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Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.8 - Chapter 1




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The Return and a Dinner Meeting

One had to use a teleportation circle to get from the Royal Academy back to one’s duchy. I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to endure the nauseating swirling of the world around me.

“Welcome home, Rozemyne!” Bonifatius roared. My eyes were still closed, but hearing his familiar voice was enough to tell me that I was back in Ehrenfest.

“Stop right there, Father.”

“Don’t move, Master.”

I opened my eyes to see Karstedt and Angelica standing on either side of my grandfather, positively glowering at him as he tried to welcome me with a smile. I adopted a defensive stance on instinct, recalling the incident last year when Bonifatius had very nearly launched me through the ceiling in excitement.

“Stand aside, you lot!” Bonifatius ordered. “Why should I contain my love when my granddaughter has come first-in-class two years in a row?!”

“Because she will die otherwise, Father,” Karstedt said. My guard knights agreed, and with everyone against him, Bonifatius ultimately slumped his shoulders in defeat. I appreciated that he was so eager to praise my achievements, but avoiding a split skull was a lot more important to me.

“Grandfather, open your hand,” I said. He did as instructed, at which point I gripped his index and middle fingers. I would have liked to hold his hand properly, but my own hands were nowhere near big enough. “We can walk to my room like this. Now, let’s go all the way to the northern building together.”

“V-Very well.”

“Master, don’t squeeze your hand, no matter what,” Angelica warned.

“If you do, Lady Rozemyne’s fingers might break right off,” Damuel said.

As the guard knights watched on fearfully, I completed the impressive task of getting all the way to the northern building while holding hands with Bonifatius.

“May we meet again at dinner,” I said to Bonifatius, seeing him off once we had arrived at my room. I then introduced my new retainer to those who had stayed at the castle during my term at the Academy. “This is Roderick, an apprentice scholar who gave me his name. He will be living in the knight dormitory as my retainer from this point on. Damuel, please take him there at once. I have discussed the matter with Aub Ehrenfest, so a room should already be prepared for him.”

“Understood.”

“Roderick, ask Hartmut and Philine about your scholar work,” I said. Everyone was going to be busy putting away their luggage from the Royal Academy, so my underage retainers would only begin their work in practice starting tomorrow.

“Tea is ready, Lady Rozemyne, so might I suggest moving to the tea party room?” Ottilie said. “Your siblings are there waiting for you.” It seemed that she had prepared drinks for us and our attendants, so that we could while away the time until our retainers finished putting away our luggage.

And so, Angelica and Ottilie brought me to the main building’s tea party room, where I found Wilfried and Charlotte already sipping tea.

“Melchior’s room was prepared while we were at the Royal Academy,” Wilfried said. Children of the archduke lived in the northern building from their baptism until their coming of age. Similarly to the Royal Academy’s dormitories, the top floor was reserved for the girls and the one below for the boys. Wilfried was glad to have Melchior there now, since he had previously been all alone.

Charlotte nodded with a smile. “Melchior did say that he wished to join us in the northern building as soon as possible.”

Apparently, all of the necessary preparations had been completed much earlier than usual. I was Melchior’s adoptive sister and wasn’t related to him by blood, so I couldn’t go to the room in the main building where he lived. The only times I saw him were when he was brought to the dining room to say his good nights, but we never spoke or socialized.

One thing I noticed about Melchior was how similar he was to Florencia, both in how he looked and acted. His hair was also the same purplish blue as Sylvester’s, which made him look more like his father than Wilfried did. That said, I couldn’t see Melchior as being a mini Sylvester as I remembered thinking about Wilfried. It was strange.

“That reminds me,” I said. “Sylvester mentioned that Melchior’s baptism is going to be held alongside the feast celebrating spring.”

“That’s right,” Wilfried replied. “Melchior was born in spring. So was I, for that matter, and mine was done at the feast too. I remember that Grandmother actually...” His nostalgic musings were cut short when he suddenly caught my eye.

Hoping to break the awkward silence, I shifted the subject back to Melchior’s baptism ceremony. “I am going to be blessing him as the High Bishop, much like how I blessed you at your baptism ceremony, Charlotte.”

“Melchior will surely rejoice at that,” Charlotte replied. “Your smile gave me strength while I was on the stage.”

As we waited for our retainers to summon us, Charlotte told me all about how Melchior’s room had been decorated. I truly couldn’t wait to meet him.

It had become normal for Ferdinand and Bonifatius to eat dinner with us on the day we returned to Ehrenfest. I was sitting beside Bonifatius, as usual, and together we discussed the Interduchy Tournament, the ditter game against Dunkelfelger, the attack during the awards ceremony, and Cornelius’s sword dance. Thinking back, a lot had happened in such a short time.

