Ferdinand/Story

Ferdinand is the priest who registers Myne’s citizenship medal during her baptism.

When Myne returns to the temple to inform the High Bishop that she changed her mind about becoming a shrine maiden, she meets Ferdinand as the High Priest for the first time. He is assigned to read to her from the High Bishop’s temple scriptures. Ferdinand praises her fast learning ability and comments that he would love to have her as a student, if only she were a noble.

After the High Bishop arrives, Myne explains that her parents refused to allow her to join the temple because her Devouring makes her too frail to handle the duties of a gray shrine maiden. The priests test her mana capacity using the temple’s sacred chalice. Realizing that she is valuable for her mana as well as her money, they ask her to bring her parents to the temple for a meeting.

On the day of the meeting, Ferdinand stays silent when the High Bishop tries to pressure Effa and Gunther into sending their daughter to the temple. He believes the High Bishop’s methods, while deplorable, are the most efficient option. However, he later regrets his inaction when Myne loses her temper and nearly kills the High Bishop with her mana. Ferdinand intervenes at the last moment, convincing her to stop before her family becomes complicit in her crime. They move to his chambers to begin a proper discussion. Impressed by the depth of her family’s love for her, he accepts all Myne’s conditions for joining the temple.

When Myne joins the temple, Ferdinand claims “full responsibility” for her care, education, and management, intending to keep her as far away from the High Bishop as possible. He assigns her Fran, his own gray priest attendant, to help her learn to adjust to temple life, and he guides her through her fealty ceremony as a apprentice blue shrine maiden.

Ferdinand briefs Myne on her new temple duties and the temple’s dire financial straits. As he requests, she, Benno, and Mark bring her promised donation to the temple later that day. During the meeting, Ferdinand asks Benno about Myne’s background and character and asks for clarification on the rumors that she is Benno’s "Goddess of Water.” The merchants also give him introductory gifts, of which he finds plant paper the most impressive. At the end of the meeting, Myne collapses, startling Ferdinand.

After Myne returns to her temple duties, she scandalizes Ferdinand by changing into her blue robes in his office. When she points out that she has nowhere else to change, Arno suggests assigning her the orphanage director’s chambers, to which Ferdinand agrees.

Later, Myne discovers the true condition of the orphanage and resolves to ask Ferdinand for his advice on how to handle it. However, when she meets with him, he rejects her proposal out of hand. He explains that unbaptized children are not recognized as humans by the temple and says that if she wants to change the orphanage conditions, she should take responsibility herself as orphanage director.

Dismayed and disappointed, Myne begins thinking of other options and eventually comes up with the idea of a self-sustaining orphanage workshop. Fran encourages her to go to Ferdinand, saying that he is just as frustrated with the treatment of gray priests as she is. When they meet in Ferdinand’s secret room, he explains that it was a dangerous mistake to criticize the High Bishop in public and scolds her to be more aware of noble expectations. They then discuss her plans for the orphanage. Satisfied that she has thought it through carefully, he gives his approval and permission.

Myne asks permission from Ferdinand to celebrate the lower city’s Star Festival, and he grants it on the condition that they thoroughly clean up the taue fruits before the blue priests return from the Harvest Festival. When he inspects the area afterward, he finds the paving stones and dirt that were displaced by the trombe. Myne refuses to give an explanation, so Ferdinand sentences her to one day in the temple’s repentance chamber to reflect on her actions. However, she falls asleep in the cold room and develops a fever. Stricken by guilt, Ferdinand sends her home to recover.

Ferdinand notices that Myne is distracted and calls her to his hidden room to discuss what’s bothering her. She explains that Lutz ran away from his family and that Benno is considering adopting him. To her surprise, Ferdinand summons everyone involved to the temple and mediates a family discussion. After hearing his parents’ true feelings, Lutz chooses to stay with his family, and Ferdinand expresses relief that the family was able to resolve their differences.

When autumn arrives, Ferdinand and Myne are summoned by the Knight's Order to assist with a trombe extermination. Because Ferdinand is needed to serve as a knight, Myne is responsible for filling the land with mana after the battle to allow plants to grow again.

After meeting the Knight's Order in front of the Noble's Gate, Ferdinand introduces Myne to Karstedt, the commander of the Knight’s Order. He carries Myne on his highbeast to the extermination site, where he leaves her in a safe location. At his request, Karstedt assigns Damuel and Shikikoza to guard her, and he warns them not to let any harm come to her. Ferdinand fights the trombe using a bow blessed by the God of Darkness. Damuel says that his ability to divide his arrows into many attacks at once is evidence of his high mana capacity, and adds wistfully that he wishes Ferdinand would return to the Knight’s Order.

During the battle, Shikikoza threatens Myne with a blade and inadvertently cuts her. The mana in her blood causes a second trombe to grow around her. Furious, Ferdinand rushes to intervene. He calls the Knight’s Order, then uses his schtappe to close her wound. Because he has to release the blessing to heal her, he has to wait for the Knight's Order to arrive and save her. Once she is safe, he expresses his anger to Damuel, who failed to protect her, and Shikikoza, who caused her harm. As the highest-status noble present, he reminds them that his orders should take absolute precedence.

Once both trombes are exterminated, Ferdinand gives Myne a mana recovery potion. He orders Shikikoza to attempt the restoration ritual, planning to make an example of him. As expected, Shikikoza is unable to heal more than a small area of the land. When Myne makes the next attempt, her remarkable mana capacity surprises all of the nobles present, including Ferdinand. Concerned that she will be targeted by other nobles as a result of the demonstration, Ferdinand announces that she is under his custody and protection.

