Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.4 - Chapter 4

Schwartz’s and Weiss’s Outfits

The week between the coming-of-age ceremony and the spring baptisms was going to be business as usual in the temple. I had more work to do here than in the castle, but I didn’t mind; the lack of tension and scheming made me feel a lot more comfortable.

I was helping out in the High Priest’s chambers, eagerly awaiting fourth bell. I had decided that I was going to spend the rest of the day reading... but then Ferdinand called out to me.

“Rozemyne, do you have plans for this afternoon?”

“Yes. I plan to read.”

“I see. Good, then. As you have no plans, I have just the thing for you.”

Nah, nah, nah, nah! Hold on a second. I just told him that I’ve got plans, right?!

“I do have plans!” I protested. “Plans to read! Please listen when I speak to you.”

“Reading does not count. Discussing the clothes for the library’s magic tools takes much greater priority.”

Don’t decide my priorities for me!

Or so I wanted to shout, but when it came to Schwartz’s and Weiss’s outfits, I was the one asking Ferdinand for help; I would suffer the most if my adamance to read pushed him to retract his gesture of goodwill. I hung my head, wallowing in my feelings of defeat and regret.

“Good,” Ferdinand muttered, seemingly having interpreted my display of sadness as a nod. “Your workshop shall serve as your workplace. Keep the door open, as I will be bringing in materials and documents.”

“...Fiiine.”

Fourth bell chimed, and after finishing lunch, I opened the door to my hidden room as Ferdinand had instructed so that anyone could enter. I gazed longingly at the books on my shelf—the ones I had planned to read—and sighed to myself.

“Perhaps you will be able to read tomorrow. And you have a meeting with the Gilberta Company scheduled for the day after,” Fran said, consoling me with a half-smile. His words did cheer me up a little; I had summoned Tuuli for the day after tomorrow to order a new hairpin.

“By the way, are you going to order anything other than the hairpin?” Monika asked curiously, knowing that I had to discuss my outfits with my attendants in the castle.

I puffed out my chest. “I am also going to order a hairpin to celebrate Ella’s marriage, plus some Library Committee armbands.”

“What exactly are these armbands...?”

“These.” I spread out a full-sized sketch of an armband that I had drawn to show Tuuli. Incidentally, the part which said “Library Committee Member” was written in kanji. Nobody in this world would be able to understand it except me, but I wanted it nonetheless. As far as I was concerned, it was integral to really feeling like a member of the Library Committee. And above all else, it made me happy.

I planned to ask Tuuli to make four differently colored armbands—one for me, one each for Schwartz and Weiss, and one for my new friend, Hannelore, who I absolutely wanted to recruit into the Library Committee as a fellow bookworm. I wouldn’t pressure her if she didn’t want to join, but the thought of seeing her, Schwartz, and Weiss working together while wearing matching armbands filled me with joy.

“I’m going to work as a Library Committee member with a friend once I become a second-year,” I explained. “Ahahaha, I can’t wait... Oh?”

As I spoke, a white bird slipped through the wall, spun circles around the room, and then settled down on the desk in front of me. “Lady Rozemyne, this is Elvira. Lady Charlotte has organized answers to your questions. I am sending them over now,” it said thrice.

Immediately after, another bird flew into the room and then turned into a letter, which dropped down onto my desk. It was less from Charlotte herself and more from the scholars among her retainers, answering my questions about the proposed Extreme Makeover to the lower city.

I started reading through the letter. It seemed that Drewanchel had published research on the slimes during the Interduchy Tournament—including schematics on how to use them in sewer systems and the like—around eighty years ago. The duchy’s aub at the time had promptly introduced the slimes to his capital; then, during the Archduke Conference, he had reported their success in eradicating the city’s filth and its lingering stench. He concluded that they had made things easier to manage on the whole and asked the king to introduce them to their Royal Academy dormitory.

The king granted his permission, and so a slime-based sewer system was introduced to the Drewanchel Dormitory. In the past, it had been standard to dispose of any waste in the surrounding area. This technology removed the need for that, however, and the area around the duchy’s dorm became a considerably more attractive and comfortable space as a result.

After confirming the efficacy of the new slime system, the Sovereignty purchased the rights to the technology and used it to beautify both the Royal Academy and the royal capital, a development that brought great honor to Drewanchel.

