Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-2 - Chapter 6

Raimund — Duchy and Mentor Relations

Description: A sales bonus story for Part 4 Volume 6, set around when Rozemyne went to Hirschur’s laboratory for the first time. This story elaborates on how Raimund’s meeting with Rozemyne led to his apprenticeship with Ferdinand.

Author’s Note: How does an archduke candidate surrounded by guard knights appear to a mednoble from another duchy? How do her actions become the basis for their decision-making? These are the questions I tried to answer with this story. I also made sure to sprinkle in some family circumstances and details about the Ahrensbach Dormitory.

“You. What is your name?”

“Huh...? Um, Raimund.”

I met Professor Hirschur a year ago, during one of my second-year brewing classes. Professor Gundolf, the man who usually led our practicals, had ended up being too busy to attend, so Professor Hirschur had made an exception and covered the class for him. I remembered every detail of that first encounter, down to the glint in the eye behind her monocle.

It wasn’t rare for classrooms to merge and professors to be replaced when socializing season began and the year’s final exams drew near. I’d never taken any of Professor Hirschur’s classes before then, so I wondered what business someone who usually taught other grades could possibly have with me.

“You might only be a second-year, but you’ve taken an interest in improving magic circles and simplifying magic tools. Is that correct?”

“Yes, um... Though it embarrasses me to admit it, I don’t have as much mana as the average mednoble. My hope is to use simplification to make magic tools that require less mana.”

Written lessons were easy for me, but I couldn’t say the same for practicals. During any class that required the use of mana, I seemed to run dry before we were even halfway done. The flow of my mana was poor, at best, and when we had to brew, I spent most of the lesson drinking rejuvenation potions and waiting for them to serve their purpose. It only made sense to devote that downtime to studying magic circles.

Professor Hirschur picked up my notes on simplification and read them thoroughly. She placed a contemplative hand on her chin, looked up into the air, and then grinned.

“You seem to have a talent for this. Would you like to become my disciple?”

A stir ran through everyone in earshot, and a sea of shocked eyes came to rest on Professor Hirschur and me. I couldn’t blame them for reacting that way—these kinds of opportunities were never extended to bottom-level mednobles. Even if I’d gone from professor to professor, asking them to take me as their disciple, they would all surely have turned me away in favor of students more likely to be brought into the Sovereignty.

She’s making fun of me, right? If she actually made me her disciple, everyone else would lash out at me in jealousy. What a pain.

I gazed up at Professor Hirschur, expecting the worst, but I saw not a hint of mockery in her purple eyes. It was the first time someone had ever genuinely acknowledged me; my mana was so underwhelming that not even my own family expected me to amount to anything. Unless I seized this opportunity here and now, I would spend the rest of my days completely unnoticed.

My mind screamed at me to act.

“Yes, please! I would love to!”

“Welcome to my lab,” Professor Hirschur announced. “Pass your final exams and you may use it as you please. The nationwide mana shortage has done much to increase the demand for more efficient magic tools.”

My first response to the laboratory was one of surprise—it was more cluttered than I could ever have imagined—but I quickly came to appreciate its strengths. I could write my thoughts as they came to me and set them down without having to fear my attendant trashing them the moment I turned my back. I could study nonstop until sixth bell rang. It really was a peaceful place to work.

If only she’d give me proper answers to my questions.

Professor Hirschur wasn’t one to hold my hand; she’d point to documents and tell me to find my own answers. Basic questions would earn me basic answers, and anything more complex than that would quickly turn into a lesson on how to figure things out on my own.

“I refuse to answer not out of apathy but because a researcher must know how to find what they seek,” she would say. “I wish to raise you to the point that you can debate about research.”

Professor Hirschur wouldn’t deny that the mess in her lab was the product of her own laziness, but she refused to say the same about her teaching methods. The opposite was true, she claimed—the lessons she tried to teach me were all the result of careful consideration.

In truth, not even the professor’s laboratory was as it seemed. Though it appeared to be a mountain of garbage, it was actually replete with magic tools I’d never seen or heard of before. Even the small closet of sorts to the side of the brewing room was packed with tools and documents.

