Philine

Philine (フィリーネ, Firiine) is a laynoble apprentice scholar who serves as one of Rozemyne's retainers; Rozemyne is also her sponsor and de facto guardian.

She is the older sister of Konrad.

Philine is a cute girl with honey-coloured hair and grass-green eyes, a bit on the smaller size for her age. In Part 4 Volume 1, she is about 140 cm (4’7”) tall.

Philine has a quiet and humble personality, but can get rather animated when books or sweets are involved. She is also a hard worker, managing her duties as a retainer, her studies under Hartmut, and her side job transcribing stories, while also keeping up with the demanding pace of her classes.

Philine was born to a laynoble family as the daughter of Kashick and his previous wife. Shortly after her little brother Konrad was born, their mother passed away. However, Philine fondly remembered the stories her mother used to tell her.

Kashick later remarried a woman named Jonsara, who became Philine and Konrad's stepmother. She treated her stepchildren coldly from the beginning, but her abuse worsened after she gave birth to a son and heir.

At one point she tried to take away Philine's compiled stories, but her father returned them shortly after since they were written on paper that was gifted to Philine by Lady Rozemyne and it would be unwise to disrespect a gift from the archduke's family.

Philine approaches Rozemyne during the winter socialising in the children's playroom, where the noble childern introduce themselves to Wilfried and Rozemyne. Rozemyne takes an interest in her as she passionately tries to recall her mother's stories, that she were told when growing up. Rozemyne offers to write down her stories in the beginning and later gives her the task to write down the stories herself.

While Rozemyne is sleeping she keeps writing all the stories she can remember, which helps her learning reading and writing.

Upon entering the Royal Academy her shared appreciation for literature and friendship with Rozemyne leads the archduke candidate to take Philine on as a retainer - a great honor for a laynoble. Philine is one of the very few retainers of Rozemyne's who didn't come with recommendations from adults and were chosen solely by Rozemyne's own will.

Like all the students who enrolled together with Rozemyne, Philine managed to pass all her written exams on the first try in her first year at the academy. Though in history she just barely managed to scrape by, being just one point away from failing. When the professor suggested she retake the exam at a later date after attending the course, Philine declined, so she could participate in the library registration three days later.

She serves Rozemyne as a scholar. She is normally tasked to carry around paper and ink for Rozemyne when she moves around, so she can take notes where needed and transcribes books in the library.

During Rozemyne's absence for the Dedication Ritual Philine and Hartmut are gathering and organize information during their socializing. Among that information is a list of specialty products that each duchy produces, as well as the quirks of those duchies. She also keeps track of all the stories that other students transcribed for Rozemyne.

Due to a higher than usual fee offered by Rozemyne for transcriptions, even students from other duchies are interested in doing so. After learning the proper procedure from her senior Hartmut and being adviced to take referal fees Philine arranges for this.

Due to her family being so poor, they could not afford the cost of learning Rozemyne's mana compression, so Philine works hard to earn the necessary money on her own. Between the referal fees and the pay for her own transcriptions she manages to earn the necessary amount and is visibly relieved and happy about having achived her goal.

But when Philine returns to her home estate, her step-mother takes away all her money. Jonsara then sends an ordonnanz to the castle claiming that Philine is ill, either not noticing or caring that Philine's shouts to return the stolen money are clearly audible in the message.

When Rozemyne, acompanied by Ferdinand and some of her retainers arrive at the estate with Kashick, they discover that Jonsara had used her schtappe to severely abuse Konrad, leaving the five-year old boy covered in wounds and had also hurt Philine. Furthermore she had taken away Konrad's mana-draining magic tool, leaving him to die, leading Philine to beg Rozemyne to save her brother's life.

Jonsara claims to have not believed Philine when she said that she became Rozemyne's retainers and that she believed the girl to be delusional, which is an obvious lie, since just hours before she sent an ordonnaz to Rozemyne to inform her of Philine's absence.

Thanks to a trick thought up by Hartmut, Rozemyne claimed that Philine was accidentally issued the money that was supposed to be payed to students of other duchies and thus Jonsara is forced to return the stolen money, lest she not only cross a member of the archducal family, but also be the cause of an interduchy scandal. However since the abuse of her step-children is a domestic issue, Rozemyne isn't able to interfere, as Ferdinand points out.

Upon learning that his wife took away Konrad's magic tool, Kashick is not pleased, but reluctantly remarks that they can not afford a new magic tool and have to prioritize the child with the higher mana capacity, which means the baby. They even lack the funds to make Konrad a blue priest at the temple.

Since both parents are obviously willing to let Konrad die, Rozemyne rather forcefully offers to make him a grey priest and decides to give Philine a room at the castle. This comes as a great relief to Jonsara, but causes Kashick mixed feelings.

Philine, unable to any longer keep her emotions in check angrily confronts her father how he could let Jonsara get away with stealing the magic tool that was a heirloom from her deceased mother. This causes Rozemyne in inquire with Ferdinand about the cost of such tools. She then offers to buy it for Philine, expecting her to pay off the debt over time. Faced with a request from a noble much higher in rank, Kashick has no choice but to wrest the tool away from his wife and hand it over to Rozemyne, who immediately passes it on to Philine.

With all this concluded Philine gives a final good bye to her family and vows to never return, again causing Jonsana to be relieved, but causing her father to go completely pale upon the realization that he now effectively lost both his children.