OH MY GOD I screamed. I actually screamed when I read the last line. As Rozemyne took Ferdinand’s name and gave out an order to live. The fact that it’s not next monday yet makes me so sad I need to know what happens next! I need to see her take the foundation and reunite with Ferdinand!
Such a powerful line. I loved this part from start to finish honestly.
Justus is more ruthless than I thought. Poor Letizia – we get that straight up horror show last volume, and now the people who are ostensibly “on her side” (well, moreso than anyone else in Ahrensbach anyway) are ready to kill her. And she’s just a kid!
I’m sure that’s nothing that an actual explanation with more detail than “yes, she was the one who poisoned Ferdinand, but she was used as a pawn” can’t correct. Or seeing how Ahrensbach is treating her for that matter. I’m sure even Eckhart will be able to easily control his dark urges, once he sees this sobbing mess of a girl in a prison cell, or chained on a ship bound for Lanzenave.
That being said, Rozemyne couldn’t have chosen a worse way to word it, if she tried. Used as a pawn implies that Letizia knew what she was doing, which definitely was not the case. She at the very least should have said that the girl was tricked into it, or better yet, make it clear that Letizia had no clue she had been turned into a walking land-mine.
I don’t know what “used as a pawn” means in Ehrenfest or even Japanese, but I understand that phrase to mean that the person had no agency, possibly neither control nor knowledge, about their actions or how they might affect others.
Not to mention, this girl is not even old enough to go to school yet. Of course she is easily manipulated and fooled by someone experienced in human manipulation.
But Rozemyne doesn’t know what Letizia did or the circumstances behind it like we do. For all she knows Letizia knew what she was doing right?
Sure Rozemyne doesn’t have all the information we do, but she did see Letizia’s instant reaction, which should make it very clear that the girl had no idea that whatever she did would hurt Ferdinand.
So after all this time we know what happen with Lutz and Myne all the way back. He recievied her last will.
The action and change of plans accelerate faster and faster. I wonder how Hannalore is going to get entangled in whole mess as she is on the cover.
I gotta admit, it’s kinda funny how Rozenmyne perceived Ferdinand’s Last Will as, “I MUST GO SAVE HIM,” while the letter he sent through Justus was basically the opposite, “DON’T DO ANYTHING, YOU FOOL”.
To be fair to Rozemyne, when Ferdinand wrote the letter, he wouldn’t have known that Georgine is already poised for striking Ehrenfest and that she has a way to take their foundation. Nor would he have known that Rozemyne likewise has a way to steal Ahrensbach’s foundation and would be able to get Dunkelfelger on their side for the assault on top of getting permission from the royal family to go through with the attack… well technically we haven’t heard the royals actually giving that permission yet, but with how much the royals want to get rid of Detlinde and how much they stand to gain from this, I think that’s just a formality.
Nor would he have known, that Ahrensbach would be so considerably weakened, by the slaughter that Georgine and Detlinde have planned for any noble who’s not following them unconditionally. This slaughter is planned for the exact same night, in which Rozemyne plans to launch the assault. So in the worst case, Ahrensbach’s defenses will be in weakened and in disarray, and in the best case there will be Ahrensbach nobles, who realized they are on the chopping block, but are still alive and thus will likely ally with the attacking force, further bolstering the strength of the attackers.
Ironically rember during the Santa (Bezewazz) incedent he mentioned Myne should have completely terminated him. I guess Roz took a page on that. Just at the scale of another dutchy … 🫠
I guess that noble education is finally paying off, sort of… The only other noble one we know that wants to take another duchy is Georgine 🙃
Nobles education but with the common sense of an other worlder + commoner.
I rember Syl + Wilfred justifying it as meh judt another grenlin rampage.
Even Dunk its partially due to her gremlin ways they got on board.
I almost feel bad for Georgien. A plan for nobles falls by a single book obsesed gremline
🫠
Georgine has no idea how ridiculous our little bookworm can be. How bold and unpredictable. She doesn’t have noble commonsense, and because of that, now imbued with the largest single knowledge-base of the country, can plan and execute a takeover of a duchy in a single day. She never even made an appointment ahead of time!
I really don’t think this whole counterattack has anything to do with Rozemyne’s weirdness or being a former commoner. The only difference between her thinking and that of most normal nobles is, that she wants to take the Ahrensbach foundation to save Ferdinand, while other nobles would do it for the sake of becoming the new Aub themselves. But there’s got to be plenty of nobles who would jump at the chance to steal a foundation for themselves, if they believe they have good chances of pulling it off and getting away with it.
In that sense, Georgine has only herself to blame, for losing her current support base, because she personally made it so that Ehrenfest has the means to steal Ahrensbach from under her butt, by switching the keys.
