Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.9 - Chapter 1

Gerlach’s Front Line

As our highbeasts approached the battlefield, a mass of Ahrensbach capes came into view. They weren’t marked with blue and yellow, which meant the nobles wearing them were loyal to Georgine. The only things stopping them from invading Giebe Gerlach’s estate were the barrier around it and the ocher-caped knights of the province’s Order.

“I would normally advise a pincer attack, but Gerlach’s knights will not last long enough for us to get in position,” Ferdinand said. “We must join forces with them at once.”

Indeed, the disparity between the two armies was immense. Even someone as inexperienced with combat as I could see that Gerlach was about to crumble. The knights were driven entirely by their determination to survive until reinforcements came.

“Rozemyne, heal Ehrenfest’s knights as soon as we break through,” Ferdinand instructed.

“Right.”

“I will take the vanguard. Rozemyne, Lady Hannelore—forge ahead no matter what happens to the knights around you. Do not slow down for anything or anyone until we are clear of our enemies.”

Ferdinand took his guards to the front of our group. Meanwhile, Dunkelfelger’s knights started surrounding Hannelore and me, moving into a formation designed to break through enemy forces. In no time at all, my view was limited at best; my own knights aside, the most I could see were the capes of those around me. Not even Ferdinand or Eckhart stood out among the vast swathe of blue.

“Cornelius, Leonore—have Matthias and Laurenz returned yet?” I asked. Trying to spot their capes wasn’t an option, and when I tried to peek above the crowd, I saw only a sea of indistinguishable helmets.

“Not yet,” Cornelius replied at length.

“We do not know the locations of the cabins they went to check, but they will most likely reunite with the tail of our group when we reach the other side of the enemy’s forces,” Leonore added.

I turned around on instinct. There were blue-capes behind us as well.

“Lady Rozemyne, Lady Hannelore,” one knight said, “once we have made it through the enemy knights, move as close to the summer estate as you can.”

“Guard knights! Protect your charges with your lives!” cried another. Then he held out his schtappe and chanted, “Geteilt!”

Hannelore and I nodded in response, then tried to match the speed of our escort as we pressed onward. I didn’t have a clue where we were in relation to the estate; my vision was a mess of blue capes and knights holding up their shields. It was precisely because I couldn’t see my surroundings or the enemy that I started to feel extremely tense. My hands began to tremble as I squeezed my steering wheel, and it took me all the restraint I could muster not to slam my foot down on the accelerator.

“Eep?!”

Bright flashes appeared all around me, each one accompanied by a loud popping sound. We must have entered our enemies’ attack range, prompting a barrage of magic that our knights were managing to block. My vision was still painfully limited, so I couldn’t even begin to guess how far away we were, but the chaos made my heart leap into my throat.

Th-This is sooo scary...

Our knights were managing to block the attacks when a volley of arrows joined the mix. The rational part of my brain told me not to worry—that my mana was too strong for any of the projectiles to breach my highbeast—but the rest of me was overcome with fear. I continued to grip my steering wheel as tightly as I could, feeling a rush of emotion as tears welled from my eyes.

That was when I still had the leeway to be afraid.

Out of nowhere, I witnessed a rainbow flash so bright that the knights in front of me became mere shadows. It was evidence of an attack containing a tremendous amount of mana—but had it come from us or the enemy? I could only squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation of the worst.

“Rozemyne! Keep up!” Cornelius barked.

Against my better judgment, I returned to looking at my surroundings. As it turned out, the attack had been one of ours. On more than one occasion, something shot past us and obscured the light, but our knights always shielded me from the subsequent shockwaves.

“HRAAAH!”

The knights roared as if caught up in the heat of the moment and slowly accelerated. I sped up at the same time, desperately worried that they might leave me behind.

“Keep going!” came a shout. “Do not hesitate! Follow Lord Ferdinand!”

In an instant, everything changed. The battle cries turned into aggressive roars, and the shriek of clashing weapons and armor rang out all around me. The din was enough to give me a splitting headache.

The sea of blue I’d grown so accustomed to was quickly marred by splashes of red. That was horrifying enough, but then a severed arm slammed into the front of my Pandabus with a dull thud. The impact sent a shudder through my highbeast, and moments later, the arm vanished somewhere behind me. I wanted to believe it had just been my imagination, but the red splatter across my windshield told me otherwise. My teeth chattered violently as I stomped down on the accelerator, feeling entirely as though I’d just run someone over.

“Eep!”

