Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.9 - Chapter 16

Dunkelfelger’s Response

It was third bell. The scholars had announced that Dunkelfelger was once again trying to contact us via the emergency tool, so I’d gone with Ferdinand to answer their call. Aub Dunkelfelger wasn’t the only one on the other end this time; his first wife, Sieglinde, was there with him.

“In regard to yesterday’s discussion, how do you respond?” Ferdinand asked the aub.

“Protecting the Royal Academy, defending Yurgenschmidt, and rescuing the royal family are our greatest priorities. And as the Zent’s sword, we cannot remain inactive when there are other options before us. We petition Lady Rozemyne to grant us her orders.”

Dunkelfelger was determined to protect Yurgenschmidt no matter the danger—and in truth, the strength of their conviction moved me. Sieglinde didn’t oppose the declaration; she merely watched us in silence. That she was here at all indicated that her entire duchy supported this course of action.

“Very well,” I said. “I request your aid to protect the Royal Academy and, in turn, all of Yurgenschmidt.”

“We seek to follow the Avatar of Mestionora,” the aub replied. “We must make it clear to all those at the Royal Academy that righteousness is on our side.” He probably wanted me to flaunt my Grutrissheit when we arrived.

“Worry not. We shall travel to the Academy via its country gate, so our presence alone will prove we have a Grutrissheit.”

“Using the gates again, are we?” Sieglinde asked. “That certainly will show everyone you are a legitimate Zent candidate.”

Aub Dunkelfelger nodded. “In that case, I will inform the knights at—”

Before the aub could spring up and take his leave, his wife grabbed on to his cape. “First, I would propose we bring each other up to speed on what we know about our situation,” she said with a crafted smile. “Lord Ferdinand, if you would do me that courtesy.”

“Of course,” Ferdinand replied, smiling back at her.

Sieglinde and Ferdinand seem like they’d get along swimmingly. I could see them being a pair of assassins or something.

“Because of recent developments here in Ahrensbach,” Ferdinand said, “our dormitory is closed, and we can obtain intelligence about the Sovereignty and Royal Academy only from Ehrenfest. An unfortunate circumstance, as their only source of information is the research-obsessed Professor Hirschur.”

Hirschur really was dedicated to her research, and it was common knowledge that she wasn’t cut out to be a dormitory supervisor. Stressing our reliance on her immediately demonstrated how little we knew. Sieglinde must have understood as much because she began sharing what she’d learned from Rauffen.

“Lady Rozemyne—are you aware that Aub Ehrenfest spoke with the royal family on the day of your ditter invitation?”

“I am,” I replied. “He met with Prince Sigiswald and discussed my leave for Ahrensbach. I was given a crest to wield royal authority.” I wasn’t wearing it now, since the chain was on the verge of turning to dust, but I was still carrying it with me.

“Once the Zent heard the news from Prince Sigiswald, he told the supervisors to stay in their dormitories and ordered the Sovereign Knight’s Order to guard the door to Ahrensbach’s dormitory.”

Professor Hirschur didn’t mention that, did she?

I paused in thought. Hirschur must have chosen to interpret the king’s words as “You can hole up anywhere as long as you’re not roaming about” and elected to stay in the scholar building.

“Our hands were too full sending volunteers to Ahrensbach and preparing knights to sortie at the Sovereignty’s call, so I did not exchange any other words with Rauffen,” Sieglinde continued. She had received the almost impossible task of controlling the men riled up in preparation for their game of true ditter.

By the time the volunteers were due to leave for Ahrensbach, Dunkelfelger still hadn’t received any further correspondence from the royal family. Their only choice was to proceed to the country gate. A message hadn’t even arrived in their absence; they had returned to find themselves still without any further orders.

“We anxiously awaited dawn, at which point we received a letter from Hannelore. She wanted permission to lead our volunteers to protect Ehrenfest’s foundation, and stated that Lady Rozemyne had obtained Ahrensbach’s. We attempted to inform the Zent that the fighting in Ahrensbach had concluded, but we could not reach him directly.”

