Zent and Grutrissheit

"Were the royal family truly that foolish and shameless...?"

Ferdinand rose to his feet, his lips curling into a frightening smile as his body swayed. When I felt the urge to shout, "Royal family, run away now!", Ferdinand's gaze fixed upon me.

"You too, Rozemyne."

"I-I am terribly sorry!"

Though I couldn't quite grasp what he was furious about, his intimidating stare compelled me to apologize with everything I had. Of course, my hollow apology was seen through completely, only stoking his anger further.

"Rozemyne, it seems I owe you my gratitude."

"Ah, um..."

His severe eyes, wavering with intense emotion, combined with that icy, bone-chilling low voice—how many people could actually take those words at face value as genuine thanks?

...I'm fairly certain gratitude isn't supposed to look like that!

"Your words and actions made me realize all manner of things."

At this point, nothing beat a strategic retreat. Stared down in silence, I frantically searched for an escape route. Fortunately, this was an emergency. If Ferdinand had recovered enough to stand, he needed to be briefed on the situation by the retainers waiting outside.

"Um! Ahrensbach is in quite a state right now, you see—Lanzeneve is running rampant, and it appears there's a young lady who was kidnapped as well. So I, um..."

"Hmm. Perhaps it would be best to raze Ahrensbach to the ground first. If Lanzeneve is causing chaos, that works out nicely."

Ferdinand was supposed to be angry at both the royal family and me, yet the words that came out of his mouth were about "destroying Ahrensbach." It was entirely befitting of a Demon Lord, but I couldn't see the connection.

"Please wait, Lord Ferdinand. How did we arrive at destroying Ahrensbach? Lanzeneve is—"

"Ahrensbach makes it difficult for me to act. If I crush both at once, there shouldn't be a problem."

"That's clearly a problem! Absolutely not!"

I spread both arms and planted myself in front of Ferdinand, glaring up at him. His overwhelming pressure surged even stronger in response, and I wanted to cry at my own actions—hadn't I just been trying to escape from the Demon Lord?

"Why are you defending Ahrensbach and Lanzeneve?"

"It's not about them. If Ahrensbach is attacked now, the Contract Magic stipulating that you won't oppose me could kill Lord Ferdinand. So it is absolutely out of the question."

Ferdinand's expression barely changed, but the anger in his eyes receded slightly, returning them to their usual pale gold. In its place, wariness sharpened.

"...What exactly did you do?"

"To get in here quickly, I dyed the foundation stone. In terms of Magic Power, I am now the Aub of Ahrensbach."

"Quickly...?"

"It was the fastest method I could think of."

Ferdinand's eyes went wide and he froze. It had been a while since I'd seen Ferdinand suffer a processing error. In other words, I had done something that extraordinarily abnormal.

"What on earth are you doing? The quickest method would be to capture the Aub, use threats or even torture to seize the registration magic stone, and force a contract. Where in the world is there a fool who would dye a foundation stone just to rescue me?"

"Right here."

Ferdinand collapsed to the ground as though all strength had left him. He let out a sigh so deep I feared he might never breathe again, then looked up at me from where he crouched.

"You really are the greatest fool."

"Well, I couldn't think of any method where someone would absolutely die, and even if I had, I wouldn't have been able to go through with it. Besides, I don't even know what Lady Detlinde's sister looks like or what her name is, and if she's absent, wouldn't time just slip away for nothing?"

Dyed the foundation stone I thought searching Ahrensbach for Detlinde's sister would be far less efficient than simply dyeing the foundation stone.

"Which is why I'll handle the cleanup of Ahrensbach, and Lord Ferdinand, you can return to Ehrenfest. I will take responsibility for what I've done."

At my declaration, Ferdinand stood and gave my cheek a firm pinch. Unlike before, his grip had regained some strength, and it hurt accordingly.

"Ow ow ow!"

"Doesn't seem like you've understood yet. You're saying the wrong words."