When they return to the temple, Ferdinand apologizes to Myne for allowing her to be put in danger and says that he never imagined the knights would disobey his orders.

While Myne recovers from her fever after the trombe extermination, Ferdinand requests permission from Aub Ehrenfest to use a memory-viewing magic tool to determine that she is not a threat to the duchy. He calls her to his hidden room and gives her a mana synchronization potion, which she says has a sweet taste. When she puts on the circlet, she falls asleep, and he prepares to view her memories.

Although Ferdinand thinks regretfully that she will never forgive him for invading her privacy, Myne understands his reasoning and is happy to be able to explore her old memories from Earth. She shows him various locations, including libraries, bookstores, craft shops, her old school, and her family home. Eventually, she is overwhelmed by nostalgia and her regret at not appreciating her family’s love in her first life. Because their emotions are linked, Ferdinand is overwhelmed, and he breaks their mental connection. When Myne awakes, she sees his distress and gives him a hug to calm him down. After initially trying to push her away, he gives in and accepts the hug.

Later, Ferdinand returns the magic tool to Karstedt and reports that Myne is not a threat. He explains that, unbelievable as it sounds, she has memories of life in another world and can bring great prosperity to Ehrenfest. He also says that Myne will need to be adopted by a noble to ensure her safety as an adult. As a priest, Ferdinand cannot adopt her himself, but he asks Karstedt to adopt her as a favor to him.

Karstedt agrees, although he warns that someone else will probably be displeased that Ferdinand didn’t go to him for help first. He also reflects that Ferdinand, who is usually slow to trust others, seems surprisingly fond of Myne.

Benno suspects that Myne may be in danger from Wolf, a senior member of the Ink Guild. He alerts Ferdinand, who decides to bring Myne to stay at the temple sooner than originally planned.

While she is staying at the temple, Ferdinand explains that he plans for her to be adopted by Karstedt for her own safety. However, Myne refuses. Her shock and panic cause her to lose control of her mana, so Ferdinand brings her to his hidden room and tries to calm her down. She eventually asks for a hug, and is soothed somewhat when he obliges. She explains that she is frightened of losing her family, and Ferdinand eventually agrees to let her postpone the adoption. However, he warns that she must be adopted by age ten, which is the age when noble children go to the Royal Academy.

When winter arrives, the Dedication Ritual is held in the temple. Ferdinand and Myne dedicate their mana together as they have a balanced amount of mana, but he warns her to do a poor job and undersell her abilities to the High Bishop. However, the High Bishop unexpectedly demands that she fill extra chalices and she is forced to demonstrate the true capacity of her mana. Ferdinand later complains about the extra chalices to Aub Ehrenfest, who assures him that it won’t happen again.

During Myne’s extended stay in the temple, Ferdinand summons her parents to discuss the adoption and plans for her future. He explains that he is worried for her safety, and Effa is convinced by his his explanation and gives her consent.

When spring arrives, Ferdinand and Myne are required to travel the duchy and bless the land for Spring Prayer. Sylvester, the archduke of Ehrenfest and Ferdinand’s half-brother, accompanies them in the disguise of a blue priest, intending to gauge her character and gather evidence of Veronica and the High Bishop’s criminal activity.

Ferdinand is exasperated by Sylvester’s antics, as he continually pesters Myne and demands to explore the temple. He accompanies him on an orphanage tour and finds it interesting; he listens attentively to Gil and Myne’s explanations. At the end of the tour, Sylvester is convinced of Myne’s character and plans to adopt her, but he does not inform Ferdinand.

When Count Bindewald attempts to kidnap Myne, Ferdinand is initially not informed of the crisis by his attendant Arno. However, he intervenes at the end of the battle to capture Bezewanst and severely injure Count Bindewald. He is the one to write the two magic contracts severing Myne from her family and changing her name to Rozemyne.

Ferdinand works with Karstedt, Elvira, and Sylvester to develop Rozemyne’s fake backstory and facilitate her entry into noble society. Even after she is baptized and adopted, Ferdinand continues to manage her education and health.

With Karstedt’s approval, Ferdinand examines Rozemyne’s mana pathways and determines that growing up with the Devouring has caused her mana to scar and harden. He explains that those “lumps” are the main reason for Rozemyne’s fevers, frailty, and stunted growth, and that the only way to treat them are by gathering rare ingredients to brew a jureve potion.

Before Rozemyne’s baptism, Ferdinand gives her one of Tuuli’s hair ornaments as a gift. He is dismayed when she bursts into tears, and he clears the room and gives her a hug until she calms down. Afterward, he heals her swollen eyes, so she can appear presentable in public.

Ferdinand leads the baptismal ceremony, attracting a small crowd of female admirers eager to see him in temple robes. He directs Rozemyne to give a blessing to the audience as part of his and Sylvester’s plan to make her a saint.

When the ceremony is over, Ferdinand allows Wilfried to drag Rozemyne out of the baptism to play. She collapses due to her poor constitution, and Wilfried is deeply upset at the sight of her seemingly lifeless body. Ferdinand later admits he planned for that to happen, so he would understand her frailty, a lesson Rozemyne thinks was too harsh.

Ferdinand is among the guests who visit the Italian Restaurant with Sylvester. Rozemyne observes that he seems to enjoy the food, and he is especially fascinated by the simple beauty of the double consommé.

