"So it didn't end without incident after all, huh..."
At dinner, the Chief Priest let out a sigh, to which
"I didn't understand what was wrong with the knight apprentices until I saw what happened today either. As
"Then how about going on a gathering expedition while protecting the apprentice civil officials? It would serve as practice for the knight apprentices, and the civil official apprentices could collect their own materials. Besides, I want the civil official apprentices to gain some sense of self-defense, or at least the awareness of being someone who needs protecting."
"What do you mean, Rozemyne?"
The Chief Priest looked at me as though he didn't quite understand. I explained the actions of the civil officials when the Grüon appeared.
"If they can't even do basic things like preparing their riding beasts in advance to be ready to move, holding their staffs at the ready, or at least following the orders of their escort knights, then the escort knights assigned to protect the lord's family will end up abandoning them when the time comes, because the civil officials are simply too unaccustomed to attacks. ...Getting accustomed to it is important."
"Hmm... You're right. When the Grüon appeared, Rozemyne was able to act remarkably calmly, beyond what I expected."
I had faced beasts numerous times during Ehrenfest's material collection expeditions. On top of that, I had been attacked on several occasions, so while it wasn't pleasant, I was growing accustomed to acting alongside escort knights.
"In addition to the knight apprentices, we should also train the civil official apprentices to the point where they won't be a hindrance... We should probably prioritize the civil officials serving the lord's family first."
"Bonifatius, you're welcome to train the knight and civil official apprentices, but the knights' order should search the forest first to see if there are any other magical beasts that need exterminating beyond the Grüon. If we're going to be saddled with that much dead weight, it'll be a problem when a powerful beast shows up."
Following the Chief Priest's words, the knights' order spent several days searching the forest, and the apprentice training was put on hold for those days.
After the break, it was decided that the civil officials would also participate in the training. When
During the days of training break, I decided to make recovery potions in the castle workshop together with my retainers. The Chief Priest served as supervisor. Incidentally, I also showed them how to reduce a boiling concoction and taught my retainers the fourth stage of Magic Power compression.
As expected, noble young masters and ladies apparently had never cooked for themselves, as it seemed this was their first time watching the process of boiling something down over fire. They watched with great interest as the water content decreased and the bulk shrank.
"Lord
"There are potions whose effectiveness increases when reduced, but it's not very common, apparently."
It seemed that most of their work involved mixing ingredients in a blending pot with Magic Power, and they rarely if ever boiled things down. At the very least, it didn't seem to be within the scope of what was taught in lectures.
...Teaching first-years the potion-making method of something that isn't very common, as an image of Magic Power compression. No, well, they were probably just teaching their own method in case it served as a reference for others.
After teaching everyone the fourth stage of Magic Power compression, I also decided to teach Philine the method of Magic Power compression. As a lower noble with the lowest baseline Magic Power among my retainers, she would need to put in considerable effort.
Money wasn't an issue since I had earned some at the Noble Academy, but I hesitated a little over what to do about Contract Magic. It would be too expensive to use a country-wide Contract Magic on Philine alone. So, just like with
In that manner, with my retainers going to and from their training sessions, making recovery potions using collected materials—including those for the civil officials in training—practicing feshpiel, embroidering Schwartz and Schwarz's clothing with Lieselota and Brünhilde patterns, fielding various questions from Hartmut about blessings, and doing rehabilitation exercises, the time for the Lord's Conference to come to a close arrived.
"Welcome home."
"You all came to greet me together, I see."
Looking at Wilfried,
The Chief Priest had been summoned to the Noble Academy dormitory several times, and key figures like
"Welcome home, Father."
"Oh, I just got back. You look well, Rozemyne."
When I called out to my father, who had accompanied them as Commander of the Knights' Order, he showed a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. He looked far more tired than my adoptive father. Had something happened?
Worried, I looked up at him, and my father urged me, "After this, escort knights, attendants, and civil officials will be returning in succession, so leave your room."
The next day, I headed to the conference room where the report session would be held, together with Wilfried and Charlotte. Apparently, the lord's family had to attend the report session at the Lord's Conference starting from the age when they entered the Noble Academy, because the results of the Lord's Conference had a significant impact on their Academy life.
Since I had been absorbed in Ehrenfest, I had not attended the previous report session, and this would be Charlotte's first winter at the Noble Academy, so this was our first time participating.
"This year's ranking must have been decided, right? I'm looking forward to it."
Wilfried walked with a confident smile, saying, "We should have moved up from last year." I answered from atop my riding beast, "I hope so." Charlotte walked with a tense expression and few words, clearly nervous for her first report session. We arrived at the conference room.
