Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.10 - Chapter 9

One Man’s Return from the Garden of Beginnings

A man sauntered slowly between the statues of the supreme gods, then stopped. It had to be Gervasio; nobody else would have come from atop the altar. I couldn’t see him very clearly from where we were, so I enhanced my vision.

Is that... an older, silver-haired Ferdinand?! Or does he look more like Erwaermen?

Our new arrival appeared to be comfortably in his forties and wore his long silver hair back. He really did remind me of an older Ferdinand. The two looked so alike that one wouldn’t even need to ask to know they were related. If not for my knowledge of the Adalgisa villa, I might have assumed that Gervasio was Ferdinand’s much older brother, uncle, or even father.

Gervasio stared down at us from the altar, then turned to his main ally. “What in the world is happening here, Raublut?” He must have been waiting for the clamor of our battle to die down. His deep voice, befitting a commander, carried through the entire auditorium, demanding everyone’s attention.

“Aah, King Gervasio!” Raublut threw up his hands and continued in a somewhat performative tone, “I beg of you, reveal your gods-given Grutrissheit here for all to see! Show everyone you have become a true Zent!”

Gervasio extended an arm and chanted, “Grutrissheit.” A bible the same shape as Mestionora’s divine instrument appeared in his hand. That he was standing between the statues of the supreme gods made him look even more like a proper Zent.

“Before us stands a true Zent chosen by the gods!” Raublut declared, brimming with emotion. “The man who will save our country!”

Anastasius and his guards paled. Some of the Sovereign knights erupted in maniacal cheers. But most of the noise came from those looking between Ferdinand and Gervasio.

“Lady Rozemyne... is that Gervasio?” Leonore asked.

“I would assume so. Raublut said it was, at least.”

“He and Lord Ferdinand are related, are they not...?”

“They look very similar, so yes, I would assume they are connected in one way or another. But remember, Leonore—Ferdinand is a member of Ehrenfest’s archducal family.” As far as the public was concerned, I didn’t know anything about his background or the Adalgisa villa. I put on a smile and said, “In any case, his appearance is irrelevant. It does not change what we must do.”

My eyes didn’t move from Gervasio, who was still standing atop the altar. If we let him become the Zent, who knew what he would do to me for stealing Ahrensbach’s foundation, to Ferdinand for getting in the way of his plans, and to Ehrenfest as a whole for killing their ally Georgine?

We should assume that negotiating is out of the question.

The Lanzenavians had already shown their readiness to eliminate anyone who tried to stop them; I doubted they would treat us any better. Gervasio’s men would come in force to steal back Ahrensbach’s foundation, and there was no reason to believe they would spare me; I’d already demolished plenty of their troops, destroyed their ships, freed the women they had kidnapped, and subjugated the Adalgisa villa. If someone had done all that to me and imprisoned everyone in my estate, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them no matter their reasons.

“Indeed, his appearance does not matter,” Leonore replied. Her eyes darted all around the auditorium as she watched the Sovereign knights. “That said, how will we capture him? The knight commander hasn’t moved from the altar. We will need to defeat his Order or launch an attack that can reach beyond them. If we could secure ourselves more troops or find a way to communicate with those outside...”

Something slapped against my wrist. A fey paper airplane. It was a peculiar sight, to be sure, but I quickly recognized it as a message. I made sure to keep a close eye on those around me as I unfolded it, revealing a hastily written note from Ferdinand.

“Use your Grutrissheit and extravagant blessings to draw everyone’s attention. Verdrenna will obstruct the enemy. My side is ready.”

In other words, he wanted me to create a distraction. I discreetly moved the note so that my knights could see it. Leonore glanced at Ferdinand, while Hartmut and Clarissa reached for the pouches containing their fey paper.

I shot my right hand up into the air and shouted, “Grutrissheit!” My own Book of Mestionora appeared moments later.

“What?! Another Grutrissheit?!”

“No, look closely! Hers is too small to be genuine! King Gervasio has the real one!”

“What are you talking about?! Lady Rozemyne’s Grutrissheit is the real one! She opened country gates with it!”

