Wilfried/Story

Wilfried is first introduced at Rozemyne's baptism ceremony. He takes Rozemyne from the celebration to play, dragging her away very quickly. Rozemyne tells him to slow down, but Wilfried just tells her she need to become faster to escape the adults and keeps dragging her along. Unfortunately for him, he does not know how fragile she is, and she faints on him. Before he fully realizes what happened, the boy ends up dragging her a short distance, scraping her face against the floor and causing the unconscious girl to bleed quite severely until Ferdinand shows up and heals her wounds. This leaves Wilfried, as well as his guard knight Lamprecht traumatized and very effectively ensures they treat Rozemyne with the utmost care for the foreseeable future.

After Rozemyne moves into the castle, Wilfried gets jealous of Rozemyne, being allowed to enter Sylvester's office, talking (reporting) to Sylvester at the dinner table, being able to leave the castle, already having been "given" a highbeast, and even being allowed to use it in the castle. He goes to complain about how unfair it is that she get's everything whenever he sees her, until she can't bear his petty whining anymore and suggests they switch places for one day.

The adults are very reluctant at first, knowing full well that there's no way Wilfried could ever do what Rozemyne does as he is at the moment, but Rozemyne manages to convince them to go along with this as a learning experience for him. And thus Wilfried becomes the High Bishop for one day, while Rozemyne goes on to live one day after Wilfried's daily schedule. While at the temple, Wilfried is surprised by how much she does and knows and how little free time she actually has.

At the temple, Wilfried shows a blatant disregard for anything an archduke candidate should be and tries to use his position to get out of any consequences for his misbehavior. This leads Ferdinand to fly to the castle and furiously demand that Wilfried be disinherited, believing the boy is beyond saving, shocking his parents who hadn't been aware of the problems until now. Rozemyne suspects that the fault lies not with Wilfried alone, but mainly with those around him, so she proposes he be tested. If he manages to fulfill two of his tasks during his remaining time in the temple it will show he has the motivation and ability to succeed in emergency measures to whip him into shape before the winter debut. Ferdinand is convinced that Wilfried will not pass this test, but agrees anyway.

When Wilfried spends his time with Ferdinand as part of Rozemyne's usual duties, he's reprimanded by him for his attitude towards working and studying. He is also surprised that the unbaptized children are able to read and do math better than him. Much to Wilfried's surprise and dismay, for the first time in his life he is unable to invoke his position to get out of his duties, at one point even being literally tied to a chair by Ferdinand. Even Rozemyne's attendants - mere commoners - refuse to give in to his antics and even withhold his supper until he finishes his assigned tasks.

Despite not knowing how much is on the line for him, he still manages to memorize one prayer and a simple tonal progression on the harspiel, thus just barely passing the test and thus avoids being disinherited and being sent to the temple as a blue priest.

While Wilfried is at the temple, Rozemyne advises Wilfried's main tutor Moritz on teaching methods, provides him with teaching materials in the form of karuta, playing cards, and a children's bible she all developed, and together they write up a curriculum that will teach the boy the bare minimum of writing, math, and harspiel necessary to not embarrass himself and the archducal family at the winter debut and in the winter playroom.

Following his day at the temple, Florencia takes charge of her son's upbringing, and Rihyarda is assigned to oversee Wilfried's attendants. Under her and Rozemyne's supervision, anyone who lacks either the competence or the will to properly raise the boy is ruthlessly removed in the end resulting in about half of Wilfried's former retainers being dismissed.

Now that he is finally achieving real progress, his parents praise him for his accomplished tasks, bringing Wilfried much joy.

In the short time left before the winter debut, Rozemyne regularly taunts Wilfried whenever it seems that his motivation is flagging, and eventually he manages to succeed in finishing his goals. While he doesn't manage to play his song at the winter debut free of errors, his performance is at least on part with the other archnobles, only overshadowed by Rozemyne herself. Instead of being frustrated about Rozemyne outshining him like some of his remaining retainers expected, Wilfried expressed pride in his adopted sister for her performance.

In the following Spring, Wilfried and Rozemyne are tasked to charge Ehrenfest's foundation while their parents are away for the Archduke's Conference. Wilfried is given a feystone to use it to charge the foundation and collapses under the strain. To his amazement, Rozemyne doesn't even seem tired, even though she used her own mana rather than that from a feystone. Wilfried remarks that she's strong in the weirdest of ways, collapsing from a single snowball or walking too much, but handling such a massive transfer of mana with ease.

When Georgine learns of Bezewanst's death, she comes to visit her old home under the pretext of visiting his grave. Not being familiar with many of the complicated euphemisms used in noble society and not realizing how strained the relationship between his aunt and his parents is, Wilfried happily tells her that he would have liked to talk more with her upon her departure, which Georgine uses to extract a promise for being invited again next year from Florencia, who can not refuse due to Ahrensbach being of a higher rank than Ehrenfest. This leads Rozemyne to hit Wilfried on the head with a paper fan - with Ferdinand's express permission and encouragement, before she launches into a lecture on Wilfried's naiveté and inability to read the room.

