Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.8 - Chapter 17

Bindewald

“Goodness gracious!”

My eyes were still squeezed shut as I tried to fight back my teleportation sickness, but I quickly recognized the ear-piercing screech that accompanied our arrival in Bindewald. It was almost nostalgic, maybe because I’d spent so little time at the Royal Academy this year. I opened my eyes to check, and indeed, Fraularm was rushing toward us—with three other women in tow.

Now that’s a face I haven’t seen in a while. Can’t say I’ve missed it.

“One moment a magic circle appears in the garden. The next, here you are!” Fraularm screeched. “Just what is going on?!”

“Professor Fraularm...”

“She’s no longer a professor, Lady Rozemyne...” Hannelore whispered to me. “She behaved so improperly that she was, um... made to resign.”

I could vaguely remember hearing about that. Fraularm’s resignation explained why she was here in Ahrensbach, plus I’d already known she was related to Count Bindewald, but I still hadn’t expected to see her out of the blue like this.

“How unthinkable that Ehrenfest nobles would arrive here!” Fraularm declared. “Unthinkable and unacceptable!”

“Indeed, my sister! Unthinkable and unacceptable!” one of the three women echoed. “This is the problem with Ehrenfest!”

It wasn’t long before Fraularm and her crew were all pointing and barking at us. They looked so alike and spoke in such similar tones that I had to imagine they were all related.

“We aren’t all from Ehrenfest...” Hannelore muttered, sounding a little dejected. Then she whipped out her schtappe and wrapped Fraularm in bands of light.

Wha—?!

Hannelore had moved so naturally that I struggled to even process what she’d just done. Her squad moved with her, and in the literal blink of an eye, all four women were restrained. They weren’t wearing silver clothes or anything of the sort, but the feat still astounded me.

Hannelore looked up at the other knights, who were just as shocked as I was, and sighed. “Knights of Ahrensbach, you are much too slow to react to danger,” she said with a smile, her voice as gentle as always. “Yes, having to restrain nobles of your own duchy might give you pause, but you cannot protect Lady Rozemyne as you are now. I know you can do better.”

She really does match her duchy’s reputation...

“Do you honestly believe these four are the only ones here who might oppose her?” Hannelore continued. She then nodded toward the estate, spurring the Ahrensbach knights to create their highbeasts and take flight.

You’re just too well trained, Lady Hannelore.

If she was the standard in Dunkelfelger, I would never be able to survive there. As cool and admirable as she was, trying to imitate her was beyond me.

“Goodness! Is that you, Lady Rozemyne?!” Fraularm cried, glaring up at me from the ground. “How are you even here?! Shouldn’t you have died already?! Stubbornness is anything but a virtue!”

Hartmut stepped forward and stared down at the former professor. He wore a smile, but his eyes were cold and entirely without compassion. “I shall address you simply as Fraularm, since you have been kicked out of the Royal Academy. Pray tell, what did you mean when you said that Lady Rozemyne should have died already? I see that not even your forced resignation was enough to teach you not to speak so improperly.”

Fraularm must have been deeply ashamed of her removal from the Royal Academy—her face went bright red, and she gave her questioner the fiercest glare she could muster.

Hartmut sneered. “If you were referring to the slow-acting poison that was smeared on our bible, we discovered and removed it before Lady Rozemyne ever touched the book.”

Fraularm’s eyes opened wide in disbelief, prompting Hartmut to broaden his smile and continue. “Of course, if you knew about said poison, that would mean you were involved in the assassination attempt. We will need to investigate you more closely.”

“Goodness me! I received a report and nothing more!” Fraularm said, sharply turning her head away. “There is nothing else I can tell you!”

Hartmut turned to Cornelius and gestured at the disgraced professor now pouting on the ground. “We don’t have time to interrogate her now. Make sure she doesn’t die until we know who gave her that report.”

“I know,” Cornelius replied, looking especially stone-faced as he pointed his schtappe at Fraularm.

“Ohohoho... Are you Rozemyne’s retainers? How sad,” said one of the other women on the ground, staring up at Hartmut and Cornelius with sympathetic eyes. Her hair color aside, she looked a lot like Fraularm. “I find it so sad that you continue to serve her, deceived and ignorant of her true nature. She is a commoner shrine maiden who once arranged the downfall of my husband. A commoner, I tell you! A commoner!”

I was so startled that I grabbed my chest. The woman, who had erupted in a victorious, high-pitched cackle, was apparently the wife of Count Toad, the very same noble who had invaded the temple all those years ago.

“Oh, are there still fools out there who believe those lies?” Hartmut asked, stepping between the woman and me. “A foolish knight was once executed for harming Lady Rozemyne under that misconception. It boggles the mind that anyone else would cast aside reason so eagerly.”

“Hartmut...” I said.

He knew about my commoner origins but took my hand nonetheless. “Fear not, Lady Rozemyne. That falsehood might have carried some weight when you were being raised in secret within the temple, but only those who have lost their minds or are blinded by their emotions would believe it now. This woman simply refuses to accept that her husband committed a grave crime.”

