With Wilfried being scheduled to demotion to Giebe, it’s clear that Sylvester is of the opinion, they don’t need his mana for the archducal family and don’t really need him as a backup in case something happens to his siblings either… so could Rozemyne and Ferdinand adopt Wilfried, get him into Alexandria and there marry him and Hannelore, so they have a bit more of an archducal family than just the two of them (I’m disregarding Letizia, since she’s already engaged to Hildebrand and thus almost assuredly going to leave for Blumenfeld in some 7 to 9 years).

As for the real world, there are a couple of Fanbooks already released in Japanese to catch up on, right? Maybe we’ll get them at a faster pace instead.

I have to say, I am surprised at Sigiswald. He is as assogrant and naive in some matters as expected, like thinking it’d be trivial to gain the support of other duchies, especially through his brother and father, but to even think of having to aquire allies, instead of taking them for granted without taking action, is more than I expected of him.

And getting the lesser duchies and Raufereg to dance to his tune, through careful rumours rather than trying to bludeon them with authority he only thinks he has, but really doesn’t, was without a doubt a smart move. Risky, since in such a chaotic free-for-all, any of those other duchies and the splinter Dunkelfelger faction might win, even if by chance, but with how little chance they would have stood to win otherwise, a surprisingly intelligent move from such an imbecil. I would rather have expected someone else to have come up with it and him taking credit for it, than him actually being semi-competent for once.

“I couldn’t stand how he never acted on his emotions” Wow… Rasantark would be so fucked, if he ever had to move to another duchy. In ANY other duchy it is expected of all nobles to NOT act on their emotions and anything else would be considered childish and unworthy of someone of his rank at best and straight up treachery to the duchy at worst, depending on the duchy and situation.

That being said I was both delighted and disappointed with Rozemyne’s POV chapter. Great that we got one and nice to see how things are going for her, but also disappointed that the burning questions I have weren’t even hinted at (due to it taking place before the time travel), of the who, why and how of her thread with Ferdinand being severed.

So far I overlooked, who I now think of as the most obvious suspect: Erwärmen. As the predecessor of Liebeskhilfe, he certainly would have the expertise to do it and he has plenty of motive to wish Ferdinand harm too, what with him even trying to kill him once, and only failing thanks to Rozemyne’s interference. If Mestionora wasn’t so strictly anti-violence or at least anti-killing, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had taken another crack at Ferdinand.

And the 20 year setback would also serve his purpose, if he can remember the reset future events, since then he could asure that the in his eyes superior zent candidate Terza/Gervasio wins the royal selection, rather than the “ruffian’s pet.” I don’t know him well enough to judge whether he’d do it out of sheer pettiness, but a genuine believe that it’d be better for the country might be all push he needs to do it regardless.

I missed the obvious suspect for severing Rozemyne’s and Ferdinand’s threads: Erwärmen. He was Liebeskhilfe’s predecessor and has plenty of reason to begrudge Ferdinand and some to begrudge Rozemyne, not to mention that unlike the other gods, he can’t tell the two apart anyway, while Rozemyne is dyed in his colour, i.e. once the divine mana was out of her system. So we have someone with the motive, the means and the demeanour. Mestionora was very against violence, while Erwärmen already tried to kill Ferdinand at least once, but failed thanks to Rozemyne’s interference and didn’t re-attempt it directly, almost asuredly because of Mestionora’s decree banning all further killings.

Anyway, I’m off to read the freshly released pre-pub part now.

I’d imagine Charlotte and Rozemyne’s retainers would have taken it in their stride too and Ferdinand didn’t even seem too put out even the first time it happened. ^^

Either way I’m glad Kenntrips was able to see Wilfried’s good side and realized that he did indeed think he was helping Hannelore by rejecting their ditter engagement contract out of ignorance rather than malice. Those ditter heads of Dunkelfelger really need someone to talk some sense into them, so they realize that it’s their own duchy that’s unique and weird and that the rest of Yurgenschmidt has a very different “common” sense than them. Maybe Kenntrips can be that first chinck in their armour of ignorance.