At the next Harvest Festival, nobles of the former Veronica faction guide Wilfried to the tower in which his grandmother is imprisoned and trick him into going inside to talk to her. Up to this point, Wilfried didn't know that Veronica had been imprisoned, much less the kind of crimes she committed, and thus he believes everything that she tells him.

When Rozemyne returns to the castle and has her first tea party with her new younger sister Charlotte, Wilfried furiously storms into the room without permission trying to get Charlotte away from Rozemyne, telling his youngest sister not be fooled by her. When Rozemyne demands an explanation, the angry boy tries to lunge at her instead, but is intercepted and pinned to the floor by Angelica. He tries to intimidate her with his position, but she refuses to let him go, and Damuel quickly backs her up. Not even Wilfried's own guard knights are willing to come to his aid, due to his actions. While pinned, he starts to scream about Rozemyne being the bad one and that his grandmother told him all about her and Ferdinand's evil plots. To his surprise, this does not lead his guard knights to intervene on his behalf, but instead causes Lamprecht and a fellow retainer to shout at him, asking insistently when and where he met Veronica. At this Rozemyne, sends Rihyarda to get Aub Ehrenfest as quickly as possible.

Rihyarda soon arrives with Sylvester, Karstedt, Ferdinand, and Eckhart. While Eckhart is sent off to gather Wilfried's attendants, Florencia arrives, and Rihyarda prepares the room for the meeting. Only when everyone has come to Rozemyne's rooms does Sylvester ask Rozemyne to command Angelica to release Wilfried, beginning the interrogation. Sylvester, supported by Ferdinand, starts by questioning Wilfried's retainers when they lost sight of him, before moving on to interrogate his son.

They learn that during the hunting festival, the retainer in charge of watching over Wilfried suffered a seeming accident. While his wound was being healed, Wilfried played hide-and-seek with other noble children, who unknown to him, led him among a group of adult nobles, who discussed among each other his grandmother Veronica and his great uncle Bezewanst were arrested because of Rozemyne and Ferdinand. Infuriated by these accusations, Wilfried jumped up and defended Rozemyne, but started to doubt himself due to so many adults all agreeing that what they had said was true. They then led Wilfried toward an ivory tower and made a show of trying to open the door without success, goading Wilfried to open it. Once the door was open, the nobles claimed they would not be able to enter, so Wilfried moved in alone and found his imprisoned grandmother, who told him her paranoid ravings.

To Wilfried's utter shock, he learned that the person who uncovered Veronica's crimes and imprisoned her was neither Rozemyne nor Ferdinand, but Sylvester himself. He also hears for the first time how Veronica practically stole him away from his mother right after birth, not even permitting her to touch or hug him and that from her perspective, Rozemyne was the victim in everything that had occurred in the past and that even now Veronica had led Wilfried into committing a serious crime.

Only now did he learn that anyone could pass through the door once a member of the archducal family had opened it. The reason why the other nobles stayed out was because they were aware that entering the tower without permission was treason. He also learned that everything that led him to his grandmother, starting from the "accident" his retainer suffered was a carefully constructed, large-scale ruse to manipulate him into getting into contact with Veronica, while still retaining plausible deniability of everyone involved, so they couldn't be persecuted even if caught. Breaking out in tears, his mother tells him that if found guilty, Wilfried would once again be separated from her.

To bring him around and teach him to listen to all involved parties before making a judgment, Ferdinand tells Rozemyne to give her perspective of the past events. She tells Wilfried everything that happened only deviating from the truth when the cover-story Sylvester made up to hide her commoner routes comes into play, and how because of Bezewanst and Veronica, she had lost her freedom.

Faced with multiple people so close to him whose stories match, with only the one his grandmother told deviating, Wilfried realizes that it must be Veronica who's in the wrong and that the nobles leading him to the tower tricked him, how the rule to not talk without nobles, as well as all the other rules he never before thought about were there for good reasons, and that it was important to first hear the versions of everyone involved before jumping to conclusions, no matter how much you trust the initial source of the information.

While Wilfried can only watch and listen in fear, the adults and Rozemyne discuss who could have done this and why. They come to the conclusion that most likely someone was just metaphorically stirring the hornets nest to see how Sylvester would deal with the situation and potentially uncover weaknesses to exploit later. But even this knowledge and knowing that Wilfried was deliberately tricked into it still doesn't change that he committed a serious crime, serious enough that even execution was a possible outcome. If Sylvester lets such a big injustice go unpunished, it would greatly undermine his position and potentially destabilize the entire duchy.

It is once again Rozemyne, who comes to her brother's rescue by coming up with a solution, just like she did when his lacking education was exposed. Wilfried is to have his memories searched with a magic tool. Since this magic tool is usually reserved for only the most severe criminal acts, this would create the illusion that Wilfried is severely punished, even if they were to take no further steps. Though with how highly most nobles value their privacy, having one's memories exposed to others can already be considered a punishment in and of itself. This action would also allow them to learn the identities of the nobles involved, since Wilfried didn't know any of them and thus couldn't name them. As a bonus, if it was Sylvester who used the tool on his son, he would also learn of other potential problems holding his son back. In addition, Wilfried's guarantee to become the next archduke is also revoked, though he is not disinherited and thus can still become the successor, if he proves himself more worthy than his siblings.

