Life without One’s Lady
“Lady Rozemyne truly did leave for the temple in no time at all...” I said mostly to myself once she had departed via highbeast. I really had not expected that she would disappear after spending only one day in the castle. Cornelius and Rihyarda turned to me, nodding in agreement with wry smiles, while Norbert and several of the attendants working for the castle swiftly used magic tools to melt the snow that had blown inside and dry the area.
“Now,” Rihyarda began, “let us return to the northern building. We must think about our next steps. I am taking some time off so that I may briefly return home, but what about the rest of you? Did you contact your families last night?”
I personally hadn’t made any plans, having simply confirmed that I was available for guard duty for as long as Lady Rozemyne was in Ehrenfest.
“No point staying in the castle with nobody to guard. What’re you gonna do, Leonore?” Cornelius asked, looking my way. He and I had returned from the Royal Academy with Lady Rozemyne with the intention of guarding her while she was in the castle. As we were underage, we could not accompany her to the temple; that duty was left to Damuel and Angelica. “I’m thinking about asking Father about how knights should coordinate in fights. The Order should be in the middle of planning for the Lord of Winter hunt right now. I can imagine just standing nearby and listening in is going to be very worthwhile.”
It made me happy that Cornelius was taking the results of the treasure-stealing ditter match so seriously. There were more than a few apprentice knights who still couldn’t understand the importance of coordination or how inferior we were to Dunkelfelger’s knights no matter how many times I tried to explain it.
“Leonore, will you be heading back to the Royal Academy? I remember you saying how hurrying through your lessons for Rozemyne’s sake hadn’t given you any time to spend with your friends, and that there’s a lot you want to research in the library, right? You’ve also got to keep in mind how much of a pain it’ll be if your family gets a hold of you this winter. If you want, I can send word once Rozemyne finishes the Dedication Ritual, so you can just hurry back when we need you.”
Cornelius was certainly right; all of my family were dying to know more about Lady Rozemyne, so returning home right now would only see me endure an endless barrage of questions. Without any guard work to do, I would inevitably be stuck talking to my uncle and everyone all winter.
“True...” I replied. “I would much rather retreat to the Royal Academy than endure my father and everyone else’s questioning. Will you be fine here alone, Cornelius?”
“Should be. There’s a lot I need to write up reports on,” Cornelius replied with a shrug. As Rozemyne’s older brother by blood, he was evidently used to this kind of thing. He was clearly on good terms with her, and I had seen him instructing the other retainers in the dorm, so I knew I could trust him to notify my family of my return to the academy.
“Then it’s settled—Cornelius stays, while Leonore goes back to the Academy tomorrow,” Rihyarda said. “I will tell Lord Sylvester to send word to the teleporter in advance. As for me, I need to gather my house for a family meeting. Traugott is truly giving me a headache...”
Once we returned to the room for retainers in Lady Rozemyne’s chambers, Rihyarda left the rest to Ottilie as she hurriedly left to prepare for her family meeting. The speed at which she moved made me blink in surprise, and I only came back to reality when Ottilie finished preparing tea for us.
“Rihyarda may be reliable like no one else, but she accompanied a student to the Royal Academy at her advanced age and needs to clean up the terrible mess her grandson made. Her hands truly were full,” Ottilie said, having apparently heard of what Traugott had done at the Academy.
Lady Rozemyne had pushed Traugott to resign for her own reasons, but his insubordination was severe enough that he could easily have been fired on the spot. The disrespect he showed toward her was especially infuriating to those of us who genuinely served as her retainers, and it besmirched the archducal family’s good name. Rihyarda was fully in the right for having exploded at him for not having the proper mindset of a servant.
Cornelius nodded. “Traugott is of archduke blood and does not have much to do with us Leisegangs, so unlike you and me, he must not be happy at all about Rozemyne’s status.”
Traugott was Lord Bonifatius’s grandson, but only through his second wife, who hadn’t been a Leisegang noble. Maybe due to that, Traugott had seen Cornelius as a rival ever since they were young. It was apparently a pain having to deal with his constant antagonisms.
“Still, that’s not a good excuse to look down on the person you’re serving. He always complained to people about Rozemyne, and to be honest, I’m glad he’s not her retainer anymore,” Cornelius said.
