Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.6 - Chapter 1

Report on the Archduke Conference (Third Year)

“Welcome home, Sister.”

“Rozemyne! You’re back!”

As soon as I stepped through the teleporter, I was greeted by Charlotte, Bonifatius, and my retainers who had stayed at home. Melchior and Wilfried were present as well; I could see them toward the back of the room. We had returned to Ehrenfest in descending order of status, as always, so they were busy speaking with the archducal couple.

“Rozemyne, Charlotte, we’re going to have an archducal family meeting tomorrow afternoon,” Sylvester said casually upon noticing my arrival. “Take care not to be late.” His expression betrayed not even the slightest hint that we were to discuss my adoption by the king.

Moved to see him acting so much like an archduke, I gave a similarly casual smile and replied, “Understood.”

“Rest well today so that you arrive on time.”

After we watched Sylvester depart with Florencia to the main building’s living area, it was time for us to retire to our rooms in the northern building. The nobles still at the Royal Academy wouldn’t be able to teleport back until we were gone.

“Rozemyne, would this make it safe for me to escort you?” Bonifatius asked, then put his hand on his hip and offered me his arm to hold.

Leonore quickly intervened, looking troubled. “Please excuse me, Lord Bonifatius, but should Lady Rozemyne’s fiancé not escort her?”

“He said that he would allow me this rare opportunity to bond with my dear granddaughter.” He turned to Wilfried, seeking his confirmation.

“I did say that, yes. Lord Bonifatius wouldn’t even get a chance to escort Rozemyne for feasts and the like, so why not give him this?”

“Do you not realize how much danger you’re putting her in?” Cornelius asked with a grimace. This earned him a heated response from Bonifatius.

“Cornelius, what are you saying?! She won’t have anything to fear as long as my hand stays put!”

Bonifatius’s attempts to be affectionate had endangered me countless times already. It made sense that my knights were so on guard, but he was puffing out his chest and refusing to back down.

“In that case, allow me to confirm that your hand won’t move,” Cornelius said, approaching him with Angelica. They wore the most severe expressions as they tugged, pushed, and even hung from his arm.

They’re being way too cautious! And while they’re being so serious, everyone else is trying not to laugh!

Melchior was an exception—he was looking on with envy—but Wilfried, Charlotte, and the others were barely managing to compose themselves.

“As has been demonstrated, his hand will not budge in the slightest,” Cornelius said, sounding defeated after a truly thorough investigation. “If you hold on here”—he gestured to Bonifatius’s wrist—“then you shouldn’t need to worry about your arm getting tired.”

I did as instructed; then we started toward my room. Bonifatius was being extra careful to match my pace, which might have made it look like he was escorting me if not for my especially small stature. Anyone who saw us would probably assume that I was hanging from his arm instead of holding on to it.

Come forth, Leidenschaft! I await the growth your divine protection shall grant me!

“Sister, how was your first Archduke Conference?” Charlotte asked. “I was terribly surprised when Lord Bonifatius informed me that you were going to stay not just for the first day’s Starbind Ceremony but for the Dedication Ritual at the end as well.”

“I was just as taken aback,” I said. “The royal family made their request while I was translating documents in the underground archive.”

The reality was that we had forced them to request it, but I didn’t mention that to Charlotte. Instead, I told a few innocent stories about what had occurred while I was translating with Hannelore and the royal family. Charlotte and the others told me what I’d missed at home in return.

“We assisted Lord Bonifatius and performed Mana Replenishment,” Charlotte explained. “Then, I memorized prayers with Wilfried and Melchior.”

“Yeah, Melchior had to learn the prayer for the baptism ceremony, so we decided to join him,” Wilfried added. “That’s much more effective than practicing alone, right?”

Melchior’s retainers had apparently been brought to tears by the amount of work that Hartmut was piling on them in the temple. So, Wilfried and Charlotte had volunteered to give their younger brother a hand with his prayers.

“Did it work?” I asked.

Melchior nodded. “I memorized the prayer for the baptism ceremony. And now I can perform Mana Replenishment without ending up unable to move!” After regularly offering his mana in the temple, he had quickly adjusted to supplying the foundation as well.

As we continued to discuss our everyday affairs, we eventually arrived at the northern building. “Grandfather,” I said, “I thank you ever so much for escorting me.”