Having provided them with a solution that would prevent her son from being taken from her, Florencia thanks Rozemyne from the bottom of her heart and also leads to Charlotte being amazed by her wonderful new sister. Wilfried deeply apologizes for doubting Rozemyne, receiving encouragements from her in turn.

From this day on Wilfried starts to call Ferdinand uncle.

At the social mingling after Charlotte's baptism, the three children of the archducal couple move together and greet the adult nobles as a group to show that Wilfried's punishment had not driven a wedge between them. Rozemyne even goes so far as to interpose herself between her siblings and those nobles that appear as if they are about to taunt or mock Wilfried for his misstep, or those they know to have been involved in the incident.

Some of those nobles ask whether Lord Wilfried has any intentions of joining the former Veronica faction, but Rozemyne rebuffs their advances, stating that he would never betray his parents. This all happens in particularly circuitous euphemisms that leave Charlotte and Wilfried unable to follow the conversation, and they have to ask what is even talked about between greeting different adults. When Wilfried wonders how Rozemyne could understand all those complicated phrases, she tells him that Ferdinand beat them into her specifically for today, leading Wilfried to apologize once again for his past mistake.

When it is getting late enough for the children to retire, they and their guard knights move back toward the northern building. In the corridor connecting the main castle and the children's outbuilding, the group is ambushed by a group of attackers, who manage to split the children and knights into two groups. While the majority of knights keeps the mysterious assailants busy, Charlotte and Rozemyne, who are closer to the northern building move toward it to enter it's protective barrier, while Wilfried is picked up by Oswald and rushed back to the main building to get help.

At the grand hall, Oswald lost no time in informing the Commander of the Knight's Order Karstedt of the situation, leading to Bonifatius and Ferdinand immediately rushing to aid the beleaguered girls, while the rest of the knights locked down the hall. Wilfried too stays in the grand hall to keep him safe and thus only learned of the events later from others.

To his shock, he learns that Rozemyne has been poisoned, and while Ferdinand managed to just barely save her life, she has to be put into a Jureve to heal, which is going to put her to sleep for a long time. Ferdinand initially estimates that she will be in this healing coma for at least a full year.

During Rozemyne's coma, Wilfried and Charlotte try to pick up the slack and stand in for her, among other things taking charge of the winter playroom and holding the Spring Prayer in the towns of Ehrenfest's central district, though like with the charging of the foundation, they are given feystones to do so, instead of having to donate their own mana. These feystones contained Rozemyne's excess mana, which is regularly drained by Ferdinand.

Wilfried already being used to Rozemyne's amazing feats doesn't appear to have any problems with this, though his little sister becomes more and more depressed from feelings of inadequacy, when confronted with all the things that Rozemyne did on a daily basis that seem impossible for her.

Unfortunately, Ferdinand was considerably off in his initial estimation, and Rozemyne spends two full years in the jureve. When they finally get a chance to meet again, Wilfried and Charlotte are overjoyed, with Wilfried proudly boasting that he almost caught up to her, which Ferdinand immediately puts into question. Following the dinner, the three reunited siblings study and practice dedication whirl together.

On the way to the great hall for this year's baptisms and winter debuts, Wilfried and Charlotte are surprised to see Rozemyne drive in Lessy, her highbeast. Due to how well she did during their whirl practice, her siblings assumed that she had fully recovered and were shocked when she told them that her muscles had atrophied during her sleep and that she was only able to move at all thanks to magic tools provided by Ferdinand. Past the point where she isn't allowed to use her highbeast anymore, she tells her siblings to move ahead, but they insist on sticking together and match her slow walking pace.

Once at the hall, Wilfried and Charlotte take turns in greeting the nobles that approach them and gently guide those away that are expected to upset their freshly recovered sister, in a reversal of how she protected them two years ago. At the gifting ceremony, Wilfried and Rozemyne are presented with the brooch and cape of Ehrenfest academy students.

Since the youngest students traditionally leave last, the three have some time to spend together in the winter playroom. Rozemyne planned to run it once again on her own, but Wilfried and Charlotte insist on sharing the work, especially with Rozemyne's weakened state. On the first day, Wilfried gets a bit too caught up in the competition for the sweets that Rozemyne's chefs provided, but a single comment from Charlotte is enough to get him back to work, reshuffling the teams to match children of roughly equal skills.

Due to the way they tricked him back in autumn two years ago, Wilfried was and still is shunning the children of the Veronica faction. Rozemyne, however, argues for leaving faction politics behind while at the academy and working together for the good of Ehrenfest. Thanks to her, all students, regardless of which faction their parents belong to, work together to cram for their exams. She calls those efforts the "Better Grade Committee".

When all the archduke candidate students meet at the beginning of the year, Rozemyne's exceptionally young appearance draws a lot of attention and some students even make rude comments. Since they are all of higher ranking duchies than Ehrenfest, Wilfried is unable to refute them and quietly grinds his teeth in frustration. When some of the students snicker about Rozemyne being unable to rise from the tall chairs on her own, Wilfried almost loses his composure to a point where this frustration becomes visible, but Rozemyne manages to calm him down enough, so he does not show his feelings.

