Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.6 - Chapter 12

Professor Hirschur’s Laboratory

After spending my morning looking over several documents, I decided that I should consult Hirschur. They were pretty complicated, and I couldn’t understand a lot of what was written.

“Lieseleta, when might we have an opportunity to visit Professor Hirschur?” I asked, remembering that she had committed Hirschur’s schedule to memory for the sake of planning out Schwartz and Weiss’s changing time.

“You wish to go to her laboratory, Lady Rozemyne?” she asked with a troubled and somewhat resistant look. “For what purpose?”

“I wish to discuss the library magic tools that I am considering with her.”

Lieseleta looked down at the floor for a moment, deep in thought, and then looked up at me again. “In that case, it would indeed be best to go to her laboratory. However, I suggest we do this before Schwartz and Weiss are changed. Once her attention is focused on research, Professor Hirschur will pay no mind to accommodating our wishes.”

I responded with a grave nod. Hirschur had a history of getting so absorbed in her research that she abandoned her classes, so I could easily see her abandoning us too. I asked Lieseleta to schedule things so that we could see her as soon as possible; I wanted to see whether my improved magic tools and circles were correct, and while I was there, I wanted to ask Hirschur if she had any convenient magic tools that would assist me in running a library.

“You met with royalty again, Rozemyne?! What did you do?!” Wilfried exclaimed out of nowhere at dinner. My mind was so preoccupied with magic tools that it took me a moment to even process what he had said.

“Um... The royalty’s magic tools?” I asked. “You mean Schwartz and Weiss?”

“Lady Rozemyne, he means Prince Hildebrand. You met him at the library this morning, remember?” Philine prompted.

“Oh, right!” I smacked a fist against my palm in realization. “We exchanged greetings.”

Cornelius peered down at me with an exceedingly concerned expression. “Rozemyne, don’t tell me you forgot...” he groaned.

“Fear not—it had merely fallen into the corner of my mind where things that I do not wish to remember end up.”

“Isn’t that what people call forgetting?” Cornelius muttered. I really hadn’t forgotten, though; the information had just taken a short while to come back to me, since I didn’t really care about it.

“I did nothing but greet him,” I assured everyone. “He was there in secret, so I did not wish to bother him. He had aimed for a time when no students were present, and I made it clear that I intend to visit every day from now on, so I do not expect to see him again.” There was no way a prince who wanted to remain in the shadows would come to the library when he knew I was going to be there.

“I seem to remember you saying something similar last year, and yet...” Wilfried mumbled, his brow furrowed.

“Flutrane and Heilschmerz heal in their own ways,” I replied. He was comparing last year to this year, even though Anastasius and Hildebrand were entirely different people.

“You somehow managed to see the prince who said that he wouldn’t be leaving his room at all. I have no idea what might happen next.”

“We may meet again, or we may not—it all depends on the prince,” I said with a shrug. As far as I was concerned, it was a waste of time to consider the matter any further; no matter how much I tried to avoid trouble, it always seemed to find me eventually. “More importantly, we have made plans. It has been decided that we will change Schwartz’s and Weiss’s clothes three days from now, during the afternoon. This time, we need not take them outside of the library. I wish to bring some helpers, prioritizing the girls who assisted with the embroidery.”

“Sister, may I come as well?” Charlotte asked, her indigo eyes beginning to sparkle; she had assisted with the embroidering in the castle too. “I have finished all of my written classes, so I will have time in the afternoon.”

“Of course, Charlotte.”

We naturally couldn’t bring too many people, so we centered the group around Charlotte, me, and our retainers, then chose the other girls while making adjustments based on their schedules.

“Lady Charlotte, I embroidered as well.”

“I wish to come as well, Lady Brunhilde.”

As I watched everyone eagerly form the group, Lieseleta quietly came to my side and reported that she had arranged a meeting with Hirschur. “It seems she has time tomorrow morning. She would like to introduce you to another student then as well. Her disciple.”

“Understood,” I replied. “Let us go to Professor Hirschur’s laboratory tomorrow morning.”

“And remember—please refrain from speaking of the clothing matter for the time being...” Lieseleta warned. I nodded in response.

The next day came, and I headed to Hirschur’s lab in the scholar building. I had with me the books from Ferdinand and the magic circles I had created, since I wanted to ask her about how to improve them.