“It was wretched enough that Rihyarda, his own grandmother, demanded that he be fired,” Ottilie noted with a sigh. “I did not see the incident firsthand, but he must have truly been acting terribly.” She then gave both Cornelius and me a look of genuine concern. “How has Hartmut been, might I ask? He is smitten with Lady Rozemyne and can lose control a bit sometimes, no? I have not heard from him since I received an enthusiastic letter saying that he was picked to serve as one of her retainers. I am truly worried that he might earn Lady Rozemyne’s disfavor in an entirely different fashion than Traugott.”
Cornelius and I reflexively exchanged looks. As Leisegang nobles, we too were worried about Hartmut’s nonsense.
“It seems that Lady Rozemyne is a bit taken aback by Hartmut’s enthusiasm, but she did chastise him for how he handled information during the Traugott incident, and he seems to have learned from his mistake,” I said. “I do not believe he will lose control in a way that displeases Lady Rozemyne.”
Ottilie paused in thought for a moment before furrowing her brow. “But he will still work in the shadows to further his own ends, do you not think?” she asked, having found no reassurance in my words. As his mother, she knew Hartmut well; anyone else would surely have been fooled by his polite smile and attitude. “Leonore, I do apologize for this, but could you keep an eye on him when you return to the Royal Academy?”
“Yeah,” Cornelius agreed. “He won’t stop talking about how Rozemyne is best suited to become the next aub. He hasn’t given up on her taking the position at all.”
Having both Ottilie and Cornelius request my help with such serious expressions made me a little worried. It was certainly true that someone needed to keep an eye on him. With Cornelius and me here at the castle, Brunhilde was the only retainer of a high enough status to restrain him, but she could not be trusted with such a duty. Given how many trends and inventions Lady Rozemyne had introduced thus far, she too believed that Ehrenfest would progress the most under her rule.
“Okay. I will remind Hartmut not to work in the shadows and oppose Lady Rozemyne’s will while she and you are gone, Cornelius.”
“Thanks. I’m glad she took you on as a retainer, Leonore,” he said with a grin.
I could feel a smile touch my own lips as well. I had accepted this position not just because my father had said doing so was my duty as a Leisegang noble, but also because I wanted to be closer to Cornelius. It was an indecent motivation to have, but Cornelius had started taking his training and studies very seriously when Lady Rozemyne began her long sleep. He had gone from doing only the bare minimum expected of an archnoble to working harder than anyone, and I was struck with the overwhelming desire to watch over his efforts forever.
“We don’t have any guard work to do while Rozemyne’s away, so this is the perfect chance to train up the apprentices who don’t know how to cooperate,” Cornelius said. “You saw how they worked from afar, and you know how to put what we learned in class into practice now. Could you train them in preparation for the Interduchy Tournament?”
Cornelius was pinning his hopes on me, which made me want to work even harder. Maybe half of the analysis of the treasure-stealing ditter game had actually come from Lady Rozemyne. She was only a first-year archduke candidate, but she had seen right through the enemy’s techniques and set up plans to beat them. I needed to do even better as a fourth-year actually taking the knight course.
“You can count on me. I think I will follow Lord Ferdinand’s ditter manual and start by grasping the apprentices’ individual strengths.”
Cornelius and I spent the day discussing the training for the apprentice knights, and the next morning I returned to the Royal Academy.
“Oh my. Leonore. What happened at the castle for you to return so early?” Brunhilde asked, coming out from the common room. She gave me a composed smile, but she seemed clearly displeased about something.
“Lady Rozemyne left for the temple right away, so Cornelius suggested that I stay in the Royal Academy until the Dedication Ritual is over,” I replied, turning my gaze to Hartmut as he came out as well. He shrugged; something had apparently happened in the common room.
“Brunhilde, Hartmut. Do you have a moment? There is something I want to discuss,” I said, pointing at my eyes.
Brunhilde took a deep breath before giving a smile that lacked any of the displeasure that had been on her face a moment ago. “Why, of course.”
Hartmut gestured to the side, and together we started walking toward the meeting rooms. As soon as the door shut behind us, Brunhilde narrowed her eyes, her eyebrows trembling in frustration.
“Absolutely infuriating!” she exclaimed.
