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Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.7 - Chapter 15




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Hartmut’s Marriage Partner

No sooner had Ferdinand and I arrived at our seats than attendants began busily moving around us, preparing to resume socializing. Hartmut arrived a moment later.

“Lady Rozemyne,” he said, “I would like to introduce you to the woman I’m escorting. Do you have a moment?”

“Ottilie made it seem like you were courting quite a number of girls,” I replied. “Have you managed to narrow it down to one? I am glad you were not violently stabbed in the process.”

Hartmut met my response with wide eyes, then put on a bright smile and placed his right hand on his chest. “Please do not frame it like that, Lady Rozemyne. My name is with you. To me, my life is yours, always.”

“Don’t steal Roderick’s emotional lines.”

“Enough,” Ferdinand said to us both, waving his hand dismissively. “Hartmut would not have you meet just anyone. I imagine that he intends to marry this woman.” By formally introducing her to me, his boss, he was proving that their connection was for more than just the escort; his aim was for their parents to meet so that they could discuss progressing things toward marriage. “I, too, wish to know what manner of woman the ever-loyal Hartmut has chosen. Bring her here.”

“Understood.”

Hartmut went to where the other scholars were gathered and returned with a girl wearing a Dunkelfelger cape. I couldn’t help but think that she looked somewhat familiar, and as it turned out, she had been one of the apprentice scholars in attendance at Hannelore’s tea party. She had scorched-brown hair that was done in a long braid behind her head and eyes that were the same blue color as her cape. She was almost Hartmut’s height, which meant she was rather tall, and her face was flushed red with embarrassment as she walked a half step behind him. Overall, she radiated a lovely sense of innocence.

“Dunkelfelger...” Ferdinand spat under his breath, drawing my attention to him. “Its women tend to be highly calculating—it is impossible to say how much intelligence she will attempt to wring out of us. The question is, can Hartmut contain her?”

“Ferdinand... Did a girl from Dunkelfelger hurt you in the past or something?”

“...No. Such is merely the prevailing opinion.”

It was said that everyone who interacted with Dunkelfelger came away thinking it was a duchy of very manipulative women. I couldn’t quite understand it, though; Hannelore was the only girl from Dunkelfelger whom I really knew, and she had never given me reason to think she was conniving.

“I am Clarissa, a fifth-year apprentice archscholar from Dunkelfelger,” she said. In a shocking twist, Hartmut’s partner was the very same woman who had given me her duchy’s stories. My opinion of her immediately shot up when I realized that I had already read some of her writing.

Clarissa and I exchanged greetings, after which she said, with a face full of emotion, “At last. At last, I’ve finally been introduced to you, Lady Rozemyne. I’m overjoyed.”

“Does your coming here mean you’ve settled on marrying Hartmut, Clarissa?” I asked. “How did you come to such a decision? Um, simply out of curiosity, of course.” I couldn’t outright say that I thought he was a total weirdo and that her interest in him seemed strange, so I resorted to more indirect means.

“Do you remember the game of ditter you played with Dunkelfelger last year, Lady Rozemyne?” Clarissa asked.

“Yes, of course.” Perhaps they had gotten close while sharing information over ditter. It was strange but absolutely feasible.

“I was moved beyond words when I saw the fight,” she said, now blushing heavily.

Much to my surprise, what followed wasn’t a conversation about meeting Hartmut; rather, it was an impassioned speech about how splendid and magnificent she had found me. I, the tiniest girl in the Royal Academy, had used devious plots to toy with Dunkelfelger’s apprentice knights—she recounted this fact with sparkling blue eyes.

“Lady Rozemyne, after that fateful encounter, I resolved to marry an Ehrenfest man so that I might one day serve you,” she concluded.

Um, what? So it has nothing to do with Hartmut?!

Clarissa had then begun gathering intelligence in her search for a man who met her criteria. It would take too much time for her to marry someone younger, meaning they needed to be her age or older, and since she wanted to serve me after marriage, he would ideally need to be my retainer. He also needed to be someone her parents would approve of; considering Ehrenfest’s rank, it wasn’t uncommon for even fellow archnobles to have wide gaps in their mana capacities.

The only two men who suited her needs were Cornelius and Hartmut, both archnoble honor students. Cornelius had turned her down, since he already had someone else, but Hartmut was a free man who spent his time getting friendly with girls from other duchies to collect intelligence of his own.

“I asked Hartmut to date me with the expectation of marriage,” Clarissa continued. I nodded in response, listening attentively, only to be taken by surprise when Elvira suddenly spoke from behind me.

“Yes? And then?”

