Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 3.1 - Chapter 2

Preparing for the Baptism Ceremony 

And so I started my life in the Noble’s Quarter, but it was completely different from what I was used to in both the lower city and the temple. The days were filled with one shocking revelation after another, each one making it harder to believe that only a single wall separated these two completely contrasting sides of the city. 

The first big difference was the bathrooms. We didn’t relieve ourselves in a bucket that we’d empty and reuse—no, there was an actual indoor bathroom with a toilet. However, it wasn’t a flush toilet or anything like that. It was a deep hole in the floor, and there was some kind of squishy, slimy thing wriggling around at the bottom. To be honest, I screamed the first time I saw it. Apparently it dissolved our waste, but it would take some getting used to. 

Seriously, it’s disgusting! And the thought that it might wriggle up terrifies me! 

I still refused to go to the bathroom alone at night, asking for someone to walk me there every time I went, but thankfully I still looked young enough for nobody to be weirded out by that. From the bottom of my heart, I was glad I was a noble girl who had at least one attendant following her at all times. 

The strange toilet situation aside, the house also had bathtubs—a luxury I had missed so much. The maids would always help me in and wash me, but I wasn’t particularly opposed to this since I was already so used to bathing with Tuuli—we had to wash each other’s backs since we couldn’t reach our own. They used tons of lavish soaps that were noticeably expensive just from the smell, which kind of gave me pause, but that all melted away when they started massaging me. It was wonderful, but they would also use this soap to wash my hair, meaning it always ended up dry and scraggly. It was harder to comb, and all of the glossy silkiness was going away. 

“Mother, I have a request.” 

“Oh my, and what might that be?” 

“Please call the Gilberta Company over. Without rinsham, my hair is starting to get damaged.” 

Elvira had at first looked displeased at the idea of calling over a merchant who did business with laynobles at best, but in the end she consented after I mentioned how silky the rinsham made one’s hair. 

Benno and Mark arrived on the appointed day with a box packed full of products, both entering the room wearing the sharp expressions they put on during work. I had been hoping Lutz would accompany them, but he was nowhere to be seen. I could guess that he wasn’t ready to visit an archnoble’s home yet. 

Tch. And I really wanted to see him, too. 

After their lengthy greetings were finished, Elvira urged Benno to show her what he had brought. “Benno, was it? Show me these products that Rozemyne loves so much.” 

“At once, my lady.” From the box he had brought, Benno took out various jars of rinsham, somewhat fancy hairpins that paled in comparison to the fanciness of the house, and plant paper that could be bought at a cheaper price than parchment. “This jar contains the rinsham that Lady Rozemyne favors, and these are a new set of products with aromas made to match each season. Please smell them at your leisure.” 

Benno, being the pinnacle of merchants that he was, had made four different kinds of rinsham by swapping up the scrub in the workshop. I had only ever been using the rinsham that I made with Tuuli, so I curiously sniffed the jars as well. One smelled of herbs, one smelled sweet, one smelled crisp, and the last one smelled like nothing much at all. The sweet-smelling summer rinsham was my favorite; its scrub was made from ground-down apfelsige peels and koves that ripened in the summer. 

“Mother, I would like to use this rinsham.” 

“My my, what a lovely smell. Perhaps I shall use it as well.” 

After buying the rinsham and some plant paper for studying purposes, I recommended the paper with pressed flowers inside to Elvira. “Mother, don’t you think this paper would be perfect for letters of invitation? The flowers are very pretty.” 

“Oh my, so they are. I’ve never seen paper with flowers inside like this. I wonder what the secret is?” Elvira pondered aloud as she picked up a sheet. 

“That is a new kind of paper we have just recently developed,” Benno said. “The exquisite spring flowers give an artistic air to the paper that will surely leave a lasting impression on those who receive a letter of invitation made from it.” 

“But you already have other buyers, no? I would just be following an already existing trend.” 

The Gilberta Company was primarily used by laynobles and, as an archnoble, Elvira was not fond of mimicking their trends. Archnobles didn’t follow trends—they had to make them themselves. 

Um, wow. That sure sounds like a pain. 

“We do not, actually. In service of Lady Rozemyne, today is the first time we are bringing these out from our store. No other customer has seen them.” 

“I see. In that case, I shall buy it.” 

I gave Benno a stealthy thumbs-up from behind Elvira, wearing a smile that said “You’re welcome.” Benno grinned, and Mark looked away to hide his laugh. 

Oh crap, right. I need to act like a proper young lady. 

“These are hairpins in the style that Lady Rozemyne has shown a fondness for.” 

