Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.6 - Chapter 2

The Canceled Engagement and a Choice for the Future

“Everyone, come closer,” Sylvester said. Then, once we were all grouped together, he activated a sound-blocking magic tool around us. Just seeing the blue barrier made Melchior tremble; he wasn’t used to such extreme caution.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Bonifatius demanded. “What could require this much fuss?”

At last, Sylvester revealed the truth: “Rozemyne is going to be adopted by the king. She will then be engaged to Prince Sigiswald upon coming of age.”

Those who had not attended the Archduke Conference were stunned. Their eyes were like saucers, and their mouths flapped open and shut. Sylvester saw their expected confusion and continued in a quiet voice.

“We’ve been given a year to prepare for her move to the Sovereignty. For safety reasons, we won’t announce the adoption until it actually happens; we need the status quo to be maintained while we ready ourselves internally.”

Sylvester hadn’t mentioned anything to do with the Grutrissheit. We had decided to keep it all a secret, since we didn’t know whether I would obtain it or how it might be treated. Everyone involved with the handover process would only be told that the king was adopting me and that I would move to the Sovereignty in a year.

Charlotte likely understood the consequences of my adoption better than anyone. She frantically turned to look at Wilfried, who was completely frozen in place, his wide eyes seeming to bore into Sylvester.

“What about the temple...?” Melchior muttered; but he was drowned out by a crazed, booming roar from Bonifatius.

“Th-Think about what you’re saying, Sylvester! Rozemyne, adopted by the king?! Archduke candidates can’t be moved to the Sovereignty!”

Sylvester slowly shook his head. “Rozemyne is my adopted daughter. Were I to disown her, she’d return to being an archnoble—and there’s no law against archnobles moving to the Sovereignty.”

“And you accepted that ridiculous demand?!”

“It was a royal decree. We managed to negotiate a few conditions, but refusing wasn’t an option.”

“Conditions?” Bonifatius’s eyes wandered the room for a moment before returning to Sylvester, no less harsh than before.

“I went through them just a moment ago, no?” Sylvester asked, clearly having expected such a reaction. “Five years of nobles marrying into Ehrenfest, and forty-some magic tools for our duchy’s newborns.”

“THAT’S ALL?!” Bonifatius thundered, leaping up out of his chair. “You sold Rozemyne to the Sovereignty for THAT?!”

Unfazed, Sylvester revealed the details he had omitted from the general announcement. “Our Sovereign nobles will be ordered to return home, Rozemyne’s adoption will count as the entirety of our burden, and Ferdinand will receive better living conditions and a guarantee that he won’t be punished for Detlinde’s crimes. Those were our terms. I’d say I did a much better job as aub than last year, when Ferdinand met with the king behind my back and agreed to leave without securing Ehrenfest anything of value.”

Bonifatius’s blue eyes shot wide open. “You asked them to help Ferdinand?! What benefit is there to that?! A few improvements for someone who doesn’t even belong to Ehrenfest anymore does nothing to make up for us losing Rozemyne. You’re supposed to be the aub, aren’t you? Did you really let your love for your brother get the better of you?!”

“They weren’t my requests,” Sylvester replied with a grimace. He then pointed at me and said, “They were hers.”

All eyes fell on me.

“H-Have you fallen in love with him?!” Bonifatius asked me, his jaw practically hitting the floor. “Did... Did something happen in the temple...?”

“Please do not get carried away. Is it really that strange to be worried about someone who is like family to you?” A wave of sadness washed over me. “After I move to the Sovereignty, will you forget about me the very next day? Will you stop calling me your granddaughter and maintain that you have nothing to do with me?”

“Of course not! Even if your adoption to Sylvester is undone, you will always remain my granddaughter!”

“Would you call your love for me romantic, then?”

“Wh-What in the...?”

I smiled. “I worry for Ferdinand in the same way that you will worry for me when it comes time for me to move. My initial demand was for him to be returned to Ehrenfest, but the royal family refused.” I made sure to add that, if we had managed to get him back, it would have solved most of our problems, from the mana shortage to the Leisegangs to the handover of the temple work and the printing industry.

Bonifatius slumped his shoulders. “I realize now that I jumped to a bizarre conclusion. But are you not opposed to moving to the Sovereignty?”

“I am. It will require me to abandon my dear library and printing workshop and go somewhere far, far away from new books. Worse still, my future family is reluctant to prepare even a book room for me in my own home. I am nothing but unsatisfied.”

