Dinnertime
After getting changed, I wrote Bonifatius a letter of gratitude just as Ferdinand had suggested. I was using allegras paper—that is, paper with red clover-like allegrases mixed into it—which was now being made exclusively for my use thanks to Elvira having negotiated with Benno. I relied on my Earth memories to structure the letter properly, then folded it as I would the notes I used to pass to my school friends.
It’s a good thing I remember how to fold paper into a heart shape. This looks a lot like the leaves of an allegras, which makes it even cuter.
I wrote “Grandfather” on the heart as a finishing touch, then got in my highbeast and drove to the big dining hall where we were having dinner. I would not only be eating with the archducal family today, but with Karstedt’s side of my family as well.
“You seem excited, milady.”
“Indeed. My father and brothers usually serve as guard knights during dinner at the castle, not to mention during ceremonies and feasts, but this time we will finally be eating together in the same dining hall. I really am quite excited.”
The cherry on top was that we were going to be eating Hugo’s new recipe and Ella’s new dessert. I couldn’t wait.
“Lady Rozemyne has arrived,” a servant announced, opening the doors to the dining hall for us. Inside were the archducal family and Karstedt’s family, including both Ferdinand and Bonifatius.
“Rozemyne!”
“Sister!”
Both Wilfried and Charlotte called out to me, then Wilfried rushed over. He looked so much more like an adult now, having grown quite a bit taller over the past two years; in fact, he hardly even resembled the little prankster in my mind anymore. In the past, we had just about looked the same age thanks to me having repeated my seventh year—albeit with him being on the bigger side and me on the smaller side—but that was evidently a thing of the past. The height difference between us was now so significant that we looked like a fifth grader and a first grader standing next to each other.
Aw... No way are people going to believe we’re in the same grade now.
“Hm? Were you always this tiny, Rozemyne?”
“I-I’ll grow taller too! Just you wait!”
Since seventy to eighty percent of my mana clumps had now dissolved, exercising wouldn’t make me abruptly pass out anymore; I’d finally be growing at the same rate as a normal girl.
“I’ve worked hard the past two years so that I can protect you. I think I’ve pretty much caught up to you now,” Wilfried said with a confident grin. I wanted to shoot back that he was still far behind me, but I couldn’t act smug until I’d seen how much he’d really improved for myself. After all, I wasn’t even ready for the Royal Academy yet.
“You don’t need to grow any taller, Sister. You are more than cute enough as you are now,” Charlotte chimed in. She had grown as well, having transformed from an adorable child into a beautiful young woman. She was taller than me, enough that if we stood next to each other, everyone would think I was her little sister.
I wanted to cry. My pride as an older sister was in tatters.
“I wish to protect you now, Sister, so I have worked even harder than Wilfried.”
“No! I’m your older sister! I’m going to protect you, not the other way around!”
“Oh my!” Charlotte exclaimed, her indigo eyes gleaming with excitement as she looked down at me. I could tell from her expression that she thought my declaration was cute; from her perspective, I was just a little child trying to look tough.
How could this be happening? I’m supposed to be the big sister here...
I slumped over sadly, at which point Ferdinand rested a hand on my shoulder. “Rozemyne, they are only being enthusiastic; it is not yet possible for them to surpass you. Show them your dignity as an older sister now, before you depart for the Royal Academy. Leave no doubt in their minds that you are on an entirely different level from them.”
I’ll study as hard as I can before leaving for the Royal Academy and show them what a real older sister is made of. Sure, they’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but they’re just kids. I can burn through everything they’ve learned without any trouble at all. I’ll have Charlotte’s respect again in no time.
I shot my head up and clenched my fists, steeling my resolve, and it was then that I noticed Bonifatius impatiently clearing his throat. Status dictated that I greet the archducal couple first though, so I stepped before them and knelt.
“My deepest apologies for any worry I’ve caused you,” I said.
“Stand, Rozemyne. I cannot see your face like that,” Sylvester replied with some audible bemusement. I did as he asked, only for him to get on his knees to meet my gaze.
A stir ran through all those present while I merely blinked in surprise. It was unthinkable for the archduke to kneel before someone of the duchy. I had no idea how to react, but Sylvester ignored the commotion entirely. He placed his hands on my cheeks and pulled me a little closer, carefully peering over my face before pinching my cheeks.