Right, I forgot about the pictures… but why is it blue? Blue is the colour of passion, growth and learning, while healing is universally green. Not to mention that jureve is made up primarily of four different elements, plus some other stuff, only one of which is fire aspected and thus blue. Maybe Kazuki-sensei hadn’t quite finalized the mana colours that early in the story.

As for it being Mestionora… Yeah I really don’t see it. If nothing had been done, time would have been reset back to 20 years ago with Ferdinand very much being alive and already in Ehrenfest, so doing that to kill him is not a good plan or even a plan to begin with. I mean… sure with what Dregarnuhr said, it looks like Ferdinand would have died, but after his death time would have reset, thus undoing it right away, making it quite useless to do it specifically to kill him.

That and Mestionora also made her position on killing very clear, when she forbid killing for any and all reasons, even of the worst criminals who definitely would have deserved death.

I just hope we’ll learn of who was the culprint and why in this book and won’t have to wait too long for this particular pair of answers. God knows how long it’ll take for the book to be translated into English… is the second book even out in Japanese already?

So Lestilaut’s jureve is blue… With Rozemyne’s the colour was never mentioned and with it being made from four elemental ingredients, plus some other stuff, I assumed it’d either be multi-coloured, clear or the mana colour of the person who made it. Healing always comes from either Flutrane or her subordinate Heilschmerz, both of which are associated with the colour green, so if this healing potion had any general colour, I’d bet my money on green, not Leidenschaft’s blue (passion, growth, learning). I don’t remember Lestilaut’s mana colour or affinities ever being mentioned, other than Anastasius thinking he lacks darkness. I’d say his blue jureve is a pretty good indication of his mana colour being blue. And Hannelore not immediately connecting the dots that the blue Jureve was her brother’s could mean that either mother or father also have blue as their colour.

I wonder what was up with the severing of Rozemyne’s and Ferdinand’s threads. How could threads be severed in multiple places? I feel like this is a sign of intentional sabotage… which brings me back to Liebeskhilfe. Who else but a deity could go back in time to tamper with mortal threads, but why would she? Was it some “masterplan” to give Hannelore the chance to travel back in time? That seems quite far fetched, but then again the gods are supposed to think differently than Humans and she is described as mischivious in the extreme…

“…hey should have challenged up to bride-stealing ditter <…> he was not doing so through the proper channels…” Oh Dunkelfelger… as if stealing a bride against her will and her duchy’s will via sport was “the proper channel.”

Ortwin becoming Rozemyne’s second husband has crossed my mind before too. If he wasn’t in love with Hannelore, that’d probably be his best option to become happy and a win for everyone involved. A good political move for both duchies, a mana-rich husband who’s not an arrogant ass for Rozemyne, a wife who won’t treat him as just a jumping board for political capital and mana generator, as well as plenty of laboratories and research materials for Ortwin. Seems a perfect match by Yurgenschmidt noble standards. He could probably live very contently in Alexandria.

Marrying Hannelore though, especially after her divine posession, would guarantee him an inescapable ticket to Aubdom. And he made it quite clear to Adolphine that he absolutely did not want to become Aub (not that it mattered to her in the slightest what her brother wanted, resulting in her practically forcing him to compete for the succession anyway, which thankfully should be over and done with now that she’s a giebe). And marrying the Zent, even if only as a second husband, would probably be on a quite simialr “don’t want to” level for him, as becoming Aub Drewanchel.

I wonder if his love is truly strong enough for him to not resent Hannelore for being forced to become Aub, because of her status, should they end up marrying after all… or alternatively if he might get a taste for being Aub, once he tried it for a bit, which would be ideal. Either way, I doubt it’ll happen, what with Drewanchel underperforming in ditter quite a bit compared to their duchy rank and being up against the very champions of ditter, even if they are split into two.

