Schwartz and Weiss

Schwartz (シュバルツ, Shubarutsu) and Weiss (ヴァイス, Waisu) are a magic tools modeled to look like. Their purpose is to assist the librarians of the Royal Academy's Library.

Schwartz and Weiss were made to appear like larger versions of shumils. They have golden eyes, like most natural shumils do, and also have a golden feystone embedded in their foreheads. Schwartz has black fur, while Weiss has white fur.

While they are clothed, they look almost like real shumil, except for the feystones in their foreheads and their size, but once their clothes are removed, the places where their limbs join their torso look like those of a stuffed animal rather than the real feybeasts. They have extensive magic circles embroidered around their entire torsos, made from golden mana-dyed thread.

They wear clothes provided to them by their master until a new master takes over and provides them with a new set. Currently they are still wearing dresses made by the master prior to Rozemyne, which are mostly the opposite colour of their furs with highlights in their furcolours and fitted with many expansive feystones.

While the pair might appear like living beings, they are in fact magic tools. They have no true personalities to speak of, acting rather robot-like at most times. They have the ability to speak, but despite made by a noble for the use of nobles, their sentences are short and direct, likely as a limitation due to them being only automata, rather than actual living beings.

They are capable of lending out and retriefing books and carrel keys, as well as bringing returned books back to their respective place among the shelves.

When Rozemyne inquired how many books the Royal Library holds, Schwartz was able to give an estimate of the number of books and documents stored on the library's first floor.

They appear to be capable of learning to at least some degree, since they came to understand the meaning of being measured for clothing apparently on their own due to going through the process so often.

They are incapable of leaving the library on their own. Only their current master can take them outside, which requires direct physical contact, like holding hands for example.

Apart from the enchantments that allow them to act almost like sentient beings, the pair has also been fitted with sophisticated protection mechanisms to prevent theft and damage. Only their current master and those explicitly authorized by them are able to freely touch them. To give permission their current master merely needs to say so out loud within ear-shot of Schwartz and Weiss.

Once someone is given permission to touch them, that person will be exempt from any of the wards and is thus able to steal or damage them at will. Thus a master is well adviced to only give this permission to people they trust deeply.

When someone unauthorized touches them, they will immediately feel a tingling sensation that grows in intensity by the moment and quickly reaches painful levels, eventually becoming too strong for anyone to bear. There have also been reports of people being repelled before even making skin-contact with the magic tools or even being "blown away" by mana, making it likely that the defensive spells contain a component that reacts to the intentions of the offender, midly deterring those that act out of good intentions or mere curiosity, while warding off those with ill intentions with a level of violence proportional to the malice sensed.

They are also fitted with enchantments specifically designed to ward off outright attacks, capable of draining the power of incoming magical attacks and reflecting it back at the attacker. It is unclear how exactly this meachanic works, but when the defensive spell is active, both the eyes and the feystones set into the buttons of their clothing light up.

Schwartz and Weiss are so old that the exact details of their origin is shrouded in mystery. The legend holds that they were created by a past princess a long time ago. The knowledge of how to create such sophisticated magic tools able to walk, talk and work like them has either been kept private by their creator until their death, or has since been lost to time.

At one point in Solange's youth, the most recent master of the pair gave them outfits made purely for cuteness without considering how they might interfere with work. Their large hats kept falling off and their billowing sleeves made them knock over the stacks of gold payed as deposits. Despite these hindrances, the two magic tools attempted to continue their work unperturbed, neither trying to take off the cumbersome accessories, nor complaining even a single time. Their outfits were replaced with more practical ones within a couple of days. Since then it has become the norm to keep make their sleeves only reach their elbows.

Following the civil war and the resulting purge among the Nobility all other librarians were either called back noble society to contribute directly toward their home provinces or executed for being affiliated with the defeated princes. This left only the mednoble Solange as the sole librarian.

The three archnoble librarians that served as the previous masters for Schwarz and Weiss were affiliated with the defeated princes. Knowing their days were numbered anyway, they poured as much mana as they could into the two shumils, to the point of putting their lives on the line, in a final act of dedication. Ultimately they all survived the charging, to be sentences to death by the new king later. Despite the enormous amount of mana their final act provided, it was only enough to keep the two magic tools runnig for one year.

Due to their sophistication, Schwartz and Weiss unfortunately used up a lot of mana. Even if Solange had been able to dedicate her entire mana to keeping them active, it is doubtful it would have been enough. But as the sole oversee of the library, Solange had to keep many vital magic tools active and thus shortly after the last archnoble left, the two shumils ceased to function. Even so Solange kept pouring as much mana as she could spare into the two to make sure the wards could keep them save from theft or meddling. This dormant period lasted so long that when Rozemyne entered the academy, most nobles assumed the two shumils were merely inanimate dolls belonging to Solange, rather than the priceless artifacts they are.

It is tradition for a new master to provide Schwartz and Weiss with a new set of clothes, to mark the passing of the torch.

The normal way of passing ownership of the magic tools is for the current master to give permission to touch them to a successor and allow them to register their mana like with any other magic tool. In this way it is also possible to have multiple masters at once, to share the burden of mana around.

Upon registering for access to the library, Rozemyne was so overjoyed to finally be in a true library, that she started to spontaneously pray to Mestionora the Goddess of Wisdom without first cutting off the manaflow to her ring, resulting in a powerful blessing sweeping the entire room. Despite the wards that should prevent unauthorized mana from getting through to the two magic tools, this blessing ended up recharging them to the point where they became active again.