And that dissatisfaction was unlikely to go away anytime soon. I wanted to build a printing workshop in the Sovereignty as soon as possible, and improve the teleportation circles between Ehrenfest and the Sovereignty so that new books could be sent to me immediately.

“However, Ferdinand went to Ahrensbach without defying the royal decree,” I continued. “Thus, I must also obey. The most I could do was use my adoption to support Ehrenfest, but I do believe I was of some use.”

Bonifatius went to say something, but Sylvester spoke first. “Your granddaughter is marrying a prince. Shouldn’t you be glad? You never stopped complaining that Wilfried was no match for her and that she was wasted on him.”

This time, Bonifatius grimaced. He turned to look at Wilfried, who returned a sardonic smile and said, “I don’t see why this surprises you, Lord Bonifatius. You’ve said it yourself more times than I can count: Rozemyne excels no matter where she goes. She’s more suitable to be the next aub. She can do anything...”

Wilfried then stared at Sylvester. He was clearly battling a storm of emotions—his fists were clenched and trembling atop the table—but unlike Bonifatius, he didn’t raise his voice or lose his temper. Instead, he continued in a calm but dry manner.

“I was the only archduke candidate who could tie Rozemyne to Ehrenfest, was I not? Every time I asked to end our engagement, you told me it was my duty to endure it. And now it’s been canceled.”

It seemed that he had also considered our engagement to be a loveless duty. Maybe he had wanted to cancel it from the start, but everyone else had gotten in the way.

Is this a boon for Wilfried, then?

Because our engagement was being canceled as the result of a royal decree, it wouldn’t damage his reputation. I sighed, relieved. There was no reason to dwell on it any further, right?

“So, Father... who will be Ehrenfest’s next aub?” Wilfried asked.

Sylvester met his gaze and quietly said, “That’s a decision for later. There’s no point in us discussing it now.”

The tension in the room was so thick that one could cut it with a knife. How blind had I been to think that Wilfried would appreciate this royal decree? He was still desperately trying to contain his emotions, and seeing that made my stomach drop.

Sylvester continued, “The role could go to Charlotte if she takes a groom from another duchy. Or to Melchior. It could go to the child whom Florencia is carrying right now. Or, if you work hard enough, it could still go to you, Wilfried.”

“Um, Father...” Charlotte interjected, her indigo eyes wide with disbelief as they flitted from him to Wilfried. “Is that to say...?”

Florencia smiled, then finally broke her silence. “Charlotte, you have had to endure the unreasonable for so long. To save Wilfried and secure Rozemyne’s position, the right to pursue the seat of aub that rightfully belongs to every archduke candidate was taken from you. Yet you never made your dissatisfaction known and worked tirelessly to support them both. The amount of work you have put into keeping Ehrenfest together cannot be understated.”

Charlotte’s eyes grew wet with tears, and she rejoiced that her efforts were finally being understood and praised. Meanwhile, I realized that I hadn’t shown her even a fraction of the gratitude she deserved. She had always been so considerate, consoling and supporting me when I needed it, but what had I done for her? Not nearly enough.

I’m a terrible big sister...

Wilfried was a year older than Charlotte, and men were prioritized for the archducal seat. Maybe because of that, as well as my own disinterest in ruling Ehrenfest, it had never even occurred to me that she might want to become the next aub.

Sylvester arranged the engagement, but did I betray Charlotte by accepting it...?

If she had grown up working hard to become the next archduchess, then I must have obstructed and even wounded her by rescuing Wilfried through our engagement and securing his place as the next aub.

I examined my sister carefully. She was too busy staring at Florencia to look back at me.

“Charlotte,” Florencia said, “as the royal decree has undone Wilfried and Rozemyne’s engagement, I will give you a choice. If you wish to become the next aub, then find what you lack during the next five years, while the marriage restrictions are in place, and wed a man worthy of serving as the first husband of the next Aub Ehrenfest. Rozemyne’s move to the Sovereignty means that the environment here will change drastically. Keep a keen eye on those changes and make whatever choices seem best.”

Charlotte had three options: she could aspire to become the next aub, she could marry an archnoble and adopt a more supportive role in Ehrenfest, or she could wait five years and then marry into another duchy. She smiled and nodded at Florencia, then turned to Sylvester and asked, “Father, when will the next aub be chosen?”

He shut his eyes. “As I said, not right away. We can’t even be sure that Rozemyne’s current adoption will be nullified a year from now. It’s extremely likely to happen, but still—until it actually does, we’re going to maintain the status quo. Don’t tell your retainers, and act as though everything is normal. Take care not to let anything slip.”

