Letters and a Discussion

Letters and a Discussion

Letters and a Discussion

Sylvester and I spent the rest of our journey back to the dormitory conversing with each other and asking our retainers to schedule a meeting for after dinner. Upon our return, Lieseleta rushed over to me.

“Welcome back. Professor Hirschur is waiting for you both in the common room.”

“Professor Hirschur?”

Sylvester and I exchanged looks, then went into the common room. Hirschur immediately stood out to us; in a room full of desperately busy adults darting here and there in preparation for the coming days, she was casually standing by the bookshelf, reading.

“Hirschur?!” Sylvester exclaimed. “What are you doing here?!”

“Aub Ehrenfest, Lady Rozemyne,” she greeted us, though her eyes remained glued to her book. Only after she had returned it to its rightful place did she finally look up at us. “Back at last, I see. I come with a letter from Ferdinand.”

“From Ferdinand...?” I repeated. “But his Starbind Ceremony was delayed. Do you mean to say that he came to the Royal Academy anyway?”

“That very same delay means he is still a citizen of Ehrenfest. As a result, while he cannot attend the conference, I would imagine there is little stopping him from visiting the dormitory. One of his attendants gave this to me.”

That reminded me—Ferdinand had sat out an Archduke Conference in the past, only to be summoned to the Royal Academy anyway. Perhaps that had happened again.

Hirschur pointed at a magic box sitting nearby and said, “Please open it at once, Aub Ehrenfest.” It looked much too large for a simple letter, but the advantage was that only the archduke could open it. “I’m told that Ferdinand put some research documents inside as well, to ensure that I would get it here swiftly. A rather cheeky move, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Would you not have neglected to deliver it until next winter otherwise?” I asked. “He simply knows you too well, Professor Hirschur.”

“Obviously.”

Don’t look so proud about that!

Sylvester opened the box with a wry smile, and Hirschur pounced at the documents inside. Once she had them in her hands, she began to skim them with a look of complete satisfaction.

“What are they about?” I asked.

“The library’s magic tools. It would seem that they can be made more easily by splitting the functions of organizing and searching for documents. Still, the creation process is rather difficult, and it requires high-quality materials...”

Magic tools that can organize and search for documents? Wait, does that mean I can put simplified versions of Schwartz and Weiss in my library?!

The two shumils were also responsible for guiding royals to the Grutrissheit, but that part wouldn’t be of any use to me.

“Professor Hirschur, let me see them too!” I cried. “You don’t care about organizing documents, do you?” I jumped up and down, trying to at least glimpse the research, but Hirschur raised it much higher than I could reach.

“I come first, Lady Rozemyne. These tools will be of much more use to me, as my documents will remain unorganized without them.”

Guh... She’s right!

I recalled the state of Hirschur’s laboratory and promptly conceded. She needed an organizing magic tool more than anyone.

“I expect to have completed the finishing touches by the start of the next academic term,” Hirschur informed me. “You may come to my laboratory then, if you are interested.”

“You expect me to wait until winter...? I want to read them now.”

“You would do well to remember that you are supposed to be in Ehrenfest. Wait for the proper time and place.”

As everyone kept reminding me, I didn’t want to be seen wandering around the Royal Academy. I was here purely to assist the royal family, so visiting the scholar building or staying in Hirschur’s laboratory for my own enjoyment were completely out of the question.

Ngh... But my magic tools...

No matter what I told myself, the thought of my very own Schwartz and Weiss was to die for. I started to contemplate how to get my hands on their production method, only for Hirschur to look down at me and chuckle.

“I shall write up a list of the necessary ingredients and deliver it to the dormitory. Perhaps you can hole up in my laboratory this winter to brew with them.”

“Yes!” I declared, my fists clenched in determination. But before I could say much else, Sylvester thwacked me on the head with some paper.

“Rozemyne, this one is for you,” he said, holding out a letter from the box. I went to take it from him, then paused; what if there was invisible ink on it? Nothing had happened when he slapped it against my head, so there was probably nothing to worry about.

I can take it, right? Ferdinand wouldn’t carelessly use shining ink on a letter he was going to package with other correspondence... right?

My hand trembled a little as I reached out to accept the letter. Sylvester must have noticed, because he gave me a suspicious look and said, “What’s gotten into you?” as he handed it over.

“Well, um... will I be allowed to write him back?” I asked while checking the letter for shining ink. “Is it not wrong of me to worry about or contact him?”

Sylvester seemed troubled all of a sudden. “You can respond to him, yes. I’m sure he’s going to give me a lot to think about, so let’s delay our meeting until tomorrow.” He gave the correspondence addressed to him to one of his scholars, then turned his attention to the eccentric professor. “Good work, Hirschur. You can eat dinner with us today.”

“I appreciate the offer,” she replied, “but I must return to my laboratory at once.”

“I see. Well, I won’t stop you.”

After freeing Hirschur with a breezy wave, Sylvester headed off to his room. I then did the same, firmly holding my letter from Ferdinand.

After eating dinner and bathing, I went into my hidden room. Paper and regular ink had already been prepared for me to write my response, but I didn’t have any shining ink—as expected, since I hadn’t anticipated needing to write a letter to Ferdinand during the Archduke Conference.

“There’s so much I want to mention, like the silver cloth and the chance that he might be punished by association... but anything I write will end up being checked, so I need to keep it all innocuous. Well, I’m sure Sylvester will cover all of the important parts.”