Ferdinand's smile turned a touch more frightening. Tears forming in my eyes, I lightly slapped at the hand that was pinching my cheek.

"Then please tell me what I should say. I'll do exactly as you ask."

"Ask me for my help. Detlinde incited foreign invasion and rebelled against the Zent; her sister is complicit; her mother launched an invasion of Ehrenfest; Letizia attempted murder. When it comes to cleaning up Ahrensbach, I am the one who knows Ahrensbach's affairs best."

The situation in Ahrensbach that Ferdinand laid out made my consciousness briefly flicker. It was dire. The nobles and commoners caught up in this without knowing the full picture must be having an unimaginable time.

"If Lord Ferdinand helps, I would feel greatly reassured. But you want to return to Ehrenfest, don't you? Binding you further to Ahrensbach, which I can't imagine holds pleasant memories—"

While I was worrying about Ferdinand, my ear was suddenly yanked.

"If you repeat my own teachings back to me, it comes out like this? Do you not remember the words you spoke yourself? Or did you not hear the words I taught you?"

"Help me, please! I'm begging you! You're the only one I can rely on, Lord Ferdinand!"

"Very well. Leaving you to your own devices would be far more terrifying."

...More terrifying than letting a Demon Lord run free! He'd raze Ahrensbach without a second thought—I would never have said that!

While I pressed my hand to my ear and glared in what feeble defiance I could muster, I was glared right back. Terrifying.

"So what do you intend to do? If you become Aub, you cannot become Zent. You cannot dye two foundation stones simultaneously. You should know that?"

Two foundation stones could not be dyed at the same time. That was why, in the old days, someone who was a High Priest and not yet Aub was chosen as Zent, and when an Aub became Zent, they first had their heir inherit the territory's foundation stone before assuming the role.

"So I intend to have someone else dye Ahrensbach's foundation stone while I dye Yurgenschmidt's, or become the King's adopted daughter and obtain the Grutrissheit from the underground library to hand over to the royal family."

If the goal was simply to preserve the vessel of Yurgenschmidt, having someone else re-dye Ahrensbach's foundation stone while I dyed the country's was the fastest approach. However, when considering the royal family and the barriers between territories, it was plainly obvious that this would cause tremendous headaches down the line.

"I believe obtaining the Grutrissheit Magical Tool from the depths of the underground library and transferring it would have the least impact on those around us. The royal family has always done it this way, hasn't it?"

Absorbing the Book of Mestionora was enormously difficult, and there were always gaps. That was why the Grutrissheit—a sort of manual for the Zent that contained enough to carry out official duties—was created. Since not just anyone could use it, it was kept in the depths of the underground library.

The next Zent candidate would increase their Magic Power, visit the shrines to complete the magic circle, obtain the Book of Mestionora, then copy the portions they were missing from the Grutrissheit in the library depths into their Holy Book.

As time went on, candidates stopped going to Ewermyne. They realized that by infusing Magic Power into the goddess statue in the library and engraving the Grutrissheit's magic circle into their mind, they could obtain the form of the Grutrissheit. With each passing era, new knowledge was added, making gaps ever more numerous—so why bother going to Ewermyne when the necessary knowledge could be obtained right there in the underground library?

Eventually, candidates realized that if they had all the attributes, they didn't even need to visit the shrines—they could infuse Magic Power into the goddess statue, obtain the Grutrissheit's form, and gain knowledge from the underground library. The effort to obtain the Book of Mestionora was gradually avoided. However, this was an era in which divine service was performed frequently enough that one could receive the gods' blessings without visiting the shrines.

At one point, a Zent came along who, in order to pass the throne to her own bloodline, restricted entry to the inner library to only those registered as members of her clan. As Zent candidates in various territories fought viciously with each generation, causing deaths and desecrating the sacred grounds, she reasoned that limiting the number of possible candidates would solve the problem.

