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

The Defense of Ehrenfest (First Half)

Giebe Kirnberger — The Activated Country Gate

Just before Spring Prayer, a white bird arrived at the Kirnberger summer estate. It flew into my office and turned into a letter, which then dropped onto my desk.

One of my scholars took a moment to inspect the message before passing it along to me. “Giebe Kirnberger, this is from the castle. It was sent by Lady Florencia.”

My brow furrowed, I started to read the correspondence. It warned that Lady Georgine of Ahrensbach was likely about to launch an invasion, hoping to steal our duchy’s foundation, and ordered me to prepare. If we encountered anyone suspicious, I was to report directly to the castle.

We were told to prepare ourselves at the very start of the season, but I see Lady Georgine has finally made her move.

I pondered the woman in question. After being told to become the next aub and undergoing an intense education, she had suddenly been taken out of the running during her younger brother’s baptism ceremony. Her relationship with her family had only continued to deteriorate ever since. Was her impending attack the result of a grudge from those days, or was there something else motivating her?

Several nobles name-sworn to Georgine had been executed during the purge last winter. She had originally sought their loyalty as a way of challenging Lady Veronica, but that was neither here nor there; she shouldn’t have had many pawns left in Ehrenfest.

“As perilous as this situation might be, I doubt Lady Georgine will involve Kirnberger,” I mused. She wanted to seize Ehrenfest’s foundation, so she would approach the Noble’s Quarter from Ahrensbach in the south or Old Werkestock in the southwest. There was no reason for her to bother a province on the duchy’s eastern border.

“Perhaps not, but we are ready for her if she does,” one of my scholars said. “Shall we increase the number of patrolling knights and double up on training duty?”

“We could always send them to the giebes of provinces bordering Ahrensbach, should they request reinforcements.”

“A decision like that should not be made lightly. There is no guarantee that Lady Georgine will not come here as well.”

I nodded, stroking my chin. “Then perhaps we should prioritize lending troops to the Noble’s Quarter. The foundation’s safety is more important than anything else.”

“Shall we contact Lord Alexis? His charge might need our support.”

In other words, we would use my son’s connections to curry favor with the current Aub Ehrenfest and his successor, Lord Wilfried. If we were going to send troops to another province, it made sense to help my boy at the same time. I sent him an ordonnanz, asking whether they needed our support.

“This is Alexis,” he replied. “Has Lady Georgine invaded? Lord Wilfried is currently in a meeting with the rest of the archducal family and the heads of the Knight’s Order, and we have yet to receive any updates. I will consult him as soon as he returns.”

I crossed my arms as the ordonnanz repeated its message. Alexis was a guard knight serving the archducal family, so it surprised me that he wasn’t yet abreast of the situation.

“Could the archducal family have learned something so urgent during their meeting that Lady Florencia decided to contact the duchy’s giebes then and there?” I wondered aloud. “I suppose it could also be the case that Alexis was sworn to silence or deliberately kept out of the loop.”

“It could also be the case that the aub needed to leave on urgent business, and the others are stuck in the meeting room, unable to continue without him. Perhaps they are doing what they can while awaiting his return.”

A most scholarly observation, I thought. But in any case, it seemed clear to me that Lady Georgine’s invasion was imminent.

“If nothing else,” I said, “we should position our troops in anticipation of a request for aid.”

I summoned the higher-ups of my Knight’s Order and showed them Lady Florencia’s letter. We were discussing our next course of action when another ordonnanz arrived, turned into a letter, and dropped onto my desk.

“What, does Alexis need our help already?” I asked.

“No, this is from Aub Ehrenfest.”

“But we heard from Lady Florencia only a moment ago. What reason could he have to contact us?”

It really hadn’t been long since we’d received our warning letter. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what the aub might want from Kirnberger in the context of an invasion.

“He plans to visit Kirnberger tonight,” my scholar announced. “To open the border gate.”

“The border gate?” I repeated. “For what reason?”

I snatched up the letter in disbelief, but my scholar was right. In simpler terms, the aub had written, “I will teleport to your estate tonight with my knights in tow and open your province’s border gate. You need not do anything in preparation; I only mean to warn you that we are going to use your estate.”

I smacked the paper with the back of my hand, bewildered. “How on earth does he intend to teleport here? Do we have a teleportation circle in this estate? If so, where? I would appreciate knowing where the aub is going to appear.”