“You may research the magic tools here as you please,” Professor Hirschur said. “Many of them demand excessive amounts of mana to use and will therefore be perfect for your goals. These two are safe—they’re meant for recording and far-sight, respectively—but take care not to touch the others without at least a basic understanding of their purpose. Many of the tools here are dangerous and meant for combat.”

“Did you say one was for ‘recording’?” I asked. “How does it work?”

“Do you remember the magic tool that I use during my lessons? The one that shows students their brewing instructions? It is an advanced form of that, able to record moving objects and then display them again. Hm... This was the first prototype, if memory serves.”

It... records moving objects?

The tool used during Professor Hirschur’s lessons recorded written text and projected it over and over again onto white cloth. It seemed pretty useful to me, but none of the other professors had one. I’d never expected a more advanced version to exist.

“If that’s just a prototype, is the finished product here too?” I gazed across the mountain of magic tools. They were in such a heap that I couldn’t tell what was what.

“It’s bound to be somewhere, but...” Professor Hirschur gestured to the clutter around us. “I haven’t touched it in years, so I doubt you’ll find it anytime soon.”

“You haven’t? Why not, when it has so much utility?” I couldn’t believe she had abandoned such a useful and original magic tool.

“Everything that boy made was an atrocious mana guzzler. I wish to advance my own research, so I do not have the mana to spare for it.”

“‘That boy’?”

“My other disciple, Ferdinand of Ehrenfest. He had quite the mind for inventing new magic tools, and the talent to see them actually made. It was a terrible shame that I could not bring him to the Sovereignty. His being an archduke candidate meant my hands were tied.”

My interest was piqued. This man, who had attended the Royal Academy over a decade ago, had apparently taken the scholar and archduke candidate courses at the same time. He had approached the development of magic tools with immense passion and devised one completely original creation after another.

“Professor, where did Lord Ferdinand put his documentation when designing this tool...?”

“An apprentice scholar put the paperwork together, but Lord Ferdinand probably kept it. I suspect all that remains here are things he wondered about but quickly lost interest in and notes simple enough for him to put together on his own.”

“I really hope to read them someday... Lord Ferdinand’s documents, I mean. I’d also like to speak with him, so I can ask how he comes up with his ideas.”

A smile crept onto Professor Hirschur’s face as she began stacking books and documents. “His papers and magic circles would all be too much for you as you are now. Strive to be able to parse and improve upon his work, but start by studying the basics.”

From that point onward, I spent almost all of my time studying. I’d never read so many books before, and the volumes Professor Hirschur lent me contained an astonishing amount of knowledge. Under normal circumstances, books this rare and valuable couldn’t be borrowed without some manner of collateral. For someone as poor as I was, even borrowing from the library was a challenge.

On top of that kindness, when the academic term ended and it came time for me to return home, Professor Hirschur loaded me with assignments to get through before the next winter and documents to help me understand them. I’d never been so glad to have homework in my life.

Upon returning to Ahrensbach, I devoured the documents and solved the assignments given to me in quick succession. I told my family I’d found a mentor at the Royal Academy and that I one day hoped to move to the Sovereignty, then devoted myself to my studies. They seemed to be at a loss for words, but the documents I showed them were clear enough evidence that I was speaking the truth.

I continued to learn from the resources my mentor had given me, examined the magic tools that apprentices used and the magic circles engraved on them, and contemplated ways to simplify them as much as I could. My entire world had changed in what felt like the blink of an eye. It didn’t even bother me when my family said that I didn’t have enough mana to move to the Sovereignty—I was devoting my all to what I truly loved to do.

Soon enough, I came to resent the passage of time. I was so absorbed in my work that meals and sleep became inconveniences more than anything else. For the first time in my life, I truly understood what it meant to be fulfilled.

At the start of the next academic term, I returned to the Academy as a third-year and gave back the texts Professor Hirschur had allowed me to borrow. I completed my written lessons as quickly as I could to maximize my time in the laboratory and then got straight to experimenting. My aim was to produce more efficient magic tools, and to that end, I dissected complex circles and simplified them by organizing them into separate processes. The knowledge I’d absorbed from countless books served me well, and the time seemed to fly with how much fun I was having.