I guess you could say Rozemyne’s weirdness saved the day in so far, that it led to her having the Grutrissheit and the connection with Ferdinand, which gave her the necessary tools to set the assault up, but I think many nobles with the same information and means as Rozemyne, would have done the same as her, though as I said before, for their own benefit, not to save Ferdinand.
Oh no I never intended to imply this was a result of Rozemyne, but instead that Rozemyne’s going to always exist beyond her expectations.
It’s clear to me that she’s always wanted Ehrenfest’s foundation since Sylvester took the role of Aub from her. This is her trying to take that which she believes should belong to her. I think it’s interesting how uninterested she is in Ahrensbach though; is there something particularly special about Ehrenfest, or is she driven by sentimentality and spite for her mother and Sylvester?
I’m really looking forward to the next two weeks’ chapters as we meet with allies and begin our first steps into the oncoming war. And like, GG @ Kazuki for having left us hanging on this plot thread since Rozemyne first met Georgine back in Part 3, and even incorporating the theft of the Bible in Part 3 as well. She’s been writing the long-game for us, but Georgine’s already waited, what, 15 years since being married out of Ehrenfest? I’m really excited to see what this battle holds, but I hope none of Rozemyne’s beloved retainers are lost in the process. Thank goodness for Rozemyne’s overpreparedness with potions.
I would imagine that Lutz got a far less detailed version (just a momentary flash really), because he isn’t a mana wielder. Either that or it was because the Trombe was sucking out Myne’s mana. After all, the “transmission” did cut off from Ferdinand too, when the mana began being sucked out of him.
I love the cover and where it suggests the story is going!
Justus’ point of view - wow, that was very welcome and it surprised me how powerfully it landed with me.
And then when Justus and Rozemyne get to confer - them coming together with resources and ideas is as fabulous as I had hoped. And high praise from Eckhart!
Of course Rozemyne is not going to start following Ferdinand’s instructions now. Sylvester’s amusement at the prospect of Ferdinand dealing with the mess she’s about to make… I look forward to that too.
The “You fool” counter only gets higher
Time for dinner and gathering permission slips from the knights. Love seeing Rozemyne’s entourage get their assignments and some strong words of support from everyone.
Judith: “Can I go invade another duchi?”
Judith parents: “Heck NO”
Random Dunk Knight: “Can I go invade another dutchi?”
Random Dunk parents: “Why?”
Random Dunk Knight: “I want to play Ditter”
Random Dunk parents: "Makes sense, have fun " immediatly approves request 🏈
I thought it was a curious break in security to allow Judithe to ask her parents anything.
True, but then again, not much of a risk.
Her family are loyal to Giebe Kirnberger who in turn is loyal to Ehrenfest, Kirnberger is almost as far aways from the Ahrensbach border as you can get, so if you combine the distance with how tight the timing until the attack is, even if somehow the information is leaked, there’s near enough no chance of it arriving in Ahrensbach in time to make a difference.
Giebe Kirnberger would find out in a couple hours when they use the gate.
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I wonder why they would go to Kirnberger. They have a teleporter to the Royal Academy right in the castle. Taking that detour to use the Zent teleporter in the country gate, is going to cost them hours. Is Rozemyne expecting that Ahrensbach is going to ambush them between their and the Dunkelfelger dormitories? I mean as the 6th, their door would between Dunkelfelger’s and Ehrenfest’s, so I guess it’s not entirely out of the question… but it is such a remote possibility, that I don’t think it’s worth several hours of detour.
I don’t really understand what you’re proposing. Assuming they had permission to take an assault force through the Sovereignty, Rozemyne and co. could meet up with Dunkelfelger’s knights quickly in the Royal Academy, but then what? I’m just not really understanding how they would get from the Royal Academy to Ahrensbach.
When Rozemyne visited Kirnberger a couple of books back, the Giebe explained a few details about the country gates. First of all they are pairs, an outer one controlled by the Zent and an inner one controlled by the local Aub. Every one of the outer country gates has a teleportation circle that connects it directly with the Sovereignty, so the Zents can go directly to the gate in question, and don’t have to bother the local Aub, or travel through multiple duchies, everytime they want to lock or unlock a country gate.
