Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 7 Part 8
Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 7 Part 8
No sooner has Rozemyne’s fourth year at the Royal Academy begun than she ends up somewhere unexpected. How will the saint respond when an incident in Ahrensbach leaves everyone else feeling defeated?
I love how they worded aub Arinsbach was "taken care off" lol. I wonder if she used the same confetti trick on him to poof him out of the picture.
I do wonder aside from Landsinave what other Arinsbach nobles have to gain by following Georgines quest to take over Erinfest. Even if she achived her goal of revenge (killing Syl) wouldn't that put Airnsbach on a hitlist for other dutchies?
I wonder how much of Georgines retainers are from Landsinave versus from Arinsbach directly.
I'm getting the feeling that Wilfried was emotionally stunted from when he and Rozemyne swapped roles for the day back in part 3. I really wish someone would shake him for being suck an idiot though. Even royalty seem to be devolving. I hope to see him redeem himself during the war. Maybe even have a bit of romance develop between him and Hannelore
Actually Wilfried handled it better than Charlotte. He gave Sigiswald important info and made it clear that Ehrenfest wasn't too happy about the situation. Charlotte just sat there and did nothing. She still has too much bottom ranked duchy mentality.
Ironically the best would be a middle ground. Wilfried is too brash and no thinking about the consequences of his actions enough, while Charlotte is worrying so much about the consequences, that she's crippled and can't make any decision.
That being said, to me it feels less like Charlotte is caught in the mindset of a bottom duchy, and more like she based her entire worldview around Rozemyne and only Rozemyne for so long, that she's still in a prolonged state of shock, due to this pillar around which her entire world revolved suddenly being gone.
To me it seems like, with the exception of supporting her mother during the pregnancy, every single action Charlotte took ever since Rozemyne saved her, has been done to either be a stand in for Rozemyne in her absence, to try to catch up to Rozemyne or to be useful to Rozemyne. It's almost like she needs to re-learn to think for herself, without putting it in the context of Rozemyne.
Hartmut is making a public announcement of Rozemyne's disappearance in the dining hall, rather than talling the archduke candidates in private to let THEM make the decision of how to handle it? What are you doing?! Okay granted, at this point he already got the royals' seal for pretending Rozemyne was merely absent due to illness, but still, come on dude... even if Charlotte and Wilfried decide to let the other students know the details, this is neither your decision nor is it your place to make the announcement. Not to mention that by now he should be very aware that Rozemyne herself wouldn't want the attention and would much prefer to keep things at a minimum possible fuss.
If I had been Cornelius or Leonore, I'd have bound him up in bands of light, gagged him and dragged him to a private meeting room the moment he raised his hands.
I'm also starting to worry about Charlotte's ability to be a proper archduchess. She isn't even trying to reign in Hartmut and Wilfried and just let's things happen. This is one of the issues over which others - including herself! - rightrully critizices Wilfried, when he was still the successor and now she's doing the very same thing. How is she supposed to direct and entire duchy's worth of nobility, if she can't even be bothered to try to reign in one overzealous retainer and just lets her brother do all the negotiating and talking with Sigiswald, while sitting in the metaphorical corner, quietly panicking, but not doing or saying anything?
"We would need a way to divert his attention"... you are an archduke candidate and almost asured to be the future Aub. Just give him a freakin order to shut up and if he still doesn't, have your guard knights restrain him!
If the alternative wasn't Wilfried, I'd say Sylvester was right to not even give her the chance to compete. Right now she looks quite unqualified and she'll have to improve a whole lot to meet the requirements of being a proper Aub one day. I really like her as a person, but sympathy can't change the harsh reality of the situation. She really needs to step up her game, or she and all of Ehrenfest will suffer in the future. It feels like she can't even function without relying on Rozemyne anymore.
