Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.2 - Chapter 5

Doing a Little Scheming

“Milady, I wish to be told exactly what you are planning. What do you mean to accomplish by having archduke candidates from other duchies participate in this religious ceremony? We were told nothing of this!” Rihyarda declared immediately upon our return to the Ehrenfest Dormitory. I could tell from the way her eyebrows were raised, her hands were on her hips, and her feet were planted firmly that a lecture was on the horizon—but I hadn’t done anything to warrant one.

“This will only happen with Dunkelfelger’s permission, though,” I said.

“That is not the issue. My reproach is because you did not consult us before making such a significant move.”

“Did the aub not say that research done among students requires neither consultations nor permissions?” I asked, looking at her quizzically. There had to be some kind of misunderstanding at play.

Rihyarda shook her head. “Putting aside the fact that, in your case, you should be seeking such things regardless... I am saying that you should speak with your retainers, who work to your benefit. At the very least, tell us what you are thinking and planning before you take action.”

“But have we not already discussed the ritual to be performed as part of our joint research? I simply proposed that the other duchies take part. We will be doing it either way.”

Indeed, whether those students took part or not, the ritual was still going to be performed.

Rihyarda shook her head again. “Who are you trying to fool, exactly? We have only ever discussed you performing the ritual alone. Why have you suddenly decided to involve archduke candidates from other duchies?”

My retainers were all wearing stern expressions, and none of them argued against Rihyarda. I pursed my lips in dissatisfaction, then put on an exaggerated smile.

“Well, I can tell you one thing: I most certainly did not grow weary of putting up with greedy middle and lesser duchies who seek nothing but personal gain, speak ill of my adoptive family, mock rituals to no end, and refuse to listen to anything I say. Why, that wasn’t it at all.”

“You are rather frustrated, I see... You have gotten much better at concealing your emotions,” Rihyarda muttered, then shook her head in exasperation. “Now, you will need to learn how to keep those emotions from influencing your actions. But in any case, milady—what is your intention, having them participate in the ceremony?”

“If they receive permission from Dunkelfelger, then we will hold a Dedication Ritual here at the Royal Academy.”

“A Dedication Ritual...? As in, the one always performed at the temple around this time?” Philine asked, placing a hand on her cheek as if remembering Hartmut and the others preparing for it.

“Indeed,” I said. “Is there a more fitting ritual to show Dunkelfelger than the one I perform the most in Ehrenfest? I would struggle to fill the chalices myself, so I was racking my brain for an alternative... but with so many helpers, it should be easy.”

“Erm, Lady Rozemyne... is that not stealing mana from the archduke candidates of other duchies?” Gretia asked timorously. My other retainers paled as well.

I met her gaze and gave a refined cackle. “Oh my. Mind your phrasing there, Gretia. There will be no stealing. The participants will all be good-natured individuals who were so eager to assist us that they pleaded with Dunkelfelger for the privilege. They will be offering their mana out of the goodness of their hearts. It would be rude to call that theft, would it not? And I am sure the royal family will be pleased to see so many archduke candidates eager to help.”

I wasn’t forcing anyone to participate. Anyone who took issue with the ritual shouldn’t have asked to join in the first place.

“Lady Rozemyne, where exactly is the royal family going to be involved in this?” Laurenz asked, looking like he had just heard something extremely ominous. Theodore was bobbing his head in agreement, looking like he wanted to run away; both of them were evidently afraid of the royal family.

“We will need their permission to use the Royal Academy’s shrine, will we not? Furthermore, even if our participants have agreed to help, it would be in poor taste for me to use everyone’s mana for myself when the country is in such dire straits. That is why I intend to allow the royal family to use it all as they see fit.”

I was confident that the mana-deprived royal family would rejoice over an offering from such a large crowd of archduke candidates. Having their gratitude would also keep our participants from complaining.

After listening to my explanation with a frown, Matthias nodded, his blue eyes now carrying a certain thoughtfulness. “Do you think Dunkelfelger is likely to give these students permission after refusing so many others? The opinions of greater duchies cannot be changed so easily.”

I curved my lips into a grin. “I am sure that those from Dunkelfelger will be a little more open to the idea—after I suggest that they only accept those who play them at ditter, of course. It can only work to their advantage, as they wish to both investigate the ritual and face more opponents.”