It was a meeting where the lord's family and their retainers, the knights' order, and the upper echelons of the civil officials gathered. In the packed conference room, once everyone took their assigned seats, the civil officials and attendants began to move. After everyone's preparations were complete, the Lord and Lady entered.
"We will now conduct the report on the Lord's Conference. This year, due to significant changes, there are more items to report than usual. Ehrenfest's influence will likely continue to grow, and we will undergo further changes going forward. We must seize this opportunity to raise our ranking as much as possible. I earnestly request everyone's cooperation."
The report session began with those words from my adoptive father. First, his civil official announced this year's ranking. Ehrenfest was in tenth place. At the next Noble Academy, they would use the tenth door and room. This was said to be the highest ranking Ehrenfest had ever achieved.
"Our Academy performance has improved considerably. Honestly, based on Academy performance alone, our ranking would have been even higher."
However, compared to their Academy performance, the number of people sent to the central government was small, and while they had begun to set trends, Ehrenfest's influence was still low. As a result, the duchy's ranking settled at tenth.
"If our dealings with merchants coming from other duchies go well this year, we should be able to raise our ranking even further next year. It is essential to conduct smooth transactions while ensuring that trends don't remain mere fads, but rather become established and spawn new trends."
From my adoptive father's passionate speech, I gathered that some duchy had likely made a snide remark like "Ehrenfest's trends are nothing but a passing fad." They had never had a spectacular trend before, so it was understandable that people would think that. Especially duchies with similar rankings or those that Ehrenfest had surpassed this year would be tempted to say so.
However, those words had apparently stung my adoptive father's competitive nature. With a stern expression, he surveyed the conference room and clenched his fist firmly.
"Ehrenfest is currently developing new types of paper one after another, and preparations for the printing industry are underway. We will use this as our weapon to aim even higher!"
Applause broke out around him at my adoptive father's declaration. Ehrenfest, long dismissed as a backwater duchy, had been slowly climbing the ranks over several years, and now had risen from thirteenth to tenth. The older people who knew Ehrenfest's history of always languishing at the bottom smiled with evident pleasure.
"To maintain this ranking, I want you all to continue striving to maintain your performance, with the lord candidate students at the Noble Academy taking the lead. Improving performance requires not only the efforts of our children, but also the cooperation of us adults. Explain this in detail, Ferdinand."
The Chief Priest, who had my adoptive father's gaze directed at him, nodded once and stood up. Then he turned his gaze to everyone in the conference room.
"When I heard from the lord candidates about the Noble Academy, it seems that after the purge, many teachers were replaced and the curriculum underwent significant changes. The biggest change appears to be in the knight apprentice curriculum, where Treasure-stealing Ditter was replaced with a speed-based Ditter."
Using the inter-duchy competition—something visible to everyone—as an example, the Chief Priest explained in detail how the curriculum changes affected what students learned, and the state of the knights who had recently graduated from the Academy.
"Currently, to bridge this gap, the knights' order is conducting special training for newcomers and knight apprentices. Since it no longer involves Treasure-stealing Ditter, the distance between civil officials and knights has also widened considerably."
He kept in mind how the entire duchy had worked together on things like Magical Tool installations and recovery potion production in the past, and requested that each department train their newcomers.
The civil officials seemed to have noticed the changes among newcomers as well, nodding with understanding. It appeared that Treasure-stealing Ditter, which had been abolished due to insufficient personnel in small duchies, had been quite important educationally.
"Now, allow me to report on the newly decided trade agreements. The trading partners for the new trends have been finalized with the Central Government and
The report by the civil officials began.
It seemed that the appeal for trends had been fairly successful at the Lord's Conference as well. Hair ornaments, Rinshen, Plant Paper, new recipes for banquets, and the sale of quatre-quarts recipes to duchies that couldn't trade directly were all apparently well-received.
"I delivered the verification paper that Lady Rozemyne named to two duchies. The civil official should have already handed the remaining half of the verification paper to the commercial guild's Guild Master, to ensure proper handling of the merchants from other duchies who will be arriving."
...Ah, they had said Nansei-paper was problematic because the material name was too prominent, but in the end it became verification paper.
"Many duchies expressed their desire to trade next year as well. Therefore, we are considering expanding the workshops to increase our trading partners as much as possible. We also need to discuss matters regarding the commercial guild."
At the civil official's plan to aggressively expand workshops while other duchies were interested, I sensed trouble for the lower town and hurriedly spoke up.
"Um, since the production method for Rinshen isn't that difficult, if we expand too many workshops, there's a high possibility that when other duchies can produce it themselves, the workshops will become unnecessary, leading to a large number of people losing their jobs. Besides the items we're expanding this time, there are other things we'll be introducing as trends from Ehrenfest, so there's no point in only expanding Rinshen workshops or only expanding hair ornament workshops. Please be careful not to create a situation where a massive number of unemployed people appear a few years from now."
