Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.3 - Chapter 20

Ferdinand and I

As I was enjoying the relaxing nothingness of sleep, I heard the faint sound of someone calling for me. I didn’t want to wake up yet—I wanted to keep sinking into the calming void—but the voice simply refused to stop.

“Rozemyne. Get up.”

“Guhhh...”

Once the gentle shaking started, I had no choice but to slowly open my eyes. My eyelids were puffy and heavy, and perhaps due to how much I had cried, there was a throbbing and an uncomfortable fever in my temples.

“Ferdinand? Justus? Eckhart?” I said, speaking the names of everyone who was here to my surprise. I glanced around and then remembered I was in my hidden room; I had presumably cried myself to sleep after reading the letter from my lower city family.

I looked at Ferdinand and the two people behind him; then I lethargically lifted my head up off of my desk. Perhaps because I had fallen asleep in such a weird position, my body ached all over and my joints all felt uncomfortably stiff.

“Ow, ow, ow...”

“Good grief. You look terrible,” Ferdinand said with knitted brows the moment I got up. “‘Wretched’ is the only word that accurately describes your current state.”

I pursed my lips. “That’s a very cruel thing to say to a girl.”

“But it is the truth.”

Congratulations... You somehow made it even more cruel.

“Your face is not only swollen from when you were crying, but it is also covered in ink from where you fell asleep on that letter. It is so bad that I can actually read the characters on your face,” Ferdinand said, pointing at my cheek.

I touched my face; then I looked down at my desk and shrieked. “NOOOOOO! The writing’s all smudged now!”

“Forget about the letter you have already read and do something about your disastrous face.”

“I care more about the letter than my face!”

My tears had caused the ink to run, such that the letter was hardly in a readable state. “Ferdinand, is there any incredible magic that can fix this letter?!” I asked as I cradled my head.

“I do know of a magic tool that can completely strip away ink.”

“That would ruin it!”

“Indeed it would,” he said with an expressionless nod—a sight that caused Justus to clap a hand over his mouth as he tried to hold back his laughter. Still looking down at me, Ferdinand then let out a sigh. “You are doing better than I thought you would, at least.”

Fran had apparently activated the light magic tool to indicate that I should prepare to leave, but I hadn’t noticed it at all. He had then contacted Ferdinand, worried that I had collapsed, and together they had come to check up on me.

“It was quite surprising to enter the room and see you collapsed unconscious atop the desk, milady. We were enormously relieved when we realized you were just asleep,” Justus said. Then, after a pause, he added: “Ferdinand was, that is.”

Ferdinand glared at Justus, told him to keep such comments to himself, and then looked at me. “Do not read into that. I simply recalled the incident in the repentance chamber.”

“Lord Ferdinand, what is this repentance chamber incident you refer to? Did something happen?” Justus asked. His eyes were shining with curiosity, but Ferdinand shut him down and then touched a hand to my forehead and nape.

“You do not have a fever. Your pulse is normal. And it seems your mana has stabilized as well,” he observed.

“I may be healthy, but I’m not feeling well at all. In fact, I feel really cruddy. But I have a goal in mind, so I’m okay. I can work hard so long as I focus on that. I’ll do all I can to build and stock my own library,” I declared, earning a blatant grimace from Ferdinand.

“You do not appear particularly depressed to me, but very well, I suppose. We can start by making your face bearable to look at.”

“Please do something about your cruel choice of words, Ferdinand. You know too many insults,” I complained, turning to face him just as he pointed his schtappe at me.

“Hold your breath.”

I cocked my head in confusion, only for an orb of water to appear out of nowhere and crash into my face.

“Gblghuhguh?!”

By the time I realized he was using the cleansing magic he had used to clean Dad’s cape at Hasse’s monastery, I was already drowning in the orb, which then promptly disappeared. I had unintentionally breathed some in, but that too was gone, leaving only the sensation of water having rushed through my nose.

I started to splutter. “Ugh... My nose hurts.”

“Fool. Why did you not hold your breath?!” Ferdinand exclaimed. I personally blamed his poorly worded warning. Had he said, “Hold your breath because I’m going to use the cleansing magic,” then I would have happily complied.

I glared at Ferdinand while Justus patted me on the back. “You never explain yourself well enough,” I said pointedly.

Ferdinand gave a dismissive scoff and then told me to close my eyes, since he was going to be casting healing magic. I did as instructed, thankful that he had at least this time given me a proper explanation, and then felt his hands rest against my eyelids.

“May Heilschmerz’s healing be granted,” he muttered. A gentle green light filled my vision, and the feeling of my eyes being puffy almost immediately vanished.

“I thank you ever so much, Ferdinand.”