Philine and Hartmut were carrying the documents, Brunhilde was bringing a simple tea set, and Lieseleta had a cleaning magic tool for some reason. Cornelius and Leonore were following as guards. Once we reached the door, Lieseleta announced our arrival as my apprentice attendant.

“Professor Hirschur, Lady Rozemyne of Ehrenfest has arrived.”

“Professor,” came a male voice from inside. “They’re calling for you.”

“Well, you’re closer, aren’t you?” came Hirschur’s response. “Open the door.”

It seemed the two of them were arguing. Soon enough, the door creaked open, and a boy stuck his head out. He had disheveled black hair, and his brewing clothes were covered in dust. The look on his face exuded a sense of profound sleepiness, and he just appeared to be kind of dirty overall. I reflexively grimaced, but it all made sense once I saw Professor Hirschur’s laboratory.

There were rather large tables lined up against the walls, each of which was fully covered with tools and mountains of documents. There were papers mixed with food scraps on the ground, which gave me the impression that a particularly tall mountain of paperwork had fallen over at some point in the past. Only the table square in the middle of the room was clear, and I could guess that was because they were brewing there. It was neatly organized so that nothing was mixed unnecessarily.

“Do come in,” Hirschur called from inside, but Lieseleta stopped me before I could even take my first step.

“Professor Hirschur,” she said, “this room is not fit for visitors. Did you not say yesterday that you would clean it such that Lady Rozemyne could enter without shame?”

“You are right,” Hirschur replied without an ounce of guilt. “That is because this is not a room for visitors; it is a laboratory.”

Lieseleta gave a sigh of disappointment, muttered that this was why she hadn’t wanted to bring me here, and then turned her attention back to Hirschur. “I ask that you put any documents you need on the tables. As Lady Rozemyne’s attendant, I cannot allow her to enter a room like this,” she said, taking out an egg-shaped magic tool with a smile.

The expressions on both Hirschur’s and her disciple’s faces changed in an instant, and they immediately rushed to gather all the scattered papers on the floor.

“Lieseleta, what magic tool is that?” I asked.

She answered with a smile that it swallowed up everything in a specified area to clean it. One would normally dump all the dust that gathered on furniture onto the floor, then suck it up all at once—since everything on the floor was seen as garbage.

“This is the first tool we use for preparing long-abandoned rooms for use,” Lieseleta continued. She then used it, and the entire floor was cleared in an instant.

Of course, the tables were now an even bigger mess than before, owing to Hirschur and her disciple’s hurried attempt at cleaning up, but that wasn’t Lieseleta’s concern. Trying to organize the now precariously tall stacks of documents would take an immense amount of time, so she was turning a blind eye to them.

“I ask that the two of you at least make yourselves presentable,” Lieseleta said as she and Brunhilde brought in the sweets and tea set. Hirschur’s stomach growled when she saw the food; she apparently took all her meals in her laboratory, when she ate at all.

“I would rather not use my mana for anything but research, but very well,” Hirschur conceded. She used waschen to clean herself and her assistant in an instant—almost as if to distract from her stomach rumbling—then she offered us our seats while reaching for a rejuvenation potion.

“I would appreciate an introduction,” I said, shooting a glance at Hirschur’s assistant as I sat down. His eyes were locked on the food.

“Oh my. Forgive me,” Hirschur said with an amused smile. She then introduced me to her newest disciple: Raimund. He was second only to Ferdinand in skill and had gained Hirschur’s attention during brewing classes last year, where he had been putting his all into brewing with as little mana as possible. “Ferdinand was a genius when it came to ideas, inventions. Meanwhile, Raimund is only a third-year, but he is a genius when it comes to modifications. If you wish to make improvements to your magic tools, Lady Rozemyne, I believe conversing with him will be most productive.”

The disciple knelt before me. “May I pray for a blessing in appreciation of this serendipitous meeting, ordained by the harsh judgment of Ewigeliebe the God of Life?” he asked, using the standard greeting for meeting someone for the first time. I gave my permission, and the light of a blessing flew. “I am Raimund, an apprentice medscholar from Ahrensbach. Nice to meet you.”

In an instant, the expressions of my retainers changed. Everyone took defensive positions, with Cornelius moving between Hirschur and me protectively. “Professor... your prized disciple is an Ahrensbach student?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes, he is. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Are you unaware of what has been happening between Ahrensbach and Ehrenfest in recent years?”

“No, I am fully aware. What is your point?” Hirschur asked, narrowing her eyes and urging Raimund behind her in an equally defensive gesture.