As it turned out, she was mad at none other than Lord Wilfried. In an example of truly unfortunate timing, on the day Lady Rozemyne had departed for the castle, a letter had arrived from Dunkelfelger’s Lady Hannelore. It was an invitation to a tea party, in which she explained that she was hoping to use the opportunity to foster new connections.
“Well, Lady Rozemyne is no longer here. I assume you refused, of course? I know she is an archduke candidate, but we have no other choice. They didn’t challenge you to ditter when you sent our response, did they?”
“No, nothing like that,” Hartmut said with a grin and a dismissive hand wave. “It was addressed to all our archduke candidates, not just Lady Rozemyne, so Lord Wilfried does not have a choice but to attend. The problem is that he went to Brunhilde.” He looked toward Brunhilde, whose normally amber eyes were a little brighter than usual due to her wrath.
“He said this should have been a tea party for Lady Rozemyne, and that he was therefore entrusting us with making the preparations for him. Can you believe the gall?! I am not his servant!”
Proper procedure would have been for Lord Wilfried to consult Lady Rozemyne via letter, and for her to subsequently instruct us to help him. The fact he had completely disregarded this and given us a direct order was unforgivable to Brunhilde.
“Please do calm down, Brunhilde. Recall that Lady Rozemyne did indeed instruct us to assist Lord Wilfried in her absence,” I said.
“This goes far beyond mere assistance. Lord Wilfried says that his retainers do not have time for this because they have not yet finished their classes. I say clearing their schedules is their responsibility! Do you not agree?!”
Brunhilde was completely in the right here. Our instruction was to work with Lord Wilfried’s attendants, not to obey whatever orders we received and to do everything ourselves. Not to mention, it was hard to imagine his attendants simply not having time for this. We had arranged our class schedules around Lady Rozemyne’s library visits, so this was equivalent to them admitting they were useless and incompetent. But perhaps they were fine with that?
“Can you imagine how arrogant one must be to prioritize their retainers’ schedules over everything else, and to give orders to the retainers of another and expect them to obey? That reminds me so much of the way Lady Veronica acted when I greeted her following my debut that I feel sick with disgust,” Brunhilde said with palpable frustration.
I did not know what had happened following Brunhilde’s debut, but I did recall both her and her father, Giebe Groschel, being exceedingly displeased. My own father had even said “I wonder how long this can keep going on” with a defeated, dry smile.
“He must know how much Lady Veronica antagonized and abused the Leisegang nobles, but he’s still acting exactly as he used to. Maybe he thinks he can keep ordering us around even now that Lady Veronica has been removed. He must not want to accept that things are no longer as they once were,” Hartmut said with a dismissive scoff.
Albeit not equally, as Leisegangs, the three of us had all suffered from Lady Veronica’s abuse. The fact that Lord Wilfried had been raised under her care meant we hadn’t had a good impression of him from the start.
“Perhaps Lord Wilfried looks down upon Leisegang nobles due to his upbringing. I understand we should ideally recognize them as completely separate individuals, but they are simply too alike. Their hair and eyes, of course, but even their speech and actions...” I commented.
Brunhilde and Hartmut nodded. Back when the balance of power had shifted, Lord Wilfried immediately broke away from the former Veronica faction and started treating them how he had used to treat Leisegang nobles in the past. It was necessary to warn them not to approach Lady Rozemyne, but still, it did not feel particularly pleasant to see the archduke’s son shut out those who had once supported him. How could one who did not respect his own faction respect nobles of another? I could not help but compare him to Lady Rozemyne, who treated all factions equally even after having been attacked and put to sleep for two years.
Had Lady Rozemyne started treating members of the former Veronica faction with more disdain once she awoke, I would simply have considered her an average noble, but she had fairly appraised the work done by Roderick and the others. She maintained her position even in the face of complaints from Lord Wilfried, which had earned her my respect and resulted in me considering her worthy of my service.
“I get why you’re mad, Brunhilde, but we don’t need to think of this as following orders from Lord Wilfried,” Hartmut said. “We need only use him for our own purposes. There’s nothing wrong with promoting our trending products at a tea party between archduke candidates held in Lady Rozemyne’s absence. Know what I mean?”
“Yes, yes. I know. I would never slack on my duties out of mere frustration. As Lady Rozemyne’s retainer, I will do my job with splendor and aplomb,” Brunhilde said, her chest puffed out as though she had completely turned her anger into motivation. She had all the dignity of one raised to succeed Giebe Groschel.
