Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.7 - Chapter SS2

Their Hopes and Dreams

“You can lock Lady Letizia in here, then move her onto one of the ships when they arrive. The same goes for the woman with her. Oh, right—you don’t yet have the authority to enter the northern and western buildings. Use this to pass through the barriers. I shall entrust you with contacting our allies. Lord Leonzio, let us go to our estate.”

Having finished instructing her guard knights, Lady Detlinde approached me with a pleased smile. Lady Letizia, who was trembling violently and so overcome with despair that she could no longer speak, was to be locked with her apprentice attendant inside the room where Roswitha had been imprisoned.

Our next course of action was clear: we would raid the chambers of Lady Letizia and Lord Ferdinand—in the northern and western buildings, respectively—take whatever feystones and magic tools we found within, and then return our loot to Lanzenave. Of course, we would put Lady Letizia on the same ship.

My heart goes out to her, it really does, but what else could we have done?

As a mana-rich woman in Lanzenave, Lady Letizia would be doted on by more men than she could count. In many ways, I suspected she would have a much happier life than here in Ahrensbach, where she was forced to live under Lady Detlinde, a woman who utterly despised her.

I glanced at the door, then escorted Lady Detlinde to the castle’s front gate.

“Oh yes,” she said, “I will need to inform Mother of our plan’s success. She must be on the edge of her seat awaiting news of my victory.”

Several days ago, Lady Georgine had gone by carriage to wait in a province bordering Ehrenfest. Her location was apparently as close to the border barrier as she could get before magic tools in the shape of white birds would stop being able to reach her. “Ordonnanzes,” they were called. She was there now, waiting for one such bird to inform her of the plan’s outcome.

I’ve not been told what she intends to do next, but it doubtless involves taking Ehrenfest as her own.

In all things, Lady Georgine cared only about taking Ehrenfest. Her phrasing and demeanor had made it clear to me that she saw Lanzenave, Ahrensbach, the Sovereignty, and even her own daughter as no more than tools to help her realize that singular purpose.

Lady Detlinde had received instruction to contact Lady Georgine once Lord Ferdinand was a feystone, yet she had returned from the Mana Replenishment hall empty-handed. She had even outright said that the poison hadn’t worked. To remedy the situation, she had put schtappe-sealing bracelets on his arms before leaving him on a replenishment circle, which would slowly drain all the mana from his body—but she still hadn’t confirmed that he was dead.

“Is it truly wise to send your report before obtaining Lord Ferdinand’s feystone?” I asked.

Lady Detlinde had an innocent grin spread across her face. She sincerely believed that her mother would rejoice over her success, but I couldn’t see Lady Georgine doing that at all. She was a calculating woman who dryly moved whatever pieces were available to her. If one plan failed, she would advance another to compensate or start entirely from scratch. A vague report stating that Lord Ferdinand would die “soon enough” was sure to earn her ire—but at the same time, hiding the error such that it could not be corrected was more likely to result in a fatal misstep that would unravel everything.

“Oh my. Would you have me wait in the Mana Replenishment hall until his mana drains completely? Perish the thought. Not even that vicious poison turned him into a feystone, and they say that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded beast.”

Was it not precisely because he is so dangerous that Lady Georgine told you to confirm his death and give his feystone to Lanzenave?

Lady Detlinde had actively kept me apart from Lord Ferdinand, so I’d interacted with him only during our initial greetings. For that same reason, most of my information about him was from other people. Lady Detlinde had told me he was a cold and profoundly jealous man who objected to everything she said and did, whereas Lady Georgine saw him as the greatest threat to her plans—a dangerous opponent who consistently came first-in-class during his time at the Royal Academy.

He’s also deeply hated by the Sovereign knight commander.

Once again, I didn’t have the full picture, but it seemed that Lord Ferdinand was a feystone who had somehow slipped out of the Adalgisa villa. I recalled the Sovereign knight commander’s insistence that he be “returned to his proper form and sent to Lanzenave as intended.”

But personally... I do not resent Lord Ferdinand.