The moment of her praying against more suiters severing her thread with Wilfried is both tragic and hilarious at the same time and just so Hannelore. Too bad there isn’t a god or goddess of irony, or Hannelore would be their undisputed champion.

I’d expect that at least the Goddess of Chaos would be, minus the mask thing. ^^ Albeit in her case, there’s a chance of genuine malice being mixed in with the mischief, judging by the few things we know of her.

But did she really violate the goddess’ order? Dreganuhr specifically told her not to give anyone else knowledge obtained from the future, and she didn’t… well, mostly. She was pulled out, because Kenntrips sniffed her out, without her saying anything to his voiced supicion.

I guess technically the warning them about the incoming Helwolves was giving future knowledge, but for one thing, she was able to explain it in a very plausibe way, and for another, Dregarnuhr didn’t immediately pull her out, but only when Kenntrips made his observation, so I don’t think that counts in the eyes of the goddess.

Dregarnuhr said that if Hannelore revealed knowledge from the future, she would delete everyone’s memory… but Hannelore didn’t do that, so what will the goddess do now?

Also when she says remove memories, what exactly does she mean? Will she just delete selected bits and leave the rest blank, leaving everyone with collective memory loss, or will she reset the memories to that of the original timeline?

Either way, there will be contradictions, since the knights are less exhausted and Kenntrips’ magic tool is gone from being used, which wasn’t the case before. Also with rumors of what went down between Wilfried and Hannelore making the rounds, that’ll be a LOT of memories Dregarnuhr will have to fiddle with.

I also can’t help but wonder, if deleting or changing those memories will be 100% effective, or if the other students might be left with being subconsciously more accepting of Hannelore, even without knowing why their feelings have shifted a little… except for Wilfried, with whom the effect might be the opposite.

I really hope that this book will have side-stories like the main series and one of them will be from past Wilfried’s perspective, so we learn both what was going on inside him and what Eglantine told him in private. With Rozemyne, there’s at least the chance that she’ll tell Hannelore, or the deities, what she did in the past, but Wilfried will forever remain a mystery, if it’s not written down in a side-story. Well… maybe in a fanbook Q&A.

Poor Hannlore can’t catch a break… but as much as I sympathize with future Hannelore, it must be even worse for past Hannelore.

Either she just has a blank of a couple of days, and suddenly things gotten worse without having any clue what happened, or she does remember suddenly being taken over by her future self, caught in the back of her own mind only able to watch in horror, as her future self messed everything up… that is, if she’s even aware it’s her future self posessing her body. Considering the consequences, she might even think it was some malicious spirit of some kind.

I wonder how/if these changes in the past will enter future Hannelore’s mind. Is this like a multiverse thing, where future Hannelore only knows what she did in the past, of will her own actual past change and her memories of back then update accordingly?

I wonder how much Eglantine is telling Wilfried. I wouldn’t be too surprised if she had become aware of how much disrespect and animosity exists toward both Hannelore and Wilfried due their duchy’s idiotic culture and not realizing that few, if any, know or care about bride stealing ditter and thus blame Wilfried for everything, when it was really Lestilaut’s fault. I wish someone would throw that into their faces at some point. If Wilfried became aware of how much hardship his misguided attempts to be considerate of Hannelore have caused her, it might well trigger his good side, making him feel guilty… as long as none of his retainers, Oswald first and foremost, spin it around. But at least he’ll blame the other Dunkelfelgerians instead of Hannelore, IF that is what Eglantine tells him. It might just be her critizising his lack of acting ability in his fake appology for all we know.

I expected Hannelore to get summoned by Dregarnuhr, but to casually be dropped into a room with four deities was not on my bingo card, and neither was time travel.

I wonder why Dregarnuhr seemed so surprised, when Hannelore told her she wanted to convey her feelings to Wilfried. Could it have been a cut off “Wilfried? But you are destined for each other already” or a “Wilfried? That won’t work, no matter what you try.” I certainly hope for the former.

