Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.9 - Chapter 5

Celebratory Feast

“As soon as Karstedt received Judithe’s ordonnanz, he ordered me to help regain control of the north gate.”

Our feast had started, and Wilfried was in particularly high spirits as he regaled us all with his tale. Because he was an underage archduke candidate, he had initially been told to stay away from the battle, but the sudden rush of knights to the west gate had made its northern counterpart especially vulnerable when yet another distraction had appeared. Karstedt had also concluded that our enemies might have a great enough mana capacity that someone like Wilfried would be needed to bind them.

“My orders were to capture them, if possible, which was no easy feat,” Wilfried continued. His dark-green eyes sparkled as he described the battle with various chops and punches, dictating to Roderick, who was feverishly transcribing his every word. “I managed to catch a big one, though. Grausam! I got the old Giebe Gerlach! Let me guess—you’re too shocked for words?”

Well, that’s another Grausam for the pile.

Grausam’s name had cropped up during tales of so many battles that I was starting to lose track of them all. Surely this was the last one. Surely there couldn’t be more. Just thinking about it was making me kind of sick.

“I bound Grausam with my schtappe, and—”

“A question, if you would allow me.” Roderick’s pen was hovering over his paper. “Were the decoy troops at the north gate not wearing silver capes?”

“Hm?” Wilfried thought for a moment. “They were, but the capes had normal cloth on the inside. As soon as they turned over, mana worked on them just fine.”

The invaders had apparently blocked about half of our knights’ attacks by holding up their capes, but because they were riding atop highbeasts, they hadn’t been able to fully cover themselves with silver. It had taken quite some time, but Wilfried ultimately succeeded in capturing “Grausam.”

“I took him to the Knight’s Order and couldn’t believe it when they told me he was the third Grausam to show up in Ehrenfest. Rozemyne, you fought one too, right? How did your battle go?”

“You can ask Hartmut over there for the details,” I said. “He will explain things not even I can remember.”

“Hmm... Hartmut, huh?” Wilfried muttered with a slight grimace, casting an eye on the large group that had gathered. Hartmut was eagerly describing the Battle of Gerlach while Clarissa gleefully recounted the Battle of Ahrensbach. They went into excruciating detail, so exaggerated and overflowing with the names of gods that I wanted to sigh.

“If you would rather avoid Hartmut, might I suggest speaking with Lady Hannelore?” I said. “She commanded three wolfaniels against Lanzenavian soldiers while in Ahrensbach, attacked Grausam the instant he was open, and fought with vigor befitting a Dunkelfelger archduke candidate.”

Hannelore was currently engaged in a lively conversation with Elvira, who gave a sincere thank-you as my mother before switching back into her noble persona. From there, Elvira launched into a broad discussion of the various battles and Dunkelfelger’s accomplishments in them—normal enough, I thought, but then she proposed giving Hannelore an advance copy of Love Stories of the Gods by way of thanks. Not even I’d read that book yet, and the gesture moved Hannelore so deeply that tears began to well in her red eyes. It wasn’t long before she was extolling the stories Elvira and her ladies had written, which in turn provided more material for Elvira to draw from.

“Is it not about time for us to separate Mother and Lady Hannelore?” I asked.

“And interrupt their fun?” Wilfried replied. “I mean, I realize it must be a little uncomfortable for you, but...”

“Not just ‘a little.’ Lady Hannelore is speaking about me like I’m a goddess from one of their stories.”

But when I moved to stop Elvira from putting her daughter’s heroics in book form, Hannelore gleefully leaned forward and said, “You would turn my retelling into a story?”

From there, Hannelore began detailing everything she knew about recent events, starting from when we’d arrived at Dunkelfelger’s country gate. Problematically enough, not only was she exaggerating as much as Clarissa, but she was also putting a romantic spin on things that I could tell would drive Elvira crazy.

Ferdinand looks none too pleased.

On a moment-to-moment basis, Hannelore wasn’t saying anything untrue, so there was no room for Ferdinand or me to interject. All we could do was sit quietly as she continued to dig us into a deeper and deeper hole.

“If you’re this bothered about it, then you shouldn’t have gone to Ahrensbach in the first place,” Wilfried remarked.

“Do you really mean that?” I snapped. “Are you saying it would have been better to leave Ferdinand to die?”

“No, I’m saying that you kept declaring how you wouldn’t mind making enemies of the royal family and the gods, so it’s weird that you’re complaining about simple rumors. Just admit you’ve fallen in love with Uncle already.”

Seriously?! I’m not in love with him! How many times do I need to say it?!

No matter how much I protested, the others merely smirked a little.

“Forsernte bestowed upon you her aid when she saw Erwachlehren guide Jugereise to their visitation. You must be troubled by the weight of the rafel you have been given.”

I’d just been hit by so many names that I struggled to parse their meaning. Still, from the others’ tones and expressions, I could guess they were trying to “console” me somehow. The fact they were all ignoring my objections was putting me more and more on edge.