I wanted these days to carry on forever. And yet, change came in the form of Lady Rozemyne, an archduke candidate from Ehrenfest.

“Now then, if you will excuse me,” she said, leaving the laboratory with her retinue once our meeting about improving magic circles had concluded. I waited until their footsteps faded, then slouched over and heaved a heavy sigh.

“So?” Professor Hirschur asked me with a slight smile. “What do you think of Lady Rozemyne?”

“She seems nice enough, but I couldn’t bear the way her knights glared at me during my explanations. I’m relieved she left so soon.” As much as I enjoyed getting tasty leftovers from Professor Hirschur, my entire meeting with Lady Rozemyne had felt like a near-death experience.

I’d rather archduke candidates waited on by knights not bully us lower-ranked nobles without anyone to protect us. Ehrenfest might not have been high enough in the duchy rankings to speak out against Ahrensbach archduke candidates, but that didn’t mean she should use her status to antagonize mednobles.

“I’m just a lowly mednoble,” I said. “I don’t want to deal with an archduke candidate from another duchy. I’m not sure what her reasons are, but I would rather nobles of her high status resolve their problems among themselves.”

“Laynobles and mednobles need only think about their own duchies,” my mentor replied. “Archduke candidates, on the other hand, must also consider interduchy diplomacy.”

I’d thought that life got harder as one’s status decreased, but Professor Hirschur assured me that even highly ranked nobles had their own problems to deal with. I found that hard to imagine, considering what I’d seen of Lady Detlinde in our dormitory.

“Professor Hirschur, Lady Rozemyne plans to visit us here on a regular basis, does she not? Must I spend my days being stared down by her guard knights? Or... will my being from Ahrensbach mean I can’t be your disciple anymore?”

My time with Professor Fraularm had made one thing clear: dormitory supervisors allowed their home duchies to sway them more than any other Sovereign noble. If, in his hatred for Ahrensbach, Aub Ehrenfest ordered my mentor to cut ties with me, she would surely have no choice but to obey.

Were I closer to my archduke, I could ask him to force Ehrenfest to take the order back. Given its lower rank, Ehrenfest would need to comply. But alas, I was a mednoble far from current trends. I wasn’t even known as an excellent student.

I’ll just have everything stolen from me, as usual.

“Worry not—no matter what Aub Ehrenfest says, I owe no debts to his duchy and will refuse to follow any orders I do not agree with,” Professor Hirschur said, waving a dismissive hand without the slightest change in her expression. Her research had apparently been done with support not from Ehrenfest but from her disciple, Lord Ferdinand.

“He understood my teaching philosophy well,” she declared.

Professor Hirschur’s composure brought me comfort even a day later, when I was trying to decipher a circle on one of Lord Ferdinand’s magic tools. I was hoping to create a tool of my own that could produce the same result with less mana.

The display component functions like a water mirror, but to make it display the same thing over and over again...

“Professor Hirschur, this is Brunhilde of Ehrenfest,” came a voice from outside the room.

I turned to look, then returned my attention to the magic circle in front of me; Professor Hirschur seemed intent on ignoring the call, so I thought it best to follow her example. We always prioritized our own research, creating an atmosphere where the first person to acknowledge a distraction was the loser.

“You have a visitor, Professor,” I said at last, trying to emphasize that this was no guest of mine.

Professor Hirschur was unmoved. “You are closer. Open the door for me.”

In terms of power, I was at an unfortunate disadvantage, leaving me with no choice but to give up and open the door. Lady Brunhilde, one of Lady Rozemyne’s attendants whom I presumed to be an archnoble, was waiting on the other side. She scanned the laboratory with a grimace, then straightened up and presented us with a board.

“Professor Hirschur,” she said, “we humbly request that you have dinner with us tonight in the dormitory. Lord Ferdinand wishes to speak with you in person. Here is the invitation.”

My mentor accepted the board and skeptically examined it. Then she cast her purple eyes down. “For what reason has Lord Ferdinand come here? Does an adult plan to influence the Royal Academy?”

