"That is all I have to tell you."
Having finished his briefing,
As his retainers began moving, Ehrenfest's attendants moved to prepare fresh tea, but Anastasius stopped them with a dismissive "that won't be necessary" and turned his gaze toward Father.
"This has been more fruitful than anticipated. My thanks. I must return at once... Ah, yes. Aub Ehrenfest—according to the Central
Anastasius's words could only mean one thing: if you dress adult guard knights in Priest or Shrine Maiden garments, you can take them wherever you please. He was asking that adult guard knights be dressed in the robes of blue-robed Priests or Shrine Maidens and assigned to escort duty.
...My guard knights would wear them if I asked, right?
While musing over this, I climbed down from my seat and dispelled the Shield of Stereau. After his retainers finished collecting the Magical Tools and Father had exchanged farewells, Anastasius flipped his mantle and departed without delay.
"I've had quite enough tea. We shall take our leave as well. We've imposed on you for quite some time."
With those words, the First Wife bowed and departed alongside Hannalore. Once the group in blue mantles had gone, the next to arrive was the contingent in red mantles—
"Aub Ehrenfest, may I have a moment?"
"Of course,
Father exchanged greetings, and I offered my own upon meeting her for the first time.
"I humbly pray for a blessing upon this rare encounter, born of the strict selection of the Life God Everilde."
"Granted... While I was conversing with
As we were shown to our seats and tea and refreshments were prepared, Aub Klassenberg shared reports from the scholars who had participated in the joint research.
"They all said the same thing: 'We experienced a true divine ceremony.' The sight of everyone's prayers becoming one, Magic Power being drawn forth, and a pillar of precious color rising as a result—it was so moving and magnificent that it brought heat behind our eyes."
It was an awe-inspiring ceremony that naturally drew out feelings of gratitude toward the Aub's family, who supported the foundation, and toward the royal family, who supported all of
...I wouldn't have known, since Ehrenfest's senior scholars had been so drained of Magic Power that they were practically limp. All they said was, "So that's what a divine ceremony looks like."
Maybe it was because I'd heard
...The students of Ehrenfest had gotten weirdly accustomed to blessings. ...Because of me, probably.
"Will you be holding ceremonies at the
"This ceremony was conducted specifically for the joint research with Dunkelfelger, so there are no plans for next year. I cannot accept such valuable Magic Power from all of you every year."
"I hear you provided an exceptionally effective recovery potion. With that, I believe we could cooperate. It would certainly help in supporting the royal family."
This year, I had instigated the Ditter and prepared magic power recovery potions to secure cooperation for our research. But I had no intention of making that a regular occurrence. How much reading time had I sacrificed just to prepare for the ceremony? I hadn't even been doing it for research—why was I the one who had to go through all that trouble? Both my guardian and the royal family had expressly warned me not to take on any unnecessary tasks.
"If Magic Power is collected at Temples across the country, the royal family would surely be delighted. One of my goals in conducting the ceremony was to encourage a reexamination of how Temples operate in each territory. I'm glad you understand, Aub Klassenberg."
It seemed my message had come across: if you want to perform ceremonies, Temples exist—use them as you see fit. Aub Klassenberg raised an eyebrow slightly and looked toward Father. She was probably silently appealing to him with her eyes, something like "convince your daughter a little." Father wore a strained smile and cleared his throat with a deliberate cough.
"This ceremony was part of joint research—meaning it was conducted by students, and as their parent, I am fundamentally not permitted to intervene. Furthermore, the innermost chambers fall under the jurisdiction of the Central Temple. While a one-off ceremony for research purposes might be acceptable, holding repeated ceremonies at the Royal Academy would very likely deepen the rift between the royal family and the Central Temple. With Lady
Father turned down Aub Klassenberg's request by invoking the principle that parents do not interfere with the Royal Academy's activities, combined with the risk of worsening relations between the Central Temple and the royal family. Realizing he had no intention of agreeing, Aub Klassenberg changed the topic with a sour expression.