Either way, I hope we will get more details of how Rozemyne is repairing Ferdinand’s thread… and what severed it to begin with. I’d hate for this to be merely a plot device to grant Hannelore a trip to the past… unless of course the severing of Ferdinand’s thread was deliberately done to get Hannelore and Wilfried together, by Liebeskhilfe or some other mischievous deity. In that case the “Wil…?” might have been Dregarnuhr realizing what had happened, but being too late to stop it, which would be a wonderful irony for the goddess of time to have poor timing and make Hannelore being her divine avatar all the more fitting. ^^

But thinking more on it… could this be a paradox, where it turns out that it was Hannelore, who accidentally caused the events that would sever Ferdinand’s thread? As a foreign factor in the timeline, she certainly would make a good candidate for blindsiding the gods.

I kind of expected Wilfried to essentially become the next Bonifatius, i.e. remain in the noble’s quarter as both the next Knight’s Commander, and a backup archduke candidate, should someone need to fill in for the aub, while one of his siblings becomes the Aub and the other the High Bishop, and Henriette as the fourth child and young enough for the royal decree that forbids marrying out of Ehrenfest to run out, by the time she can marry, most likely going to be married into another duchy.

I suppose I can see the arguments for becoming Giebe Gerlach, but with their numbers and especially their combined mana pool having diminished by Rozemyne and Ferdinand departing the duchy, can they really afford to turn Wilfried into an archnoble, and thus lock him out of supporting the foundation and all else that comes with being an archduke candidate?

This seems especially odd, with them just having had a front-row seat and getting caught up in the whole mess of Ahrensbach - a greater duchy - falling apart in no small part due to their archducal family shrinking to a dangerously small size.

This feels like Sylvester is being a bit naive and idealistic, prioritizing faction politics and emotions over partical issues again, like his refusal to take a second wife did for a far too long time. If Florencia’s latest daughter and one or two children from Brunhilde were already baptized, I’d fully understand it, but in this situation it’s rather iffy to me.

If I had to make a guess, I’d say it’s more alike to someone being summoned to Erwaermen, either via the statue of Mestionora in the library or from between the statues of the gods in the chapel.

It certainly doesn’t appear to have the invisibility and time-distortion effect of the large shrines, that left those outside unaware the zent candidate was gone for even a millisecond, which would have been the only other instance, where we’ve seen something roughly alike happen.

Either way, since a prayer to a goddess caused this, I strongly suspect that a deity received the call and summoned her… but the question is, whether the god or goddess did it out of the kindness of their heart, or if they have a task for a mortal and Hannelore just happened to be the first one to stumble into qualifying.

Those still holding out hope for him becoming the successor after all, would surely rejoice. Those who faithfully serve him, for his sake, like Lamprecht after his straightening out, I can see going three possible ways.

• Happy that he’s getting a good wife, who’s probably going to be able to keep his impulses in check (he’s got to be easier to deal with than the ditter-heads Hannelore is used to dealing with).
• They might resent her for the damaged reputation, as you said.
• They might take issue with the finally calmed down situation around his succession surely getting heated up and complicated again.

I don’t really know enough about any of them, not even Lamprecht, to make any educated guesses.

It’d be both hilarious and cute, if she ended up appologizing for being so forward, while still on top of him. :3

Though more realistically, she’ll only appologize afterwards, but I’m sure she will appologize in some way or another… and be blushing so hard that she’ll light up the place like a lightbulb. ^^

I’m surprised that Kenntrips didn’t take into account how Sylvester won over his own wife and consequently mentioned as much to Hannelore. He seemed convinced that Hannelore would need Dunkelfelger’s rank to essentially force Sylvester to agree to the engagement with Wilfried. But considering how Sylvester fell in love and moved heaven and earth to marry his love, no matter what, there’s at least a chance that Sylvester might agree to a romantic partnership of his son. It’s probably not enough by itself, but Hannelore is also a real catch for Ehrenfest and will help the duchy, even if it’ll complicate the succession again. But the situation since the bride-stealing ditter has changed and they are now further along in the generational shift, and Hannelore would no longer be his second wife, which lessens one of the previous problems and eliminates the other entirely, that the original engagement would have had.

