Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.6 - Chapter 15

Tuuli’s Coming-of-Age Ceremony

Just as Elvira had advised, I gave Bonifatius a sound-blocker during the feast and, after swearing him to secrecy, asked him to take charge of Damuel for me. He accepted without the slightest hesitation, which was massively helpful—and also massively unexpected, as far as Damuel was concerned. When I told him the news, he went into a daze and could only express his joy.

It was days later when I returned to the temple and promptly visited Melchior’s room. Damuel was with me, as I wanted to recommend that he be taken as an advisor.

“Melchior—we have decided that Damuel will enter Grandfather’s service, but he is also going to support Philine in the temple. Given his long history of working here, I think he would make an excellent advisor to you.”

“Then why not put him in my service instead of Lord Bonifatius’s?” Melchior asked.

“Because you might take a liking to him, and it would pain me if you decided not to give him back. You and Charlotte have your eyes on my retainers due to their excellence, do you not?”

Charlotte had privately asked me whether she could take any of my retainers who were being left behind when I moved to the Sovereignty. In particular, she’d wanted my scholars, since they had become so excellent that even greater duchies praised them. I’d needed to refuse her, though; while nothing had been set in stone yet, I hadn’t wanted Philine or Damuel to be absorbed into her service when they were at least planning to get married and join me in the Sovereignty after Philine came of age.

“I see. That is a shame,” Melchior said. “In that case, I will have my retainers trained while yours are still in the temple.” He had given up on taking Damuel into his own retinue, which came as a relief.

I returned to my chambers, then informed my retainers that a peculiar battle was being waged in secret—a battle over who would get to keep them after my departure from Ehrenfest.

Leonore nodded in response, unsurprised. “Many have been made aware of our skills since we started assisting the archducal couple with their work. It makes perfect sense that they would want to absorb us into the archducal family’s retinue.”

Sylvester had sworn everyone to secrecy, so the negotiations were currently taking place behind closed doors... but I expected a full-scale war to break out after my departure.

“For that reason,” Leonore went on, “it might be wise to show everyone that Philine and the others will remain in your service even after you leave, and that they intend to join you after coming of age.”

“Leonore?”

“A feystone accessory marked with your crest would show that you are still their lady. Otherwise, mere laynobles would struggle to refuse repeated invitations from the archducal family. There is no way to predict who might make a move or what nonnegotiable demands they might make, but your crest should make your intentions perfectly clear.”

Indeed, turning down such invitations from their superiors would make my laynoble retainers seem impertinent. The same danger applied to the commoner personnel whom I would eventually have accompany me, which was why Leonore suggested that I give them accessories marked with my crest on top of the charms I’d already distributed. Such accessories would continue to be useful even in the Sovereignty, as they would make the wearers’ connection to me obvious.

Leonore continued, “As your adoption to the aub is going to be nullified, you will need to use a personal crest rather than the crest of our duchy.”

“I already have one,” I replied. I’d come up with the crest of the Rozemyne Workshop—which included a book and quill, an inkpot, branches of the wood used to make plant paper, and the flowers that decorated my hairpins—together with Benno and Fran, and it would remain mine even after my adoption was undone. “But what kind of accessory should we put it on?”

“Something they can wear at all times. A ring or necklace might be ideal, as they won’t be easily stolen.”

Stolen? Well, I guess whatever I give them is going to be valuable...

“Feystones are easiest for me to work with,” I said. “Could I put my crest on them as I would a magic circle when making a charm?”

“Yes, but please be sure to consider the size of the feystones you distribute. You intend to give identical feystones to your retainers and your personnel, correct? That will not do. There must be a clear distinction between the nobles and commoners, and your personnel and their family. They will receive harsh glares in the Sovereignty otherwise.”

I gave a compliant nod. This kind of thing was annoying and not something I wanted to deal with, but it was of the utmost importance to nobles.

“Lady Rozemyne,” Judithe said, making her presence known, “if you’re giving these accessories to your retainers who are staying behind, then please don’t forget about me.”

I acknowledged her request with a smile. “As I will simply be engraving my crest into the feystones, the process should take me no time at all. Fran, contact the Gilberta Company. I wish to order hairpins and clothes for autumn.”

I’ll give them to Tuuli before her coming of age.

I went into my hidden room, humming a tune, then chose feystones for my retainers as well as my personnel and their family. Of my retainers, I supposed that Philine, Damuel, and Judithe were the only ones who would need them; neither Brunhilde nor Ottilie intended to move to the Sovereignty, so I doubted they would want accessories pledging their allegiance to me. As for the commoners, I picked out feystones for Tuuli, Mom, Rosina, Wilma, Ella, and Hugo, then for Dad, Kamil, and Ella’s mom, who would accompany them as family. I didn’t yet know whether the Gutenbergs were going to come with me, so it seemed wise to put theirs on hold.

