Angelica/Story

Angelica enters Rozemyne's service upon her first visit to the archduke's castle after Rozemyne's adoption. She is a mednoble and due to not having come of age yet, is only allowed to guards Rozemyne during her stays at the castle. Unlike most other nobles, Angelica does not have any concerns about going to the temple once she's old enough, which is one of the reasons why she was chosen.

When Rozemyne asked her attendants about the Royal Academy and their respective reasons for choosing their career path, Angelica says she only chose to become a knight because she does not like to study and reasoned that as a knight she would have less need to study than as an attendent or scholar, which shocks Rozemyne. She further reasons that Rozemyne liking and being good at studying, but weak of body would make them well suited for each other since the commander had told her that in a good master-servant pairing they would make up for each other's weak points.

Since Rozemyne had personal reasons for meeting with the parents of Damuel and Brigitte, she also invited Angelica's parents, so that she would not be the only one of Rozemyne's retainers whose parents didn't get an invitation by their children's new mistress. At the meeting Angelica's parents immediately started to apologize, assuming that the only reason they were invited could have been that Angelica had committed some kind of unforgivable mistake. It is here that Rozemyne learns that Angelica comes from a family of almost exclusively attendants, but chose to break with family traditions due to her severe dislike for studying.

During the winter break after Angelica comes back from the Royal Academy, her parents ask for an audience with Rozemyne. Upon granting the audience Rozemyne finds out that Angelica is failing her course and her parents want her dismissed as her bodyguard. Instead Rozemyne decides to form a study group with Damuel, Cornelius and Brigitte, promising them a reward if Angelica passes her retake exams. Rozemyne also motivates Angelica with a reward. If Angelica passes her knight course, Rozemyne would give her mana to Angelicas manablade.

Upon passing her supplementary lesson from the academy at the end of spring, Angelica headed back home to Ehrenfest and rejoined Rozemynes guard knights. When Rozemyne was going to give her mana to Angelicas manablade, the guard knights discussed what the best attribute would be to focus on. The discussion was to decide whether to increase the length of the blade or give it more mana aptitudes. In the end it was left to Rozemyne who poured her mana into the manablade and thought of giving the sword intelligence upon which she recalled Ferdinand as being similar to what Angelica needed. Afterwards Ferdinand came to check upon the manablade and poured his own mana into the blade to check it. This causes the blade to gain sentience and due to the combination of Myne thinking about Ferdinand while she was pouring her mana into it and Ferdinand's mana also coursing through it, the blade takes on both Ferdinand's attitude and voice.

To everyone else's surprise this delights Angelica, who sees this as the perfect gift, since it will cover her worst weakness. Though when she thinks that she can entirely stop studying and just leaave everything to her blade she is disappointed, since the blade as of yet has no knowledge. It is able to remember things for Angelica, but for that it first has to aquire that knowledge.

Angelcias plan to just hand the blade over to someone else and have them fill it with knowledge also won't work, since as the blade points out, it can only listen and remember to the world while Angelica's mana is coursing through it, meaning that one way or the other Angelica will have to put at least some effort into her studies. Despite this gift being not quite as good as she initially thought, Angelica is still delighted to have it. She christens the blade Stenluke and becomes even more devoted to it.

During the kidnapping attempt that caused Rozemyne to fall into a coma that lasted for two years, her power, loyalty and dedication, as well as her use of Enhancement Magic caught the eye of Bonifatius and eventually let to him taking her on as his disciple. Under his tutelage her skill in Enhancement Magic as well as all her other fight-related abilities were honed to a razor's edge. Combined with the raw magical power she gained from the Rozemyne Mana Compression Method her combat abilities have moved far beyond what anyone would expect of a mere mednoble of such a young age and fair statue.

In her final year at the royal academy, Angelica spends almost every single day between her and Lady Rozemyne's arrival going to the gathering spot with the apprentice scholars.

In the ditter match against Dunkelfelger an attack by her was enough to deflect the enormous shockwave of a fully-powered mana-strike by Cornelius completely, keeping Rozemyne behind her perfectly safe, while all around her knights were send flying and tumbling, despite attempts to brace themselves.