Forget about falling in love—I’ve never even crushed on someone!

“Uncle doesn’t seem that bothered,” Wilfried added with a grin and pointed at Ferdinand.

I glanced over, wanting to see what he meant, and then immediately looked away again. Ferdinand was wearing the same dazzling smile he put on whenever he was in the absolute worst mood—the smile he’d worn when facing Georgine and throughout his engagement to Detlinde.

“How can you say that when he’s making his extremely displeased face?” I asked. “Seeing it scares me so much that I’m too afraid to even approach him.”

“That’s his displeased face? I should probably take my leave, then.”

And with that, Wilfried beat a hasty retreat, muttering something about how hard Ferdinand was to understand. I wanted to flee with him.

“Sister,” Melchior said not even a moment later. It was like he’d actively been waiting for Wilfried to leave.

Just a few moments ago, Melchior and his guard knights had been smiling and telling everyone about the traps fake Georgine had run into. She had been covered in silver cloth to the point that not even her face had been visible, and she’d sprinted into so many traps while fleeing from the knights inside the temple that I couldn’t help but laugh. It almost sounded comical.

The fake Georgine had charged into the book room, slipped on the bead-size feystones covering the floor, and collapsed in a loud, cartoonish manner. Melchior and his guard knights had known the room was filled with traps, so they’d waited outside and watched, their bows drawn, as the traps had activated one by one.

For several moments, the fake Georgine had remained on the floor, seemingly at a loss. Then she’d tried to get up... only to fall down again and again in an increasingly humorous fashion as she’d struggled to navigate the feystones. Her struggles hadn’t ended there, though; the next part of the room had been slathered with a particularly strong adhesive. Her silver gloves and shoes had stuck to it, and the instant she’d pulled out her hands, the archers had started shooting at her newly exposed skin.

The fake Georgine had twisted her body to avoid the arrows, then succeeded in getting out of her shoes and escaping the adhesive. Beyond it, however, we had placed invisible teleporters. She had touched one with a bare hand and vanished, leaving only her clothes behind. Apparently, she had reappeared inside the Ivory Tower in her undergarments.

“Your group certainly is popular, Melchior. Everyone really seems to enjoy the stories you’ve told.”

“The traps you and Hartmut set are what makes them so amusing, Sister.”

“That said... did we truly find the real Lady Georgine?” I asked quietly. “Grausam had so many body doubles. It worries me to no end that there might be more we simply haven’t found.”

Melchior shook his head. “The one who appeared in the foundation’s hall was the real one. There can be no mistaking it. I’m told several of our prisoners died one after another when Father dealt with her.”

“I see,” I said with a relieved sigh.

Melchior lowered his voice a little. “Mother captured a Lady Georgine as well, apparently.”

“Florencia did...?”

“Yes. I’m told she caught her at the exit of the castle’s hidden passageways.”

Sylvester had realized that Georgine knew all of the castle’s secret passages thanks to the incident that had put me in a jureve. Thus, he had stealthily remade them and told no one, ensuring that every single older path led to the same place. The fake Georgine hadn’t noticed the alterations and ended up right where Florencia was waiting for her.

I didn’t know she was part of the fighting too.

“Her retainer Leberecht prepared all sorts of traps and magic tools for her, it would seem.”

“Well, he is Hartmut’s father; it stands to reason that he’s good with those kinds of things.”

Florencia had clapped schtappe-sealing bracelets on the fake Georgine’s wrists. Then she’d ordered for the woman to be taken to the Ivory Tower, where the impostor teleported from the book room had suddenly fallen from the ceiling.

“Father was in the foundation’s hall at the time, so he had no way of knowing what was going on outside,” Melchior said. “He came out when Mother sent word of Lady Georgine’s capture, intending to head to the Ivory Tower and see her with his own eyes—but when the other Lady Georgine appeared, Mother sent him another ordonnanz telling him to return to the foundation.”

Florencia had discovered that Georgine was using body doubles right after Sylvester had sent Ferdinand an ordonnanz announcing their enemy’s capture.

“And the real Georgine also entered through the temple?” I asked, my head cocked.

“She did,” Melchior whispered, his shoulders slumped. “I was ordered not to join the battles outside, so I was in my room when I received the news that the woman we thought was Lady Georgine triggered all of our traps. We were lulled into a false sense of security. The knights not reporting to me went to check on the fighting by the gate, leaving the book room unattended. That was when Lady Georgine—the real one—got inside.”

“And nobody saw her? There were plenty of knights at the gates, weren’t there?”

There were three gates leading into the temple, each of which had its own guard shumil. As I understood it, the shumil positioned at the gate for carriages had moved at some point, but the pedestrian gate was so close by that I didn’t consider it an issue. I also found it hard to believe that Judithe and the others wouldn’t have noticed the carriage gate opening and responded instantly. My concerns didn’t end there, though. The temple was a fairly large place; how had Georgine reached the book room without running into a single person?

