Roderick/Story

Shortly after arriving at the Royal Academy Lady Rozemyne hands out reward money to those students that had gathered information for her during her sleep. Much to his surprise Roderick is also called up by her and given money for the stories he gathered. Due to being part of the former Veronica faction and even having been part of the group that tricked Wilfried into disgracing himself in the Ivory Tower incident Roderick did not expect such payment and can barely hold back his tears at the reward. Lady Rozemyne further explains that she will pay anyone regardless of faction equally if the information she gathers is of use to either her or the leaders of Ehrenfest. She further goes on to explain that at the royal academy it was important for everyone to band together and leave the faction squabbling at home, to band together against the greater enemy of the other duchies and with the promise of sweet recipies manages to entice them into doing just that.

Under her guidance all students are forced into a deathmarch to study for their exams, which leaves many of them very exhausted, but which bears fruit.

Like all other students who enrolled together with Rozemyne, Roderick manages to pass all the written exams of his first year at the Royal Academy on the first attempt, though he just barely scrapped by in geography. When the professor suggested he retake the exam at a later date after attending the course he delcines and instead accepts the barely passing grade so he can participate the registration for the library three days later.

Due to his low grades in both geography and history, Roderick and Philine are the only two Ehrenfest first-year students attending lessons in these two classes, despite both of them technically already having finished them. With about half of all students having already passed these classes' exams on the first day, the seating was reorganized and the two Ehrenfest students find themselves seated directly between the duchies ranked twelfth and Berschmann the fourteenth.

Frustrated with being ostracized by his own faction due to his father, as well as everyone else on account of being part of the former Veronica faction Roderick often finds himself envious of Philine. He knows very well that this is no fault of the girl and is endlessly annoyed at his own inability to keep such dark thoughts from rising up. In a moment of weakness he asks his adult attendant Kashmir if he knows of any way to get closer to people of other factions. While Kashmir does not know the name or the details of the technique in question, he tells his master that Lady Veronica employed some kind of ritual to this effect. This sets Roderick off on a path to research this issue, which eventually leads him to discovering the rare practice of name swearing.

Since Roderick likes stories and has submitted several to Rozemyne, she is thinking about taking him on as a retainer, but due to his parents belonging to the former Veronica faction, she can't do it right now.

Despite Rozemyne's expectations that the close cooperation between the children of the Veronica faction would end the moment they were back home and under the influence of their parents, several of them are greatly impressed and inspired by Rozemyne's calls for duchy unity. When they learn that members of their faction are planning to ambush the grey priests on route for the marriage ceremony at the border gate to Ahrensbach, they gather around Roderick who sends a letter to the Florencia faction, warning them.

The conspiritors that warned Rozemyne and the archducal family of the ambush are rewarded for their actions, but Aub Ehrenfest is only willing to allow them to learn Rozemyne's mana compression if they name-swear themselves to the archducal family. Roderick is willing swear himself to Rozemyne at the earliest opportunity, but is cautioned against making such an immense decision on a whim and advised to think matters through very carefully before making a decision by both Matthias and Lady Rozemyne herself.

Together with all his fellow second year Ehrenfest students Roderick manages to pass the written exams in history and law on the fist day of lessons and unlike with his geography lesson the first year, he even reaches good enough grades that he isn't called forward and advised to consider taking the any of the exams again.

On the second day the same plays out for math lessons. His fellow apprentice scholar Philine remarked that the test was much simpler than working for Lord Ferdinand at the temple. That a noble and an apprentice at that would visit the temple surprises and to a degree disgusts Roderick on account of the poor reputation the place still has among large parts of the Ehrenfest nobility and he fails to keep this disgust from his face. This causes Rozemyne to lightly rebuke him for not figuring out that the retainer of the high bishop would naturally accompany her to the temple, along with Hartmut and her guard knights and tells him to take this fact into consideration for his decision of whether he truly wants to give her his name.

During the following theology lesson, each student is expected to write about the seasonal deity of their birth season and their respective subordinate gods, as well as the gods of a second season, leading to the students discussion which one they would choose for the latter. Both Rozemyne and Philine wish to write about Schutzaria the goddess of wind and hope to perticularly gain the blessings of her subordinate Mestionora the goddess of wisdom.

Roderick states dejectedly that due to having only affinities for his birth season of autumn - so wind - and earth, he was not allowed to choose, but had to write about the two. To this Philine expresses her envy that he had wind as his birth season, since that put him closer to Schutzaria and Mestionora from the beginning, on top of having two affinities as opposed to her one, making the boy reconsider his position and be far more positive about it.

In preparation for Roderick giving his name to Lady Rozemyne and becoming her retainer and due to his deteriorated relationship with his family a room has already been prepared for him to live in in the knight dormitory. Due to having a different gender than his future master, Roderick can not be given a room alongside Rozemyne in the nothern part of the castle, like it was done for Philine.

With Rozemyne deciding to accept Roderick's name, Harmut takes him under his wing and trains him to be his successor as Rozemyne's head-apprentice-scholar at the academy, since it is Hartmut's final year before graduation.

Shortly before the Interduchy Tournament Roderick finishes the feystone required for the name-swearing and the story he promised to write for Rozemyne. The story is about two apprentices at the royal academy, one a knight, the other a scholar, who work together to win a ditter match.

With Rihyarda and Hartmut as the observers, Roderick swears his name to Rozemyne and she accepts. While Rozemyne dyes his feystone with her mana Roderick experiences intense pain, but with her large mana capacity, Rozemyne is able to finish quickly and the pain almost immediately fades away, leaving Roderick very happy. With his name in Rozemyne's possession, Roderick officially becomes one of her retainers.

The following days Roderick is busy assisting Hartmut in the preparations for the interduchy tournament. He recognizes how far ahead Philine is and vows to put his all into catching up to her, to which Rozemyne replies that once he starts to work with Ferdinand at the temple, he'll be whipped into shape in no time, whether he wants to or not.

< Roderick