A knight in front of me must have been struck by a heavy attack of some kind; he was thrown from his highbeast and ended up directly in the path of my Pandabus.

Brake! BRAKE!

“KEEP GOING!” Cornelius roared at me before I could even attempt to slow down. “If you stop now, the rear guard will all die!”

My foot hovered above the brake. Was accelerating really my only option? I was about to concede and plow straight through the man, but then one of my knights—Angelica, from what I could tell—rushed ahead of me and thrust him out of the way. I was so petrified that I couldn’t even speak.

Parts of our formation started to crumble as our enemies continued their onslaught. More knights fell in front of me, but these ones weren’t so fortunate—they bounced off the front of my highbeast before disappearing somewhere behind me. I couldn’t even check on them; the moment I tried to turn my head, someone yelled at me.

“Don’t look back, Lady Rozemyne!”

I gritted my teeth and endured the impact of each collision, doing my best to keep forging ahead—and that was when somebody’s feystone struck the front of my Pandabus. The stone made such a loud clatter as it bounced around, but I was so terrified of lagging behind the others that I didn’t even acknowledge it.

“We’re through!” a voice called, bright and confident. “Turn around and attack!”

Dunkelfelger’s knights turned their highbeasts on a dime.

“Lady Rozemyne! Lady Hannelore! Keep going! Continue until you pass their rear guard!”

Immediately upon hearing those orders, I remembered what Ferdinand had said to me. “Go on ahead,” I told Hannelore. “I need a moment to heal everyone.”

I took my knights high up in the air, stuck my hand out the window, and then said, “Streitkolben” as I turned around. I wasn’t sure I had enough mana to heal all of Ehrenfest’s and Dunkelfelger’s knights without giving a proper prayer, so I thrust Flutrane’s staff as high as I could.

“O Goddess of Healing Heilschmerz, of the Goddess of Water Flutrane’s exalted twelve...”

Knights from Old Werkestock launched spells in an attempt to interrupt my chant, but the Dunkelfelger knights now supporting our front line blocked them without issue. My knights likewise had their shields at the ready. I continued the prayer, speaking a little faster than usual.

“Hear my prayers. Lend me your divine power and grant me the power to heal those who have been hurt. Play the divine melody and cast the blissful ripples of your pure divine protection.”

Green light flowed from the staff’s feystone and rained down on the knights below, eliciting cheers from the heavily wounded among Gerlach’s Order. I could practically feel the rise in their morale, and the knowledge that I was helping made me feel more at ease.

“Please leave the rest to the knights,” Leonore instructed me.

I nodded. Healing the knights had concluded my role in the battle for now; I would need to give my mana time to regenerate so that I could do whatever Ferdinand needed of me next. I made my way over to Hannelore, landed beside her, and then downed a mana-focused rejuvenation potion inside my highbeast.

“Perhaps because they are using highbeasts, the knights of Old Werkestock are neither wearing silver cloth nor wielding silver weapons,” Hannelore observed with a smile. “That makes this a traditional battle—not something my duchy’s knights will concede easily.”

As I reveled in yet more confirmation that Hannelore was a reliable gal pal, two knights wearing Ehrenfest capes approached us. The slender leopard-like cat with wings was Matthias’s highbeast, whereas the larger but similarly shaped tiger belonged to Laurenz.

“Matthias, Laurenz, I am glad to see you both safe,” I said when they reached us.

“Lady Rozemyne.”

Just as Leonore had predicted, the pair had reunited with the tail of our group as we broke through the enemy line. I was sincerely relieved to see my knights all together again.

“I thought to use an ordonnanz to pin down Grausam’s location, but not a single one took flight,” Matthias informed me.

“Is that to say he’s already dead...?” I asked, having seen far too many ordonnanzes refuse to fly in Ahrensbach. It was a surefire sign that the intended recipient had climbed the towering stairway.

“Perhaps he got caught up in a battle somewhere and died then, but I doubt a man skilled enough to see through Lord Bonifatius’s traps would meet such a simple end...” Laurenz said, his expression stern. “He is more likely engaged in some clandestine operation that prevents ordonnanzes from reaching him.”

Leonore gazed upon the Gerlach estate with sharply narrowed eyes. “The Ahrensbach knights mentioned earlier that those dressed in silver cannot receive ordonnanzes. The bird simply refuses to fly. And this was where the silver cloth was first discovered, was it not?”