“They are quite pretty, but I would have liked for them to be made using thread at least a little better than this.” The hairpins were fancier than the hairpin I had on, but Elvira didn’t seem to be entirely happy. I personally thought it was fine, but I glanced at Benno and saw that his eyes were gleaming, like a hunter who had found his prey. 

“Of course, we accept custom orders. I believe that we will be able to make hairpins more to your liking if you select the colors and thread yourself. There are many different kinds of flowers and leaves to choose from too, and the hairpins can give unique impressions based on how these decorations are used.” 

Elvira began her order by selecting certain flowers from the existing hairpins and describing what colors, sizes, and thread she wanted. Benno wrote it all down and then left with Mark, promising to bring the finished hairpins back later. The Gilberta Company had succeeded in getting an archnoble customer. 

“This truly does make one’s hair silky. To think that laynobles had been keeping this all to themselves...” 

We used the new rinsham not long after, and not only did the luster return to my hair, but Elvira’s became silky as well. She was more than satisfied with the result, but couldn’t help but be a little displeased that archnobles hadn’t known about it before now. 

“It’s only been a year since rinsham entered the market, and it’s more expensive than soap, so it doesn’t sell very well,” I said. “It may be the ideal product for archnobles, who can afford to spend money on appearances. I’m sure the archduke’s wife would love to learn about it as well.” 

“Oh yes, without a doubt.” 

Discussions over tea tended to be about beauty and looks. Elvira hadn’t seen any archnobles with rinsham or hairpins, and seemed eager to start the trends herself. Up until now, I had always been pulling the Gilberta Company away from their proper business to focus on book-making, so I was more than happy to finally give them some help on the clothing and beauty side too. 

You’re going to have more work related to beauty products now, Benno. Isn’t that just grand? I thought, cheering him on internally. 

“Miladies, here are the cookies baked with tea leaves.” Ella walked up as quietly as possible and placed a plate in front of Elvira, whose gaze softened as a light, sweet scent wafted into the air. 

“I wonder how they shall taste this time?” 

As expected, Elvira loved the sweets that Ella made. They were importing sugar from the Sovereignty, but not many recipes for sweets had been developed yet. So far I had introduced pound cake, crepes, and cookies for teatime, and they had all received high praise. 

Ella’s pound cakes couldn’t compare to Leise’s, since she hadn’t been researching them for a whole year, but they were still good. And since our exclusivity contract had already ended, it would be fine for us to make the pound cake recipe public. 

“I would love for you to teach our own chef to make these sweets,” Elvira said. 

Ella wasn’t yet trusted by the chefs on Karstedt’s estate; up until now, she had only been making sweets for teatime in a small side kitchen, but it seemed that she had finally earned Elvira’s trust. A broad smile spread across her face. 

“If you permit her to enter the main kitchen, I can get back to teaching her new recipes for sweets and normal foods that I haven’t shown her yet. There are so many more that I would like her to learn.” 

“In that case, I shall discuss matters with the head chef and make it so.” 

Elvira summoned the head chef and, as she had said, Ella was given permission to enter the main kitchen in a few days’ time, once preparations had been made. It seemed that Elvira wanted to get a bunch of sweets recipes that she could use for tea parties from me before I was adopted by the archduke and my living situation changed. I could imagine that she wanted to start a new trend when it came to sweets as well. Being an archnoble wife in ladies’ society seemed pretty rough. 

“These smell of tea and taste just delightful.” 

“Oh yes, Lord Ferdinand quite likes them.” 

Ferdinand had told me to call him “Lord Ferdinand” when outside of the temple, but honestly, it was so long and tedious to say that I was going to drop the “Lord” part as soon as I could. Incidentally, when I asked whether I should start calling him “Uncle Ferdinand” once Sylvester had adopted me, he immediately started grinding his fist against my head without saying a word. Apparently he wasn’t too keen on the idea. 

“Lord Ferdinand...? Fascinating.” 

Elvira loved to discuss Ferdinand, and little tidbits about his daily life were always of great interest to her. The fact that my relationship with Elvira was going so smoothly despite all of my worries was largely thanks to him, really—he came to check up on me once every two days, which put Elvira in a constant good mood. 

Though, to be honest, I didn’t really know what she was like when she was in a bad mood beyond what I had heard from Cornelius—the third son of the house, and an eleven-year-old apprentice knight. His hair was bright-green, the color of fresh leaves; he had dark eyes; and even though he was growing, he was still a visibly young boy. 