After the meal, Ferdinand draws the blueprints for Rozemyne’s planned monastery. When he finishes, the party travels together by highbeast to Hasse, where he uses the magic taught to archduke candidates to build the monastery from white stone.

Tasked with raising funds for the monastery, Rozemyne suggests hosting a “charity concert” and asks Ferdinand to perform harspiel for her. He initially refuses, even when she offers him to trade him new songs and recipes, but is eventually badgered into helping her by Rihyarda.

To vent his annoyance, Ferdinand begins Rozemyne’s magic training at a ruthless pace. He gives her a large collection of books on magic but ensures she has no time to read them. Determined to get her own revenge, Rozemyne begins plotting to make and sell detailed illustrations of Ferdinand at the harspiel concert.

When Rozemyne finishes her highbeast, Ferdinand is dubious of the unconventional design of her Pandabus, which uses a drivable (rather than rideable) design and bears an unfortunate resemblance to a grun.

On the day of the concert, Ferdinand is dismayed at the number of attendees. The performance is a rousing success, both as a performance and as a sales opportunity. Rozemyne sells out of all 300 illustrations she prepared. However, Ferdinand tracks her down as the culprit, scolds her, and puts an end to her illustration business.

On a visit to Hasse, Ferdinand and Rozemyne take four of the town’s orphans from the mayor and move them to the monastery. Ferdinand is disgusted by the commoners’ poor manners and impatient with Rozemyne’s reluctance to discipline them. After they return to the temple, they sense a disturbance at the monastery and discover that Hasse’s citizens attempted to break in.

To deal with the ongoing hostility, Ferdinand assigns Rozemyne to gather evidence on the mayor, politically isolate him and his allies, and execute him. However, she is deeply frightened and sickened at being asked to harm another person. Over the next few days, Rozemyne’s attendants and family notice her losing sleep over her worries, and Ferdinand receives several complaints and worried reports from Fran, Karstedt, and Sylvester. He promises to try to cheer her up somehow. Although Rozemyne is already feeling better by the next time they meet, she insists that he owes her a “cheering up” anyway.

Rozemyne explains that what is “common sense” for Ferdinand, like eliminating one’s political enemies, is completely different from “common sense” of the world she knows. He is shaken by the realization that their perspectives are so different, but praises her for managing to adapt. In turn, she assures him that she plans to take responsibility in Hasse.

Rozemyne tells Ferdinand she thinks he should focus on his nephew Wilfried’s education, rather than hers, since he’s a blood relative. However, he has no interest in training an unmotivated pupil like Wilfried. He comments that Rozemyne is a far more worthwhile student, because she provides results and offers an interesting point of view.

When Rozemyne loses patience with Wilfried’s jealousy and decides to switch places for the day, Ferdinand is reluctant and only agrees after she calls in her “cheering up” favor. Within a few hours of the switch, he is infuriated by his nephew’s laziness and demands that Sylvester remove him from the line of succession. Rozemyne asks him to give Wilfried one more chance and do his best to frighten him into studying. As she hoped, Wilfried is able to memorize the prayer he was assigned, and Ferdinand concedes that he can be taught.

During the switch, Rozemyne realizes that Sylvester has no clear idea how much work she and Ferdinand have been doing at the temple. She warns him that “if you work him too hard, he will just die,” and Sylvester agrees to ease off their schedule. Ferdinand is appalled that she told the archduke that she couldn’t handle the work she was given, but she tells him that open communication with one’s superiors is important.

Ferdinand calls Kantna, the scholar-official of Hasse, to a meeting and pressures him into voiding his contract to buy some of the orphans. Intimidated by his skill at blackmail, Rozemyne assures him that she will never in her life make an enemy of him, no matter what.

When they return to Hasse with the contract, the mayor, who is under the mistaken assumption that the former High Bishop is still alive, treats them arrogantly. Ferdinand is coldly furious and makes it clear to Rozemyne that, were this not a good learning opportunity for her, the mayor would already be dead.

With the autumn Harvest Festival approaching, Ferdinand assigns Justus and Eckhart to accompany Rozemyne in collecting the first ingredient for her jureve on the Night of Schutzaria. Ferdinand and Rozemyne travel separately to spread out the work and limit the toll on her health. Due to a problem with his schedule, he is unable to meet her in Dorvan as planned, and she has to begin gathering her ruelle fruit without him.

When Rozemyne’s ruelle is eaten by a zantze that grows into a goltze, Justus sends an Ordonnanz to Ferdinand requesting help. He instructs her to contain it with a reverse shield of Wind and rushes to join them. He then works together with Eckhart to kill the goltze in one blow. After the battle, Ferdinand comforts the disappointed Rozemyne and assures her that she can try again next year.

Before Myne formally enters the temple, Ferdinand instructs Eckhart and Justus to gather information about her in the lower city. When their attempts to question the local commoners meet with little success, they break into the Merchant's Guild to check her official documents. They later report their findings to Ferdinand, who is satisfied that Myne is not a threat.

As Rozemyne suggested, Ferdinand begins turning down Sylvester’s requests for help, by telling him to get permission from the High Bishop. Sylvester tries to complain to Rozemyne, but she is pleased with Ferdinand’s improved health and says she has no intention of turning him over to do someone else’s work. With more free time, Ferdinand cheerfully begins putting the blue and gray priests through intensive training.

When Rozemyne accidentally gives a blessing during her debut harspiel performance, Ferdinand recovers from his surprise quickly and uses the opportunity to promote her as the Saint of Ehrenfest.

