Hildebrand

Hildebrand (ヒルデブラント Hirudeburanto) is the third prince of the kingdom of Yurgenschmidt and the son of King Trauerqual's third wife.

Prince Hildebrand has mainly silver hair, with a slight tinge of blue and bright purple hair.

Hildebrand appears to be rather lonely, on account of having spent the entirety of his life nearly entirely isolated in royal villas. The prospect of going to new places and meeting new people greatly excites him, though as a member of the royal family he has been well trained to not openly show his emotions. Being just seven years old, he still lets this royal facade slip sometimes, but generally manages to contain his emotions when not in private with just family members and his own retainers present.

Due to the near complete lack of interactions with anyone who isn't either related to him or a servant, Prince Hildebrand has a very tenuous grasp of politics and his own powers. He often feels that his mother and even his own retainers have more power than he himself, despite being told otherwise.

As the child of the third wife of his father, Hildebrand grew up never leaving the royal villa of his mother even once prior to his baptism. The only people he ever met in the first seven years of his life were family members and servants. His baptism was the first time he ever left this estate and visited the royal palace. After his baptism he was granted his own villa, where his isolated lifestyle continued for the most part, with him only getting very few chances to leave and visit other places.

Due to his duties Sigiswald was unavailable to take up the position of overseer at the Royal Academy. Likewise Anastasius had important duties connected to the land he had recently been put in charge of. After debating the issue for a long time, the king decided to appoint Hildebrand as the overseer. While it was unprecedented for a royal child that had not had their debut to take up official duties, Anastasius and Sigiswald's respective duties were deemed too important to pull them away and thus the king was left with no other viable choice.

The prospect of visiting an entirely new place and meeting a lot of new people filled the third prince with both excitement as well as trepidation. He put his all into studying, so he would be able to properly finish the greetings of the fellowship gathering.

In preparation for his new duty he was briefed by his half-brother Anastasius.

When Hildebrand arrived at the Royal Academy it was while the student and professors were all attending the advancement ceremony, leading to the corridors of the academy being completely empty. This comes as a disappointing surprise for the prince, who expected some kind of welcome.

Once in the small hall he is further surprised that his head attendant Arthur does not have a seat, but remains standing behind him the entire time, the same as his guard knights. Only his scholar Dankmar would sit down during the gathering, but in a concealed position under the table, so he could help the prince out, should his memory falter, like a prompter. While his retainers state they trust him to pull off the greetings on his own, they also say that it is their duty to make sure they are prepared for any eventuality so their charge would not be dishonored no matter what unexpected situations might occur. Hildebrand was nevertheless determined to get through the event solely on his own abilities, without having to fall back on his retainer's help.

Initially he did very well with the studied greetings and prepared responses for all the greater duchies, since their many interactions with the Sovereignty meant he had plenty of information of them, but once the greetings moved on to the middle duchies, his knowledge becomes more and more fuzzy. By the time the ninth is introduced, he has no choice but to rely on Dankmar to fill in the blanks.

When it is time for the tenth duchy - Ehrenfest - to introduce themselves to him, the prince tenses up considerably. During his briefings Anastasius warned his half-brother about Ehrenfest and Rozemyne in particular, describing her as "a dangerous individual who comes up with unthinkable ideas that cannot be dealt with normally", instilling both a sense of awe and nervousness in the boy.

Upon seeing the three siblings, Hildebrand is surprised and relieved to see the small, blue-haired girl who looks to be about his own age, since it means he is not the only child who has yet to turn 10 in this place. Based on their appearances, he also assumes the smaller girl to be the younger sister Charlotte and the taller, blond girl with the indigo eyes to be Rozemyne. Apparently his brother's warnings did not even include the most cursory mentions of Rozemyne's appearance, leading the third prince to mistake the two sisters for each other.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 6 While the vast majority of students are still busy with their lessons, Hildebrand secretly visits the academy's library with only a small group of knights and bringing the entire group to just ten people. During one of his visits he is surprised to run into one of the Ehrenfest archduke candidates. After the obligatory noble greetings are exchanged, the girl stating she does not want to inconvenience the prince quickly retreats to the second floor with one of the library magic tools after ordering the other to guide Hildebrand.

Dankmar - A usually very strict scholar.

Arthur - Hildebrand's head attendant.