Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.7 - Chapter SS1

Rendezvous at the Gazebo

“I will study in my room so that I may finish my classes as soon as possible. After all, I will need to help Lady Charlotte with her socializing,” Brunhilde said.

“And I will similarly prepare for this afternoon’s practical lesson,” Philine said as well.

After seeing Lady Rozemyne off, we retainers went back to our respective rooms. I started climbing the dormitory stairs, only for Hartmut to call out to me.

“Leonore, you’re free at the moment, right?”

“I intend to spend this time researching feybeasts and their weaknesses in preparation for the upcoming Interduchy Tournament, so I will not help train or gather materials for Roderick,” I replied, already sure of what he was going to ask. “If you have determined that he is useless and are facing a shortage of manpower as a result, convince Lady Rozemyne to take another apprentice scholar in his place.”

I understood that Hartmut was extremely busy and struggling with his duties, but I was a guard knight. I was not about to do scholar work unless Lady Rozemyne personally ordered it.

“So harsh, Leonore. If only you could be kind to someone other than Cornelius...”

“Agreeing to help you even a single time will only lead to you seeking my assistance on a regular basis,” I said tersely. Again, I turned to leave, but then I heard someone calling my name from nearby. It was Cornelius, who I had thought had returned to Ehrenfest with Lady Rozemyne, and he was walking over in quite a hurry. “You certainly came back quickly. You did say that you would, but given your guard duty and the necessity to report on what took place here at the Academy, I thought you would be gone until at least tomorrow.”

“We’re talking about Cornelius here,” Hartmut said with a laugh. “I imagine Lady Elvira was there to welcome Lady Rozemyne and wasted no time before antagonizing him with questions, causing him to turn tail and run right back here.”

Cornelius grimaced, showing that Hartmut was entirely right with his guess. I gave a sympathetic smile and said, “I do understand how you feel, Cornelius. I would wish to run as well.”

Back when we had informed Lady Elvira that Cornelius had chosen to escort me at his graduation, her dark eyes had gleamed, and she had probed me relentlessly about our romance. The unexpected intensity of her questions had been overwhelming, especially when I couldn’t answer them due to my oaths of secrecy with Cornelius.

“Mother certainly is a pain, but this is my last year at the Royal Academy,” Cornelius said. “There shouldn’t be anything odd about me wanting to stay here as long as I can. For the memories.”

“I see, I see,” Hartmut interjected. “You want to flirt with Leonore as much as you can, since you don’t have as much guard duty in the Royal Academy.”

I shot him a cold glare. “Hartmut, are you not embarrassed to be throwing such a misdirected tantrum? I suggest erring on the side of silence.” He was probably getting revenge for my refusal to help him just now.

“I’ll take my leave for now,” Hartmut replied with a shrug and started upstairs. “Don’t want Leonore holding a grudge or anything. Have fun, you two.”

That last line was unnecessary...

As I glared at the swiftly retreating Hartmut, Cornelius extended a hand to me with a conflicted smile. “For you to be so annoyed right now, you must really hate spending time with me.”

After glancing around and confirming that nobody was within eyeshot, I rested my hands atop his. “I dislike those who taunt us as Hartmut does, but I am glad to have more time to spend with you, Cornelius. Please do not tease me when you know how I feel.”

Cornelius leisurely escorted me up the stairs. Lady Rozemyne had fewer guards in the Royal Academy than in the castle, so we normally had very little time to spend alone together. Simply walking with him was enough to make a pleasant warmth spread through my chest and a smile play on my lips.

“I feel the same way,” Cornelius said. “We only have until classes end; let’s spend as much time together as we can before Rozemyne returns. Luckily, we’ve already finished most of our classes to accommodate her library-going.”

Even if there were group gathering and ditter training sessions on Earthday, we had plenty of time we could spend alone together. And the time we had previously spent accompanying Lady Rozemyne to the library as guards was also vacant; we retainers could use it as we liked.

“Leonore, you don’t have classes today, right?” Cornelius asked. “Is there somewhere in particular you want to go?”

“Anywhere will do, as long as we are together. Perhaps we could use this opportunity to learn from Royal Academy Love Stories?”

“We’re going to end up becoming material for Mother and everyone else, you know...” Cornelius said with a grimace. I couldn’t help but smile in response; his attempts to escape from Lady Elvira’s probing seemed more adorable than manly to me.