Later, Rozemyne passes out from shock, when Brigitte informs her that archduke candidates do not typically study as scholars or work as librarians. Deeply exasperated, Ferdinand informs her that all she needs to do is take the scholar and archduke candidate courses at the same time, as he did.

Ferdinand and Rozemyne return to the temple for the Dedication Ritual, where they again fill extra chalices for Frenbeltag. However, Ferdinand insisted that Sylvester and Florencia take responsibility for providing the necessary mana, and the ritual progresses quickly.

When Lord of Winter appears, Ferdinand and Karstedt lead the Knight’s Order in battle. As soon as the schnesturm is sufficiently weakened, Ferdinand carries Rozemyne on his highbeast and helps her deliver the finishing blow with the spear of Leidenschaft, so she can claim its feystone as the winter ingredient for her jureve.

At the end of winter, Ferdinand and Rozemyne go to Hasse to announce the town’s punishment for attacking the monastery. They will be given no mana to bless the land this year and will have taxes raised for ten years.

While the conspirators are questioned in public, Ferdinand puts on a deliberately harsh attitude, so Rozemyne will look merciful and saint-like in comparison. He then casts the Door of Judgement, a variation on Schutzaria’s shield, to determine which of the citizens still have hostile intent. Those who cannot pass are judged to be traitors and sentenced to death.

As a former archduke candidate, Ferdinand casts the execution ritual. He destroys their citizenship medals, and the conspirators crumble to dust. He also instructs Rozemyne not to avert her eyes from the execution, no matter what. Despite her horror and pity, she does as he asks.

Afterward, she can’t help but flinch away from him when he checks on her. Recognizing that he is not the right person to comfort her, Ferdinand allows her father Gunther, who is serving as a soldier in Hasse, to give her his cloak for the night.

After they return to the temple, Ferdinand and Rozemyne sit down to discuss the lessons she learned from Hasse. She tells him that, while she can learn to behave like a noble, she will never lose her deep-seated belief in the value of human life. Ferdinand is dubious of her plans to invest in public education, but she persuades him that it is worth it to at least teach civic officials how to interact with the nobility.

Ferdinand and Rozemyne travel together during Spring Prayer to avoid the unexpected problems that arose during the Harvest Festival. Justus and Eckhart once again accompany them. They plan to go to gather the nectar of a rairein flower on the Night of Flutrane near the town of Fontedorf. As they travel, Ferdinand eats lunch with Rozemyne regularly. While Rozemyne reflects that this is just an excuse to eat Ella’s delicious cooking, Eckhart is somewhat shocked by Ferdinand’s willingness to trust someone else’s chef without fear of poisoning.

When they locate The Goddesses’ Bath, Ferdinand commands the knights as they battle the toad-like talfrosches. With the feybeasts defeated, they return to camp to rest and regroup for the night before gathering the nectar at dawn. In the middle of the night, however, the women who sleep in Rozemyne’s Pandabus are carried away by the forest trees to The Goddesses’ Bath.

The male knights take off in pursuit, but they are prevented from entering The Goddesses’ Bath by a magic barrier. Ferdinand watches in dismay as the women seem entranced by the spring’s magic, performing music and having a picnic, and Rozemyne climbs up a leaf to collect her rairein nectar. He pounds furiously on the barrier with his mana until it explodes, allowing him to rush in and catch her when she falls into the spring.

Ferdinand is fascinated by the unique properties of the feystones gathered at The Goddesses’ Bath, which came from a flower grown with Rozemyne’s mana. He asks her to grow some feyplants with him as an experiment, but she points out that Ehrenfest has no mana to spare for research at the moment.

Undeterred, he suggests they return to the project in ten years, when she has more mana. She agrees, but with conditions: “If you want my mana, you’ll have to give me a library. I can wait ten years.”

When the archduke and archduchess leave for the Archduke Conference, Rozemyne and Wilfried are responsible for supplying mana to Ehrenfest’s Foundation. This is a change from previous years, when the supplying was done by Ferdinand and Veronica. With Rozemyne able to supply mana in his place, Ferdinand can stay at the temple and focus on his duties as High Priest.

When Rozemyne rewards Angelica for passing her classes by donating mana to her manablade, Eckhart is alarmed and immediately sends an Ordonnanz to alert Ferdinand. He rushes to check on them, scolds Rozemyne for being reckless, and lectures them on the dangers of giving mana carelessly.

To everyone’s surprise, the manablade Stenluke joins in on the lecture, scolding Angelica in Ferdinand’s voice. The blade explains that Rozemyne had envisioned a sword with intelligence, a good memory, and the ability to scold and advise its master; she had also pictured Ferdinand while donating mana. Combined with the addition of Ferdinand’s mana, Stenluke developed his personality and voice.

The situation ends happily, since Angelica is pleased with Stenluke’s new powers, but Ferdinand forbids Rozemyne from donating her mana again.

After the Archduke Conference ends, Sylvester asks Rozemyne’s opinion about bringing Ferdinand back into noble society and formally reassigning him to be the High Priest. She is fine with the idea, provided Ferdinand can keep working in the temple and won’t be burdened with extra work at the castle. However, she insists that Ferdinand’s opinion should take priority.

When Rozemyne brings the idea up to Ferdinand, he says that it isn’t worth the trouble to defy the archduke and that he’ll choose whichever option provides the most benefits to everyone else. Although she tries to convince him to decide based on his own feelings, he holds firm.

