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 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 recipes manages to entice them into doing just that.

Under her guidance, all students are forced into a death march 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 declines 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 duchy 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 conspirators 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 particularly 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's dormitory. Due to having a different gender than his future master, Roderick can not be given a room alongside Rozemyne in the northern 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 and 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.

In 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.

Upon their return from the Royal Academy, Roderick is formerly introduced to Rozemyne's castle staff as her new retainer and immediately moves into his new room in the knight's barracks without seeing his parents or returning to his former home.

In his third year at the Royal Academy, Roderick is able to pass his theology exam on the first try and thus is able to participate in the practical lesson Divine Protection Acquisition on the same afternoon alongside Lady Rozemyne, since it is a lesson in which all nobles regardless of rank participate together, once they passed the theology exam. The majority of students who are present on the first day are from Ehrenfest and Drewanchel.

Upon seeing the lengthy prayer, Rozemyne and Wilfried point out how it is almost the same as prayers in the temple and one they use to replenish their duchy's Foundation magic. This surprises the other people present, since as Ortwin points out, in Drewanchel, they do not use a prayer for that, but just pour the mana in like they would with any magic tool. Before this can turn into an argument between Wilfried and Ortwin, Professor Hirschur steps in and tells them to discuss this "research" after class.

Since they already know the majority of the prayer, Rozemyne and Wilfried finish memorizing it first and consequently also enact their respective ritual before any other student, with Rozemyne going first. When Wilfried comes back, he announces that he managed to gain the protection of twelve gods, with naturally means he must have gained the protection of several subordinate gods in addition to primary deities. This causes quite a stir. As Hannelore of Dunkelfelger points out, it is very rare for any student to gain more than one protection per elemental affinity and with the exception of those serving Leidenschaft, subordinate gods rarely ever grant their blessing to students. The only one not surprised at her brother's success is Rozemyne herself, who states that based on what she read the likelihood of gaining the attention of a god depends on the person's deeds, and thus it is only natural for the pair to gain the protection of so many gods, without giving away how many she got.

The third person to finish memorizing the prayers is Ortwin, whom Gundolf accompanies into the chapel. To the boy's disappointment, however, he only manages to gain the protection of the primary gods he has an aptitude for. But in this he is far from alone since all other non-Ehrenfest students except for one end up with the same results. Only Hannelore reports that she gained the protection of Angriff, the God of War, and Dregarnuhr, the Goddess of Time, albeit she is very confused how she could possibly have gained the attention of either. Once Hannelore leaves the hall, only Ehrenfest students remain, since their med- and laynobles chose to not step forward when they memorized their prayer and instead decided to wait until all those of higher ranked duchies and higher status had finished their rituals to avoid their ire, despite having no actual obligation to do so. By unspoken agreement, they enact their rituals in order of social rank, with the exception of Roderick, who wishes to go after Philine to see how she is doing.

The first four finish theirs without any issue and the expected outcome of gaining one protection per element they have. Philine, however, comes running back from the chapel so overjoyed that she entirely drops her noble facade and happily tells Lady Rozemyen that she gain the protection of Mestionora, the Goddess of Wisdom, despite not even having an affinity for Wind or the protection of Schutzaria. This greatly intrigues Gundolf, and he unleashes a torrent of questions under which the laynoble girls wilts. This causes Rozemyne to step in and make the professor ease up on her. Roderick dearly wishes to hear how Philine accomplished this, but between all the other students and the professor bearing down on her is unable to ask any questions himself, and soon, Gundolf tells him to go to the chapel for his own ritual.

During his ritual, Roderick is very surprised when all seven primary gods grant him their blessings. Back in the hall, he reports this to Rozemyne. Gundolf is outright shocked at this announcement. At no point in recorded history did any student with just two elemental affinities manage to become omni-elemental through this ritual, and thus it was thought entirely impossible up to now. Unfortunately, neither the professor nor Roderick himself seem to have even the slightest clue as to how this happened, so questioning him appears to be a rather fruitless endeavour. At Rozemyne's urging, Gunfolf congratulates the students and gives them leave. Before they move out, Professor Hirschur cautions them to not tell anyone about Roderick's success, since it is such a great outlier it could potentially throw the entire Royal Academy into chaos.

When they return to the dormitory, the supper is a rather frustrating affair for Roderick. Everyone congratulates Wilfried and Philine for their success in the ritual, and so Roderick wishes he too could brag about his accomplishment, but due to Hirschur's words he's unable to.