Cornelius glared at Hirschur, his fists tightly clenched. “Are you not ashamed to call yourself Ehrenfest’s dormitory supervisor?”

“I may be from Ehrenfest, and I may have been assigned to be the duchy’s dormitory supervisor, but I am a Royal Academy professor whose citizenship rests in the Sovereignty. All professors move to the Sovereignty so that we may raise skilled students for the sake of not one particular duchy, but Yurgenschmidt as a whole,” Hirschur said, her face stony and her purple eyes gleaming. “That is why it does not matter where my disciple hails from, Cornelius.”

“But Ahrensbach tried to kidnap Lady Rozemyne...”

“Good grief... I cannot tell whether you are stubborn for your age or simply shortsighted due to your youth. It is the duty of a teacher to nurture the remarkably talented among our students. We truly do not have much time in our short, transient lives to grow, and refusing the now for a more convenient later is the same as crushing one’s potential.”

Hirschur looked over my still on-guard retainers and then gave a dramatic sigh. “You speak so confidently and proudly about the political situation, but politics are ever-shifting and unreliable; they can change over a matter of years. It is more important to focus on those with talent, which can actually be relied on.” She laced her fingers together on the table and stared directly at me. “The clearest example is Ferdinand—when I took him as my prized disciple, the Ehrenfest students moaned to no end about what a terrible mistake it was. Lady Veronica even sent venomous replies to each of my weekly reports. And yet, a mere ten years later, what remains of those politics?”

Hirschur had raised Ferdinand as her disciple while defending him from Veronica’s hatred. He should have become a once-in-a-generation scientist, but instead, following his graduation and around the time of his father’s death, he was sent to the temple. Hirschur had worried that his talents would waste away there, but Ferdinand eventually returned to noble society and even began raising his own disciple.

“No one can truly predict how politics will change in their lifetime. Lady Rozemyne, had I bowed to the wisdom of the time and shunned Ferdinand, it is likely that you would not even exist as you are right now,” Hirschur continued flatly. She raised those with talent based on their results and her own gut feelings, paying no mind to political drama, and she had spent her life living according to that ideal. “I will repeat to you all the same words I gave to Lady Veronica: I am a Sovereign noble and a professor of the Royal Academy. Ehrenfest does not have the authority to decide whom I raise as my disciples and how I raise them.”

Moved by the thought that Hirschur had protected Ferdinand back in the day, I reached out and tugged on Cornelius’s sleeve. “Professor Hirschur is right, Cornelius. Professors may choose whomever they please as their disciples, and at the same time, we may choose to be on guard against Ahrensbach students. We all have our reasons for doing things.”

Cornelius gave a curt nod and stepped back, although he refused to lower his guard for even a moment.

“Oh my, it seems my tea has started to cool down...”

Hoping to lighten the mood, I sipped my tea and ate one of the sweets we had brought, then gestured for Hirschur to help herself. She popped a cookie in her mouth and then passed one to Raimund before reaching for the plate of crepes.

Raimund wasted no time in devouring his cookie. He then picked up and ate another, and another, and another, his blue eyes sparkling all the while. His movements were graceful, since he was a noble, but he was going through them as ravenously as a starving orphan.

“Still, to think you would come to speak with me, Lady Rozemyne...” Hirschur said, mentally preparing for our conversation as she ate a ham-and-vegetable crepe. I continued sipping my tea as I watched them chow down. This laboratory really wasn’t good for one’s health; I could see exactly how Ferdinand had ended up as he was now.

“I would like for you to teach me everything about magic tools,” I said. “I am in the process of making some to be used in libraries.”

“Could you perhaps be referring to the magic tool for playing voices that Solange has spoken to me about?” Hirschur asked. It seemed that Solange had already sent ordonnanzes to various researchers in the hope of getting the magic tools she wanted.

“My goals are broader than just recording magic tools,” I replied. “I would also like to improve existing magic tools so that they are more convenient to use. Furthermore, I created a magic circle of my own after reading books from Lord Ferdinand. Could you check it for me to make sure it works?”

Raimund gazed up from the crepe he had been given with wide eyes and exclaimed, “Books from Lord Ferdinand?!” He then clapped a hand over his mouth. He had made such an outburst despite how on guard my retainers were; it was only natural that he had drawn everyone’s attention.

