Hartmut

Hartmut (ハルトムート Harutomuto) is a noble child Rozemyne meets in the playroom. He is part of the Leisegang faction and Ottilie's youngest son

Hartmut fully buys into the legend of the "Saint of Ehrenfest" and is very devoted in futhering it's spread, much to Rozemyne's annoyance. After some initial hickups, she manages to restrain his activities somewhat.

At Rihyarda's recommendation Rozemyne decides to choose him as one of her retainers upon her entry into the Royal Academy.

Without knowing about Rozemynes intentions or wishes he takes it upon himself to work on making her the next Aub Ehrenfest. When Rozemyne learns of this she tells him outright that she has absolutely no intention of becoming the archduchess and that he sould cease all his effort to bring this along.

Hartmut stops actively working to get Rozemyne elected as the successor, but still can't stop himself from constantly talking about how great she would be as the archduchess in private.

He has a tendency of keeping his information to himself until he deems it most useful to release it, even keeping it from his mistress. When Rozemyne calls him out on this and tells him to tell her everything he uncovers without holding anything back, he seems genuinely surprised for a moment, hinting that he did this more out of instinct rather than a lack of trust in Rozemyne's judgement, before vowing to devote himself to her better in the future.

He is very impressed with how Rozemyne managed to find a truly optimal way of dealing with Traugott in a way that caused the minimal amount of problems and hurt feelings, while at the same time maximizing the benefit to her and her allies.

While Rozemyne is back in Ehrenfest for the Dedication Ritual it falls to Leonore to keep Harmut from letting his enthusiasm from getting the better of him, since even Hartmut's own mother Ottilie worries greatly of exactly this happening and asks Leonore to keep an eye on him in Rozemyne's absence.

Spoiler for Part 4 Volume 3 During her absence he and Philine compiled a list of quirks and specialty products of each duchy to help prepare Rozemyne for a tea party with all the duchies.

In their shared time at the Royal Academy, Hartmut acted as a mentor to his fellow scholar-retainer Philine and among other things taught her how to make money by referal fees, showing himself to be far more adapt at economic activities than many other fellow nobles his age.

After their return to Ehrenfest, Hartmut was chosen to acompany Rozemyne to the meeting where the gathered information was sold to the adults. Because he had been able to unexpectedly gather very valueable information on the current internal state of Ahrensbach, which due to the near-complete break-off of relations is very hard to come by for Ehrenfest at the moment, he gained the favourable attention of Lord Ferdinand who promptly tried to hire him. But Hartmut refused, stating that apart from his duty to Rozemyne, he was also studying her, with a particular attention toward her blessings, which differ from how other nobles use them. While he did not enter Ferdinand's service, the two agreed to meet later, since Hartmut hoped to gain more insight into Rozemyne's blessings from talking to someone who was with her at the temple. This too had Ferdinand clearly intrigued.

Spoiler for Part 4 Volume 4 After witnessing Justus cross-dressing to convincingly that he was able to pass unnoticed as a woman among Rozemyne's attendants Hartmut entertained the idea of learning this skill as well, but Rozemyne iss very opposed to it. While privately she finds the idea itself objectionable, toward Hartmut she brought up the arguments that he lacked Justus' small statue and androgynous face, which would make it much harder for him to blend in than Justus does. It also took Justus many years of obssessive observation to lay the groundwork for copying the mannerism and speech of females. Just in case those reasonable arguments were still not enough to convince him, Rozemyne outright forbade Hartmut from ever cross-dressing at the threat of dismissing him if he ever tried, much to Hartmut's disappointment, but very much to the relief of Ottilie and Rihyarda.

While his full set of elemental affinities is not known, it is known that he has an affinity for Light, but no affinity for Darkness.