From there, it became a trend for duchies to undergo similar dramatic renovations. Archdukes would request and purchase the technology during the Archduke Conference, after which it would take a span of years for them to be granted permission, resulting in significant gaps between when different duchies properly embraced the sewer system.

Naturally, trends trickled down from top to bottom. Ehrenfest had been within five spaces of the lowermost rank at the time, among the lesser duchies, and so it had taken us quite some time to earn permission. It ultimately wasn’t until over a decade after Drewanchel first displayed the power of using slimes that our own dramatic renovations started to take shape.

Incidentally, things did not progress so simply. Ehrenfest had ended up receiving permission at the most inopportune time, right after Gabriele of Ahrensbach had married into the family. Her husband had been the archduke candidate planned to become the next archduke, so to forestall him causing chaos, he had ended up being granted land from the Central District and installed as the first Count Groschel. He, his wife, and his children who had been raised as archduke candidates all left the city of Ehrenfest at once, causing a massive drop in the total mana quantity of the archducal family.

But even with less mana, it was important to keep up appearances in noble society. Ehrenfest first dramatically renovated their dormitory at the Royal Academy, since it was the place most seen by other duchies. They renovated the archduke’s castle several years later, and then the Noble’s Quarter several years after that. The lower city was set aside, with renovations planned for whenever the archducal family had enough capacity to spare, but that time ultimately never came to pass.

By this point, it was entirely forgotten why the lower city hadn’t been renovated; in fact, more and more people from the generation who knew these circumstances to begin with were passing away, such that Charlotte concluded her letter by saying that she had decided it necessary to tell Sylvester about all this.

“Up until now, we had so few exports and merchants from other duchies coming here that it was fine to set the lower city aside,” I said. “But now that things have changed, we have to do something.”

But we still didn’t have any mana to spare, as far as I knew. The blueprints for the renovations made to the castle and the Noble’s Quarter involved creation magic that could only be used by the archduke, so they were apparently in his document storage room. Sylvester’s scholars had checked and confirmed that they were still there.

That explains why I don’t know about them despite having made a catalog of everything in the book room. I wish I could get permission to go in that storage room too.

“Lady Rozemyne, the High Priest is here.”

“Right.”

I put away Charlotte’s letter and requested that Ferdinand come to my hidden room, which he promptly did. His attendants entered soon after, carried three boxes into my workshop, and then exited, leaving only six of us in the workshop: Ferdinand, Justus, Eckhart, Angelica, Damuel, and me. Our retainers were here with us because my engagement made it somewhat problematic for me to meet Ferdinand without guards or attendants since he was unmarried.

“It feels a bit cramped in here with so many people,” I observed.

“My workshop is smaller, and under normal circumstances, the mana restriction would prevent anyone but you from entering. Furthermore, this is the bare minimum. There are going to be even more people in the room when several scholars and attendants gather in the castle to brew this on a larger scale,” Ferdinand said with a hint of annoyance. He spread out a cloth, on which was a magic circle similar to the one I had seen when he was making the jureve, and then haphazardly took out a series of mysterious ingredients. Justus took them all and plopped them into a box one after another.

Eckhart pulled out various documents from one of the boxes and spread them on the work table, having already received his instructions. These papers apparently covered the results of Ferdinand and Hirschur’s research.

“Eckhart, may I look at them?” I asked.

“You will see more than your fill of them later. Now move your head. You’re in the way,” Eckhart said, his voice several degrees colder than usual due to him being in the middle of following Ferdinand’s orders. He shooed me away and then returned to spreading out yet more documents.

“Lady Rozemyne, you shouldn’t get in the way when people are busy. At times like this, it’s best to step back and not say anything. That way, everything will end up ready on its own,” Angelica said, imparting to me the wisdom she had received from her parents: “The best way for you to help is to do nothing at all.”

In retrospect, I did seem to recall Angelica stepping back and watching over us with a smile whenever we started talking about things unrelated to brute force. It was evidently a method for broadcasting one’s lack of involvement. Thanks to this situation, I had learned yet another piece of weird trivia about Angelica.

“Ferdinand, do call me when everything is ready,” I said. I had nothing to do there myself and was just going to be treated like I was in the way, so I decided to leave and read as planned. Angelica was surprised to hear this, but she was the last person I wanted to hear criticisms from, considering that she was standing in a corner of the workshop and focusing inward to stealthily train her enhancement magic.