Upon learning that she is barred from going to the Royal Academy Library until she finished all her written classes, Rozemyne is determined to finish them all on the first day. Wilfried is worried that once she does, she will abandon the Better Grades Committee and stay in the library all day, so he urges her to not abandon the other students. This somewhat backfires, and much to Wilfried's astonishment and alarm, causes Rozemyne to put all the first years through a grueling studying schedule to beat all the necessary knowledge they need to also pass all the exams on the first day into their heads. Thanks to children's bibles and karuta having been used in the winter playroom for two years now the children are generally confident in regards to their math and theology exams, but have to work hard to prepare for geography and history.

While for Rozemyne it meant securing extra time in the library, it would greatly aid the duchy as well to achieve this incredible task, so nobody stops Rozemyne, but seeing the students struggle keeping up the brutal studying she puts them through still causes him to apologize to them for arguably being the cause of their torment.

Thanks to their prior training, all of Ehrenfest's first years manage to pass their math exams easily on the first year. Later they manage the same feat for theology. While it isn't unusual for archduke candidates and archnobles to pass exams on first try, it is uncommon for mednobles and especially laynobles, who have far less access to high quality learning materials and highly skilled tutors, to do the same. For all students of a duchy, including the laynobles, to ace not just one, but two subjects on the first attempt, is rather unusual and thus raises quite a few eyebrows.

In their practical lessons for controlling mana, the students are set the task to fill a feystones with mana and then empty it out. Due to his experience in charging Ehrenfest's foundation and transferring Rozemyne's mana from a feystone to the chalice during the Dedication Ritual when Rozemyne was in the coma, Wilfried easily brushes through this lesson and is happy and proud to finally finish something faster than Rozemyne. He even manages to finish this lesson before any of his classmates. Meanwhile, his adopted sister greatly struggled and was the last of any of the students to finish this lesson.

When Wilfried later asks what took her so long, Rozemyne explains that it was due to interference from the magic tools she wears. The two siblings continue to tutor the other students for the upcoming history and geography exams, when a message from Professor Solange arrives, telling them about the details of registering for the library and the fees involved. When she learns how much it costs, Philine, a laynoble student who became close to Rozemyne in the winter playroom, comments that she couldn't afford this, so Rozemyne decides to lend any of her fellow students, who was in the same situation, the money for the registration, and they could repay her or work the debt off by transcribing any books that aren't already present in Ehrenfest Castle's book room later. Much to Wilfried's surprise, Rozemyne made a full catalogue of all the books there, and he jokingly asks her if she was really in a coma the whole time and didn't secretly sneak to the bookroom during the two years.

Just like math and theology, all the first-years of Ehrenfest manage to pass their history, geography, and magecraft exams on the first try, but unlike the former two, not all Ehrenfest students manage to ace them. Philine and Roderick just barely managed to pass history and geography respectively. The two were given the opportunity to retake the exams at a later day after attending the courses, but they both refuse since that would mean not being able to accompany Rozemyne to the library registration three days later. Unlike math and theology which regularly see only a few of the poorer nobles fail, in geography and history it is rare for any med- or laynobles to pass on the first attempt. Where the previous two exams merely raised some eyebrows, Ehrenfest's success on the latter two causes a stir among the other duchies. Seeing all the first years accomplishing this amazing feat also motivates the older students to put more efforts into their studies.

Wilfried's grades at the academy are average for an archduke candidate, though considering how much he was lagging behind even the poorest laynoble at the age of seven, that in itself is quite the accomplishment.

Later in the day comes the first practical lesson in music, where Rozemyne plays one of the songs she composed. When the music professor asks her about the song, Rozemyne tries to downplay it, but Wilfried proudly announces that is was a song she composed herself and that he too can play several of the other songs she composed.

Wilfried was able to pass his first court etiquette lesson on the first try, though that was in no small part thanks to Rozemyne's support.

In preparation for playing against other duchy's archduke candidates, Wilfried plays practice games of gewinnen against his retainers whenever he gets the opportunity. While he is able to quite consistently win against Ignaz, he rarely manages to defeat Alexis.

Once socializing season at the academy begins, he is invited to a meeting of male fist-year archduke candidates. There he plays his first match against someone not of Ehrenfest, against Ortwin of Drewanchel. During the game, they complain how tiresome it is to have to attend tea parties for girls, which serves as an outlet for their built-up frustration with the situations their respective sisters have dragged them into. Wilfried loses the match, but this is still the start of a friendly rivalry and friendship between the two boys, who from then on compete to one-up the other in both gewinnen and academic achievements.

These games became a regular occurence, albeit during Rozemyne's absence, they were often interrupted by Prince Anastasius, who would barge in to inquire about Rozemyne's return.

Right before the history exam of the second term, Wilfried is clearly stressed and asks Rozemyne not to talk to him, or all the names of previous kings might spill out of his head. Despite his nervousness, however, he manages to pass with good marks on the first attempt, just like all other Ehrenfest second years. They even manage to be the first to turn in all their tests, leading to some friendly banter between him and Ortwin, which the Drewanchel noble has to cut short due to a tight schedule.

