City of Ehrenfest

The City of Ehrenfest (エーレンフェスト, Eerenfesuto) is the primary setting of Ascendance of a Bookworm. It is the capital city of the duchy of Ehrenfest, a region of Yurgenschmidt.

A bustling and populous city, Ehrenfest is divided into districts that reflect its strict class hierarchy, including the commoners' lower city, the temple, the Noble’s Quarter, and the archduke's castle.

The city of Ehrenfest originally consisted of only the area now known as the Noble's Quarter. The temple was originally an inn that served as a front gate while travelers were investigated, and the old city gate is now called the Noble's Gate.

When the first Aub Ehrenfest took governorship of the duchy 200 years ago, Ehrenfest was expanded to include the lower city as a demonstration of the new archduke's power and wealth.

The lower city (下町, shitamachi) is the commoners' district located in the southern half of Ehrenfest. A large wall separates it from the Noble's Quarter in the north, and the only means of traveling between the two on foot is to pass through the temple. In general, the poorest commoner neighborhoods are located near the south gate of the city, while more wealthy merchants live in the north, by the border to the Noble's Quarter.

All buildings in the lower city, in wealthy and poor neighborhoods alike, consist of multi-story townhouses. The first two levels are made of a white stone stone that resembles ivory, which was created by the archduke's magic many generations ago. Above that, newer construction made of wood, stone and plaster form additional levels, which can reach as high as six stories, plus an attic.

Due to a lack of plumbing throughout the lower city, there is no public sanitation or sewer system. Commoners use chamberpots and discard their waste in public areas. In poorer parts of the lower city, this is usually done by dumping it out the window. The resulting foul smell and unsightly appearance can be jarring for those not used to it. Additionally, all commoners rely on public wells for their water supply, which has been made easier in recent years by the spread of hand pumps for drawing water. Firewood is the main source of fuel for heating, and candles are an important source of light.

As Ehrenfest begins to anticipate more merchants arriving from other duchies, addressing the appearance and sanitation problems in the lower city is considered a top priority. For the time being, the Merchant's Guild is hiring commoners to manually clean the streets. This process is beginning with the main street running between the eastern and western gates, since it has the highest amount of merchant traffic. Other rules, such as requiring commoners to regularly bathe, have been considered, but no definite decision has been made.

In the south side of Ehrenfest, poorer families live in small rooms of ragged townhouses, usually with just one or two rooms for an entire family. Most families share a single bed. Some families living on the upper levels of the building use the attic to house smaller livestock, like chicken. The center of the neighborhood is the communal well, where everyone draws water.

Those who reside in this part of the lower city are commonly soldiers and craftsmen. Because they live so close to the south gate, commoner children often walk to the forest during the day to collect food and firewood for their families. Likewise, many workshops are located near the south gate, including the Myne Workshop.

An open-air marketplace is open during some parts of the year, when farmers bring their livestock and produce in from outside the city walls during the day, and return to their farming villages at night. Merchants and other vendors also sell wares at the market.

See also:


 * Myne's House
 * Lutz's House
 * Myne Workshop

The farther north a building is in the lower city, the more decorative and well-kept it tends to be. In the wealthier merchant neighborhoods, the wooden upper levels are painted in bright colors and often have windowboxes full of flowers. The ivory lower floors are always left in their original color.

In areas with business the ground-floor is where the store or worshop is located, with the second floor being reserved for the owner and their close family to live in. The third floors and above are then rented out to either more distant family members, employees or if there's room left, anyone the owner approves of and who can afford the rent. The least luxurious apartments at the top of the buildings are often rented to live-in apprentices.

See also:


 * Gilberta Company
 * Othmar Company
 * Merchant's Guild
 * Italian Restaurant

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 As Lady Charlotte's scholars recently discovered, there had been plans to create a sewer system for the lower city utilizing sanitary slime magic tools, like the one in the noble's quarters and archduke's castle, but at the time Ehrenfest lacked the mana-capacity to make the changes with creation magic, leading to repeated delays until eventually everyone involved had either died or forgotten, with the blueprints left to gather dust for decades in the archduke's personal storage until their recent rediscovery.

Due to the time-constraints between the scheduled remodeling of the lower city and the expected arrival of the foreign merchants following the next archduke's conference, the nobles refrained from fully remodeling the entire lower city, since that would have ended up destroying all the extensions that were built on top of the ivory buildings. With the majority of commoners living in those wood and stone extensions, this would lead to large parts of the population loosing their homes until they can be rebuilt, leading to refugee camps that would undermine the attempts to beautify the city and drastically reducing the rate of production for the very products to be traded with other duchies for which the remodeling was decided upon in the first place.

Instead of this full remodeling, only the streets and underground will be remodeled, with the residential buildings staying untouched. While this will mean that the individual homes will not have their own toilets, bathrooms and waste disposal chutes, instead opting for communal bathing and waste-disposal areas like in parts of the temple, it will not only stop the mentioned disruption of commoner's lives, but also obviate the need to evacuate the entire population, since they can now take shelter inside their homes. It also reduces the mana-cost of the spell.

In addition to the sanitary concerns, at Lady Rozemyne's suggestion the remodeling will also add additional pipes for access to water for paper-making workshops, though the mana-intensive water purificaiton magic tools will have to be added at a later date, since the duchy lacks the regular mana supply to keep so many additional tools running at the current time.

Responsible for the security of the lower city are the soldiers of the city guard. In addition to guarding the city gates and acting as the local police force, the city guard is also responsible for cleaning the main roads of snow in the winter and cutting down Trombe that have grown too big for the scavanging children to deal with on their own. Soldiers of the city guard are recruited exclusively from commoner citizens and the entire guard is subordinate to the Knight's Order.

