Bonifatius

Bonifatius (ボニファティウス Bonifatiusu) is a Leisegang noble and Rozemyne's grandfather.

Unlike most nobles Bonifatius greatly dislikes putting up a false face and will generally show his emotions completely openly, though he is fully capable of hiding them, should the situation require it. He is very devoted to his family, particularly the only girl among his grandchildren, Rozemyne, though he tries to keep his distance from her for fear of accidentally injuring or killing her. While he prefers to trust his instincts and tends to leave the thinking to other people, he is still an intelligent and well trained man.

He was the son of the fifth Archduke of Ehrenfest, but his brother - the Sixth Aub Ehrenfest and Sylvesters father - was chosen as the new Aub. While he had the necessary mana capacity and talent, he didn't have the desire to rule and thus willingly made way for his younger brother.

When his brother fell seriously ill before having any children capable of taking up the scepter, Bonifatius was trained to become the next Aub and shown many of the secrets that only the archduke himself may know. Thankfully his brother recovered and was able to rule until his children had become able to succeed him.

Following the advice of his family, Bonifatius kept himself at a distance from Rozemyne as he is quite expressive and she is quite fragile. Everyone - including himself - feared he may harm her accidently. He is the former commander of the Knights Order of Ehrenfest.

For a long time Bonifatius' interactions with his only granddaughter were limited to just brief greetings. This changed when the children of the archduke were attacked after Charlotte's baptism. Shortly after Wilfried, Charlotte and Rozemyne left to retire for the night and Bonifatius wished his granddaughter a good night, Wilfried's head attendant Oswald came storming back, while carring his charge and informed everyone present that the archduke's children had been ambushed in the corridor connecting the main and northern building. Leaving the organizing of the knights to his son Karstedt Bonifatius immediately rushed to the scene with his enhancement magic boosting his speed far beyond Human limits. With just a single strike he completely crushed the head of the first attacker he saw, killing him instantly. This apparently set off a fail-safe enchantment of some kind leading to all the devouring soldiers still engaged with the guard knights of the archduke's children to explode.

At that moment Angelica one of Rozemyne's guard knights came back carrying Charlotte and informed Bonifatius of what she knew of the situation. While the devouring soldiers kept the guard knights busy, an unidentified noble had grabbed Charlotte and tried to flee on his highbeast, but when Rozemyne caught up to him, he tossed the abducted girl away in mid-air, but thanks to the combined efforts of Angelica and Cornelius she was saved from plummeting to her death and Rozemyne ordered Angelica to bring her sister back to safety.

In the short time her guard knights were busy saving and returning her sister, Rozemyne is captured by a mana-net. Both Cornelius and Bonifatius set out to find her, while Angelica returns Charlotte and follows them as fast as she can.

With his enhanced hearing Bonifatius quickly locates a commoner on a horse. While still approaching from the air, he uses the Crushing to incapacitate the horse and then decapitates the rider with his bare hands. He locates a sack that seems to hold his granddaughter and in his overeagerness to get her free and his worry that she isn't responding, he ends up putting too much strength into freeing her, which sends her flying. Thankfully Ferdinand who had been following him manages to catch Rozemyne, before she hits a tree with lethal velocity. The priest notices that Rozemyne has been poisoned and even manages exactly which potion had been used. Shouting down protests of Bonifatius, he takes off to the temple to administer her an antidote. While Bonifatius is reluctant to let anyone else handle this issue and especially about bringing her to the temple, Ferdinand's words convince him that she's best off in his hands and so he lets the two leave.

Just before they take off, Cornelius finds them and hands over Rozemyne's highbeast feystone.

Shortly after a Rott shoots up from nearby. When Bonifatius arrives at the spot, he finds Angelica who managed to locate and capture a hooded noble on her own, impressing Bonifatius. The assailant turns out to be Viscount Joisontak and they bring him to the castle's dungeon, where the two remain to guard him until called by the Archduke.

While they are guarding Joisontak, Bonifatius talks with Angelica and takes a liking to her, so he decides to take her on as a student - much to her delight - and also decides to put all of the guard knights currently serving the archducal family through a harsh training.

