Prologue

Prologue

Prologue

Ehrenfest’s game of ditter against Dunkelfelger had come to an end. There had been some unexpected developments, such as an interruption by the Sovereign Knight’s Order, and the royal family’s decision to question all of the involved parties, but the match had ultimately ended with Ehrenfest’s victory. Rozemyne would not be married into Dunkelfelger.

Matthias sighed in relief, glad to have protected his sworn lady... but it was too soon for him to rest easy. He had noticed a faint scent during that questioning—something that everybody else had most likely missed.

“Can I ask you all to come with me to a meeting room?” Matthias said. “I wish to discuss today’s events.” He had gone around the dining hall to gather together Laurenz, Leonore, and Judithe—as well as Brunhilde, who had also participated in the ditter match.

“What about me?” asked the young Theodore, but he served Lady Rozemyne only within the Royal Academy. His true lord was Giebe Kirnberger, so he could not participate in these important discussions.

However, Matthias was hesitant to be so direct. He knew how upset Theodore would get about being left out, so he instead said, “I would like to keep this among those who participated in the ditter game.”

“But will you not want the perspective of someone who was in the audience?” Theodore asked.

Matthias fell into thought, trying to figure out how he could get Theodore to give up without hurting his feelings... but then Leonore heaved an impatient sigh.

“Theodore, as you only serve Lady Rozemyne here in the Royal Academy, we must draw a line. We do not want our every word to be leaked to Giebe Kirnberger. Or would you like to commit to becoming Lady Rozemyne’s retainer?”

Theodore had a lot of potential as a knight, and with Rozemyne already having a shortage of guards, her retainers were eager for him to join them formally. But after a moment spent in thought, Theodore refused the offer.

“My goal is to become a knight of Kirnberger,” he said.

After dinner, Rozemyne’s five retainers who had participated in the game of ditter gathered in a meeting room. Matthias confirmed that the door was shut tightly behind them, then turned to Brunhilde.

“How is Lady Rozemyne?”

Brunhilde was an apprentice attendant and could access Rozemyne’s room on the girls’ floor. Matthias could still remember how ghastly pale Rozemyne had looked while she was being carried away. He wanted some kind of update on her situation, like whether she was feeling better, or whether she had at least awakened.

“She is not doing very well...” Brunhilde replied. “Her illness resulted partly from her drinking too many rejuvenation potions, so that means of recovery is not an option here. All we can do is wait for her to awaken. In truth, she developed a fever while we were eating... It seems she is struggling even to breathe.”

At the moment, Rihyarda was off eating her own dinner, while Lieseleta and Gretia were placing a cold washcloth on Lady Rozemyne’s forehead and wiping away her sweat.

Brunhilde grew increasingly pale as she continued, “If only I had not fainted during the match... I could have stopped Lady Rozemyne from consuming too many potions.”

Her voice was full of regret, but an archattendant who had received so little combat training could not be blamed for having fainted in the face of an attack from Rarstark, Dunkelfelger’s strongest apprentice knight. It was an understandable reaction, if anything. Her priority had been to stay inside Rozemyne’s shield, and she had not been trained to defend herself or avoid attacks. The apprentice attendants had only been expected to manage the rejuvenation potions and recognize the different types of offensive magic tools.

“In that case,” Judithe said, “I’m to blame for failing as a guard knight. I allowed Lord Lestilaut to get into the shield and was unable to protect Lady Rozemyne. If I hadn’t taken out my weapon, then I wouldn’t have been knocked out of the shield...”

She was shaking her head in disappointment, her expression clouded, but Matthias did not think she was at fault either. Any guard knight worth their salt would take out their weapon upon seeing their lord or lady in danger. It was precisely what they were trained to do and something they did without thinking.

“I expect that anyone in your situation would have been knocked out of Schutzaria’s shield,” Matthias said. “In fact, you would have failed as a guard knight if you hadn’t tried to protect her.”

Laurenz nodded. “Even if you had stayed inside to protect her from Lord Lestilaut, Lady Rozemyne probably would have drunk a rejuvenation potion anyway. We needed her shield to protect us from the intruders’ attacks and as a place to heal the knights.”

Brunhilde frowned. “Laurenz, that is precisely what we should have stopped her from doing. Lord Ferdinand surely would have scolded us all as failures of retainers, were he here.”

Neither Matthias nor Laurenz understood what she meant. Was this really worthy of such a harsh criticism? Matthias remembered that Rozemyne had used Schutzaria’s shield to protect the students during the ternisbefallen attack last year, and they hadn’t been criticized for that. On this occasion, the shield had been absolutely necessary for warding off the attacks from above, healing the wounded knights, and protecting the noncombatants from the audience.

“But why? If not for Schutzaria’s shield, we would have been—”

Brunhilde shook her head. “Recall that Dunkelfelger does not have Schutzaria’s shield to rely on. Is it not due to the weakness of our apprentice knights that we could not heal ourselves or protect those in the audience without Lady Rozemyne’s assistance?” It was a sharp criticism delivered with narrowed eyes.

Despite what Brunhilde said, Matthias believed that she was ignoring one important detail: it had been Rozemyne’s desire to both make and maintain the shield. “Lady Rozemyne made her shield with a wish to protect everyone. Are her noble actions and spirit not to be respected?”

“They are. However, Lady Rozemyne’s health and safety come first. We, her retainers, failed to act upon that fact.” Her firm amber eyes fell on Matthias and Laurenz. “This is not like when she was overflowing with mana and needed to give some to others. We, the students of Ehrenfest, forced her to go beyond her limits and use more potions than was prescribed to her by Lord Ferdinand, her personal doctor. We know Lady Rozemyne is frail enough that even attending tea parties causes her to collapse, so why did we not intervene? Why are we treating what happened as normal instead of reflecting on ourselves or regretting our misdeeds?”