She placed white and black Schmules, modeled after the golden Schmule that guided people to Ewermyne, in the library to monitor the actions of Zent candidates, and barred anyone not registered as part of the clan from the inner library. Those who protested were purged one after another through the Zent's authority. To protect herself from attackers, the Zent relocated the royal residence from the sacred grounds where Ewermyne resided to a different location, allowing travel between the two only through a door inscribed with a transfer circle.

Even when someone occasionally obtained the Book of Mestionora from the underground library's contents, the Zent intervened, and so obtaining the Grutrissheit became exclusive to the royal family. For a time, as long as royal family members with all attributes continued performing divine service, the quality of Zent candidates barely declined, so no major problems arose for a while.

However, once candidates could no longer obtain the Grutrissheit and risked being purged for attempting to do so, the Aubs and High Priests—the next generation of Aubs—gradually stopped setting foot on the sacred grounds to perform divine service. Performing large-scale divine service with only the royal family became difficult, and divine service was slowly reduced in scope.

Around the time it became standard for royal family members to succeed the Zent throne, an incident occurred in which the number of Zent candidates shrank dramatically. Brothers fought each other for the throne and ended up in a mutual stalemate. With only frail children remaining, the Zent built a Central Temple near their residence so that divine service could be performed even by those of weak constitution.

Fortunately, the frail Zent left behind a healthy child. However, the next Zent did not take the throne until decades after divine service had shifted from the sacred grounds to the Central Temple. Unaware of how divine service was performed at the sacred grounds, the new Zent continued performing it at the Central Temple just as their frail parent had done.

Once divine service ceased at the sacred grounds, only education for children aimed at obtaining the Staff was conducted, and the institution came to be called the Noble Academy for producing nobles.

Even after the registry was limited to royal family members, and even after the royal residence moved away from the sacred grounds, obtaining the Grutrissheit still meant going to the depths of the underground library. What changed began when a certain queen doted on a single child.

The queen chose one child among several to dote upon. Even if the child's abilities were somewhat lacking, even if they were missing an attribute, she wanted to seat the one she loved most on the Zent throne. A child lacking an attribute and unable to put in the effort of prayer to gain it could not become Zent no matter how much the queen doted on them. Those around her were confident it wouldn't happen.

The queen's personality was questionable as a human being—her feelings as a mother and the way she lavished love on her child were twisted—but she was extraordinarily skilled at creating Magical Tools. She crafted the Grutrissheit Magical Tool for the sole purpose of making that child Zent. A Grutrissheit that could be used even with one attribute missing.

And so, the doted-upon child became Zent. Since they had obtained the Grutrissheit, those around them had no choice but to acknowledge it.

"When the owner dies, this Grutrissheit will return to the depths of the underground library. The Grutrissheit belongs where the Grutrissheit is."

With those words of her mother etched into her heart, the doted-upon Zent passed the Grutrissheit Magical Tool to her own beloved son by sharing Magic Power through the Staff before her death. The son had all attributes, so the Magical Tool wasn't strictly necessary. The doted-upon child simply wanted to leave what her mother had given her to her own child. And so, she did not pass on her mother's final words.

The son came to believe that the Grutrissheit Magical Tool was inherited by sharing Magic Power through the Staff from parent to child. Without visiting the inner library, he too passed the Magical Tool Grutrissheit to his own children. After all, that was how he had become Zent.

However, with a physical Magical Tool in existence, it was hardly surprising that some would think they could become the next Zent simply by seizing it. The second prince, who inherited the Grutrissheit Magical Tool from his ailing father, was killed. And upon the owner's death, the Grutrissheit Magical Tool vanished—it had returned to the depths of the underground library, a place only accessible to those registered as royalty.

"If we reference the history of royal succession, I believe the Grutrissheit Magical Tool in the depths of the underground library can be passed on using the Staff. Since I'm not blood-related to the royal family, synchronizing our Magic Power will take time, but wouldn't it cause less disruption if a royal family member became Zent?"