“Yup, it’s good to see you’re better. Ferdinand didn’t let anyone else check on you after you were put in your hidden room in the temple, y’know. We were all worried about you.”
I could certainly remember Ferdinand saying something about eliminating all those who would attempt to disturb my sleep. He had apparently taken this duty very seriously, having stopped even the archducal family from checking up on me.
“Rozemyne, there’s something I’ve wanted to say to you every day for these past two years,” Sylvester continued, letting go of my cheeks to take my hands instead. It came so suddenly that I had to fight the urge to reflexively pull away.
“What might that be?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion.
“I’m saying this not as the archduke, but as a father. Thank you for saving my children. Thank you,” he said, pressing his forehead against my hands. The gesture was presumably a very significant way of expressing one’s gratitude, as his retainers standing by the walls all gasped.
You’re grateful, I get it! Let go already! Everyone’s staring!
I looked to Florencia for help, since she was standing a step behind Sylvester, but that only made things worse. “You have my utmost gratitude as well,” she said, kneeling beside him. “You are more than the Saint of Ehrenfest to me. In my eyes, you are my savior—the saint of my family.”
This was killing me. I’d gone on an irresponsible rampage to save my cute little sister; I hadn’t done anything to deserve the archducal couple bowing their heads to me.
“That will do for now. Rozemyne is clearly petrified,” Karstedt said, saving me in my time of need.
Sylvester stood up, now having to look down at me again as per usual. “Ferdinand has told me you need to make up for the two years you have lost before you leave for the Royal Academy. That will not be easy, but I trust you to accomplish what you must.”
“You often push yourself much too hard,” Florencia added. “I think you would do well to respect your body just a little more.”
That concluded our greetings, and so I crossed my arms in front of my chest.
“You may now speak to those who were worrying about you,” Sylvester said. But as I turned to Karstedt and Elvira with a nod, he stopped me with a whisper. “Bonifatius is next. As the son of a former archduke, he’s higher in status than the knight commander. Don’t mess this up.”
Oops... That was close.
I changed direction mid-step. If Sylvester hadn’t stopped me, I wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late. The thought alone made me break out in a cold sweat.
“Um, Grandfather... I wanted to express my gratitude for you saving me the other—ahem—for saving me two years ago. Ferdinand informed me that, had you not found me, I might have died.”
Bonifatius gravely nodded. “I am glad to see you well again,” he said with a stern expression.
“This is a letter of my gratitude,” I continued, nervously holding it out to him. “Will you accept it?”
“Yes, of course... Hm? This is an unusual shape.”
“Aha, it’s a heart. Don’t you think it’s cute?”
“A heart...? I do not believe hearts look like this,” Bonifatius said, examining the origami with a clear look of confusion.
I gave a big nod, then used my thumbs and pointer fingers to recreate the shape. “It’s a symbolic heart that represents love,” I explained.
Bonifatius froze in place, his eyes wide open. It took him several seconds to slowly return to life, then he glared at my letter with a conflicted expression.
“I-I see...”
The silence in the hall as Bonifatius stared at the letter weighed down on me like a boulder. Did he not like the heart? He was a military guy through and through, having continued working with the Knight’s Order even after his retirement, not to mention having served as a representative of the archduke. Maybe I should have made a tough-looking shape instead of a cute one.
I’m so dumb! Of course a man would prefer to have, like, a helmet or a dragon or something! If only I’d stopped to actually think about this!
But as I cradled my head in agony, I suddenly realized something—origami could simply be unfolded and then refolded into something else. There would of course be a few weird creases, but that was better than cursing him with this foul mistake.
“Um, Grandfather... I can always fold it into another shape. Please, let me make it into something else for you.”
“Oh, no, no. This is fine. In fact, I have taken a liking to this shape. There is no need to unfold it.”
Bonifatius raised the origami heart higher into the air, repeating that he was fine with the shape as it was. I sadly slumped my shoulders; this was definitely a frantic attempt to avoid hurting my feelings.
I made Gil worry at the temple, and now I’ve even made Grandfather worry...
It truly was failure after failure. I decided to surrender to his consideration and pointed at the letter in his hand. There was no culture of origami here, so he was unlikely to discover the writing without an explanation.