“She used another, more unusual entrance. I guess you likewise didn’t consider it, Sister.”

“Hmm?”

“During the entwickeln, we added a waterway to the temple, remember? To aid the creation of paper in the workshop.”

Indeed, we had made a passage connecting the temple and the river. It wasn’t being used yet, as we still needed to set up a way to purify the water and such.

“The real Lady Georgine used that waterway as a secret passage,” Melchior explained. “She must not have been able to waschen while wearing her silver clothes, as we found her footprints near the exit by the boys’ building. From there, she entered the noble’s section from the west side of the basement, which the servants and those bringing food from the lower city use. Then she waited in one of the blue priests’ quarters until the book room wasn’t being watched. We assume the priest who accommodated her and their attendant made the arrangements.”

The real Georgine—the one Sylvester had dispatched—had apparently been dressed in gray robes. It made sense that nobody had paid any attention to her, especially when another “Georgine” had just blundered into a bunch of traps.

“Were they—?”

“Lady Rozemyne,” Heisshitze called out just as I was beginning to calm down. He approached me with a smile, bringing along an attendant carrying a plate piled with delicacies.

“How do you like the food?” I asked.

Heisshitze shot his plate a very satisfied grin. “It’s delicious, and there’s so much variety. I’ve enjoyed this food plenty of times during the Archduke Conference, but it tastes so much sweeter when you’ve just seized a victory. That said... your plate is largely empty.”

“I am having my attendant retrieve the occasional portion of my favorite dishes. And in any case, I suspect the amount I normally eat would seem paltry to a knight. I take only a few bites, but I savor each and every one. This is the only season we can serve vargel with cream sauce, so do try some while you can.”

As a host, I was almost obligated to share in the food we were serving to our guests. I ate some with a smile, but I couldn’t taste it at all, maybe because I wasn’t really hungry.

“Tell me, is the alcohol to your tastes as a Dunkelfelgerian?”

“But of course!” Heisshitze declared. “It is much stronger than the vize we normally enjoy, but the flavor is excellent.” He held up his full cup with a pleased grin, evidently relieved to have something new to drink.

I think that’s hard liquor, though. Should you really be downing so much of it?

Ferdinand had been right to worry—if we’d invited all of Dunkelfelger’s volunteers, Ehrenfest’s entire supply of alcohol would have vanished overnight.

“Um, Lord Heisshitze... may I ask a question?” Roderick said, his excitement clear on his face.

Heisshitze gave a generous nod and roared, “Ask away, boy!” The alcohol was making him especially boisterous.

“Is it true that Dunkelfelger suffered not a single fatality? You fought so many tough battles back-to-back that I can hardly believe it... Please tell me the secret to your strength!”

By the end of the Battle of Gerlach, there had been ten rows of ten Dunkelfelger knights ready to hear the declaration of victory. Hannelore and Heisshitze had been on the balcony with me as their commanders. In other words, there hadn’t been a single person unaccounted for.

“We managed it only because of Lord Ferdinand and Lady Rozemyne,” Heisshitze said, his expression turning more serious. “We were warned in advance to cover our mouths and keep our jureves with us. More than ten of our knights ended up with serious mana clots from that poison bomb Grausam launched, but none died instantly. It did far more damage to the enemy forces and Gerlach’s knights, since they did not know the peculiarities of the attack. Many of them turned into feystones in merely a moment.”

At once, the sight of all those gleaming feystones littering the ground resurfaced in my mind. Goose bumps rose on my skin, and the food that I’d eaten pushed up against my throat. I covered my mouth and swallowed it back down; the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself.

“Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said from somewhere out of my sight. I turned around just as the door to the hall was thrown open.

“Rozemyne, are you out of harm’s way?! I’ve come to save you!”

It was Bonifatius, fully armored. He barreled in like a bull in a china shop and surprised me so thoroughly that my nausea instantly vanished. Everyone was staring at him in a complete daze, but he ignored them all as he looked me up and down, confirming I was okay.

“There is not a single scratch on me, Grandfather. Thanks to you, I am doing fine.” That last part wasn’t totally a lie; he had just saved me from making a very embarrassing scene.

“I see,” he replied with a relieved nod—and then rounded on Sylvester. “WHAT’S THIS ABOUT YOU STARTING THE FEAST WITHOUT ME?! You charged up the teleporter without a second thought for Ferdinand, but what about me?! It wasn’t easy having to rush all the way here from Illgner!”

“We don’t have the mana to spare,” Sylvester shot back. “The only reason we could fuel the teleporter for Ferdinand and Rozemyne was because they helped supply it. Besides, look—I was right that you’d still make it here in time.”

Sylvester must have refused to activate the teleporters for Bonifatius alone. I thought that was reasonable enough, especially when our main focus right now was sharing intelligence with Dunkelfelger, but there was no reason for me to weigh in.