"According to reports from merchants we traded with this year, Ehrenfest apparently has quite a number of unusual goods. I hear the new books trending at the Royal Academy are being produced in a remote Giebe's territory, but there are also quite a few novel items in the city itself."
The conversation turned to pumps and comfortable carriages that merchants had found in the inns. In the first year, they had barely been widespread enough to notice, but by the second year, pumps had been adopted quite broadly, so the merchants were likely surprised by how much had changed in a single year.
"In particular, they say the pump that draws water from wells is groundbreaking. They expressed a strong desire to introduce it to Klassenberg as well."
Father turned to the scholar behind him. It was
"Unfortunately, we have not yet established a system for mass-producing the pumps. I deeply apologize, but we have no plans to sell them for the time being. The pumps require extremely fine components, and very few craftsmen are capable of producing them."
The pumps required
Father gave a slight nod at Hartmut's words and relayed the answer to Aub Klassenberg, who responded with a thoughtful "Hmm."
"Even if the craftsmen of Ehrenfest find it difficult, the craftsmen of Klassenberg might manage."
A scholar standing behind Aub Klassenberg spoke up to the Aub.
"If you sold the design drawings as you did the quatre-quarts recipe, would that be acceptable?"
Father crossed his arms in thought, and behind him, Hartmut said "That might be difficult" while glancing toward me.
"In Ehrenfest, the Blacksmith Guild manages the design drawings so that a fixed design fee is paid to the designer, Lady
Hartmut smiled as he looked between Aub Klassenberg and her scholars.
"Whether the Blacksmith Guild of Klassenberg can manage that... is the crux of the issue. It's difficult for a major duchy to keep its eye all the way down to the Commoners."
...Hartmut! He was essentially saying the same thing I was—that Klassenberg couldn't be trusted because their merchants were already doing whatever they pleased! It wasn't wrong, though.
"In any case, whether such an arrangement can be made will need to be discussed. Let us continue this conversation at the next Lord's conference."
With that, Father brought his discussion with Aub Klassenberg to a close.
After Klassenberg came
By the time I returned to the dormitory for lunch, I was completely exhausted. I had requested to return by riding beast, and Father granted my wish, so I rode back.
"I'm so tired..."
"There were upper duchies arriving one after another. But with you and Hartmut, I was able to manage."
Father and the scholars both had information about the printing industry and newly released books, but they didn't know much about the pumps and carriages that merchants had only seen in the lower city. I thanked Hartmut, who had provided excellent support.
"It's my pleasure to be of assistance to Lady Rozemyne. But isn't this exactly the kind of knowledge an Aub's scholar needs?"
"Indeed. I can't leave it all to you alone. Besides, don't you think I need to find a way to learn about the lower city's situation myself? If
Ferdinand, who had been relaying my reports and the information gathered by
"Rather than having Father personally inspect the lower city, it would be better to assign my retainers to accompany the scholars on the inspection. If an inspecting scholar does anything unnecessary in the lower city, I will not forgive it. Besides, shouldn't preparing Greschel and making it ready to accept merchants come first?"
"With your Magic Power this year, it shouldn't be impossible. Then, if we increase the trade quotas..."
"No. We need to observe for about a year to see whether Greschel can keep its lower city beautiful, and we need to prepare inns and teach proper hospitality. A preparation period is absolutely necessary."
Ehrenfest's lower city had thrived thanks to the active efforts of
"If you leave it to the commercial guild and the Plantin Company as we did before, and let the merchants of Greschel handle it, wouldn't that work?"
"Father. Ordering Greschel to immediately welcome merchants from other duchies would be the same as receiving a royal decree ordering you to welcome all Aubs to Ehrenfest Castle at once and entertain them perfectly. Would that not be rather difficult?"
When asked whether the current Ehrenfest could handle perfect hospitality for so many territories at once, Father and his retainers all fell silent.