The civil official looked puzzled at my opinion.
"If there are other things to introduce as trends, then when the Rinshen trend ends, can't we just have the Commoners make something new?"
Indeed, if the Rinshen production method spread to other duchies and sales dropped, they would have to switch to making something else. But changing jobs so easily was not something people could do.
"Saying 'this job is gone, so go do another job' is easy to say, but not easy to do. If you, as a civil official, were told 'your job as a civil official is gone, so go work as a knight starting tomorrow,' could you perform adequately as a knight? Sure, it might work for a different kind of civil official work, but something entirely outside their expertise—they simply cannot do it. It's the same for the people in the lower town, so please take that into account when deciding on workshop expansion."
"...Understood."
The civil official slowly nodded as he watched me resolve to do my best to act as a protective barrier for the lower town.
"Next, the application of greatest interest to Ehrenfest—the engagement of Wilfried and Rozemyne..."
At my adoptive father's words, the atmosphere in the conference room instantly tightened. The increase or decrease of influence between factions was, in a sense, the issue that affected their lives the most. It was clear that everyone was listening more intently to this than they had to the duchy ranking discussion.
When we needed to unite as a duchy to handle all sorts of things, it always came back to faction wars, and I couldn't help but sigh. In the Noble Academy, it had been possible to redirect attention toward competing with other duchies instead of internal faction struggles, which made me feel this even more.
...I wish I could somehow get everyone to look outward the same way they did at the Academy and unify Ehrenfest to some degree.
While more than half the nobles who hadn't attended the Lord's Conference watched with bated breath, my adoptive father slowly surveyed the conference room with his deep green eyes before speaking.
"The King's approval has been granted. This means the engagement is now official. Anyone who objects should understand that objecting to this is the same as objecting to the King's decision."
With this,
...I don't think there's any room for internal fighting within Ehrenfest, though.
"Furthermore, regarding engagements that have received the King's approval, there is one more matter to report. Prince
Anastasius and Eglantine had apparently received approval for their engagement without issue. They would be governing the central domain that had been absorbed and expanded due to the purge. I understood that they would retain their royal status in order to handle the magical tools, effectively becoming central pawns.
I now understood that Anastasius had stepped back from the succession for the next king, but what kind of impact would that have?
As I pondered this, I noticed that the people around me showed expressions that suggested they weren't thinking about it at all. Perhaps it was because the movements of the royal family hadn't greatly affected their lives until now, or perhaps compared to our engagement, their interest was simply lower.
"Additionally, this too concerns an engagement. Following a proposal from
The conference room buzzed with murmurs. Ahrensbach's noble, Baron Bindewald, had entered Ehrenfest's city without permission, attacked me and the Chief Priest, and Bindewald's personal soldiers had gone on a rampage. Because of this, Ehrenfest had thoroughly cut off all interaction with Ahrensbach.
And now, the Aub Ehrenfest, who had been rejecting marriage applications on the grounds of a Magic Power shortage, had brought up marriage with an Ahrensbach noble—naturally, this was shocking.
"Since some time has passed since the initial application, the earliest possible timing was requested, so at the end of this summer, two brides will arrive from Ahrensbach."
My adoptive father's eyes as he said this seemed to darken. The congratulatory news didn't sound at all like a joyous occasion, probably because Ahrensbach had forced the arrangement. If a higher-ranking duchy told you to send two brides, I didn't think you could refuse.
...Especially since we had refused trade this year.
It was likely a strategic move looking ahead to next year's trade. And they were almost certainly infiltrators seeking intelligence on Ehrenfest's internal affairs. As Lamprecht's bride, she would be in a position to gather abundant information on the Knight Commander, Mother who oversees the printing industry, Wilfried, and me, his younger sister.
...No wonder Father looked so haggard when he returned.
It seemed like the situation had become quite dire. Lamprecht, too, didn't look able to celebrate his marriage with unbridled joy.
According to my adoptive father, because the marriage was being conducted at the Aub Ahrensbach's proposal, and because while Freuden's bride was a mid-noble, Lamprecht's bride was the Aub Ahrensbach's niece, after considering the tension between the duchies, it was decided that relatives from both sides along with both lord families would gather at the duchy border, where a simple ceremony would be held on the spot.
"Lamprecht, Freuden, their siblings, and the High Priest and Chief Priest should prepare accordingly."
Unlike Lamprecht, whose face clouded over, I could see several faces around the room brightening with joy. These were members of the former Veronica faction and those who desired interaction with Ahrensbach. Not only had their leader disappeared, but trends and Magic Power compression had been gradually eroding the former Veronica faction's influence—yet through this marriage, they would likely be revitalized. The faction wars within Ehrenfest would surely reignite.
