Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 3.2 - Chapter 4

The Orphan’s Treatment and Investigating the City 

Fran would never go anywhere near the orphanage director’s hidden room back at the temple, but perhaps due to this place being different or the anger that was consuming him, he went into the monastery’s hidden room without an ounce of hesitation. Once there, he spoke immediately and with a severe expression. 

“You must not permit the orphans to be rude to you. You are already looked down upon for your youth, and if you permit rudeness then they will only move to exploit you further,” he said, at which point my two guards raised their chins slightly in subtle agreement. “What I fear most is you permitting their rudeness, encouraging their arrogance, and then ultimately being displeased by what they proceed to do.” 

“Indeed. It is especially a concern because you entirely lose control of your mana when angry. There is always much collateral damage,” Ferdinand added. 

I hung my head, unable to argue back. My intention had been to be kind to them as they were newcomers, but apparently that wasn’t a good idea at all. 

“All things demand care and caution at first—kindness is a virtue, after all. But do not conflate kindness with being soft and weak.” 

“...I will be more careful,” I said. I meant it, too. I didn’t want to keep forcing Fran to strike others, nor did I want both him and Ferdinand to get so angry at me again. 

“Rozemyne, hardening your soft nature is a significant concern, but our priority should no doubt be training those orphans. What in the world was with their crude manner of speech? And I could hardly stand to watch them eat,” Ferdinand said, his brow wrinkled as he thought back to lunch. 

People ate like that all the time in the lower city, but I couldn’t just ask Ferdinand to understand that and let the matter go. The orphans had entered the temple, so they needed to learn basic etiquette. 

“I have no idea where to begin with such poor creatures, so I would hope you have some plan for them. How does the Gilberta Company handle commoners?” Ferdinand asked. 

But the Gilberta Company was one of the richest stores in the lower city, and generally only took on apprentices from stores that already had experience doing business with nobles. Lutz had been on the same level as the orphans when Benno hired him, but he was smart, a fast learner, and very dedicated to improving. It wouldn’t be fair on the orphans to compare them to him. 

Fran suddenly looked up as though he had realized something. “Given that there are only four of them, perhaps it would be best to take them back to the temple,” he suggested. His reasoning was that they would learn better at the temple’s orphanage since that was where the other kids were being taught. That would no doubt provide them a good learning environment, but it would just stress them out if we took them there before they were better used to this way of life. 

When I had first gone to the temple, I had agonized over how different the culture there was. But I had a home to return to. I had Lutz and my family there for comfort. I could complain that nothing made sense and they would agree, which was incredibly important. They would have nowhere to escape to if we moved them to the temple now, and with their entire family feeling the same stress for the same reason, it was hard to guess how much comfort they would be able to find in each other. 

“I suggest we wait a bit longer before taking them to the temple; it will be ideal for them to learn its ways on familiar ground first. At this rate, they are bound to experience much conflict at the temple, and it would be best to give them the opportunity to return to the mayor should they find adjusting impossible.” 

“Lady Rozemyne?” Fran looked visibly confused, having not once in his life thought about leaving the temple. 

“We still don’t know whether they will all adjust to the temple’s way of life, do we? The girls might wish to stay here to avoid being sold, but it is possible that the boys will prefer the freedom granted to them by the mayor,” I explained. The most freedom this orphanage offered was letting everyone go to the forest to gather and make paper, so I could imagine that the mayor giving them more than that would play a big part in whatever decision they ended up making. “I suggest we wait for the Harvest Festival to end. If they all decide to stay, we can take them to the temple for the winter. By that time, they will no doubt have adjusted to life here.” 

“In that case, how shall we train them?” Fran asked. “Putting aside the young one, it is rare for children that old to enter the temple, and I have no experience training them.” 

In the lower city, kids generally got jobs as soon as they were baptized. They worked as apprentices, and those whose parents died would become live-in apprentices, with the store then looking after them. While it wasn’t unusual for pre-baptism children to be sent to the orphanage when they had no family to take them in, it was extremely rare for this to happen to children old enough to be apprentices. 

