Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-2 - Chapter 11

Justus — An Aged Board and a New Letter

Description: An unpublished short story from the online collection that takes place between Part 4 Volume 9 and Part 5 Volume 1. Eckhart and Justus are managing luggage in Ahrensbach. They dispose of an old message in Justus’s hand—though he doesn’t remember writing it—and start their new lives in a new duchy. A response is written to Rozemyne’s letter.

Author’s Note: I was told that if I wanted to write some kind of follow-up to the series, I would need to start the foreshadowing sooner rather than later. I spent a lot of time debating whether or not I should write this before lumping it in with the other short stories posted online. Its contents might stand out for not being resolved in the main series.

Because guest chambers didn’t have their own hidden rooms, important items had to be stored inside magic lockboxes instead. I took out one such box and moved to put away what Lord Ferdinand had given me.

“Eckhart, take this,” I said, tossing him an old board as I tried to make room. “It’s in the way.”

Eckhart caught it and sighed. “Can’t believe its prediction came true.” The wood had aged and darkened to the point that the ink was hard to read, but I could still just barely make it out.

“Lord Ferdinand seems destined to get engaged to the next Aub Ahrensbach and leave Ehrenfest. What a relief!”

I recognized the handwriting as my own. The problem was, I couldn’t remember writing it.

From what I could piece together, I must have penned the note during a certain three-day endeavor when my lord attended the Royal Academy—not that I remembered much about it. Lord Ferdinand, Eckhart, and even Dunkelfelger’s apprentice knights could scarcely recall the details.

We had only remembered the three days in question when we’d compared the date we’d departed on an ingredient hunt to the day we’d returned, and the information we knew about them had come from stories others had told us. We had apparently collected all the ingredients we needed over those three days and made sure they were perfectly organized when we came to.

Dunkelfelger’s apprentices had gotten over things almost at once, content that they’d acquired the ingredients they wanted, but Lord Ferdinand had a compulsion to investigate anything he found curious. He had started to search for any clues that could guide him to the truth but eventually reached a dead end; all we found were the ingredients, and some boards written in his hand and mine.

“We really were relieved to find this board, but...”

“Yeah,” Eckhart said, having understood what I was getting at. “Heidemarie was beyond excited. She kept going on about how Lord Ferdinand would be able to escape Ehrenfest.” He wore a dry smile as he gazed off into the distance.

As our lord had grown older, the previous archduke had been bedridden on a more regular basis, which had led to Lady Veronica’s abuse becoming more severe each time Lord Ferdinand came first-in-class.

“That was why she proposed to me in the first place,” Eckhart continued. “She wanted to come with us when we went.”

It was rare for single retainers who weren’t the same sex as their lord or lady to move with their charge when the latter moved away for marriage. Among knights and attendants, those of the same sex would inevitably be chosen, while scholars generally weren’t allowed to go at all due to their knowledge and mastery of magic tools. Eckhart and I would probably have been selected to move with Lord Ferdinand, but Heidemarie wouldn’t have, so she had planned to marry Eckhart and go with him as his wife. I still remembered Lord Ferdinand putting on a wry smile when he found out and saying that he wasn’t surprised.

“She put Lord Ferdinand above absolutely everything else,” Eckhart said.

“You had that in common, didn’t you?”

I’d always seen Eckhart and Heidemarie as two peas in a pod. They both put Lord Ferdinand above everything else and regularly competed to see who was more impressive and more useful to him. On such occasions, they’d gotten me to serve as the judge. It was a pain.

We really were glad to find this board.

Lord Ferdinand had enjoyed relative freedom in the Royal Academy, but the Dunkelfelger archduke candidate he had thought about marrying was instead engaged to a member of the royal family. He hadn’t had a choice but to return to Ehrenfest.

As much as Lord Ferdinand managed to raise Ehrenfest’s rank, at least to a certain degree, the aub was still on his deathbed, and our neutral position in the civil war kept us invariably low compared to other duchies. Anyone could see that an archduke candidate without a mother wouldn’t have a support base to depend upon once the aub was out of the picture, and that made our lord an undesirable candidate for marriage. Despite his talents, no duchy had wished to accept him as a groom, and no woman had wanted to marry into Ehrenfest when he seemed destined to lose his status.

It was for those reasons that my written message had given us so much hope, though it hadn’t made much sense at the time. For that future to come to pass, Aub Ahrensbach would need to bestow power upon a woman for Lord Ferdinand to marry. Even if the aub climbed the towering stairway in short order, there were two male archduke candidates primed to take his place.

The youngest daughter of Ahrensbach’s first wife—Lady Letizia’s mother—had attended the Royal Academy at the same time as Lord Ferdinand, but she had graduated without ever meeting him.

The time had eventually come for Lord Ferdinand to graduate. During his stay in the temple, we had clung to this board as our last hope, but Ahrensbach had made no moves in our direction, so we had needed to conclude that the information was false.

“If only it hadn’t come true now, of all times...” I said.

“There was no helping it,” Eckhart replied. “Rozemyne has brought Ehrenfest much higher than it used to be.”