"It is true that Ehrenfest must change. But let us give Greschel a preparation period and work toward establishing the capacity to receive visitors."
For the time being, we agreed to move forward with discussions with Giebe Greschel to prepare Greschel's lower city early and make it ready to accept merchants.
Then, over lunch, Father began explaining the contract to Wilfried. He cautioned him that he needed to be careful when signing, or he would be deceived, and instructed him to always have a scholar check for any problems beforehand.
"At the bride-stealing Ditter, Lord
"I thought the same, Brother Wilfried."
But it was immediately clear which carried more weight: a verbal agreement between children at the Royal Academy, or a properly written contract.
"I'll be more careful about verifying the conditions from now on. But that wasn't a contract, so there was no problem."
"It didn't look like a contract to me at first either, but apparently it was a mandatory contract for the bride-stealing Ditter."
It had been a document that looked nothing more than a report detailing the Ditter conditions and number of participants, but with a signature on it, it became a contract. He had been played by Lestilaut. At Father's and my words, Wilfried and his retainers exchanged glances and shook their heads.
"That can't be right. That was a document needed to use the dormitory budget at Dunkelfelger—its authority would extend no further than Dunkelfelger itself."
Is that what Lestilaut had told him? Wilfried stubbornly insisted it was only valid within Dunkelfelger.
"Wilfried, the moment your signature is on it, the contract is binding."
"That's impossible. A contract with Ehrenfest, which is a foreign duchy, shouldn't be valid. It wouldn't constitute an official contract... That's right—you told me yourself, didn't you, Rozemyne?"
Wilfried glared at me with an annoyed expression, as if saying "Did you teach me something false?" I tilted my head, confused.
"I told you?"
"Yes. You said that for an official contract, you must always use paper from the Parchment Association. The cheap Ehrenfest Paper is only suitable for rough notes and reports. You told me to be careful, because a contract written on Ehrenfest Paper would not be considered an official contract!"
"Oh!"
Father's voice and mine overlapped as we looked at each other.
...That was why, despite the signature, neither Father nor I had recognized it as a contract.
The reason it had looked like nothing more than a report was that it had been written not on Parchment, but on Ehrenfest Paper.
"Lord Lestilaut said it was a document needed for the dormitory budget, and I did verify it. Right, Ignatz?"
"Yes. I confirmed whether we could truly obtain the budget with this document."
Apparently Lestilaut had said there was no problem. Since they intended to gain the upper hand in the contract over Ehrenfest, they had only mentioned the budget. Wilfried, meanwhile, had signed while worried about whether the budget would truly be issued for Plant Paper.
"In the first year, only Ehrenfest was using it, and people gave us strange looks for using odd paper in the library—but now that even Dunkelfelger uses it fondly, I was rather happy about it..."
Ignatz said this, looking somewhat dejected at his own lack of caution as one of Wilfried's retainers. Seeing him like this, Wilfried looked concerned.
"The Dunkelfelger apprentice scholars only seemed to have Ehrenfest Paper on them. Perhaps they didn't know it couldn't be used for official contracts."
We made sure to have both types of paper carried by our own scholars, since you never knew when Parchment might be needed. But it seemed Dunkelfelger only had Plant Paper.
"...Father, to avoid friction with the Parchment Association, didn't we warn at the Lord's conference during the sales agreement that cheap Ehrenfest Paper cannot be used for official contracts?"
"Of course we did. It's important to the Parchment Association on the other end as well. But if they presented it to you as a contract, it's quite possible that Dunkelfelger didn't understand."
I nodded at Father's words. Perhaps I needed to send a reminder to all duchies we had trade agreements with.
"Let's send an Ordonnanz to Dunkelfelger during lunch."
It would be rather awkward to have a lecture about paper usage echoing across the venue of the interduchy tournament.
"I was the one who signed. I'll send it."