“And despite what he said, we will need to make some preparations, surely. Let us make amendments to the night watch and search for this teleportation circle so that we can clear the area around it.”

We’d never used whatever teleportation circle the aub was referring to, so I didn’t have a clue where it might be. Maybe it was behind a blocked door or there were boxes stacked atop it. Everyone must have been thinking the same, as we were all pale-faced. The estates given to giebes were deceptively large, so our search would be anything but easy.

“Find that teleportation circle posthaste!” I ordered. “We need everything ready by tonight!”

“It’s probably carved into one of the walls or floors. And it might only be visible when it’s active.”

“Attendants, start searching rooms! Knights, search outside—and make sure to cover the training grounds! Scholars, search the shelves for any records of this teleportation circle!”

At once, the atmosphere in my estate became especially frantic. We had a mission to complete, and time was of the essence.

Our search revealed a teleporter carved into the stone floor of a room now used as part of our province’s training grounds. The circle linked to the Royal Academy could only move three people at once, but this one was so large that I wondered whether it was capable of transporting entire groups. The shelves and training dummies that had previously sat atop it were moved, and the knights used waschen to clean the room. We really had managed to finish our preparations in time.

“Is the aub truly coming?” one of the knights asked me.

“He went out of his way to warn us, so yes, I would assume so.”

I wasn’t sure when he would arrive—the letter had said only nighttime—so I took a short nap to renew my strength. Spring was already upon us, but the nights were still cold, so I watched the teleportation circle from my office with a guard of several knights.

As soon as the teleporter began to shine, we sprinted to the balcony and descended to the grounds on our highbeasts. Black and golden fire swirled above the circle, and we arrived just as figures started to appear within the maelstrom.

“Welcome, Aub Ehrenfest.”

I greeted the archduke with a calm expression, but I was finding it hard to keep my surprise in check. He had arrived with some knights and one very unexpected young woman.

“Is that Lady Rozemyne...?” I muttered under my breath.

“I would think so, based on the guards she has with her,” answered the knight beside me, sounding equally troubled.

The woman in question had grown so much that she was almost unrecognizable. Lady Rozemyne had missed the feast celebrating spring—apparently because of a fever—but I’d still seen her during the gathering the previous winter. Even if she had randomly hit a growth spurt, she had changed far too much in such a short time.

I was champing at the bit to learn what had caused such a sudden change in the woman before me, but Aub Ehrenfest and the knights launched straight into a discussion about the potential of teleportation circles. There was no room for me to ask about Lady Rozemyne’s abnormal growth.

And what about those two? Did they not accompany Lord Ferdinand to Ahrensbach?

Lords Eckhart and Justus were among Lady Rozemyne’s retainers. I crossed my arms, realizing that I’d just been pulled into something beyond my understanding.

“Should we not open the border gate?” Lady Rozemyne asked, interrupting the lively discussion about teleporters.

“Ah, right,” the aub replied. “Come on, then. This investigation can wait.”

As it turned out, Lady Rozemyne was the one who wanted the border gate open. She had grown into such a beautiful woman, but she still drove the same bizarre highbeast.

Hmm... It doesn’t match her appearance at all.

I thought a more elegant highbeast would suit her now, but for some reason, she was still using the shape of a fat grun. For all its advantages—I remembered she’d used it when transporting her Gutenbergs—I thought it would do her well to pay more attention to appearances.

We mounted our highbeasts and took our guests to the border gate. It shone brightly enough in the moonlight that they would have been able to find it on their own, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving them to their own devices.

“There’s Aub Ehrenfest...” said one of the night watchmen peering down at us from atop the border gate. “He actually came.”

I was especially curious to see why the archduke was here. We all watched as he made his schtappe, chanted, “Oeffnetor,” and then tapped the border gate. It slowly opened, revealing the second gate that sat behind it—a rare, majestic sight even for the people of our province. Its doors appeared to shine a variety of colors, and not just because of the moonlight.

As I gazed upon the newly revealed country gate, I saw Lady Rozemyne climb out of her highbeast. She formed her schtappe and said, “Grutrissheit,” which made it turn into a radiant tablet.

She has the Grutrissheit?!

My breath caught in my throat. Lady Rozemyne was holding a book meant only for the Zent. It must have been genuine, as the country gate wouldn’t have opened for her otherwise.