Wilfried is very proud that the trend he started among the male students of his age group, to add a duchy crest to the base-shape of the schtappe has taken root and is still going strong. While some nobles boys only add a flat crest that looks almost like a sticker, Wilfried and some others went all the way to make their crest like an engraving.

When Rozemyne inquires why this trend only seems to have set in among the boys, he tells her that the previous year Lady Hannelore had advised the girls against adding the symbol of their duchy to their schtappe, and he presumes she did this due to how most female archduke candidates are fated to marry and move to their future husbands duchy.

For his theology exam, in addition to his obligatory birth deity, Flutrane, he intends to choose Leidenschaft, so he can pray for more growth in the future.

In his second year at the Royal Academy, Wilfried manages to be among the thirteen Ehrenfest students who are able to attain honor student status.

In their third year at the royal academy, the semester starts in a less than pleasant way. Upon Wilfried and Rozemyne coming to the dormitory, Matthias and Laurenz notice their strained expressions and how on guard their knights are. This prompts him to speak up and lay out all that he knows about his father's scheming against Aub Ehrenfest, and Georgine's visit in Gerlach during the summer. The archduke candidates immediately send this information back to the Aub and leave it up to Matthias and Laurenz, who proved themselves loyal, to handle the other children of the former Veronica faction.

Two days later, when the first-years have also arrived, the archduke candidates inform the gathered students of the purge of the former Veronica faction and that rather than punishing all of them and their families equally by association as is tradition, Aub Ehrenfest decided to punish each family according to the crime they committed and spare all the children. The children too young to go to the academy have been taken into the care of the temple orphanage, and the students have to either give their name to a member of the archducal family or return home to be punished alongside their parents. After questions by the students, they also reveal that despite the young children being raised in the temple orphanage alongside commoners, they will receive an education equivalent to that of a mednoble, and if they behave and dedicate themselves, will have the chance to earn the guardianship of the archducal family and thus be baptized as nobles.

The next day, when they are about to set out for the advancement ceremony and fellowship gathering, a first-year student is caught trying to smuggle a letter to his parents out of the dormitory, in the hopes that a student from another duchy might send it to his family. In it, he warns them that something bad will happen and desperately asks whether they will be alright, since they did not commit any crimes. This attempt results in all the children of the former Veronica faction being confined to the dormitory, since that is something that was agreed upon beforehand should any incident happen. Rozemyne tries to argue against this for a moment, but Wilfried tells her to let it go and to allow Matthias and Laurenz to handle this, like they decided two days ago, and the other students go to the big hall. The official excuse for why so many Ehrenfest students miss the ceremonies to Professor Hirschur and to the rest of the academy is that they have caught an infectious illness and are thus confined to their rooms until they recover.

On their way back to the dormitory, the Wilfried and his sisters are intercepted by Raimund, who carries a magic tool with a recorded voice-message from Ferdinand with him. Via this message, Ferdinand tells the siblings to not allow the grades of the Ehrenfest students to dip below what they achieved the previous year and punctuates his argument with a few choice threats should they fail. This reminds Wilfried and the girls that they have completely neglected studying since arriving at the academy, on account of the situation in the duchy.

Back in the dormitory, they gather the students and tell them to begin their studies, including those currently confined to the dorm. One of the children of the Veronica faction asks how they are supposed to study when their parents might be unjustly executed at this very moment back home. This enrages Leonore who immediately pulls out her schtappe and binds the student in bands of light. She is quickly joined by first Brunhilde and then the other retainers of Rozemyne, Wilfried, and Charlotte, in hammering home to the children of the former Veronica faction that they are only alive due to the mercy of Rozemyne and Aub Ehrenfest. They tell them all the terrible things the former Veronica faction has done to the archducal family, and how much the three archduke candidates had to suffer as a result, and how all their retainers are very much in favor of the traditional solution of just executing the whole bunch of them and be done with it, but have kept quiet out of loyalty to their masters. To diffuse the situation, Rozemyne reiterates that, unlike tradition, Aub Ehrenfest will only punish those that are actually guilty of a crime to the extend warranted by the crime. She also points out that without parents or their families disgraced, they will have a much harder time finding someone to hire them when they graduate and that they can at least partially offset this by achieving excellent grades.

This works, and all the students manage to put the matter of the purge from their minds and concentrate on studying. Even the student who first spoke up asks to be freed, so he can study as well, stating his confidence that is family is innocent and thus will not be punished.

Like all the Ehrenfest students, Wilfried is able to pass all the written exams of the first day of lessons on the first try. In the afternoon, the third years have the practical lesson Divine Protection Acquisition under professors Hirschur and Gundolf. Unlike most other courses, this one is held for all students together, regardless of status and rank, albeit only those that passed the Theology 3 exam - which was earlier the same day - are allowed to participate. The majority of present students are from Ehrenfest and Drewanchel, with just a small scattering of children from other duchies present, which is not overly surprising since learning the name of all the dozens of subordinate gods is rather difficult, at least difficult for students of other duchies, who are not yet aware of and have no access to Karuta and children's bibles.