I turned around and saw her taking notes with a businesslike expression, much like one of my scholars.

“How did you convey your feelings to Hartmut?” Elvira asked. Hartmut was the one who replied, and his eyes grew somewhat distant as he spoke.

“Clarissa was more intense than any woman I’ve ever met. She suddenly kicked my feet out from under me, pinned me to the ground, and thrust a knife against my throat.”

“What...?” I asked.

“For a moment, I didn’t know what had happened,” he continued. Clarissa had apparently held him down with her body weight and, while holding a blade to his throat, demanded that he give her missions to complete to earn his hand in marriage. Hartmut, feeling that his life was in danger, had no choice but to comply. In the end, not only had Clarissa completed every challenge she was assigned, but she had also eliminated the other girls Hartmut was friendly with one by one, thereby removing all rivals for his affection. It seemed that to Clarissa, love was something won through intensity and guts, not displays of romance.

So, in Dunkelfelger, girls can be the dominant ones when it comes to starting romances... That’s news to me, but also not something I really wanted to know. Clarissa looked like such a normal girl at first too.

“I completed his missions and could finally date him with marriage in mind. And now, he is introducing me to you at the Interduchy Tournament, Lady Rozemyne...” Clarissa said shyly, as if embarrassed to talk about her own romance like this—not that I found what she was saying even the slightest bit romantic.

Mm... I just can’t believe their relationship started with cutthroat bloodshed.

I looked at Hartmut, who was standing next to Clarissa. He seemed so at ease, but was he really fine marrying a girl who had shoved a knife in his face?

 

    

 

“Hartmut, how do you feel about this marriage?” I asked. “Erm, it sounds like your meeting was quite shocking and dramatic, so...”

“It certainly was, but no matter how many times I extolled your virtues at length, Clarissa always listened with great interest. I also can’t imagine our decisions to prioritize you above each other will ever become a point of contention for us. I couldn’t hope for a better marriage partner.”

Oh, geez... I want to celebrate Hartmut getting married, but this really doesn’t seem like a pairing I should encourage.

As I contemplated the situation, Clarissa looked straight at me, her shy expression suddenly hardening. Perhaps she thought I was going to oppose their union, but before I could even respond, her eyes gleamed with the kind of rigid determination I had come to expect from Dunkelfelgerians. “I understand that marrying Hartmut does not automatically mean I get to serve you, Lady Rozemyne,” she said, “but being able to enter your service is my greatest wish—one that I hope to realize, no matter the cost. I asked Hartmut to arrange this meeting so that I could convey this to you.”

From there, Clarissa began to sing her own praises. She had become an apprentice scholar after failing the selection exam for apprentice knights but still favored the sword more than the pen, so she had started training with the other knights anyway. Now, she could double as both a scholar and a guard, and she made sure to note that she would serve as a valuable asset for negotiations between our two duchies.

Wait, what? Wasn’t this supposed to be about marriage? It feels like I’m overseeing a work interview.

“You claim to be a scholar of the sword—someone who can serve as a guard as well—but what of your scholarly skills in particular?” Ferdinand asked. “Pray tell, what research are you prioritizing for your graduation next year?” He must have shared my thoughts about this seeming like an interview, as he began probing her for more and more details on what kind of research she was doing. It turned out she was looking into magic tools and circles to assist with area-of-effect magic.

“I have worked this hard to ensure that Lady Rozemyne will accept me not just as a scholar, but as her scholar,” Clarissa said, holding out a sizable stack of paper. “To that end, I have transcribed all of the books my family owns—there were two, excluding those that Hartmut tells me are already available in Ehrenfest. I brought these with me for this introduction.”

“Goodness, Hartmut, what a lovely and passionate young woman you have found,” I said at once. “And Clarissa, even though you have already given me wonderful stories before, you went out of your way to transcribe even more books for me... You’re hired!”

“Stop, fool. You are being too rash!” Ferdinand chided me. “At least view the contents before you praise them.”

I gleefully accepted the stack of papers from Clarissa and started skimming through them, all the while considering the idea of her marrying Hartmut and becoming my retainer. In truth, I really couldn’t see there being any downsides for Ehrenfest, aside from the minor inconveniences of there being a second, female version of Hartmut running around.


“Your handwriting is clear, and your transcriptions are well done,” I observed. “Furthermore, I believe that Ehrenfest could benefit from having a connection to Dunkelfelger. What do you say to this, Ferdinand?” I gazed up at him, nervous that he might oppose the idea, while Clarissa did the same. He was my guardian, so he had the final say on the matter.