“Now you are more bearable to look at. You truly are a handful,” he said with a bored voice, at which point his gaze stopped on the letter in my hand. His eyes narrowed slowly, and I could tell that he was staring at it. As I wondered why, he suddenly extended a hand.

Is he going to confiscate it?!

I frantically hid the letter behind my back. A second later, Ferdinand rested a hand on my head and started moving it around as if attempting to twist my head. “Very good,” he said while shaking me from side to side hard enough that my eyes started to spin.

“Hold on—what’s going on here?!” I cried, blinking as the world spun around me.

“...I simply recalled that I had not yet praised you,” Ferdinand said. But if this was his interpretation of praise, then I was starting to feel that I would rather he never praise me again.

“Did I do something praiseworthy?”

“You came first in class, no? That letter reminded me that I did not praise you, despite being your guardian.”

“Did you get praised too when you came first-in-class?” I asked.

Ferdinand’s expression softened suddenly, and he fondly narrowed his eyes as if remembering a precious memory. Never before had I seen him wear such an affectionate expression—it actually made me feel incredibly curious. And speaking of which, he had apologized to me about my having to miss the awards ceremony. Maybe getting first-in-class was a very important and meritorious event.

“Ferdinand... Who praised you?”

“My father did,” Ferdinand replied. After being baptized and brought to the castle, he had been given a room in the northern building. He and his father, the previous archduke, had only had the opportunity to speak at dinner because they lived in separate locations. Since Veronica also attended those dinners, however, Ferdinand had eaten in silence to minimize any contact with her. He had spoken only when spoken to, and that lifestyle had continued until he entered the Royal Academy.

On the night that Ferdinand was made first-in-class among the first-years, he was summoned to his father’s room for the first time. Dormitories in the Academy were segregated by gender, with even the archducal couple having rooms on separate floors, which meant Veronica could not follow him. It was their first real father-son time together since Ferdinand had entered the castle.

Sylvester had been there too, and together with their father he praised Ferdinand for having come first-in-class. He had then spoken all about what had happened at the Royal Academy, and their father had listened with a peaceful expression. He had never usually made eye contact with Ferdinand, but here he looked right at him and listened to everything he said.

And so the three talked as men, with nobody else there to interrupt them. It henceforth became a tradition for them to converse into the night when the archducal couple visited the Royal Academy. All the legends about Ferdinand had resulted from him going all-out in hope of receiving praise from his father during the rare opportunities they had to talk.

“Did your father praise you like this during those times?” I asked. I wanted to scold Mr. Past Archduke for having been so unnecessarily violent, but Ferdinand casually shook his head. The whole eye-rolling head shake was apparently his own invention, which explained why it had lacked any kindness or gentleness whatsoever.

“Then praise me as he praised you, Ferdinand.”

“As my father did...?” he repeated.

I held out both arms toward Ferdinand, eager for him to praise me. He sat down in the chair I had been sitting on, wrapped his arms around me, and then pulled me into a hug. I opened my eyes wide in surprise, having not expected a show of affection like that from a noble father and son.

Ignoring my yelp of surprise, Ferdinand spoke in a kind voice that I had never heard from him before. “Good job, Ferdinand. Ehrenfest could not ask for a better archduke candidate. You are my pride and joy.”

“I understand that your father was a kind person, but could you at least replace your name with mine?” I asked, puffing out my cheeks as I demanded a redo. It didn’t feel like he was praising me at all.

“Good job, Rozemyne. Ehrenfest could not ask for a better archduke candidate. You are my pride and joy,” Ferdinand said. It was actual praise this time, but it was spoken almost entirely in a monotone, maybe due to the memory filter having been turned off. Did he not realize how much it had dampened the words?

“Um, I would appreciate a bit of emotion being put into it...”

“That was more than enough,” Ferdinand scoffed. He then pushed me away from him in an unbelievably rough manner—something I was certain he hadn’t learned from his father. He was being a tad crueler to me than a guardian should if you asked me.

But he probably really isn’t used to praising other people...

After puffing with anger, I let out a sigh. I had known that Ferdinand was clumsy when it came to relationships, and that he didn’t have much of a connection with his family or anyone else, but this was even worse than I thought—he had only gotten a few days with his father over the span of a year.

I hadn’t really praised other people much back in my Urano days, but spending time in the lower city had taken away all of my resistance toward praising others and commending all their good points. Maybe Ferdinand needed that kind of education himself—mainly so that he would start praising me more.

“Ferdinand, I’ll put my all into it too. So be sure to praise me like this a few times a year.”

“If you come first-in-class then certainly.”

W-Wait. Hang on a second. That’s kind of a tall order!

It seemed as though my request had become an impossible dream. Perhaps it was best for me to give up on earning any praise from Ferdinand. Now that I had no connection to the lower city, I was walking down a thorny path into a barren wasteland devoid of any human warmth...

Or at least, that was how it felt.