I still needed to reapply the blessings I’d stolen, so I did my best to block out the arguments between the knights of Dunkelfelger and the Sovereignty. Angriff the God of War, Schlagziel the God of Hunting, Steifebrise the Goddess of the Gale, Duldsetzen the Goddess of Endurance, Greifechan the Goddess of Luck... I prayed to them all, one by one. Each time, divine light shot up into the air before raining down on my allies.

“Lady Rozemyne has received the blessings of countless gods,” Hartmut declared, not even attempting to mask his pride. “As the Divine Avatar of Mestionora, she has been tasked with bestowing the Grutrissheit upon the next Zent. She will choose a worthy candidate from among the people of Yurgenschmidt. There is no need for an intruder from Lanzenave to take the throne.”

Hartmut?!

I wasn’t done giving blessings, so I couldn’t do anything to stop him, and my retainers were so used to his drawn-out speeches that he was little more than background noise to them. Their focus was entirely elsewhere. As for everyone else, they were watching Hartmut in a total daze. We had successfully created a distraction.

“As I thought, relegating her to the Sovereign temple will not be enough,” Raublut spat, now wearing a murderous glare. “I must kill her with my own hands.”

“Rozemyne’s retainer is correct—we have no reason to let some foreign menace take the throne!” Anastasius declared. He and his retainers had returned to their senses. “Raublut! You betrayed my father, Yurgenschmidt, and everyone who put their faith in you as the Sovereign knight commander! I shall have your head!”

The prince and his retinue were also on the receiving end of my blessings; they had no trouble knocking aside the Sovereign knights in their path as they advanced on Raublut.

“Ah, of course. It slipped my mind that the gods answer blessings here...” Gervasio muttered, impressed, as he regarded the pillars of light now dotting the auditorium. He held up his bible as if mimicking me, then started to pray in his low, reverberating voice. “O God of War Angriff, of the God of Fire Leidenschaft’s exalted twelve...”

Gervasio’s bible shone with blue light. I couldn’t believe how easily he had succeeded. When I first started as an apprentice shrine maiden, learning the prayers for religious ceremonies had been arduous and immensely time-consuming. The gods’ names were so long and all over the place that I remembered wanting to give them all nicknames out of exasperation.

“Hear my prayer and lend me your divine strength,” Gervasio said. “Grant me the power to smite those who would oppose us.”

A sharp noise rang out as a pillar of blue light shot up into the air. Cheers of adoration arose from Raublut’s knights as Anastasius’s group was stopped in its tracks.

“Hmm. It would appear the gods grant me their blessings as well...” Gervasio said with a smile as he gazed up at the blue pillar. He then started to layer on exactly the same prayers as me, starting with Steifebrise. The advantage we’d secured through the Goddess of Oceans’ ritual was about to be undone.

Worse still, everyone’s gone back to looking at Gervasio. What is Ferdinand even doing?!

Hadn’t he intended to do something while everyone was staring at me? I turned to look at him, but he was nowhere to be seen; I saw only Eckhart fighting back some of the Sovereign knights.

“Hear my— Mmph?!”

Gervasio was interrupted mid prayer by a sudden burst of mana. Several of his charms popped in response.

“Where did that come from?!” Raublut exclaimed. He had been focusing on Anastasius’s group while defending the altar but spun around, his weapon raised, to see where the counterattacks from Gervasio’s charms were headed.

“Geteilt.”

A shield appeared close to the top of the altar. It blocked the attacks from Gervasio’s charms, then vanished to reveal none other than Ferdinand. I didn’t know how he’d managed to make it up there, but I could guess that he’d used Verbergen’s charm while everyone was staring at me.

“You!” Raublut shouted. “When did you get there?!”

Ferdinand didn’t even look at the knight commander; his eyes were focused on Gervasio. He formed a new shield in one hand—a standard technique for knights—and a black water gun in the other, then unleashed a barrage of unrelenting attacks.

“King Gervasio!”

Raublut tried to ascend the altar to intervene, but Clarissa shouted, “Oh no you don’t!” and activated another of her wide-area magic circles. We had already been told to obstruct the enemy with Verdrenna, so I readily swung my schtappe at the fey paper Hartmut had spread out for me.

“Verdrenna’s lightning!” I shouted.