“Indeed. Until dinner, then.” He let out a heavy sigh of relief—I could guess that he had spent the entire journey focusing on his hand—then turned on his heel and went off, seeming exceptionally pleased with himself.

Upon returning to my room, I told the adult retainers who had accompanied me to the conference to rest in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting. My underage retainers would attend to me in the meantime, which was fine for my knights and scholars, but Gretia would need to serve as my only attendant.

As I pondered what to do, Lieseleta stepped forward. “Lady Rozemyne, I shall remain as well. Gretia would struggle by herself.”

“But Lieseleta...”

“I insist. Ottilie accompanied you to the underground archive during the Archduke Conference, whereas I remained inactive in the dormitory.”

Lieseleta had prepared tea, lunch, and the like, so she hadn’t been that inactive. Still, I couldn’t refuse her generosity and put so much pressure on Gretia—doing that would make me a terrible lady to them.

“In that case, please continue to serve me for a little while longer. I shall grant you two days of rest after tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

My adult guards returned to their homes or the knight dorms, and my two adult scholars went off with Ottilie. Gretia and Lieseleta started putting away my luggage, while Philine and Roderick gave me a report on the current state of the temple. I also spent some time reading a few transcriptions.

I suppose we can have a full retainer meeting after tomorrow’s gathering of the archducal family... Oh, I’ll need to contact Brunhilde as well.

Over dinner, I received reports from everyone else who had remained in Ehrenfest. We would discuss the events of the Archduke Conference later.

It was the afternoon of the archducal family’s meeting. Our retainers, the Knight’s Order, and the high-ranking scholars would all gather with us, as per usual, but there was also going to be a new face in attendance: Melchior, even though he was still too young to enroll at the Royal Academy.

“I don’t know why I was summoned,” he said.

“Must be an announcement that everyone needs to hear, no matter their age,” Wilfried ventured. “Rozemyne, you know what this is about, don’t you?”

I did, but I sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell them that the king was adopting me and that Melchior only had a year before he would need to take over as the High Bishop. I merely smiled and said, “All will be explained soon.”

Melchior nervously went to the meeting with his siblings on his either side, then took the seat marked for him. Each member of the archducal family was allowed to bring only one retainer of each kind, so I’d chosen Ottilie as my attendant, Hartmut as my scholar, and Cornelius as my guard knight. The attendants and scholars would traditionally rush around to prepare the meeting before the archducal couple entered.

“Looks like everyone’s here,” Sylvester said. “In that case, our report on the Archduke Conference shall now begin. Like last year, this is going to be a long one; there were a lot of major changes we will need to cover. Take care not to miss anything.”

As always, the meeting began with an announcement of the duchy rankings. Sylvester said that the request we had made of Anastasius during the Interduchy Tournament had now been approved; in return for our rank remaining the same, we would start being treated as a victorious duchy.

“Aah... Well now...”

The quiet, relieved mutters from the adults went to show just how much they had struggled to keep up with our new position in the country.

“However,” Sylvester continued, “our new treatment brings with it a new burden. Of the greater duchies, you are all aware that Klassenberg is managing Old Zausengas, while Ahrensbach and Dunkelfelger are managing Old Werkestock, correct? Drewanchel is too far from any of the losing duchies, so it instead sent a wealth of archnobles to support the Sovereignty. This has put them in a unique situation where they have a large archducal family that can’t be moved to the Sovereignty but not nearly as many archnobles as usual.”

Hauchletzte and Gilessenmeyer had grown in power through their marriages with the royal family and were now bearing enormous burdens to return the favor. Now that Ehrenfest was transitioning from a neutral duchy to a winning one, we would need to provide our assistance as well.

“And what might that new burden be...?” one of the nobles asked nervously.

Sylvester looked across his audience. Then, once his eyes fell on me, he said, “I will announce it next year. But we also stand to gain from this arrangement. To quickly increase our noble population, the royal family has agreed that, for the next five years, anyone who marries an Ehrenfest noble must marry into our duchy. On top of that, we will receive forty magic tools for our newborns. Such are the counterbalances to the new burden we must carry.”

Aah, so he’s going to present my adoption as Ehrenfest’s burden.