“Do the children here not take on apprentice work?” I asked. 

“For those whose parents are farmers, their fields would be requisitioned the moment both parents die. I imagine that underage children would not be able to grow enough to eat on the amount of land given to them, though I must confess that I do not know the details,” Ferdinand said with a light sigh. He had looked over related tax documents before, but since he had never actually observed the life of a farmer, he wasn’t entirely sure what happened to the orphans. 

“...Then I suppose we have no choice but to start from the beginning and teach them like we would teach any new children.” 

“And by that you mean...?” 

“I imagine that every aspect of life here will be drastically different from what they’re used to—even something as simple as how food is served,” I explained. “In many ways, the temple follows the same rules as a noble’s mansion. We will have to begin by carefully teaching them how to use cutlery.” 

It was common in the lower city to just eat with your hands, so much so that the temple’s orphanage was considered the odd one for teaching kids to use cutlery. 

“From that point, we will need to teach them to clean,” I continued. “Lutz gave high praise to the priests for how quick, efficient, and thorough their cleaning was, and I imagine the cleaning skills these orphans learned under the mayor will not suffice in the temple.” From what I could remember, Lutz had mentioned being taught to clean by Gil, and then passing the techniques on to the other apprentices in the Gilberta Company. “However, please be sure to always teach them together as a group. Ensure this is done when taking them to the forest to gather, when making paper, and when cooking. They should learn together, not separately.” 

“And why is that?” Ferdinand asked, presumably having been planning to assign an individual tutor to each orphan since there were only four of them and we had a total of six priests and shrine maidens. 

“They will learn faster if they’re together. Groups will breed competition, and they will be able to teach each other as well. You mustn’t look down on the power of groups,” I said, using the kids competing over karuta as an example. 

Ferdinand blinked, then murmured, “So it is similar to how the Royal Academy encourages growth,” before looking at me with an unsettling smile. I got the feeling he had started cooking up some kind of weird plot, but that was probably just my imagination. 

“In any case, I say we focus on helping them adjust to life here for the time being. Please never forget how difficult and time-consuming it is for outsiders to adjust to the temple’s way of life. Teach them slowly and with great patience.” 

“Understood. I will convey this information to the priests,” Fran said, now back to wearing his usual peaceful expression. 

“Now then, with that settled, let us return to the temple and investigate Hasse a bit more,” Ferdinand said. 

“What? But we’ve already done an investigation,” I replied. We had already had scholars and the Gilberta Company look the place over and inform us of their findings, but Ferdinand just tapped his temple with his pointer finger while looking at me. 

“You fool. Their investigation was centered around making a workshop here, so most of the information they gathered was about the population, geography, and businesses. These are all irrelevant to what I am talking about. What we are going to investigate is which nobles are backing the mayor, how much power and influence he has accumulated, how many of his associates we will need to eliminate if we take action against him, and how we are going to fill the power vacuum afterward. This is entirely separate from investigating the best location for a workshop.” 

It seemed that Dark Ferdinand had appeared and was more than ready to operate in the shadows. But, well, I would just leave that to him. I wasn’t really suited to deception and trickery; my head was better used in other places. 

I exited the room once our conversation was over to find Gil and Nicola looking this way, their faces clouded with worry. I smiled to show them that everything was okay, and their expressions brightened in relief. The four orphans looked equally concerned, and then equally relieved when they saw that Fran was calm again. 

“We will visit again five days from now,” I said to the gray priests. “In the meantime, we will investigate the mayor to see which nobles he is connected to and how much influence he has. We shall ask Benno and Gustav to take care of any food matters, so I ask that you try not to leave the monastery if you can help it. Take care not just of the new orphans we have welcomed, but yourselves as well.” 

They knelt down and replied “As you wish.” By that point, the four orphans were kneeling in the same way as well. 