“Not to mention, this tea party is the perfect opportunity to give Lieseleta and Philine some practice. I want them both to get as much experience as possible before Lady Rozemyne’s tea parties. Failing her is unforgivable, but failing Lord Wilfried is merely a source of amusement.”
It was a very Hartmut thing to say, but no matter how irritating Lord Wilfried might have been, he was still an archduke candidate.
Brunhilde scrunched up her face. “I would not put it that way myself... but I do agree, generally speaking. Ehrenfest has not had much opportunity to have tea parties with higher-ranking duchies. Considering that Lady Rozemyne has developed a personal relationship with royalty in a matter of weeks, we will need more practice ourselves.”
Would a tea party with a high-ranking duchy truly serve as good practice...? It was hard not to imagine Philine, a laynoble, becoming teary-eyed with fear and anxiety. Given that she was Lady Rozemyne’s retainer, however, she had no choice but to grow used to it.
“Still, though... A tea party with Dunkelfelger, hm? To think we would receive an invitation from the same duchy that ganged up with other duchies to ambush us on the day we took Schwartz and Weiss from the library,” I murmured with concern. Hartmut instantly shook his head.
“Actually, I looked into this,” Hartmut said. “Turns out that Dunkelfelger has nothing but high praise for the young-looking Ehrenfest archduke candidate who dominated their knights with clever plans. Lady Hannelore, Lord Lestilaut’s little sister, actually wants to apologize for her brother’s rude behavior.”
“I suppose that must be the case if you are saying it with such confidence.”
I still remembered how Hartmut had endlessly needled Cornelius during Lady Rozemyne’s long sleep about the kidnapping being her guard knights’ fault; it was hard to imagine him allowing her to be put in any danger whatsoever. He had certainly thoroughly investigated Dunkelfelger before even thinking about letting this happen.
“I imagine she sent the invitation addressed to all candidates because she has not yet met Lady Rozemyne herself, but... Wait, is Lady Hannelore not a first-year archduke candidate? Surely they would have met each other in class by now,” Brunhilde said.
“Recall that Lady Rozemyne has for the most part only ever spoken about her professors, rarely her classmates,” I said. “She was surely so focused on passing that she did not socialize with the other duchies whatsoever.”
Brunhilde and I exchanged glances. Lady Rozemyne was skilled in many areas, but she was exceedingly particular in where she drew her motivation from. Perhaps it would be wise to warn her of the potential fallout. It was highly important to deepen one’s bonds in the Royal Academy; in particular, it was essential that female archduke candidates search for marriage partners and form diplomatic relationships that would prove useful even after they wed into other duchies.
“Lady Rozemyne was simply unwell this term. Next year, she will surely—”
“Brunhilde, denying reality will change nothing. There is no future in which Lady Rozemyne does not attempt to hide away in the library next year as well. It is better to lose hope now than to cling to it for much longer than is reasonable,” I said with a small smile. Forcing Lady Rozemyne to leave her books to socialize was no doubt going to be one of our most significant duties as her retainers.
Following my return, life at the Royal Academy was not completely smooth. Despite Lady Rozemyne’s absence, nobles from other duchies were continually requesting information on hairpins and rinsham. While it was perfectly acceptable for us to refuse these, Lord Wilfried was obstinately accepting them all and forcing Brunhilde to handle the necessary preparations, saying that “We cannot refuse invitations from higher-ranking duchies.”
To make matters worse, even with Brunhilde doing all the work, Lord Wilfried would often complain about how exhausting it was to attend tea parties with so many women. Her wrath was nearing boiling point, and Oswald was casually ignoring her politely worded protests. Rihyarda would absolutely have scolded him for his incompetence had she been here, but at the moment, he was the highest in status among all adult attendants staying in the Ehrenfest Dormitory.
I continued to listen to Brunhilde’s complaining on the side as I started training the apprentice knights in preparation for the upcoming Interduchy Tournament, as agreed with Cornelius. I glanced over the ditter manual we had received from Lord Ferdinand and decided to begin by gathering information on Ehrenfest’s apprentice knights. It was important to know in great detail their strengths, weaknesses, how much stamina they had, and their mana capacities, since ditter involved a set number of players.