There of course the biggest problem would be, whether Wilfried actually returns Hannelore’s feelings, or if he truly was acting solely out of courtesy and the deference to higher ranking duchies that was hammered into him, plus whatever else Veronica more subtly weaved into his (mis)education, since she did raise him to be her puppet at least as much as she unintentionally spoiled him.

For a moment I found Luitpold’s timing to be a bit too fortunate, to give Hannelore hope, after she lost all, and consequently considered whether this was a ploy by Kenntrips, but I can’t imagine either of them being willing to invoke Lady Sieglinde’s name, even if it was indirectly. She’s probably have their heads… or certain other round objects on their bodies, if she found out they used her name to manipulate Hannelore. :P Maybe Dregarnuhr is finally taking pity on Hannelore, since if this request would have come after the meeting with Ehrenfest, she truly could have blamed her usual cursed timing. Still a bit odd, he waited until this moment to ask.

It’s kind of cute and endearing, but at the same time a bit disturbing, that Hannelore’s thoughts went straight to pinning Willfried down, without even talking first, or trying to get Rozemyne to help (which I’m sure she’d be only too happy to do) and how she thinks he’d even try to fight back. In all due likelyhood he’ll be so flabberghasted, he’ll just freeze up. Not that he’s likely to fight back against her out of courtesy and deference to higher ranking duchies in the first place. Now his retainers are more of a legitimate concern, but if she picks a moment in the archduke candidate course, that obstacle is out of the way… she’d better time it to happen at the very end of class though, to not further antagonize Professor Anastasius. ^^

But damn… this isn’t going to make things easier for Charlotte. With both Wilfried and Melchior potentially getting wives from Dunkelfelger, her chances to remain the successor are probably going to take a hit. I suppose there’s the upside of Wilfried not wanting to become Aub, but even so, him marrying the daughter of the first wife of the first ranked duchy, it will cause friction, and maybe even enough internal pressure that Wilfried will be unable to refuse to be the successor, much like happened when he was engaged to Rozemyne, no matter how much he dislikes it.

Melchior is potentially marrying “only” the daughter of Aub Dunkelfelger’s second wife, probably causing a little less pressure than Hannelore’s marriage would, but even so, Lungtase is still an archduke candidate from the first ranked duchy. Plus Melchior doesn’t carry the stigmata of past crimes and misbehaviour like Wilfried and we have no idea whether he might want to become archduke, plus the recent increase in prestige of his High Bishop’s position, so his marriage might well be the bigger issue for Charlotte.

Well, at least I’m quite sure that it’ll only be one marriage or the other. If Hannelore manages to snag Wilfried, that by itself will get Werdekraf the archduke candiate level connection to Ehrenfest he wanted and thus make Lungtase and Melchior’s engagement unnecessary, which will free her up to be married into another duchy for even more connections.

It’s a cute picture, but why is it showing Schwartz and Weiss? Her new shumil magic tools are green, brown and red… Also Rozemyne is still wearing an Ehrenfest cape, instead of the new midnight blue of Alexandria. Also Rozemyne looks like she didn’t yet go through Anwachs’ growth spurt, so it’s more like a year 4 or earlier pic.

Considering how she’s now in charge of her own duchy, and thus her enviroment has to adapt to her, and how she’s regularly interacting with commoners, which other nobles don’t do… not to mention the special privileges and different treatment she receives from being the divine avatar and owning the name-stone of the Zent, I don’t think she’ll ever be exactly on the same page as regular nobles.

Then again, what is a “regular” noble anyway. Just look how eccentric Dunkelfelger and Drewanchel are in their own ways.

Sure, but the tea party was on Earthday, on which there are no classes.

I’m also pretty sure if she went anything below 100%, Ferdinand would be upset and her cheek would suffer for it. :P