Ferdinand returns to the nobility and is formally named Rozemyne’s legal guardian. He also takes Justus and Eckhart back as his retainers on an official basis. Both of them are overjoyed to be able to serve him again.

At the nobles’ Starbind Ceremony, Rozemyne asks Ferdinand if he plans to get married now that he is no longer required to stay celibate as a member of the clergy. Ferdinand says that there would be no point, since there are no unmarried women in Ehrenfest with mana equal to his. Rozemyne recalls hearing from Eckhart that Ferdinand previously courted a girl at the Royal Academy, but he explains that it was because he studied alongside female archduke candidates in his classes. He also concedes that there is one married woman in Ehrenfest whose mana matches his own.

Karstedt suggests jokingly that Ferdinand should just marry Rozemyne, to which they both react in immediate disgust. Ferdinand instructs Rozemyne to find the best partner she can at the Royal Academy, even if she has to completely hide her true personality — or leave Ehrenfest — to do so. She promises to marry someone with a larger book collection than anyone in Ehrenfest.

To obtain a riesefalke egg as the summer ingredient for Rozemyne’s jureve, Ferdinand, Eckhart, Rozemyne, and her guard knights prepare to travel to Mount Lohenberg. It is a longer and more strenuous trip than those they made before. When they arrive, Ferdinand focuses on fighting off feybeasts, while the others escort Rozemyne to collect her ingredient. They then flee together with a number of feybeasts on their tail.

When Rozemyne tells Ferdinand that Zack finished a prototype of the hand pump for drawing water from wells, he immediately scolds her for not telling him sooner. Together, they go to inspect the pump. Ferdinand is impressed by its functionality and curious about the physics principles that operate it. He tells them to give a prototype to the Archduke and arranges an audience with him to explain the product.

Sylvester’s older sister Georgine is slated to visit from Ahrensbach. Ferdinand briefs Rozemyne on her background and the political threat she represents, and he is dismayed when she brings him a box of correspondence between Bezewanst and Georgine, which she mistakenly believed was unimportant.

When Georgine arrives, Ferdinand is present to welcome her as a member of the archducal family. He greets her with a bright, sociable smile, but Rozemyne guesses his actual feeling is loathing.

During her stay, Ferdinand and Rozemyne stay at the temple to avoid contact with Georgine as much as possible. He has Eckhart and Justus provide him with a steady stream of information on Georgine’s activities in Ehrenfest, and especially her relationship with the former Veronica faction.

At her departure, Ferdinand and Rozemyne are again required to be present to say farewell. When Wilfried carelessly invites Georgine to return again, Ferdinand gives Rozemyne the harisen he confiscated to whack his nephew with. Rozemyne reflects that Wilfried doesn’t have enough experience addressing his superiors, and she suggests that he start by showing respect to Ferdinand, his uncle.

Ferdinand and Rozemyne again meet in Dorvan and go to gather her ruelle fruit with Eckhart, Karstedt, and her guard knights. She gathers the ingredient successfully, giving her all four ingredients to complete her jureve.

During the battle, Ferdinand notices Damuel’s sudden increase in mana, and he and Karstedt summon Rozemyne to an emergency meeting to discuss it. She explains that she simply gave him advice on how to better compress his mana using the method she developed while fighting off the Devouring as a commoner. Ferdinand, believing that her compression method could significantly ameliorate Ehrenfest’s mana shortage, asks her to teach it to other nobles. Although she is hesitant, she agrees, on the condition that they use magic contracts to decide who can learn it.

Ferdinand is among those called to handle Wilfried’s crime of trespassing into the Ivory Tower and meeting his grandmother Veronica. When it comes time to decide on a punishment, he is inclined to be harsh. However, he listens closely to Wilfried’s explanation and apology and is convinced of his sincerity.

Rozemyne argues that the most advantageous political response is to do nothing, but Ferdinand flatly shoots down the idea, insisting on some form of punishment. He is eventually satisfied with Rozemyne’s suggestions of using the memory-searching magic tool and removing Wilfried’s right of succession.

Rozemyne is eager to make and use her jureve, but Ferdinand wants her to wait until after Spring Prayer, since he expects she may fall asleep for as long as an entire season. Irritated, Rozemyne tells him she won’t teach her mana compression method, until after she brews her jureve. He concedes, and they brew the potion together in her hidden room.

The next day, they return to the castle, and Rozemyne teaches her mana compression method to Ferdinand, Sylvester, Florencia, Karstedt and his family, and Damuel.

Ferdinand has no success with the “folding” step of her method, since he was already doing something similar. However, the “compressing” step is new to him and seems to be effective. To Rozemyne’s shock and dismay, he begins forcibly increasing his mana on the spot by compressing it to the maximum and then taking a recovery potion. Exasperated, she scolds him for not listening to her warnings.

When Bonifatius rushes off to save Rozemyne and Charlotte after the alarm is sounded, Sylvester sends Ferdinand after him to prevent him from going overboard. He catches Rozemyne, when Bonifatius accidentally hurls her through the air, and quickly realizes that she has been poisoned.

After giving her a medicine to slow the effects of the poison, Ferdinand insists on taking her back to his workshop at the temple for treatment, despite Bonifatius’s objections. He flies her there on his highbeast and instructs Fran and her attendants to prepare her jureve, while he fetches the antidote.

Ferdinand is able to treat her in time, and Rozemyne briefly recovers enough to speak and move before being immersed in the jureve. She entrusts him with the management of her affairs, and he promises to keep her safe while she sleeps.

