Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story - Chapter 9

Judithe — A Guard Knight Always Left Behind

“Would you like some tea, Judithe?” Philine asked, as she always did when I came out from having my bath. It was her attendant Isberga who started preparing it for me, while my attendant Frederika got the bath ready for Philine. We could share our attendants like this because we were sharing a room, and this arrangement lessened the burden on them both. Archnoble attendants had their own rooms and could freely purchase the services of others, but mednobles and laynobles didn’t have the money to live that lavishly.

“Mm-hmm. Thanks,” I said, sitting down. Isberga poured us both tea, then I waited for Philine to take the first sip. I didn’t have the slightest suspicion that they were trying to poison me, but skipping noble etiquette wasn’t an option.

My eyes wandered to a stack of papers she had moved onto the nearby bookcase to make room for the tea. “Have you been gathering new stories again?” I asked.

Philine nodded in response. “They won’t receive payment until next year, but still, crest-certified work is such a boon.”

The work that Lady Rozemyne had requested wouldn’t be checked until we returned to Ehrenfest, so it wasn’t suitable for those who needed money immediately. That said, she provided all the necessary ink and paper, meaning anyone who could write was guaranteed to make a profit. It was especially popular with younger students, who could do little other work.

“Because of you, I can feel comfortable talking to people from other duchies,” Philine said. “I thank you ever so much for accompanying me to the library so often.”

“I’m not sure I deserve any credit...” I mumbled. “I spend all of my time there studying.”

“But you go out of your way to put on light armor when accompanying me. It’s very heartening.”

Philine had gotten used to going to the library with Lady Rozemyne’s group, but when Lady Rozemyne returned to Ehrenfest, that ceased to be an option. It was too risky for Philine to go alone, especially considering that she was a laynoble—there was a chance that she might attract unwanted attention from envious students or be strong-armed into undesirable situations by those who looked down on her. That was why Hartmut and Brunhilde had asked me to accompany her as a guard.

I am getting paid for this, after all. It’s a valuable source of income for me.

It was Lady Rozemyne’s will that her retainers’ safety was ensured, which was great for me; I was so swamped with studying that I hadn’t been able to earn any money or even carry out my duties as a guard knight, but this solved all of my problems. It was a little hard to focus on my schoolwork while wearing light armor, but the situation was so favorable that I was willing to endure it.

“So, what story did you gather today?” I asked.

“One about a feybeast hunt passed down in Berschmann. You could technically call it a knight story, but I think it’s more accurate to call it a collection of documents about feybeast weaknesses.”

“That sounds fun,” I said. Knowing as many feybeast weaknesses as possible was crucial for being a strong knight. But before I could ask for more details, Frederika poked her head into the room.

“My apologies for the wait, Lady Philine.”

Philine set down her cup and started out of the room with Isberga; it was her turn to take a bath. Once she was out of sight, I took out some review documents. I needed to prepare for tomorrow’s classes.

“Your family must have been surprised when they learned about you becoming Lady Rozemyne’s retainer, but I think they would be even more taken aback to see how hard you’ve been studying. Lord Theodore mentioned that he still struggles to believe it,” Frederika said, giggling as she prepared my bed.

I pursed my lips and continued glaring at my documents. “Well, if Lady Rozemyne had woken up earlier, and I had been chosen sooner, I would have studied more in the summer and autumn.” It had come as quite a shock when I found out that mednoble guard knights needed to attain such high grades, and now I was working extremely hard to meet those expectations.

“Perhaps this will serve as a reminder that you should work hard every single day so that you’re prepared for any situation that might occur,” Frederika remarked, referring to how I had prioritized knight training over studying in the past.

I continued to study while Frederika proceeded with her lecture; I needed to finish my lessons as soon as possible, since I wanted to participate in guard knight training too. As it stood, I wasn’t carrying out my duty enough for me to puff out my chest and say that I really was Lady Rozemyne’s guard knight. I needed to work hard so that I could impress my family with how far I had come.

Just as Frederika finished preparing my bed, tomorrow’s clothes, and some fresh tea, Philine returned from her bath. I paused my studying to offer her a seat and poison-test the tea, just as she had done for me earlier.

