Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.9 - Chapter SS

The Beginning of a Winter Apart

Irreplaceable

My office was filled with the scratching of pens and the hushed murmurs of my retainers checking each other’s work.

“Aub Ehrenfest, if you would sign this.”

I accepted the document from the scholar, looked it over, and then sighed. Everything was business as usual, but without Ferdinand to help me, I was having to deal with more work than ever. It was suffocating, and it didn’t help that my retainers all glared at me the instant I tried to rest. I was pretty much under watch at all times now.

“If you would check over this, Aub Ehrenfest...” said another scholar who had entered the room. He was holding out a petition from a giebe.

“Oh, give that to...”

I trailed off, remembering that Ferdinand was no longer here for me to depend on. He had departed several days ago, but my habit of trying to delegate work to him had yet to fade. It was a disappointing truth, and one that preyed on my mind as I started going through the documents myself. In the past, petitions from giebes and other, less important requests had all gone straight to Ferdinand.

Now, what to do?

Petitions from giebes often contained important requests that only the archduke could review, as well as some minor ones that I would only need to glance over. In this case, I simply needed to hand the matter over to the scholar in charge, but having to personally check each document was a waste of time. I needed someone who could manage all the minor requests themselves.

It had also been standard for Ferdinand to help me with my archducal work. I was fine with doing all that myself, since it was mine to begin with, but something had to be done about the archducal family work that he had previously been in charge of. His move to Ahrensbach had created a massive hole we had yet to fill.

I decided to send an ordonnanz to one of the scholars in my uncle’s office. “Is Bonifatius there? I could use his help.”

Bonifatius was old enough to have retired already, but even now, he was assisting us with archducal family work. Moving forward, he would even be helping to educate the archduke candidates. I assumed that he just wanted an excuse to spend more time with his granddaughter Rozemyne, but Ehrenfest had so few adult archducal family members that his help was greatly appreciated.

“Lord Bonifatius is not here,” came the response from a bemused-sounding scholar. “He is at the training grounds. It seems that he intends to train the apprentice knights until Lady Rozemyne leaves for the Royal Academy.”

Bonifatius had received untold amounts of praise from Rozemyne for improving the apprentices’ coordination in time for last year’s ditter games, and now he was fixated on getting even more after the next Interduchy Tournament.

“Our plan was to leave the work to Lord Ferdinand while we attended the Interduchy Tournament this year, but that will no longer do,” the scholar continued. “At the very least, it will not be a fair trade unless Lady Rozemyne still gives her praise. Not to mention, there will not be anyone around to stop Lord Bonifatius’s brutal training sessions while the knight commander and the others are in meetings. Will you stop him, Aub Ehrenfest?”

I knew how much Bonifatius wanted to spend the Interduchy Tournament with Rozemyne, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the training grounds while he was taking out his frustrations on the knights. I also recognized that the scholar had mentioned the knight commander and the others being “in meetings.” Bonifatius was no doubt distracting the knights to keep information about the purge hidden.

“He’ll refuse to do administrative work, and I don’t want him coming here to complain. Tell him to keep training the knights until he’s satisfied,” I replied, taking care not to sound unnaturally harsh. There were still too many people close to me who couldn’t find out about the purge. No amount of caution was excessive.

The purge had also been among Ferdinand’s countless duties in Ehrenfest, since he was distanced from the former Veronica faction and had therefore been best suited to keeping things hidden from them. Karstedt had since been put in charge, but he was having a heck of a hard time keeping things in order.

Now that Ferdinand was gone, there were gaps everywhere that we were struggling to fill. And every time I stumbled upon a new one, I realized just how far my half-brother’s influence had reached.

“If we cannot delegate to Lord Bonifatius, then what shall we do with this?” a scholar asked.

“I think I’ll give it to Wilfried,” I said, then sent an ordonnanz to my son, the future archduke. I noted that I wanted to entrust him with a new job, and he happily came running.

“Sorry to have called you away from your studies,” I said.

“It’s fine, Father. I’ve finished studying for my written lessons, and anything to do with the printing industry can be given to Charlotte,” he replied, clearly excited. “My responsibilities as the next archduke are far more important.”

I had to fight back the urge to smile; he really was just like me. I remembered when my father had entrusted me with new work, and how much I had loved the feeling of at last being treated like an adult. I enjoyed receiving new things to do, but that was because the unknown was so stimulating and exciting. Once it became a regular part of my everyday life, I would swiftly lose interest.