“Rozemyne, tell Bonifatius you want to hear about Illgner,” Ferdinand whispered, having at some point moved to stand behind me. “Use the opportunity to convince him to get changed.”

I nodded and approached our loud new arrival. “Grandfather, we have guests from Dunkelfelger here at the moment. Why not get changed and tell me tales of your heroics? As I understand it, Brigitte sent an ordonnanz bearing critical intelligence when the fighting was already underway. I am curious to know how things were in Illgner.”

Bonifatius nodded, now grinning from ear to ear. “Alright. You got it. Just wait right there; I’ll tell you everything.” He turned to leave without another word—and with that, I gained one more feather in my cap.

To make sure people weren’t restricted in whom they could speak with, nobody at the feast had a designated seat; those who wished to sit down could take any chair at any of the tables set up along the outer edges of the hall. This had been Ehrenfest’s solution to the sudden nature of the feast and the fact they hadn’t known how many of Dunkelfelger’s knights were going to attend.

Once he was changed, Bonifatius came over to where I was seated and got his attendant to fetch him some food. Sylvester sat next to him, ready to hear his report, while Karstedt stood behind them, having finally secured a free moment to attend. Ferdinand was sitting in the last remaining seat as though it were only natural.

“Now, as you know, Illgner’s a long way away from here...”

Bonifatius wasn’t exaggerating—the province in question was located at Ehrenfest’s southwesternmost corner. He explained that flying there would have taken his knights an entire day because they would have needed to match the speed of the laynobles among them. Going any faster than that would most likely have exhausted them, and what use would they have been if they were too tired to fight?

“If we’d given ourselves the usual amount of time to get there,” he continued, “we’d have arrived to find Illgner in ruins. Ahrensbach is a greater duchy—their knights and Old Werkestock’s nobles are far too much for a mednoble’s province to fight back alone.”

Illgner’s population was slowly on the rise, but it was still a mountainous, forest-covered territory with few nobles or commoners to speak of. And it wasn’t like Illgner could devote resources to defending it; they had a lot of land to protect, and very few protectors. I suspected that they would have crumbled in the face of an attack from a greater duchy.

“Thus, the aub used teleportation circles to transport us to Illgner’s summer estate. It seemed a waste not to utilize them when we knew they were there.”

Ehrenfest’s teleporters weren’t to be used carelessly—only the aub could activate them, and the process of transporting a person, let alone an entire group, required a ton of mana. The only reason we’d used them at the beginning was because the fighting hadn’t yet reached the city of Ehrenfest, meaning those stationed there had time to drink rejuvenation potions and recover their mana.

“As soon as I arrived in Illgner, I realized the attack was merely a diversion meant to lure away the Knight’s Order,” Bonifatius said.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“There were fewer invaders than expected, and their goal didn’t seem to be to conquer the giebe’s estate.”

The enemy had sent enough knights that Illgner wouldn’t be able to endure on their own, avoided combat, and made zero attempts to claim the province before the reinforcements from Ehrenfest had arrived. On top of that, they had made the unusual decisions to devote some of their forces to Griebel and to steal mana from the land they were invading. They hadn’t been particularly challenging foes for Bonifatius, but they had proven to be annoying.

Bonifatius gave a proud snort, then burst into laughter. “That said, they likely intended to stick around and fight for two or three days. You should have seen their faces after we traveled there by teleporter.”

Under normal circumstances, a giebe’s call for reinforcements wouldn’t have been answered right away—plenty of time would have been spent deciding which knights would sortie and preparing them for battle before they even started their journey by highbeast. It would have taken days for Bonifatius and the others to reach Illgner, but because we’d already anticipated the attack and gathered the information we’d needed about our teleportation circles, they’d managed to get there in the blink of an eye.

“You make it sound trivial, but I really broke my back getting that circle to work...” Sylvester grumbled.

“It was during our fight this morning that we found out Gerlach was under attack too,” Bonifatius continued, completely ignoring his nephew. “They said there were so many troops that this had to be the main invasion and requested reinforcements as quickly as we could provide them. I wanted to head straight there, but for us to fight unburdened, we had to wrap things up in Illgner first.”

Bonifatius had rallied his troops. Then, under Brigitte’s guidance, they had flown all throughout the province, tearing their enemies to shreds.

“Father, why did you feel the need to go to Gerlach?” Karstedt asked. I could guess from his businesslike expression that he was speaking as the knight commander.

Bonifatius likewise became more serious, no longer exuding the aura of a man bragging to his granddaughter. “Gerlach had a more dangerous scent to it. I could feel that I needed to get there as soon as possible.”

“‘A dangerous scent’?”

“Right. I sensed there was a mighty foe there—one that even I would struggle against.”

“You... sensed it?”

Bonifatius really was... animalistic. He had a sharp nose and acted on pure instinct. I could see why Grausam had devoted so much of his plan to countering him.