Wilfried ordered Ignatz to send the Ordonnanz.
"I'm not entirely thoughtless. Give me some credit."
"I'm sorry, Brother Wilfried."
After a while, the Ordonnanz returned. Beyond Hannalore's voice saying, "Lord Wilfried, thank you so much for letting us know. We will be more careful going forward," the First Wife's voice could be heard asking, "What do you mean you used all of it for drawing?"
Once the discussion about the various misunderstandings surrounding contract conventions had concluded, I asked about the joint research. The Lord's family had been so busy receiving one guest after another that they hadn't been able to see the research at all.
"When we explained that these were items we had created based on a proposal Lady Rozemyne provided, he was quite amazed. He said that even though the underlying idea was the same, he hadn't expected us to create Magical Tools that used so much less Magic Power."
The direction of creating a Magical Tool that played music by tracing the Aifon Paper sheet music with a magic stone was the same, but the results from Drewanchel and Ehrenfest had turned out to be completely opposite.
"And then, while keeping the details hidden from his professor, he praised us—saying it showed that Ehrenfest had grown somewhat, to be able to pull something like this off."
He had said that keeping research content and important information confidential was a given for any researcher, and that managing to surprise him like this was truly commendable.
He apparently also said he wanted to incorporate the Magical Tool that stored books in their designated locations into his own laboratory.
"Professor Gundolf asked us quite a lot of questions about the graphs."
"Philine handled the joint research while I explained the graphs."
Roderich had been assigned to manage Gundolf and ended up giving graph explanations the entire time. As a result, professor after professor gathered around, and it ended up feeling like he was giving lectures to the professors and scholars from other duchies—it was extremely uncomfortable.
"He said Drewanchel's research topic next year will involve graphs. He expressed a strong desire to conduct research together with you, Lady Rozemyne."
"I'm glad Roderich was able to explain everything properly."
Since there were still many types of graphs to introduce, we would gradually reveal them over time. While Philine and Roderich had been handling the joint research explanations,
"In Dunkelfelger's research presentation, they'll apparently perform the actual ceremony at the end of the Ditter. Since most of the adults from every duchy don't know what the Ditter ceremony entails, they decided to have it danced in front of everyone—so Clarissa told me."
After the student Ditter concluded, Dunkelfelger's adult knights would perform the actual ceremony, followed by a speed-based Ditter, and finally the Magic Power dedication—showing everything to the very end. Apparently Aub Dunkelfelger was very enthusiastic about it.
"That sounds like it will be quite spectacular."
The Dunkelfelger students' dances had been wonderful. The adult knights' performance was sure to be magnificent as well.
"Oh, right—I had a brief conversation with Lueradi of Yoesblenne. She said she wanted to thank you, Lady Rozemyne, for obtaining the divine protections, but she was disappointed that socializing kept you too busy."
Yoesblenne, ranked tenth, was essentially at the bottom when considering duchies that moved in the first half. She said she couldn't even get close to the area where the royal family and upper duchies congregated.
"I may have had something to do with it, but she said that at
Perhaps Lueradi had made the book advertisement ring out at Ahrensbach. I remembered Ferdinand telling me "That is truly splendid," and whispered to myself, "Lady Lueradi—how truly splendid."
"However, Yoesblenne doesn't have a trade agreement, so she can't purchase books. Since Lueradi was so disappointed, I suggested she write the stories herself and make her own books."
Apparently Lueradi was enthusiastic about the idea. When Muriella told me this might lead to new books, I praised her enthusiastically.
"Well done, Muriella."
Increasing the number of authors was important. Lueradi seemed like a senior scholar, so she might become a writer like my mother. Feeling the birth of a new author, I finished my lunch.
Finally, the morning is over.
Hartmut was a tremendous help in the negotiations with Klassenberg.
Since Rozemyne couldn't go see for herself, she hears about the joint research through reports at lunch.
Next: afternoon socializing and Ditter.