“Although I would not like to be used as material myself,” I replied, “the stories Lady Elvira writes truly are wonderful.”

“I am aware that women love them. I guess you do too, Leonore?”

“Just reading them, that is.”

“I think most men would be a little uncomfortable if you asked them to act based on those stories...” Cornelius muttered. He held my hand and guided me out of the dormitory, complaining about how fictitious such love stories were all the while, and together we started down a hallway in the central building.

“Even we women understand that such ideal stories cannot be recreated perfectly in the real world. I, for one, would not like to be held to the standards of the ladies who feature in them,” I replied. Royal Academy Love Stories described actual romances in the most beautified way imaginable. They were quite extreme at times, so it was easy to understand not wanting to be compared to them.

Cornelius suddenly paused and examined me carefully. “You consider those stories the ideal, but you don’t actually expect them to become reality...” he said. “That’s the first time I’ve heard an opinion like that.”

“Saying it so bluntly is far from romantic, so I imagine most women keep such thoughts locked away inside of them.”

I was often told that I was too straightforward, and that my cold observations weren’t cute at all, but my tongue had slipped yet again. Despite my efforts to act at least a bit cuter around Cornelius, I always ended up blundering somehow. It was so upsetting that I started walking a half step behind him. I would have liked to distance myself even more, as I was in deep self-reflection, but this was as far as I could go while our fingers were still entwined.

If only I were as innocently adorable as Judithe or Philine. Maybe then Cornelius would think I’m cute, even if only a little.

“I do think you’re cute,” Cornelius suddenly announced.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s cute how you admire love stories, even while saying they’re unrealistic.”

In an instant, I felt all of my mana coursing through my body; my cheeks flushed, and I was struck with an urge to flee out of embarrassment. There were metaphors in Royal Academy Love Stories about a Goddess of Spring wanting to hide from the God of Far-Sight, and they all suited me perfectly at this moment.

“A-As I’ve said...!” I stammered. “Erm... I do not know how to reply to things like that. Please do not say them with such a serious face.”

Cornelius brushed off my protests with a smile and opened a door in the central building that led directly outside. He descended the snowy stairs, then formed his highbeast. I moved to do the same, but he stopped me with a half-smile. “You don’t need yours, Leonore. Ride mine.”

“Hold on just a moment... Riding double?!”

Cornelius and I were already set on choosing one another for the graduation ceremony escort, so there would be nothing shameful about us being seen riding together. Incidentally, it was considered very problematic for members of the opposite sex to ride atop the same highbeast—that is, unless they were lovers or children—but that was not my concern here. I had not ridden alongside any man before, much less the one with whom I was in love, so I had no idea how to behave or what to do.

“If you don’t want to, I won’t make you...” Cornelius said.

“I don’t not want to. I just... need time to prepare my heart.”

“Alright. Could you do that later, then?”

As expected, Cornelius once again brushed off my protests with a smile. By the time I knew what was happening, I was atop his highbeast.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Naturally, as we were riding in tandem, his voice was much too close. My head started to spin, and I found it impossible to sit straight. Perhaps the cold air and piled-up snow intensified Cornelius’s warmth, and the feeling of it against my back made it impossible for me to calm down.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I was thinking we should take a page from Royal Academy Love Stories and go to the gazebo where the Goddess of Time plays her tricks,” he replied.

It seemed that Cornelius had indeed read the book, despite all his complaints about Lady Elvira. His right hand gripped the reins, while his left held me securely in place. This had happened in the stories as well, and it was entirely like being embraced. The problem was that I was barely calm enough to entrust my body to him while feeling as the Goddess of Spring did while she whirled along.

I should have been studying Royal Academy Love Stories, not the feybeast encyclopedias!

I had thought that Cornelius had selected me because my province, status, and faction made me the optimal choice, and that even if we were on good terms as coworkers, there would never be true romance between us. The idea that we might one day be riding to a gazebo like this had not once crossed my mind.

Cornelius truly does excel at surprise attacks...

As I remembered, it had been the end of summer, at the time of the summer coming-of-age and the autumn baptism ceremonies. Lady Rozemyne was spending her days in the temple in preparation, and while she was absent, her female retainers were pouring their all into embroidering Schwartz’s and Weiss’s outfits.

