Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.1 - Chapter SS1

Finding Purpose and the Guardians of Knowledge

“Hortensia, I am not the only one who wishes for you to go to the Royal Academy library; the king is in agreement as well. I am sorry to give you this duty, but please see it through.”

“As both the wife of the Sovereign knight commander and a Sovereign noble serving the king, I shall give it my all.”

After this exchange with my husband, Raublut, I went to the Royal Academy’s library alone with my attendant, as per the king’s wishes. My duty was to observe and defend against the suspicious behavior of a certain Ehrenfest archduke candidate, Lady Rozemyne, and search through the archive enterable only by royalty that she had carelessly described.

“I am Solange, a mednoble librarian. Dregarnuhr the Goddess of Time has granted my prayers and woven the threads of our fate together once again. I am glad to have the opportunity to work with you, Lady Hortensia.”

“Oh, Professor Solange. I did not think you were still in the library. How nostalgic.”

Solange had served as a librarian even back when I was attending the Royal Academy myself. There had been few opportunities for us to speak, given that I was an archscholar and she a mednoble librarian—but there had been some, owing to the fact that we were both from Klassenberg. We had both grown much older since then, but she welcomed me with the same kind, gentle smile that she had worn back in the day.

“Solange. New person?” came a curious voice.

“Schwartz, Weiss, this is Lady Hortensia,” Solange explained. “She is going to be working with us in the library from now on.”

One could not mention the Royal Academy library without thinking of Schwartz and Weiss, the large shumils who assisted its librarians. They were standing at their usual spot beside Solange and seemed as lively as ever. Seeing them made me feel as though I were a student again.

Dear, oh dear. I must be careful now.

I was at the library for the sake of my husband and the royal family, not to carelessly reminisce. I focused my mind as Solange led the way with Schwartz and Weiss.

“First, I will guide you to the dormitory.”

We went through the office and into the library dormitory, where Solange’s attendant, Catherine, was waiting for us. We exchanged greetings; then I introduced my own attendant, Edelina. She was the only one who had accompanied me—there was a rule about bringing only one attendant to the Royal Academy, and this applied even to staff—so she and Catherine would certainly need to work together in the dormitory.

“While your attendant prepares your room, we may finalize your contract in the office,” Solange said. “You have with you a letter from the king describing your assignment, I trust?”

“Yes, of course.”

We moved back to the office, whereupon I gave Solange the letter and signed my contract to start working as a librarian.

Once all that was done, Solange nodded. “You are now an archlibrarian, Hortensia.”

“May our work be fruitful, Solange,” I replied. Now that we were coworkers, there was no need for us to address each other so formally. Schwartz and Weiss followed suit.

“Hortensia. Welcome.”

“Hortensia. Working together.”

“Oh my. They are using my name... Schwartz, Weiss, I look forward to working with you both.” I was so moved that I extended a hand to them, only for Solange to hurriedly stop me.

“They acknowledge you as a librarian, but you have not yet received permission to touch them. Please avoid doing so for the time being. Only their master, Lady Rozemyne, can give such approval.”

“Ah, so they truly are owned by a student now. Word had already reached me, but is this situation not terribly inconvenient? Does it not impact your work?”

Solange gave me a somber look. “I was working alone, so no inconvenience was too much. But now we have an archnoble librarian. I shall inform Lady Rozemyne on her first day and have ownership changed to you. I will need to inform the royal family as well...”

“Speaking of which, how did a student such as Lady Rozemyne come to be their master in the first place? Raublut’s explanation was far from clear, either because he was not present or because he does not take an interest in the matter.”

My husband tended to give brief, easy-to-understand explanations, but on this one particular matter he had said something bizarre—that she had somehow become their master through a blessing. It was entirely incomprehensible. I had hoped that speaking with Solange would shed some light on the affair, since she had actually been present, but her explanation was no more helpful.

In truth, I supposed that I owed my husband an apology. It was not his explanation that was incomprehensible but Lady Rozemyne’s words and deeds.

“So, Solange—what kind of person is Lady Rozemyne?” I asked.

“She is very exceptional, as one would expect from someone who changed the shumils’ registration through a blessing and without even touching them. She must be loved dearly by Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom.”

My husband, the Sovereign knight commander, saw Lady Rozemyne as particularly suspicious, but Solange’s perspective seemed to be that she was blessed with the gods’ favor.