Hirschur shook her head with a bemused grin. “Raimund has been dedicating himself to improving the magic circles and tools that Lord Ferdinand left behind,” she said, explaining for him. “It was he who modified the voice-recording magic tool that Solange wanted so that even a mednoble could use it.”

Raimund was keeping silent because we were already on guard against him, but he was staring at the books in Hartmut’s arms, practically begging to read them. His eyes were shouting, “Please, please, please!” And who was I to ignore the cries of a fellow bookworm?

“Hartmut—”

“No.” He cut me off with a smile. “These are Lord Ferdinand’s research results. We cannot show them to someone from another duchy without his permission.”

I slumped my shoulders as though I were the one being rejected and then held out the paper containing my magic circle to Hirschur. She paused eating—which was very noticeable, considering that her hands had been moving almost nonstop as she reached for this and that—and skimmed my work. After a moment of careful observation, she rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

“Lady Rozemyne... What in the world is this?”

“A magic circle to make books return to the library automatically after their due date.”

“It’s unusable,” she said with an exasperated expression. I had thought it was sound in theory, but it appeared to be headache-inducing.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“Nothing. It’s just... unusable. You truly are Ferdinand’s disciple. Nobody will be able to use magic circles designed with archduke candidate levels of mana in mind. This is neither practical nor realistic,” Hirschur concluded, making it clear that my design had too many unnecessary components. “Why did you cram this all into one circle? If you put in Life then you will inevitably need Earth, which just makes a whole mess of things.”

“The task Ferdinand gave me was to fit everything into a single circle.”

“I suppose learning the theory for that would prove useful, but...” Hirschur trailed off and started tapping her temple as she handed the circle to her disciple. “Raimund, modify Lady Rozemyne’s circle such that you can use it. You may use this opportunity to show her the basics of circle modification.”

Raimund glared at the circle for a bit and then muttered, “I’m impressed you jammed so much into it...” before beginning his modifications. I made sure to watch his hands carefully as he worked. “The fundamental principle behind improving circles is to simplify. Thus, we want to divide this particular circle into two circles—one to return the book to the library when its return date has passed, and another to move it to its place on the shelves.”

“Why two?”

“Because mana is wasted otherwise,” he explained. “As long as the book is returned to the library, Professor Solange can handle the rest. If she has mana to spare, she may use the circle for returning the book to its shelf, but if not, she can simply choose not to. Think of this as separating the essential functions from the quality-of-life ones. Because this circle is based on your exceptionally large mana capacity, Lady Rozemyne, it will end up useless for someone like Professor Solange.”

“That is certainly true.”

“The reason so many tools fell into disuse following the civil war is because many of them require so much mana that only royals or archnobles have the capacity to use them. That is why I believe functions should be divided—so that, when necessary, even mednobles and laynobles may use the tools,” Raimund continued. He then also isolated the theft-blocking circle. “Making this a separate magic circle will mean we don’t need Earth and Wind here.”

He was simplifying the circle piece by piece. For a beginner like me, it seemed that keeping my magic circles as simple as possible would help minimize errors.

“You can reduce the mana requirement by making the circles less complicated and selecting the brewing ingredients more carefully,” Raimund said. “For example, I think you could save on mana for the magic circle that returns books to the library if you write it on the moving paper you invented in Ehrenfest.”

“Why do you know about that, Raimund...? I thought we only shared the verification paper with the Sovereignty and Klassenberg...” I said, blinking.

“Everyone knows about it,” he replied, looking at me with confusion. “Professor Gundolf was raving about it during class. He wants to research it himself, he said.”

“Who is Professor Gundolf?” I asked cautiously, unsure how this information was flowing through the Academy.

“Drewanchel’s dormitory supervisor,” Hirschur answered for him. “He’s a scientist friend of mine and a good rival. Hm... Given that Gundolf was showing interest, using Ehrenfest paper and verification paper as a mixed brew might result in something interesting...” Her gaze shifted to me; then, her lips curled into the smile of a mad scientist. “Lady Rozemyne, please do sell me some Ehrenfest paper and some verification paper.”

“As you are a Sovereign noble, I cannot sell you any verification paper,” I replied.

Hirschur’s expression froze in what I could only assume was shock. She recovered a beat later, however, and immediately began pleading on the grounds that we were from the same hometown. I sensed that she was going to drag this out, so I glared at her.

“If you continue to be so insistent, Professor Hirschur, I will not invite you to participate in changing Schwartz’s and Weiss’s clothes.”

That was enough to make Hirschur shut her mouth.