Which leads me to something I had never known before moving to the Noble’s Quarter—Ferdinand was like a superstar in ladies’ society. He was attractive, of good lineage, and a musician on top of being an excellent knight, scholar, and proxy archduke. Not to mention that, as a priest, he had no lover and no plans to take one. I could understand why those watching him from afar would be head over heels for him—on paper, you couldn’t really get much better than that. 

Whenever Ferdinand came over, Elvira looked at him entirely like a groupie might look at a rock star. She would discuss matters of my education and future with Ferdinand while looking utterly serious, but as soon as he was gone, she would spend all day talking about the precise ways in which he had been wonderful. Not to mention that she even looped the same words of praise over and over again. Cornelius had been forced to listen to it up until now, and was more than glad to be able to push that role onto me. 

“The way I see it, a fellow girl would understand Lord Ferdinand’s attractiveness far more than I would,” he had said. 

...Well, not really. I definitely don’t understand it. 

It was true that Ferdinand appeared to be pretty amazing—he could seemingly do everything, and I would never be able to repay him for how much he had helped me—but his barbed tongue cut deep, and his utter lack of mercy made him kind of scary at times. To me, Ferdinand wasn’t someone to squeal and get all giddy about like Elvira did. 

I had tried saying that once, but Elvira brushed the idea right off. “My my, Rozemyne. A kind man incapable of plotting or exterminating his enemies is simply no good at all.” 

...Noble society is pretty terrifying. 

I was studying every day, naturally, but this time I was learning about all of the families who would be gathering at the baptism ceremony. As Karstedt was the cousin of the archduke, all of his family members were archnobles, and memorizing their long names was proving to be quite the ordeal. There were also a lot of landowning counts and viscounts, which meant I had to memorize both their personal and their giebe names, which they shared with the province they kept. 

“Learning noble names is really hard. Is there some simple trick I could use to make it easier?” I grumbled to Ferdinand when he next came to visit, but he just shook his head. 

“I would not expect it to be easy for you, as you did not grow up among the nobility. But you must learn if you are to continue living here,” Ferdinand said, before spreading out a map of the duchy on a table and telling me which provinces my relatives owned, what was famous there, in which order they were visited during Spring Prayer, and so on. I had stayed at a lot of their mansions during spring, which made it easy to put the pieces together and remember them. As Ferdinand continued explaining things to me, I made sure to write everything down. 

“It’s kind of easy for me to remember my land-owning family members, but the list of scholars and knights working in the castle is just overwhelming. It’s like a wall of jumbled letters.” 

“Hm. In that case, I will offer you a reward to help keep you motivated.” Ferdinand grinned and looked at me. “If you memorize all of these names before your baptism ceremony and complete it successfully, on the day you are given the position of High Bishop, I will entrust you with the keys to the temple book room and the shelves inside that hold the most important books.” 

“Ferdinand, wait... Does that mean...?” 

If I had the keys to the book room, did that mean I could go inside whenever I wanted? Did it mean I would be able to read the precious books that I hadn’t even been allowed to look at, since they were under the High Bishop’s custody? 

Seeing my eyes shine with excitement, Ferdinand nodded and gave me a very noble-esque smile. “Indeed. You will be able to enter the book room without my permission, and read the most important books.” 

“Then I’ll do it! I’ll learn all of the names, even if it kills me!” 

If it meant having unrestricted access to the book room and the new books inside, I didn’t mind learning etiquette, doing as much studying as I had to, or listening to Elvira talk her head off about Ferdinand. No matter what it was, I had endless motivation to do it. And so I got right to work memorizing the names, focusing so intently that I didn’t even hear Elvira and Ferdinand talking around me. 

“Isn’t it the High Bishop’s duty to manage those books in the first place? Framing her future job as a reward to motivate her is quite clever, Lord Ferdinand. I see you’re as good at persuading people as ever.” 

“This is just her being easy to manipulate.” 

My studying progressed well—so well, in fact, that I soon ended up collapsing from working too hard. Not long after I recovered, it was time for me to try on my baptism outfits. In her enthusiasm, Elvira had ordered them before I had even arrived on the estate, and for some reason there were four in total. If you asked me, one was more than enough. 

“I wanted to be thorough since I didn’t know what you looked like at the time. Which one do you prefer, Rozemyne?” 

I could guess that saying I didn’t care which one I wore would make me a failure of a noble girl, so I obliged and changed into the outfits one by one in front of a large mirror, carefully watching Elvira’s reactions all the while. Each one I tried on had a base of white, with blue and yellow embroidery to match the season’s divine color and my eyes, respectively, so I had a hard time telling the difference between them. Plus, they all looked good on me; unlike in my Urano days, my appearance was pretty much perfect with no problems to hide. If there was anything wrong with me now, it was my personality, not my looks. 