“Now then, allow me to give you a brief tour of the library. You cannot touch Schwartz or Weiss at the moment, so you are severely limited in the work you can do,” Solange said, opening the door to the reading room.

The two shumils hopped in.

“This is the second closed-stack archive, where textbooks and old reference documents used in classes from before the civil war are kept. The reading material in here can be lent out to those who seek it, and students can enter as well,” Solange explained. Although the articles were old and infrequently used—hence their being stored in the archive—there were occasionally guests who wished to see them.

As I perused the archive, a sentimental smile reached my lips. “I took this class myself. Oh, and this study guide was made by a friend of mine. The ones she made for Professor Griselda were especially popular. Oh, are Professor Griselda’s documents here as well, by chance?”

“She was executed in the purge, so... her documents are not preserved.”

“Oh my... That is a shame. Books and documents hold no sins.”

So the purge had claimed written content as well. It was my first time learning this. Just how many books were now lost as a result? I sighed, continuing to browse the shelves, and found that one of my teacher’s books was starting to rot.

“I thought there were magic tools in the library to prevent such deterioration...” I mused.

“I do not have the mana to run them by myself. But now that you are here, we should be able to run the repairing magic tool.”

“Magic tools. Storage,” Weiss said.

I followed them out of the second closed-stack archive. We cut through the reading room and made our way to a door under the stairs, which Schwartz opened.

“Here. Many magic tools.”

“This is where we keep the magic tools used in our work,” Solange said, elaborating on the shumils’ terse explanations.

This room had been off-limits to me as a student, and it was exciting to think how much my position had risen since then. I stepped inside and saw an abundance of magic tools, the uses of which were unknown to me.

“There are this many magic tools for the library?” I asked.

“Indeed. We had three archnoble librarians before the civil war, with two mednobles providing them support. That is how many people were necessary to run this facility, so you can imagine the severity of our mana shortage.”

But the civil war had taken place roughly a decade ago, and Solange was but a single mednoble. It beggared belief that she had run this place alone.

“Did you not request more personnel...?”

“Oh, but here you are, Hortensia. Does your presence not mean that the royal family is finally concerned about the library? Or, perhaps, are you here because Lady Rozemyne activated Schwartz and Weiss, and asked the royal family for help directly?” Solange asked with a peaceful smile.

I am here because of the knight commander’s growing suspicions...

Unable to voice the true reason, I chose to keep my silence. Solange must not have noticed my reaction as she simply continued her explanation.

“The tools on this shelf are for preserving documents, while those over there are for repairing them. They are absolutely essential for the library, but I do not have nearly enough mana to run them all. Now that you are here, however, we are surely equipped to begin using them,” she said happily.

I nodded, looking at the tools. “Repair work, hm? I remember repairing the personal books of my lord at the time. I did not use small magic tools like these, however; I used the old, larger ones in the palace library.”

“What kind of work did you do, Hortensia?”

I stroked the repair magic tools. Perhaps because I was in the Royal Academy, memories that had not resurfaced in quite some time were coming back to me one after another. “Before marrying Raublut... I served Prince Waldifrid.”

Solange gasped in shock. My former lord was none other than the second prince whose assassination had sparked the civil war.

“I managed government documents and maintained the shelves in his villa,” I continued. “At times, he would ask me to repair his books or go to the palace library to search for documents. It was a bit like being a librarian, would you not say? At the time, I was so passionate about my work that I had given up on marriage entirely. Or, to be more precise, it had seemed inconsequential to me. I was resolved to dedicate my life to serving Prince Waldifrid...”

However, my wish to live for my work had not been granted. The first prince had visited Prince Waldifrid and his family... then slaughtered them all.

“Retainers are relieved of duty following the death of their lord. At the time, I saw no reason to continue living. I was lost in darkness with no idea of what to do...” I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled the despair that had overwhelmed me back then.

Solange quietly took me by the hand and guided me out of the dark storage room into the bright reading room. “Could it be that Lord Raublut then saved you?” I could tell that she was trying to raise my spirits by directing me to warm thoughts of my husband, but her attempt was futile; there was no warmth to be had there.

“No. It was the previous Aub Klassenberg who saved me.”

“Oh?”

“The aub called for me and said that, once matters settled down, he would introduce me to the third prince. He granted me permission to mourn Prince Waldifrid and spend my days quietly cleaning out his villa while the first and third princes fought.”

“But the third prince...” Solange began, her voice cracking.

I gave a small nod and stepped in for her. “Yes. As you know, he was poisoned.”