The knights of Old Werkestock might not have been using silver clothes or weapons, but there was no reason to believe the same was true for Grausam. On second thought, it wasn’t particularly strange that ordonnanzes couldn’t reach him.

“In his eyes, these knights must be mere pawns to be disposed of...” Leonore continued.

Those from Old Werkestock hadn’t been given silver cloth or weapons, nor had they received any critical intelligence. Georgine certainly hadn’t told them they could reach their duchy’s foundation through their temple or that she was having them steal Ehrenfest’s mana for her own convenience. If she did succeed in her plans, her loyal vassals would replace our purged nobles, but I saw no reason to believe their lives meant anything to her.

“Lady Rozemyne, the commander of Gerlach’s knights wants to thank you,” Angelica said, having brought over a man wearing an Ehrenfest cape. “Please stay in your highbeast.”

The man in question had removed his helmet, allowing me to see his face. Heilschmerz’s healing had closed up his wounds, but he was still covered with blood, and there was a lifeless pallor to his skin. He wavered as he approached me but didn’t make it very far before collapsing into what could only loosely be described as a kneeling stance.

“Lady Rozemyne, your healing has given us a much-needed advantage in this battle,” he said. “I wished to thank you, even if only for this brief moment...”

“It was unnecessary for you to come all this way when you do not even have the strength to reach me,” I said. “Please rest and recover.”

Heilschmerz’s healing closed wounds and treated burns, but it didn’t put lost blood back inside the body. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the commander had been fighting on the front line to keep his Order’s formation strong even while his injuries had wreaked utter havoc on him.

“Ah, I simply thought it most polite to keep my distance, given my somewhat dirtied countenance...” he replied. Not once during any of my etiquette training had such a rule been mentioned, but I decided to roll with his excuse; an immobile commander would weaken even the strongest Knight’s Order.

The man continued, “These reinforcements and your blessing have allowed us to avoid the worst-case scenario of our summer estate being stolen. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Dunkelfelger’s knights really had done a lot to turn the tide of the battle. Their presence on the front line meant Gerlach’s Order could retreat to drink potions or even return to the estate to resupply.

“I struggled to believe my ears when the aub contacted us at noon, announcing that a mixed unit containing Dunkelfelger knights was coming to help us and that we would need to stand our ground until they arrived. The magic tools we had prepared ran out before we knew it, and with the invading army so much larger than our own, we deemed it safest to leave the giebe alone in his estate while the rest of us charged into battle.”

Gerlach’s knights had put everything on the line during this battle. As the enemies’ onslaught had continued, some had started to wonder whether the reinforcements would come at all—but then Ferdinand, Eckhart, and Heisshitze had carved a path through the invaders. The commander looked openly relieved as he recounted their arrival.

As we spoke, one of the knights tasked with entering the estate approached us on highbeast. “Commander—please excuse my interruption.”

The commander asked me for permission to stand up before addressing the knight. “Is something wrong?”

“We cannot get inside.”

“Excuse me?” The commander turned to look... just as something shot out of the estate.

“Um...”

It arced through the air as it approached the heart of the battlefield, moving fast enough that I could guess someone had launched it, not thrown it. A whistling sound repeated three times—then the projectile exploded with a tremendous bang.

“What the—?!”

A powdery white substance floated through the air. Those closest to it immediately disappeared, but not those who caught only the edge of the cloud—some of them vanished after a pause, others fell from their highbeasts, and still others began to move sluggishly. From what I could tell, there were more casualties among Old Werkestock than among our own troops. My knights and I were barely impacted, since we were so far away from the point of the explosion.

“Waschen!” cried a voice.

Before any of us could grasp what was going on, a huge wave of water swallowed us. Even my Pandabus got drenched and cleansed.

“I have washed away the poison!” Ferdinand roared again. “Drink your jureves at once!” It must have been the same kind of poison that had almost cost him his life in Ahrensbach’s Mana Replenishment hall.

But why did it come from the giebe’s estate...?

Overcome with unease, I started to scan the building from the bottom up. There was a strange figure standing on the second floor’s balcony—someone who hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“The poison was no less effective, but it produced fewer casualties than expected...” the person remarked, sounding as detached as a scientist performing an experiment. “Perhaps the wind really is to blame. It spreads the powder too thin.”

A chill ran down my spine. I recognized the man’s voice—he was the reason I’d ended up in a jureve all those years ago.

“You! What are you doing up there?!” the commander shouted. “You aren’t the giebe!” He leapt onto his highbeast and tried to apprehend the man, only to disappear as the result of another explosion.