By chance, it was on that particular day that Lady Rozemyne’s attendants were changing her room’s decor to suit the upcoming season. Judithe had practice, and Philine was helping at the temple, so I was the only one embroidering in the retainer room.

“Leonore, is Rihyarda here?” Cornelius asked, having suddenly appeared in the entryway.

I glanced at the door leading to Lady Rozemyne’s room and said, “She is decorating right now, so I expect she will shoo you away unless your business is particularly urgent.” Rihyarda was enthused about finishing the task as quickly as possible.

Cornelius must have found it easy to imagine her reaction and seated himself with a smile. “Guess I should wait until she’s calmed down a bit. She should take a break at fifth bell, right?”

“Yes, I imagine so,” I replied, confident that even Rihyarda would give herself some time to rest, and then returned to my embroidery. I wanted to use this rare opportunity to speak with Cornelius, but no suitable topics came to mind.

Have you decided who you’re going to be escorting...?

I was extremely concerned about the answer to that question, but I had heard that Cornelius was already fed up with Lady Elvira asking him about such matters. The last thing I wanted was to make the silence even more unbearable. At times when we were working together, we would often speak of our guard knight duties, but we had nothing to talk about when Lady Rozemyne was absent.

Perhaps I could discuss Lord Bonifatius’s training... Or would that be too sudden?

I silently continued my work, trying to think of something to say.

“This embroidery sure seems finicky. I see why Lady Rozemyne did everything she could to avoid it...” came an impressed voice. I looked up and realized that Cornelius had been watching my hands the whole time—and now that I knew his eyes were on me, my fingertips began to tremble.

“Lieseleta is the skilled embroiderer, not I. She excels at precise work and would more than happily embroider forever. Not only has she finished the task she was assigned, but she has also started embroidering Lady Rozemyne’s new outfit. Her intention is to make the hem match the designs on Schwartz’s and Weiss’s clothes.”

“Right...”

Lieseleta’s love of shumils was common knowledge among her fellow retainers. She thought she was successfully hiding it from Lady Rozemyne, but I was certain she had long since been discovered.

“So, the girls are splitting the embroidery up... Does that mean Angelica’s participating?” Cornelius asked, seeming extremely concerned. He was probably thinking back to the suffering he had experienced as part of the Raise Angelica’s Grades Squadron. That, or he harbored feelings of undying love for her, despite her having become engaged to Lord Eckhart.

“This may surprise you, Cornelius, but Angelica has a talent for embroidery.”

“No way.”

“It is true. She agreed to help as long as Lord Ferdinand gave her permission to embroider the magic circles into her own cape as well. She said that she would spare no effort when it came to powering up her equipment.”

“I wish she had shown that much initiative with her studies...” Cornelius said and gave an exaggerated sigh. I wished that I could sigh as well; he seemed to get quite talkative when the subject turned to Angelica, but that just made me depressed.

Once again, we fell into an uncomfortable silence. It seemed as though we were both eyeing one another, but neither of us could speak. Our standoff continued, broken only by the occasional faint sound of my thread passing through cloth—that is, until Cornelius spoke again.

“Are you embroidering to strengthen your equipment too? Or are you thinking of the future?”

The word “future” made my heart thump as images of a wife embroidering her husband’s cape immediately came to mind. I was practicing with the future in mind—that much was correct—but what Cornelius didn’t know was that I wished to embroider his cape in particular.

“Both, I suppose. I simply hope that my efforts do not go to waste,” I said in partial jest, mustering all of my energy to force a smile.

“I see,” Cornelius replied casually, again watching my fingers. “I don’t think they’ll go to waste. If you’ll embroider my cape, that is.”

“Ahaha. That certainly would reward all of my hard work,” I said. But I cannot, no matter how much I want to.

I passed my thread through the cloth again. And again. And again. And then, I suddenly realized what Cornelius had just said to me.

“If you’ll embroider my cape”? Wait. Hold on a moment. Was that...

He had said it so casually that I hadn’t even realized his intentions. I snapped my head up to look at him and saw that his eyes were already on me. There was nothing in his expression to suggest he had been joking—rather, he seemed troubled by the vagueness of my response.

“Erm... May I borrow your cape, then?”