Aub Dunkelfelger hadn’t been too surprised—he’d said the Zent was probably occupied with the fighting. Sieglinde hadn’t considered it suspicious either; one needed to touch the water mirror’s feystone to activate it, so unless both parties were available at the same time, they wouldn’t be able to communicate. They’d expected a scholar to tell the Zent they’d called and assumed they would receive an update in short order.

But an entire day later, still nothing.

His patience running thin, Aub Dunkelfelger had elected to contact Rauffen. “But there was nothing he could tell me, for he had stayed in our dormitory as per the king’s instructions. His response stated only that he was continuing to wait.”

Rauffen had always struck me as someone who would abandon orders to wait around when there was fighting to be done, but I must have been mistaken. Hirschur had a thing or three to learn from him.

“He did eventually leave, whereupon the knights stationed outside Ahrensbach’s dormitory began to chastise him. He convinced someone he knew in the Sovereign Knight’s Order to send an ordonnanz requesting an update on the situation, and the response confirmed that the royal family had safely evacuated. As for their silence, the Zent had decided it wasn’t worth summoning Dunkelfelger when the invaders had yet to show themselves. I informed Rauffen that Lanzenave had been purged from Ahrensbach and that we needed the Zent to contact us nonetheless.”

As it turned out, Rauffen’s associate had sent the ordonnanz announcing the Purge of Lanzenave just after the royal family had told Ehrenfest they didn’t care about the current status of Ahrensbach.

“They must have thought it best to discuss the matter with the Zent. The bare minimum of knights were left in the central building, and normalcy returned to the Royal Academy and Sovereignty.”

That same afternoon, Hirschur had sent ordonnanzes to various people warning them of the outsiders who had infiltrated the Royal Academy. Raublut, the commander of the Sovereign Knight’s Order, had responded at once, ordering her to return to her dormitory.

“Rauffen set out for the scholar building when he heard about the intruders,” the aub noted. “He had grown frustrated during his time holed away in the dormitory and sent an ordonnanz to Raublut bargaining for permission to join the coming battle.”

He showed more restraint than most, but... in the end, he was still a man of Dunkelfelger.

The ordonnanz had set out and, to Rauffen’s surprise, flown almost straight down—to the forest near the scholar building where he had already been headed. He had watched the bird as it approached a group of knights working with people he had never seen before.

“They were all wearing black capes, but perhaps a dozen among them were not clad in armor—a good indication that they were not knights. Most notable of all was a woman with bright blonde hair adorned with gaudy accessories.”

Lady Detlinde, I presume?

She had some nerve to wear her over-the-top hair ornaments at a time like that. I wanted to be exasperated, but part of me respected her overwhelming display of girl power, which would forever be beyond me. It seemed safe to assume that even the Lanzenavians were finding her a pain to deal with. I could already imagine her launching into one of her sparkly dances.

“Ten-some individuals who were not knights, you say?” Ferdinand asked from behind me.

“Indeed. We cannot give an exact number because they were largely concealed, but we can say with all certainty that the knight commander was with them. He appeared to be instructing them to stay hidden in the forest. Rauffen turned around without a second thought and started making his way back to our dormitory. He was passing through the central building when he received an ordonnanz from Raublut stating that it was the duty of the Sovereign Knight’s Order and nobody else to find and capture the outsiders.”

Unable to determine the knight commander’s intentions or where the information might spread, Rauffen had instructed the other professors not to leave their rooms under any circumstances. He had then sent word to Dunkelfelger, leaving it up to the aub to decide what he should do next.