Bonifatius is invited to participate in the round of interrogations that follow the attack. Joisontak admits to trying to abduct Charlotte for a convoluted scheme to gain favour with Rozemyne, but adamantely denies having anything to do with the attack on Rozemyne herself, insisting he would never harm his own niece. Assaulting Charlotte in and off itself is already enough to seal his fate, so Sylvester and his companions agree that there must have been a second attacker.

Following Joisontak they next question Giebe Gerlach since he was the one who provide Viscount Joisontak with the devouring soldiers that layed the ambush, but they have no proof or even evidence strong enough to link him with the crimes and thus let him go. In private Bonifatius confides in his nephew that he is sure Gerlach is the culprint who poisoned Rozemyne and deducts how he could have attacked her and made it back into the grand hall without any of the knights noticing, but Sylvester can't agree to sanctions against a Giebe on just Bonifatius' instincts and conjecture, much to both man's frustration.

During Rozemyne's long sleep Bonifatius sends many Ordonnanzes to Ferdinand to ask for updates. At some point Ferdinand stopps answering them.

When Rozemyne finally awakes after two years, Bonifatius receives all the Ordonannzes that had been piling up with Ferdinand back at once, but rather than being annoyed by the bombardment of messages, he is just ecstatic and sends back a jubilant message.

At their first dinner together after her long sleep Rozemyne presents Bonifatius with an object made out of paper, that she tells him is a stylized heart, but also a letter. To the astonishment of everyone present, Rozemyne unfolds the paper-heart, allowing Bonifatius to read a letter of gratitude. Much to his relief his granddaugther is able to re-fold the letter into the heart-shape.

Since Rozemyne's muscles atrophied to the point where she can't even lift her own limbs without the aid of magic tools, Bonifatius trains her in enhancement magic, so she can learn to compensate for her lack of physical abilities with her vast amounts of mana, should the need arrive. When not busy with his granddaughter, he puts the guard knights through a gruelling training regimens that leave them on the verge of trauma, but show great results. The only one among his trainees who seems to relish rather than dread the harsh training is Angelica.

When Bonifatius hears from Rozemyne about the sorry state the the current knight's course students at the academy are in, he decides that come spring he will personally whip them into shape. He was rather disdrought over hearing just how much matters at the royal academy had decayed following the civil war to the point where what used to be one of the most basic tactics for Treasure Stealing Ditter had worked as an unexpected surprise attack. He was however very proud of Rozemyne for managing to lead Ehrenfest to a victory over Dunkelfelger's knights, who are regarded as the current top-team.

Spoiler for Part 4 Volume 3

During her time as his disciple Bonifatius grew very fond of Angelica. When he mentioned to her that he was thinking of having her marry into hs family, she stated that she would leave everything to her master and Bonifatius lost no time in going to work on it. He convinced his family to forth with the idea. The first candidate was Traugott, but he was quickly disqualified from the selection once the family learned how he had resigned from Rozemyne's service and the flaws in his character that caused him to do so, which left Bonifatius furious with his grandson. Cornelius outright refused, stating that he had someone else he cared for and Lamprechts issue with his potential marriage with a noble from Ahrensbach was deemed too much of a complication for the time being, which left Eckhart.

Angelica's parents desperately tried to prevent the marriage, feeling that Angelica's inability to act like a proper noble could only lead to disaster, but Bonifatius wouldn't have it. Similar attempts to assure that Angelica would only become a third wife failed as well, though eventually someone managed to convince Bonifatius that Angelica really isn't suited to become an archnoble's first wife and thus it was decided she would become Eckhart's second wife.


 * Bonifatius is a master of enhancement magic and so proficient and used to the skill that he often activates enhancesments on instinct without consciously being aware of it. This combined with his outgoing, emotional personality occasionally leads to unintended overkills on opponents and accidents in general. With this ability he is not only able to enhance his strength and speed, but can also sharpen any of his senses far beyond what a regular Human would ever be capable of.