“If you open the letter, Grandfather, you can read its contents.”
“Hrm? Open?”
“You cannot read the letter as it is now, can you? Please hand it to me for a moment.” I took the paper heart from Bonifatius, who watched with tightly knitted brows as I unfolded it and then held it out to him. “And now it can be read, see?”
...Bwuh?!
He was staring down at my letter as though the world were coming to an end: his eyes were wide open in disbelief, and the blood was quite clearly draining from his face. It certainly wasn’t the expression of someone happy to be receiving a letter of gratitude. Had I made some terrible blunder without realizing it, like the previous mayor of Hasse? My own face started to pale as I glanced between Bonifatius and the letter.
“Grandfather... C-Could it be that I’ve used some sort of rude phrasing?”
“Not at all! I am just surprised by how well written this is. You have got excellent handwriting too, Rozemyne.”
So he says, but that wasn’t the look of someone who’s about to give praise. It was more like he was losing his mind over what I’d just done.
I was only trying to thank him, but in the end, I’d managed to offend him so badly that he hadn’t even been able to maintain his composure. He was currently collecting himself and trying to smooth things over with praise, sure, but he couldn’t convince everyone that easily. The worst part was that I didn’t even know what I had done wrong—I evidently needed to apologize, but I wasn’t actually sure why. Trembling in fear, I scanned the room with tearful eyes in search of help, only to notice that Sylvester’s cheeks were twitching as he just barely managed to hold back laughter.
Well, I can count him out... The harder I fall, the harder he’ll laugh.
I promptly decided to ignore him, since he was clearly just glad to have new material to make fun of me with, and instead looked to my two parents. They had a deep bond with Bonifatius, so I was sure there was something they could do.
Elvira noticed my gaze and approached us.
“M-Mother, have I done something incredibly rude by chance?”
Bonifatius immediately began floundering. “No, Rozemyne, of course not. You have done nothing wrong. There’s no need to start crying. Everything is fine, isn’t it, Elvira? Rozemyne is a fine young woman, isn’t she?” he asked, his eyes anxiously flitting between the two of us.
“Might I suggest you both calm down?” Elvira said coolly. “Rozemyne, I shall check the letter to see if there are any mistakes.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
I showed her the letter. She read through it in silence, then looked up. “It is quite fine. There are no mistakes.”
A relieved sigh escaped me. It had her full approval.
“I imagine Bonifatius was merely surprised to see the shape unfold,” Elvira explained. “You can return it to the way it was before, correct?”
“Yes, it will take just a moment,” I said with a nod, which in turn made Bonifatius sigh in relief. He seemed to quite like cute things, despite his appearance, and so I placed the letter on the table and folded it back into a heart.
Wilfried and Charlotte watched me with great interest.
“You can make sheets of paper look like that, huh?”
“Sister, please write such a letter for me in the future as well. It is absolutely adorable.”
“Certainly,” I replied. At the very least, it seemed I had managed to catch Charlotte’s interest and scrape up a little respect from her. Holding back the broad smile that was starting to play on my lips, I handed the finished heart back to Bonifatius. “Here you are, Grandfather.”
Bonifatius took the letter and once again stared at it with a conflicted expression. Then, after a pause, he nodded gravely. “Excellent.” It seemed that was just the face he pulled when he was carefully examining something.
Relieved, I glanced around the room again. Ferdinand quickly caught my eye, and upon seeing his expression, I remembered something—he had told me to ask Bonifatius to teach me physical enhancement magic.
“I have a request, Grandfather. Might I ask you to teach me the basics of physical enhancement magic?”
Bonifatius stared at me in surprise, then a huge grin spread across his face. He thumped his chest and snorted. “Leave it to me! I will make you the strongest person in Ehrenfest!”
I didn’t want to be the strongest person in Ehrenfest, of course, nor did I think that would actually be possible for someone like me. I quickly realized that I’d need to better explain my intentions, since the risk of Bonifatius’s intense training sending me to an early grave was becoming all the more real.
“May I clarify, Grandfather? It’s not that I wish to become stronger, but rather that I wish to be capable of moving without relying on assistive magic tools.”
“Y-You wish to be... capable of moving?” Bonifatius repeated, blinking in utter confusion.