Rozemyne was an unusual child, possessing as much beauty as Lord Ferdinand and enough mana to enter his workshop. She was also a very rare case of someone Lord Ferdinand trusted despite not having her name stone.

“Even I needed to give him my name to earn his trust,” Eckhart grumbled. I couldn’t help but laugh in response; Rozemyne was too strange to warrant such a comparison.

“Commoners don’t have facades as we nobles do. They wouldn’t be able to hide something even if they tried. Lord Ferdinand probably trusts her precisely because it’s always obvious what she’s thinking. Not to mention, I’ve heard that he synchronized with her. That must have been when he concluded that he could trust her.”

On that occasion, Lord Ferdinand had connected with Lady Rozemyne’s emotions and searched through her memories. I couldn’t think of any other time he might have made up his mind about her, though I remembered he had looked completely exhausted afterward.

Eckhart contemplated my response, then gave me a slight smirk. “That reminds me—at first, Lord Ferdinand asked me what I would think about taking an apprentice blue shrine maiden as a concubine. He said that I could care for a commoner if my intention was still not to take another wife. That was before the synchronization, mind you. After, he went to Father about adopting her. I remember being surprised by how suddenly his intentions changed.”

“Hah! He said that if not for my divorce, he would have told me to adopt her.”

“Yeah, it’s because you’re unmarried that he went to Father instead. Though before I knew it, she was baptized as their actual daughter instead, making her my little sister.”

Even in retrospect, it was hard to believe how things had turned out. I would never have predicted that a commoner girl would be baptized as a noble, adopted by the archduke, and then made the new High Bishop before returning Lord Ferdinand to noble society.

Still, it was thanks to Lady Rozemyne stirring up the temple that we’d managed to rid ourselves of Lady Veronica and rescue Lord Ferdinand. We had thought our lord would never be free for as long as Lady Veronica drew breath, so our shock had exceeded even our joy at his return.

From there, Lady Rozemyne had used her authority in the temple and as the aub’s adopted daughter to continue protecting Lord Ferdinand. She had stated that scholars who had questions for him could simply visit the temple, reducing how frequently he was summoned, and decreased his workload as the High Priest by saying that he needed to train successors.

“In any case, it wasn’t something that you or I could ever have done,” I said.

“Yeah. We can advise him as much as we want, but Lord Ferdinand always has the final say with us. Rozemyne can use her authority to force the issue. You’d consider it more foolish than brave, but it was exactly what Lord Ferdinand needed.”

Rozemyne had even argued with the aub in her bout to protect our lord. There were few things I wouldn’t do for Lord Ferdinand, but she went to lengths that would make me hesitate.

“I wonder where her bold personality comes from...”

“Must be in her nature. Lord Ferdinand said she forced her way into the temple by Crushing the former High Bishop, remember?”

A regular commoner would almost certainly have been too scared to go to such extreme lengths. They would succumb to the burden of living as a noble and find it even harder to act as one. Rozemyne, though, was far from normal. After her pre-baptism training, she’d changed the way she acted and her manner of speaking in the blink of an eye, and now she fully looked the part. Her behavior was perfect for a young lady of her status, and she hadn’t thought twice about negotiating with the aub.

“She still thinks like a commoner and acts in incomprehensible ways, but I think Lord Ferdinand appreciates those parts of her too. After all... there’s little else that can surprise or even challenge him.”

Lord Ferdinand had described Rozemyne as a constant source of trouble despite her being so sickly that she could die if not properly attended to. Still, he always looked content when he heard that she had carried out a task without her health getting the better of her, and seeing them interact in the temple made it clear that she added some much-needed variety to his life.

“I doubted my ears the first time Lord Ferdinand said they were close,” Eckhart began. “Then I saw her fussing over his move to Ahrensbach and realized it was true.”

“Commoners attach far more value to family than we nobles do. She must have treated him the same way that her lower-city family treated her back in the day.”

Never had Lord Ferdinand been cherished by a complete stranger whose name he didn’t possess. He also found it nearly impossible to accept acts of kindness without reading into them. As someone who had stood by him for years, I could see just how much he cherished Rozemyne in turn, but he was still completely unaware of those emotions.

“He always acted for the duchy or the aub—never for his own benefit,” Eckhart mused. “If only he had stayed in Ehrenfest and spent his days in peace.”

“But now we’re here. And we’ll never go back to Ehrenfest.”

I took out a knife and started scraping the letters from the front of the board. My writing fell away with the shavings. I readied the board to be written on again, then gathered together and incinerated the leavings.

“Hopefully nothing happens to Rozemyne,” Eckhart continued. “She has her charms, but if she encounters a problem she cannot solve alone, something tells me Lord Ferdinand will rush to her rescue.”

“She has Hartmut. He found out she was a commoner through his own investigation and still managed to keep it a secret. I don’t think she has much to worry about.”

Rozemyne had a retainer who used conversations in the orphanage and with merchants to learn truly sensitive information, then had the common sense to approach Lord Ferdinand about what to do next. On top of that, her noble family was on excellent terms—perhaps not compared to her commoner family, but it was close by noble standards, for sure. Lord Wilfried, although unreliable, was far more mature than other children his age.