A decade had passed since Yurgenschmidt’s civil war, when the Adalgisa villa had been closed and the trade of feystones between our countries had ceased. We now had Lady Detlinde assisting us, and our hunt tonight would secure us higher-quality feystones than ever before, but one could still never have too many.

In truth, I’d been eager to see how great a feystone we would obtain from a seed of Adalgisa ordered to marry into a greater duchy. Now that he was being completely drained of mana, however, his feystone would invariably be empty. It was a terrible waste.

“No, I would not have you wait at all,” I replied. “If you simply dealt him the finishing blow, then you would obtain both his feystone and confirmation of his death.”

Lady Detlinde grimaced, then shot me a stern glare. “Dear me. You should never ask a lady to do something so boorish!” It was evidently unthinkable for a woman of the archducal family to lay her hands on an enemy. Lady Georgine was said to have done precisely that when dispatching her husband to advance her plans, but the woman in front of me had no such resolve.

“At the very least, should you not make it clear in your report that Lord Ferdinand is still alive?” I asked. I really was running out of options.

“That would result in Mother scolding me, would it not? Besides, nobody will get in or out of the Mana Replenishment hall. I removed the registration feystones, see?” She held them up. “As long as these are with me, that door will remain firmly shut. Lord Ferdinand will die with time.”

In other words, even if Lord Ferdinand somehow managed to escape the magic circle, he would not be able to leave the hall.

So he’ll run out of mana or starve, hm?

I didn’t want to displease Lady Detlinde. Plus, this was a plan devised by Lady Georgine, of all people; I could guess she had accounted for her daughter’s shortcomings. Perhaps she had given someone else the secret duty of double-checking the outcome and providing a more accurate report.

In any case, I decided not to push the matter any further. It wasn’t like I could contact Lady Georgine—Lanzenave’s communication methods didn’t work here, and my lack of a schtappe meant I couldn’t send ordonnanzes—so the most I could do was smile and escort my companion to her carriage, lavishing her with praise along the way.

“I was simply bemoaning my own inability to enter the hall,” I said. “Were that restriction not in place, those beautiful hands of yours would not need to be sullied at all. It was not my intention at all to offend you.”

“Oh, very well. I shall forgive you. May we meet again soon.”

I just need to hold out for a little while longer. Then I can end this farce.

After watching the carriage depart, I climbed into my own. Lady Detlinde refused to ride with me unless there was a third party with us, such as Lady Georgine or Lady Letizia. She was all over me in public, but she was unmarried, so she was presumably trying hard to keep a respectable amount of distance between us. It was pointless, though; despite her best efforts, everyone looked at her with scorn and derision. I assumed that either her standards were twisted or she was operating under some kind of profound misunderstanding.

Exhausting.

Once inside my carriage, I couldn’t help heaving a sigh. My cousin Giordano, who usually stood behind me with the countenance of a servant, grinned and plopped down next to me. The flat expression he wore to appease this country’s nobles was nowhere to be seen.

“Everything’s going as we hoped, Leonzio. Looks like we might actually make it through this.”

“Seems to me like things are just getting started. Who’s to say they’ll keep going well?”

“Not me,” Giordano replied, merely shrugging at my attempt to chastise him. “But we’ve got the feystone hunt tonight and those girls ready to be transported, right? That should keep us going for now, even if opening the villa again will take us a while longer.”

Tonight, our envoys in Ahrensbach would go wild; we had received permission from Lady Detlinde and Lady Georgine to kill any and all nobles siding with Lady Letizia. The former was annoyed at those who had chosen not to support her as the next aub, whereas the latter wanted to eliminate anyone who might get in her way down the line. As for us, we needed as many high-quality feystones as we could get. All of our intentions just happened to align.

“Man, Yurgenschmidt nobles sure are terrifying. They don’t show their enemies any mercy whatsoever. Still, this should finally restore power to the royal family. And if all goes well, House Koralie will enjoy a stronger and more secure position.”