Charlotte nodded again. There must have been countless thoughts running through her head; although she was looking at Sylvester, she was lost in her own little world.

“To be honest,” Sylvester said, “I think the decision can wait until either Bonifatius or I pass away. We had to hurry with the engagement and make it clear who was going to take the archducal seat to contain the Leisegangs and forestall their attempts to make Rozemyne the next aub, but we won’t need to rush this time around. Bonifatius has been educated to serve as an interim archduke, so even if I die first, the decision can wait.”

“Understood,” Charlotte replied, her eyes sparkling.

Florencia looked at her daughter as if admiring a dazzling light, then turned to her youngest son. “The same goes for you, Melchior. If you wish to be the aub in the future, then you will need to work hard so that you are worthy of the position.”

He paused in thought, then shook his head. “I will... consider that when I’ve come of age. Right now, I need to focus on being the High Bishop. There’s so much for me to learn that I’m never not busy. And we only have a year before Rozemyne leaves. I can’t think about becoming the aub right now.”

Florencia looked surprised, then smiled. “That certainly is true. Going forward, those who wish to become aubs will need to pray often and obtain more divine protections. Carry out your duties and spend the time until your coming of age thinking about your future.”

“Yes, Mother. And, Rozemyne...” He looked at me, brimming with resolve to become the next High Bishop. “I look forward to your teachings over the next year.”

I felt a goofy smile appear on my face. He was relying on me!

“You will do just fine,” I said. “I cannot bring all of my retainers to the Sovereignty, so I intend to leave several of them in the temple. They will come to your aid should you need them. You can also expect help from the blue priests we have trained thus far, such as Kampfer and Frietack. Only through the support of others have I managed to perform my duties as the High Bishop.”

“I might be able to leave the paperwork to them, but my hardest job is going to be learning to give blessings like you do, Rozemyne.” Melchior puffed out his cheeks. “I know it’s the most important duty of a High Bishop, but still.”

Sylvester smirked ever so slightly and waved dismissively. “Rozemyne has so much mana that even the royal family asked for her to perform their ceremonies. She’s a good goal to work toward, but take care not to drive yourself crazy—it’s going to take you a long time to match what she does. You’ll get better and better as you learn to compress your mana at the Royal Academy and start getting more to work with. For now, though, Rozemyne needs to hand over everything she’s been doing—from her duties in the temple to her work with the printing industry—all while preparing for her new life. It won’t be easy for her, so help out as much as you can.”

“Right!”

Melchior and Charlotte were both radiating hope, but Wilfried seemed graver than ever. He had a noble smile plastered over his face, but he was sitting stock-still and in complete silence.

“Charlotte, Melchior, Bonifatius—remember not to say a word about Rozemyne’s adoption to anyone,” Sylvester cautioned. “If you leak anything to your retainers, there’s no knowing what the Leisegangs might do. And if any of the other duchies find out, the Royal Academy will become a drastically more dangerous place for Rozemyne to be.”

“Understood.”

“Alright. You may leave.” He looked at Wilfried. “There’s... more that the rest of us need to discuss.”

The three glanced at Wilfried, their expressions betraying their concern, then quietly took their leave. Sylvester, Florencia, Wilfried, and I were the only ones left in the meeting room.

“You did well to keep your emotions under control, Wilfried,” Sylvester said.

The frustration that had been eating away at Wilfried finally surfaced. “I’m the only archduke candidate raised by Grandmother. I’m also a criminal who entered the Ivory Tower, and someone who by all rights should have been punished alongside the rest of the former Veronica faction during the winter purge. You told me I was by far the least suitable archduke candidate to become aub—that I probably wouldn’t be able to remain an archduke candidate, let alone take the archducal seat, if my engagement to Rozemyne were canceled. Well, here we are. What’s going to happen to me?”

“I... don’t know. I said as much before.”

“Father!” Wilfried shouted, slamming a fist against the table. His sudden outburst surprised me so much that I immediately recoiled.

“Um, what do you mean you don’t know what will happen to Wilfried once our engagement is canceled...?” I asked. “And what conversation are you both referring to?” Everyone was on the same page but me, and it made me feel as though I didn’t belong here.

“The purge cost Wilfried his support base,” Sylvester explained. “And if your engagement falls through while the Leisegangs are Ehrenfest’s dominant power, it wouldn’t be strange for everyone to unite and push for him to be sent to the Ivory Tower so that he can never become the next aub. Everything will depend on how much we can curb the Leisegangs’ power over the next year—and as it stands, we don’t know what the situation is going to look like when the cancellation is finally announced.”