“...The monastery has magic protecting it, so you will be safe as long as you stay inside, even if the mayor comes. But we can offer no such protection if you leave, so be careful,” I warned. 

The four orphans nodded with worried looks on their faces, each knowing the mayor well.

Ferdinand summoned Benno the second we got back to the temple; he wanted to get as many details as he could about Hasse and its mayor. Thankfully, Benno managed to arrive at the temple in the blink of an eye, entirely as if he had been expecting the summons. 

“We went and acquired the orphans. Our reception was... less than stellar. And you expected that, did you not, Benno?” 

“Oh yes, the mayor’s reception was always less than stellar. It’s behavior you will only ever see in Hasse,” Benno said with a grin. It seemed that he had intentionally not told the mayor that the High Bishop and High Priest would be the ones going to fetch the orphans, so he had been waiting for us to summon him ever since we left. 

According to Benno, the city of Hasse was abnormal in how unusually powerful the mayor was. It was so close to Ehrenfest that nobles on long journeys would pass it by and stay the night at Dinkel instead, so they only ever visited for the Spring Prayer and Harvest Festival. Those who were traveling on foot might stop in Hasse, but most nobles simply did not. 

Furthermore, Hasse was close enough to Ehrenfest that merchants were less valuable than they would be in other cities. This was because people could just go to Ehrenfest’s markets if they wanted goods, or do trade with the traveling merchants who always passed through Hasse on their way to Ehrenfest. 

On top of all that, Hasse had a winter mansion. Spring Prayer and the Harvest Festival were held in Hasse, and people from neighboring farming cities gathered there for the winter. The mayor had control over how all of these people were accommodated, so he had a considerable amount of influence across the region. 

“Nobles can leave Ehrenfest without passing through the gates by using highbeasts,” Benno said. “I do not know which particular nobles the mayor has connections with, but I have heard they are high-ranking ones.” 

“I see. The only one we knew for sure was the former High Bishop.” 

“Him again?” I asked, exhausted. It honestly sucked that I had to deal with the old High Bishop more now that he was dead than I did when I was living in the temple and doing my best to avoid him. 

“The former High Bishop did not have a highbeast and could only travel by carriage, making it more likely for him to stay at Hasse, and he no doubt used his status as the archduke’s uncle to do whatever he wished. The mayor’s defiance of you and I, the new High Bishop and the High Priest, makes that more than clear. He likely determined that no matter what happened, he could just call on the former High Bishop for help,” Ferdinand said, adding that, since he had seen me as a blue shrine maiden back during Spring Prayer, he had likely assumed we had been sent by the former High Bishop. Some people also apparently looked down on Ferdinand, thinking he was a leech borrowing the High Bishop’s power like the other blue priests were. 

“I imagine, then, that the mayor has no idea whatsoever that the previous High Bishop was arrested. Benno, how much does the lower city know about the previous High Bishop?” Ferdinand asked. 

“Nothing at all,” Benno replied instantly, which made Ferdinand’s eyes widen. He then furrowed his brow in a frown for a moment as he searched for words. 

“...Surely that is an exaggeration. After all, a new High Bishop appeared. They must know something.” 

“Rumors of the new High Bishop being the archduke’s young daughter have spread, as well as rumors of her being a saint who can give real blessings, but there has been no talk whatsoever of the former High Bishop. I imagine that people either assume he retired due to old age, or simply changed profession.” 

Apparently, the legend of Rozemyne the Saint really was spreading through the city. I had heard ahead of time that it would be necessary to fully justify my assignment to the role of High Bishop, but honestly, it was so embarrassing that I could barely stand it. 

“I am fairly suspicious that the scholars I accompanied have connections to the mayor as well. It seems they engaged in some kind of secret discussion once my associates and I left his estate,” Benno said, telling us everything he knew. 

Ferdinand began to think over everything he had learned. His brow was firmly knitted, and I silently watched as he tapped his temples. Only after several minutes of deep thought did he finally let out a murmur. 

“A thorn in my side even after death, I see...”