“Hm... I am somewhat uneasy about trusting a scholar of the sword with negotiations, but Hartmut should provide his support. If you wish to accept Clarissa, then you may do so.”

Clarissa turned to look at me, her blue eyes brimming with hope.

“In that case,” I said, “once you marry Hartmut and move to Ehrenfest, I will accept you as my retainer.”

“I thank you ever so much,” Clarissa said, her face flushing red with joy.

With that settled, Hartmut stepped forward. “Lord Ferdinand, Raimund visited a moment ago,” he said. “If you have the time, he wishes to deliver his completed work in person.”

“Very well. Bring him.”

The couple left together for Ehrenfest’s scholar space. As they went, I could see Clarissa happily say something to Hartmut and him respond in turn.

“Are most Dunkelfelger girls like Clarissa?” I asked.

Ferdinand frowned. “She is very different from the Dunkelfelger women I know; she has the mind of a knight above all else, and her means of proposing marriage was unusual, to say the least.”

“It really was a shock to hear that she conveyed her feelings to Hartmut at knifepoint...”

“Yes, quite,” Elvira said. “Goodness... How am I supposed to write this?” She looked equally as troubled as she walked off, but in my opinion, there was no need to force this into a sappy romance story. It would probably work better as a how-to guide for winning over boys—an essential read for men of other duchies at risk of courting from Dunkelfelger girls.

“Lord Ferdinand, Lady Rozemyne, we have brought Raimund,” Hartmut said, having returned with him in tow. Clarissa was still with him, since she wanted to see how skilled of a scholar one needed to be to earn Ferdinand’s and my approval. We were valuing Raimund very highly despite him being from another duchy, and to Clarissa, he was a rival to use as fuel for self-improvement.

Mm... I guess this makes them like Ferdinand and Heisshitze. Kinda?

Raimund was smartly dressed and wearing his light-violet cape, but his face was pale and showed clear signs of sleep deprivation. He had doubtless been researching up until the very last moment so that he could deliver the task to Ferdinand directly.

After greeting us with a nervous look, Raimund proffered his work. Ferdinand took it and began looking it over, while Hartmut and Clarissa peered at the submitted magic circle with great interest. I joined them, since this task had come at my suggestion: modifying a teleportation circle to be smaller and more mana efficient.

“Your improvements are decent,” Ferdinand said. “However, if one adds this form to the magic circle here, one could enable mana assistance from feystones and ultimately lessen the burden on the user.”

“Feystone assistance... The task was to provide a magic circle that even laynobles can use with ease; would feystones be that easy for them to acquire?”

“I would assume so; they are simple feystones,” Ferdinand replied, but his opinion here could hardly be relied on—he was privileged enough to have an abundance of mana and resources, and his thoughts on the matter were unlikely to account for this. I was about to mention this when Clarissa interjected.

“Even commoners can kill feybeasts and take their feystones, so having an assisting magic circle would be for the best.”

“Commoners can obtain feystones? To what end...?” Ferdinand asked. Both he and Raimund were staring at Clarissa in surprise.

“But of course. They can encounter feybeasts when they hunt in the forest and even defeat the weaker ones on their own. There are shops in the city that purchase feystones from them, so I don’t see why laynobles wouldn’t be able to manage.”

Wowee... Dunkelfelger must have strong commoners too. I’m so glad I wasn’t reincarnated into that duchy; I would definitely be dead right now.

“There are feystone stores in the lower city, where commoners live?” Ferdinand asked, blinking in confusion alongside Raimund. Perhaps such stores weren’t a thing in Ahrensbach or Ehrenfest. I had once lived in the lower city myself, but I had spent so much of my time indoors that there was little I could say about it.

In any case, Ferdinand concluded his evaluation by telling Raimund to investigate whether even low-quality feystones would work, and to add the assisting circle to his existing work if so.

“As for your new task... Rozemyne, is there anything else you need?” Ferdinand asked. The ball was now in my court, perhaps because he couldn’t think of anything without his documents at hand.

I gave a big nod as an endless stream of ideas came to mind. “I would like for you to improve the library magic tools that feature in the documents I borrowed from Professor Solange,” I said and then started to describe each one. There was a great variety—some that told the time using lights, some that cleaned the grounds, some that quieted the voices in the reading room, some that stopped time to prevent old documents from rotting, some that stopped the sunlight from damaging the books, and so on.

“So, what are the magic circles like?” Raimund asked.

“They weren’t illustrated in the documents I read, so I couldn’t tell you. The most I can say is that I want magic tools that can help in the running of a library. Professor Solange will also benefit from tools that require less mana.”