While Rozemyne sleeps, Ferdinand takes on final responsibility for all her work — as High Bishop, as orphanage director, and as the leader of the paper and printing industries — in addition to his own work as High Priest and the task of finding evidence against Viscount Gerlach for Charlotte's kidnapping. Moreover, her absence leaves him with little protection from Sylvester and Bonifatius's unreasonable demands.

As a result, Ferdinand is forced to offload some of his responsibilities to others. Elvira takes primary responsibility for managing the printing industry, while Justus is allowed to assist at the orphanage workshop. He also begins to rely heavily on recovery potions once again, worrying Fran and the temple attendants.

In the early winter of the second year in the jureve, Rozemyne wakes up. Ferdinand tells her the broad strokes of what she missed and provides her with enhancement magic tools to help her move her atrophied body. He then explains that she is expected to go to the Royal Academy along with the other students, despite having been asleep for so long. Rozemyne is aghast at the sudden preparation and not inclined to comply, but Ferdinand persuades her to do her best as Charlotte's older sister.

They return to the castle three days later and begin her cram sessions almost immediately. Ferdinand lectures her on national politics, interduchy relations, geography, and history, while she also studies whirling, harspiel, and enhancement magic under other teachers. During the winter baptism, debut and Gifting Ceremony, Ferdinand performs all the religious duties because Rozemyne is attending as a new student. Before Rozemyne departs for the Royal Academy, Ferdinand gives her several protection charms to wear for her safety, and he strictly instructs her to finish her exams as soon as possible and return home for the Dedication Ritual before instigating any disasters. He also sends a letter to Hirschur, letting her know about Rozemyne's arrival and the magic tools she wears.

During the school term, Ferdinand receives reports from Wilfried that mainly involve frantic questions about how to handle Rozemyne. When Sylvester becomes alarmed by the contents of his own reports from Hirschur, he summons Ferdinand and Karstedt to a meeting to discuss damage control.

During his analysis of the magic circles on Schwartz and Weiss, Ferdinand comes up with a way to improve them. He later tests this newly revised magic circle by having Eckhart attack an object it protects. All of Eckhart's attacks were reflected back on him, showing the circle to work as intended (though for safety's sake, Eckhart only used light attacks).

Once Ferdinand is satisfied with his newly revised design, he helps Rozemyne to dye the circles onto the fabric for the clothes with Rozemyne's special brand of disappearing ink and later instructs Rozemyne's retainers on the same patterns so they can embroider over the now invisible magic circles to help protect the secret of the ink, should the next master of the library magic tools examine the clothes like the people of Ehrenfest did.

He also makes a charm with the same magic circle for Rozemyne, to add to her already considerable arsenal of protective charms at the Royal Academy.

Upon being informed that Professor Hirschur had taken on a disciple from Ahrensbach named Raimund, Ferdinand decides to personally visit the Royal Academy to deal with the potential information leak, despite the breach in protocol such a visit of an adult during the academy term represents. His official excuse is that he wants to discuss the magic tools he left with her.

On the next day, he arrives and receives the information the Ehrenfest students had managed to gather since his announcement the previous day, which reveals that, within his own duchy, Raimund is held in low esteem, due to his mother being a former Werkerstock noble, and his mother's mistress having been executed, as well as his mana capacity being so low as to just barely rise into mednoble levels.

After hearing the reports, rather than cutting Raimund off, Ferdinand decides to cultivate him as an unknowing information source. He makes Raimund his long-distance disciple with the goal of covertly gleaning information about Ahrensbach from him, while at the same time restricting him to non-critical magic tools and circles that wouldn't be problematic if they were to be leaked to another duchy. For this purpose, Ferdinand goes through all the magic tools and materials he left with Hirschur and sends anything he deems too sensitive or dangerous back to Ehrenfest.

He gives his new disciple a two-part exam. The first part is a written test that appears to be a simple geography exam, but is meant to supplement Ehrenfest's limited knowledge of their neighbor. The second part is a selection of magic tools and circles that Raimund is to improve as a test of his talent. Should Raimund be up to Ferdinand's expectations, he is willing to take him on as a retainer once the boy comes of age, should he wish to and gain permission from his home duchy. But should Raimund be denied by the Aub, Ferdinand expects that Ahrensbach would offer the boy a higher position within the duchy, making him an even more useful source of information, and making it an advantageous situation for Ferdinand, Ehrenfest, and also Raimund himself.

To avoid Rozemyne being swayed by her feelings and letting her guard down toward Raimund due to their shared interest in books, he forbids her from interacting with him directly and urges her to only keep in contact through her retainers.

In Rozemyne's second year, she is allowed to participate in the Interduchy Tournament. With her presence, Ferdinand as her guardian is also expected to participate. When he turns up at the Archduke's Castle in his blue cape, Sylvester first learns that his original cape had been taken away by Veronica. In part to avoid Ferdinand being mistaken for a Dunkelfelger noble and in part to make up for his mother's misdeeds, Sylvester gifts Ferdinand a new cape in the duchy colours.

While outwardly Ferdinand grumbles about feeling uncomfortable without the protective enchantments he wove into his blue cape over the years, Rozemyne can still detect very well hidden signs of Ferdinand being happy to have received this new cape from his brother.

