……I kind of wanted to read it, the Book of
As
……It's a goddess's book. What could it possibly be like? I was so looking forward to it. ……Wait, hold on? When people talk about the Book of Mestionora, isn't it usually the
Reality snapped back into the head that had been swept up by the temptation to read. The instant it did, a flood of rational concerns flooded in — that I should have contacted my guard knights before entering the shrine alone, that I shouldn't have approached a suspicious slate in the first place, and my actions looked utterly reckless from a level-headed perspective.
……Just like that bizarre experience at the goddess's bath during the night of Frütlrene.
Back then, too, I had strangely "forgotten" to contact my companions, and
……Let me calm down and think about this rationally.
If the Book of Mestionora turned out to be the Grutrissheit, obtaining it would be extremely problematic for me. I had no desire to obtain the Grutrissheit, nor did I want to become the Zent. If I didn't want to get tangled up in unnecessary trouble, the best course of action was to keep my hands off and stay silent.
But if I let this opportunity slip, I felt like I'd never get another chance to read a goddess's book. I wanted to read it. I wanted to read it so desperately. That feeling was impossible to deny.
……Besides, the royal family is searching for the Grutrissheit, aren't they? They'd want any lead they could get, no matter how small?
They were already frantically translating just from the information that the underground archive contained the knowledge needed to become the Zent. My experience here would be enormously valuable intelligence.
……Valuable was valuable, but could it be reproduced the same way?
I suspected that part of the light that had soared upward when the pillar of light appeared had become the blue slate. In other words, I would need to offer that many blessings and dedicate that much Magic Power to create a pillar of light. Could the royal family, already strained by supplying Magic Power to the central magic circle, manage to create pillar after pillar of light at the
……What if the royal family couldn't do it?
The first thing that came to mind — as someone who had always gotten by by offloading things she couldn't do onto others — was, "Why not just have someone who can do it handle it?" Someone capable should obtain the Grutrissheit. It would have been perfect if that someone weren't me.
……But if I obtained the Grutrissheit, what would the royal family do?
It would be ideal if I could simply hand it over to them after reading it, but even if Ferdinand had aimed for the throne, Ehrenfest would have had trouble backing him. The same applied to me. And Ferdinand had been ordered by royal decree to marry into
……I should provide information for the royal family's sake, but I'd be better off keeping quiet for my own. What on earth should I do?
I wanted to consult someone, but I couldn't think of anyone to ask. As I fretted with a murmured "hmm," I looked up and spotted blue lines running across the sky. Several beams of blue light were streaming from the shrine's roof.
"……What are those blue lights?"
"Which blue lights?"
Hildebrand and Hannalore both looked up toward where I was pointing and tilted their heads in confusion. They seemed completely unable to see the strikingly visible blue light. Not just the two of them — their attendants couldn't see it either, squinting and cocking their heads. No matter how insistently I pointed it out to people who couldn't see it, they wouldn't understand. I blinked several times and shook my head.
"……It seems I was mistaken. Perhaps the sunlight through the leaves blinded me when I looked up."
"It is rather bright, isn't it?"
Hannalore squinted up in the same direction as if bothered by the light. There were blue lines right there, but she clearly couldn't see them at all.
……What was at the other end of those blue lines of light?
As I gazed upward, straining my eyes, an ort flew in. The white bird that landed on Artur's arm and opened its beak was
"I wonder if you enjoyed getting some fresh air outside?"
When I returned to the underground archive, the Attendants had tea ready for me right away. I'd been wandering around outside and my throat was parched, so the tea was wonderfully refreshing. Over tea, I asked Magdalena how her time outside had been.
"Yes, Mother. Miss
"It was locked and we couldn't go in," Hildebrand added, reporting his outdoor activities to his mother. Magdalena smiled gently at her son and prompted him further: "If you couldn't go inside, how did you know it was a shrine?"
"Rozemyne said it looked like the entrance to Ehrenfest's
"Is that so. ……The rites at the Royal Academy turned out to have that much meaning. I suppose the shrine must hold some significance as well."
At Magdalena's murmured words, as if mulling it over, I wanted to say, "Oh, it holds an enormous significance." I avoided being too direct and instead offered bland information.
"I understand one has already been restored, but apparently my grandfather destroyed another shrine once as well. She mentioned it was in a remote part of the Royal Academy, so I think it must be different from the one we just visited. You wouldn't describe a location you can reach with a short walk from the library as 'remote,' would you?"