From there, I had been moved to serve Prince Trauerqual, the fifth prince at the time. He had been raised as a vassal since birth, so his retinue had been smaller than that of any other prince. The previous Aub Klassenberg had called for the retainers of the second and third princes, alongside retainers of the royal branch families, to start gathering an entourage—and Raublut had been among them.

“I was told to marry Raublut to strengthen the bond between Klassenberg and the fifth prince’s retainers,” I went on. “I was still grieving the loss of my lord and struggling to find a purpose. At the time, I was pleased just to have been given a new duty to carry out.”

“Hortensia...”

“I apologize that this was not the love story you were hoping for. Oh, but do not look so down...” I chuckled as I strolled through the reading room. Raublut had similarly lost the one whom he loved and missed his opportunity for marriage, so the two of us had wed extremely late. Tragically, we had never been blessed with a child, and it pained me that I was not being useful to my husband as a wife should. “Just as I was beginning to think that I would die without a purpose, I was given this job so that I might aid both the royal family and my husband.”

My husband believed that the archive requiring three keys to open was the same archive that could only be entered by royalty. As there was a chance that this would provide information on how to obtain the Grutrissheit, the now ruling King Trauerqual had selected me as an archscholar to loyally and discreetly achieve his ends.

“I am sincerely glad—and proud—to have received this duty. Furthermore... as I walk among the bookshelves here, I recall the time I spent organizing the bookshelves in Prince Waldifrid’s office and visiting the palace library on his behalf. It makes my heart throb in a way that I seldom experience these days. My memories are certainly not all sad ones.”

Solange paced the reading room with me, wearing a smile that was just as proud and wistful as my own. “Oh yes, I understand exactly how you feel. Not all of mine are sad either.”

I was unaware of the library’s circumstances, but Solange had no doubt lost a great deal during the civil war as well. I could sense that much just by looking at her.

Two days after my arrival at the Royal Academy, classes began. The handover of Schwartz and Weiss took place at noon, and after a smooth procession, I watched as Lady Rozemyne and the royal family took their leave.

“You can finally touch Schwartz and Weiss, which means you can properly begin your work as a librarian,” Solange said.

“Indeed. Yesterday, I was busy preparing for the royal family’s visit and touring the dormitory.” I gently stroked Schwartz and Weiss. Not having my hands repelled cemented the fact that I was now a librarian.

“Hortensia, may I have a moment? You sounded a little harsh—rejective, even—when speaking with Lady Rozemyne. Could it be that Lord Raublut has told you something about her?”

“Yes, he is particularly suspicious of Ehrenfest. Yurgenschmidt needs no more seeds of conflict to be sown when it has not yet healed from the civil war. I am tasked with remaining on guard against Lady Rozemyne, whose goals and knowledge we do not know, and searching for this archive she mentioned.”

“What suspicions could Lord Raublut possibly have when I allowed him to borrow the very diary he saw her reading? Was there something inside to warrant this mistrust?” Solange asked, blinking in confusion. She had clearly thought that simply handing over the diary would clear Lady Rozemyne’s name.

“Lady Rozemyne borrowed the diary of an old librarian and asked Prince Hildebrand about an archive that only royalty can enter, did she not? Raublut found it suspicious that she would try to extract information from the young prince rather than from Prince Anastasius or Lady Eglantine. Furthermore, we believe that this particular archive may contain a clue to the whereabouts of the Grutrissheit.”

“Oh my... Lord Raublut is doubtless overthinking things,” Solange said with a somewhat troubled smile. “Lady Rozemyne asked Prince Hildebrand simply because the matter came up during a tea party. You know of the various mysteries rumored to exist in the Royal Academy, such as the gazebo where the Goddess of Time plays pranks, or the moving statues of the gods, correct? One such rumor mentions an archive that can only be entered by the royal family. I can understand why those serving King Trauerqual would place so much focus on a clue that might lead to the Grutrissheit, but this is a bit much.”

I understood what Solange was trying to say. Indeed, once one knew the details of the situation, Lady Rozemyne really seemed quite innocent.

“It came up at a tea party, during a discussion of mysteries, hm...? Launching an investigation into Ehrenfest over something so trivial does seem a bit, shall we say, neurotic, and unlikely to bear fruit.”