“Leonore, how long are you going to make us run?!” Traugott exclaimed.
“Did I not say until you run out of stamina? You still seem to have some left in you, Traugott. Your stamina is splendid.”
“Leonore, I can’t take much more! My mana is drying up!”
“Alexis, you have enough mana for two more shots, no? Your accuracy always plummets when you are mana-deprived, and this is something I want you to work on.”
I had the apprentices train until they reached their limits and then recorded my findings. Plant paper was thin enough that I could stack several sheets on top of each other, which made this work much easier to complete. I gave them my silent praise; trying to record all this information on wooden boards would have required a disastrous mountain of wood.
Dare I say it, but I have gathered some excellent information here.
The bulk of the apprentices were sprawled out on the hills of the training grounds like fish on a riverside, their dead stillness aside from the occasional twitch making the comparison even more appropriate. They were fine, though; the rejuvenation potions just needed some time to kick in.
Hopefully we do not run out.
“Leonore, I’ve finally finished all my classes too! Please let me join in the training!” Judithe cried, rushing onto the grounds with a broad smile. Her hair was as fluffy and as bouncy as ever.
“Hello there, Judithe. You came at the perfect time.”
“No, you don’t understand! You’re still a second-year, aren’t you?! Run! RUN WHILE YOU STILL HAVE THE CH—argh!”
“Rudolf, I see you have recovered. Perhaps you should run to the limits of your stamina once again, this time with Judithe observing also?”
“A-Actually, ma’am, I-I’m not recovered yet!”
“Then be silent and say no more. Now, Judithe. Shall we begin?”
“Um... Wh-What...?”
I silenced Rudolf’s attempted interference and firmly gripped Judithe’s cape. She was panicking now that she had finally noticed the knights scattered around like corpses, but it was too late; there was no escape. She had shown excellent accuracy during our game of treasure-stealing ditter earlier. Her participation in the Interduchy Tournament would only begin after she started the knight course next year, but her ranged skills would dramatically expand the range of strategies at our disposal. It was quite the exciting prospect.
“I am so moved that you would ask to participate in training early. Once I have measured your stamina, we can begin to examine your ranged abilities.”
It did not take long before Judithe was sprawled out at my feet in exhaustion like everyone else. It was unbecoming of a noblewoman to lay upon the ground, but nobody here cared to mention that. Everyone was in the same boat.
“I should have listened to Lord Rudolf... Why didn’t I listen? I can’t believe the training in the Royal Academy is so harsh...”
“Oh my. I heard you were training in Kirnberger, but even so, that is some surprising stamina. You have already recovered enough to speak.”
“Not yet! I can’t speak at all! I’m so weak! Aah!” Judithe cried, her voice brimming with vigor as she frantically shook her head with teary eyes. She truly did recover quickly; she was a perfect candidate to become a knight. Perhaps she would receive Lord Bonifatius’s training just as Angelica had, benefiting and suffering all because of the love he held for his granddaughter.
“Once everyone has recovered, we will move on to repeatedly casting attacks of the same strength using the same amount of mana.”
“What will you do in the meantime, Leonore?” Judithe asked.
“I will return to the dormitory while you are resting to bring more rejuvenation potions. It does not seem we have quite enough.”
I exited the training grounds just as the apprentices began to shriek, “Wait, there’s going to be more?!” Professor Rauffen was standing by the exit, presumably having been watching for some time.
“Seems like you Ehrenfest lot are putting all you’ve got into your practice,” he said with a laugh. “I thought you might be resting on your laurels all cocky-like after beating us, but it looks like I was wrong. Good, good.”
“There are some arrogant apprentices among us, in truth. Lady Rozemyne said during the game of ditter that it would have been better for us to lose in accordance with our weakness, and now I understand why she had said that. If only the others all understood as well,” I said, looking back to the training grounds.
Professor Rauffen gave a confused look. “Oh? Lady Rozemyne said that...? Seriously, who in the world is she, really? What kind of archduke candidate acts like that?”
I wondered the same thing. Lady Rozemyne had studied the written lessons of the knight course to tutor Angelica, and Cornelius had mentioned to me that she had read the books on strategizing that the knight commander had in his estate. I also knew she had accompanied the Knight’s Order on extermination missions as a temple shrine maiden in the past, which had given her an opportunity to see the adult knights fight properly.