Were did the interim Aub come from anyway? I mean, considering how unsuitable she showed herself to be for the position, in her current state, in this chapter, I'm starting to think that Melchior might well be the better choice too, but this hasn't even been hinted at so far. In past volumes I got the impression that with Wilfried opting out of the race, Charlotte has the successor position near enough for sure. At least with Melchior, they still have plenty of time to properly raise and educate him to be a good archduke, while he's still in his formative years.
I hope that Charlotte will be able to overcome these issues, but if she can't, she really should not become Aub. She might cut it as the Aub of a lesser or maybe even regular middle duchy, but with the elevated circles among which Ehrenfest now moves, he inability to act and resist people like Wilfried and Hartmut are going to seriously bite her and by extension her duchy in the butt. It feels like ever since Rozemyne saved her, she dedicated her entire being to help Rozemyne and now has no clue what to do with Rozemyne gone.
That was interesting, seeing things from the Lanzeneve perspective. I'm glad that they don't care for the noble-culture of Yurgenschmidt either. I guess this time next week we're jumping in, meeting up with Justus and Eckhart, planning with them, and finishing up pre-battle plans!
They are however massive hyprocits. They complain about how merciless Yurgenschmidt nobles are, while being fully complicit in every single one of the merciless acts they complain about. Not to mention that Leonzio seems to not give too much of a crap about his country as a whole, but just seems to have remaining in the castle and jockying for position among the noble houses as his goals.
They even point out that the royal family is barely even needed for their country anymore and yet they are still perfectly happy to slaughter dozens or even hundreds of people just for their own convenience, while at the same time condemning others.
And here I thought Leonzio had alrady hit rock bottom the previous pre-pub release, but he managed to go even lower.
Glad we got some more insight into how Raublut fits into the picture. We knew he had some kind of tie in to Ahrensbach, but evidently it was really the king of Lanzenave where his true allegiance lied.
Now I'm much more worried about Hortensia. I thought she might have been pregnant and not in real trouble and that Raublut was merely a 'red herring' character, but not now. Her being a key holder to reach the Grutrissheit in the underground archive means she is a prime target for Leonzio and Detlinde's scheme. Glad the door needs three keys to open and am pretty sure that's not a door that can be overcome with silver cloth, but who knows. It also probably means that Raublut knows who the other key holders are and likely has some scheme in place to obtain Rozemyne and Hannelore's keys.
Also suspecting Raublut's involvement with the poisoning of the third prince. Not really sure why the current Zent decided to keep this guy around. Perhaps just a lack of nobles due to the purge, which Raublut was likely in favor of.
I was definitely wondering about Raublut and what role he'd play. Your comment does give me a little hope that Hortensia is still alive at least...
Partyway through reading these tow chapters, I started to think that Raublut was the father of the Lanzenave King, but it seems I was wrong on that account.
I too believed Raublut to be a red herring before. He was just too suspicious ironically. Then again, Kazuki sensei was far from suble when establishing Grausam, Georgine and Detlinde too, so I guess we really should have seen this coming XD. I too got immensely worried for Hortensia from reading the new release, but your post actually made me a bit more hopeful.
Lanzenave's side has mind controlling drugs, meaning it would be easy enough for them to make Hortensia open the archive for them. This means they have a good and solid reason to keep her alive, at least until she did that for them. If they kill her however, they run into several risks and problems. First of all, neither we, nor probably they, know if the archive keys have some contingencies built into them. It's entirely possible that should the wielder die, the keys are teleported to the archlibrarian rooms... rooms which only Hortensia is currently able to open, but which she surely locked, when returning to her home... with a key that was absorbed into her body and thus will not drop to the floor upon her death for certain. Or since they are tied to the library and an archive meant for royalty, either the library or the royal family might get an automatic alert upon the death of a keyholder, blowing their cover instantly. There's also the issue of ordonnanzes. If she is dead, no ordonnanzes can be sent to her and if anyone tried, they would become instantly aware of her death, leading to some uncomfortable questions for Raublut. But even if they are certain they can get the archive key from her, without setting off any alerts, it took Hortensia multiple days to dye it. So in my opinion it's probably far more benefitial and less risky for them to keep her alive, than to kill her... that is, IF they really need to get into the underground archive, which is likely, but not entirely certain.