“That said, I understand that investigating even the smallest of threats is Lord Raublut’s duty. He is the Sovereign knight commander, after all. If something has caught his attention, then he is right to look into it,” Solange said, offering me a sympathetic smile once I was more at ease. But her look of understanding soon gave way to one of complete seriousness. “That said, you are not a Sovereign knight; you are a librarian of the Royal Academy. Should you really be scrutinizing the students?”

I was trying so hard to be useful to my husband that I was neglecting my actual role here at the Royal Academy. Knights had their own duties, and so did scholars.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “I wish to be useful to the king and my husband, but I am not a Sovereign knight expected to investigate those behaving suspiciously; I am a librarian expected to maintain the Royal Academy’s library. I must adjust my perception and attitude accordingly. Henceforth, I intend to view Lady Rozemyne’s words and actions from a more professional perspective.”

“Indeed. Learn to know Lady Rozemyne by speaking to and exchanging books with her, if you would.”

It was important to learn about people through socializing—so my next question was a natural one. “Well then, Solange, what did the royal family do—and where—when they visited the Royal Academy in the past? What can be found in the archive that requires an archnoble librarian and three keys to open? Would you tell me these things? Truth be told, Raublut suspects that you may be hiding things as well. You are not keeping information from us as a result of the purge, are you?”

Solange had spoken about the late librarians with such respect and sorrow, and her words had carried a certain loathing for the royal family responsible for the purge.

“Something occurred to me when Raublut said the royal family had visited the library during the Archduke Conference,” I continued. “Prince Waldifrid was similarly due to come here with the king after his coronation was announced. I have always been under the assumption that it was merely part of the coronation ceremony, but perhaps there was another, more profound reason?”

The first prince had murdered Prince Waldifrid right before his kingship was announced to the public, so I had ended up never going to the library with him. However, Solange surely knew something. She would have been there to welcome him.

“My knowledge about these matters is highly limited. Come with me, though. I may not have information on this archive that can only be entered by royalty, but I do know of an archive that can only be opened by archlibrarians.” Solange gave a sad smile, took me into the second closed-stack archive, and then rapped on a door at the far end. “The royal family would go into an archive behind this door whenever they visited during the Archduke Conference. I was told that it leads to a staircase, beyond which is a second door that can only be opened with the keys of three archlibrarians. I cannot verify this, however; as a mednoble, I cannot pass even this door.”

As it turned out, not even the retainers of the royal family could pass this point without being archnobles.

“Is this not the archive that can only be entered by the royal family?” I asked.

“I would not think so. This is a very old memory, but I recall archduke candidates being able to enter as well. Furthermore... not once have I attempted to hide anything. In fact, during many an Archduke Conference have I asked for the king to come here.”

I stared at her in surprise. My husband certainly had not said anything of the sort to me; he believed that Solange was consciously trying to keep the archive’s existence a secret.

“But each time I was refused, as everyone was ‘too busy with the Archduke Conference to come to the library.’ I gave up after three years of that same response. Treating me with suspicion now would be terribly unfair.”

There must have been some kind of misunderstanding between the royal family and those serving them which had prevented this information from actually reaching the king. As the wife of the Sovereign knight commander, I was well aware how disastrously busy the royal family had been back then. At the same time, I understood how frustrating it must have been to be continually refused by your superior, especially when you were acting for the benefit of a group responsible for devastating your workplace.

“No one can criticize you, Solange. That said... it is my duty as an archlibrarian to open this archive and see what is inside. Might I ask where the keys are?”

“The key to this door is in the office, but those for the door beyond it are in the rooms formerly belonging to our archnoble librarians. Obtaining them will not be a simple matter.”

If we already knew the location of the keys, then why would we struggle to retrieve them? Solange must have deduced what I wanted to ask, as she continued to explain while leading me out of the archive.

“The library dormitory contains special rooms in which the keys are kept, but they can only be entered by guardians of knowledge contracted with Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom. The executed archlibrarians were all guardians themselves.”

“Guardians of knowledge...?”

“The term refers to those who have sworn loyalty not to the king but to Mestionora. I, myself, took the oath, but as I am not an archnoble, I am greatly restricted,” Solange said with a frustrated sigh.

This was all news to me. I quietly continued to listen.

“There are no records of the executed librarians’ rooms being searched after the purge. Tell me, did Lord Raublut not find that strange?”

“He did. In fact, he said that it was a matter worth returning to. However, the Sovereignty is truly short on manpower.”

My husband was on a lengthy deployment in another duchy, investigating the attack that had taken place during the Interduchy Tournament and the ternisbefallens that had appeared at the Royal Academy. As I was aware, he did not have the leeway to investigate an archive that might not exist or the rooms of archlibrarians executed a decade ago.