But was that truly enough for her to give such competent orders? I too studied the knight course, yet it had not occurred to me that my written lessons needed to be connected to real-world examples before Lady Rozemyne pointed it out. And even then, I was unable to come up with strategies as unique as hers.
Perhaps I could have deduced their moves in retrospect and come up with counterstrategies, but in the moment, I would simply have fallen for their plots and gone into a panic. I could not fathom how Lady Rozemyne did it. It was not normal.
“In order for Ehrenfest to move on to the next stage of strength, it is necessary for all of our apprentice knights to face their limits.”
I was having them train to their limits for the purpose of gathering information, but what truly mattered was learning how much they could do in actual games. I wanted to know roughly what percentage of their strength in practice they could maintain when it really counted. Furthermore, unlike before when we had narrowly won due to Lady Rozemyne’s unusual strategies, our next match would make our opponents’ superior strength abundantly clear.
“Hm... In other words, you want a rematch?” Rauffen asked, correctly sensing that I wanted Ehrenfest’s apprentice knights to fight Dunkelfelger again for their own sake.
“I wish for them to become conscious of their true strength as soon as possible. However, to Dunkelfelger, I suppose a challenge from Ehrenfest without Lady Rozemyne is nothing but a troublesome waste of time?”
“Nah, I’m a professor. I need to do what I can to help my students get stronger. Not to mention, Dunkelfelger’s knights want a rematch with Ehrenfest too. This might be a good opportunity to show them just how much of an impact a single tactician can have,” he explained. It seemed that even in the powerhouse duchy Dunkelfelger there were some apprentice knights who cared more about individual strength than coordination and strategizing.
“Well, I will be returning to Ehrenfest in three days, so I shall leave the details to you.”
“You’re planning to push everything on me...? You seem like you could be a pretty good tactician yourself one day.”
“It is my hope to learn from the honorable examples set by Lady Rozemyne and Lord Ferdinand. There is still much for me to improve upon, but I shall do my best.”
Rauffen raised a surprised eyebrow before guffawing in amusement. After that, he took over the basic training for me.
On the day before I departed for Ehrenfest, Lord Wilfried gathered all the apprentice knights in the common room. “Professor Rauffen requested a ditter rematch against Dunkelfelger,” he said.
The sudden announcement sent a stir through the apprentice knights. I pretended to be shocked along with them, putting up a hand to request permission to speak.
“Our overall strength is significantly lower with Angelica and Cornelius in Ehrenfest. Furthermore, we have no clever strategies to surprise Dunkelfelger like last time. It is hard to imagine us beating them as we are,” I said.
Lord Wilfried grimaced. “Are you saying I should refuse? This is a request from a greater duchy. Refusing isn’t an option.”
“Naturally, I understand that refusing is not an option, but winning will surely be impossible,” I said, looking over everyone while nodding.
Traugott shot me a defiant glare. “No, Leonore. This is the perfect chance to show our power! We trained so much. We have to be even stronger than before!”
“Not to mention, we’ve already won once,” another apprentice added. “We may lose this time, but at the very least, we’ll put up a good fight!”
All the knights had done was basic training to learn their limits, but that alone was apparently enough to convince them they were now stronger than Dunkelfelger. A single victory had given them undue confidence, as expected. They needed to experience an utter, crushing defeat.
Hearing the motivated words of the apprentice knights, Lord Wilfried gave a satisfied nod. “Leonore, talk things over with Alexis and the others. Then set a date for the match.”
Ah. Now I truly understand Brunhilde’s anger.
It was significantly frustrating to hear Lord Wilfried give me orders as though it were his right, but I swallowed it down and gave him a calm smile. “Unfortunately, I am set to return to Ehrenfest tomorrow. Our previous game ended with Lady Rozemyne’s guard knights playing the key roles, so perhaps this time you can plan things around your guard knights?” My intention was for the game to take place while I was absent so that I wouldn’t have all the tedious work forced onto me à la Brunhilde, so the challenge from Professor Rauffen had come at just the right time.
I will need to take the information I’ve gathered and plan out training regimens and strategies for the Interduchy Tournament with Cornelius.
With plans in mind for what to do once I returned to Ehrenfest, I stepped onto the teleporter circle.
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