To spread the expected burden of the socializing around, the archduke children and Ferdinand are split into two pairs, so that each has a male and female member of the archducal family to assist the archducal couple. Initially the plan was for the betrothed Wilfried and Rozemyne to be one pair, leaving Ferdinand to pair up with Charlotte, but since Wilfried was very unsure of whether he would be able to handle Rozemyne should the topic of books come up and the high likelihood of this happening, Florencia instead suggests to pair Rozemyne with Ferdinand instead and Sylvester concurs.

When Ehrenfest is visited by Aub Dunkelfelger, Ferdinand does his best to avoid contact with the Dunkelfelger nobles, but despite his best efforts, he still ends up being approached to become Ehrenfest's champion in a small-scale ditter match over the publishing rights for a book on Dunkelfelger's history that Rozemyne translated into modern vernacular. Initially, Ferdinand is very much against participating, but his old rival Heisshitze manages to convince him by wagering rare materials for a chance to win his old cape back. Apart from the two knights, Rozemyne and Hannelore are also roped into participating, much to both girl's surprise, confusion, and dismay.

After his return from the Interduchy Tournament, Ferdinand spends some time training with the Knight's Order. When Rozemyne comments on how rare it is to see him out on the knight's training grounds rather than working in the castle, he tries to play it down as him just desiring a "change of pace", but he seems very serious in his training, making Rozemyne doubt his nonchalant answer.

As the Archduke Conference of this year opens, Ferdinand approaches Rozemyne about teaching her for the next year. Wilfried and Charlotte are able to convince him to let them join, and Ferdinand even allows Melchior to join his sibling's studies, albeit only very reluctantly and under the threat of throwing him out the moment he interrupts the studies of the older children. The first thing he teaches them is to fill feystones only with the desired types of mana, while keeping it free of any others. He also teaches them to draw up blueprints in preparation for learning Entwickeln. Before the children can get to that point however, he is summoned to the Archduke Conference in person.

Once there, he learns that Ahrensbach is trying to arrange a marriage between Ferdinand and Detlinde. Despite Sylvester's refusal and laying out of a long list of counter arguments, the King has Ferdinand summoned to the Archduke Conference to lay out his own view on the matter and answer certain allegations about both him and his ward Rozemyne being mistreated in their home and forced to serve in the temple against their wills. Ferdinand makes it clear that these allegations are entirely mistaken and that he has no desire to marry into Ahrensbach, and he returns to Ehrenfest on the same day.

Soon after, he is summoned to the Archduke Conference again, this time to stay until it's very end. Supposedly due to being near the end of his life and the lack of archduke candidates in his duchy, Aub Ahrensbach is desperate to force the marriage through. At the same time, the King thinks that several events of the recent past surrounding Rozemyne might be hints at Ferdinand laying the groundwork to use his royal blood as a Seed of Adalgisa to usurp the kingship of Yurgenschmidt. In part to pay his debt to Ahrensbach and in part to ascertain Ferdinand's loyalty, he puts an ultimatum before him. To prove he is loyal to Yurgenschmidt and not a danger to the current King, Ferdinand has to either replace Sylvester as Aub Ehrenfest or marry into Ahrensbach.

To avoid Sylvester making an unfortunate, emotional decision, Ferdinand agrees to the engagement without talking with Sylvester first, since he is quite sure that even despite this being a direct order by the King himself, his half-brother would surely fight desperately against it, despite how much this would hurt both him and his duchy. When explaining things to Sylvester, he lays out all of this and mentions that this is actually a favorable situation for Ehrenfest too, since without this marriage, Georgine would have basically free reign over Ahrensbach for a considerable amount of time. But with him there, he would not only be able to learn of any of her schemes, but might well be able to prevent them in the first place.

While this is far from satisfying for Sylvester, who is still worried about all the hardship that Ferdinand will surely go through, he is willing to accept this. Rozemyne, however, senses that during their private meeting, he held something back, and once the two are back at the temple, basically forces Ferdinand into another private meeting in his hidden room, by threatening to make inquiries about the term "Seed of Adalgisa" if he refused.

In private, Ferdinand reluctantly explains to Rozemyne what the term means, his family connection to Lanzenave's royalty, and the King's ultimatum. Despite his best efforts to assure Rozemyne that he will be able to handle being alone in Ahrensbach, Rozemyne gets angry at him for shutting himself off from his family, instead of sharing his pain with them. Rozemyne calling him family catches Ferdinand off guard, which only adds to Rozemyne's anger and frustration. In the end, Rozemyne manages to extract a promise from Ferdinand that once he moved to Ahrensbach, he would regularly exchange letters with her.

In the following summer, Georgine and Detlinde visit Ehrenfest with the upcoming wedding as an excuse. Ferdinand is very unhappy with his engagement and this visit in particular. Instead of preparing a proposal feystone specifically for Detlinde, he uses one that he created with all seven elements and a rather generic message back in the Royal Academy. Despite Rozemyne insisting that he make a new one for Detlinde, he stoutly refuses to put in the time and effort required to learn Detlinde's affinities or to think of a better suited message, instead preferring to prepare for Georgine's visit.

Thankfully when it is time to exchange proposal feystones with Detlinde, he is able to use his "honeyed words," as he put it, to completely conceal his lack of effort. He spins a tale of how difficult it was to gather the high quality ingredients for every one of the seven elements, making it seem like he went to great length for Detlinde's sake, and she appears to fall completely for it, blushing furiously. Likewise all the listening noble-women nearly swoon from the perceived romantic gesture.

