Ah, Rozemyne and Wilfried are still as oblivious as they’ve ever been to anything remotely romantic, when it’s about themselves and each other. But good on Wilfried to be a nice wingman to his friend… if Hannelore does end up choosing Wilfried, this will hopefully also curtail their friendhship suffering too badly over it, since it’s clear Wilfried was both oblivious of Hannelore’s feelings and genuinely trying to help his buddy.

But what’s up with Korinthsdaum? How can an entire duchy be so universally incompetent? And we can’t even solely blame Sigiswald for this, since less than a full year under his rule would surely not be enough to turn previously competent and properly behaved nobles into such idiots. It is certainly in part his failing, for most likely not even noticing how they don’t know their place, much less doing something about it, but even so, this feels off.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the new retainers Rozemyne wants to show off, are in fact shumil magic tools. Why else would she call them adorable? I mean, she surely does have a couple of new Human retainers, between those who remained in Ehrenfest and those who graduated, she would need some new apprentices for the royal academy, even without considering the political implications of not having native Alexandrian (i.e former Ahrensbach) retainers. Not to mention that she was always rather on the low side for an archduke candidate of Ehrenfest’s rank to begin with and her now being of the 6th ranked duchy.

On one hand they are in the Royal Academy, which used to be called the Land of the Gods in the past.

On the other, Hannelore didn’t seem to have put any mana into her prayers, so they should have had only a minimal effect, if any at all.

Maybe her suiters have nothing at all to do with the gods. Kenntrips and Rasantark have been fond of her since she entered the Royal Academy, Raufereg is more interested in opening up his own chance to play ditter against Rozemyne than any genuine romantic feelings. Which leaves only Ortwin, but with them being in the same grade and course, not to mention a good political match, it wouldn’t be that surprising if he had developed feelings for her since before she started praying, but just managed to keep them hidden until now.

I wish someone would clear things up for Kenntrips in regards to Wilfried. He seems to believe that Wilfried either intentionally caused Hannelore hardship, or did so due to a lack of care and consideration for her, when it was the exact opposite.

Everything Wilfried did with the whole engagement debacle, was done out of courtesy to Hannelore, since he wrongly assumed she did not want to marry him and was being forced into it against her will.

If Kenntrips wants to hate him, at least hate him for his ignorance and lack of foresight and awareness, not for mistaking his intentions for the exact opposite of what they were.

I’d say Hannelore is indeed quite equal to Rozemyne in matters of romance, i.e. very perceptive in romantic matters concerning others, but almost entirely blind to their own. Just like Rozemyne, Hannelore needed someone else to open her eyes to what was going on.

And to be fair to Rozemyne, she is far less familiar with noble romance, since when she should have been taught, she was in a coma and afterwards both her noble mothers assumed the other one would do it, leaving her hanging. And Ferdinand is a master in masking his emotions, not to mention rather inexperienced in romantic matters himself and only having come around to making outright advances pretty much during the war.

Meanwhile Hannelore was taught well, understands the noble euphemisms around love and had her romantic prospective partners either mess up and show their feelings openly by mistake (i.e. Ortwin’s blunder) or just state them straight up like Rasantark, with either little or no room for misinterpretations.

Oh almost forgot. We did get our answer about whether Ehrenfest kept it’s relative rank - i.e. went down to 10th alongside the other duchies after the insertion of Blumenfeld and Korinthsdaum - or if they kept their absolute 8th place, it’s the latter. That means that they overtook two more duchies and are now the third highest middle duchy, after Korinthsdaum and Hauchletzte, with the rest of the top 7 all being greater duchies, if I’m not mistaken.

It also means that Gilessenmeyer fell at least 5 ranks, since we know they were the 4th and we also know the current top 8 and they aren’t in it, meaning they are at most on the number 9 spot. Oh well, at least that means they won’t focus all their negative emotions over their loss of rank on Ehrenfest alone, which might be the case for Gaussbuttel, who Ehrenfest also overtook now.

Still? The question is, whether he ever loved her to begin with, or if he was just being courteous to someone from a higher ranking duchy and/or a girl with a weak appearance.

Ah, look at her, collecting suitors like Rozemyne collects books. ^^

Hmm… I wonder if the students have to call Elgantine professor or zent, when she’s teaching them. Usually professor overrides all other titles during lessons, but does this apply even to zent?

Elgantine teaches the sixth year and Anastasius the fifth year archduke candidate course… and what about the third and fourth years? Would they be able to get Trauerqual or one of his wives to stand in for that, despite them no longer being royals? I doubt that Nahelache and Sigiswald would be able to help, with them being the only members of their archduke family, bar a 1 year old child. And I doubt they’d want Sigiswald as a professor anyway, though Nahelache as someone who already did one year of teaching the archduke candidate course, would be well suited, if she could help out.

Or can they put anyone into that position, who finished the course in their academy time? Professor Gundolf would come to mind for that.

Why is Hildebrand still wearing schtappe sealing bracers? Weren’t they going to make a ring for him, that would do the same thing without standing out? Did his father and mother really not have the leeway to make or order one made in three full seasons?