“In other words, you mean to sacrifice our so-called ‘good-natured participants’ to Dunkelfelger...” Matthias said in a daze.

“Tut, tut. More poor phrasing. Those students will simply be proving their fervent desire to join our research. I’m certainly not thinking about how this will save me from having to find another ritual, nor how they will spare me the trouble of dealing with Dunkelfelger. No, not at all.”

“They will also be providing more opportunities for us to research Dunkelfelger’s ditter rituals,” Leonore added with a smile, having been convinced that this was in our best interests. “Why, they are so passionate and willing to help that I can hardly believe it. I am entirely in favor of Lady Rozemyne’s suggestion.”

Matthias sighed and then muttered, “I’ll admit, we wouldn’t want to have to play ditter over and over again...”

Dunkelfelger was a greater duchy with a very large population, so all of our duchy’s apprentice knights had to come together whenever we faced them at ditter. That was all well and good for the occasional game, but it would become increasingly problematic if we had to play against them repeatedly and under varying conditions. Wilfried’s and Charlotte’s guard knights would need to be mobilized too.

“Dunkelfelger will get to explore its ritual and play ditter, I will receive the assistance I need for my ceremony, the royal family will receive a boon of mana... and finally, the lesser and middle duchies will get to participate in our joint research. Sure, the participants may find themselves stretched thin between dealing with Dunkelfelger and having audiences with the royal family, and they may struggle more when trying to use their mana during classes, but is this not a glorious idea that benefits all parties?”

My retainers gave uncomfortable looks, like they agreed and disagreed at the same time.

“You have listed a lot of advantages for others, Lady Rozemyne, but what do you gain from this personally?”

“I would say that not having to play more ditter with Dunkelfelger is enough... but, in truth, there is something else I seek. I cannot reveal any more than that, but let me just say this: if the royal family approves, then we will gain tremendously.”

And so, I wrote to Dunkelfelger and to Hildebrand. I’d selected the third prince specifically because I was asking to use the Royal Academy’s facilities, and I figured that he was more likely to give me permission than Anastasius.

In my letters, I made sure to cover all the important details: that there were many who wished to join our research, what Dunkelfelger would gain from forcing them to play ditter first, that it was in our best interests to have more people witness Ehrenfest’s Dedication Ritual, how the mana obtained would be given to the royal family, and that I wanted to use the shrine within the Farthest Hall.

“I will need to hear more first,” came a response. “Come to my villa tomorrow afternoon.”

I sent the letter to Prince Hildebrand, but Anastasius replied... It just doesn’t make sense.

In the end, I was summoned to Anastasius’s villa once again. My request was only to borrow the shrine in the Farthest Hall, so I was relatively fine about going—but that soon changed when I actually arrived. As well as Hannelore and her retainers, our two dormitory supervisors had been called. This joint research project among students had suddenly turned into a big hullabaloo.

“Now, Rozemyne—tell us exactly what you intend to do,” Anastasius demanded with a glare, seeming exceedingly on guard. “Hide nothing.”

I described our joint research project and explained my intentions for Ehrenfest’s ritual. Naturally, I made sure to emphasize that the royal family would benefit considerably.

After listening to my explanation, Anastasius placed a hand on his forehead before looking between Hannelore and me. “Why do the both of you always turn small matters into large ones?”

“The both of us?” I repeated.

Hannelore looked down at her feet, embarrassed. “I, um... caused a bit of a fuss and troubled the royal family.”

As it turned out, while researching their ritual, Dunkelfelger had ended up creating a massive pillar of light. The royal family had received a lot of questions about the strange event, though I had to wonder—had it resulted from Hannelore and the others trying to recreate the ritual that I’d performed...?

“That... is my fault, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Not at all. We experimented with offering our mana as you did, Lady Rozemyne, and with changing the spear into various forms. The result was, as you now know, that tremendous light, which formed even in our dormitory. We are entirely to blame.”

They had apparently separated into two teams to perform the pre-ditter ritual in the training grounds built next to their dormitory. It really spoke to their extravagant wealth as a greater duchy.

Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Dunkelfelger will do anything or spend any amount of mana for the sake of getting stronger.

