went to Strahl—a curt message telling him to stop investigating the Sovereign Knight’s Order so he could reunite with us. The second, which went to Zent Trauerqual, was laden with the long noble euphemisms expected of correspondence with royalty—but no matter how pretty the language seemed, its true meaning was anything but amicable.

“If you have any dignity as a Zent and do not wish to lose Yurgenschmidt’s foundation to a foreigner, clean up the mess at the royal palace, then make your way here with Dunkelfelger and any remaining members of the Sovereign Knight’s Order.”

“Um, Ferdinand...” I said. “What should we do if neither the Zent nor Prince Anastasius comes?”

“Though it will cost us some time and require a detour, we shall come up with an alternative. I admit, I am curious to see how the royals will respond.”

From his voice alone, I could sense that Ferdinand was displeased. He had good reason to be. Anytime a duchy’s foundation was at risk, its aub had a duty to hole up in their foundation’s hall to defend it. The same must have been true for the Zent when the country’s foundation was being threatened. It was just something he had to do.

“You seem annoyed that the Zent is hiding in the palace instead of guarding the foundation,” I observed. “But would someone who does not have the Grutrissheit even know where to find the foundation?”

Ferdinand smirked at my slight attempt to defend the Zent. “Would it matter? In that case, the best course of action would obviously be to rally the knights and defeat the invaders before they even had a chance to reach the foundation. He should at least be doing something. Even you, an underage young woman who despises bloodshed, have joined the battle. How dare someone who claims to be the Zent simply hide away.”

“You’re overestimating me. This entire time, I’ve been able to rely on you and my knights, and the unwavering faith I put in your support. If my closest allies suddenly betrayed me—as was the unfortunate case for King Trauerqual—I would never have made it this far.” An abrupt act of treason from Hartmut or Cornelius might have stopped me in my tracks before I even reached Ahrensbach.

“This was not some unprecedented occurrence; retainers betray their lords or ladies on a regular enough basis. One must be able to recognize the wolves in sheep’s clothing—to pinpoint who in their retinue seems likely to turn coat. From there, one must work to earn their loyalty or remain on guard against them at all times. These are very reasonable expectations.”

“But... I don’t do any of that...” I said, swallowing hard. The cautious life he had described sounded nothing like my own. At no point since my adoption by the archduke had such a cutthroat attitude seemed necessary for me.

“Of course not,” Ferdinand replied. “Karstedt, Elvira, Rihyarda, the archducal couple, and I have vetted every single person allowed to approach you. You are narrow-minded with a penchant for clumsiness—unideal traits for someone who must keep so many secrets—so we handled any potential threats before they could even reach you. I consider it fortunate that you do not have your own Veronica—an obvious and powerful opponent whom you cannot easily dispose of.”

Not the nicest way to put it, but... fair enough.

Being denied access to the lower city and only being able to meet with certain people had exhausted me—especially considering that I’d spent each and every day buried under a mountain of work. But now, looking back, I could see just how much my guardians had done to create a safe environment for me. How disappointing that it had taken me this long to realize it...

“So you and my other guardians were protecting me even more than I noticed...”

“You were valuable enough to warrant it. You introduced paper-making and the printing industry, improved our harvest, and raised our students’ grades. On top of that, you managed to save both Wilfried and Charlotte. We can assume that so much of the Sovereign Knight’s Order turned traitor because the people around the Zent did not appreciate his value, but we have nothing to gain from analyzing how others see him. The fate of everyone in Yurgenschmidt will depend only on what we do moving forward.”

Ferdinand continued as we descended into the trees, “I will not submit to the rule of a man who controls others through royal decrees and then shirks his own duties when his country is in danger. If this is his plan—to stay hidden and allow Lanzenave to take control—then he is a failure of a Zent whether he obtains the Grutrissheit or not.”

His tone was ice-cold, and the venom in his words flowed more freely than usual. His extreme distaste for those who wielded the authority of their station but neglected their duties had not changed since his push for Wilfried to be disinherited. At this rate, his tendrils would drag the Zent straight down into hell.