“The apprentice knights asked you for a blessing even though black weapons are forbidden?!” Bonifatius asked, barely managing to contain his outrage. “Did they intend to have their own archduke candidate charged with a crime?! It seems they’ve forgotten whom they’re supposed to protect! They may be getting better at ditter, but they clearly know nothing about being a knight!” Then, in an instant, his expression turned gravely serious. “Hm... Perhaps I should go to the Interduchy Tournament next year instead of Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand scoffed. “Now that is a suggestion I truly can appreciate. Violence is not my forte.”

You liar. It absolutely is!

Putting that aside, there were a lot of things that Ferdinand assisted with during the Interduchy Tournament and graduation ceremony, so in truth, I wanted him to come next year as well.

“Good, good. That settles it, then,” Bonifatius said, nodding. “I’m going next year. You’ll be safe no matter what happens, Rozemyne.”

“But who’ll serve as Rozemyne’s doctor if you’re not there, Uncle?” Wilfried asked, desperately trying to prevent the impending catastrophe. Sylvester nodded in grave agreement, and of course, I shared their opinion. Nobody understood my health better than Ferdinand, and the Interduchy Tournament was so busy that I needed someone to look after me and make sure I didn’t violate any scary socializing rules. All that was presumably too much to suddenly lump on Bonifatius.

“As I will no longer be attending the Interduchy Tournament, Rozemyne, we will need to lock you in the dormitory with Bonifatius,” Ferdinand said. “This is your fate, and you must accept it.”

Sylvester raised an eyebrow at this remark. “Weren’t you the one who said it would be a shame to make Rozemyne give up on going to the Interduchy Tournament?”

“At such times, one must choose the lesser of two evils.”

Ferdinand had been acting strangely ever since his conversation with the Sovereign knight commander in the library. Out of nowhere, he had started trying to evade the Royal Academy entirely—as was abundantly clear in our current conversation.

Seriously, what does “Adalgisa” even mean?

I was really curious, but with how on edge Ferdinand seemed, I could guess that it wasn’t a subject I should broach so suddenly. For now, I needed to allow the whole affair to wash over me and simply keep an eye on him.

“Let us instead think of the upcoming Spring Prayer,” I said. “We can discuss the Interduchy Tournament next year when it becomes relevant. By then, I might have even grown enough to be able to manage my health without Ferdinand.”

“Impossible,” Ferdinand replied tersely.

Are you being serious?! I’m trying to be considerate here!


Holding back the urge to growl at him, I continued talking about Spring Prayer; I needed to prepare for the lengthy journey it entailed and plan things out with Wilfried and Charlotte. Now was a convenient time for that, since Ferdinand was here too. I asked Sylvester which new province had been chosen to join the printing industry and started planning who would go where, with consideration for the Gutenbergs.

“Father, will Melchior be joining us for Spring Prayer?” Wilfried asked.

“Nah,” Sylvester replied. “He can’t control his mana yet. I can’t imagine he’s going to be helping out until next year.”

My sudden absence after the kidnapping incident meant that Charlotte had needed to learn to control her mana over winter socializing in preparation for Spring Prayer. Melchior wasn’t under such time constraints, so we settled on him joining for the first time next year.

“By the way, did you find anything on how to make the stages for the Spring Prayer ceremonies?” I asked Sylvester.

“Unfortunately not,” he replied. “I’ll continue my search, but it won’t be easy.” Apparently, Ferdinand was going to be taking a group of scholars to Haldenzel this year to research the magic circle and ceremonial stage.

“I must return to the temple,” I said. “I need my ceremonial clothes and other little things.”

Sylvester shook his head. “You can leave that to your attendants. Just why do you think I’ve given your retainers permission to go to the temple?”

I clapped my hands together in realization, having not considered that at all. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I could leave temple matters to castle attendants.

“I plan to have Justus go to the temple, so you may have an attendant of yours accompany him,” Ferdinand said. “I will contact Fran via magic letter and tell him to prepare.”

“Thank you.”

Thoughts about the temple soon led to thoughts of the lower city, and with that in mind... “Sylvester, when will the Plantin Company books be sold?” I asked.

“Speak with Moritz and the attendants in the playroom to figure things out.”

“Understood. I was also wondering—when will the mana compression lesson be? Charlotte is due to attend this year, and I have a new retainer. Have all of the participants been decided already?”

“Yep. The invitations should have been sent out.”

I ensured that Roderick and Philine were added to the list of participants. Philine’s contract needed to be changed from a duchy to a country one.

“So, when do you plan to sell the information gathered at the Royal Academy to our offices?” Sylvester asked. “We want it done as soon as you’re ready.”

“I would appreciate having two days to plan with the scholars first.”