Since it was Rozemyne's mana that reactivated them, they recognize her as their current master and follow her every order to the best of their abilities. Rozemyne ordered them to aid Solange, intending to take a huge load off of the professor's shoulders, since she now no longer had to work the entire library on their own.

Unbeknownst to Rozemyne, Solange was the official master of the pair, so they would have followed her orders anyway, even without this instruction. Solange was nevertheless glad for Rozemyne making the attempt and didn't point out that this was unnecessary.

Schwartz and Weiss are currently a very popular topic among students and professors alike. While the professors marvel at the sophistication and speculate how they might have been created, the young students - particularly the female ones - gush over the cuteness of the two shumils. Since their reactivation, many students who up to that point only ever sent servants to retrieve materials from the library have since started to show up in person to "coincidally" catch a few glimpses of the pair.

Solange is convinced that the reason why the wards did not stop Rozemyne's mana was because the young girl is blessed by the Goddess of Wisdom. So far none of the professors she shared this theory with have agreed, leaving the true reason of how Rozemyne became their new master as much a mystery as their origin and creation process.

Due to how powerful and sophisticated the anti-theft wards on Schwartz and Weiss are, Solange felt taking them out of the library would not be a problem and suggested that Rozemyne should take the pair of magic tools to the Ehrenfest Dormitory for their measuring so it could happen in an area under Rozemyne's control. She also adviced her to only give her most trusted companions permission to touch them, explaining the details of what this permission entails.

When Rozemyne prepared to leave the library with them for Schwartz and Weiss's measuring, her taking the shumil's hands cause quite a stir among those present, since up until this point only Professor Solange and those few professors she talked to were aware of Rozemyne being their new master. Anyone other than Solange being able to touch them alone was noteworthy in itself, but Rozemyne taken them out of the library while surrounded by a large contingent of guards was outright shocking and by the time the measuring was done, rumors had circulated widely throughout the academy.

The measuring itself revealed several surprises to those present. While Professor Hirschur, unlike the Ehrenfest students, was not in the least surprised to see elaborate and complex magic circles on the torsos of Schwartz and Weiss, even she didn't appear to expect their current set of clothing to also have magic circles worked into their design.

Transcribing the magic cicles of the clothing was something in which the apprentice scholars were very helpful in, but even the best among them found that the formulae on the shumils themselves went beyond their ability to comprehend and thus had to be transcribed by Hirschur on her own. She found that the circles visible on the outside are not complete and thus postulated that at least part of the complete circles must have been put on the inside of the magic tools, rendering her unable to easily unravel how they function without dissecting them, which the wards will not allow her to do, even if she were to attempt it.

When Rozemyne went to return the pair to the library, Angelica informed them that a large number of students from other duches had taken up position to intercept them. Upon hearing about the possibility of combat, Schwartz and Weiss asked Rozemyne to charge their clothes with mana so they too could protect their master.

Between the Ehrenfest Dormitory and the library about 100 students under the leadership of Lestilaut the archuke candidate of Dunkelfelger blocked their way, accusing Rozemyne of stealing a royal heirloom and demanding she turn Schwartz and Weiss over to him. Upon learning that Ehrenfest had Professor Solange's permission for temporarily taking the two shumil out of the library and were on their way to return them, all the members of duchies other than Dunkelfelger abondoned Lestilaut, but Lestilaut himself would not relent and even went so far as to attack the Ehrenfest students, but Rozemyne's guard knights, reinforced by the knights of Wilfried were able to overpower them and force an opening, though which Rozemyne - being carried by Rihyarda managed to slip and hurry toward the library.

A number of Dunkelfelger nobles morphed their schtappes into bows and attacked Rozemyne directly, but Schwartz and Weiss's defensive enchantments turned their own attacks against them leading to them collapsing. Thankfully the fight was brought to an end by the arrival of Prince Anastasius, who had been informed by some of the students that had abondoned Lestilaut prior and were rightfully worried about the situation escalating.

At the prince's behest the supervisors of Ehrenfest and Dunkelfelger were summoned to try to resolve the issue. While Anastasius dismissed Lestilaut's accusaion of treasen against Rozemyne, Rauffen was able to convince Anastasius to put determin ownership of Schwartz and Weiss via a match of ditter, arguing that this contest would show which duchy was better capable of protecting the royal heirlooms. As a consession to Ehrenfest's presumed military inferiority, it was decided that Ehrenfest solely needed to defend the magic tools for a set timelimit, without needing to attack their opponent to win, as would be usual in a ditter match.

To everyone's surprise Lady Rozemyne chose to personally join the match, forcing Lord Lestilaut to do the same to keep face, despite how unusual it is for an archduke candidate and a first-year in particular to participate in ditter. Due to Dunkelfelger being the most successful duchy in ditter tournaments everyone expected them to easily win, but it was ultimately Ehrenfest that came out victorious, making Lestilaut begrudingly stand down.

After this incident the prince agreed to accept Rozemyne as Schwartz and Weiss's master, but to avoid political issues and misunderstandings, officially framing it in a way that she was only giving her assistance to Solange out of the goodness of her heart for the duration of her attendance of the academy, with the professor serving officially as the main master.


 * Cambridge Online Dictionary