There were three main houses in Lanzenave: Koralie, Schentis, and Loeweleier. They shared their names with Yurgenschmidt flowers and the three rooms found in the villa where Lanzenave’s princesses were sent.

I didn’t know too much about the villa—only what the king had told me. To cover the basics, there was meant to be one princess inside each of the three rooms at all times. They would attempt to bring forth sons, one of whom would receive a schtappe upon coming of age and then be sent back to Lanzenave as its next king.

Lanzenave princesses were taken only once every few generations to stop their Yurgenschmidt blood from becoming too thick. Their daughters would stay at the villa in the interim.

After receiving an education in Yurgenschmidt, the next king would return home to be adopted by whomever he was to replace. The boy would naturally know very little about Lanzenave, having spent his entire life elsewhere, so a number of relatives—normally from his mother’s side—would support him and teach him how to manage the country.

During his rule, King Chiaffredo, my grandfather and the son of a Koralie princess, had agreed to marry his daughter to his successor, King Gervasio. The union had never amounted to much, however. It was unknown whether there had been a disagreement of some kind between the couple or whether King Gervasio simply hadn’t taken to his new wife, but although he treated her with respect, he had never come to love her. Thus, when he had eventually come to power, his own House Loeweleier and the family of his preferred wife in House Schentis had secured the most influence. Meanwhile, House Koralie had been pushed further and further away.

Lanzenave was making steady technological advancements to compensate for its lack of feystones, and the world at large was turning to power sources other than mana. A king wielding a schtappe was still necessary to maintain the capital, but in this day and age, the common opinion was that a royal family who could provide nothing but mana wasn’t necessary at all.

For me to stay in the castle as a royal, we needed a Koralie princess in the Adalgisa villa so that I could take a supportive role under the next king. And to have a princess in the villa, we needed to convince the Zent to reopen it. Lanzenave had protested its closure immediately after the civil war, but to no avail. We had since concluded that our only option was to establish connections with someone who could influence Yurgenschmidt’s throne, so we had started waiting for a change in power.

Then, about two years ago, an envoy had returned with a letter from Lady Georgine. The late Aub Ahrensbach had been very much alive at the time.

“Is the king of Lanzenave on familiar terms with the Sovereign knight commander, by chance?”

As far as correspondence went, it had seemed exceptionally bare. She had not even included the name of the Sovereign knight commander, despite him being central to her question.

“The Sovereign knight commander has a solemn duty to protect the Zent,” King Gervasio had said. “I recall that he attended the throne but rarely ever visited the villa. Not once did we greet one another, so I cannot say we were at all associated. The question is, does she mean the same knight commander I remember? It would not be at all unusual for the position to have changed hands.”

Still, even if no such association existed, this was a valuable opportunity for us to form a connection with the Zent. We could not let it slip through our fingers.

In no time at all, the castle had been abuzz with speculation. By “the king of Lanzenave,” had Lady Georgine meant King Gervasio or his predecessor, King Chiaffredo? Had the meeting occurred when the Zent visited the villa or when the Zent and the king exchanged greetings? There had also been the chance that someone either of the kings had gotten along with inside the villa had since become the Sovereign knight commander. All sorts of theories had been thrown around, but even in the uproar, everyone had agreed on one thing: we had to make contact with them.

Naturally, we hadn’t been able to send King Gervasio to Ahrensbach; if something happened to him, Lanzenave wouldn’t have anyone to take his place. Someone else would need to open the negotiations, we had decided—someone who could secure the necessary details from Lady Georgine or this Sovereign knight commander, who could at least lay the groundwork for the reopening of the villa, and who could obtain and trade for as many feystones as possible in preparation for the worst-case scenario.

There had been an explosive debate over who to send—but out of all the candidates, I had secured the position.

“If our plan goes well, Lanzenave will change forever,” I said.

Giordano nodded. Outside the window, we could see Lanzenave ships approaching the port—a good sign, if ever one existed. I was barely able to contain my rising excitement as I awaited our arrival at the Lanzenave Estate.

“Oh, Lady Alstede,” I said. “I did not expect to see you here already.”