That is almost asuredly why Rozemyne became so interested, when she heard that Ahrensbach already unlocked their inner gate, because it means they can teleport right there, and not only have less distance to cover to reach Ahrensbach’s capital, but they can do so flying solely over uninhabited ocean, as opposed to going through Dunkelfelger’s duchy gate, from which they would have to cross over multiple Giebe controlled provinces, and thus would have had considerably more chance of being spotted early and attacked by the local knights, serving the Giebes, long before they reached their destination. Of course there are Lanzenave ships going to and fro down on that ocean, but as we’ve learned the previous volume, Lanzenave mana-wielders can’t use Ordonnanzes and whatever communication method they use instead, does not work in Yurgenschmidt. So the attackers could easily subdue the ships, or just bypass them by flying too high for their weapons to reach them and without having to worry that a warning might get through to the capital, before they themselves arrive there. This in turn means they can preserve the element of surprise pretty much until they are in direct visual range of the city
So yes, they could go to Kirnberger to use the country-gate’s teleporter to go to the Sovereignty… but why, when they have a teleporter right in the archduke’s castle?
I just assumed Rozemyne was going to teleport from Kirnberger directly to Dunkelfelger then directly to Ahrensbach there by bypassing the Sovereignty completely and not needing to get permission or the royal family’s involvement. And though I imagine it would be convenient for the Zent to have a teleporter connecting each country gate to the Sovereignty, I see no mention of that in the books at all.
The Zent had the power to create teleportation circles between duchies—and, since the country gates existed outside of the aubs’ borders, he probably hadn’t even needed their permission to make them. - P5V4 (Kirnberger’s County Gate)
We know that you can create a teleporter between duchies, as long as you have both Aub’s cooperation, which they have, so there is no need to make a country gate to country gate connectoin between Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest. With both Aub’s cooperation, they can just make the connective points literally anywhere in their duchies, so why bother going all the way to Kirnberger, when they can just make one in the castle? Going from country gate to country gate would bypass permissions they already have and add a lot of unnecessary distance they’d need to travel, especially in case of Dunkelfelger. Their country gate is near enough at the westernmost point, while Ahrensbach is to their east. With how wide Dunkelfelger is from west to east, going via the royal academy is bound to be faster than going via the country gates.
I don’t have my books with me right now, so I can’t check, but I am absolutely certain Giebe Kirnberger did mention those teleportation circles between the country gates and the Sovereignty. I’ll check once I get home.
Creating an interduchy teleporter to Dunkelfelger’s border with Ahrensbach would have been a fast travel option, but there are some reasons it may have been unfeasible.
- It would have also required the King’s approval
To prevent assassinations and ambushes, only the archduke could place the kinds of teleportation circles used to transport people—and these circles were limited to travel within the duchy. Those used to cross duchy borders, such as the ones that provided access to the Royal Academy, required the king’s approval. - P4V9 (Finding the Book)
- The teleportation circles would have to be created by the archdukes themselves
Human teleportation was so consequential that only aubs could make and operate the means to it. - P5V4 (Archducal Family Meeting)
- Teleportation circles require materials to make. Possibly proportionate to the size of the circle.
“What a waste…” I muttered on instinct. Making teleportation circles required a variety of materials. - Matthias P4V9 (Out of Time)
Just the time to make the teleportation circles may have prevented it from being an option considering all the things both archdukes need to do to prepare. Rozemyne intended to ask Aub Dunkelfelger to place teleporters between the country gate and the gate bordering Ahrensbach until Justus informed her that Ahrensbach’s border gate near the country gate was open. This probably would have been a problem considering the above mentioned issues.
I’d assumed the border gate in question would be closed, so I’d planned to ask Aub Dunkelfelger to place teleporters between his country gate and the border gate he shared with Ahrensbach. - P5V8 (Their Information and Name Stones)
Geibe Kirnberger mentions the teleportation circles within each country gate, but I don’t see any mention of those being connected to the Sovereignty.
“There’s no need to worry about that,” Giebe Kirnberger cackled. “To my knowledge, there are teleportation circles within each gate. They can be used only by Zents wielding the Grutrissheit.” - P5V4 (Kirnberger’s Country Gate)
I noticed something interesting today while reading through “Royal Academy Stories - First Year” again:
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. - Judithe
Considering Justus and Eckhart arrived a little after 6th bell, then ate dinner, chatted, and made a name swearing box, it’s probably nearing 7th bell. Pretty sure midnight would be 8th bell, but not positive. That certainly doesn’t leave a lot of time to get to Kirnberger. Since Judithe mentioned it takes a day by highbeast, perhaps Rozemyne planned a different way of getting to Kirnberger.
We’ve seen Clarissa and her knight go all the way from Dunkelfelger’s capital to Ehrenfest in a single day, which is multiple times as much distance as Kirnberger and Ehrenfest are apart, by just going ham on pouring mana into their highbeasts for maximum speed and downing loads of rejuvenation potions.
When Judithe estimated a full day on highbeast, she probably considered a more reasonable, non-emergency pace with occasional breaks to eat along the way and either no, or just very light use of rejuvenation potions. Also that was before she got the Rozemyne mana compression, if I remember correctly.