Ferdinand sighed. “I have several illustrations of magic tools used in libraries; I will supply your next task based on those,” he said to Raimund. Apparently, Hirschur’s teacher’s teacher’s teacher had made some of the magic tools used in the library, and Ferdinand still had a few documents on them.

“Perhaps it would be wise to visit the library to investigate this further,” Raimund said, forming his plans with a sparkle in his eyes. “Hopefully the magic circles are somewhere they can be easily observed.”

“Lord Ferdinand,” Clarissa added, “please grant me a task as well.”

“Get your tasks from Rozemyne. You wish to be Rozemyne’s retainer, not my disciple,” Ferdinand replied flatly.

Clarissa turned to me with a look of almost overbearing desperation. In the end, I decided to task her with creating a magic tool that would capture anyone who tried leaving the library with a book they hadn’t checked out properly.

The last few games of ditter concluded while we were busy with our discussion. Rauffen’s booming announcement filled the arena, informing everyone that things were over.

“The awards ceremony will soon take place,” he said. “Students, descend to the arena grounds after fifth bell.” In the meantime, we were supposed to do a quick cleanup. Apprentice scholars began collecting the precious magic tools they had taken out for the research announcements, while the apprentice attendants started cleaning up the silverware and sweets that had been served.

“Now then, you two—return to your duchies,” Ferdinand prompted Clarissa and Raimund. They complied, but their reluctance was clear on their faces; apparently, they had been quite enjoying our conversation. I had enjoyed it myself, since it was about magic tools for the library.

No sooner had fifth bell rung than Wilfried and Charlotte rose to their feet, having been anxiously waiting the entire time.

“Let’s go to the arena, Rozemyne,” Wilfried said.

“I imagine things will get crowded if we all go at once, so please go on ahead,” I replied. “I trust you can keep our students in order down there. Charlotte, please handle the flow of traffic. I will remain here for as long as possible to preserve my stamina.”

Wilfried and Charlotte nodded in agreement, then began giving out instructions. My most important duty here was preserving my stamina, such that I didn’t collapse in front of royalty.

After confirming that most of our students had reached the ground, Ferdinand turned to me. “It is about time. Once you have descended, we will observe from the front,” he said. It seemed that guardians would go to the front of the arena and watch the awards ceremony from above, like we had done during the ditter matches.

“I can only hope that many of our own are recognized as honor students this year,” I said and stood up. At that moment, one of the charms hanging from my arm activated. It flashed to life, then fired a bright, bluish-white arrow, much like when it had automatically activated against Rauffen.

“Wha...?” I blinked in surprise as Ferdinand suddenly pulled me to him. Eckhart simultaneously drew his schtappe and went on the defensive, followed a beat later by Cornelius, Leonore, and Judithe.

“Guh?!”

There came a sudden exclamation from somewhere relatively nearby. Cornelius and Leonore sprinted over to find its source, while Judithe stayed behind to keep me safe. It wasn’t long before Cornelius returned, dragging along the student who had taken the brunt of my counterattack.

“This is the culprit who attacked Lady Rozemyne.”

“No, no! I didn’t mean to attack an archduke candidate!” the student replied, having turned pale from the unexpected turn of events. He was an archnoble from Immerdink, the previous Tenth duchy that was now irritated at Ehrenfest for surpassing it. Apparently, this change in rankings had caused a girl from a greater duchy to break up with him, and now his anger and resentment were directed at Hartmut, who was now due to marry a girl from a greater duchy himself.

The student from Immerdink had apparently tried to throw a feystone at Hartmut’s leg in a sudden fit of rage, only for his target to inadvertently move aside. It had struck me instead, which had, of course, activated my charm. No matter who the boy was, he was pretty dang unlucky—although it hadn’t been his intention, he had just attacked an archduke candidate from another duchy. We couldn’t let him off without any repercussions, but at the same time, there was also no need for me to make a fuss right before the awards ceremony. It seemed best to let the adults deal with things later.

“While this boy brought much pain to himself, I am unhurt, so I have no intention of administering further punishment,” I said. “Aub Ehrenfest, you may bring this matter to Aub Immerdink.” I was going to leave the rest with him and Ferdinand, but before I could fly down to the arena, Ferdinand tightened his grip on my arm and pulled me closer.

“Rozemyne,” he warned in a quiet voice, “I believe that was your last charm for reflecting physical attacks. Take care not to leave your guard knights under any circumstances; it is impossible to say how duchies jealous of the change in rankings will react.”

Cornelius nodded with a hard expression, responding in my stead.



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