Should a noble be required to deal with other nobles that listen to the members of the city guard at the gate due to them being commoners, the gates are equipped with rott bells to call a member of the Knight's Order to deal with the noble.

To prevent collusion and negligence of soldiers staying in the same place the entire time, the gate guards are rotated between the city gates every three years. For this purpose the gate guards are split into platoons that move in their entirety to their new assignment, from the Commander down to the freshest apprentice.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 Apart from the rooms inside the wall next to the gates, the city guard also has a central building near the center of town. The building contains the central administration, run by clerks and contains meeting halls for times when members of different platoons have to meet or to make announcements to large groups of commoners, as was the case then announcing the remodeling of the lower city to add a sewer system and clean up the streets.


 * City Guard Central Building

Located directly on the border between the lower city and the Noble's Quarter, the temple is the primary place of worship of the gods and the home of many religious ceremonies. It is the only temple of its kind in the duchy of Ehrenfest. The Ehrenfest orphanage is also located there.

Both nobles and commoners avoid entering the temple unless required for religious ceremonies or other business. Likewise, priests and shrine maidens live on temple grounds and do not leave unless summoned. As a result, there is very little traffic between the temple and the other areas of Ehrenfest.

See also:


 * Ehrenfest Temple
 * Temple Hierarchy

The Noble's Quarter is located in the northern half of the city, separated from the commoners southern half by the temple. The Noble's Quarter is an opulent suburb, with all residential buildings being large mansions most having a big garden.

Like the lower city, the Noble's Quarter doesn't have a school. Tutors are called in to teach the children until they reach the age of ten. In winter they gather in the children's room. At the age of ten, children are sent to the Royal Academy each winter until graduation. A noble is only considered a true noble if they attend and graduate from the Royal Academy. This school teaches nobles magic related things and prepare them for social gatherings.

Unlike the lower city, the noble's quarter is being kept meticulously clean, mainly by the use of magic tools.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 Every set of rooms where a noble is expected to life or to house guests has their own toilet and bath and each building has a connection to the sewer system. Both the individual toilets and the sewer system utizlize sanitary slimes to dispose of the waste.

The Ivory Tower is a high-class jail exclusively for imprisoning members of the archduke's family should they commit severe crimes. The magical doors are configured to only be opened by members of the archduke's family, but once the door is open, anyone can enter. However entering the tower without the express permission of the Aub is considered treason and even members of the archduke's family can face execution, depending on the surrounding circumstances.

Currently the only inmate is Veronica, the mother of Aub Ehrenfest for faking an archducal permit and thus enabling an attack on the Aub's adopted daughter.

The Knight's Order is a battalion of knights who serve as the primary defense force of Ehrenfest. The Knight's Order is made up entirely of adult nobles who can wield magic. Knights live in the knights' barracks, located in the general area of the Archduke's castle, alongside several training grounds.

Karstedt is the current commander of the Knight's Order, though the former commander Bonifatius is still active in training knights even after stepping down.

Contained within the walls of the noble's quarter is an entire forrest, so that nobles can relax, hunt and gather magical ingredient in a relatively safe enviroment. Should feybeasts beyond a certain danger level be spotted, the Knight's Order will sortie to hunt them down. Once a year there is a great hunting tournament during the festivities surrounding the Harvest Festival.

The Ivory Tower is also hidden away in the forest.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 4 When Judithe ran out of rejuvenation potions she petitioned Rozemyne for a leave of absence to gather ingredients. Rozemyne took this as an opportunity to go to the forest with all her retainers under the guidance and protection of Bonifatius, so all of them got the opportunity to gather ingredients and for her guard knights to gain experience in guarding her against real dangers in a controlled enviroment. When he learned of this Wilfried requested to be allow to go along with his guard knights, which his parents granted.

Since it revealed some big flaws in the abilities of some of the apprentice knights, it was decided to make this a regular occuranace in the future.

The archduke's castle lies beyond another wall separating it from the Noble's Quarter. It looks around three to four stories high from the outside and has much land surrounding it. On the land are several facilities for tutors and forest rangers to live in, training grounds and barracks for the Knight's Order and gardens for tea parties. The Archduke's family lives in the castle with their attendants. It has an entry on the northern side for private visitors and the Archduke's family themselves, and an entry on the southern side for workers.

The castle itself is also subdivided into several wings, connected by corridors.

The central building is where the Archduke and his first wife reside and also houses meeting rooms, ball rooms and similar facilities. Inside of the Archduke's office is a room that allows access to Ehrenfest's foundation magic.


 * The northern building is where baptised children of the Archduke live until they get married. The connection corridor to the main building terminates on the second floor. Beyond the entry area, this floor is reserved for boys, with the third floor being for the girls. The first floor is only used by servants.
 * The Easten building until recently was used to house the Archduke's mother, meaning it is probably reserved family members of the Archduke other than wives and children.
 * The Western building is where the second and third wives live.

Prior to moving to the nothern building upon their baptism, the Archduke's children usually stay with their children, though in recent history Wilfried has been raised by his grandmother Veronica and accordingly lived in the eastern building with her until turning seven.

The meeting rooms inside the main building are divided into ranks so that a meeting room appropriate to the expected guest can be chosen, with the ones for archnobles being much more richly furnished and decorated than those meant for lower ranking nobles.

As the castle is big, there are many corridors and stairs which won't lead one directly to their destination. For that reason, Rozemyne is permitted to use her highbeast Lessy inside the castle so that she won't faint or would have to be carried all the time.


 * Suzuka has noted that the north side of the lower city would look like Rothenburg, Germany in the Manga Part 2 Volume 1 afterword.
 * Rozemyne's room in the castle is located directly by the stairs. It looks like her room in Karstedt's estate.