The lesson itself starts with Hirschur showing the lengthy prayer on her projector magic tool. Rozemyne and Wilfried find themselves confronted with a very familiar prayer, since the beginning is exactly the same as the prayer they use to supply the Foundation Magic with mana, and with another that Rozemyne often uses in the temple, with only the names of the subordinate gods and a small part at the end being different. Since she already knows the majority of the prayer and the names of all the gods and only has to learn only a single new sentence, Rozemyne almost immediately stands up and says she memorized the prayer. Hirschur asks her if this isn't much too soon, to which Rozemyne points out that she already knows the majority of the prayer from her positions as the High Bishop and as a member of the archducal family, and how it is alike to a prayer that she regularly uses in the temple and for mana replenishment. To her surprise, the other present archduke candidates - save for Wilfried - are surprised at this. Hannelore seems to not have supplied mana to her duchy's foundation yet, and Ortwin explains that, in Drewanchel on the occasions he supplied mana to their foundation, everyone just poured their mana into it without any ritual or fanfare, like they would any other regular magic tool or feystone.

This sparks a bit of an argument between Wilfried and Ortwin, which Hirschur quickly cuts short by stating that perhaps the practice changed in the course of the long history of some duchies, but that they could discuss the merits of researching this matter only after class. Having brought the discussion to a close, Hirschur leaves the other students in the care of her colleague and takes Rozemyne into the chapel.

Shortly after Rozemyne returns, Wilfried states that he memorized the prayer and moves to the chapel with Hirschur, as the second student that day. When he returns to the hall, he proudly exclaims that he managed to get the protection of twelve gods and asks Rozemyne how many she got, since she surely has even more than him. Rather than giving an answer, however, Rozemyne deflects by stating that she read the number of protections is influenced by the deeds of the supplicant, so she is not in the least surprised that the pair of them received the protection of many subordinate gods. While she does not spell it out, she is almost assuredly thinking about both of them having participated in multiple religious ceremonies before, likely earning them the favor of many of the gods. Hannelore voices her surprise and points out that usually people only receive one protection per element. The only semi-regular exceptions are Dunkelfelger students and a small smattering of apprentice knights in general, who have a higher tendency to receive blessings of Leidenschaft's subordinate gods connected to warfare, but since Wilfried does not specialize in combat, him receiving so many protections is "both rare and rather wonderful".

The third student to enact the ritual is Wilfried's friend and rival Ortwin, who is rather disappointed that he only managed to gain the protection of the main deities he has an affinity for, but none of their subordinate gods. In this he is far from alone, since with the exception of Hannelore, all the students that follow after him only gain one protection for each element they have an aptitude for, until there are only Ehrenfest students left. Hannelore does manage to gain the protection of Angriff, the God of War, and Dregarnuhr, the Goddess of Time, but rather than being happy is just outright confused about this.

With all the present students not of Ehrenfest being archduke candidates or archnobles, the Ehrenfest med- and laynobles all decided to wait until the higher ranking students finished their ritual, rather than immediately going forward upon finishing memorizing their prayer, leaving only Ehrenfest students remaining in the hall. Since they have all memorized the prayer already, they enact their rituals in order of social ranking, except for Roderick, who decides to go last to see how Philine is doing.

To the surprise of everyone present, including the professors, Philine comes back overjoyed, to the point of completely neglecting her noble facade and showing her emotions completely openly, because she gained the divine protection of Mestionora, despite not even having an affinity for wind. This greatly interests Professor Gundolf, who begins to barrage her with questions.

When Roderick returns however, things become even more strange, since he managed to gain the protection of all seven primary gods, despite only having affinity for two elements. While the Ehrenfest students are amazed, this outright shocks Gundolf, since according to him nothing like this has ever happened in recorded history and was believed to be entirely impossible. Since neither Roderick nor the professor have the slightest clue how this happened, Rozemyne asks Gundolf to refrain from further questions for today, prompting him to congratulate Roderick and Philine and allowing them to leave. Before they can do so, however, Professor Hirschur cautions them to keep this information secret, since it could potentially throw the entire academy into chaos.

The next day, Professor Hirschur eats at the Ehrenfest Dormitory to discuss these events. During the meal, she makes no mention of this and instead praises the students for their 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. In the meeting room, she even has Rozemyne set up a wide-area sound-blocking magic tool, so that not even her uninvolved retainers and guard knights get to hear about this. 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 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 majorly for archduke candidates and members of the royal family. Even more disturbing, 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 she says that it is really obvious and that 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 favor 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. She also wishes to have a discussion with Aub Ehrenfest about 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, albeit Rozemyne and her retainers stay to discuss something else.

At Wilfried's suggestion, the next day, Rozemyne takes all the available Ehrenfest students to the gathering spot, where they repeatedly gather herbs before Rozemyne regrows them. This serves to burn more of Rozemyne's excess mana, while at the same time helping both the students and duchy, since the students are able to get plenty of ingredients for themselves, with even more being sent back home to help with the Lord of Winter hunt.

The next day when the Archduke arrives for the meeting, the children are surprised to see that Florencia accompanied him. She says that, with how crucial this discussion is for the future of the duchy, it is prudent for her to be present too. The archducal couple further explains that with Sylvester being so busy with "other things" - clearly implying the purge, but not saying so out loud in earshot of the other students - it was Florencia who read the majority of the reports the archduke candidates sent back to the duchy.