The area where the central building, the scholar building, the Attendant building, and the library were clustered was the heart of the Royal Academy. The term "remote" would be better suited to where the dormitories were scattered. I hoped this conveyed the information that other shrines likely existed. When I looked around at everyone, the message seemed to have come through clearly to Hannalore.
"Then perhaps there are other shrines or places of worship scattered about as well. Doesn't the royal family have a map of the Royal Academy? Or maybe keys or something…?"
"In the past, each duchy used to create their own maps showing their dormitory for the Diatta, but I've never heard of a map of the shrines managed by the royal family. We should ask Solange and the librarians at the Royal Library as well."
Magdalena said this. Come to think of it, Ferdinand's book on Diatta guidance probably had a simplified map of the Royal Academy. I should look it up once I returned to the dormitory.
"Lady Magdalena, what did you discuss with Lady
"……The person who declared herself the next Zent candidate was quite eccentric, to say the least — I was truly surprised. Well then, let's end the chatter here and get back to work. We don't have much time."
Whatever Detlinde had said must have been deeply unpleasant, because Magdalena smiled sweetly and called an end to the break.
……Even the First Wife of
Detlinde had made rude remarks at tea parties at the Royal Academy too, but those had been directed primarily at lower-ranking nobles, so she'd only gotten dirty looks. Now that Aub Ahrensbach had passed away and she was set to become the highest-ranking person in Ahrensbach, surely she wouldn't be so foolish as to be disrespectful toward a royal who outranked her — her attendants would never allow it.
But judging from how Magdalena had cut the conversation short, I was starting to feel deeply uneasy. Apparently Detlinde had declared herself the next Zent candidate right to the current royal family's faces. If Detlinde committed some gross act of disrespect against the royals, Ferdinand — who would become her husband — was highly likely to be implicated. I couldn't help feeling glad that the Star Binding had been postponed. As an engaged man who couldn't attend the Lord's Conference, Ferdinand wouldn't yet be held responsible for whatever Detlinde might pull here.
……Wait — should I maybe get my hands on the Grutrissheit sooner rather than later?
If I had the Grutrissheit, I could use it as leverage in a pinch: "I'll hand over the Grutrissheit, so please just return Ferdinand!" But if I had nothing, I wouldn't even get a seat at the negotiating table. I'd be reduced to watching helplessly as Ferdinand was dragged down by Detlinde's fallout.
……Would someone tell me I'm worrying too much again?
I pressed a hand gently against my chest. If Detlinde was the type who would repeat to Magdalena word for word what she'd said in the restricted archives, my fears could become reality before long. At least worrying silently to myself wouldn't earn me anyone's anger.
……The Book of Mestionora wasn't necessarily the Grutrissheit. It might be something needed to obtain the Grutrissheit, and even if it was the Grutrissheit itself, I doubted it could be obtained immediately. I should start searching for it for now.
I took paper and writing supplies from
……I need to find the locations of shrines whose positions I don't even know.
"Hey, Schwartz. Do you have any resources, like a map of the Royal Academy, that show where the shrines for offering prayers are?"
"I do."
When I asked somewhat casually, Schwartz produced numerous white slates. The slates Schwartz retrieved were scattered from the center of the bookshelf to the right side — exactly the area I had difficulty reaching with my left-to-top reading pattern.
"Thank you, Schwartz."
I patted Schwartz on the forehead and began examining the array of maps. The number of dots marking possible shrines varied dramatically between the roughly sketched maps and the detailed ones, so I couldn't tell where I was supposed to offer prayers. Besides, none of these maps showed the dormitories or landmarks for each duchy, making it impossible to tell where anything was. I'd have to copy everything and cross-reference it with the Diatta map once I got back to the dormitory. Even confirming the locations would take time.
"Rozemyne, we're done!"
"Hwah!?"
Startled as the slates were abruptly snatched away, I looked up to find my adoptive father handing a white slate to Schwartz.
"You truly lose all awareness of your surroundings when you're focused on books. Do you have any idea how many times I called your name?"
"……I don't know."
I watched my adoptive father's exasperated expression as he urged me to "hurry and pack up," then handed the completed modern language translation papers to Magdalena and folded the copied maps into my leather bag.
"So Father came to pick me up."
"Of course. I can hardly leave a pregnant Florentia alone inside this massive Magical Tool, can I?"
Apparently the underground archive, with its strong Magic Power screening, was considered a massive Magical Tool right from the restricted archives' doors onward. Since there was no telling what effect it might have on the child in the womb, he didn't want to bring my adoptive mother inside.