Eep... Stay strong, Trauerqual!

We were still waiting in the forest when Heisshitze received an ordonnanz from Aub Dunkelfelger. He relayed the message to us.

“Our knights are making decent progress with the Sovereign Order. As for defending the country’s foundation, the aub intends to leave that to Lady Rozemyne, the wielder of the Grutrissheit.”

“Ridiculous,” Ferdinand retorted. “Protecting the foundation is the duty not of Ahrensbach but of the royal family. Make sure he knows that he cannot simply dump this task on another.”

Resolving the chaos within the Sovereign Knight’s Order was no easy feat—even for Aub Dunkelfelger. He was having a hard enough time figuring out which of the knights were his enemies, and since he couldn’t just kill them, he had elected to imprison them all as they reared their heads.

So they’re just going around capturing everyone? That... doesn’t surprise me.

I could only imagine the mess the royal palace must have been facing. The battle there wasn’t even close to being over, and the knights on our side had no reinforcements to spare. Ferdinand couldn’t help but grimace as he listened to the report.

“Lord Ferdinand. We apologize for the delay.”

Eckhart and Strahl soon reunited with us. The former had stood guard outside the library while the latter searched the central building. Eckhart explained that he had stationed two scouts in full view of the library so they could inform us if anyone approached. Then it came time for Strahl to give his report.

“The Sovereign knights guarding the dormitories headed toward the auditorium after receiving an ordonnanz from somewhere to the south. We counted eight knights in total, but the door to the auditorium was opened from within, so there are bound to be more.”

The door to the Farthest Hall was in the auditorium. There were enemies waiting at our destination.

Strahl continued, “The Sovereign guards’ move to the auditorium coincided with our Dunkelfelger allies’ arrival at the royal palace. We should conclude that our movements are being relayed to the enemy.” He advised us not to take any knights away from the Adalgisa villa for fear that our prisoners would immediately be rescued.

Ferdinand agreed. “The Lanzenavians were simply not used to their schtappes; most of them have more mana than the majority of the knights we brought with us. We must not allow them to be freed, lest they become an enormous threat to us all.”

“Understood.”

Strahl got to work sending instructions to the villa. Amid the darkness, I saw an ordonnanz fly to the central building.

“Eckhart, use this magic tool to search for the scouts watching us,” Ferdinand said. “They already seem to have some grasp of our movements, but we cannot allow them to learn when we intend to launch our surprise attack. Approach them using not your highbeast but physical enhancements.”

“Lord Ferdinand, do you have another tool we could give to Angelica?” Eckhart asked. “We could finish this sooner if we work together.”

Ferdinand nodded and gave a second tool to Angelica, who immediately set out with Eckhart. They looked as though they were soaring as they shot from branch to branch and eventually disappeared into the foliage.

“Wow, they’re fast...” I said. “What were those magic tools?”

“They mainly serve to decrease body weight and silence any noises their wearer would produce. Eckhart and Angelica should eliminate the scouts and return soon enough. Use that time to memorize your next course of action.”

Ferdinand was giving us all instructions and working to fortify our position when an ordonnanz from the central building arrived. “This is Trauerqual,” it said.

The air grew thick with tension. The Zent only ever sent direct ordonnanzes to aubs or Sovereign nobles during the Archduke Conference; that he was contacting us now meant the situation really must have been dire. The small white bird demanded our full attention.

The message that followed was slightly euphemistic but easy to summarize: “As I do not have the Grutrissheit, I cannot be considered the Zent. Yurgenschmidt will collapse without a true king or queen, so I pray that one will arise.” In other words, he had no intention of opposing Gervasio or the Lanzenavians. Our plea for assistance had fallen on deaf ears.

Ngh... How is Ferdinand going to react to this?

Scared though I was, I turned to look at him. His eyes were narrowed into slits, but I could still see their color changing as he took some manner of magic tool in a white-knuckle grip.

