Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 6 Part 5
Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 6 Part 5
The Archduke Conference has come to an end, but Ehrenfest’s archducal family is still reeling from the troubles it brought. Rozemyne has one year before she must depart for the Sovereignty, and those in her service have an important choice to make.
I think for the whole Damuel situation, it would probably be best to just have Philine hire him as a guard knight, until she comes of age. At that point they can marry and follow Rozemyne to the Sovereignty.
With the additional pay Philine gets as the orphanage director, plus the extra funds Rozemyne is funneling to her, she should be able to afford it. And if not, Rozemyne can just increase the amount of money she's funneling secretly.
Surely Damuel would be in a far better position to protect Philine and the temple, if he's the guard knight of the acting orphanage director, rather than if he was a masterless knight, who would surely be expected to devote his time to the knight's order.
Either way I hope he can work up the courage to be the one to propose to Philine. I'm sure Philine would be over the moon for it and I think it'd also be better for Damuel's reputation and more importantly, his battered self-image.
The Leisgang debacle was resolved much more peacefully than expected, and I guess more than intended too. Quite the power play by Flroencia to try and imprison them.
Damuel's going to get the chance to stay behind and think about his future. I'm not sure I'm clear on who would be employing him - I was assuming everyone was going to be unemployed until moving to the Sovereignty. Philine is presumably taking over the orphanage as an employee of the Aub (with some financial backing from Rozemyne).
For me it went harder than expected. I did expect Rozemyne to become very direct to the point that old-school nobles would be offended, but I did not expect her to outright threaten them. But I expected it even less, that this was all a setup by Florencia (or rather her retainers) to manouver the Leisegangs elders into committing a crime, so they can throw them in prison and be rid of their meddling. Now we know, where Hartmut got his ruthless and cunning side from. ^^
But I think overall, this intervention by the children is more benefitial to Ehrenfest in the long run, than Leberecht's plan would have been.
Yeah, it was just a short interaction - they seem to have backed down within minutes of the kids arriving.
She went too soft on them, IMO. I wanted her to lash out and even crush them for opposing the gods' divine wills for their petty power play.
Oh, well 🤷
Oh Damuel you are as dense as always. I hope in the future there is a Side Story where Philine proposes to him
That this whole meeting with the Leisegang elders was a trap, really caught me off guard. I never considered whether Florencia was a schemer or not, but even if I had, I would still have expected Florencia to be too preoccupied with the current overwork of the archducal couple, increased even more with Sylvester's absence and her pregnancy, to set up such schemes. And I didn't consider Leberecht at all. Now we know where Hartmut got his cunning and ruthless side from. I was quite sure that there was something wrong with Barthold for a while now, but now we have confirmation. I hope that Wilfried will pick up on the hints thrown his way, before Barthold can do any more damage, but I somehow doubt it. While I have confidence in Wilfried having a good heart, I don't have confidence in his ability to pick up anything other than the obvious... or even the obvious for that matter at times.
I'm glad for what Giebe Leisegang said to Wilfried. That was something that the boy sorely needed and that I wished someone said to him for a loooooong time. So much of Wilfried's failings could have been avoided by people telling him stuff directly, rather than complaining about his behaviour and lack of knowledge and consideration in his absence, including the very people who were supposed to raise him. So yeah, I really blame Florencia for his failed education (well, past the point when Veronica was imprisoned that is, before that she is clearly the culprint).
For starters, she didn't think to take back his education and care the moment Veronica was out of the picture, but needed to have Rozemyne provide the spark to finally get her moving weeks later, following him and Rozemyne trading positions for a day. And then after loudly proclaiming that she would personally take charge of her son's eduction, all we ever see her do is tell retainers to implement the changes Rozemyne came up with. While "under her care" we see Wilfried stumble and blunder time and time again and show barely any sign of improvement, with any noticable improvements in his behaviour coming from things Rozemyne did. What was she even doing all those years? She certainly wasn't too busy with taking care of Rozemyne's education to care for Wilfried, since we were outright told that she just assumed Elvira would take care of it, despite her fully well knowing that Rozemyne spent most of her time in the temple and Elvira did not (not to mention that she frequently met with Elvira, so she could have just brought the topic up with her, but apparently never did)... so she should have been able to see that clearly Elvira was not educating Rozemyne, not to mention that it would have been somewhat inappropriate for the baptismal mother to educate a daughter adopted by someone else.