I didn’t feel the need to wear anything particularly over the top, but judging by how fancy my normal home clothes and accessories were, Elvira really did like dresses on the more fluffy side. With that in mind, I picked out the two outfits that I thought she would probably like the most. 

“I’m not sure which of these I like more.” 

“Oh, you feel the same way?” 

My guesses had apparently been spot-on, and Elvira began to seriously consider which one suited me better. The seamstresses measured me, then started adjusting the clothes to my size. They had initially been made to fit an average child around baptism age, but ended up a little too big on me. 

Aww... And I’m a year older, too. 

“So? Have you decided yet?” Karstedt came walking in as Elvira continued her deliberation. As the head of the family and the one in charge of the money, his job was to double-check our final decision. 

“Oh my, Karstedt. What do you think? These outfits are just adorable, aren’t they?” 

“Of course. They all look great on her.” 

“The only problem is, I cannot tell whether this one or this one suits her better.” Elvira began comparing extremely minor details like the frills on the skirt and how the chest part was designed, which earned little more than a shrug from Karstedt. 

“These kinds of minor details go in one ear and out the other for me. Why not just order both? That way, you can pick whichever one feels right on the day of. Besides, having both would be useful as children tend to dirty their clothes up anyway.” 

“My my my, what a splendid idea. I’m sold,” Elvira said, before excitedly beginning to give instructions to the seamstresses. As I watched out of the corner of my eye, I pulled on Karstedt’s cape and whispered to him. 

“Father, I’m not going to dirty any clothes, and I really don’t need two outfits for my baptism ceremony. I think this is a waste of money.” 

“The cost of a second outfit is nothing if it means avoiding Elvira’s long explanations now, and her regretful griping about how she wished she had bought the other one instead in the future.” 

It seemed that, by buying them both, Karstedt was in a way investing in the future. If you could buy a peaceful, happy family with money, it was best to do so before it was too late. 

...I’m kinda curious about the exhausted look in his eyes. Did something happen, Karstedt? 

The day before the baptism, we received word that Eckhart and Lamprecht—Karstedt’s eldest and second eldest sons, respectively—would be returning home from the knights’ barracks. Cornelius took my hand and pulled me to the door to greet them. As an apprentice knight he commuted to work from home, which meant I saw him every day at both breakfast and supper. But this was my first time seeing my other two elder brothers, since they actually lived in the barracks. 

“I’m a little worried since this is my first time meeting them.” 

“...Haven’t you met them already? They’ve mentioned you before.” 

In a shocking twist, the two brothers had participated in the trombe extermination mission as knights. I didn’t really remember them, since everyone in the Knight’s Order wore full-body armor and helmets that covered most of their faces, but apparently they remembered me. 

“Ah, looks like they’re here.” Cornelius, having already learned from experience that I would pass out if he tried rushing me, had an attendant carry me as he raced to the door. “Welcome back!” 

“Good to see you, Cornelius,” said Eckhart. He was the oldest brother, eighteen years old with dark-green hair and blue eyes. His facial features resembled Karstedt’s, and he was a big guy—both tall and muscular. 

“Welcome home, Eckhart,” I said. 

“Good to be back... er, Rozemyne.” Eckhart bent over a little to try and make eye contact with me, but Lamprecht just hefted me up to put us at eye level. 

“You really are that apprentice shrine maiden I saw. I never would’ve thought that you were actually my little sister. Hm... You’re a lot smaller and lighter than Lord Wilfried.” 

“Lamprecht, you’re scaring her,” Cornelius warned in a teasing tone, but Lamprecht just grinned. 

“Yeah, looks like I am. Her eyes are like big round saucers.” 

Lamprecht was sixteen years old and had Karstedt’s reddish-brown hair, plus his bright-brown eyes. He was a full head shorter than Eckhart, but still as tall as the average adult—not to mention that he was still growing. And although he didn’t seem to be as muscular as either Karstedt or Eckhart, I could feel just how hard his muscles were as he held me. 

“I’m home, Rozemyne.” 

“Welcome home, Lamprecht.” 

“I work as a bodyguard for Lord Wilfried, Aub Ehrenfest’s son. Once he adopts you and you move to the castle, I’m sure we’ll see each other all the time. I’m looking forward to it.” 

Tomorrow was finally the day of my baptism ceremony. Both Wilfried and the archduke’s wife had been invited, so I would be meeting even more new family members there.