Apparently, many of the Leisegangs were adamant that letting the one archduke candidate whom Veronica had raised—and a criminal who had entered the Ivory Tower, at that—become the next aub would make a mockery of the duchy’s leadership. They were openly and persistently demanding that he be removed from his current position and executed.

“Um, but that doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Ehrenfest has already lost Ferdinand; once it loses me as well, it won’t have enough mana to support itself. Yet they’re calling for an honor student archduke candidate to be removed...? How dumb are they? As far as I see it, the problem is that the Leisegangs refuse to accept the reality of our situation.”

“That’s pretty blunt of you, but... you’re right,” Sylvester replied with a sigh.

Wilfried glared at me, his eyes sharper than ever. “Why are you acting as though this has nothing to do with you?” he snapped. “It’s your job to contain the Leisegangs. You’re their ‘princess,’ aren’t you? Instead, you’ve completely abandoned your duty.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, blinking at him.

Sylvester quickly intervened. “Stop, Wilfried. Rozemyne was raised in the temple, so she doesn’t think of the Leisegangs as her family. Karstedt, Elvira, and Bonifatius are the ones tasked with controlling them. Brunhilde will eventually take on the duty as well.”

“But Father!” Wilfried exclaimed. “Over the course of Spring Prayer, the Leisegangs told me I was your favorite to become the next aub purely because of my sex. They said that Rozemyne would doubtless rule Ehrenfest if not for my unfair advantage—that my becoming an archduke was a laughable farce, yet I possessed not even the good sense to step down. She is their figurehead. She shares their blood, so she must have something—anything—that can control them!”

The Leisegangs’ insults hadn’t ended there, though; they had continuously mentioned my three consecutive years of coming first-in-class as evidence that Wilfried was inferior to me, and relentlessly asserted that my bloodline and past were spotless compared to his.

He continued, “Father, why did you force me down the path to become the next aub when nobody else wanted it? If everyone hates me with a passion, then what good was it trying to earn their support? Am I to spend the rest of my life being mocked and abused, with people even refusing to address me properly? Am I always going to be compared to Rozemyne, a prodigy the likes of which the world has never seen before, and told that I could only ever become the aub by her good graces? Must even my cherished memories of my childhood be blackened with bitterness, shame, and regret?”

Veronica had done many horrible things to Ferdinand and to the duchy as a whole, but to Wilfried, she had always been his kind grandmother who had raised him from a young age. Even now that she was in the Ivory Tower, he was nostalgic for the time they had spent together. It was probably similar to how I still cared about Ferdinand even now that he had moved to Ahrensbach. No matter how much people told me not to worry or think about him, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Rozemyne, I don’t want to live as your husband when you clearly care about Uncle more and prefer to spend your time helping him over me. I’d rather die than spend a lifetime with everyone comparing me to you, and you comparing me to him. Every time I’m told to make an engagement feystone for you, or to send you some gifts, I just think about how you’ll compare whatever I give you to what you already have from Uncle. I can’t stomach it.”

I gazed down at all of my charms from Ferdinand. Apparently, they had hurt Wilfried’s pride as a man.

But, well... they’re protective charms. I can’t just take them off.

Wilfried continued, “Once I’d come to terms with the fact that I didn’t want to marry a girl who only cared about someone else, I concluded that it was best for you to become the aub, since you already had the support of the Leisegangs. So I went to Father and requested as much.”

I turned to Sylvester. “I wasn’t told about this...”

“For obvious reasons,” he replied. “Had you found out that Wilfried wanted to cancel your engagement, you would have tried to cancel it as well, right? But you wouldn’t have wanted to become the next aub, which would have made it easy for the royal family or a top-ranking duchy to poach you. It would have brought chaos to Ehrenfest and absolutely zero benefit, so why would we have told you? In fact, your retainers were all doing their best to keep you and Wilfried apart so that you wouldn’t work together to end your engagement.”

Everything clicked. In retrospect, our retainers had actively worked to keep us away from one another.

And that was when I started sending those ordonnanzes of concern. Wilfried must have been truly miserable having to listen to those forced messages day in, day out, when he was only keeping up the engagement because he felt duty bound to.

Now I was starting to wonder why Sylvester had told me to show more concern for Wilfried in the first place. Considering everything that had been going on behind the scenes, it had been guaranteed to backfire.

“The only thing Father had to do was order you to become the next aub,” Wilfried ranted, “but he refused no matter what I said to him. He just kept repeating that he couldn’t allow you to rule Ehrenfest—that I needed to take the archducal seat—over and over again. He also said that he couldn’t nullify our engagement because it was the only thing keeping you in Ehrenfest. In his words, it was the future I’d chosen, so I needed to take responsibility for it.”