In the course of the visit, Ferdinand invites Detlinde to his estate and asks Rozemyne and Wilfried to join them, since it would be unseemly for only him and his betrothed to meet on their own. Rozemyne suggests to also invite Charlotte and Melchior along, which Ferdinand accepts. In the end, he also decides to invite Raimund, so he can talk about his tasks with his disciple, and arranges for the Gilberta Company to come, so that Detlinde can order a custom-made hairpin. Due to him spending to little time in his estate, Ferdinand lacks the personnel to accommodate so many nobles, and thus he reluctantly asks Rozemyne to lend him Fran and Zahm to help out. Before Detlinde arrives, he makes sure to swear Rozemyne's siblings to secrecy, so that Detlinde won't learn that there are gray priests present, due to how most nobles view the people from the temple.

Soon after this visit, Georgine receives an emergency message from Ahrensbach, cutting the visit short, much to Detlinde's dismay. When saying their farewells, Georgine answers in a way that suggests she intends to come back soon.

Shortly after the following autumn baptism ceremonies, Aub Ahrensbach sends an urgent request for Ferdinand to move to Ahrensbach already the very same autumn, rather than waiting for the Archduke Conference. Apparently, the Aub's health is even worse than they assumed, and he would like to still be there when Ferdinand comes to his new home, so he can help him get acquainted with the local nobility. Sylvester wishes to refuse the request, but he leaves the decision up to Ferdinand himself. In private, Ferdinand and Sylvester believe that this is a ploy by Georgine to remove him from Ehrenfest, so her agents can move more freely there. Ferdinand decides to take Aub Ahrensbach up on his offer, due to several reasons. First and foremost being that plans for a purge of the former Veronica faction already being in place and ready, so the agents that Georgine probably wishes to have freedom of movement without Ferdinand being there to thwart their plans, already being about to be eliminated. Another is that it will enable him to establish a power base in his new home with the help of the Aub and while his fiancée is absent for the Royal Academy, enabling Ferdinand to move more freely. Furthermore, this will allow him to keep a closer eye on Georgine and more actively protect Ehrenfest from her plans, rather than having to stay purely on the defense.

He asks Rihyarda to help him with selecting which gifts to bring to Ahrensbach early and which to leave for the actual Starbinding. Due to finally being engaged, Rihyarda stops calling him "my boy" and refers to him as Lord Ferdinand. She ruefully states that she had been looking forward to such a day for a long time, but now that it is here, she feels nothing but apprehension. Even Ferdinand himself is surprised to find that he would actually prefer for her to keep calling him "my boy," though it's unclear whether this is due to the circumstances of the wedding or a more general, nostalgic sense.

To facilitate the clean-up of his hidden room, Rozemyne suggests he remove the restriction for entering it, which he does, much to Eckhart's delight. Once everything has been moved out, he withdraws his mana entirely from the feystone at the door, so Hartmut can make his own hidden room and prepares to move to his estate to set affairs in order there, too. At his departure, his temple attendants join in a prayer to the seven, and he in turn gives them his final order, to treat Hartmut like they treated him and to support Rozemyne. This marks one of the very few occasions on which Ferdinand showed an genuine smile that was neither fake nor laced with poison.

While Ferdinand and his attendants prepare his estate, Rozemyne points out that the blue colour of his cape might cause issues, to which he admits that it slipped his mind. Since there is not enough time to embroider his Ehrenfest cape with protective magic circles, he asks Rozemyne to make disappearing ink for him, using his own stock of ingredients, so he can draw the circles on. He wants to use ink made by her, since he prioritizes concealment over mana efficiency. If he were to make the ink himself, the circles would become visible whenever he touched his cape, which would not only expose their makeup to anyone watching, but also give away the existence of disappearing ink, which so far has been successfully kept a secret known only to Rozemyne, Ferdinand, and their respective retainers present at the moment of discovery. The reduced mana efficiency of the circles from being made of someone else's mana appears to be worth the tradeoff for him. Also, he will doubtlessly receive an Ahrensbach cape upon his Starbinding, embroidered by his new wife, so it just needs to be enough to tide him over until then.

At Rozemyne's prompting, he also decides to give back his blue cape back to its original owner Heisshitze at the next Interduchy Tournament. Since he wants to take as few valuable items with him to Ahrensbach as possible, he asks Rozemyne to hold on to it in the meantime.

His move was made a lot easier thanks to Rozemyne's help, since with her unusual highbeast, she is able to transport his entire luggage to the duchy border gate in a just a few bells. Without Lessy, it would have taken three coaches multiple days to get everything to there.

At his departure, Ferdinand exchanges a vow with Rozemyne that he would protect Ehrenfest from afar, while she protects it from within, without allowing herself to be swayed by the honeyed words of the Sovereignty or other duchies. To reinforce this vow to be more than mere words and make her less susceptible to being bribed with books, he entrusts Rozemyne with the key to his estate and thus also his book room.

At that moment, it appears as if Rozemyne's mana is going out of control, but rather than an outburst, her actions are fully controlled. To the considerable surprise of the nobles watching, Rozemyne uses Stylo to draw a magic circle of all seven elements in the air to invoke a blessing from the bible for those departing.

In their hidden correspondence, he mentions to Rozemyne that after entering the temple, he did some self experimentation in the course of which he obtained further divine protections beyond those he acquired at the Royal Academy, thus he can confirm that Rozemyne's theory holds true and adults can indeed gain further protections. However, since his experiments were limited to only himself, he had been unaware of the effects that name-swearing has on the supplicant's mana qualities and their chances of obtaining divine protections, that Rozemyne discovered through Roderick.

<Ferdinand