“Brigitte wasn’t hurt, was she?” I asked. “She used to be my guard knight, so I can’t help worrying about her. She even sent us valuable intelligence in the midst of the fighting...”

“I see,” Bonifatius replied, looking conflicted. “Brigitte might have left, but she’s still your retainer at heart. The information she sent should have gone to the Knight’s Order, but instead, she insisted on it going to you, even when her ordonnanzes kept failing. That’s the thought process of a retainer who wishes to add more prestige to her lady’s name.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Brigitte’s actions were so significant. She hadn’t just wanted to warn me of the coming danger—she was still trying to prop me up as her lady despite having left my service years ago. Knowing that made joy spread through my entire body.

“It warms my heart to know she feels that way even now that we are so far apart,” I replied sincerely.

Bonifatius nodded. “You have good vassals, Rozemyne.”

“So... how was Brigitte?”

“Hmm... Her skills as a knight have dulled a little. It’s to be expected—marriage and a pregnancy will stop anyone from training—but I still consider it a shame.”

I’d meant how she was doing as a person, not what she was like in battle, but I supposed that I shouldn’t have expected anything else from Bonifatius. His evaluation told me that Brigitte was doing well, at least.

“Besides, rusty or not, she performed admirably as a knight defending her province,” Bonifatius noted. “She fought hard to protect the mountains’ forests, since your workshops need them to make paper. She carried out her duty as the giebe’s younger sister and protected both her home and its people.”

Subsequently, the two of them had captured the invading giebes of Old Werkestock.

“I was dumbfounded when an ordonnanz showed up midway through our battle saying that you and Ferdinand were leading Dunkelfelger knights into Gerlach. I mean, I remembered how confident you were before you left, but I never thought you’d actually manage to save Ferdinand and get back to Ehrenfest so soon... Well done, Rozemyne. Well done.”

“I thank you ever so much, Grandfather,” I replied as a warm feeling spread through my chest. His words meant a lot to me, especially considering that he’d told me to give up on the rescue operation entirely.

“You protected a great many things, if you ask me. There I was, praying that Gerlach would hold out until my arrival, when I was suddenly told you’d put a stop to the fighting. I actually smacked the ordonnanz that delivered the news on instinct, since I was sure it had to be broken.”

You smacked it?! If the poor thing wasn’t broken before, I think that must have done it!

“Dunkelfelger’s knights fought exceptionally hard for us during the Battle of Gerlach,” I said. Then I pointed at Hannelore, who was joyously speaking with some of the other noblewomen. “Including my friend over there.”

“Still—you led them, did you not?”

“Not quite. Ferdinand was the one who took the knights to Gerlach. He roused them by saying that stealing Ahrensbach’s foundation wasn’t enough to mark the end of our ditter match. I was bedridden in Ahrensbach’s castle when he and the troops departed.”

Despite having had only a few moments to rest since almost succumbing to poison, Ferdinand had taken the initiative to lead the charge into Gerlach. I made sure to emphasize how amazing that was, which must have made Bonifatius a little jealous; he looked at Ferdinand and huffed.

Bonifatius continued, “Once the situation in Gerlach was dealt with, I petitioned the aub to reactivate the teleporters so we could return to Ehrenfest. He refused and told us to make our own way back, since he was already using the circles to transport you, Ferdinand, and your Dunkelfelger guests.”

“Guests from a greater duchy clearly take priority over returning troops,” Sylvester said. “Not to mention, ‘Rozemyne’s calling for me!’ isn’t a good enough excuse to use a teleporter. No aub would allow that.”

The invasion had wreaked absolute havoc on Ehrenfest’s stock of rejuvenation potions, and the diversionary battles being fought all over the place had exhausted the knights. On top of that, the scholars and attendants had been up to their necks in work preparing for the celebratory feast. There simply hadn’t been any leeway to use the teleporter for Bonifatius’s sake.

Plus, I’m pretty sure I didn’t call for him.

Bonifatius claimed otherwise. He’d charged straight to Ehrenfest, leaving his knights behind. That must have been why he’d roared that he was here to save me, I thought—but his behavior was so instinctual that it was hard to say for sure. He actually seemed a little more scary than reliable. At this point, I fully understood why Grausam had devoted so much time and effort to countering him; Bonifatius was someone I’d never want to make an enemy of.

“So, how were things here?” Bonifatius asked.

Sylvester shrugged and shook his head; he had spent most of today listening to others’ reports, trying not to discuss his own side of the story when he could avoid it. “It started with the ordonnanz Damuel sent to the Knight’s Order—relaying Brigitte’s message, as it turns out. That was around third bell, I think...”

The Knight’s Order had mobilized upon hearing that threats were likely about to arrive at the west gate. Ordonnanzes had flown all over, and everyone had moved to their preplanned stations. They hadn’t known when exactly the threats would appear or when the battle would commence. Meanwhile, Sylvester had gone straight to the foundation’s hall, since its theft was the absolute worst-case scenario.