As I stood in a daze, staring up at where the commander had once been, a feystone dropped down to the ground. My knights groaned, cast waschen without a second thought, and started to drink their potions.

“You fool,” the bony figure on the balcony spat. “Now that I’ve dyed this estate’s foundation, I am Giebe Gerlach. This province is mine once again.” On closer inspection, I noticed what appeared to be a single gauntlet on his left hand. He was also wearing a dirty ocher cape with silver on the inside.

“Grausam...” Matthias choked, having finished drinking his jureve. He knelt before my highbeast and said, “At its full strength, the barrier will prevent anyone except the giebe, his relatives, those with his permission, and members of the archducal family from entering the estate. The knights weren’t able to get in, but Grausam is my father; the barrier should accept me. Please let me go in their stead.”

“Matthias, wait. That’s...”

“It has to be me,” Matthias said, his cool blue eyes moving from me to the estate. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, then stood up and sprang into action.

“Wai— Eek!” Before I could even attempt to stop him, a golden net fell on me from above.

“Lady Rozemyne!” Matthias cried, having turned around to check on me. He rushed to help me, his schtappe drawn, as the bone-chilling voice rang out once again.

“Ah, I recognize that uniquely hideous highbeast. I can’t say I expected you to be here...”

A wave of awful memories came to mind unbidden. This wasn’t the first time Lessy had gotten caught in one of Grausam’s nets. In the past, this vile man had poured poison down my throat, requiring me to use a jureve. He had bested me before, but that wouldn’t happen again; this time, I just needed to stay inside my highbeast and trust that my guard knights would save me. I gripped Lessy’s steering wheel as tightly as I could, determined not to be flung out into the open.

“Rozemyne!” Cornelius shouted, his voice brimming with anger.

A moment later, the force pulling Lessy vanished; Angelica was dashing back and forth with Stenluke in hand, slicing the net into pieces.

“I recognize this trap...” Cornelius said, fixing the man above us with a stony frown. “So it’s you, Grausam.”

“I’ve heard about you through my master. How nice that I now have the opportunity to defeat you,” Angelica added with a smile, a vicious fire blazing in her blue eyes. She had gone from being dainty and ditzy to terrifyingly bloodthirsty.

Matthias reached me a moment later, only to recoil when he noticed the murderous aura radiating from his fellow retainers. “Lady Rozemyne, what in the world happened...?” he asked, looking more timid than usual.

“It would seem Grausam was responsible for the attack during the feast all those years ago,” I said. “The one that required me to use a jureve.”

“What?!” Matthias’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “He was summoned as a suspect at the time of the incident, but wasn’t he deemed to be innocent?”

Damuel had testified to seeing a Devouring soldier’s ring at the scene of the crime, but a plethora of witnesses had claimed that Grausam was in the grand hall the entire time. I didn’t want to burden Matthias with the knowledge of his father’s crimes, but this wasn’t something I could afford to keep from him.

“Back then, we didn’t have enough evidence to be sure—but there isn’t a doubt in my mind anymore,” I declared. “Still... It’s strange. I don’t remember hearing this voice when I visited the Gerlach estate as a shrine maiden for Spring Prayer.”

“He had at least three body doubles. I can’t believe it...” Matthias said, his voice pained and his eyes swirling with violent emotion. “And on top of that, he was the one who hurt you...?” He gripped his schtappe-made sword as he glared up at the balcony—but Cornelius and Angelica were already on the attack.

“Die, Grausam!”

Cornelius cried out as his and Angelica’s attacks fused together and shot toward their target. Grausam held up his left hand as if trying to protect his face. As a scholar, he was surely doomed...

But then the mana rushed into his hand and disappeared.

He absorbed the attack?!

Grausam lowered his hand and mockingly laughed at Cornelius and Angelica, who were both stunned. Then he swung his right hand, causing blue spheres made of powerful mana to shoot out. They targeted not only Cornelius and Angelica, but also the knights who had yet to recover from their jureves.

“O Schutzaria, Goddess of Wind...”

“Geteilt!”

Before I could finish the prayer to form Schutzaria’s shield, several knights shouted the abbreviated spell, charged toward Grausam, and deflected the incoming attacks. At the same time, a great white lion descended on the balcony.

“Lord Ferdinand!” the recovering knights called out, relieved. Then they began forming their own shields.

“Those of you still recuperating—get far away from the estate!” Ferdinand barked, maintaining several protective barriers of his own.