“There are more people here than I thought...” Cornelius remarked. His voice tickling my ears brought me back to the present moment, and my heart continued to pound as I gazed down from where I was sitting atop his highbeast. There were several gazebos at the back end of the scholar building with highbeasts waiting outside of them, which indicated they were in use.

“This one looks like it has the best scenery.”

We stopped outside one of the gazebos and dismounted, at which point Cornelius took out a feystone and rested it atop the highbeast. By doing this, it wouldn’t disappear even if something else distracted him and he stopped supplying it with mana. I had seen Lady Rozemyne rest feystones on her highbeast when it was filled with luggage, but the sight was still strange to me—one did not usually separate from one’s highbeast.

The gazebos were fashioned from ivory stone, much like the Royal Academy, and were a little chilly as a result. However, this area alone had no snow, and thanks to the bright atmosphere of the flower gardens, the cold didn’t feel quite as bitter.

Visiting a gazebo with one’s lover was the kind of romantic act one could only do at the Royal Academy. I felt entirely as though I had become the protagonist of a story. Were Lady Elvira to write about this moment, the Goddesses of Spring would doubtless be dancing around Efflorelume the Goddess of Flowers.

“Leonore, is there really a need to sit so far away when it’s just us?” Cornelius asked when I seated myself across from him. He gestured for me to sit beside him instead.

“Y-You may have a point,” I replied. I moved over, trying to sit next to him as naturally as possible, but perhaps I was a little too close. Cornelius didn’t seem to be nervous at all, yet I felt as though steam were already blowing out of my ears. “Erm, Cornelius. About ditter practice next Earthday...”

I tried to focus our conversation on something familiar to regain my footing and distract from my nerves, considering that we were so close to one another and all alone. The problem was, the only topics I knew as well as the weather were training schedules and the feybeasts I was researching for the Interduchy Tournament.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Leonore, but shouldn’t we use this opportunity to discuss things we can only talk about while alone?”

“Such as?”

“Well... the escorting during the graduation ceremony, or the engagement ceremony after we get back?”

More than a season had passed since Cornelius and I first became lovers, and in that time, I had prepared clothes to wear at the graduation ceremony and gotten ready for the debut to my relatives. We planned to have our engagement ceremony upon returning to Ehrenfest.

I’ve checked things over countless times while working on these preparations, but perhaps I’ve forgotten something?

The blood drained from my cheeks. There was little I could do to prepare at the Royal Academy. This wasn’t the time to be relaxing at a gazebo.

“Have I failed to prepare something?” I asked. “Is there still time, or are we too late?”

“Oh, no. You haven’t forgotten anything...” Cornelius said with a troubled expression and stopped me from standing up. It was relaxing to hear there was nothing I had overlooked. “You like Royal Academy Love Stories, right?”

“Indeed. As long as I’m not featured in its pages...”

“Then why don’t we try to recreate one of the tales?”

“Hrm?”

I blinked as Cornelius used his spare hand to spread his cape. His dark eyes were narrowed ever so slightly in mischievous amusement, and when he brought his face closer to mine under the newly created shadow, I recalled Royal Academy Love Stories. There was a scene where the God of Darkness spread his cape and enveloped the Goddess of Light while they were both in a gazebo. No doubt he was recreating that.

“Might I hide you with my cape... my Goddess of Light?”

“If my God of Darkness wishes...” I replied. I couldn’t imagine refusing him, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I leaned against him nervously, and he embraced me as if enveloping me in his cape. His body was warm, and his mana felt exceptionally close.

“E-Erm, Cornelius...” I said. We certainly were in a comfortable position, but my embarrassment soon won out, and I pulled away from him, feeling an immense urge to flee and bury my face somewhere.

“Leonore,” he replied, shifting so that we were facing each other and showing me his right hand. Mana was concentrating on his palm as though he were about to produce his schtappe. It was a troubling sight; was he intending to mix his mana with mine even though we had yet to even exchange engagement feystones? Just what would our parents say if they saw us like this?

“Do you not want to?” he asked.

“That question is unfair...” I retorted. How could I refuse when, ever since reading Royal Academy Love Stories, I had dreamed of mixing mana with him just like this?

After swallowing hard at the idea of taking Cornelius’s mana for the first time, I slowly extended my own palm to the one outstretched in front of me.