Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story - Chapter 5

Wilfried — An Inelegant Time at the Royal Academy

I couldn’t deny the immense regret I was feeling over my actions.

But who can blame me? Rozemyne always showed a ton of motivation when baited with the library. Wouldn’t anyone think about using that to ensure all the first-years passed their lessons?

That had been my thought process at the time, but in truth, it was pure greed. Rozemyne had become an even crueler teacher than Uncle—she had cut down on her sleep, provided documents analyzing everyone’s weak points, and ordered everyone to pass on their first day with an uncomfortably intense smile.

I even sympathized with Roderick of the former Veronica faction, despite them being our enemies; and when I scolded Rozemyne for going too far, she just looked at me with confusion. “I mean, didn’t you forbid me from going to the library specifically so that I would push everyone and make them pass as soon as possible?” she had said. “Need I repeat that I said I was putting my all into this?”

Oh no, no, no... She can’t be stopped.

“Whatever shall we do, Lord Wilfried?” one of my retainers asked me. “If we do not stop Lady Rozemyne, the first-years may be traumatized.”

Yes, I know that already! The problem is, I don’t know how to stop her!

I cradled my head, desperately trying to think of a way to halt Rozemyne’s rampage. I was used to her being exceedingly competent and able to instruct anyone, even nobles—traits that had made her something of a role model to me. This was my first time seeing her go this berserk, and in truth, I had no idea what to do about it.

“Lord Wilfried, Lord Cornelius is asking what we intend to do,” my retainer said. “According to him, there is no way to stop Lady Rozemyne once the library becomes involved.”

“He’s asking me?! I mean, he’s her blood relative! If not even he knows, what chance do I have?! If only Rozemyne and I had spent more time together... Ah, that’s it! Uncle!”

Uncle knew more about Rozemyne than I did, so I wrote a letter to him asking what I could do to stop her. I was sure he’d have some ideas. “Deliver this to the knight guarding the teleportation hall,” I said when I was done. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

“Understood,” my apprentice attendant Isidore said and ran off with the letter in hand.

“We have a response from Lord Ferdinand.”

“Let me see it,” I said, taking the board from Ignaz and reading it at once. The contents made me want to put my head in my hands even more.

No, Uncle... This isn’t the answer I wanted.

“Lord Wilfried, what does it say?” my retainers asked. Their eyes were brimming with hope, and it pained me to see them still thinking there was a chance we might resolve things. I turned the board around and thrust it out so they could read for themselves.

“Do you have no apprentice scholars among your retainers? That is to say, is your retinue so incompetent that not a single one of them knows how to structure a letter properly? Teach them some sense. Or at the very least, learn to write structured letters on your own so that you may ask these questions.”

“What...?”

At the end of this beautifully written letter was the actual advice—if you could even call it that.

“The library can be both medicine and a deadly poison when it comes to Rozemyne, and like medicine, you must dole it out to her in carefully measured amounts. An incompetent fool who attempts to use her interests to exploit her while not knowing how to manage her is doomed to have their efforts blow up in their face. Had the library not been involved, a book would have served as an adequate distraction, but unfortunately for you, this is not an option here. The first-years have no choice but to finish the death march you have started them on. If you need a bright side to this otherwise bleak situation, first-year written lessons are not difficult at all. They should manage.”

“So he says,” Ignaz remarked as he finished reading the letter, “but there is far too much content to memorize all at once.”

“Uncle had Rozemyne memorize it all after spending two years asleep,” I replied. “He must be basing his estimate on her instead of a normal first-year.”

Despite having spent two years in a jureve, Rozemyne had easily managed to learn everything covered in the first-year course and was now teaching the other first-years. Uncle seemed to be assuming we were all capable of such an extraordinary feat, so he presumably thought that all we needed to do was assist the other students with their weak points.

“Both Lady Rozemyne and Lord Ferdinand genuinely think everyone can pass, I see...” Ignaz muttered.

“Yep. I’m... going to have to apologize to the first-years.”

In the end, Rozemyne successfully hammered the coursework into the first-years, and while some had more or less been crying onto their test papers, everyone was able to pass. It was an achievement that earned us a lot of praise and attention from the other duchies, but we weren’t proud; we were just exhausted and relieved it was over.

Much to our dismay, however, Rozemyne’s shenanigans didn’t end there. She was accused of attacking a professor with her highbeast, went missing while looking for her Divine Will, became the master of two magic tools while registering in the library, attained the highest grades in her class while simultaneously passing faster than anyone else, and started holing up in the library. She also managed to pick a fight with another duchy while measuring clothes, win a game of ditter while I almost died of anxiety in the dorm, receive a direct summons from a prince, begin socializing with an archduke candidate from a greater duchy, receive another summons from a prince despite venturing only to the library, and come back from her meeting with him unconscious after passing out midway through it.

For each new predicament, I was at a complete loss and sent more questions to Ehrenfest. All the classes except my schtappe class were finally over, but Uncle was correcting and returning my reports on such a regular basis that it felt as though my studies hadn’t even come close to ending. Writing reports that met his standards was a lot harder than passing classes. Still, my cousins in the higher grades hadn’t yet finished their lessons, so my one reassurance as I wrote reports about Rozemyne was that I wouldn’t need to attend tea parties for a little while longer.

“We did it, Lord Wilfried!” Ignaz exclaimed one day, beaming as he brought me another response from Lord Ferdinand. He had apparently gotten it from the knight by the teleportation hall on his way to see me.

“Has he actually said something of use this time?!” I asked.

Rozemyne had gone to the library, only to be taken away by Prince Anastasius and pass out in a meeting that her retainers hadn’t been permitted to attend. My most recent report to Uncle had detailed all this and asked for some guidance on how to deal with the prince, and with how excited Ignaz seemed to be, the response must have been valuable. I reached out to accept it, at which point my retainer went “Ah...” and averted his gaze.

“What?”

“Erm, Lord Ferdinand did not send our report back to us with words of criticism. In his letter, he said that he was very satisfied with our writing, so, um...”

“But what about his actual answer?”

My emotions stormed as I read through the report. On the one hand, I was glad that Uncle had finally recognized my abilities, but on the other, I was conflicted because that was not the point of the reports. My eyes flitted across the text. Just as Ignaz had said, Uncle praised the structure of our letter with his usual perfect handwriting. At the very end, however, was a simple message: “As soon as Rozemyne recovers, order her to return to Ehrenfest.”

“They’re making Rozemyne return home,” I said.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it? We can finally write proper reports, but now there won’t be anything for us to report on.”

“I don’t think that’s something to be disappointed about,” I said, shaking my head at him before looking over Uncle’s response again. There was no mistake about it: Rozemyne was being ordered back to Ehrenfest.

Well, at least I’ll get some more time to myself once she’s gone.

I was sure that I could spend the time I had thus far spent writing reports on my hobbies and socializing instead. I stood up, envisioning the elegant, comfortable days ahead, eternally grateful to my father and the others for having sent this order.

It was only later that I realized my days of comfort were little more than a pipe dream. Instead, I was going to be spending my time cleaning up the messes Rozemyne had made.