Either way, it’s good that he’s motivated.

Wilfried got bored easily, so the plan was to give him something new to do whenever he started to lose interest in his current task. It was a bit early for him to be doing this kind of work, but I was hoping that entrusting him with the duties of an archduke would benefit his studies.

Plus you never know when death might come...

I had inherited the role of Aub Ehrenfest from my father much earlier than expected, and there hadn’t been a single archduke younger than me during my first Archduke Conference. The usual handover process hadn’t even been completed, so Bonifatius had needed to support me while teaching me my duties.

But what would happen if I died at the same age as Father?

Bonifatius was old enough that he could pass away any day now, and while the original plan had been for Ferdinand to take up a supportive role after my unexpected demise, that was no longer an option. Would it be possible for Florencia to pass all of our duties to Wilfried and Rozemyne on her own? She carried out her own duties as a first wife, but she wasn’t involved in archducal work, so there was a lot she would struggle with. Considering the long term, it definitely seemed wise to give Wilfried an overview of everything that would one day be expected of him.

“Father, what do you want me to do?”

“We’ve received petitions from giebes. Get the scholars here to provide responses,” I said, handing him the documents in question. His retainers were accompanying him, and they probably wouldn’t let him send any incorrect or mistaken answers.

After accepting the documents with a satisfied grin, Wilfried exited my office with his retainers.

Ferdinand never smiled like that when I gave him new jobs. He doesn’t have a cute bone in his body.

My half-brother, who was younger than me by five years, had always been shockingly good at hiding his emotions—even at a young age. I closed my eyes and thought back to the first time we had met...

Father had announced that I was soon going to have a little brother. Mother didn’t seem too pleased about it, but my other siblings were all girls and older than me, so I was over the moon. My mind raced with thoughts of what I could do as an older brother, and in my excitement, I asked Karstedt and Rihyarda for their input.

“At this rate, he might not respect you at all,” Rihyarda warned, so I started doing my best to be a good older brother. I resolved to be nothing like Georgine, who treated my sister and me so harshly, and to instead take good care of our new addition to the family.

“Sylvester, this is Ferdinand,” Father said, introducing my new half-brother. “He’s going to join you in the northern building—and one day, he’ll become your pillar of support. Get along now.”

The boy in front of me had light-blue hair cropped at the shoulders and almost feminine features. He was so pretty, in fact, that I might have mistaken him for a girl in different clothes.

Ferdinand gave the greeting he had been taught without so much as a smile. He was nervous, I thought, so I decided to start dragging him all over the place in an attempt to make him feel more at ease.

Of course, it wouldn’t be until much later that I realized his stoic expression was a sign not of anxiety, but of cautiousness.

“‘Lord Sylvester’ is way too formal,” I said. “We’re siblings now, so just call me ‘Brother.’”

“Grow your hair out,” I insisted. “Then we’ll match.”

“I’ll help you with your studies,” I offered. “How about some harspiel practice?”

Slowly but surely, Ferdinand started to seem less tense... but Mother never stopped ignoring his existence entirely. I didn’t understand why she refused to even try to spend time with him.

I wonder how long it was before I realized that she was trying to eliminate him—that she was doing all those terrible things to him without Father’s and my knowing.

Rihyarda and Karstedt had saved Ferdinand on more than one occasion after the truth came to light. Father and I had likewise told Mother to stop, but that had only made her more stubborn and her abuse even crueler.

“Why do you do these things, Mother?!” I once exclaimed.

“That child is a threat to you,” she replied. “He must be eliminated sooner rather than later. You are the only male archduke candidate we need, Sylvester.”

She had refused to listen, so Father and I eventually decided to do everything in our power to keep her and Ferdinand apart.

The situation then changed when Ferdinand became a third-year. Even though he had already obtained such high grades, he had asked to stay at the Royal Academy outside of winter so that he could take the knight and scholar courses too. Mother had refused, as this would have required them to not only keep the dormitory open for his sake, but also ensure there were servants and retainers there to attend to him.

Mother continued to protest, but Father granted Ferdinand his wish nonetheless; his greatest priority was to keep the two away from each other. Thus, Ferdinand started spending the bulk of each year at the Royal Academy, returning to Ehrenfest only when Father determined that he should.

I started seeing him a lot less often after that, but the few times we did meet, he always seemed so full of life. I was just glad things were working out.