Brunhilde’s revelation came as such a shock to Matthias that he felt as though someone had just punched him in the back of the head. She was completely right—they were all well aware of Rozemyne’s poor health. And while she had more mana than most, her supply was far from infinite. She, too, would run out if she used too much at once.

And yet, even though Rozemyne had needed to use rejuvenation potions just to maintain the shield, Matthias had not been at all worried about her giving blessings or using mana. He had felt concerned upon seeing her ashen face, but he had not stopped to question how his dependence on her had caused it.

“Brunhilde... I’m ever so sorry...” Leonore said. “We ended up in this situation because I made Lady Rozemyne’s shield an integral part of our plan...”

“Lady Rozemyne was motivated to use it, and it likely was essential to our victory. I would not have volunteered to participate in the match if not for that shield. That said... the battle ended the moment Lady Hannelore left Dunkelfelger’s base, did it not? We should have dispelled the shield then and there, making Lady Rozemyne’s health our top priority. As her retainer, I am ashamed that I was unable to.”

The apprentice knights had been free to leave the training grounds as soon as the battle was over and could have spent time recovering somewhere safe. Those in the audience could have defended themselves, for the most part; that was why all students were taught to use geteilt. As for Charlotte, her guard knights could have flown up to protect her.

Brunhilde’s regrets must have stemmed from her being an attendant, Matthias thought. Her viewpoint was different from that of the knights.

“I regret my actions as well,” Leonore said, then shot a worried glance in the direction of Rozemyne’s room. “I should not have let her heal that unconscious Dunkelfelger apprentice. She was in a much worse state than he was.”

Matthias blinked. It was his firm understanding that a retainer’s duty was to grant the wishes of their lord or lady and nothing more. Yet even Leonore, a guard knight, was agreeing with Brunhilde.

What is causing them to think like this?

This wasn’t just a difference between attendants and guard knights; Leonore and Judithe both agreed with Brunhilde’s position. Rather, it was something more fundamental separating his thinking from theirs. This was far from ideal; contrasting ideas of the role of a retainer would possibly lead to misunderstandings or conflict in the future. Matthias wanted to understand their thoughts and intentions before that happened.

“So you say,” he interjected, his voice cracking out of anxiety, “but Lady Rozemyne wished to heal the knight, and he was certainly wounded enough to need it. Is it not the duty of a retainer to grant the wishes of their lord or lady?”

“That is not always the case,” Brunhilde replied flatly.

Leonore looked contemplative for a moment, then muttered, “I suppose the two of you should know this now that you are name-sworn...” She looked at Matthias and Laurenz. “What I am about to tell you was told to me by Cornelius, as it happened before we all entered Lady Rozemyne’s service. Four years ago... Lady Rozemyne’s retainers worked only to grant her wishes, with no other thoughts in mind.”

Rozemyne had gone off on her highbeast to save Charlotte, who had been kidnapped by Viscount Joisontak. Her guard knights had separated from her as ordered, determined to grant her every wish—and, during that brief moment, Rozemyne herself had been kidnapped.

Leonore continued, “Her guard knights put her wants above all else, and the consequence was their lady spending two years in a jureve.”

No matter how much gratitude they received from Charlotte, her retainers, or the archducal couple, the guards’ charge remained in a coma. As time passed, her presence in the minds of the people grew increasingly thin, and she became more and more forgotten.

“Their lady eventually awoke to find that life had continued without her. She had missed two years of education and growth, and noble society would not wait for her emotions to stabilize. How do you think Lady Rozemyne’s guard knights felt seeing their lady, whom they had failed to protect, being sent to the Royal Academy before she could catch up to the present?”

Just imagining their pain put a bad taste in Matthias’s mouth. Neither he nor Laurenz could say anything.

“We cannot allow history to repeat itself,” Leonore concluded. “To that end, you must understand that simply granting the wishes of whomever you serve is not enough. Lady Rozemyne in particular is extraordinarily creative and motivated, but she does not have nearly enough stamina to keep up with herself. To complicate matters further, her warped understanding of noble culture, due in part to her upbringing in the temple, means she is often not on the same page as the rest of us.”

Matthias and Laurenz listened carefully. Roderick had told them how to serve their new lady as members of the former Veronica faction, but this was something more elementary—it was a lesson on how to serve the being that was Rozemyne.

“You must be careful about Lord Wilfried as well,” Brunhilde noted. “That boy always looks down on Lady Rozemyne.”

From there, she launched into an anger-fueled rant; it seemed that Wilfried was guilty of quite a few infuriating offenses that only retainers would notice. Each was trivial on its own, but just as an ever-growing stack of rocks would eventually form a mountain, his list of sins had created such a downward spiral that the girls serving Rozemyne were openly furious.

There have been a few occasions when he’s annoyed me as well...

Brunhilde continued, “My opinion of him improved slightly when he accepted this game of ditter, but from the halfway point of the match through to the discussion with royalty, he only seemed to care about Lady Hannelore this, Lady Hannelore that!”

“Well, uh... I think we should be a bit more considerate here,” Matthias said. “Ehrenfest only won because he got Lady Hannelore out of her base after she was left there all alone.”

“I will take that into consideration, but Lady Rozemyne was still white as a sheet. I am furious that he had the time to worry about an archduke candidate from another duchy but not about his own fiancée as she fought to protect everyone from Ehrenfest all on her own.”

“I expect he was at least a little worried about her,” Laurenz said, trying to protect Wilfried—but Brunhilde shot him a glare so fierce that he started to wonder whether looks really could kill.