“You were invited to be Lady Charlotte’s guard knight in the playroom, weren’t you?” she asked. “Why did you instead wait for Lady Rozemyne to wake up?”

“My plan from the very beginning was to become a Kirnberger knight, so I didn’t think much about becoming a guard. But Angelica was Lord Bonifatius’s disciple and got more of his attention than anyone else, despite her being a medknight, remember? I really looked up to Angelica, since she was strong enough to surpass even archknights, so I decided that I would join her in serving Lady Rozemyne, if anyone.”

Though I was so surprised when I learned about Angelica’s true nature.

I chose to keep that last point to myself. I didn’t have any older siblings to receive information from, so I hadn’t found out until I was attending the Royal Academy myself, but Angelica was really bad at academics. This had come as a great shock to me, as I had very selfishly built her up in my mind as someone who could do anything. Now, however, I respected her even more. She was continuing as a guard knight despite having such poor grades that she needed remedial lessons, while at the same time being given special care and attention by Lord Bonifatius, who thought so highly of her.

Under any other circumstances, she’d either be relieved of duty after exasperating her lord or lady, or be forced to resign by her family before she brought any more shame upon them.

“What kind of place is Kirnberger, anyway?” Philine asked, her grass-green eyes sparkling in anticipation of my answer. “I’ve never left the Noble’s Quarter, so I would love to know.”

I closed my eyes and thought back to my home province. “Kirnberger shares its name with a city with a country gate that was closed a long time ago. Our province’s knights continue to guard it, as is our duty. My father is a knight who serves Giebe Kirnberger himself.”

“And what is this gate like?”

“It’s a sight to behold, and it shines with wondrous colors. You need to fly up above the border gate on your highbeast to see it, so only Kirnberger knights have the privilege. I didn’t get to see it myself until after my first year in the Royal Academy, when I got my own highbeast.” It was the most beautiful sight, and even now, I could remember how proud I had felt knowing that I was guarding it and the land. “Though I’ll probably never get to see it again...”

“Why is that?”

“Now that I’m Lady Rozemyne’s guard knight, I can’t serve in Kirnberger, can I? And once we guard knights go back to the castle, we’ll be going into the dormitory and serving Lady Rozemyne there. I can’t imagine I’ll ever really have the chance to go back home.”

Kirnberger was several days away by carriage. The journey could be reduced to a single day by highbeast, but I had never attempted it before, and I wasn’t confident that I could manage it without getting lost.

“Oh, Judithe...” Philine said, her eyes brimming with concern.

I smiled. “I’m not upset about it; this is what I wanted, after all. My real complaint is that I’m up to my neck in papers studying to get the grades I need, and I barely ever get to do guard duty for Lady Rozemyne!”

Going so long without practical experience was a surefire way to dull one’s skills, but Leonore kept saying that I needed to focus on my studies and wouldn’t let me train with the others. I was a second-year, so my classes were all part of the shared introductory courses; the most we got to do was make weapons with our schtappes. It wouldn’t be until my third year, when I took up the knight course, that my practical lessons would start to incorporate training.

“Gahhh. I wanna train...” I moaned. “Everyone was so worried about whether Angelica would pass, but Lady Rozemyne made it happen like it was nothing and then took Angelica with her. She must think I’m even worse at these things in comparison...”

“She would never think that of you. Angelica only scraped by in her classes, while you are scoring such high grades. To be honest with you, I made it through history and geography by the skin of my teeth. I’m the one people think is incompetent.”

Her low grades were due to Lady Rozemyne’s rampage. As a laynoble turned archducal retainer, Philine could have minimized the envy she was having to endure by securing very high grades in her exams, but she had been more or less forced to prioritize speed above all else. I could only smile at her sympathetically.

“Your written classes might have been a struggle, but at least you’ve finished them now,” I said. “I wish Lady Rozemyne had made textbooks for us too.”

“She put some together for us covering second-year material so that we can prepare for the year ahead. Would you like to see them?”

“Yes, please!”