“Oh?” Ferdinand said. “So he refuses to defend the foundation because he is a false Zent. He does not care who takes control as long as they have a Grutrissheit. Heisshitze, was that how it sounded to you?”

“Well, um... Yes. If someone obtains the Grutrissheit, he will relinquish the throne to them, no matter who they may be...”

“I see. Then I was not mistaken.”

I’m so scared. Like, that look could seriously kill. And is that a haze of mana surrounding him...?

Ferdinand was so outraged that his mana had started to leak out. In the darkness, it looked as though his entire body were shining. The knights all swallowed at this unmistakable display of anger; he was unconsciously Crushing everyone—though only slightly—and the tension in the air made it hard to breathe.

“Ferdinand,” I said, “why don’t we calm down a little? You’re leaking mana and Crushing us all. You are right to be annoyed, but King Trauerqual was not wrong in saying that a true Zent must have the Grutrissheit. How can he perform his duties without one?”

Ferdinand glared at me. His eyes had stopped changing color, but I could sense the uncontrollable rage still swirling within them.

I continued, “King Trauerqual was prepared to surrender the throne even to Lady Detlinde if she obtained the Grutrissheit. He has the resolve to face whatever consequences await him, which deserves some respect.”

“Are you dense? Did you hit your head during the fighting?” Ferdinand snapped, his rage now directed at me.

Oh no... I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. Now I’m on the firing line.

“It would be one thing if only the Zent and his family were sacrificed,” Ferdinand continued. “But his decision to remain passive risks the entire country being taken over by Lanzenave. ‘Respect’ does not factor into it; the man is a complete and utter failure of a Zent.”

Ferdinand then looked around at the knights. “We reported the Lanzenavians’ misdeeds—that they used instant-death poison on those who refused to obey them, that they murdered nobles en masse for their feystones, and that they kidnapped young women to send to Lanzenave, to name a few. I imagine many of your families were impacted as well. We all saw the havoc Gervasio wrought upon Ahrensbach; imagine what he will do with the entire country under his control. The very fact that King Trauerqual would refuse to save Yurgenschmidt from wide-scale slaughter proves he is a failure of a Zent. Am I wrong?”

His audience largely comprised Ahrensbach knights who had seen the Lanzenavians murder innocent civilians, and those from Dunkelfelger who had arrived to stop the slaughter. They all nodded in response, as did my guard knights.

“We have with us the Divine Avatar of Mestionora, who was given the Grutrissheit to decree a new Zent; Yurgenschmidt will obtain a true king or queen as soon as Gervasio is dealt with. Even after hearing as much from Aub Dunkelfelger, King Trauerqual chose to do nothing. Such a foolish person cannot be permitted to call themselves the Zent.”

The knights nodded again, but more hesitantly this time. Ferdinand was openly rejecting their king.

“Do you want other duchies to face the same tragedy as Ahrensbach?” he asked.

“No!” the knights declared.

“Do you consider Gervasio fit to rule Yurgenschmidt?”

“No!”

“Shall we respect the Zent’s decision and allow chaos to swallow our country whole?”

“NO!”

“Then let us ignore his response and devote ourselves to taking down Gervasio—whether he has the Grutrissheit or not!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

Eckhart soon returned with Angelica. “We succeeded in eliminating the scouts,” he said. “There were no guards stationed inside, so we can use the auditorium’s front entrance—a much easier alternative than trying to climb through its windows.” As far as the knights were concerned, leaping out of a window and then making one’s highbeast in midair was simple. Doing the process in reverse—that is, leaping through a window from one’s highbeast—was far more challenging.

And of course, both are completely beyond me.

“I do not like the thought of using the front entrance, as it renders us easy to detect and somewhat unprotected...” Ferdinand mused. “But given that Strahl advised the same, I suppose it must be our safest option.”

And so we reentered the central building, all the while keeping a very close eye on our surroundings. Though I worried we might fall victim to an ambush, not a single person stood in our way. Just as the reports had said, the Sovereign knights had retreated into the auditorium.