But if they do, that would mean they will also need Rozemyne and Hannelore, since the archive only works when all three keys are used together.
Considering how Gervasio said that Valemaria's death was due to the laws of Yurgenschmidt, I have a feeling that she died as part of the purge and that Raublut's attempts to bring down the royal family started only at her death. Which means he might have proofen himself a capable and seemingly loyal retainer to Trauerqual, before going off the deep end. And once Trauerqual became a Zent with neither the necessary training, nor a Grutrissheit, he probably became so overworked and exhausted, he failed to notice any small slips in Raublut's facade that may have happened.
It would be quite interesting if he was put in a position, were he had to harm Hildebrand, but has grown so fond of the boy, that it is an actual struggle for him to decide whether to go along with this duty, or maybe even have this as his breaking point and abondon his Lanzenave master over it.
So the Adalgisa villa has no lockable door of it's own, to keep Ahrensbach from just barging into it at their leisure? oO Ahrensbach sure enjoyed massive trust in the distant past and a load of ignorance since then. Well, maybe not quite so much, if it really needs people on both ends to activate it, as they tell Leonzio, but even so that is still a rather massive risk. A single infiltrator or traitor is enough to open up a route of attack, in addition to the dormitory. And unlike the dormitories, this route is far more likely to be overlooked.
But the same goes both ways. If Rozemyne's strike team were to learn of the opening of this teleporter, and they could coordinate with someone loyal to Ferdinand, Strahl or Letizia within Ahrensbach (or somehow manage to trick Ahrensbach into believing one of Raublut's loyal subordinates wants to come through, to deliver an important message or something, to make Ahrensbach let them in on their own), they would have a route directly into Ahrensbach's noble quarters, rather than having to teleport to the country gate and travel over a stretch of open ocean, thus maximizing the moment of surprise by appearing right inside the perimeter, without a chance to be spotted from afar. Or they could do a pincer attack of their own. Wait for the ocean raid party to be spotted and Ahrensbach's defenses to get engaged with them, and then slip in the backdoor, while the majority of the guards are distracted with the party from the country gate, thus greatly reducing the resistance the second team has to face, to break through to the temple.
Rozemyne will likely only find out about this teleporter when she's already in Ahrensbach. But she would be able to just close it and cut the Lanzenave force in the Sovereignty off from their forces in Ahrensbach. Though Alstede would notice if the foundation is taken by someone else and could warn Lanzenave before the teleporter is closed. Or, if Alstede notices that the unexpected invaders wear Dunkelfelger colors and the foundation was taken far too quickly, she could try to save her skin by surrendering and giving Rozemyne all the info she has on Lanzenave and tell her how to shut down the teleporter.
Switching sides and pleading for mercy... I'm torn about this. On one hand it is the best chance she has for getting out of this more or less intact, but then again, Alstede probably only knows the official version of the civil war purge and thus likely believes Trauerqual to be utterly merciless, never having learned that he tried to avoid it, but couldn't stand up to his allies. On top of that, even if she was only following orders, she still defied direct orders of the royal family and conspired with foreign invaders and traitors to the crown, for which I strongly suspect the punishment to be death, or rather more likely the kind of erasure that Ferdinand enacted on the Hasse traitors.
This fear of being killed either way, might well make her fight to the bitter end. I hope that won't happen, but it would make absolute sense.
Then again, if she wanted to get gains on the pro-royals side, locking the teleporter gate and trapping the Lanzenave king in the Royal Academy and freeing Letizia would be pretty big pro-royal family deeds and might just be enough to earn some mercy. Even so I'm thinking more along the lines of life-long imprisonment in an ivory tower or some similar structure. But since the alternatives are deathes of varying levels of gruesomeness, that's probably still the preferable choice for her.