Once I obtained the Grutrissheit and married into the royal family, synchronizing our Magic Power would eventually make it possible to transfer it. It should work similarly to how Dunkelfelger passed on the Sea Goddess's staff by sharing Magic Power through the Staff.

"...So that was your reasoning for deciding to marry Prince Sigiswald? Even if you did pass it on via the Staff, the current royal family probably can't even read it, can they? What's the point?"

Ferdinand snorted dismissively. It seemed he was irritated that despite his efforts to warn them, the royal family still hadn't studied the ancient texts. I understood the feeling. Even I couldn't estimate when they'd actually be able to use it after receiving the Grutrissheit.

"Being able to study by reading books for official duties would be the best thing ever, but they're probably too busy for that. Zent sometimes smells of medicine, just like you do, Lord Ferdinand. This past year, I was so busy with the transition that I could barely read. The royal family must live like that all the time. I think it's quite sad to go years without being able to read properly."

"What are you talking about as though it's someone else's problem? Once you become the King's adopted daughter and marry Prince Sigiswald, that will become your daily life."

The cold voice dished out a dose of reality, and I fell silent. I didn't want to face reality.

"...Once I come of age, I'll start a printing business and carve out at least a little time to read. Are there any other good methods? For instance, having Lord Ferdinand officially command you to bring me books from Ehrenfest under the guise of inquiring after my health each season, or issuing a royal decree that any gifts to me must be limited to books..."

As I rambled through my ideas, Ferdinand crossed his arms and looked down at me with an exasperated expression.

"The problem is that you have no time to read. More books won't solve that. And anyone who would use a royal decree for such foolish purposes absolutely should not become royalty. You should be looking for a way to avoid becoming the King's adopted daughter, cleaning up Ahrensbach, and getting back to Ehrenfest as quickly as possible."

Ferdinand's matter-of-fact words pierced my heart. I had been thinking about getting Ferdinand back to Ehrenfest, but I hadn't been thinking about going back myself. Ehrenfest, which was now operating under the assumption that I would be gone—I shouldn't go back there.

"What's with that look? Are you still hiding something?"

"Not exactly, it's just... I can't return to Ehrenfest. Ah, a temporary visit or homecoming would be different, but staying in Ehrenfest permanently is no longer possible."

"I don't understand."

Pressed by Ferdinand, I explained Ehrenfest's current situation. The matter of the adoption by the King had come up, and my engagement to Wilfried was being dissolved. Even if the royal family arrangement fell through, a restart was impossible. Wilfried had said he didn't want to become Aub, and Charlotte had begun aiming for the position instead. With Melchior becoming High Priest, there was no longer a place for me in the Temple.

"For the past year, everyone has been preparing on the premise that I would be gone. If I returned, people would hide their true feelings and welcome me warmly on the surface, I'm sure. But since I cannot become the Aub of Ehrenfest, I can't stay there. The Gutenberg team is also progressing with their transition and departure preparations..."

The reason I had been able to bring my retainers to Ahrensbach to rescue Ferdinand was precisely because, as someone who was leaving, I hadn't been counted among the territory's defensive forces. In every respect, I was no longer part of Ehrenfest's future.

"...Is that how things stand?"

"So please, at least you should return to Ehrenfest—"

"Be quiet."

I hadn't said anything wrong, yet I was pinched on the cheek again.

"I'll think about your place. For now, let's deal with the problem right in front of us. We'll sweep out Lanzeneve and seal the Border Gate. Let's go."

Moving with a speed that belied the fact he'd been incapacitated by poison, Ferdinand strode forward.

"Wait! You need to find or create a registration magic stone, or you won't be able to leave!"

"You moved the book chests to open this door, didn't you? They're in there. If you've dyed the foundation stone, it should open. Go get them now."

"Yes!"

While being scolded by Ferdinand, I reflected on the history of Zent and Grutrissheit.

I didn't even get as far as the Aub. That tends to happen. Next time: the new Aub.