“First, look at this,” Ferdinand said, pointing at the documents sprawled atop the work desk.

After announcing that I knew it was improper behavior, I climbed up onto a chair and got on my knees so that I could peer over the table. There were ten sheets of paper with complexly drawn magic circles on them and one larger sheet that showed the resulting magic circle when they were all layered on top of one another. I had no idea what the magic circles meant, but Angelica’s eyes started to sparkle when she saw them.

“Lord Ferdinand, can I embroider this circle onto my cape too?!” she exclaimed. It seemed that she needed the permission of whomever had initially modified and therefore invented the magic circle.

Angelica’s sudden request made Ferdinand blink with surprise. “Are... Are you capable of embroidery, when you cannot even use a calculator?” he asked.

“I am. I can do it. This magic circle is amazing. Please give me permission to embroider it onto my cape,” Angelica said, her eyes positively radiating sparkles. Her begging was at full power, and she looked entirely like a beautiful young princess with a particular fondness for sewing.

“I will grant you permission if you prove useful in making these outfits. Now, assist with the embroidery of this section.”

“You may count on me.”

I thought Angelica was crippled by her lack of brain cells, but she actually has a ton of girl power. She beats me, even...

As I slumped my shoulders in despair over losing to Angelica so soundly, Ferdinand continued. “The library’s magic tools have protective magic circles woven deftly into their outfits. You know this already, from what I understand.”

“I do.”

“Hirschur and I managed to improve their designs through our research, and we will now be making new outfits for them. We must prepare the ingredients, brew them, and then create the necessary materials,” he said, then going on to mutter, “I would rather continue researching Schwartz and Weiss, as Hirschur is, but these outfits are the highest priority.”

I agreed with that; the last thing I wanted was for him to finish his research and then completely lose interest in helping me make these outfits. He could research Schwartz and Weiss to his heart’s content after our work here was done.

“Will we need to go on another journey to collect the ingredients?” I asked.

“No, I have all the ingredients we need,” he said. “We would not make it in time for the next term of the Royal Academy if we took the time to go gathering. As master of the tools, we need your mana to create threads for the magic circles and feystones for storing mana.”

“Won’t supplying all these ingredients burden you, Ferdinand...?”

“I will consider it an acceptable trade so long as I am given the clothes they used to wear in return. I wish to research their cloth and thread, and this should not be an issue, since the new outfits are going to have just as many feystones as the old ones,” Ferdinand said with a smile that conveyed his true intentions. That was precisely why he hadn’t brought their old outfits here with him. No doubt he would retrieve the leftover materials after the new outfits were made and start dissecting the old clothes to investigate the magecraft of the prior owner.

“Can we not use the existing feystones for their buttons, at least?” I asked. If we just moved the buttons over, we wouldn’t need to use as many ingredients nor brew as many materials. I thought it would save us time and mana, but Ferdinand shook his head at my suggestion.

“They would not be unusable, but in terms of mana efficiency, it is far better for you to replace them with feystones of your own. Librarians may be able to go to the library whenever they please, but you cannot. That is why you will want the feystones to be as effective as possible. You would not want the two magic tools to run out of mana and become immobile midway through their work, would you?”

I shook my head. I certainly intended to exploit the need to refill their mana to visit the Royal Academy’s library on several occasions between spring and autumn, but I didn’t want Schwartz and Weiss to end up immobile if something waylaid me. Solange would probably be shocked and saddened if they suddenly stopped working again.

“As for fashioning the outfit, we will begin with making the thread for embroidering the magic circles,” Ferdinand explained. “You will need to do the embroidery yourself, as the tools’ master, which I imagine will take some time.”

“Excuse me?! I have to do all the embroidery?!” I exclaimed, paling at the very suggestion. Hirschur had said that all those in Ehrenfest would need to band together for this, so I had planned to ask a noble daughter with an immense amount of girl power and impressively graceful sewing skills to handle it for me.

“Others can do the embroidery which disguises the magic circle in this area. As their master, you will only need to do the magic circles themselves.”

“‘Only’?! But there are so many!” I balked. He had pointed to all ten of the individually drawn magic circles, which were so complex and detailed that the thought of embroidering even one made me feel queasy. And I had to finish them all before next winter? No way. I didn’t have the time for that.