Once in the privacy of a meeting room, they discuss the events of the last few days in more detail and eventually decide to do more or less as Hirschur suggested. They will cooperate with Dunkelfelger to further research the connection between individual deeds and the chances to gain divine protections, while making sure that the greater duchy will not claim all the accolades for themselves, and then make the results public, so that the reputation of Ehrenfest can be improved. Rozemyne also hopes that it will help counter the stigma that temples and priests have in the opinion of the nobility of Yurgenschmidt, or at the very least, make it clear that Ehrenfest's temple is different from all the others. They will however keep the more dangerous parts of Rozemyne's discoveries secret.

After the conclusion of the discussion, Rozemyne inquires about how the purge went.

All of those name-sworn to Georgine were supposed to be captured, interrogated, and then executed. Unfortunately, not a single one of Georgine's name-sworn could be taken alive. They all either perished by blowing themselves up or due to Bonifatius' lack of restraint. One of the nobles who blew himself up was Giebe Gerlach, of whom only his ring and head remained after the explosion. Overall, less than 10 people were executed. Where the heads of the deceased remained intact, they tried to use the memory searching tool on the remains, but this didn't yield any useful information. While some visions of Georgine's visit in Gerlach could be pulled, they were all distorted, likely due to a herb Georgine had placed in the lit fireplace, in case of exactly such an event. Apart from Grausam himself, two more Giebes were among the dead.

Other members of the faction have only been imprisoned for the time being, while the full extend of their crimes is investigated, and they will be punished according to the findings. Consequently, only five students will actually need to swear their names to the archducal family. Sylvester expects that the investigation will conclude before the students return from the academy. Children of families - including those currently in the temple orphanage - who only receive fines or other minor punishments will be able to return to them, while those of families that received a sentence of long-term menial labor will be housed in the castle dormitory. Of those five students, three are among those who picked Rozemyne as their future master. They are Matthias, Laurenz, and Muriella.

Since Lestilaut will participate in the tea party between Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest, Wilfried is invited alongside Rozemyne. Since Wilfried was forced to attend otherwise all-girl tea parties in his first academy year, he is quite understanding of Lestilaut's plight and agrees to attend as well. Once the guests arrive, Lestilaut is once again very antagonistic and immediately asks for the hairpin before even the tea has been served. Once the pin is handed over his attitude changes, and Lestilaut is very pleased with the workmanship. When he learns that the craftswoman was able to make such fine work solely from his illustration without ever having seen the actual flowers herself, he tells Rozemyne to hand her craftsperson over, which she ignores and brushes aside with a quick change of topic, allowing Hannelore the opportunity to have the tea and sweets served. Hannelore prepared Galettes with wine-soaked Rohres. When both Rozemyne and Wilfried expression their appreciation, Lestilaut is relieved that his sister was right and that the two Ehrenfest nobles indeed like such "rustic" fare. Apparently, he wished to serve the usual Sovereignty-style lumps of decorative sugar, but his sister thankfully knew better and insisted.

At Wilfried's insistence, they decide to discuss the joint research before the books, since Rozemyne tends to lose all track of everything else once books are involved. She wishes to question the Dunkelfelger students to confirm what they saw with the Ehrenfest students, whether those that gained divine protections were able to fully fill the divine protection acquisition magic circle and witness the ceremonies Dunkelfelger holds before and after ditter matches. Lestilaut and Hannelore argue that, since the ceremonies are earnest prayers to the gods, they can't just do them without having any ditter-match to pray over, and leverage this to get Ehrenfest to agree to a re-match. Lestilaut also makes it a condition that he is allowed to see Rozemyne perform a ceremony of her own, leaving it up to her to pick one that is suitable to be performed at the royal academy.

Rozemyne requests that Clarissa is assigned to the project, and at the opportunity, tells the Dunkelfelger nobles that Hartmut has become the new Ehrenfest High Priest and hands over a letter he wrote to Clarissa. Lestilaut assumes that Hartmut committed some heinous crime to receive such harsh punishment, but Rozemyne reassures him that this isn't the case and that Hartmut still retains his full social status, in addition to his position in the temple. She further explains how the temple is quite different in Ehrenfest and that all the archduke's children go there several times throughout the year to participate in ceremonies. Wilfried backs her up and says that, for his siblings and him, the temple has become nearly a second home.

Rather than cancelling her engagement, Clarissa instead declares that she is proud of her fiancé for doing even this for his lady. She crumples up the letter without even bothering to read, declaring that such doesn't need any apology and that had she already been in Ehrenfest, she would have battled him for the position. After that, she states that, while she may still technically be Dunkelfelgerian, in her heart she is already Rozemyne's vassal, and that she'll charge down her chosen path no matter what her family says, followed by many words that might as well be coming out of Hartmut's mouth. Rather than stopping Clarissa himself, Lestilaut tells Rozemyne to do it, and Wilfried agrees that it falls to her. Rozemyne does so by giving Clarissa a hairpin she prepared for in the event that she didn't call off the wedding. She tries to get Clarissa to leave and try it on in her room, but she refuses, wishing to "burn Lady Rozemyne's visage" in her eyes, which Lestilaut allows, on the condition that she be quiet from now on.