“I stood there and waited,” he told us. “There wasn’t anything for me to do, but I didn’t have any other choice. I simply waited around and received ordonnanzes through a hole in the wall opened just for that purpose.”

As it turned out, there was a warp hole connecting the hall and the archduke’s office, allowing the aub to receive correspondence even while attending to the foundation. Sylvester had spent his time waiting for an ordonnanz to stick its beak through, speak its report, and then return.

“So,” he continued, “with nothing else to do, I started setting up traps I’d devised with Rozemyne.”

Sylvester had gotten so bored that, prior to the start of the fighting at the west gate, he had sent ordonnanzes to his attendants asking them to deliver him the tools he would need to set up his own traps.

“Is it really acceptable for the aub to do that kind of work?” I asked.

“Well, it wasn’t like I could delegate. I was the only one there.”

In the process of killing time, Sylvester had put glue on the stairs and set up nets and washtubs to fall on any intruders. Back in Japan, washtubs were made of very light metal, so dropping one on a person’s head was more of a gag than anything else, like watching someone slip on a banana peel. Here in Yurgenschmidt, however, they were commonly made of thick, heavy wood.

I don’t even want to imagine how much that would hurt. What if Georgine had died from it? I wouldn’t even know how to feel.

Maybe it was my fault for not having explained things properly, but I’d never expected Sylvester to use a wooden washtub, not a metal one.

“Ordonnanzes came even as I was setting up more traps. One told me Bonifatius was leading Illgner to victory. Then I received a request for reinforcements from Gerlach.”

Sylvester had ordered the giebes near Gerlach to mobilize their knights and assist the province in need. Then he’d probed to see whether Bonifatius would also be able to head there. In the case of the giebes, the responses he’d received hadn’t given him much hope; they had declared that they couldn’t risk sending troops to Gerlach when there was a serious chance that their own provinces might be invaded next. That seemed reasonable enough to me—a giebe who was unable to protect their land because they’d sent their knights elsewhere would be considered an absolute failure of a ruler.

Mustering reinforcements for Illgner hadn’t been an issue, but the circumstances had changed since then. Sending the knights tasked with protecting the Noble’s Quarter hadn’t been an option—not when there were threats approaching the city. And on top of that, Sylvester, the one person required to activate the duchy’s teleportation circles, had been stuck in the foundation’s hall.

“Giebe Gerlach sent more ordonnanzes, each one reporting that his situation was getting worse. Things got so bad that I decided to use the teleporters to send as many knights as I could—but as I went to leave the hall, one of my scholars told me we’d received a message from Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand had announced that I’d stolen Ahrensbach’s foundation and that he was bringing Dunkelfelger’s volunteers to the border gate between our duchies. Once there, he would contain the rogue knights and nobles acting under Georgine’s influence.

“That shocked me more than anything. Never in my life have I felt the gods’ intervention so clearly.”

“Glucklitat really must love you,” I said.

Sylvester had ordered a scholar to contact Ferdinand and tell him to head to Gerlach at once. An ordonnanz wouldn’t have reached him or me while we were in Ahrensbach, so he’d needed to send a physical letter to the border gate. Around the same time, he’d contacted Giebe Gerlach using an ordonnanz to explain that Ferdinand and I were on our way with Dunkelfelger troops and that he needed only to hold out until our arrival.

“The attack on the west gate began during that exchange, then the fighting at the north gate and the temple with it. Florencia sent word that someone was moving through the secret passageways. Everyone was putting their necks on the line... while I was stuck waiting with the foundation.”

And while Sylvester had waited, fighting back the urge to run out and join the fight, Florencia had sent word that she’d captured Georgine.

“I thought the battle had come and gone before I could do anything of use,” Sylvester said. That must have been discouraging for him, but still—our victory was what mattered most.

Sylvester had then left the foundation, having decided to go to the Ivory Tower, and started informing the provinces that Georgine had been captured. He was stopped in his tracks, however, by the arrival of another ordonnanz.

“A second Lady Georgine has appeared,” the bird had said in Florencia’s voice, her panic unmistakable. “She fell from the ceiling, so I suspect she was teleported from the temple. There may be other decoys. Please stay with the foundation until the real Lady Georgine has been found.”

“I did as she instructed without a second thought,” Sylvester told us. “Georgine was exactly the kind of person to stack one devious plot on top of another. I went back to the aub’s chambers in the castle and teleported to the foundation’s hall... only to be caught up in a torrent of water.”

“Wha...?”

“The moment I stepped through that iridescent screen, I was stuck in a whirlpool and gasping for air.”

The real Georgine had already been attacking the foundation. The blood had drained from Sylvester’s face when he’d realized that if not for Florencia’s second ordonnanz, the duchy would have been stolen right under his nose.

“The whirlpool eventually disappeared, dropping me to the ground. The washtub I’d set up came crashing down too.”