“Aub Dunkelfelger wishes only to protect the Royal Academy—and with Lady Rozemyne’s orders, we can now start a battle in its defense,” Sieglinde noted. “However, in this case, our enemies and their location are uncertain. We cannot say whether only a portion of the Sovereign Knight’s Order is behaving strangely under Raublut or the entire Order is compromised. There is even a chance the Zent told him to fraternize with the outsiders as a means of securing them. If we do not know our opponents, then we do not know where to attack.”

Sieglinde had acutely identified the problem with our situation: unlike during true ditter, where the foundations were the main focus of most battles, we had no idea what we needed to target. She asked if we had any more intelligence that might be of use in that regard.

“The Lanzenave Estate seems to provide access to someplace other than the Ahrensbach Dormitory. Lord Ferdinand, would you happen to know where?”

“Yes, but I must ask that you keep it a secret—this is information I acquired only upon moving to Ahrensbach and assisting its aub. The Lanzenave Estate contains a teleportation circle to a villa where another country’s princesses once lived. Now that Rozemyne has stolen Ahrensbach’s foundation, its previous aub’s brooches no longer hold any power, meaning Detlinde’s group cannot access their dormitory. I would assume they have moved to the villa instead; it was sealed after the civil war, and the princesses inside were all executed. Is there anything more you can tell us about it, Aub Dunkelfelger?”

I was amazed. By choosing his words carefully and redirecting the question, Ferdinand had discreetly implied that he was much too young to have a satisfying answer.

The aub glanced at his first wife, then gave a slightly uncomfortable nod. “As I understand it, the door leading inside can be found in the rearmost section of the central building.”

The Royal Academy’s central building contained doors to the various dormitories, which were lined up according to the duchy rankings. At the far end were the royal family’s villas, but if one went even farther than that—an especially rare occurrence—one would come across a door hidden behind the seal of Verbergen the God of Concealment. That was the entrance to the Adalgisa villa.

“According to Ahrensbach’s documents, the villa is fairly close to Verbergen’s shrine,” Ferdinand added.

“Verbergen’s shrine...?” Sieglinde repeated, slowly drawing her eyebrows together. She must not have known the location of every shrine at the Royal Academy. That couldn’t have been too unusual; I’d only found out from looking through the underground archive.

“I can tell you roughly where to find it,” I said. “Back when I was helping the royal family translate documents in the underground archive, I saw a map depicting the location of every shrine at the Academy.”

The placement of the dormitories made the Academy’s grounds look something like a shrunken-down map of Yurgenschmidt. That, coupled with Ahrensbach’s country gate being associated with Darkness and the fact that Verbergen was a subordinate of the same element, made it obvious that the shrine we were looking for was near Ahrensbach’s dormitory.

“The villa might be impossible to find from the outside without prayers or magic circles from Anhaltung the Goddess of Advice—a subordinate of the Goddess of Light,” Sieglinde mused aloud.

“I see.”

“However, in the same way that using teleportation circles requires the approval of the relevant aubs, entering the Adalgisa villa will most likely require the approval of the royal branch family that manages it. But alas, we are not yet sure who they are—or why the teleportation hall of a sealed villa was open and ready to accept Ahrensbach invaders.”

“Professor Rauffen’s account paints Raublut as fairly suspicious...” I said, eliciting stern nods from everyone else.

“That said,” Ferdinand interjected, “although Raublut is our most likely culprit, we have only one eyewitness to rely on. Raimund did not mention seeing Sovereign knights with the intruders in his report. Raublut would need only declare that he was trying to capture Detlinde when he was spotted.”

“Furthermore, knight commander or not, an archnoble having control over that villa makes no sense,” Sieglinde added. “How long has he had the key? And why is he supporting Lady Detlinde and the Lanzenavians? We lack far too much information.”

I was nodding in agreement with those very sound points when a sharp smack drew my attention. Aub Dunkelfelger had slammed a determined fist against his open hand.

“The main takeaway is, we no longer need to wander about the Royal Academy in a blind search for outsiders. We shall launch an attack on this Verbergen-hidden villa tonight.”

