Justus/Story

When Rozemyne goes to gather ruelle fruit for her jureve during the Harvest Festival, Ferdinand assigns Justus to accompany her as a tax official. (Eckhart also accompanies them as Rozemyne’s guard.) When he meets Rozemyne, he tells her that he knows her true background and explains how he disguised himself to gather information in the Lower City.

When they visit Hasse, Justus provides Ferdinand with information that he uses to manipulate Kantna, the local scholar-official. Later, Justus’s interest is piqued by the mayonnaise used in the sandwiches made by Rozemyne’s chefs, and he begins pestering her for the recipe. She deflects him in a ploy to drive up the price.

Justus accompanies Rozemyne’s party during the ruelle gathering on the Night of Schutzaria. When feybeasts swarm the tree, Justus stays next to Rozemyne and advises her. He protects her from an attacking zantze, but fails to prevent it from stealing the ruelle dyed with her mana. Later, he helps Rozemyne stay awake and maintain the Shield of Schutzaria by telling her stories about the library at the Royal Academy, buying enough time for Ferdinand to arrive.

Ferdinand calls Justus and Eckhart to a meeting where he explains that he and Rozemyne will soon be punishing the mayor of Hasse for the crime of attacking the monastery. When Rozemyne explains that she prefers to tax the commoners rather than execute them, Justus praises her for her pragmatic attitude toward “squeezing them dry”.

Justus is present at Hasse’s public execution, where he serves as a scholar and selects the identification medals of the condemned citizens. He is thrilled at the opportunity to witness the ritual for executing traitors, explaining to Rozemyne that it is only taught to archduke candidates and rarely performed in public.

When Rozemyne continues her travels for Spring Prayer and her ingredient collection, Justus is reluctantly obliged to return to Ehrenfest with the box of citizenship medals. He laments that he wants to follow Rozemyne wherever he can, because “there is hardly ever a dull moment” with her around.

When Ferdinand returns to noble society, Justus is happy to return to service as his attendant and scholar. Although he now can visit the temple freely, he forbidden from visiting the orphanage and workshop in the temple because his curiosity is likely to cause problems.

Later, Justus helps Ferdinand, Eckhart and Rozemyne prepare for their expedition to pick up Riesefalke eggs at Mount Lohenberg. Although he wants to accompany them, Ferdinand strictly forbids it, saying that he is too risky a companion in such a dangerous environment.

Justus once again accompanies Ferdinand and Rozemyne as a tax official during the Harvest Festival. He and Eckhart travel with her to Dorvan to assist in her second attempt to gather a ruelle on the Night of Schutzaria.

While they wait for nightfall, Justus inquires about Rozemyne’s interest in making children’s bibles. When she talks enthusiastically about wanting new books, however, he warns her never to say such a thing in public, because her words will be interpreted as a request for bribes. Later that day, he stays beside Rozemyne as she gathers her ruelle.

When Rozemyne is asleep in her jureve, Ferdinand is overburdened with work and reluctantly asks Justus for help managing the paper workshop at the temple. Justus only visits the temple occasionally, but he impresses the temple attendants with his ability to finish multiple days of work on each visit.

After his nephew Traugott brings disgrace on himself and resigns as Lady Rozemyne's guard knight, Justus participates in a family meeting to deal with the fallout of the incident. As a result Justus is temporarily assigned as Traugott's attendant to reeducate him. Due to how disrespectful, ignorant and unrepentive Traugott is, Justus is beyond harsh with his nephew, openly humiliating him not just in private, but in front of whoever happens to be nearby, only rarely lowing his voice to a point where only Traugott can hear his sharp rebuke and occasionally even employing physical violence.

Initially Justus was quite annoyed with this arrangement, however when he received a letter from Ferdinand, this changed entirely. Not someone who'd let such an opportunity go to waste, Ferdinand instructed Justus to peronally gather information at the Royal Academy and help out the dormitory for the good of Ehrenfest, which is exactly what Justus primarily does, with Traugott's punishment and education being rather low on his list of priorities, which he makes very clear to the wayward boy.

At one point in the privacy of their room Traugott inadvertedly insulted Rihyarda. Due to his ignorance he believed that his grandmother had resigned from her various ladies and lords of her own accord and thus thought he too could switch between masters easily. In reality however Rihyarda served the archducal family as a whole, which meant she didn't choose, but was told whom to serve without a say in the matter. This insulting ignorance enraged Justus to much that he body-slammed his newphew into the ground and choked him to the point where the boy passed out. He also promised that if Traugott didn't stop being such an idiot and do better he would not let go next time.

Rozemyne becomes impatient with the noble scholars’ contempt for commoners and resolves to train her own scholar who can manage the printing industry. Ferdinand mentions that Justus is familiar with printing and paper-making, but refuses to lend his services to Rozemyne because Justus is too useful to him.

When Rozemyne returns to the Royal Academy, she is surprised to find that Justus is present as his nephew Traugott’s attendant. He is assigned to educate Traugott on the proper behaviour of an archnoble, as well as punish him for his previous blunders. More importantly, the position gives him an excuse to report on Rozemyne’s activities at the Royal Academy, gather information, and advise the Ehrenfest students on how to prepare for socializing and the upcoming Interduchy Tournament. As a personal request, Rozemyne asks Justus to help train her scholars to manage the printing industry.

Justus disguises himself as a woman (using the name "Gudrun") to accompany Rozemyne to a tea party with Prince Anastasius. Being able to lip-read, he follows along with the conversation and is horrified at Rozemyne’s lack of self-awareness while socializing.

When Ferdinand arrives for the Interduchy Tournament, Justus completely ignores Traugott in favor of serving Ferdinand. The other students feel slightly bad for Traugott.

Because he already knows her Lower City background, Justus serves as a stand-in for Rozemyne’s scholar when she has her final meeting with the Plantin Company in the hidden room.

When Ferdinand successfully pressures Rozemyne to take him along to the Italian Restaurant for a discussion with the lower city merchants, he entrusts Justus to inform his guard knights about it, since he needed two guards for the occasion. The only one that Justus actually informs is Eckhart who he knew to be willing to acompany his lord to the lower city. He puts himself forward as the second guard, without even contacting any of Ferdinands other knights. When called out on this he argues that he didn't contact them, since he already knew what their answer would have been and that none of them would have been happy with visiting the lower city. He also admits that he was very curious about the restaurant and it's introductory system in particular, which up to that point had successfully stymied his attempts to visit the place on his own.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 8 As someone name-sword to Ferdinand, Justus will accompany his master to Ahrensbach. It is nearly unheard of for scholars to be allowed to accompany their master when they move to another duchy, due to fears of them leaking information to their former homes, but since Justus is officially - and to most people's entire knowledge - an attendant, he will likely not have any issues being granted permission to come along. With Justus bringing his considerable stock of rare alchemical ingredients with him, Ferdinand decided to leave the brewing of his potions to Justus in the future and leave his own stock behind with Rozemyne.

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