Sylvester, Ferdinand, and Karstedt had no intention of letting me, a former commoner, become the duchy’s next aub. Wilfried didn’t know this, though, and Sylvester wasn’t able to tell him, so communication between them had quickly broken down.

Sylvester shook his head, looking exhausted. “Wilfried, if you had refused to marry Rozemyne when I first proposed it or told me your true feelings before Ferdinand was required to leave Ehrenfest, I wouldn’t have hesitated to cancel the engagement. But you changed your tune at the worst possible moment.”

If we had ended our engagement back when Wilfried complained to Sylvester, then the royal family or a top-ranking duchy would almost certainly have claimed me. And with the Leisegangs strengthened by the purge, Wilfried would have been in great danger. Sylvester had no intention of sending his own son to the Ivory Tower, especially when that son had worked so hard to avoid disinheritance and even managed to become an honor student at the Royal Academy. I didn’t want Wilfried to be punished or treated that harshly either.

“Father!” Wilfried cried, his voice betraying such deep anguish that my heart began to ache. “You told me that, as Aub Ehrenfest, you were unable to let Rozemyne go. You said that it was my duty to accept the engagement. You made me swallow my true feelings and suffer the consequences, so why is Rozemyne being adopted by the king all of a sudden? And why do we need to spend the next year pretending that our engagement hasn’t already fallen apart? I don’t know how I can be expected to put on a brave face when Rozemyne is becoming a royal and abandoning Ehrenfest, while I’m destined to lose the security of my current position and clash with the Leisegangs.”

He fell silent for a moment, then gritted his teeth and slammed a fist against the table again. “Don’t play dumb with me! If you hadn’t agreed to it, Rozemyne wouldn’t be a year away from entering the royal family! If you had made her the next aub, you could have turned them down!” But with the Grutrissheit at stake, I doubted that making me Ehrenfest’s next ruler would have changed anything.

Wilfried continued, “If she had become the next aub and our engagement had been canceled, I would have been free. The Leisegangs would have had their wish granted, and they wouldn’t have cared whether I lived or died. But if she’s leaving to join the royal family... Ehrenfest will descend into chaos. What am I supposed to do?!”

It was terrifying to see your entire future go dark—to not know where you stood or whether you would even survive. I understood that all too well.

Sylvester looked at his son head-on. “You can live as you please, Wilfried.”

“What...?”

“If you aren’t set to become the next aub anymore, then it won’t be your job to keep the Leisegangs under control. Brunhilde and I will take them on instead, as will whoever else strives to rule Ehrenfest. As long as you don’t forget your duties as an archducal family member, you won’t need to balance anything else. You can leave your current burdens to others.”

Wilfried said nothing. He was like a deer caught in the headlights.

“In a year’s time, you will be free,” Sylvester went on. “You could support Ehrenfest as an archduke candidate, as Bonifatius does, or you could wait five years and marry into another duchy. You could become a giebe—our duchy is in dire need of them—or you could introduce a new industry as Rozemyne did. You could even take your pick of classes from the knight course and strive to become the knight commander, as Bonifatius and Ferdinand did. Of course, you could also continue to work toward becoming the next aub, this time in a race that wouldn’t see you constantly compared to Rozemyne.”

Just as Florencia had suggested paths for Charlotte, Sylvester was trying to give Wilfried as many options as he could think of.

“Wilfried... what do you want to become?” I asked.

“What do... I want...?”

“The status quo won’t change for another year. Perhaps you could spend this time deciding what kind of a life you want to live. Preparing for the future will require some work, no matter which path you take; why not use this time productively?”

Wilfried eyed me skeptically. “I already know one thing: I can’t bear being engaged to you.”

“The feeling’s mutual. Just as you can’t see me as your wife, I can’t see you as my husband. I’m still not sure how one is even supposed to interact with one’s partner-to-be. People were always telling me to do a better job, but to be honest, trying to keep up the act was painful.”

It hadn’t been pleasant knowing that everyone expected such grand tales of romance from what had been little more than a political engagement, nor had it been nice being constantly told to act more like a fiancée when I didn’t know how to.

“But for this next year”—I held out my hand—“I think we can act as siblings again.” We might not have made a good couple, but we had gotten along well as brother and sister.

Wilfried stared at my hand, deep in thought, then smiled softly and took it. “Yeah. Being engaged to you was painful, but I still love you as a sister. I’ll use this time to think about my future.”