“The gate’s shining... Is this real...?”

“Then is that... the Grutrissheit?!”

“Is Lady Rozemyne...?”

Overcome with awe and unease, I couldn’t look away from the gate, which had just been activated for the first time in about two hundred years. The same was true for my knights. I approached Aub Ehrenfest, who was also staring at the unexpected spectacle.

“Would the royal family not consider this treason?” I asked in a low voice, remembering the events that had come before Eisenreich’s destruction. That historic scheme to claim the throne had been the cause of Kirnberger’s downfall, so seeing Lady Rozemyne with the Grutrissheit sent a shiver down my spine.

“You can rest easy—we have negotiated in secret for her to be adopted into the royal family. Not to mention, we have this.”

The aub showed me a courtship necklace from the first prince and explained that the royal family knew Lady Rozemyne had the Grutrissheit. I was glad to know this wasn’t an act of treason, but my eyes widened nonetheless. Rather than just becoming the king’s adopted daughter and giving him the Grutrissheit, she was going to marry royalty. There was no future in which she returned to Ehrenfest.

Immense change would soon come to our duchy, I was sure. But while I was at a loss for words, Lady Rozemyne spared us not even a glance, instructing her retainers to get back in her highbeast.

“Well,” she said, “I’m going. I will return with Ferdinand.”

“Hold it, Rozemyne,” the aub interjected. “Take this—I got it from Prince Sigiswald. He said to wear it no matter what to prove you’re acting with the royal family’s permission.”

Aub Ehrenfest held out the courtship magic tool: a golden necklace embedded with feystones of six elements. Lady Rozemyne accepted it without any fuss, then climbed into her highbeast and entered the country gate through its opened roof. The aub and his knights followed suit.

I attempted to join them with my retinue, but a barrier kept us from getting too close to the gate.

Lady Rozemyne waved at us, then made her Grutrissheit shine and said, “Kehrschluessel. Dunkelfelger.” The gate’s teleportation circle rose into the air, shining with the light of every element, before starting to rotate. Then the magic circle beneath it activated as if spurred on by the light.

“Take care of Ferdinand for me, Rozemyne!” the aub shouted.

As soon as Lady Rozemyne was gone, the triangular roof started to close as though it knew its job was done. Something I’d only ever read about in history books was happening before my very eyes. My men rejoiced over the opening of the country gate and the mission to rescue Lord Ferdinand, but I couldn’t help feeling bitter inside.

Lady Rozemyne’s adoption into the royal family would allow her to give the Zent her Grutrissheit without being executed for treason. It was ideal for her and for Yurgenschmidt.

I really wanted her to become the next Aub Ehrenfest, but I suppose that’s out of the question now.

As a giebe, I considered that a great shame, but it wasn’t my main concern; I was far more worried about how Ehrenfest and its archducal family would proceed once Lady Rozemyne was gone. For her to have accepted a courtship magic tool from the first prince, her engagement to Lord Wilfried must have been close to being canceled. I suspected that the archduke and other key figures had already spent a lot of time discussing their next moves behind closed doors.

But what about Lord Wilfried...? Surely he hasn’t forgotten the black mark on his reputation. What does he intend to do once he’s no longer engaged to Lady Rozemyne?

I watched the aub’s back as he closed the border gate. He had been so obstinate about Lord Wilfried taking the archducal seat that he had disregarded a crime that would easily have warranted the boy’s disinheritance and subsequently arranged his engagement to Lady Rozemyne. Alexis had told me that the young lord was no longer being trained as an archduke because of a falling-out with Lord Bonifatius, so losing his connection to Lady Rozemyne on top of that would make it nearly impossible for him to become the next aub.

I wonder, will Lord Wilfried remain a member of the archducal family? Does the royal family intend to give him a reparation payment of some kind to make up for their taking Lady Rozemyne away? How will this impact Alexis’s future as his retainer?

Lady Rozemyne had used the Grutrissheit to open a country gate and then teleported to another duchy to fight a war. It would without a doubt be considered a momentous turning point in the history of our duchy—but with neither her fiancé, Wilfried, nor his retainer Alexis here to witness it, I couldn’t help but worry about their future.

That said, I didn’t want to spoil the joy and enthusiasm everyone was feeling. I simply watched as the border gate closed, unable to demand any answers from the archduke.