The nobles began to fret; how great must the burden be for the duchy to have received such grand rewards? Still, Sylvester continued with his announcements. He revealed that Ferdinand’s Starbinding had been delayed, that a Dedication Ritual had been performed during the Archduke Conference, and that adults could now repeat the ritual for obtaining divine protections—all events related to divine ceremonies. He also mentioned that several members of the royal family had whirled and managed to trigger the same magic circle as Detlinde, meaning she was no longer the only known Zent candidate.

From there, Sylvester went through the changes that would start being implemented during the Royal Academy’s next academic year. This included the revision to when students would acquire their schtappes, the alterations being made to the lesson plans, and the decision that Ehrenfest and Klassenberg would start holding annual Dedication Rituals as joint research.

“Schtappes will once again be obtained during one’s third year?” one noble asked. “Does this mean the noble population has recovered enough to afford us more leeway?”

“As it turns out, mana compression and divine protections change the quality of one’s schtappe,” Sylvester explained. “As a result of our joint research with Dunkelfelger, more and more students will obtain multiple divine protections. Adults will too, due to performing the Dedication Ritual at the Archduke Conference. Schtappes can only be obtained once; we should want them to be of the highest possible quality.”

The nobles expressed their understanding.

“In short, changes to the Royal Academy’s curriculum will become effective next year,” Sylvester continued. Then he turned to me and said, “Will sweeping changes need to be made to the playroom in turn?”

The playroom primarily covered written lessons, so I doubted it. “Practical lessons are far more relevant to schtappes; therefore, I don’t expect the Royal Academy’s written lessons to be changed much at all. I believe we will simply need to consult Professor Moritz on what the lesson plan was when schtappes were obtained during one’s third year.”

“I see,” Sylvester replied, nodding.

“And should we not consider the fact that our educational toys and picture-book bibles will raise most duchies’ average grades in a few years’ time?”

“Good point. We announced that we would start selling them at the same time that we gave some to the royal family. I think they received a lot of attention. Tell the Plantin Company to prepare them in large numbers.”

“Printing is often done as winter handiwork, so I do not expect many more books to be made between now and summer. It would make more sense to order their mass production during the winter, in preparation for when Groschel is ready and we can trade with more duchies.”

I had already informed Benno that our picture-book bibles were going to be sold countrywide. In response, he had told me that they were planning to implement some form of mass production. Still, there was little we could do to create more books before the summer, when the merchants were due to arrive.

“Hm. I told the other duchies that we would offer more trade spaces next year, so we need to make good on that.”

But how far along was Groschel with its preparations? I would need to ask when reporting the results of this meeting.

“Aub Ahrensbach’s funeral is being held at the start of summer,” Sylvester said, “and given Florencia’s situation, I will need to go alone. Be ready for that.” He had made it clear that, Georgine’s obsession with Ehrenfest aside, he was politically obligated to attend the funeral of a neighboring aub. He would also need to confirm that Ferdinand had received a hidden room, as promised.

I wish I could check as well, but...

I was going to be positively flooded with handover and preparation work, and two of my knights couldn’t be anywhere near Georgine. Plus, even if those hadn’t been issues, I didn’t have the stamina for such a long trip in the first place. I definitely wouldn’t receive permission to go to Ahrensbach.

Next, Sylvester made a few more announcements: the king had refused to host the Lanzenave princess, the trug-addled knights had been expelled from the Sovereign Order, and the interest in religious ceremonies was on the rise after everyone had experienced one for themselves.

“That is all,” Sylvester eventually concluded. “Now, clear the room. Only members of the archducal family are permitted to hear what I wish to say next. Even our retainers must leave.”

This was unprecedented. Not once had a post-meeting discussion required even our own retainers to step outside.

“Aub Ehrenfest?!”

“What is going on...?”

Some expressed their shock, but Sylvester merely waited in silence for everyone to leave.

“Lady Rozemyne...” my retainers said.

“The aub has spoken,” I replied. “Hartmut, Cornelius—you both must leave as well.”

I ordered my entourage to go, then heaved a drawn-out sigh. The higher-ups and retainers took their leave, watching us all the while as if attempting to glean what was going on. Once they were gone, a heavy atmosphere overtook the room. Everyone was tense—except for the archducal couple and me, of course.