"If you have no intention of letting Mother into the library, will Father come to pick me up every day?"
"That's the plan. Come on, now."
Not understanding the meaning of my adoptive father's outstretched hand, I tilted my head in confusion. What on earth was I supposed to do?
"What are you spacing out for? Are you dissatisfied with my escort?"
"No, nothing of the sort. ……I simply didn't expect Father to escort anyone besides Mother."
"When Florentia is around, Florentia takes priority."
I reached out my hand to my adoptive father and left the archive with his escort. When ascending and descending the stairs, being treated with the same delicate care one would give a noble lady made me feel incredibly odd.
By the time we left the library, the sun was already slanting. I walked through the twilight corridor on my adoptive father's arm. During my Commoner days, I'd held hands before, but I had almost never walked with someone hanging onto their arm like this, and even after becoming a noble, I'd never walked this way outside of banquets.
……I had walked while gripping Grandfather's finger before, but that felt less like an escort and more like a serious mission. Besides, in Ehrenfest's castle you rode on a highbeast anyway.
"Rozemyne, is my escort really that unsettling?"
"……I'm simply not accustomed to this sort of escort, so it's a bit bewildering."
"Not accustomed? You must be used to it from Ferdinand and
My adoptive father looked surprised, but if anyone should be surprised, it was me. Neither of them had ever escorted me like this in daily life.
"Ferdinand doesn't escort me in everyday life. Ah, but when he walks too fast and I had to run and grab his sleeve, he did adjust his pace so I wouldn't fall over."
"Hah? That's it?"
Told "that's it," I racked my brain trying to remember everything Ferdinand had done for me.
"Um, when we shared a highbeast, he would lift me up and help me down. But that was because I couldn't get on or off alone due to my height…"
"……And Wilfried?"
"He does it at banquets. But in everyday life, not really… Oh, when I was heading to a lecture at the Royal Academy, he carried my heavy luggage into the lord's course classroom where attendants couldn't enter."
Even Hannalore had been surprised by that — people said he was a kind fiancé. At my words, my adoptive father's expression soured into a grimace.
"Normally you'd ride a highbeast in the castle, but what on earth is a fiancé doing escorting someone around at the Royal Academy?"
"Even so, I doubt there are many students at the Royal Academy who get escorted around in their daily lives."
"I did."
……He'd used escorting as an excuse to stick close to Lady Florentia, no doubt.
Please don't compare my desperate attempts to send Mother away with that, I thought — though I knew it was futile. Still, this level of attentive courtesy was something both Ferdinand and Wilfried would do well to learn from.
"Compared to Ferdinand and Wilfried, Father is remarkably courteous toward women. Honestly, I was surprised."
"On the contrary, I never imagined my own brother could be this hopeless. He handles banquets flawlessly, yet in everyday life he's utterly hopeless…"
"Ferdinand gets more and more rough the closer you get to him."
It wasn't just Ferdinand — I felt my adoptive father's own treatment of me could be pretty haphazard too. He did worry about incredibly fine details and was certainly kind, but his manner of handling people wasn't exactly refined. At my words, my adoptive father looked down at me with a complicated smile.
"What is it?"
"I was merely reflecting that there are things you can't understand without the passage of time."
"……I feel Father has been lacking in youthfulness lately."
"Whose fault do you think that is?"
……Mine? I'm sorry.
Nostalgically recalling how
"This might be something Father would rather not hear, but…"
"Something I don't want to hear but have to hear, I take it?"
My adoptive father prompted me forward with a reluctant expression. As we walked along with soft footsteps, I opened my mouth. Our Attendants were around, but this wasn't the sort of thing that required us to be alone.
"It seems a magic circle appeared during the Star Binding ceremony."
"Yes, and what about it?"
"I was too busy looking up and offering prayers to notice, but apparently it was the same magic circle that Detlinde lit up during her graduation ceremony — the one that selects the next Zent candidate."
It seemed
"I finally understand why the Central Temple, which wants a legitimate Zent, is desperately trying to revive the ancient rites. As the High Priest capable of reviving those rites, we may start receiving strange interference from the Central Temple going forward."
When I murmured this, my adoptive father gently patted the hand that clung to his left arm with his right hand.
"Don't worry. Your and Wilfried's engagement has the king's approval. And I have no intention of breaking it off."
……What happens if I obtain the Grutrissheit and acquire the qualifications to become the Zent? I want to be prepared to help Ferdinand in the worst-case scenario.