Don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic toward Florencia, but when it came to Wilfried's and Rozemyne's educations, she really dropped the ball hard.
apparently Sylvester let it slip at some point that Rozemyne uses the temple for top-secret family meetings, but Flo doesn't know that Rozemyne has another family beyond Elvira
Ferdinand wants to do the last step...I wonder what that means. 🤔 Sounds like he has something up his sleeve.
Sounds like there was a trug incident. Not sure what the goal was though? Just to sow distrust? Testing a new batch?
More casual treason by Detlinde. Classic.
I don't understand how more people didn't immediately assume trug was being used. Given that a similar incident has happened twice now, that'd be my first inclination.
I wouldn't be so sure trug was involved. We've heard how brazenly treasonous Detline speaks, even in the presence of a member of the royal family (remember how Magdalena was ready to have her executed and could just barely contain herself after the meeting). So it wouldn't be too surprising if some Sovereign knights (maybe of Dunkelfelger origin, since they tend to be rather emotional for nobles) couldn't take the insults and saw red. Considering how Detlinde complained that also a member of the royal family, and not just knights, bared a weapon against her, I'm near enough sure that is what happened. Though after everything we've learned last volume, I wouldn't be surprised if the knights that lost their temper had been under the after effects of trug, contributing to their short fuse.
Alternatively, through far less likely, it might all have been a setup to get rid of those two knights that died specifically. Either they were getting too close to the traitor, or they were associates of the traitor, that a loyalist wanted to get rid of.
Which brings me neatly to Raublut: I'm still very unsure about him. On one hand we have been given plenty of reason to be suspicious of him, but at the same time we have been given almost too much reason to be suspicious of him. In most other franchises I would say, he is so obviously set up as the villain, that it's going to be a misdirect and he'll turn out to be loyal after all... but then we do have Georgine, Detlinde, Veronica, Bezewanst and more, who proof that oftentimes the obvious is just that, obvious in this story.
I can still see routes of him being either loyal or a traitor. We know that there is a traitor either within, or very close to the royal family. That traitor might be Raublut himself. Maybe he was never loyal to Waldifried, but was placed in his service as a sleeper agent by the first prince and complicit in the second princes death. Or he could be a traitor, exactly because of his loyalty. He was devoting his live to Waldifried and when his master was killed by no one less than the prince's own flesh-and-blood brother (well, half-brother anyway), Raublut became convinced that other than his dead master, the royal family is corrupt to the core and so he stated a long-term plan of wiping them all out.... maybe with the exception of Hildebrand, who's just too innocent to be considered corrupt.
Or on the loyalty side, he might be acting under his own initiative, without the permission or knowledge of the royal family, since he deduced that there is a traitor within the closest circles of the royal family, but he wasn't able to identify them yet, so he feels like he can trust nobody and needs to be suspicious of everyone.
I'm really looking forward to see, where this is going. It'd be especially satisfying, if he was loyal and ended up working with Ferdinand and Rozemyne, to lay the actual traitor low.
I had the hardest time figuring out the order when I saw the books. Does anyone know 1) where the anime leaves out (don't worry about "well you miss all this back story") and 2) what the numbering order of books are?
The series is divided into 5 parts so far. Each part has volumes inside of them. 3 seasons of anime covers part 1 and 2. So to continue you will need to start with Part 3 Volume 1. And you continue by reading Part 3 Volume 2 and so on.
Thank you!
[email protected] is correct, but if you want context for where the anime rests
Season 1 is Part 1 Volume 1-3 of the LN (handles it well but High Priest == High Bishop and Head Priest == High Priest)
Season 2 is Part 2 Volume 1-2 of the LN (the anime speeds these up quite a bit and you miss out on a few things)
Season 3 is Part 2 Volume 3-4 of the LN (the anime goes into top gear and blasts these volumes. I'd recommend starting here)
Season 3 ends with Myne going to her new home as described in Part 3 Volume 1.
That really helps spell it out. Thank you very much!