“We had many duchies come to us yesterday asking to participate in our joint research,” said Rauffen, their dormitory supervisor. A broad smile then spread across his face. “First you lit a fire under everyone with A Ditter Story and a ritual for obtaining real blessings, and now you’ve given us a mountain of opponents. I can’t thank you enough, Lady Rozemyne. Your reputation in our dormitory shot up all at once; we threw a huge celebration last night in your honor.”

Yeah, I don’t really want a reputation like that, thanks.

I’d been hoping that the wave of new challengers would slow Dunkelfelger down a little, but they had welcomed them all without even breaking a sweat. In fact, now they were inviting other duchies to participate too.

“If you intend to play ditter after receiving blessings from the gods, then perhaps you should allow the other duchies to group together into teams,” I said. “Plus, if you demonstrate the strength that can be obtained through rituals, they might take religious ceremonies more seriously henceforth.” It would be just like how I’d told Ehrenfest’s apprentice knights to learn from Dunkelfelger and earn blessings on their own.

“Hm.”

“Erm, rather... won’t it be way more exciting for Dunkelfelger if your opponents are stronger too?”

“INDEED!”

Rauffen was clearly enthusiastic, though our conversation began to simmer down now that we were in agreement. It was then that Hannelore nervously spoke up.

“We are fine with letting these other duchies participate, as Dunkelfelger benefits as well, but will there not be too many names to credit? My brother said their contributions will hardly be meaningful.”

I personally disagreed with that last statement, since they were going to be participating in the Dedication Ritual and playing ditter, but that still meant very little to Dunkelfelger.

Playing ditter and performing rituals come as naturally as breathing to Dunkelfelgerians. It makes sense that they don’t consider them worthy of credit.

We needed some kind of compromise—something that would ease Dunkelfelger’s concerns that the other duchies weren’t doing enough while simultaneously appeasing those who wanted credit. Now that I thought about it, however, I’d only extended invitations for people to participate in the ritual. There hadn’t been any promises of them being credited; they had convinced themselves of that.

After some thought, I pointed a finger in the air and smiled. “In that case, how about we list them as helpers at the end of the research announcement? We can list the names of the apprentice knights who answered our questionnaire and the archduke candidates and archnobles who assisted with the ritual, while the joint research itself remains between Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest. Everyone should be satisfied with that.”

“W-Well...” Hannelore examined me carefully for a moment, then nodded. “That will do, I suppose. I am sure my brother will agree too.”

“Please tell Lord Lestilaut to do his best with his classes; we must wait for him to finish before we can start the ritual.”

“It should not be long now. He has been working especially hard to impress you with his speed,” Hannelore said with a wry smile, remarking on how her brother was blazing through his classes. He was apparently due to finish at about the same time he had finished last year—a remarkable feat given that he was now a sixth-year.

“Well, consider me surprised. I did not think he had it in him. Do contact me when your ditter games with the other duchies are over and you have decided on our participants for the ritual.”

“You can count on me!” came an unexpected interjection from Rauffen. Hannelore and I glanced at him, then shrugged in unison.

Anastasius cleared his throat. “Rozemyne, regarding your request... You may not know this, but the shrine in the Farthest Hall is managed by the Sovereign temple.”

I was already aware of that fact; after all, the Sovereign temple was responsible for performing both the Starbind Ceremony at the Archduke Conference and the Royal Academy’s coming-of-age ceremony.

“You will need their permission to use the Academy’s divine instruments,” Anastasius continued, “but it seems they are fairly busy at the moment.”

“Yes, the Dedication Ritual is surely underway around this time,” I replied.

The Sovereign temple had scraped together the blue priests and shrine maidens with the most mana from all sorts of duchies, so it probably wasn’t struggling as much as Ehrenfest. At the same time, though, it was possible that it had more chalices to fill.

“In that case,” I continued, “I will take what we need from Ehrenfest. Could we at least borrow the room with the shrine? I want our participants to understand they are praying to the gods.”

“You may—as long as you do not touch the shrine itself.”

“I am grateful,” I replied, but then something occurred to me. “U-Um, but if we cannot touch the shrine, then we won’t be able to take down the chalices to fill them with mana, will we? How will we get around that? Could you make an exception for that one case?”

We could always get Ehrenfest to send over a mana-conducting carpet, but unless we could actually move the chalices, we wouldn’t be able to offer our mana.