Hugo’s family was going to stay in Ehrenfest, but Ella’s mom would move to the Sovereignty—she had agreed to start looking after her new granddaughter as soon as she was born so that Ella could return to work without delay. I was told she was a waitress and wanted to quit her job anyhow, so this opportunity had come as a welcome surprise to her.

I think these are enough feystones, and the sizes look about right.

I took out my diptych and stared at my somewhat complex, flowery crest, then turned my schtappe into a pen and copied the design onto some paper made from a feybeast. Once the first sheet was done, I gazed upon the various feystones I’d collected and sighed. Drawing the same thing over and over again was going to be tiring. Magic circles had text and sigils, and would work even if they weren’t perfect, but my crest was artwork; any discrepancies would really stand out.

“If only I could copy this crest...” I muttered. “Maybe I could select it with my fingers, like I would when using a tablet.”

Mostly on a whim, I tapped into Urano’s muscle memory and used my fingers to “select” the crest. My mana ended up thinly spread over the area I wanted to duplicate.

“Whoa! It worked?!”

A yellow film of mana now sat atop the paper. Somehow, I was on track to actually duplicate my crest! Trembling with emotion, I stared at the section I’d marked.

“Am I actually going to do this? Is it going to work? Okay. Here we go. (COPY AND PLACE)!”

After a few words of self-encouragement, I moved my fingers while staring at the marked space. At once, the single crest turned into two—one that remained in place, and another that followed my fingers. I moved it over to a blank space on the page and tapped, placing it on the page.

“Wow! Holy cow! Isn’t this super convenient?”

Enthused, I duplicated the crest as many times as I needed. Then I carved them into the feystones with mana, and that was that. I went ahead and poured mana into the feystones so that I could reshape them, then added some holes that one could thread string through. Now even commoners would easily be able to wear them.

“This didn’t take me very long at all,” I mused aloud, looking at the pile of crest-marked feystones in front of me. Using this duplication method would make transcribing much easier—and if everyone adopted it, the number of books in the world would skyrocket! No longer was I afraid of marrying a bookless scrub like Prince Sigiswald; with this power, I would be able to fill my villa’s book room in a week.

“Operation: Mass Transcription... begin! I’m a genius! Eheheh!”

I exited my hidden room, brimming with excitement, and announced my revolutionary invention to everyone. But as it turned out, the method didn’t work on normal paper; it could only duplicate mana ink drawn on fey paper.

NOOO! It’s useless for transcription work! My master plan has collapsed in mere minutes!

Incidentally, while I was trying to teach everyone my new spell, I realized that I’d misspoken the first time I’d cast it, permanently registering it with the incorrect phrasing. Here in Yurgenschmidt, “copy and paste” would forever be known as “copy and place.”

Gaaah! What a blunder! I know what it’s actually called! COPY AND PASTE! COPY AND PAAASTE!

In any case, my work was now complete. Philine, Damuel, and Judithe were all present, so I gave them each one of the freshly crested feystones.

“This is my crest,” I said. “I am told it will make your loyalties clear even after I am gone.”

“We are honored,” Damuel replied, “though I think you should give some to Hartmut and Clarissa as well. I realize these are meant for those staying behind and your commoner personnel, but still... please consider it.”

I promised to do just that—but only if they brought me their own feystones to be crested.

It was three days later when Corinna and her seamstresses arrived from the Gilberta Company.

“I am giving stones marked with my crest to those who will eventually follow me out of the duchy and to any of their family members who will join them,” I explained. “They are supposed to keep their wearers from being taken by other nobles. Then, after the move, they will show who is in my service.”

I took out four feystones, then continued, “These two are for Tuuli and Effa, my personnel, while these two are for Gunther and Kamil, who plan to accompany them.”

“Lady Rozemyne, this is...”

Tuuli had been about to say that the gesture was obvious favoritism, but I smiled at Corinna and said, “Corinna, please tell me when you know which other seamstresses are going to accompany me. I will make charms for them as well. My chefs, their family, and my musician have received theirs already.”

“Understood,” she replied with a nod and a smile.

Tuuli sighed in relief, now aware that she and the rest of my lower-city family weren’t the only ones receiving charms. I took the opportunity to stare at her braid, burning the sight into my mind while I still could. At the end of summer, she would come of age and start wearing her hair up as an adult.

Huh. Tuuli has a pretty sizable chest now. Meanwhile, I’m still flat as a board.

I was thoroughly compressing my mana for our paper brewing and the entwickeln in autumn, which meant my body had stopped growing again. Only when my work was done would I return to spreading my mana thin.