...I want to raise Ehrenfest's ranking quickly. The pressure from above is genuinely annoying.
Just thinking about how Ehrenfest's internal affairs would become turbulent again due to Lamprecht's marriage left me with nothing but a sigh.
The report session ended, and the murmur returned to the conference room. There had truly been many reports, and it was clear that Ehrenfest was undergoing significant changes.
Everyone left the room with bright expressions.
"Rozemyne, Ferdinand, you two will move to my office. I have things to discuss with the High Priest and Chief Priest."
The Chief Priest and I were called by my adoptive father and moved to the Lord's office. Our retainers trailed along behind us.
In my adoptive father's office sat a magnificent book with a letter on top of it. While my eyes were captivated by the book, my adoptive father narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at it.
"This is something entrusted to us by
...Lady Hannalore, I love you!
While I trembled with emotion, Hartmut and Philine carefully wrapped the book in cloth that the civil officials had prepared.
"I will now discuss the Star Binding ceremony briefly. Retainers are not needed for a discussion about the ceremony. Please step back a little."
The room was cleared of people, and not only my retainers but also my adoptive father's retainers departed the office. The only ones remaining were the four of us: my adoptive father, my father, the Chief Priest, and me.
The door clicked shut, and as the sound of shuffling footsteps faded away, my adoptive father slumped limply against his desk.
"Adoptive father?"
"I'm exhausted, Rozemyne. I've never been so tired at a Lord's Conference. It was far more difficult than my first Lord's Conference."
He had been encouraging the civil officials with a lordly dignity, saying that being busy was a sign of Ehrenfest's rising status, and had apparently refrained from showing a tired expression or complaining—but once the retainers were gone, his switch had flipped.
Gone was his lordly demeanor from moments before. He pressed himself against the desk and began whining, "I don't want to do this anymore."
"Ferdinand had advised me to obtain the King's approval for the engagement before finalizing the trend trade agreements, and I'm so glad I followed that advice. Klassenberg was offering to make Rozemyne the second wife of their next lord.
It seemed like it had been an incredibly precarious balancing act.
Klassenberg, who knew through Eglantine that I controlled trends and could compose music, had apparently offered to make me the second wife of their next lord.
"I couldn't help but think—as expected of a major duchy. With barely any prior contact, they recognized Rozemyne's uniqueness and tried to bring her in..."
My father shook his head, saying that just standing behind
"When exactly and how did we become close with Drewanchel? It didn't seem to appear in
"We had virtually no contact with Drewanchel. I was introduced to Lady Eglantine at a tea party we hosted, and that's where our interaction began. Now that Lady Eglantine has graduated, I expect our interactions will increase going forward."
There was an older sister named
"I see, they'll increase..."
My adoptive father's shoulders drooped as he let out a heavy sigh.
"Drewanchel is a land where civil officials are highly skilled and they frequently produce unusual Magical Tools. The
They had apparently been endlessly curious about who created it and how, and had asked for it to be transferred to them. Since examining the verification paper would reveal its materials, they had deflected by saying, "It's still rare in Ehrenfest, so this time we only brought enough for the Central Government and Klassenberg."
"Since you didn't gain much information at the Lord's Conference, I expect Drewanchel's contact will increase at the Noble Academy."
"...Is it a problem if we get along?"
"No, it's better to get along. Klassenberg, Dunkelfelger, Drewanchel—it's important to maintain good relations with all of these duchies. Can you do that?"
When asked "Can you do that?" I, who had been told over and over that I was lacking in social skills, couldn't possibly answer with a confident "Yes." But I couldn't say "No" either, so I kept my mouth shut. The Chief Priest tapped his temple lightly with a fingertip.
"Ahrensbach is sending two brides, and since we don't know how Ahrensbach will act from here on, it's better to have more information sources and powerful allies. You should never let your guard down around those you consider allies, but..."
The Chief Priest's words made my adoptive father nod deeply.
"Rozemyne, what you need to be especially careful about is Dunkelfelger, who has your weakness—books. The Aub Dunkelfelger personally brought over the promise to lend Rozemyne books, and is using the daughter-to-daughter relationship of exchanging valuable books as leverage to request next year's trade. The Dunkelfelger lord candidate is quite the strategist."
My adoptive father said I should be on my guard, since they clearly knew that baiting me with books would work.
Whether such schemes were being hatched behind
"I love Lady Hannelore, who shares my passion for books, and as a second-year I plan to wear matching armbands with her and participate in library committee activities together—how should I be careful about that?"
When I tilted my head, my adoptive father's eyes widened for a moment before he clutched his head and groaned.
"Rozemyne has already fallen into their hands... Major duchies are terrifying."