“No, no. We must accept that our hands are tied.”

“I suppose I can just make a chalice with my schtappe, so that won’t be a problem, but...”

“You can?!” Anastasius exclaimed, wide-eyed.

I could indeed; one of the spells that I’d come across in the underground archive had outlined the process clearly.

“However,” I continued, “the royal family will not be able to bring my chalice back to the Sovereignty. You will either need to learn to make chalices yourselves, or you will need to bring an abundance of empty feystones.”

It would be far quicker for the royal family to make chalices with their schtappes, but creating divine instruments was only doable if you’d frequently channeled mana into them. It would also be impossible to make chalices without touching the shrine, and maintaining them would require an exceedingly large amount of mana—more than the royal family could spare, I assumed. For those reasons, perhaps the feystone approach was more reasonable.

Anastasius heaved a tired sigh; the royal family had apparently been convinced that they would need to pass on this generous offering of mana, as they didn’t expect the Sovereign temple to allow it. “So, in other words, if we are unable to borrow the divine instruments, we can fashion chalices ourselves or move the mana from your chalice using empty feystones. You certainly know many underhanded tricks, Rozemyne.”

I cackled. “You can thank my teacher.”

Anastasius put a hand on his forehead again. “To be frank, the windfall mana you are providing through this Dedication Ritual will be of tremendous help to us.”

“I am glad to hear it. I would like the royal family to participate as well, but will that be possible?”

“You wish for us to participate?” Anastasius asked, again surprised.

I gave a solemn nod. By having them take the lead, we could make it all the more difficult for other duchies to back out. Plus, the royal family needed divine protections, and the more opportunities they had to pray seriously, the better.

“Am I right to assume that this conflict with the Sovereign temple has prevented the royal family from engaging in any true religious ceremonies?” I asked. “Praying together improves the flow of mana and makes it easier to receive blessings, so why not join us? Of course, you are by no means obliged to.”

“I... shall think about it.”

Thus concluded the groundwork for the ritual.

After receiving a scolding from Hirschur, who told me not to interrupt her research with such pointless summons again, I returned to the dormitory and reported back to Ehrenfest. I explained the sequence of events that had resulted in our plan to perform a Dedication Ritual with the royal family, then asked them to send over a mana-conducting carpet, offerings to the gods, my ceremonial High Bishop robes, and my siblings’ ceremonial robes, among other things.

“Charlotte and I are joining too?” Wilfried asked.

“Indeed. If we all perform together and in the same way, then we can eradicate one negative rumor contributing to our father’s bad reputation. This is going to be your first time joining me for the Dedication Ritual, but the process is the same as channeling mana into the foundational magic. I have no doubts that you will succeed on your first attempt, so please try to act as though you have done it all a hundred times before.”

They both nodded in response.

“Lady Rozemyne, a reply from Ehrenfest has arrived.”

According to the letter, our situation here in the Royal Academy had blown so far out of proportion that Florencia had fainted upon reading my report. A note written in Sylvester’s hand specified two things: that they would be sending everything we needed, and that we weren’t to fail under any circumstances now that the royal family was involved.

Incidentally, also included was a letter from Hartmut. He had apparently cried bitter tears upon reading Clarissa’s report and was once again bemoaning the fact that he had graduated “too soon.” His handwriting was a little, er, intense. He had written so forcefully that the lines were all shaky, and each word was practically engraved in the page.

“I’m actually kind of afraid to return to Ehrenfest now...” Leonore muttered. “Hartmut is going to be an enormous pain, I’m sure.”

I sent a response to Hartmut, explaining my plan to have all of my adult retainers redo their divine protections ceremonies and noting that he would want to memorize the gods’ names and pray to them daily in preparation. I thought that having something to do would raise his spirits, but Judithe was unconvinced.

“Hartmut will complete that task in no time,” she said. “Perhaps you should also ask him to help Angelica memorize the names. That should keep him busy all winter.”

Philine’s face turned a shade paler. “Won’t that just put more of a burden on Damuel...?”

“Ah,” Judithe squeaked, then laughed. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“N-No, he w-won’t!”

As my retainers continued to chatter, the corners of my lips curved into a warm smile. It was nice to see them acting like such good friends.

Indeed, for the first time in a while, I was truly at peace.