“Since we have guests, I thought it best to arrive early. A messenger came just a moment ago regarding the ships. Their passengers should be here soon, I imagine?”

I could not see Lady Detlinde anywhere, which meant she must have hurried into the estate upon her arrival. I was welcomed instead by her elder sister, Lady Alstede—the person who had actually dyed Ahrensbach’s foundation. The Zent had not granted her his recognition, but she was still the duchy’s de facto aub.

Lady Alstede was an archnoble in her early twenties. Her bright green eyes; blue, almost purple hair; and shapely features made her easily comparable to Lady Georgine, but her personality wasn’t similar at all. She was a quiet girl who rarely spoke and always seemed to have a close eye on the mood of those around her.

From what I could tell, Lady Alstede was being tossed every which way by her mother and younger sister. By her mother’s will, she had married an archnoble despite being the daughter of an aub, and for the sake of her mother and sister’s plan, she had now dyed Ahrensbach’s foundation—all while having a young daughter of her own.

“Lady Alstede, this cannot be easy for you...” I said. “I still remember your declaration about not wanting to be the aub.”

“Indeed. My thoughts on the matter have not changed, but that is not to say this situation does not benefit me.”

Lady Alstede’s husband, Lord Blasius, had once been an archducal family member striving to become an aub. During the civil war, however, he had been demoted to the rank of an archnoble because of his mother’s duchy of birth.

“I wish to restore Lord Blasius to his former rank,” she continued. “If everything happens as Mother has planned, it will even be possible to grant him Ahrensbach’s foundational magic. Not to mention, there is still time for us to start giving our daughter the education of an archduke candidate.”

The civil war really had nothing but bad results, huh? It’s not hard to see why Lady Detlinde curses the current Zent at every chance she gets.

“Lanzenave is facing its own hardships as a result of the villa being closed, right? I pray that this plan goes well and that your country receives the assistance it needs.”

As we continued our conversation, we made our way into the estate. Lady Detlinde’s attendant was preparing tea in the parlor, while Lord Blasius, Lady Alstede’s husband, was hanging around. They were treating what was meant to be the Lanzenave Estate as a second home. Giordano must have made the same observation, as he let out a sigh behind me. It wasn’t uncommon for our people to be relegated to the back rooms when Lady Detlinde came to visit.

“Alstede, has the door been opened yet?” Lady Detlinde asked. “I did send you the key, you know.”

“No, not yet... I thought it best to wait until your arrival. Mother instructed as much, did she not?”

Lady Detlinde was considered to be Ahrensbach’s aub, but Lady Alstede was the one actually in control of the duchy’s foundation. To preserve the illusion, Lady Georgine had given Lady Detlinde firm orders to always be present for things that only the aub could perform, such as opening certain doors or the border gates.

“You always follow Mother’s orders to the letter, Sister,” Lady Detlinde complained. “I do not believe our guests will exercise much patience. Let us unlock it now before they arrive.”

“Certainly. They might be in a hurry.”

The Lanzenave Estate had a teleportation circle that was used to send princesses to the Adalgisa villa and welcome back kings. Only the aub could open the door on Ahrensbach’s side.

It isn’t hard to guess that the previous Aub Ahrensbach was assassinated to allow for open travel between Ahrensbach and the villa.

I very much doubted it was the only reason—Lady Georgine always had several, no matter what she did—but it was guaranteed to be one of them.

And so Lady Georgine had assassinated the previous aub and gotten Lady Alstede to redye the foundation, allowing us to open the door to the teleportation room at our leisure. Or it should have been that simple, but at the very last moment, during the Archduke Conference, it had been decided that the villa would go to a girl whom the Zent was adopting. The news could only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to obliterate Lanzenave’s hopes of the villa ever being reopened to accommodate new princesses.

Since the announcement, cleaners, remodelers, and craftsmen bringing new furniture had started frequenting the villa. At times, even members of the royal family had visited to check on their progress. This had made the teleporter practically unusable, which hadn’t actually done much to impede Lady Georgine’s plans, but it had caused problems for her coconspirator, who was said to have agonized over such a grave miscalculation.