Magic circles spread out near the ceiling before raining lightning down on the Sovereign Knight’s Order. At the same time, another magic circle activated—one put in place by Ferdinand, I assumed—and more lightning fell on the Sovereign knights Eckhart and our Ahrensbach troops were fighting. Cries of agony filled the auditorium, and the wounded knights’ charms fired counters at the circles.

Raublut roared at his troops to use their silver capes to negate the lightning. He threw his own cape over his head to demonstrate, but when he attempted to charge toward Gervasio a second time...

“Ngh!”

Raublut toppled over. I thought it must have been an attack, but apparently not; he reached out a hand and muttered, “What is this? An invisible barrier?!” Not even his silver cape had gotten him through it.

The knight commander was furious to have been denied the privilege of climbing the altar, but I was relieved; as long as he stayed where he was, Ferdinand wouldn’t need to worry about enemy reinforcements. It was hard to imagine him losing a duel against Gervasio when the man wasn’t even a knight.

“So you are Quinta, then...”

Ferdinand took aim and fired straight at Gervasio’s face. His brow didn’t so much as twitch, but the fury behind the attack made it clear that he wasn’t willing to discuss the matter.

Gervasio briskly raised an arm to intercept the shot. Another of his charms popped and launched a counterattack, which Ferdinand simply blocked with his shield.

My own gun had reminded me of a mere toy... but the one Ferdinand was using looked indistinguishable from the real thing. Thin lines of mana blasted Gervasio, bursting his charms in quick succession. He was dispatching them with weak shots so their counterattacks wouldn’t do too much damage.

“Rucken. Geteilt,” Gervasio said, dispelling his Grutrissheit and producing a shield as Ferdinand continued to destroy his charms. “Raublut and Leonzio were correct... We look shockingly alike.”

Ferdinand threw a magic tool in lieu of a response. It went over Gervasio’s raised shield and exploded behind him; there was only so much a normal square shield could achieve when one was fighting alone without guard knights. Gervasio had charms for physical attacks as well, so another counter shot out, but Ferdinand once again blocked it.

“Quinta, do you feel no remorse over the circumstances of your birth?” Gervasio asked quietly. “Have you never felt enraged that such a miserable life was forced upon you? Do you think nothing of Lanzenave’s customs or the fact that you were destined to have a cruel upbringing before you were even born?”

Ferdinand must have had strong thoughts on the matter, but he maintained a stony facade and silently threw a second magic tool. Gervasio blocked it with his shield and continued.

“The boys born in that villa are judged purely by their mana, and those who are to become feystones can never escape that fate. Even those registered into the royal branch family are sent to a foreign country upon coming of age, where they live only to maintain its ivory buildings. This, Quinta... This is the only opportunity we might ever have to end this vicious cycle. Once I take control as the next Zent of Yurgenschmidt, I will put a stop to the madness. No children will be born into that misery. And this country will no longer be subject to the whims of a king who lacks the Grutrissheit.”

Ferdinand gave a scornful chuckle. “You appear to be mistaken. I am not Quinta; I am Ferdinand, an Ehrenfest archduke candidate.”

“You may not remember the villa, which you left at such a young age, but you escaped only because your mother became a feystone in your place. And to take her place, a girl who was supposed to live as a princess was instead...”

Ferdinand must have been furious. He wasn’t letting it show, but he wore the same fake smile I saw whenever he was extremely displeased. “As I said, I am not Quinta. I am Ferdinand.”

“You have your reasons. I understand that,” Ferdinand continued, his glittering smile belying his true feelings. “But who are you to lecture me when you accepted those feystones and used them for Lanzenave? You are an intruder from another land. And now that Yurgenschmidt has the Divine Avatar of Mestionora to bestow the Grutrissheit upon a new Zent, it has no need for an agent of chaos. I will say only this to Lanzenave: curse the name Tollkuehnheit and perish. That, too, will spare future generations the fate of being born in the Adalgisa villa.”

“I see... Enough, then. He who abandoned the villa does not understand our pain. You were born to be a feystone, Quinta, and a feystone you shall become.”

Gervasio threw his shield aside and aimed a silver tube at Ferdinand. It must have contained the same kind of poison that Letizia had used. The instant I saw it, my hands moved on their own.

“Waschen!”

We had expected our foes to once again use poison. I raised my schtappe and blasted the fey paper we had prepared in advance.