He was trying to protect me with everything he had, but my adoptive father had said he would treat Ferdinand as an outsider from another duchy — so I couldn't tell him that I myself had become a Zent candidate. Since I had no intention of becoming the Zent, I had no intention of telling him either.
Instead, I reported on Detlinde's visit to the underground archive and the conversation that had taken place in the restricted archives.
"I don't quite understand what Schlattraum flowers are, but apparently they can only be obtained in Ahrensbach. Also, there seems to be some connection between Ortensia's husband, the Commander of the Central Knights, and Lady
"I see."
"As for the silver cloth, Father will be contacting the royal family about that, correct? You might want to consider whether you can inform them with the Commander removed from the equation."
At my words, my adoptive father's expression grew serious. The Commander of the Central Knights was essentially a stranger to my adoptive father. He didn't know the man had been hostile toward Ferdinand or was the reason Ferdinand had been sent to Ahrensbach. Ferdinand had said he didn't intend to tell my adoptive father, and I wasn't confident I could explain without bringing up
"If it comes to it, perhaps you could inform the royal family through the archive when you come to pick me up — it would save time."
Back at the dormitory, I retrieved from the multipurpose hall's bookshelves a map that had once been used for Diatta from among the knight course materials. The adults were supposedly busy with preparations for the coming days, so I decided not to spread it out in the multipurpose hall and instead took it to my room.
"Lady Rozemyne, what are you up to?"
"There was a map in the underground archive showing where shrines like today's are located. But it was too sparse to pinpoint their exact positions, so I thought I'd cross-reference it with this map. Ah, this circle marks today's shrine."
"It's a little south of the library, so I'm sure that's correct. This one is a bit deeper behind the scholar building, and this one is even further behind the Attendant building…… Lady Rozemyne, doesn't it seem like the shrines are placed at roughly equal distances, centered around the central building?"
Leonore said this as she studied the map. I stared at it too. Now that she mentioned it, she was right. The slightly larger circles marking the shrine locations were positioned at nearly equal intervals closer to the center.
"The smaller circles are scattered throughout the entire Royal Academy."
"They're different sizes, so perhaps they represent different things."
"I'll report this in the underground archive tomorrow."
Saying this, I tidied up the map while thinking desperately. I wanted to visit these shrines during the Lord's Conference. But heading to places like this during winter at the Royal Academy was impossible.
……But how? Even if I said "I want to go," there was no way I actually could.
A minor who wasn't participating in the Lord's Conference wandering around the Royal Academy would be strange, and my Attendants would never let me go without a good reason. If I said something like "I want to obtain the Grutrissheit to help Ferdinand and read it myself first," I'd only be scolded.
The next day, when I went to the underground archive,
"I looked into the locations of the shrines. They appear to be positioned at nearly equal intervals around a circle centered on the central building. Doesn't that seem like it could be hiding a secret?"
As I spread out the map and gave my report, Anastasius said "Certainly suspicious" with wide eyes, looking down at the copied map.
"Let's have the Royal Library search for more detailed records as well."
"Prince Anastasius, I already contacted the Royal Library yesterday."
Magdalena appeared to be moving quickly to make the most of every scrap of gathered intelligence. Anastasius thanked her, then stood.
"I'd like to go see that shrine for myself first. If I don't know what it looks like, it'll be difficult to explain to Father."
"……Indeed."
Magdalena stood as well, and with Hildebrand as their guide, the royals set off to investigate yesterday's shrine.
Hannalore and I stayed behind in the underground archive to continue the modern language translations. With just the two of us, I felt incredibly at ease.
"I started reading the Fernestine story I borrowed yesterday. I couldn't stop and got scolded by
It seemed she'd stubbornly read up to the part where the prince jumped in to save Fernestine, and after that she'd been able to fall asleep feeling relieved — though she was curious about the rest.
"I'm looking forward to finishing it."
As we continued our translations, Anastasius and the others returned from the shrine. Eglantine, looking pale, stared at me as if wanting to say something.
"Is something the matter, Lady Eglantine?"
"Lady Rozemyne, I have something I'd like to consult you about. Would you have time?"
Asked by Eglantine and glared at by Anastasius, I gave a small nod.
"If there's anything I can do to help…"
It was a premonition of fraud. We never made it to the consultation.
Detlinde's behavior made Rozemyne anxious, wanting to get her hands on the Grutrissheit.
After looking at several maps, she managed to roughly pin down the locations of the shrines.
And then she receives a consultation from Eglantine, who had gone to see the shrine.
Next time, a consultation.