“Wait, what? The washtub?” I asked.

“The traps I’d placed were caught up with me. I managed to avoid the washtub, but only by a hair. It nearly knocked me right out.”

Flooding a room with waschen wouldn’t just sweep away the people inside—I’d experienced that personally when casting the spell for the first time. Everything would float, and anything the caster saw as filth would be cleansed.

“The glue I’d put on the stairs disappeared, and the other traps I’d set were moved from where I’d placed them,” Sylvester explained. “It was as the washtub came down at my feet that I spotted a hand sticking out from another entrance, and a shiver ran down my spine.”

The hand, which had appeared to be severed at the wrist, had apparently been wielding a schtappe. Georgine had likely used a lethal attack without even looking into the room—and with that realization, the horror eating away at Sylvester had grown even more intense.

“I think a floating hand would scare anyone,” I said.

Sylvester had also taken out his schtappe, and Georgine had sauntered into the room barely a moment later. Despite being dressed in the robes of a gray shrine maiden, she had acted entirely like a queen.

“Georgine’s eyes widened in disbelief when she saw me,” Sylvester continued.

“That makes no sense,” Ferdinand said. “At a time when the city is facing countless diversions, anyone would expect the aub to be protecting the foundation.”

Sylvester’s brow furrowed in discomfort. “It was precisely because Georgine knew I was going to be in the foundation’s hall that she filled it with instant-death poison.”

“Excuse me...?”

Outside, instant-death poison powder didn’t work very well; it carried on the wind and dissipated easily. In a cramped space like the hall, however, its gruesome potential would have been fully realized. Georgine had unlocked the foundation, thrown in some poison bombs, and then cleansed the room with a waschen so that she could enter. Under any other circumstances, her plan would have allowed her to dye or destroy the foundation without anyone interfering.

“If not for my decision to leave the foundation after Florencia’s first ordonnanz, I wouldn’t even be here right now,” Sylvester said.

“You truly have received Glucklitat’s divine protection...”

“To be honest, I think it’s more likely that my opponent had no protections at all...”

I could only imagine how Georgine must have felt when her carefully devised plans had been foiled purely by her enemy getting lucky.

“So, how did you capture Georgine from there?”

“I was already holding my schtappe, so of course, I attacked without hesitation.” To account for the distance between them, Sylvester had created a bow and shot arrows of mana at Georgine. “One was turned away by a charm she had with her, and another she blocked with geteilt. My next move was to advance on her. She threw some metallic needles at me in response, but one of my charms deflected them. It wasn’t a tough fight, by any means; she’d needed to remove her silver clothes to enter the foundation’s hall, so mana attacks worked on her just fine.”

The battle had gone overwhelmingly in Sylvester’s favor. That didn’t surprise me, really—as a man who had undergone physical training since his youth, he had possessed far more strength, stamina, and combat experience than Georgine, who, as a woman, had spent her life mainly focused on socializing. Sylvester had also been compressing his mana and was armed with the strength of new divine protections, to say nothing of how much younger than her he was; there was no way he would have lost a head-on encounter.

“Still...” he muttered, “I can’t believe a person could grow to hate someone so intensely.”

Sylvester didn’t reveal what Georgine had said to him, but the look on his face made it clear that her words had cut him deep.

“But as I was saying... she told me there were plenty of people still name-sworn to her. She declared that those bound to her by submission contracts would carry on her will, and that she would destroy Ehrenfest.”

“And the threat of her name-sworn was too great to ignore...” Ferdinand said.

“Yep. I didn’t know how many of them we’d missed during the winter purge or what they might do when given that kind of order. Would they all go berserk and join the fighting? Would they spread that poison everywhere? I needed to stop her before even more people got hurt, so... I dealt with her then and there.”

Sylvester gazed down at his hands. He had taken the life of his own sister, and that fact weighed so heavily on his heart. There was a pause... and then a dull clunk as he set something on the table. It was a large, beautiful feystone that seemed both red and blue depending on the light. It took me a second to process what I was looking at, but when the pieces fell into place, my breath caught in my throat.

Um, what?

My breathing became ragged, and my entire body started to tremble. I tried to stand up—my every instinct was screaming at me to get away from the feystone—but I’d neglected to warn my attendants, so they hadn’t pulled my chair back for me. My knees banged against the table, and my seat toppled over backward with a loud clatter.

In an instant, all eyes were on me. I couldn’t see my attendants, as they were standing behind me, but I could sense that even they were staring holes through the back of my head.

This isn’t good. I need to smooth this over somehow.

As I gazed around the hall, frantically searching for an excuse to get away from the feystone, I saw Florencia and Charlotte.

“I, um... I suddenly remembered something I must discuss with Charlotte and my adoptive mother,” I said. “I must ask them to gather their seamstresses for my fitting. Isn’t that right, Lieseleta?”