Only now had the preparations finally been completed and the villa emptied of craftspeople, allowing the teleporter to be used without restraint. We had complete control over it and the villa until the next Archduke Conference, when its new owner would arrive.

But will this plan truly work?

I had told Giordano on our way here that we had no way of knowing whether things would go well, but I was wishing for Lady Georgine’s success more than anyone.

“I shall open it, then,” Lady Alstede said. She slotted her key into place, and in the blink of an eye, a magic circle made from yellow light appeared on the door.

It took me all the willpower I could muster not to cry out. Because of my time with Lady Detlinde, I considered myself more knowledgeable about magic than most others from Lanzenave, but I’d never seen anything like this. It was surprising enough that the magic circle had appeared out of nowhere, but then the door began to open on its own. As I tried to swallow my shock, the nobles around me looked entirely stone-faced. This level of magic was commonplace to them.

Beyond the door was a pure-white room. There was nothing of note inside except the magic circle drawn on the floor.

“That is the teleporter,” Lady Detlinde explained, brimming with pride. “It will require mana here and on the other side, but it can transport people and goods.” In the meantime, one of her attendants sent a letter explaining that we were ready on our end of the teleporter.

Lady Alstede went behind a pillar and did something I couldn’t quite see. Then there came a bright, momentary flash from the teleporter.

On the other side... there are schtappes.

I took an unconscious step forward, as if seduced by the sudden flash. I wanted one. I wanted my own schtappe. If only I could obtain one, I would be able to secure power on my own. I wouldn’t need to wait for my little sister’s child.

I took another step, and the magic circle flashed again, this time for a little while longer. It spewed a fiery mix of black and golden light, shocking me to my senses and causing me to take a step back.

“Oh, they really were waiting after all. Welcome to Ahrensbach.”

The light faded to reveal Lord Raublut, the Sovereign knight commander, standing atop the teleporter. I gasped at how suddenly he had appeared; for all its technological advancements, Lanzenave had nothing that could compare to large-scale magic.

“Lord Raublut, our other guests are due to arrive soon,” Lady Detlinde said. “We received word that their ships have reached the port.”

The knight commander cast his eyes down, allowing a slight smile to grace his mouth. “Aah... At last, I shall reunite with my lord. It has taken so... so long.”

I remember him saying what a blunder it was that preparations for the villa would prevent them from using the teleporter.

We had meant to perform final checks during the summer funeral and then execute our plan in autumn, but work on the villa had delayed us until now. The man before us had found that more torturous than anyone.

“The fact you were waiting means your preparations are also complete, I assume?” Lady Detlinde asked. “You have the means by which to make me Zent.”

Lord Raublut looked across all those gathered, then nodded at me and the others from Lanzenave. “Everything is going according to plan. Our hopes will soon be fulfilled.” There was something about his deep, weighty voice that made me want to believe it unconditionally. I could actually feel my chest heating up with anticipation.

Will my hopes and dreams be fulfilled at last...?

“Aah, Raublut. It has been so long...” King Gervasio said, entering the estate after having arrived at the port.

The Sovereign knight commander knelt before the king of Lanzenave—a sight so bizarre that I couldn’t look away—and then replied, “I welcome you, my one and only lord. I cannot apologize enough for failing to carry out your final order and allowing harm to come to Lady Valamarlene.”

“Let it weigh on your mind no longer. The fate that befell her was regrettable, but you had no power to prevent it. Such is the law of this land, which you have been made to endure for much too long. Let your burden finally be lifted.”

Who’s Valamarlene?

I didn’t recognize the name, but if she was a mutual acquaintance, she had to be someone from the Adalgisa villa. Upon my arrival in Ahrensbach, I’d discovered that Lord Raublut had served as one of the villa’s guard knights while our own King Gervasio was living there. He was the very reason King Gervasio had come this far.

“Our actions here will ultimately be for the greater good. Raublut, if you would take me there, it is time to visit our old villa.”

“At once, my lord.”