And so, Philine allowed me to borrow her guides covering second-year material. I started looking for the subjects I hadn’t passed yet, and my eyes widened despite myself. Everything was organized so neatly.

“Lady Rozemyne could get better grades in my classes than me right now,” I said. “There’s no doubt in my mind about it.”

“Even right after she was baptized, she was always alone in the winter playroom reading some thick, complicated-looking book. She’s actually the person who taught me to read and write stories. She was my professor from the day we met,” Philine said with a nostalgic smile.

I thought back to when I was eight and in the playroom with Lady Rozemyne. The toys she had brought to serve as educational tools were phenomenal, and I had put my absolute all into winning the games she hosted so that I could get her sweets.

“I remember Lady Rozemyne even giving instructions to Professor Moritz,” I said. “She was more of a professor than the professor himself, wasn’t she? It’s just, I was having so much fun with the new playing cards and such that I barely remember Lady Rozemyne focusing on her reading...”

Back then, I was so focused on playing that Lady Rozemyne’s pastimes hadn’t even caught my attention; I couldn’t remember what she had been up to in the slightest. I had also spent a lot of my time running around the knights’ training grounds, while Lady Rozemyne had to sit out due to her poor health. We had essentially been living in different worlds.

Philine looked somewhat bashful. “She allowed me to read books and preserved my mother’s stories in writing. It made me so overjoyed that I did nothing but look at her in the playroom,” she said.

Oh, right... Now that she mentions it, it was in the playroom that Philine swore loyalty to Lady Rozemyne.

“Have you almost finished your classes too, Philine?”

“No, unfortunately. My lack of mana means I’m still struggling with my practical lessons. To think that even maintaining a schtappe has been so hard for me...”

“It took me a while to form my first one, but I never felt like I was using mana to maintain it. Maybe it just takes practice.”

“I think that can be explained by our different statuses. At times like this, I am always reminded why laynobles are so rarely chosen to serve the archducal family as retainers.”

She was right—those who didn’t have much mana were much less able to protect their lord or lady in an emergency and wouldn’t be able to maintain magic tools properly either.

“Lady Rozemyne said that she needs me for my talent and passion for gathering stories, not my mana,” Philine continued, “but I don’t want to bring shame to the archducal family. I would very much like to learn her compression method, as Damuel did, to increase my mana as much as possible.”

Damuel was a guard knight who had been serving Lady Rozemyne longer than anyone. He was a laynoble, but after learning the mana compression method, he had apparently increased his capacity to the level of a mednoble. I struggled to believe it, but apparently it was true.

“I want to practice more with my ranged weapons, since Lady Rozemyne praised my skill with them,” I said. “Like you, I also want to increase my mana capacity as much as I can. My hope is to start using mana arrows like the archnobles do, but as I am now, I wouldn’t be able to endure for long enough.”

With enough mana, I could even take after Angelica and grow a manablade. Doing that meant I wouldn’t need to prepare as many weapons and tools for combat. Mana capacity was essential when it came to fighting as a knight.

“Not to mention, at this point, I might actually have less mana than Damuel,” I noted. “Considering that he’s of a lower status than me, this is a huge problem.”

“I don’t think you should compare yourself to an adult when you’re still only a second-year, Judithe. Well, either way, Lady Rozemyne would certainly say that working hard is a good thing. I am also working hard in my efforts to gather stories, which I am sure she will praise.”

Thus, we both resolved to chase after our respective goals.

It was only a few days later that I managed to finish the last of my classes. As a retainer serving the archducal family, my grades were only a little higher than average, but my scores in every subject had improved from the year before. They were also quite impressive compared to those of other mednobles, in my opinion.

But grades can come later. Right now, what matters is that I can finally participate in training!

“Passed all your classes, huh? Congratulations,” Hartmut said when I returned to the dormitory. “Leonore took all the knights to the training grounds. Why not take this opportunity to join them?”

Seeing absolutely no reason to refuse him, I gleefully bounded out of the dormitory and rushed to the training grounds. Little did I know that an even greater hell than my time spent studying awaited me.

“Leonore, let me train too!”

But what happened next was something I wished to purge from my memories forevermore.