I was completely taken aback. We were all bemoaning our lack of evidence... so why was the aub proposing an ambush all of a sudden? Ferdinand grimaced at such a blatant lack of awareness while Sieglinde placed an exasperated hand on her forehead.

“We already know about the outsiders, don’t we?” Aub Dunkelfelger continued, making his argument with a broad grin. “Destroying what seems to be their base of operations takes precedence. They should all be there at the dead of night—and that’s when we’ll strike!”

Ferdinand crossed his arms. “Though I appreciate the idea of crushing them all with one quick measure, will you not need to work with the other duchies? Have you laid the groundwork for such cooperation?”

Indeed, if our two duchies acted alone, the others would assume we had tried to seize the glory for ourselves. They might even accuse us of acting against the king’s best interests during the next Archduke Conference. Making them aware of our plans before we took action was particularly important.

“They were all spineless cowards,” the aub replied. “Involving them is out of the question.”

Aub Dunkelfelger really had invited the other duchies to help protect the Royal Academy... and they had all replied that they would need three days to prepare to sortie. They wanted time to investigate the royals’ current status, mobilize their knights, select which of them would participate, and prepare magic tools and potions. Depending on the scale of the battle, there was a chance they would also need to move servants to the dormitory to attend to rooms and prepare food.

In response, the exasperated Aub Dunkelfelger had shouted, “Would you sit on your hands if massive feybeasts were attacking?!” The other aubs had said it was a poor comparison when we were potentially on the verge of war.

Hmm... To be honest, I’m not sure I can side with Dunkelfelger on this one. How many other duchies are prepared for a battle like this at the drop of a hat?

Dunkelfelger was a reliable ally, to be sure, but we couldn’t expect anyone else to match their readiness for combat. Ehrenfest had needed at least a month to prepare for Georgine’s attack.

“Detlinde, a self-proclaimed Zent candidate, was spotted among the intruders,” the aub said plainly. “Their goal must be the Grutrissheit. And even if we put her aside, the Lanzenavians pose a tremendous threat as descendants of Tollkuehnheit. If we base our estimations on the princesses they sent over, then we cannot risk underestimating how much mana they have.”

“Oh my... And why might you know how much mana those princesses had...?” Sieglinde asked with a calm smile. This elicited a grunt from her husband, who was evidently unsure how to respond.

“Aub Dunkelfelger’s concerns are perfectly valid,” Ferdinand said. He had given the man a stern look but proceeded to support him nonetheless. “Lanzenave has sent its princesses to maintain the city that Tollkuehnheit built. They had relations with Yurgenschmidt’s royal family, and the child of theirs with the most mana was returned to Lanzenave upon obtaining a schtappe. Knowing one’s history is enough to deduce that the princesses had plenty of mana.”

“Indeed,” the aub added with a shameless nod. “Lord Ferdinand is correct.”

“According to Detlinde’s letter,” Ferdinand continued, a more vacant look in his eye, “there is one such child among those who invaded the Royal Academy. A boy who was raised to be the king of Lanzenave.”

“Come again?”

“He has far more mana than the current royal family—and a schtappe to boot. It is written that in order to obtain a schtappe, a child of the villa must be registered to a royal branch family. There is no way for us to check whether that registration still exists, but depending on the location of his medal, he might be able to obtain the Grutrissheit at any moment.”

Ferdinand said nothing about the fact that one had to pray at each of the Royal Academy’s shrines as part of the process. His wise omission made the looming threat seem even worse—like it was right in our faces.

“I don’t care if the other duchies keep biding their time; we will attack tonight,” the aub declared. “We cannot allow a foreigner to take the Grutrissheit. Even if Raublut leads the Sovereign Knight’s Order against us, we shall crush every last Lanzenavian who dares to cross us.”

“Let us take action when the date changes,” Ferdinand added.

“We shall go by highbeast from our dormitory to the villa. May we act faster than Steifebrise the Goddess of the Gale!”