“Many of his magic tools are being kept here, are they not?” Lady Brunhilde asked, scanning the room until her eyes fell on my current project. “As their creator, he is duty bound to dispose of them.”

She was right—Lord Ferdinand could do as he pleased with the tools he’d made, and the one I was currently attempting to decipher counted among them. How had she known it was his? Was it common in Ehrenfest? A chill ran down my spine.

“Lord Ferdinand would surely find it problematic for his tools and research to leak to another duchy...” Lady Brunhilde remarked. “In any case, Professor Hirschur—we shall await you at sixth bell.”

And with that, Lady Brunhilde took her leave, as if she’d wanted to spend as little time in the laboratory as was necessary. She acted with zero respect for Professor Hirschur. It suddenly made more sense why my mentor never wanted to be in her dormitory despite being its supervisor.

“Are you planning to go?” I asked.

“I am. Ehrenfest came up with the perfect reason to dispatch Lord Ferdinand to the Royal Academy. As for what message he brings from Aub Ehrenfest... I will need to wait and see.”

Professor Hirschur’s voice lacked the confidence that had soothed my nerves the day before. It seemed to me that she was attempting to hide her shock.

“This is all because of me...” I said.

“Fret not, Raimund. You’re my disciple, and that won’t change no matter what anyone says to me. Now, let us continue our research until fifth bell.”

Professor Hirschur picked up her pen and returned to what she was doing before. I tried to go back to my magic circle, but I couldn’t ignore the voice in my head.

Are they going to make her give up on teaching me?

Dread made me sick to my stomach. I read over my notes while doing my best not to show how uneasy I felt.

Er, what was I thinking about...?

My research had been going so well before. Now I was stuck. The magic circle seemed to distort in front of my eyes and move on its own.

The element necessary for the display is... is... Um, what was it again?

Before, it had come to me in an instant, but now my mind was blank. I needed to continue my research... yet the harder I tried, the harder it became to concentrate. By the time fifth bell chimed, I was no closer to figuring out the tool than when Lady Brunhilde had interrupted us.

“That’s enough for today. This is a formal invitation, so I need time to make myself presentable.”

On that note, Professor Hirschur shooed me out of the lab so she could summon her attendant.

I made my way through the scholar building and toward the library, where I would read until sixth bell. My steps hastened as I drew near, but then I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Lady Rozemyne had spoken so passionately about the library during our meeting the day before. She had claimed to go there frequently, which meant she might have been there today.

I don’t want to see her or her retainers right now... I thought, so I strode back to the Ahrensbach Dormitory.

“Goodness, Raimund. This might be the first time this year that you’ve come back before sixth bell,” my attendant said upon my return, surprised to see me.

I explained that Professor Hirschur had told me to leave since she had important business to attend to, then went straight to my study desk, spread out several documents, and pretended to study them. I didn’t want to be in the common room, where Lady Detlinde and her lapdogs had erupted in shrill laughter. 

Sixth bell rang. Professor Hirschur must have gone to the Ehrenfest Dormitory. Maybe she had finished preparing early—in which case, she had probably returned to her research and received a few choice complaints from her attendant. I gazed outside my window but saw only a dark forest covered in snow.

She told me not to worry... but I can’t help it.

Could anyone blame me? Lady Rozemyne’s guard knights had taken issue with me, and my mentor had been summoned to the Ehrenfest Dormitory the very next day.

What will I do if they make me resign?

It was hard to imagine anyone else would take me as their disciple. As my father constantly reminded me, my mana capacity was so low that, had the civil war’s purge not decimated the noble population, I would absolutely have been sent to the temple.

To think I was so close to getting my family’s recognition...

As we all gathered in the dining hall for dinner, I thought back to the food Lady Rozemyne had brought to the laboratory. The leftovers Professor Hirschur had given me had tasted shockingly delicious. Here in the Ahrensbach Dormitory, the meals we received depended on our status. Archduke candidates ate better than the rest of us—a fact I sorely envied them for.

Still, why is Ehrenfest so hostile to Ahrensbach?