“Consider it done. I’ll contact the offices and send word once we’ve settled on a date.”

Sylvester and I started constructing a general idea of what needed to be done while the nobles were still in the Noble’s Quarter. It was better for us to do all this in person, as conversing through letters would take far too much time, and we would no doubt miss the spring feast otherwise.

“Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said. I turned and saw that his eyes were fixed on me, while his index finger rhythmically tapped against his temple. “Have Wilfried and Charlotte accompany you when you are selling the intelligence gathered at the Royal Academy.”

“Why?” I asked. Planning to include them next year seemed reasonable enough, but their lack of involvement thus far meant they would only struggle to keep up if they decided to join us any sooner.

Ferdinand sighed. “You made it clear from the very beginning that your only intention is to gather stories from other duchies, no? It was just an accident that information from other duchies has started flowing in as well. However, that intelligence is of great value to our offices, and they now await it urgently. Selling it should not be done without Wilfried present as the next archduke.”

Wilfried reacted the most to this news—his head shot up, indicating that he was now on full alert. If the heads of the offices Ferdinand was talking about only saw me at the yearly meeting where information was sold, they would start placing more importance on me than any other archduke candidate.

“Furthermore, as the contracts have been modified, and the archduke is leading the printing industry, it is now the business of the duchy to gather stories to make into books,” Ferdinand continued. “This cannot be done on your budget alone.”

To me, it still seemed as though the printing industry existed primarily to suit my hobbies, but now that there were official contracts, everything was being done on Ehrenfest’s budget.

“You should also give some of your current workload to those serving Wilfried and Charlotte,” Ferdinand said. “It is excellent how much your retainers have grown to keep up with the enormous burden you increasingly bring upon yourself, but their superiority to other retainers is becoming more and more apparent.”

They’re growing so much because you keep having them do work at the temple...

As I protested on the inside, Ferdinand spoke again, this time in a hushed voice that only I could hear. “You will be the first wife, not the aub. Do not stand out so much.” Apparently, his intention here was to remind me that I needed to prop up Wilfried rather than myself.

“I am gathering stories and progressing the printing industry because I want to,” I said, “so I wouldn’t feel right about giving work to Wilfried and Charlotte despite them not being my subordinates. Oh... But since you’re the one who trained my retainers, perhaps you are suggesting I do the same and give their retainers tasks to complete?”

Although I’m pretty sure that isn’t my job...

“How many times must I tell you not to bring more work upon yourself...? They may train their own retainers. My point is that printing is not your job alone, and that you should take care to share important information.”

It seemed a little hypocritical for the secretive workaholic Ferdinand to be telling me to share my workload and my intelligence, but I couldn’t deny that he was always propping up the archduke. I went ahead and nodded, although I wasn’t entirely convinced.

The next day, I summoned Charlotte, Wilfried, and their retainers as instructed, then began outlining the information we had obtained at the Royal Academy. “Charlotte, please handle these calculations. Wilfried, please organize all of this information onto a single sheet.”

Having to teach everyone their new jobs didn’t actually increase my workload, since I needed to show the newbie Roderick what to do anyway. I ensured the information was ready to be sold to the offices while at the same time getting Philine to see how much ink and paper we had used so that she could calculate the total amount of money we had spent.

I observed everyone’s progress and saw that Wilfried and Charlotte were staying up to date with their retainers while working alongside them. Things were progressing much slower than planned, though—it took three people trying their hardest, their brows furrowed in concentration, to manage what Hartmut could easily finish on his own.

Just as Ferdinand said, my retainers are so much more skilled... But how exactly can we fix this? I couldn’t think of a way to remedy the situation without getting involved myself.

Once the information was organized and spread, I asked Wilfried and Charlotte to attend the meetings with the higher-ups of the offices. We needed to make the intelligence look valuable, squeeze money out of our interested parties, and distribute the earnings to those who had provided the information in the first place.

“You managed all this last year, when you had just been unwell for so long?” Wilfried asked, looking exasperated.

“I understand why Uncle wishes to reduce your workload,” Charlotte added. “You may rely on us a little bit more, if you wish.”

“I thank you ever so much, Charlotte.” Her kind words brought a smile to my face.

Wilfried nodded in agreement with our sister. “We’re engaged, but I didn’t know about any of this,” he said. “In the future, could you call me when you’re talking about work with Father?”

“Of course,” I said. “I will do so next time.”

After finishing the mana compression class, Roderick desperately started trying the process for himself, pushing through all the mana sickness-induced nausea he was no doubt feeling. It was during that time that his father requested a meeting with me, since Roderick had yet to return home and news about him becoming my retainer had spread during winter socializing.

Of course, I refused the request for a meeting. Sylvester would settle the matter instead.



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