And if she’s coming of age, I guess she’s about to get engaged. Tuuli... getting married... Getting married... I don’t know who she’ll end up with, but I don’t like it one bit! My Tuuli, getting married?!

The thought alone frustrated me, and my heart burned with a fatherly feeling of wanting to exact retribution on anyone who would steal my Tuuli from me. In my head, I gave her future husband a vicious punch in the face.

“Lady Rozemyne, is something wrong?”

“N-Not at all. I was simply contemplating a few things. I shall entrust the design of the hairpin to Tuuli, as always, so please use the highest-quality thread available. I will want to use my new hairpin for as long as possible.”

I wanted her to make something of a high enough quality that I could use it even after being adopted by the king. It would break my heart if my new status required me to give it away.

I turned to Tuuli. “Your coming-of-age ceremony is soon, as I understand it. Have you prepared your outfit and hairpin?”

“Yes. My mother made my outfit for me during the winter, but I made my hairpin on my own. Because of the attire I plan to wear, I am going to depart from the Gilberta Company on the day of my ceremony rather than from my home.”

That was probably for the best; her getup would surely be far too extravagant for her to leave from our apartment in the poorest part of town. She was going to meet our parents in front of the temple, which meant I would get to glimpse Mom and Dad standing by the door for the first time in quite a while.

This is where the fun begins!

“Tuuli, I shall grant you the most wondrous blessing.”

“No good can come from favoritism, so I would ask for the same blessing as anyone else. There are already rumors going around that the High Bishop granted an extra-large blessing during the recent Star Festival because one of her Gutenbergs was getting married.”

Ngh... I thought it was subtle enough that nobody would notice!

In any case, Tuuli had made it very clear that she didn’t want a special blessing. I wouldn’t be able to help that if my heart took the wheel, which meant I would need to form an unironic sequence of countermeasures to safely make it through the ceremony.

I returned to my library’s workshop to brew the paper Ferdinand wanted. Our progress was slow but steady. During one of our breaks, I decided to consult my retainers about my situation with Tuuli.

“Why would you want to limit the amount of mana in your blessing?” Hartmut asked me, perplexed. “Just go all out as an amazing saint should.”

Clarissa was nodding in wholehearted agreement.

I chose to ignore them. The lower city didn’t look favorably upon the High Bishop giving larger blessings to the people she knew, and getting carried away would only make it harder for Melchior to succeed me. Not to mention, Tuuli had specifically told me not to go overboard. She wouldn’t be too pleased if I went against her wishes.

“I struggle to keep my blessings under control when my emotions get involved,” I said. “But as the apprentice blue priests are going to be watching me, I wish to give a normal-size blessing that they can use as an example.”

Cornelius paused in thought, then looked up. “How about using feystones for the blessing? As I recall, Lord Ferdinand provided some that were then used for the Starbind Ceremony at Ahrensbach’s border gate.”

He was right—back then, I’d used feystones so that I wouldn’t give Lamprecht an over-the-top blessing. The same method would surely work again.

Leonore, who was also here as a guard knight, smiled and nodded. “That is a fine suggestion. Lord Melchior will surely be able to reproduce the blessing when he sees that feystones can be used. We would accomplish two separate goals at once.”

My eyes began to sparkle. Cornelius’s idea would appease Tuuli, solve Melchior’s problem of not being able to perform blessings like mine, and serve as a good example for the apprentice blue priests to follow, since I wouldn’t need to worry about my emotions wreaking havoc. It was perfect.

“Brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Let’s use feystones, then!”

So came the day of the coming-of-age ceremony. After quite a bit of trial and error, I’d managed to find out exactly how much mana I would need. Then I’d poured that precise amount into some feystones. My blessing troubles were as good as solved.

I gave the feystones to Hartmut and said, “Hand them to me when I need to give the blessing.” Then, after double-checking that everything was in order, I urged him into the chapel ahead of me.

Melchior watched as the blue priests went inside as well. “I am a bit nervous about participating in a ritual,” he muttered. “This is my first time.”

“Oh my. But you are merely spectating. There is nothing to be worried about.”

Today was also the day when the apprentice blues would attend their first ceremony. They were all wearing ceremonial robes, but they were only here to observe, which meant they simply needed to stand near the wall and not cause a fuss.

“True, but it reminds me that I’ll need to perform the Harvest Festival, and the thought of that makes my heart race.”

The other apprentices all nodded in agreement, looking very tense. They were already receiving cold glares as the children of criminals, so they didn’t want to make things worse for themselves by messing up.

“Tension can be useful,” I said to them all, “but if you cannot control it before the ceremony begins, then your bodies will not last. You will not encounter any issues today as long as you do not cause a major fuss. Relax.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. The apprentices tried to put on natural smiles as they entered the chapel, but even their best attempts were noticeably stiff.