The next day, Professor Hirschur visits the dormitory for dinner. Initially, she makes no mention of what occurred in the divine protection lesson and instead praises the students for the successes in the written lessons and talks about the food. Only in a more private meeting after the meal does she broach the subject that is the real reason for her visit. Before they can get to that, Rozemyne brings up that since the ritual she is having an issue with her mana control and that while performing a song she was unable to keep a blessing from leaking out. Hirschur just brushes her off stating that since blessings don't hurt anyone she should just let it happen. Having tried and apparently failed to help Ferdinand with his problems related to his huge mana capacity have made her unwilling to do so every again, and she says that their best option is to contact Ferdinand and "have the monsters decide this between themselves."

Due to the sensitivity of their main topic, Hirschur has brought a wide-area sound-blocking magic tool and has Rozemyne set it up, arguing that using up some mana will probably help her with her previously mentioned mana control problem. While she does not insist to hold the meeting in complete privacy, she has everyone not directly involved stay outside. The only ones inside the tool's protection are the three archduke candidates, Roderick and Philine as the subjects of the discussion, and Hirschur herself. Since she wasn't present, Hirschur first recaps the previous day's inciting incident to Lady Charlotte. Then the students tell Hirschur what happened while she was with Roderick in the chapel.

Charlotte voices her confusion over why Hirschur is so secretive and worried about this. In her eyes, it should be celebrated that Ehrenfest students managed to gain more divine protections than expected. In return, Hirschur explains just how out of place these events are. Unless this was kept completely under wraps when it happened, not a single student has received a blessing from any subordinate god not associated with warfare in over a decade. Even in the past, this happened rarely enough and mainly for archduke candidates and members of the royal family. Even more disturbingly to find the last med- or laynoble, who managed to gain the divine protection of even a single subordinate god, one had to go back more than a century. And someone going from two elements to omni-elemental is entire unheard of. To have both of those things happen at the same time would be beyond merely standing out if it became public knowledge and could easily result in negative effects on Ehrenfest.

Since out of the eight Ehrenfest students that participated in the ritual, the four who produced unusual results are all tied to Rozemyne, on account of being Rozemyne's fiancé and retainers respectively or Rozemyen herself, she is quick to jump to the conclusion that it's in some way Rozemyne's fault. An evaluation that Wilfried immediately jumps on board with. Rozemyne herself, however, has a different explanation and says that it is really obvious and she is surprised no one else has realized it. All four of them have visited the temple on multiple occasions and been involved with work that is usually done exclusively by priests on top of having earnestly prayed to the gods more often than most nobles their age ever do. Even supplying the Ehrenfest's Foundation is done with a prayer to the gods, where at least some other duchies just pour mana in. Rozemyne is certain that praying to the gods, assisting in their works, and respecting their temple and priests is surely responsible for the gods looking at them with more favour than on nobles who only say empty words when it is convenient for them and look down on the temples and priests.

Hirschur is completely convinced by this and even calls it a revolutionary rediscovery, however, it does not explain Roderick becoming omni-elemental. Roderick states that he has a theory, but doesn't know whether he is allowed to reveal the details and thus wishes to first consult with Aub Ehrenfest before he can give an answer. With that avenue of questions locked out, Hirschur explains the potential implications of the discovery and that she wishes to meet with Aub Ehrenfest to discuss it researching this further and presenting the results at the next Archduke Conference, to help improve Ehrenfest's reputation with other duchies and the Sovereignty in particular. Once the archduke candidates agree to pass this request on to Sylvester, the meeting ends, and most of them leave.

Once Hirschur has left, Rozemyne hands Roderick a regular sound-blocking magic tool. During the previous discussion, Hirschur said that all the students that managed to gain more protections than expected are all connected to Rozemyne and this made him sure that him becoming omni-elemental is because of the name-swearing. He further explains that since he has given his name to her, he finds it easier to use magic of elements he has no affinity for. It was so slight that initially he just put this down to having a good day, but now he realizes that it was due to his constant connection with Rozemyne's mana. He postulates that she too is omni-elemental, which she nods to. He suspects that this change is not common knowledge because usually name-swearing is only done after the divine protections have been gained and thus has far less of an impact than it now has on Roderick himself. He advocates for keeping this knowledge secret, since he thinks it might cause people to give their names to obtain additional elements, rather than as the show of loyalty name-swearing is meant to be. He also is quite sure that Rozemyne - who's already reluctant to accept names to begin with - would be even more uncomfortable with people wishing to give their names to her just to gain more divine protections. Either way, the issue is too large for them to decide on their own, and thus Rozemyne will consult with Aub Ehrenfest about it.

< Roderick