I sighed and opened the letter, which was prefaced with a warning: “I wrote this while everyone was absent for the Archduke Conference and got Eckhart to include it with my letters to Sylvester. Pen your response under the assumption that it will be checked.” He was evidently in a position where he could write but not read freely.

You know, Ferdinand, even I understand that my letters to you will undergo inspection.

It was obvious that anything I wrote would be carefully examined not just by Ahrensbach but by Sylvester as well. Dissatisfied to have been thrust into such an annoying scenario, I started reading the letter written in a familiar hand. The first lines of the first paragraph were a scolding.

“So, you have stopped writing to me. How am I to interpret that? You were the one who demanded this correspondence in the first place, as a way to confirm that I am well.”

Ngh... I’m sorry.

I hadn’t sent Ferdinand a letter since Sylvester told me to cease my worrying and stop contacting him so often. He was well within his rights to complain.

“There’s so much I want to tell you!” I grumbled, my lips pursed. I would need to settle for what Sylvester had told me, though, so I put pen to paper and wrote what could essentially be summarized as “I need to be more careful now that I actually look my age.”

That alone wasn’t enough to vent all of my frustrations, though; while I was at it, I mentioned that I was being urged to show the same concern for Wilfried that I’d shown Ferdinand when he was here, and that Wilfried was far from pleased with the results. Nobody here would listen to my complaints, so just being able to write them down was surprisingly therapeutic.

“Getting all that off my chest has really calmed me down. Of course, I can’t actually send this; Ahrensbach would learn far too much about Ehrenfest’s internal affairs.”

I folded up my sheet of complaints, then started a new letter with my one-line summary and an additional note that I was indeed growing at an impressive rate. That settled that.

I continued reading my letter from Ferdinand. In it, he explained that the nobles of Ahrensbach had also been made to participate in Spring Prayer, and that he had gathered plenty of ingredients in the process. Letizia had apparently refused the kindness-infused potions that Sergius had delivered to her, as she “did not yet need potions of such a high quality.”

My stamina had once been so poor that I would end up immobilized in the blink of an eye, but Letizia could get by on normal rejuvenation potions. She had ended up deprived of mana, sure, but she hadn’t collapsed once during Spring Prayer. Ferdinand wrote that he had again been surprised to remember how sickly I was compared to a normal child.

“Well, I’m a lot healthier now than I was when you were around. I ended up bedridden a mere three times this past Spring Prayer, and I recovered after just two days of rest. How about that?!”

I scribbled my response, filled with indignation, but the truth of the matter was that being compared to Letizia depressed me. It felt like I was still so far away from being normal.

You just need to improve, Rozemyne. Bit by bit.

I returned my attention to the letter.

“Alongside this letter are some verinur flowers I obtained while circling Ahrensbach for Spring Prayer. They are an ideal ingredient for making charms. I cannot do much with them myself, owing to my lack of a workshop, but I expect you are now capable enough to brew with them on your own.”

So that was why the correspondence had come in such a large box—he had sent us some materials as well. A good number of my charms had just broken, so it was good timing.

Not just good, actually—perfect. Classic Ferdinand.

I read a section describing the ideal charms to make with the verinur flowers, then continued.

“In return, there are a few things I must ask you to prepare before next year’s Archduke Conference. First, a minimum of three hundred sheets of maximal-quality fey paper. Ehrenfest and Drewanchel published research on improving such paper, did they not? Use that to your advantage. From my workshop, I also require some geschtepferd leather, as well as sonnenschlag and regisch feystones, also of maximal quality.”

Hold on a second. How is that a fair trade for a few measly flowers?!

I didn’t know what Ferdinand intended to do with such materials, but his demands seemed pretty unreasonable. I would probably be able to find everything but the fey paper in the workshop he had given me, but still—this was a big ask.

Maximal-quality fey paper, hm?

A minimum of three hundred sheets meant that not even our supply of trombe paper would suffice. The noble children entering the orphanage this year had made me hesitant to produce more.

Maybe I should ask Brigitte after I get back to Ehrenfest...

Our research into new uses for Illgner’s fey paper had resulted in a joint research project with Drewanchel, and it was possible that the province had invented another kind of paper in the meantime. If not, I would just need to have the children harvest trombes—without telling the nobles, of course.

Ferdinand was asking a lot of me, but I wrote that I would do my best to prepare everything. As I read on, however, his list of demands grew longer. He also wanted us to bring various items with us when we attended Aub Ahrensbach’s funeral next summer, including some luggage and more food. It was starting to feel like he was using me as a very convenient tool.

Hmph. I’m busy too, you know!

The letter continued, “I do not like having to ask so much of you, so I intend to prepare some fish for you in return. I will accept any requests.”

“Yippee!” I shouted. “I’ll get your paper and meals ready in an instant! Praise be to the gods!”

I made a note to tell Sylvester to send over the luggage that Ferdinand needed, then started humming to myself as I wrote down the fish I wanted to eat.

“I don’t want taunadel or any other poisonous fish, but I do want plenty of spresch; that spresch-ball soup we had was delicious. I also want fish that even commoner chefs will be able to skin. So... some of that... and a few of these... Done.”

I grinned at my response, excited to have fish again after such a long time. Now I was really looking forward to summer. Such enthusiasm was tragically short-lived, however; my mood took a nosedive when I read the next part of the letter.