I’m glad Hannelore put down Raufereg for calling Wilfried a coward. It’s annoying enough when experienced warriors say it, but this little twirp, who has yet to stand his ground before his first opponent has absolutely no right to call anyone else a coward, especially not someone who not only fought ditter against a duchy many ranks above them (keep in mind that Ehrenfest got it’s rank primarily by their academic performance and new trends and products, while their knights were well below the duchy rank in ditter outcomes, back then), but who fought in a real war. Those knights he was up against might only have been a diversion force, but they still fought to kill.

If Wilfried wasn’t four years older and had a schtappe, while Raufereg doesn’t, I’d hope for a duel in which Wilfried destroyed the loudmouth, but beating someone four years your junior is hardly a way to rid yourself of accusations of cowardice.

I’m unsure of how to feel about Raufereg. Should I be annoyed that he thinks only of ditter and doesn’t consider the if, when and how to do things, as well as the consequences of his actions? Should I feel sorry for him, since with the archducal pair needing specifically an archnoble and not an archduke candidate if Hannelore is to marry within the duchy, taking him out of the game from the very start? Or should I feel endeard that his obsession isn’t only with playing ditter himself, but also protecting Hannelore from the “horrible fate” of not being able to play ditter anymore, should she marry out of the duchy?

Probably more of the former two, with only a light smattering of the third. ^^

With Kenntrips on the other hand, it’s a lot more straightforward. He’s a really nice guy, so much so, that part of me kind of wishes, he’d end up with Hannelore, since that much care for her is something rare in Yurgenschmidt’s noble society, and would probably bode well for a pleasant marriage, even if his feelings turn out to be non-romantic.

Unless of course he turns out to be a particularly cunning villain, who’s just been playing a really long-perspective game of ingradiating himself to her for some nefarious purpose, but I really don’t think that’s the case, even though I can’t fully rule out the possibility.

To be honest, I’m more interested in Hannelore meeting Wilfried again. Her relationship with Rozemyne is… more or less known to us already, and I don’t expect any particularly big upsets there. Hannelore might have some worries, but Rozemyne will surely do her best to keep their friendship, despite the changed circumstances her new rank bring with it, as unchanged as she can make it.

With Wilfried on the other hand, there are probably more unknowns and we also get a chance to not only see what she does and says, but also what she thinks and feels, since it’ll be from her perspective. Does she still have a crush on him? Has she given up entirely on marrying him, or is there a lingering desire, that she only doesn’t act on, because she doesn’t want to bother Ehrenfest? Did Kenntrips words about supporting her attempt to marry into anther duchy, should she make one, set some thoughts in motion?

The problem with the mana compression was, that they were effectively cut off from Ferdinand, when he moved to Ahrensbach, which is no longer an issue, so they can just meet up at the border gate, or organize a visit to modify or even nullify the magic contract, if they wanted.

Come to think of it, that would be a good idea either way, since as the contract was, it would also prevent Rozemyne from spreading the method in her own duchy now, even to her own children, if/when she has them.

Alternatively, with Georgine dead, the magic contract protected her compression method should be void now, allowing Matthias and Laurenz to spread that one instead. While it might not be as good as the full Rozemyne method, it was still quite something in it’s own right. Georgine learned it from some old book, so they wouldn’t even necessarily have to visit Ehrenfest to pass it back there, if Rozemyne permitted it.

What I wonder is, what’ll happen to Ehrenfest’s rank. They were locked in place for one year, when they would have gone up from their efforts, if Sylvester hadn’t negotiated to avoid that. But now, there are two new places created above them. So does that mean they went down 2 spots, or that they held their spot, with the two ahead of them being put below them?

Even if you put all of Rozemyne’s actions to Alexandria, Ehrenfest still lent support to the defense of the Royal Academy, so if they were allowed to keep their rank and have two other duchies pushed below them, nobody could really complain (too much), what with even Klassenberg falling lower and Dunkelfelger also being rewarded for what they did in the invasion… but would Sylvester want that?

Wait… Ehrenfest was #8 before… so if they held their place and Alexandria just inherited Ahrensbach’s place, plus push down from the two new duchies, Alexandria would be one spot behind Ehrenfest…

Anyway, Alexandria has a lot of kudos to coast on for defeating the traitor duchy Alexandria, at the side of Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest and the return to the country’s religious roots, thanks to Rozemyne. Plus having a Grutrissheit (well, technically a full one and another one with 60ish %, but that’s under wraps) would surely make a good justification for a higher rank too.

But on the downside, Ahrensbach coasted on the imports from Lanzenave for a long time now, which is a thing of the past with the country gate closed and never going to be reopened to Lanzenave. Maybe it’ll be reconnected to a new area, but that would mean having to build relations with the locals, or forming farming/harvesting camps if it’s uninhabited, which will take time to have any effect on Alexandria’s economy.