A moment later, the door opened again, and there came the usual call for the High Bishop to enter. I went inside with the bible in hand.

Upon my reaching the stage, the first person I searched for was Tuuli. It wasn’t very hard; in truth, I didn’t even notice anyone else. After our eyes met, she smiled and turned her head to one side.

Eek! She’s such a beauty!

I was so used to seeing her green hair in a long braid that swayed from side to side, but now it was tied up behind her head. That, coupled with the crimson on her lips, gave her the appearance of a genuine adult.

Maybe because she had done her hair primarily on one side and was now holding her head to show me, I couldn’t help but feel that her hairdo was better than anybody else’s. And adorning it were the hairpins she had made. She really was a talented craftswoman, so hers looked much prettier than anything the other soon-to-be-adults were wearing. She had one on either side of her head, which made her stand out, but the hairpins themselves were anything but extravagant. They boasted only a modest number of small flowers and exuded an air of purity.

The flowers were identical in color to those of the hairpin I’d given Tuuli for her baptism—the first hairpin I’d ever made for her. Neither the shape nor the quality of the thread was the same, and the tremendous skill with which they’d been crafted made them entirely unique, but the design and color were still deeply nostalgic. That she was also wearing braids on both sides of her head told me that she really was trying to replicate her look from her baptism.

That reminded me how everything had started; the first stepping stone to all this was making that first hairpin together with my entire family.

Tuuli was wearing a simple dress—one that wouldn’t stand out in the lower city and that she would easily be able to wear in the future. Rather than sticking to a single color like all the other outfits, however, it made use of the same gradient pattern as my own clothes, indicating that Mom had dyed it. Even if we weren’t wearing the same colors, it was nice to know that we matched in some way.

Tuuli placed a hand on her chest, where the feystone I’d given her was resting. It was blue to match her birth season, which made it hard to see on top of her blue clothes.

Aah, geez. I’m so happy I could cry.

I gazed around the room in an attempt to keep the tears at bay and spotted a pink head among the crowd. That was probably Fey. As I recalled, he had also been baptized at the same time as Tuuli. In any case, I couldn’t allow my emotions to seep through—not in front of the apprentice blues, who were lined up in a nearby corner.

In a deliberate attempt to steer my thoughts away from Tuuli, I started performing the coming-of-age ceremony. I accepted the feystones from Hartmut, then granted the blessing.

“O Leidenschaft, God of Fire, hear my prayers. May you grace those who have newly come of age with your blessing. May those who offer their prayers and gratitude be blessed with your divine protection.”

Blue light shot out of the feystones as a blessing—no larger than normal, as Tuuli had requested—which then rained down on the new adults. My dear sister gazed up at it, relieved, then gave me a smile that clearly said, “Well done.”

I did it. I saved the day.

The ceremony concluded, and the doors to the chapel opened. Mom and Dad were on the other side, as expected. I was a little disappointed that Kamil wasn’t with them—he hadn’t been baptized yet, so he was still at home—but then they smiled and showed me the crested feystones I’d given them, which they were wearing on leather cords around their necks. Dad was looking so determined that he might as well have screamed, “You can count on me to come with ya!”

It was selfish of me to bring my family to the Sovereignty—I understood that well enough—but some of the people here in Ehrenfest were aware of their relation to me. Hartmut had managed to suss it out on his own, so maybe someone else had as well. I didn’t know how my loved ones might be exploited if they stayed behind, nor how great my rampage would be if something happened to them, so I was electing to bring them within my sphere of influence. It was self-serving without a doubt, but they’d accepted it with a smile.

My heart was overflowing with love and joy... which made my mana begin to swell. By the time I’d realized my mistake, it was too late; another blue blessing shot up into the air and exploded, incomparably larger than the one I’d just given.

“Wh-What the...?!”

The new adults filtering out of the chapel stopped and stared, while the priests who were busy cleaning up yelped and stumbled. The apprentice blues lined up by the wall were gawking at the surprise blessing.

In an instant, Tuuli spun around and glared daggers at me. I could tell that she wanted to shout, “Myne! What are you doing?!”

I’m sorry! So sorry! I didn’t mean to!

Panicked, I desperately tried to come up with an excuse, but my mind was blank. “I-It was a bonus blessing. Er, no, I mean... For the spectating apprentices, I wanted to give an example of a blessing not given through feystones. Ohoho...”

“And what a splendid example it was!” Hartmut cried, moved. He was trying to cover for me, but I didn’t think it helped; Mom and Dad went from looking surprised to barely holding back laughter, while Tuuli continued to fix me with a terrifying stare.

Thus, the coming-of-age ceremony concluded with a blunder of epic proportions.