“They will never be able to do it themselves,” Solange informed me. “Knights cannot enter the room. At the time, the Sovereign Knight’s Order believed they could leisurely begin a search for evidence after carrying out the executions... but the knights were not scholars and thus could not form the necessary contracts, while I, myself, am a mednoble.”

“Could they not have brought an archscholar, then...?”

“Indeed. Naturally, the Knight’s Order thought the same. They brought an archscholar as a librarian and attempted to have them swear the oath to become a guardian of knowledge. However, said oath requires one to be loyal to and faithfully serve the goddess, not the king. Do you understand the significance of this, at the time of the purge?”

Back then, Sovereign nobles from Old Werkestock were being thoroughly investigated due to their duchy having supported the first and fourth princes during the civil war. A demand had no doubt been made of the guardians of knowledge to swear their loyalty to the newly crowned King Trauerqual.

“They refused, as they had already sworn their loyalty to Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom. Bound by contract magic as they were, there was no other answer they could give. And yet, the times were unforgiving. They were accused of traitorous behavior among various other crimes and executed.”

It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to sign a new contract to search those rooms, especially when the previous occupants had been executed precisely because of their oaths. And as a person could not be forced to sign a magic contract, it only made sense that the rooms had not been investigated.

“So the keys that Raublut seeks are within the rooms of the guardians of knowledge?” I asked.

“The keys to the archive are, but whether they are the ones he is looking for, I cannot say.”

These were rooms and an archive that not even Solange had seen inside despite her countless years serving as a Royal Academy librarian. It mattered not whether one was a Sovereign knight commander or a member of the royal family—one could not enter without an archnoble librarian sworn to serve the goddess as a guardian of knowledge.

“I now understand why the Sovereign Knight’s Order could not search them, and why I was assigned to be an archlibrarian. It was all so that I could become a guardian of knowledge...”

“Wait a moment, Hortensia. Are you saying you will sign this contract, even knowing the circumstances?” Solange asked as if to stop me. “You can carry out your daily work here without becoming a guardian of knowledge. Even in the palace library, there are few who are sworn to the role.”

I closed my eyes and started weighing everything up. The words of my husband, the king’s desires, the joy of receiving a purpose, my previous wish to devote my life to scholarly work...

“My assignment here as an archlibrarian was in part the king’s wish...” I said. Both he and my husband, the Sovereign knight commander, wanted me to become a guardian of knowledge and develop a complete understanding of the library. Times had changed since the purge; neither of them would protest this contract. “I came with the resolve to pour my all into this duty—as both the wife of the knight commander and as a Sovereign noble. I also believe in my husband. If signing a contract with Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom is necessary to obtain the right to enter every archive, then I shall do just that.”

Solange gave a conceding sigh and took an ivory slate from one of the shelves in the office. Then she guided me up to the second floor and over to the statue of Mestionora.

“Will you truly make this oath?”

It seemed to me that Solange, holding the stone slate, looked exactly like Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom with her divine instrument Grutrissheit in hand. I could tell that she was a loyal apostle of the goddess and a true guardian of knowledge.

“I will.”

“Then use stylo and write this text upon the base of the statue. Once you do this, there is no going back.”

The slate in Solange’s hands was carved in truly ancient language. I took out my schtappe, turned it into a pen, and then carefully copied out each letter.

I am a guardian of knowledge.

I am one who swears loyalty to Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom.

I shall devote all knowledge born in Yurgenschmidt to Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom.

I shall spread throughout Yurgenschmidt the knowledge gifted to me by Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom.

I respect the wisdom of humanity and shall ensure its protection.

I swear not to falter before authority, to remain courageous in the face of might, and to continue seeking and gathering knowledge, which I shall offer to the goddess.

The words I had written shone and were then sucked into the divine instrument that Mestionora was holding. At that moment, I could have sworn that her statue smiled at me. A key then appeared from the divine instrument in her hands and dropped to the wide base of the statue with a clatter. I had seen magic contracts burst into golden flames before, but never had I witnessed a contract with the gods such as this.

As I stared at the key in a daze, Solange smiled. “That is yours.”

At her prompting, I extended a hand to the key that Mestionora had granted me. The moment my fingers touched its metallic surface, it was sucked into me like a schtappe.

“O Hortensia, new guardian of knowledge. We welcome you.”