With that situation dealt with, the discussions move on to the Dunkelfelger history book. The first volume has been received exceptionally well in the duchy, and despite not even having gone through the actual release, it already kindled a never before seen interest in their own duchy's history in many young nobles, where in the past, few outside the archducal family ever learned this, due to the difficulty of translating the ancient dialects from the massive tomes. Hannelore also passes along the compliments of the third wife of the king and that she too is eager to buy the book once it becomes available.

When asked about the advance copy, he was handed to check, Lestilaut says there are no problems with the text and praises the art, even though it is only black and white at this point. Rozemyne also hands Lestilaut a copy of Roderick's debut book about ditter. Naturally as one would expect from a Dunkelfleger noble, Lestilaut is very interested, but he is disappointed that this book comes without illustrations. Rozemyne explains that her illustrator is a commoner and thus has never seen ditter, leaving her unable to draw the scenes. Hannelore suggests that Lestilaut could draw the illustrations, since he is a talented artist. Rozemyne considers such commissions to be work for lay- and mednobles desperate for money, and thus tries to wriggle out of it, but her efforts are dashed by Wilfried, who's all on board for it and so the decision is made that Ehrenfest will commission Lestilaut's art for the book.

While the boys pour over the ditter book and discuss which scenes would be best suited for illustrations, the girls discuss romance stories. Hannelore inquires whether the protagonist of Elvira's latest story is based on Rozemyne herself, since there are quite a few parallels, but Rozemyne tells her that any similarities are purely coincidental. While some parts of the story have roots in reality, Rozemyne insists that the protagonist is an amalgam of several real people and purely fictional aspects and that she has never been mistreated like the protagonist. Wilfried confirms this, telling them that her blood brother is one of her guard knights and would never have allowed such mistreatment to take place, which reassures Hannelore.

A bit later in the year, Rozemyne and Wilfried are invited to a tea party with Lestilaut and Hannelore. There Lestilaut makes a sudden proposal to Rozemyne to marry into Dunkelfelger as his first wife and lays out all the advantages this would have for Rozemyne. Hannelore tries to go between them, but is ordered silent by her brother and obeys. Rozemyne seems strongly tempted at the beginning, but then Lestilaut appears to have made some sort of mistake, making the Ehrenfest girl very resolved to deny him.

When his proposal is refused, Lestilaut instead challenges Ehrenfest to bride-taking ditter and makes it clear that he would bring the full political weight of his duchy behind pressuring Ehrenfest into accepting. In an attempt to talk him out of it, Rozemyne demands that should Ehrenfest win Hannelore would be engaged to Wilfried as his second wife. To everyone's surprise, Lestilaut accepts this condition right away, once again shutting down Hannelore's attempts to protest. Wilfried is reluctant to gamble his sister's future away, but since she shows confidence in him and professes her trust, he accepts the challenge.

A few days later, the match takes place on one of the training grounds of the knight's building. During the hard-fought battle, a group of students from various middle and lesser duchies, mainly in the dark-purple and orange capes of Berschmann and Lotzring, led by three black-caped Sovereignty Knights, attacks both sides, and claims they wish to steal Rozemyne for themselves. The Dunkelfelger apprentice knights get so enraged over their ditter match being disrupted that they ignore Ehrenfest and even leave Hannelore - who serves as their duchy's treasure - alone in her base and charge the attackers, while Ehrenfest pulls back to regroup, treat their exhausted and injured members, and protect the audience in Rozemyne's Shield of Schutzaria, since the intruders also attack the spectator stands. Wilfried, who right before the attack had broken through the Dunkelfelger defenses, charges forward to shield Hannelore from the rain of offensive magic tools, and believing the match was on hold, pleads with her to take shelter in Rozemyne's shield. Despite knowing that the match is still technically going and that leaving the Duneklfelger home-base will be admitting defeat, and being confident in being able to weather the enemy attacks on her, Hannelore still feels compelled to take Wilfried's proffered hand and accompanies him to the Ehrenfest base of her own will.

After a short time, Professor Rauffen loudly declares that he contacted the Sovereign Knight's Order and got confirmation that the three Sovereignty Knights are acting without a royal decree, and thus are to immediately cease their attack. Moments later, Prince Anastasius arrives with more Sovereignty Knights and quickly captures the rogue knights. He allows the students that had been fooled by the rogue knights to return to their dormitories and dismisses all other students, except the archduke candidates and their retainers, who need to remain to answer questions. Since Rozemyne looks very ill from the exertions of the ditter game and subsequent intrusion, she is given permission to leave right away, with her siblings and some of her retainers staying behind to answer the prince's questions.

During the questioning, Lestilaut declares that with Hannelore leaving the Dunkelfelger home-base, they lost the game, and thus Ehrenfest is the victor. Wilfried and Anastasius try to argue for a rematch, with Wilfried stating the outside interference, and the prince being opposed because the marriage between archduke candidates was decided without consulting the Aubs of the respective duchies. But Lestilaut will have none of it. He says that with the rituals they enacted for the match, it has become "holy," and it would be disrespectful to the gods to not accept the outcome.

< Wilfried