“Despite how grueling it may seem, I fused some of the magic circles while improving them, so there are fewer than there used to be. And the magic tools need charms of this strength to be protected. This is your job as their master. Do it well.”

“Can we not just draw the magic circles on?! If we use a mana dye of sorts, they’ll work just as well, won’t they?” I asked. Drawing the magic circles would still end up being a pain, but not as much of a pain as embroidering them.

Ferdinand considered my request for a moment before shaking his head. “Embroidering secures the circles to the cloth more reliably than anything. Dyes cannot handle precise lines and instead spreads through the cloth. Since you would need ink of a great enough mana quantity, it would end up being more wasteful than simply making thread.”

“Then what about using (paste) to stop the dye from spreading, as per the (Yuzen) process?”

“Yuzen...?” Ferdinand repeated. “What is this paste you are referring to?”

“A resisting agent...?” I said, trailing off. I had described it as the Yuzen process, but I had actually been thinking of rice paste. And on second thought, we probably couldn’t make rice paste here; we would want something to use in its place.

If we can’t use rice paste, what can we use...? Hold on. Is the Yuzen process just impossible here?! Um... What ingredients can I get right away? Oh! Resist-dyeing using wax might work!

“Wax is going to be the easiest to understand and prepare,” I said with a smile, hiding the panic that I was feeling on the inside.

“Wax, as in the wax used in the candles that light the temple?” Ferdinand asked.

In the castle with its many attendants, large rooms like the grand hall were lit with a combination of candles and light-amplifying magic tools, while individual rooms simply used magic tools, which were the most common light source. I was used to candles from living in the lower city, but to Ferdinand, they were for the most part localized within the temple.

“Yes. We draw lines with heated, melted wax. Wax hardens when it cools, does it not? That will stop the dye from seeping into the lines.”

“Ooh, you can use wax like that?” Justus interjected. His voice was bright, and he wore an excited grin at having learned what he thought was lower city knowledge. At this rate, he would no doubt start lurking there in search of other ways to use wax.

Oh no! I need to teach this to the Gilberta Company ASAP!

“I say we use dyeing instead. My embroidery skills are terribly lacking to the point that I simply cannot see myself completing all the circles by winter,” I said, conscious that my work in the temple and with the printing industry meant my time was scarce. “If we take the dyeing route, however, I can just recover my mana with potions.”

“Consider learning to embroider your duty as a bride and give it your all,” Ferdinand replied dryly.

“Then we shall cancel my engagement. If I don’t get married, I don’t have to practice sewing.”

“Do not be foolish. You know by now that such a decision will not be permitted.”

“I know, I know. I just said what came to mind.”

“Doing so will allow others to exploit you. Take more care in what you say.”

“Right,” I replied while picking up one of the sheets with a magic circle on it. “This looks like it would be hard for me to reproduce even with a pen. I really don’t think I can embroider these designs; they’re just too detailed and complex for me. There are dyes we could use instead to imbue the cloth with mana, no?”

“Hmm... A dye that will properly dye something with mana... Perhaps we could use your blood,” Ferdinand proposed, his tone dry and intimidating. I paled, thinking back to the time I had to use my blood to sign magic contracts in my commoner days.

“Absolutely not! That sounds painful and also extremely terrifying!”

“It was a joke. I expect Ehrenfest’s reputation would suffer if we were to give the magic tools of royalty bloodstained clothes to wear.”

“It doesn’t sound at all like a joke when you say it, Ferdinand.”

“Regardless, creating ink with enough mana to compare to blood would need enormous quantities of mana to brew.”

“That’s fine with me. Anything is better than embroidery.”

“I wish I had enough mana to say such things...” Damuel said with a small groan, having far too little mana for such reckless spending even since compressing his mana.

I scoffed, dismissing his envy with a sniff, and then returned to pleading for Ferdinand to accept ink as an alternative. I refused to budge on this. It was literally impossible for me to embroider all the magic circles.

“If you make me embroider these, you’ll bring shame to all of Ehrenfest!” I declared.

“Good grief... What terrible blackmail. Things truly do never go as planned with you,” Ferdinand grumbled. Even so, I triumphantly clenched my fist; as long as I didn’t have to embroider, I considered it my victory.