“Goodness! How rude!”

“I speak only the truth!”

Hartmut didn’t even spare the screeching women a glance; he smiled at me again, then looked around at everyone gathered. “Let us assume for a moment that these rumors about Lady Rozemyne are true. It would mean a commoner came first-in-class at the Royal Academy three years in a row. Lady Hannelore, as someone who has shared classes with her, what do you think?”

Hannelore’s eyes moved from Fraularm to me. “Lady Rozemyne is able to grant blessings simply by strumming the harspiel and turns feystones into gold dust just by squeezing them. No commoner could manage such grand achievements.”

“Lady Hannelore is right—a commoner could never be so talented at ditter,” her knights agreed. Then they actually started to bemoan that fact and the amount of potential that was apparently being squandered. I struggled to follow their train of thought, but they seemed ready to accept anyone as a noble as long as they could play ditter well enough.

“Do not be fooled as my husband was!” the toad’s wife cried. “He endured such great suffering at the hands of Ehrenfest!”

At that moment, the Ahrensbach knights who had gone to search the estate returned with ten or so women and children, all restrained. “Lady Rozemyne, these are all the nobles we found. The servants are tied up inside the estate,” their representative informed me. “Did, um... something happen in our absence?”

Having caught us midway through our dispute with Fraularm’s group, the knights all tensed up.

Leonore stepped forward, laughing. “This woman claims that Lady Rozemyne is a commoner. Even if we humored the idea, would that not cast great shame on Ahrensbach for allowing her to steal its foundation overnight?”

“Goodness! Gracious! Me!” Fraularm shrieked. “Lies in their purest form! Ehrenfest must be a hive of deceivers!”

The news that Ahrensbach’s foundation had been stolen might not have reached Bindewald yet, but was she not suspicious that we’d teleported people within the duchy’s borders? Evidently not, as she and her cronies continued to rant about this and that.

Dunkelfelger’s knights were losing their patience. They told the women to shut up and that they were only embarrassing themselves.

Leonore laughed again, even more provocatively this time. “Not a single noble was able to find the Grutrissheit—not even the royal family. Yet the gods bestowed it upon Lady Rozemyne! If you truly believe she is a commoner, then your heads must be empty.” She shot a glance at the newly returned knights. “Do these women speak for everyone in Ahrensbach?”

“As an Ahrensbach noble, I would rather you not lump us together with these madwomen,” one of the knights said. “Nobody in their right mind would believe that Lady Rozemyne is a commoner.”

“We’ve seen her close the country and border gates with our very own eyes,” said another before resting cold eyes on the tied-up women. “Please stop regurgitating lies—for our duchy’s sake, if not your own.”

“Your frustrations and resentment must have festered while you were stuck here in this backwater estate, isolated from the truth. Do not expect us to sympathize with your foolishness.”

The toad’s wife glowered at me, trembling all the while; even the nobles of her own duchy were regarding her with scorn. “Tell them the truth, Rozemyne!” she shrieked. “Stop deceiving them!”

“I do not know what you expect me to say...” I replied. “I understand that it must have hurt when your husband was imprisoned and your sister fired, but you really must open your eyes to the truth. Only the aub can place the kind of teleportation circles used to transport people. I truly am Aub Ahrensbach.”

Not a single lie had passed my lips. Sure, I’d skipped over everything about my being a commoner, but it was more pertinent to focus on my current position.

“That cannot be true! This girl is a commoner! My husband was the victim of an Ehrenfest scheme!”

“Everyone! Do not let Rozemyne deceive you!” Fraularm added. Her protests ended there, however, as Cornelius stomped on her head.

“Don’t you dare insult my little sister again.”

“Cornelius...!”

“Don’t worry, Rozemyne. I’ll make sure not to kill them.”

That’s not what I’m worried about!

As I tried to find my words, another voice came from the sky. “Cornelius. What are you doing?”

“Eckhart!” I cried as he led Ferdinand and a group of Dunkelfelger’s knights down into the courtyard. “You’re late, Ferdinand.”

“We spotted a group of nobles returning from Ehrenfest and captured them. How is your health?”

“I slept so deeply that you left without me, but I’m fully recovered as a result.” I shot a glance at the knights under his command, then returned my attention to him. “You, on the other hand, must not have rested at all.”

“I was able to get some rest,” Ferdinand replied. He took my hand, then muttered, “Ah. I cannot perform an examination like this” and released it. His armor must have been the problem because he removed a portion from the back of his hand, which he then pressed against my wrist, forehead, and neck.

Fraularm’s eyes shot open. “Goodness gracious! What perversity is this?! People are watching, you heathens!”

“This is a medical examination, but I cannot focus on her heartbeat while you are making so much noise. Silence her, Eckhart.”

“Yes, my lord!” the faithful archknight replied. He shoved a gag in Fraularm’s mouth and ordered her not to make another sound.

I stared quizzically at Ferdinand as he proceeded with his examination. “Um... Is this perverse?”