Lady Georgine of Ehrenfest was Ahrensbach’s first wife, and we had just married two brides into their duchy. I was used to hearing complaints about how much support Lady Georgine sent home, especially when Ehrenfest placed so low on the duchy rankings, but nobody ever mentioned anything that would explain Ehrenfest being on guard against us.

Is this a battle between archduke candidates being framed as an interduchy conflict?

I turned my attention to Lady Detlinde’s group and watched them from afar while I ate. She was arrogant to her fellow students even within the dormitory. Had she made use of her higher status to force unreasonable demands on Lady Rozemyne?

It’s plausible.

Higher-ranked members of lower-ranked duchies were known to target lower-ranked members of higher-ranking duchies, but still. I wished their squabble wouldn’t interfere with my apprenticeship.

I was so desperate to know how Professor Hirschur’s meeting had gone that I spent the night in agony, then rushed to the laboratory as soon as my lessons finished the next day. I opened the door to find the room shockingly empty. There were fewer documents on the tables and shelves, and the mountain of magic tools that had once kept us from closing the storage room had vanished. Lord Ferdinand really had taken back his things.

I’m being completely rejected.

I couldn’t help but despair. At a glance, it was clear how strongly Lord Ferdinand opposed an Ahrensbach student seeing even one of his creations. My hopes of seeing his organized notes and speaking with him about his magic tools shattered into tiny pieces.

“Professor Hirschur...” I said.

She was drawing a magic circle on a piece of parchment, acting as if everything were fine. Was it still okay for me to visit the laboratory as her disciple? Would my being here cost her access to the documents she needed or put her in financial trouble?

I gazed all around the room, at a complete loss for words. I could see the documents Professor Hirschur had allowed me to borrow outside of term time—documents I’d read in their entirety—and crumpled-up notes scrawled with my observations. My half-drawn magic circle was still spread out on the table.

The thought of my work made me want to cry. I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to stay here, in this lab, and continue my research.

“I don’t want to quit...” I said.

“Excuse me? I said you were my disciple, did I not?” Professor Hirschur asked, pausing her own drawing to set aside her pen and gaze up at me. Her monocle glinted. “Incidentally, how would you feel about having Ferdinand as your mentor?”

“Come again...?” My ears must have deceived me. Not even in my wildest dreams would Lord Ferdinand agree to such an arrangement.

Professor Hirschur sighed. “Yesterday, he and I spoke at length about magic tools and the threat of valuable information being leaked.”

From there, my mentor elaborated on her conversation. Because my specialty was modifying magic tools, not handling weaponry, the dangerous tools had needed to be cleared away. I was also told—though not in any real detail—that there was animosity between Ehrenfest and Ahrensbach, hence the former’s concern that its secrets might be stolen.

“On the topic of such leaks, we will need to have a serious conversation,” Professor Hirschur continued. “Still, when I conveyed your fascination with his tools and your talent for improving them, Ferdinand took an interest in you. It would seem that, as part of a recent report, Lady Rozemyne requested that he show you his documentation.”

Lady Rozemyne had spoken passionately about my achievements so far and recommended me without question. Thanks to her, I would start taking long-distance lessons from Lord Ferdinand.

“Of course, this all rests on you agreeing and passing the test Ferdinand intends to set you. If you can recall the task he gave Lady Rozemyne, his current disciple, then you know this decision is not to be taken lightly. His judgment is harsh and quick.”

My fortune had taken such a wonderful turn that I was lost for words. I remembered the sensation from when Professor Hirschur had asked to be my mentor. Still, this was no time to waver; I would sorely regret letting a chance this rare slip through my fingers.

I was the one who had asked to speak with Lord Ferdinand about magic tools. The past year had taught me the joys of studying something I was passionate about; I already knew how fun it was to be fully absorbed in my research.

A test? I must put my all into passing it!

The anxiety of such a trial was nothing compared to the dread of being forced to leave Professor Hirschur’s laboratory. In the latter case, my duchy and status were out of my control, but the result of my test was entirely in my hands.

“Please!” I cried. “Please, let me take the test!”