But then again, Rozemyne revitalized both the land and ocean, meaning that their agriculture and fishing industry will soar to levels that haven’t been seen since the civil war, or maybe even beyond that. And while the printing industry will take some time to fully take off, they’ll surely be able to get at least one printing workshop up and running in pretty short order, which means that they are one of only two duchies with printing… though for a little while they’ll be playing catch-up with Ehrenfest’s numerous established workshops.

So many unknowns…

Considering how forceful Dunkelfelger women are, when it comes to securing their desired marriage partners, is there also groom-taking/stealing ditter?

I’m sure Hannelore wouldn’t do that and especially not to Ehrenfest, after what happens, but do you think it does exist as a concept?

I would imagine that it’s handled like Blumenfeld and Korinthdaum, that it’s initial rank is just a temporary stand in, that will be properly evaluated at the next archduke conference. I also think that most likely they took over Ahrensbach’s rank, minus the two positions for the new duchies, as their temporary rank, which would put them at #8, since they were #6 before.

I’m a bit confused about Letizia’s skit-hem getting muddy. Does this mean that Ahrensbach has different customs, when it comes to the length of underaged people’s clothes? In Ehrenfest even noble girls will only start wearing floor-length skirts, after their graduation and if memory serves, someone of Letizia’s age, would still wear knee-length skirts. The only floor length clothes Rozemyne had, were religious garments, but Letizia was specifically told not to wear any of those.

Seems like Letizia is quite shrap, to notice the possibility of Ferdinand having planned all of this out, where the adult Ahrensbach nobles seem to have bought the cover story hook, line and sinker. ^^

Seems a bit odd that in Effa’s eyes, Rozemyne looked 5 to 6 years younger than Tuui and the gap appeared even bigger than what they used to have AFTER Anwachs gave Rozemyne the growth spurt. Everyone else commented how Rozemyne now looked her age… well the fake noble age anyway. If we took Effa’s words as gospel, she’d look like she is just about to be baptized, which seriously contradicts what the nobles and even Tuuli said. I wonder if this is a translation mistake and she was actually thinking about how the visual age difference prior to the growth spurt, rather than after. Or she might be just as, or maybe even more, biased as Gunther, but going in the opposite direction. ^^

Keep in mind that Ferdinand is an absolute master in keeping his emotions hidden and putting up fake emotions that seem to fool anyone other than Rozemyne, and maybe his name-sworn, so it’s entirely reasonable for the royal to not take him at his word, just because he says he doesn’t want to be Zent… not to mention I seriously doubt he bothered to ask Ferdinand, whether he wanted to be Zent. The only thing we know is, that Trauerqual essentially put an ultimatum before Ferdinand: Replace Sylvester as Aub Ehrenfest, marry Detlinde, or get executed. And as we’ve just seen in this chapter, he believed that had Ferdinand made a move for the crown, at that time, it’d have resulted in a civil war and thus needed to be averted. Ferdinand making a more to become Zent after marrying into Ahrensbach hadn’t been thought of either, since it wasn’t an option anyway at the time, and was a path only potentially opened up by the discovery of the magic cricle and the assumptions this lead to.

I very much doubt that Raublut is to blame for Trauerqual’s reaction here. His words are entirely in keeping with what else we know of his true feelings. I also very much doubt that Raublut could have forseen Detlinde’s action and the immediate reaction by the Sovereign Temple, making it unlikely he could have been able to get Trauerqual drugged up enough to alter his mind, between the incident and this meeting. I also don’t really see what Raublut would have to gain from manipulating the Zent here and now.

This makes me wonder… does Yurgenschmidt have cats?

Considering there are cat-like feybeasts (Zantze, Fetze, Goltze line) and how at least some feybeasts and -pants have non-magical cousin animmals, it’s entirely possible, but was there ever any mention or appearance, that I fail to remember?

Those paranoid nobles… “She helped us to an imeasureable degree and put all her card openly on the table, instead of keeping them as aces up her sleeve… she must be planning something suspicious!”

Back when the bride stealing ditter happened, I assumed that Hildebrand vented his frustration by saying he wished someone would save Rozemyne, in the precense of the drugged sovereign knights, thus inadvertedly causing the incident, but nope, this was clearly entirely Raublut’s doing, since the knights didn’t get anywhere near Hildebrand and had more information than the prince.

I don’t know about the goddess of time… why would the goddess reveal to them, that Ferdinand was going to be engaged with Detlinde, but wouldn’t actually marry her and then erase their memories of it?

If it wasn’t for the specific mention of Ferdinand marrying “Aub Ahrensbach,” I’d have thought someone tried to make him marry Alstede, or some other female Ahrensbach archduke candidate, but had to scrap their plan and used Trug to hide it ever existed. Could the use of Aub Ahrensbach be a mistranslation, or maybe a missing word, like Aub Ahrensbach’s daughter?

Wow… just when a small spark of sympathy is sparked for Barthold, for actually caring for his sister, it is immediately squashed and my bad opinion of him made even worse. And I now also hate Oswald more than I already did. I really hope he’ll suffer a fate far worse than merely sinking into obscurity.