“Anyone who sees a medical examination as perverse has their own perverse mind to blame. It is nothing for you to worry about. You seem to be fine... but do you genuinely intend to join us in Ehrenfest? There is much there you will not want to see.”

I paused, but my mind was made up. As much as I preferred to avoid the horrid sights of battle, sitting this one out wasn’t an option.

“I do.”

“Very well... Now, what is this unsightly display?” Ferdinand asked, gesturing to the people tied up on the ground.

“The nobles tasked with welcoming the giebes upon their return from invading Ehrenfest,” an Ahrensbach knight replied. “We have finished searching the estate.”

Ferdinand stared down at Fraularm, whose head was still beneath Cornelius’s boot. “Cornelius, if you are to kick and stomp on her, focus on her stomach. We will need her mind intact if we are to read her memories, and the last thing we want to do is waste mana healing her.”

“Yes, sir!”

“As I mentioned, we captured a group of nobles on our way here,” Ferdinand said, nodding toward the men currently dangling from Dunkelfelger’s highbeasts. “They are giebes who were using black weapons to sap the mana from our duchy’s earth.”

“Black weapons?!”

“They were stealing the mana from Ehrenfest’s earth...?”

Ferdinand raised a hand to silence them. “Indeed, rather than filling their Spring Prayer chalices with their own mana, the nobles of Old Werkestock have been stealing mana from Ehrenfest. They divided into two groups and are working in great numbers to drain our earth.”

There hadn’t been many knights among the group of giebes, so capturing and interrogating them had been painfully easy.

“Griebel and Illgner in the southwest were attacked first. Ehrenfest sent troops there to reinforce them, leaving none for Gerlach, where a hard-fought battle rages on as we speak,” Ferdinand explained. It was because we were needed in Gerlach that he had told us to meet him in Bindewald, not Seitzen. “If you had not decided to join us, we would already have been in Gerlach by now.”

I decided not to say anything. Matthias had snapped at me once already for suggesting that we rush ahead to the border gate instead of waiting to rendezvous.

Ferdinand continued, “The attack on Gerlach is being led by one of Georgine’s closest confidants: a man with an artificial left hand. He seems to know the area particularly well.”

“That must be my fath— I mean, um, Grausam,” Matthias interjected, pressing his lips together and squinting in the direction of Gerlach.

“Matthias...” I said.

“Be at ease, Lady Rozemyne—I will not waver.”

“How can she be at ease when you’re acting so grave?” Laurenz asked, then gave his fellow knight a firm slap on the back. He must have put a lot of strength into it, because Matthias stumbled forward before fixing Laurenz with a glare.

“You don’t need to fight this battle alone,” Laurenz continued. “Come on.”

I weighed in with a gentle “He’s right, Matthias. Would you rather sit this one out entirely? I could never ask you to fight against your father, so please leave this battle to the others.”

“I appreciate your consideration, but there are many nobles in Ehrenfest who were made criminals because of Grausam’s actions,” Matthias replied. “Many lost their parents as well. I cannot back down now.”

Ferdinand gave a brisk nod and said, “If that is your will. Let us send the criminals to Ahrensbach’s castle and then hurry along to Ehrenfest.”

Dunkelfelger’s knights rebound the giebes—this time with proper rope—before roughly dumping them on the teleportation circle. Ahrensbach’s knights then added the women and children from Bindewald’s summer estate. I had to wonder whether the teleporter would even work with so many people on it.

Ferdinand sent an ordonnanz to the knights back at the castle, instructing them to lock up the prisoners who were about to arrive. He waited for them to acknowledge the order, then turned to me and said, “Rozemyne.”

I nodded and activated the teleportation circle: “Nenluessel. Ahrensbach.”

Once the criminals were out of our hair, we started toward Gerlach by highbeast. Because we intended to cross the border instead of going through the gate, Sylvester would sense us and no doubt assume we were enemy reinforcements from Ahrensbach. We would need to send an ordonnanz announcing ourselves as allies the moment we were back in Ehrenfest.

There’s less green here than there was at Lamprecht’s wedding...

Bindewald’s summer estate had been brimming with mana—but from above, the rest of the province reminded me of a nearly barren wasteland.

“Ferdinand,” I said.

“Spring Prayer can wait. We have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“I know, but...” In a situation like this, it was always the commoners who struggled most. They must have been starving en masse.

“Bindewald has lacked mana for some time now. You should instead worry about Gerlach, which is having its mana stolen as we speak.”

As he had warned, once we crossed the border, I started seeing massive brown patches of earth across Gerlach’s otherwise rich greenery. The province’s mana wasn’t distributed evenly at all; it looked like a trombe had just gone on a rampage.

“There is the diversion...”

Ferdinand pointed at a clump of knights engaged in battle. They were wearing light-violet and dark-yellow capes, and there were bright flashes as the mana they hurled at each other collided.

“And there are the giebes.”

Separate from the massive battle were several groups wearing light-violet capes. Great patches of brown earth were spreading out beneath them.