“That is urgent, but this is neither the time nor place to discuss it,” Lieseleta replied. She placed a hand on my shoulder and gently urged me to sit back down, but I wouldn’t survive another moment at this table. Even as my vision blurred, I couldn’t stop staring at the feystone. My entire body was pleading with me to get away.

“But I must return to Ahrensbach tomorrow afternoon, and I’ve grown so much that I no longer have clothes to wear when meeting with the royal family. The fitting will need to be done in the morning.”

“The seamstresses will not be able to gather in time—not even if we send a messenger first thing tomorrow. Moreover, the castle is in no state to accept merchants. The fitting can wait until you have returned from Ahrens—”

“Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said, interrupting Lieseleta.

“Yes?” I asked. Turning to look at him removed the feystone from my sight and eased the tension in my shoulders. He had spent the conversation thus far wearing a fake smile to hide his displeasure, but now he’d returned to his usual emotionless expression.

“We have something to discuss,” he said, then indicated a relatively empty section of the room.

We were about to leave when Bonifatius raised a hand. “Hold it, Ferdinand. Can that not wait too? Look at the state of the feast.”

“I agree,” Leonore added. “Please do wait until we are done here. The situation right now is quite complex.”

I placed a hand on my cheek, unsure what either of them meant. My confusion must have been obvious because Leonore and Lieseleta elaborated.

To save ourselves time, we had used Kirnberger’s country gate as part of our charge to Ahrensbach. The province’s knights had seen me activate it, as had Sylvester’s retainers, and the whole thing had eventually led to Ehrenfest’s higher-ups discovering that I possessed the Grutrissheit and that the archduke had given me a courting magic tool from the royal family.

And it took only three days for that information to spread through the Noble’s Quarter, huh?

Leonore continued, “The moment the aub handed the royal magic tool to you, he demonstrated his intention to approve the royal courtship. The nobles now consider the cancellation of your engagement to Lord Wilfried a foregone conclusion. Many have also been discussing the unreasonable lengths you went to in order to save Lord Ferdinand.”

Ehrenfest’s nobles now thought I was engaged to a royal. That was fair enough, but they were also under the impression that I was spending the short while before the next Archduke Conference, when the news was going to be announced, bemoaning my doomed feelings for Ferdinand. That was why the noblewomen were all wearing such warm smiles and going on about the beauty of “love unfulfilled.”

Ngh... The real tragedy here is that everyone’s pitying me for losing my first love. I’ve never even been in love!

“We’ve benefited from the romanticization of your trip to Ahrensbach,” Leonore noted. “That said, with your move to the Sovereignty right around the corner, we do not want to chance any more scandals.”

Our situation would be much easier to manage if everyone believed my “feelings” for Ferdinand were one-sided and would end with my marriage into the royal family. For that reason, it was important that he keep his distance from me.

Ferdinand cast his eyes across the table, my retainers, and the other guests casually looking in our direction, then crossed his arms and sighed. “I consider Rozemyne’s health more urgent and important than public opinion. However, if you would all rather prioritize gossip and rumors, I will respect that.”

“Good,” Bonifatius said.

Everyone seemed relieved that Ferdinand was pulling back, but it made me uneasy. I turned to look at him.

“It has been a year and a half since my departure,” Ferdinand said. “Rozemyne must have a new primary doctor by now, and it would not be right of me to encroach on their duties. Unless you mean to tell me a new doctor has still not been assigned to her.”

Sylvester and Karstedt immediately averted their eyes. Ferdinand glared at them both and then slowly began to stand up again, muttering that I should call him if ever I needed help.

“No, she should call me!” Bonifatius protested.

Ferdinand stared down at him, clearly annoyed, before turning around and leaving. A strange sense of panic spread through me as he got farther away. If nothing else, I didn’t have another doctor to rely on, and my body clearly wasn’t acting right.

“Leonore, I...”

“Wait until the feast is over. There are too many eyes here,” Leonore whispered while urging me to sit back down. “You may not be aware, but you are drawing more than enough attention simply because of your growth spurt. Cornelius has left to gather intelligence, and Lord Ferdinand just went to speak with Hartmut. Please refrain from acting openly.”

She was advising me as a guard knight, but I still shook my head; I didn’t want to stay here. I stood up and took my leave, using the excuse of needing to speak with Charlotte, Florencia, and Elvira. Only once I was away from the feystone was I finally able to breathe again.

I put on a fake smile and tried to force my way through the rest of the feast. Ferdinand must have given out all sorts of orders, as his retainers were rushing around the room as busily as ever.

“Oh, on that note... where might he be?” I asked.

“Ferdinand returned to your library quite some time ago. It is too late to call on him now. Could you wait until tomorrow?”

I’d intended to stick around until the end of the feast, but there was no helping it without Ferdinand. I couldn’t even justify calling him back; I wasn’t feeling too bad now that I was away from the feystone, so my condition couldn’t have been urgent. There was nothing for me to do but return to my chambers.