Using only his hands, Ferdinand instructed the knights to move to their assigned positions, all while keeping an eye on the hallway that connected to the dormitories. I’d attended the meeting during which they’d devised their plan, but I didn’t know what most of the hand signals meant; my only roles were to form Schutzaria’s shield in front of the door and to heal anyone who got hurt.

I was drawn from my thoughts by footfalls; a group had arrived near the far end of the hallway. The knights readied their weapons as out came... Anastasius. As one would expect of a prince, there were guards surrounding him. I was shocked to see how quickly he had come here.

Ferdinand, in contrast, wasn’t surprised in the slightest. He signaled the knights not to make a sound.

Anastasius looked at us, then at the door to the auditorium. “You asked me to come posthaste to the Farthest Hall, did you not? Why are you all waiting outside?”

“We cannot reach the Farthest Hall without first eliminating the enemies within. Prince Anastasius—please wait until we finish our assault.”

“Ferdinand, how much do you know about—? Hmm?” The prince must not have noticed me before, because he suddenly blinked at me in confusion. “Who are you?”

“It is I, Rozemyne,” I declared. “It has been too long.”

“Ro—?!” Anastasius clapped a hand over his mouth, having likely remembered that we were trying to be quiet. He shook his head several times, then started to wilt. “Hildebrand and Sigiswald told me your growth was unbelievable. But to think you changed this much...”

“Rozemyne’s growth has no relevance to our current situation,” Ferdinand interjected. “Please save whatever you wish to say for later.” He readied his weapon, then raised a hand.

We could not see Strahl and the others from where we were, but they had just received the signal they were waiting for. In a matter of seconds, several explosions rang out from inside the auditorium as they began their surprise attack.

“What are you doing?!” Anastasius barked. “Stop them!”

Ferdinand did no such thing. Instead, in a steady voice, he replied, “Another force of ours just threw magic tools—tools made by Hartmut—through the auditorium’s topmost windows.”

“An attack on the Royal Academy is an attack on the Zent! Do you want to be tried for treason?!”

Ferdinand calmly held up a magic tool. “You are gravely mistaken, Prince Anastasius. We sent an ordonnanz to the Zent asking him to lead an army to protect the foundation, but he refused. In his words, he would allow even a foreigner to take over as long as they had the Grutrissheit. Listen.”

The magic tool repeated the message we had just received from King Trauerqual. Anastasius paled upon hearing it.

“Yurgenschmidt does not have a Zent willing to protect its foundation,” Ferdinand continued, hammering home his point. “Thus, there is no such thing as treason. There cannot be a rebellion against a Zent who does not exist.”

Worried that Ferdinand was being too disrespectful, I moved to stand between him and the prince. “Ferdinand takes issue with useless people who refuse to do their jobs, so your father’s response made him especially angry. But if you ask me, King Trauerqual is a man deserving of respect.”

Anastasius gave me a dubious look, wary of what I might say next.

I gave him a reassuring smile. “After all, for him to have surrendered the throne to a foreign power, he must be ready for his whole family to face the consequences. That takes courage.”

The prince merely stared at me, his eyes wide as saucers. That was good; I certainly wasn’t going to let up on him.

“Prince Anastasius—you said we might be charged with treason for protecting the foundation. Are you in agreement with King Trauerqual, then? As you know, the Lanzenavians used poison to kill anyone who opposed them in Ahrensbach and attempted to kidnap young noblewomen to send back to their country. If given the chance, it stands to reason that they will repeat this process all across Yurgenschmidt. The king’s decision will mean quite a bleak future for Lady Eglantine, so if you really have resolved to support him, I will applaud your courage as well.”

Anastasius’s face twitched. “Rozemyne, you—”

“Rozemyne, cease this chatter and make the shield,” Ferdinand interrupted, holding his weapon at the ready. He looked around one last time, then spurred us all into action with a vertical chop of the hand.

Our knights threw open the door to the auditorium and rushed inside. I put whatever Anastasius had wanted to say out of my mind and created Schutzaria’s shield, securing a safe place for our forces.