I had assumed that Ferdinand was safe in the Royal Academy, and that I only needed to keep an eye on Mother whenever he returned to Ehrenfest. It had never even crossed my mind that he might be suffering in the dormitory—and that even our duchy’s dormitory supervisor might be treated poorly along with him.

Then, as my marriage to Florencia came nearer and nearer, I started focusing less and less on my brother’s feud with Mother. And once I was married, my attention turned to keeping Mother from interfering with my new life.

Only the first few years of my marriage were spent in bliss. We had assumed that Father’s poor health was due to a common illness that would soon pass, but as time marched on, he had only grown weaker. And as he became more unwell, more of his work was thrust upon me. My hands were full before I knew it.

I hadn’t thought there was anything unusual about Ferdinand helping me with my workload on the few occasions he came home. He was coming first-in-class every year; being probed about marrying someone from Dunkelfelger, a greater duchy; and spending all his time immersed in magic research. As far as I was concerned, he was having a blast doing whatever he wanted.

Everything was turned on its head when Father died. Ferdinand’s engagement fell through—although I hadn’t known at the time—and Mother’s obsession with eliminating him became almost psychotic. I was worried, but not necessarily for Ferdinand. He was talented enough to have consistently come first-in-class; he needed only to fight back and Mother would meet her end.

But I can’t risk losing either of them...

I cared about Ferdinand, both because he was my brother and because I had promised Father that I would protect Ehrenfest alongside him, and it was for that reason that I suggested he should enter the temple. Cutting off my mother simply wasn’t an option—in part because she was my family by blood, and in part because she was my strongest source of support now that Father was gone.

My mother had lost her own mother at a young age, as well as her older brother. She had also had a very strained relationship with her father, considering that he had cared far more about his Leisegang wife than he had about her. Mother had reviled the second wife of her father and half-siblings alike, choosing to maintain contact only with her younger brother, who had been sent to the temple. Most other nobles wouldn’t have spared my uncle so much as a glance, but she had cared for him deeply—and for Wilfried and me as well.

In contrast, her loathing for Ferdinand, who did not share her blood, was abnormally strong.

Unfortunately, even after Ferdinand had entered the temple and stopped associating with noble society, Mother had continued to pursue him in a maddening frenzy. The chaos had come to a head when she had committed a crime that could not be excused, and now she was detained in the Ivory Tower while Ferdinand was back in noble society.

“Your expression is getting darker by the day, Sylvester,” Florencia said, sounding concerned as I climbed into bed. I sent my retainers away, and only then did I feel as though I could breathe easily.

Florencia gently stroked my forehead. “Do you not think Lord Ferdinand would be displeased to hear that you are still bemoaning his departure?” she asked, her indigo eyes tinged with worry as she tenderly ran her fingertips across my cheek. “He left to protect both you and Ehrenfest, no?”

To protect Ehrenfest, huh...?

My eyes started heating up. I really had thought that Ferdinand would stay by my side forever, thanks to his promise with Father. I’d tried giving him a place here by dragging him all over and relying on him for things.

But in the end, I couldn’t do as well as Rozemyne.

I was glad that Rozemyne existed, and adopting her had been a genius move. It had been great knowing that Ferdinand had someone to care about in the temple, and it had been fascinating to see how extensively he had cared for her despite complaining about what a pain it was. But most of all, I was pleased that Rozemyne had managed to get through to Ferdinand using her commoner ways. She had gotten him to reveal things that he had kept hidden even from me. If not for her, I wouldn’t have known exactly what Mother had done, that Ferdinand had been struggling beneath his steely exterior, or that Wilfried had been in a truly dangerous spot.

That reminds me... Rozemyne’s taking this just as hard as I am, apparently.

Rozemyne was especially worn down, according to a report from Rihyarda. The news hadn’t come as much of a surprise; she had trusted Ferdinand more than anyone else in noble society, and he had protected her countless times and in countless ways. She was probably suffering even more than I was.

Rozemyne must be feeling empty inside too.

I was sure that, like me, she felt an important part of her was missing. I couldn’t protect her, and I hadn’t been able to protect my little brother Ferdinand. In fact, he had ended up protecting me. That was what I regretted more than anything.

“You’re gone now, Ferdinand... and you’ve left us all feeling so hollow...” I muttered, trying to vent my misdirected anger.

Florencia pulled me into a tight hug and lovingly rubbed my back. “It is not over yet, dear. You must grow strong enough to contain Lady Georgine. Turn that frustration into mana to use. I will be here at your side.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow...” I said, taking comfort in her warmth and drifting off to sleep.