While Rozemyne's motivations and encouragements, as well as the "Raise Angelica’s Grades Squadron" Rozemyne organized helped to make sure that she didn't come close to failing her gratuation even during the two years Rozemyne was in a coma, the presence of her mistress still shows a marked difference. With Rozemyne present at the academy, Angelica has shown far more motivation and willingness to study than ever before, managing to clear a full third of all her courses in just three weeks without any futher prompting or baiting.

Upon being offered to be taught the fourth stage of the Rozemyne Mana Compression Method if she can manage to finish the remaining two thirds within the next three weeks, before Rozemyne had to return to Ehrenfest for the Dedication Ritual, Angelica's dedication to Stenluke and gaining every bit of mana she can get for it makes her motivation shoot through the roof and causes her to pour her absolute all into her studies. While Rozemyne initially believed it was impossible for Angelica to finish this assignment, Cornelius is convinced that she will make it, explaining that in his eyes Angelica's devotion to Stenluke was the same that Rozemyne has for the library and stated they had the same sparkle in their eyes when talking about their respective object of obsession.

Against Rozemyne's expectations, Angelica does indeed succeed in finishing her classes in time and accompanies her mistress back to Ehrenfest. There she is given special permission to guard Rozemyne at the temple, despite not being of age yet.

Usually apprentice knights are only allowed to guard archduke candidates inside the archduke's castle, but the decision to make an exception here is made due to Rozemyne not having any adult female guard knights in her service at the moment, Angelica's skills and the fact that Angelica herself very much wants to do this. That she has just reached her 15th year also helps to justify this decision.

Angelica is very happy and eager to resume guarding her ward after all the studying she did. Unlike other nobles she doesn't seem the slightest bit perturbed about entering the temple and shows no signs of disrespecting the grey priests despite them being commoners. She also has no problem with being instructed by Damuel who despite being her senior is still just a layknight and thus most other mednobles would disregard any advice he has for them.

During her guard duty at the temple, the winter blizzards threatened to prevent Angelica from traveling to and from the temple each day, so she got permission from her parents to stay at the temple over-night, in order to continue guarding her mistress. This permission was necessary since she's still a minor.

Unlike all the other guard knights, Angelica was spared having to help with the temple's paper-work, since even Ferdinand didn't want to include her due to her stark incompetence when it comes to math. When he threatened Rozemyne with his schtappe as part of a bluff, she actually drew her sword and jumped between the two, but was soon tricked by Ferdinand to move away to train with Eckhart.

During this training Eckhart teaches Angelica how to keep her highbeast stable even in the strong winds of a blizzard, something that is usually only taught to those knights expected to attend the next hunt of the Lord of Winter. He also teaches her about certain sneaky tactics that enemies might employ in the bad visibility of a blizzard. Since mana weapons - both morphed schtappes and manablades - as well as mana attacks all have a natural glow making them easier to spot, the biggest danger in a blizzard comes from physical non-enchanted weapons. Eckhart demonstrates this point by hitting Angelica with a throwing knife without her even noticing him making an attack until it impacted her armour. In a break in the training she ends up spilling how little interest she has in marriage and that her only wish of a potential husband is that he will allow her to remain Rozemyne's guard knight for as long as possible.

Upon returning from the training Damuel has a hard time explaining to Angelica her failure. She didn't even notice that she was tricked by Ferdinand, only realizing that she went off to train at a mere suggestion of Ferdinand, rather than an actual order and without her lady's permission. This leaves Angelica very disdrought since abondoning her guard duty is the worst mistake a guard knight can make in her mind. With her being unable to do paperwork like Eckhart and Damuel and her not even able to do her guard duty right she feels like she failed completely.

To do at least one thing that Rozemyne asked of her right, she desperately pleads with Nicola to be friends, since Rozemyne asked Angelica to become friends with her temple attendants. Despite the difference in status and upbringing the two manage to become friends. Angelica also learns from Fran that doing paperwork was never really expected of her and that both Eckhart and Damuel have chosen to do so for their own reasons independant of their guard duties, which comes as a big relief to her. At the advise of Fran, Monika and Nicola, Angelica resolves herself to learn the different bells the blue priests use so she can permit visiters in addition to guarding the door, so that the grey priest currently in charge of this duty is free to join the paperwork instead, thus indirectly helping Rozemyne and the High Priest with their work.