Many of the knights held up their shields and started to retreat. Those who were unable to move on their own—the poison had caused dense mana clumps to form in their bodies—had to be carried away by their comrades.

“You’re alive?!” Grausam shouted at Ferdinand, shaking his head in disbelief. “But we were so painfully thorough in our preparations! Could it be that Lady Georgine received a false report of our plan’s success? From her own daughter, no less? Such outrageous incompetence is simply unforgivable.”

Detlinde must have told Georgine that Ferdinand was dead. I suspected that Georgine and Grausam had enacted their secret mission not a moment later—and as they must have set out wearing silver cloth, no further ordonnanzes had managed to reach them. Grausam hadn’t known a thing about my rescue operation.

“Still,” he continued, a smile returning to his face, “what’s done is done. My own mission remains unchanged. I shall buy Lady Georgine enough time to claim Ehrenfest’s foundation, steal mana from its land to make the process easier, weaken its forces so that her control is absolute, and eliminate as many troublesome nobles as I physically can.”

The madness in Grausam’s gray eyes was terrifying. Even at a glance, I could tell that nothing in the world would convince him to stop.

“Lord Ferdinand,” he said, “you are one such troublesome noble. I must eliminate you here.”

“How can a scholar hope to eliminate me?” Ferdinand replied. “Your poison will work no longer.”

Eckhart stepped forward, his weapon at the ready.

“Oh, we scholars have our own ways of doing battle...” Grausam said. “And there is no longer any need to avoid ordonnanzes.” He grabbed the brooch fastened to his cape, then removed it and gripped something I couldn’t quite see. A storm of blue flames erupted all around him.

“What?!”

“Fire?!”

As we stared at the flames, struggling to process what was going on, a group charged Grausam all at once. It was Hannelore’s detachment. They launched mana at their target, even piercing the inferno with several arrows, but he blocked the lethal strikes with his left hand.

In the end, the knights’ attacks only strengthened Grausam’s flames. They raged even more intensely than before, yet their master didn’t seem at all bothered; he merely smirked at us from within the inferno. Then he swung his fire-covered right hand and sent what looked like creatures made of the same blue flames at Hannelore.

“Geteilt!”

Hannelore created her shield without the slightest hesitation, ready to block the attack... but she never felt its impact; Ferdinand had made his own shield at the same time and moved to intercept the flames. Her face went pure white as she stared up at him in shock.

Grausam cackled. “Aah, yes. With this much mana, I shouldn’t have any trouble at all. You have my sincerest gratitude, Dunkelfelger girl.”

Glaring at the blue flames all the while, Ferdinand sent out several ordonnanzes: one to Heisshitze on the front line; another to Strahl, who had returned from delivering our prisoners to Bindewald; and another to me.

“Rozemyne, you and Matthias are the only ones who can enter the estate,” my bird said in a quick, quiet voice. “I will draw Grausam’s attention here; we do not want him to use any hidden passages. The two of you must hurry inside and sneak up on him from behind. His prosthesis absorbs mana, so use black weaponry of your own when you attack him. Do not leave your highbeast under any circumstances—not even if Matthias dies.”

Matthias and I exchanged looks; I certainly hadn’t thought Ferdinand would order us to infiltrate the estate. The situation must have been dire.

“Let us hurry, Matthias. Do you know where we need to go?”

“I do. We can reach him from the giebe’s office.”

“Lady Rozemyne, wait,” Leonore interjected, having heard the ordonnanz as well. “This is much too dangerous.”

She was right—this was going to be dangerous—but we didn’t have much of a choice. Matthias and I were the only ones who could enter the estate—as Grausam’s blood relative and a member of the archducal family, respectively. And to add to the pressure, Ferdinand would only be able to distract Grausam for so long.

“I understand the danger, but the barrier surrounding the estate means I can’t bring any more guards with me,” I replied. “Moreover, only the aub can appoint a new giebe. I must go, as it falls to me as a member of the archducal family to detain those who would steal another’s foundation of their own accord.”

“But...” Leonore’s mouth hung open for a moment; then she closed it again and balled her hands into tight fists. “As a guard knight, I consider it disgraceful that I must leave the true battle to the archducal family. Please, may Angriff guide you.”

“Do what you can to keep Grausam on the balcony until we return.”

“As you will.”

Leonore climbed onto her highbeast and joined the fight against Grausam. Meanwhile, I sneaked into the estate with Matthias in tow.