“I’m more worried about Lord Ferdinand,” I said. “From this point forward, he’s going to start noticing the loss of the girl he unconsciously depended on. It might have eased the pain if Lady Letizia served as her replacement, but that won’t happen; she’s a purebred noble through and through. At most, she might earn some surface-level trust. She won’t be another Lady Rozemyne.”

“And it isn’t even worth mentioning Lady Detlinde,” Eckhart said, his expression hardening.

Lady Detlinde looked down on Lord Ferdinand because he was from a low-ranked duchy and the child of an unknown mistress. The look on her face when she’d told him to be useful to her had reminded me of Lady Veronica when she’d declared that he needed to repay the aub for taking him in. It had made me more disgusted than I could put into words.

Lord Ferdinand had at least found some peace when Lady Detlinde departed for the Royal Academy. It seemed to me that having someone so similar to Lady Veronica around had placed a heavy burden on his heart. We would make it through winter, but Lady Detlinde was due to graduate this year; I wasn’t sure how he would manage when she was with him at all times.

I couldn’t help but worry about the future.

“Justus, a letter from Raimund has arrived,” Sergius said, having approached us with a slim tube. “It would seem that a letter from Lady Rozemyne of Ehrenfest has been included.”

Lord Ferdinand glanced up from his work and said, “I doubt they contain anything urgent.” Then he returned his attention to his desk. “Sergius, read them first and draft a response. You may ask Justus for how to reply to Rozemyne.”

“Understood.”

The fact that the tube was unsealed told us it had already been inspected. I joined Sergius in scanning the letter from Raimund—a dissection of a magic tool currently in production and several questions about it. Rozemyne’s letter comprised uninteresting chitchat and a list of worries about Lord Ferdinand.

“I’ve arrived at the Royal Academy. Thanks to your cramming lessons, I once again passed my classes the first time around. Aren’t I something?”

This really was deserving of high praise. Rozemyne was on another level for being able to keep up with the study schedule Lord Ferdinand had thrust upon her. She had complained about it the entire time, but succeeded nonetheless.

“We should include praise from Lord Ferdinand in response to this section,” Sergius said. “Justus, how would Lord Ferdinand praise her?”

“Well, she passed every class, so a ‘very good’ should suffice.”

“And...? Do not tell me that is all.”

“That is all. At times, he expresses his approval by saying ‘well done,’ ‘not bad,’ or ‘as I expected,’ but as this is quite the accomplishment, Lady Rozemyne should receive his highest praise. He will take the same approach with Lady Letizia, so please inform her retainers not to misinterpret his meaning.”

“Is that really all the praise he gives?” Sergius muttered, dazed.

One could never expect fervent praise from Lord Ferdinand. Asking for anything else would only prompt him to repeat what the previous aub had said to him. I continued reading the letter.

“A new librarian was assigned to the library, so I think I can finally spend this year in Professor Hirschur’s laboratory without any reservations. The lab was so dirty and cluttered that I ended up cleaning it with my retainers. I kind of enjoyed it, since it felt as though I’d become its personal librarian. Professor Hirschur told me you used to do the same thing and that we’re very much alike.”

Lord Ferdinand had only organized Professor Hirschur’s documents so he wouldn’t lose his own in the mess. Rozemyne, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the actual process of cleaning.

“Justus, how should we respond to this section?”

“Hmm... Lord Ferdinand would probably instruct her not to obstruct Professor Hirschur’s research with her antics.”

“So now she’s being rebuked...?” Sergius asked, no less taken aback. Lord Ferdinand always made such remarks to her, so I considered it safe to continue that trend.

Rozemyne’s letter went on to voice words of concern for Lord Ferdinand.

“Are you sleeping enough? Eating enough? Are you working so hard that you’re surviving on potions again? Seeing the laboratory has made me uneasy. Remember—your health comes first!”

That was Rozemyne for you. She was digging in enough that Lord Ferdinand would surely grimace.

Sergius gave me a troubled look. “How should we respond to this, Justus? We cannot simply state the truth, can we?”

“Lord Ferdinand might put more thought into resolving the situation if we show him the letter ourselves and state our intention to write our own responses if he does not start eating and sleeping on a more regular basis,” I said. “We can leave this section to him.”

I couldn’t wait to see how Lord Ferdinand would try to deceive Rozemyne—she was surprisingly sharp when it came to these matters. It seemed that today, at least, he would need to eat and sleep as a regular person would.

I continued the letter, grinning.

“That reminds me—you held a harspiel concert in Ahrensbach, didn’t you? Lady Detlinde bragged during the fellowship gathering that you gifted her a rather passionate love song dedicated to Geduldh. I am interested to hear your side of the story. Please send me a detailed report when you can.”

A... passionate love song dedicated to Geduldh?

“She must mean the newest song he played,” Sergius said. “As one would expect, women love to be serenaded. Lady Detlinde was overjoyed, and all the other ladies in the audience were enraptured. Lord Ferdinand’s wonderful harspiel playing has not diminished in the least.”

It was only then that I realized what had happened: the song of hometown nostalgia Rozemyne had given Lord Ferdinand had been misinterpreted as a passionate love song.