“Oh, and if you do stand with the Zent,” I added with a smile, “I would advise you to return to your villa. You would not want to get caught up in our treason. Or would you rather join our fight against Lanzenave to protect Lady Eglantine? You might be interested to know that Ferdinand recognizes me as the Divine Avatar of Mestionora—someone capable of crowning new Zents.”

“Come again?” Anastasius yelped. His guards were exchanging looks of concern. “If you have a Grutrissheit to give, then we already have a true Zent—you!”

The prince’s observation caused a stir. Wasn’t it more than a little late to be drawing false conclusions? First and foremost, I considered it necessary to ask what the heck was wrong with the royal family’s information network.

“No, that isn’t quite right. I dyed Ahrensbach’s foundation and therefore stand as its aub. For me to be a true Zent, I would need to have dyed the country’s foundation. Was there no report about—?”

I was going to ask whether he even knew what I got up to in Ahrensbach, but he interrupted me with a sharp glare. “In that case, go see my father immediately. Give him the Grutrissheit and declare him the Zent. He would never have made such a weak, defeated statement with a legitimate claim to the throne. You don’t know the lengths he goes to each day to carry out his duties! How he’s always drinking rejuvenation potions and spending his every spare moment at the shrines!”

I mean, I did notice how heavily he reeked of rejuvenation potions. I remembered it from my dealings with Ferdinand. I also appreciated all the work he was doing to keep the country stable. But what good would giving him the Grutrissheit do? His spirit is already broken, so won’t it just drive him into even more of a corner?

If the man was so overcome with despair that he was ready to let his entire family die, then it was best to keep the Grutrissheit away from him. Letting him have it would mean forcing him to continue serving as the Zent. In his current state, he wouldn’t be able to stomach that burden. Moreover, the magic tool Grutrissheit made by Ferdinand would survive only a single generation. I couldn’t promise to give it to Trauerqual—not when he was at the end of his rope and, at least according to Ferdinand, an absolute failure of a Zent.

“Indeed, I do not know how the king spends his days,” I said. “I only heard that message from him.”

“You act cold, but do you really not care what might happen to Eglantine?” Anastasius asked, his eyes narrowed in displeasure. “Do you not consider her a friend?”

I stared at him quizzically. It had occurred to me way back when Eglantine forced me to circle the shrines that the two of us would never truly be friends, at least not by my standards. She had thrown me under the bus at the slightest inconvenience, so why was Anastasius surprised that I was treating her the same way?

“I care to some degree, but I mostly find this strange. You and Lady Eglantine taught me that royals ‘negotiate’ with their friends by taking someone dear to them hostage and then forcing them to comply. Or am I somehow mistaken?”

I sincerely doubt it. They did the same thing with Ferdinand when they made him choose between killing Sylvester to become the next Aub Ehrenfest and marrying Detlinde. Noble common sense sure can be a headache.

The prince looked stunned. There was bitterness on his face; then he cast his eyes down. “Still, for the sake of our country’s future, you should give someone that Grutrissheit. We need a true Zent now more than ever.”

“Pray tell, how can you harp on about prioritizing Yurgenschmidt over personal circumstances when even the king has chosen to abandon it? He actively refused to protect the foundation with us. I refuse to make anyone who would do such a thing the next Zent.” Their decisions to prioritize Ahrensbach over Ehrenfest and to adopt me into the royal family had apparently been for the sake of preserving Yurgenschmidt, so why couldn’t they step up to defend it now that a real emergency was on our hands?

“Fine.” Anastasius drew his weapon and glanced at his knights. “If my father refuses, then I shall do battle in his stead.”

Having a royal on our side would naturally help our cause, and this was the right thing for a prince to be doing... but should it not have been Sigiswald giving us his support? Was it really okay for Anastasius to stand out like this?

Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Any royal will do for our purposes.

“Prince Anastasius, be sure to cover your mouth with cloth,” I said. “Our opponents are very likely to use Lanzenave’s poison.”

The prince and his guard knights covered their mouths, then leapt into the auditorium. The door swung shut behind them.