I nodded. I had long been spared any physical training due to my complete lack of stamina, but now that I was healthy, I needed to boost my strength.
“My muscles have atrophied so much from my time in the jureve that I can’t move properly without body-enhancing magic tools attached to my body,” I explained. “My first goal is to no longer have to depend on them.”
Bonifatius’s eyes widened in pure shock, then he looked me over from head to toe as if making sure I really was alive. “That... certainly won’t be easy,” he said. “I’ve never taught enhancement magic to a person who can’t even move. How does one make someone who cannot move, move?”
“Um, th-that is quite the philosophical question.”
“Is it really safe for you to train at all?”
“I ask only that you do not work me to death.”
Bonifatius and I put our heads together as we tried to come up with a solution, at which point Ferdinand let out an extremely heavy sigh, rubbing his temples with exasperation. At his recommendation, we decided to start by removing the magic tool on my right arm, focusing on using enhancement magic exclusively for that one limb.
Dinner soon began, and the events of the past two years were explained to me from the perspectives of those who lived in the castle. Most of what they told me I had already heard from Ferdinand: my three brothers all served as guard knights for the archducal family, and they had been worked to the bone by Bonifatius.
“You certainly are strong, Grandfather. It is a shame that, with the bag obscuring my view and the poison keeping me from opening my eyes, I could not see your heroic efforts for myself.”
“Yes, I am strong. Karstedt hasn’t beaten me just yet!”
Bonifatius, who was sitting next to me, went on to explain that the knights had shown much more improvement over the past two years than they had previously. Those who had learned my compression method had all grown at an extraordinary pace and continued to grow even now. The technique seemed to have the biggest impact on apprentices still going through puberty, and it had proven so effective that more and more nobles were asking to be taught.
“What say we hold a conference teaching the mana compression method soon?” Bonifatius suggested, carefully observing my reaction. “Erm, your health comes first, of course, but there are many who cannot wait to learn it.”
My mana compression method had primarily been taught to the guard knights serving the archducal family, with the rest being mainly archknights and medknights. Damuel was an exception as the only laynoble to have learned it. His mana capacity continued to grow slowly but surely, so those who were previously of a similar level to him were now getting fairly impatient.
Well, that makes sense. Grandfather’s training them all equally hard, but Damuel’s growing mana capacity puts him at the very top. Anyone in their position would want to learn the method too.
“Have you finished deciding who is going to be taught?” I asked, looking at the archducal couple.
Sylvester gave a slow nod. “All we need now is your approval.”
“Very well. We can hold seminars after winter socializing.”
“After?! That is a very long time from now!” Bonifatius exclaimed.
I gave him a nod. “Normal mana compression is taught to first-years in the Royal Academy, correct? In that case, I wish to see how much Wilfried has grown. I will use this to determine whether he is ready to learn my method. If so, his guard knights can be taught as well.”
Wilfried’s guard knights let out a quiet collective “Ooh!” from where they stood along the wall. I had previously forbidden them from learning the method alongside the rest of the archducal family’s guard knights, since the Ivory Tower incident had put their trustworthiness into question. They had experienced fairly poor mana growth as a result—that is, with the exception of Lamprecht, who I had taught as a member of my family.
My decision had been somewhat rash in retrospect, but the Ivory Tower incident was fresh in everyone’s minds at the time, and I hadn’t anticipated entering a two-year coma so soon after. Regardless, the inexorable march of time had put a considerable gap between the strength of Wilfried’s and Charlotte’s guard knights, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that this wasn’t exactly an ideal situation.
Ferdinand nodded at my suggestion. “That would be wise if you wish to give Wilfried a chance as soon as possible. You may make your decision after confirming his behavior and growth. Wilfried, as a ruler of men, you must continue to think before you act.”
“Understood, Uncle.”
Looks like Wilfried and Ferdinand have gotten a little closer over the past two years.
It wasn’t just on a surface level either—they really did seem to have a deeper bond than before. As that thought stuck in my mind, the others took turns updating me on the past two years: my brothers told me about their special training with Bonifatius; Elvira told me about the growing printing industry in Haldenzel; then Wilfried and Charlotte told me about the winter playroom, and how far they had progressed with their studies.
In no time at all, our dinner together had come to an end.
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