Due to how fond Bonifatius has grown of her during their association, he insisted on having her marry into his family. When he talked about this with her, Angelica just stated that she would leave everything in his hands and didn't appear to even think about the issue again. Initially the plan was for her to marry Traugott, but after his resignation from Rozemyne's service, this fell through, leading to the family considering marrying Angelica to one Karstedt's sons. Due to their circumstances Cornelius and Lamprecht weren't chosen either, leading to the final candidate Eckhart. Angelica accepted this without complaint and thus the two are now engaged to be married. Eckhart also escorted her at her graduation ceremony at the Royal Academy.

Her parents well grounded fear of her being unable to act like an archnoble, they tried to prevent the marriage, but couldn't stand up to Bonifatius. Next they argued for Angelica to only become Eckharts third wife, but Bonifatius wouldn't have that either, only relenting so far as to accept a second wife position.

Eckhart does not seem to be in a hurry to get married, apparently seeing this engagement mainly as a way to escape his mother's constant urging to find a new wife, after his first one died. But Angelica does not care much either, stating that her only desire is to serve Lady Rozemyne. She did however express sympathy for Eckhart since even someone as absentminded as her recognizes that it must not be easy to marry someone who would have been fine anyone really as long as they didn't get between her and her mistress. Much to her parents shock she said so out loud while next to Eckhart himself, prompting her parents to urge Eckhart to overthink escorting someone so shameless to her graduation to which he replied that this would make his grandfather angry and added that a girl so uninterested in love and romance was in fact a perfect match for him right now.

Thanks to now being of age, Angelica is happy to be able to guard Rozemyne everywhere, not just in the castle and with special permission in the temple. This joy is a little dampened upon learning that there are parts of the temple where even as an adult she is not allowed. When told to stay outside the chapel for the commoner's Coming of Age Ceremony, she protests that there is no guarantee that there is no danger to Rozemyne from any of the people attending. Rozemyne promises to bring the matter up with Ferdinand later, but orders Angelica to stay outside this year, which she begrudgingly does.

On the next day, Angelica guards Rozemyne while she and Ferdinand prepare to make the clothes for the library magic tools Schwartz and Weiss. A diagram for one of the magic circles catches her eyes and she asks Lord Ferdinand for permission to use the design to embroider on her own cape. Given her ineptitude of basically anything that does not involve guard duty and fighting that she displayed toward him so far, Ferdinand is taken aback by her being able to do such complex and fine embroidery. After making sure she is actually capable to doing what she says, he agrees that he will allow it, if she helps with the embroidery of the clothes, to which she eagerly agrees. Though it is unclear whether she will actually be held to this promise, since Rozemyne managed to convince Ferdinand to allow her to draw the magic circles with magical ink, rather than having to embroider them all onto the clothes with magical thread, since she is worried that the complexity of the designs exceed her meager embroidery skills and even if she can manage to do them at all, she'd never be able to finish in time for the next academy term.

Due to a direct order by the king Ferdinand will soon marry Detlinde and move to Ahrensbach. As his loyal retainer and name-sword Eckhart will accompany his lord. He gave his fiancée the choice of either moving with him, or having the engagement canceled. Determined to serve Rozemyne for as long as she possibly can, Angelica decides to cancel the engagement.

At a meeting with Eckharts family both Cornelius and Lamprecht refuse engagements with Angelica. Cornelius is unwilling to enter a second engagement before even marrying his first betrothed and Lamprecht doesn't want to get engaged again so soon after his first marriage and while Aurelia is pregnant. This reluctantly forces Bonifatius to put an engagement with Traugott back on the table. Angelica voices her unwillingness to marry any man weaker than herself, so her master will have his work cut out for him to whip Traugott into shape in time. Bonifatius suggests that should this fail either he or Karstedt should take responsibility and marry Angelica. To everyone's surprise Angelica isn't just willing to go along with this, but seems to actually like the idea of marrying her master or the knight commander, despite the considerable age gaps, but for now the aim is to get Traugott into shape.

< Angelica