Interduchy Tournament

This Article is based on the Official Translations of the Light Novel series! The Light Novel series is the source material for the adaptation of the Anime and Manga series. The information and terminology on the article will be based on the source material rather than the adaptions.

The Interduchy Tournament (領地対抗戦, ryouchi taikou-sen) is an annual event held at each school term at the Royal Academy. Its main event is a tournament of ditter matches between apprentice knights. However, it also includes other events such as socializing and research presented by apprentice scholars.

Overview

The Interduchy Tournament takes place the day before the Royal Academy's graduation ceremony, so it is considered a celebratory event. Rozemyne reflects that it feels like a "sports festival or a cultural festival".

It is the only time adults (besides attendants) are allowed to visit the Royal Academy during the school term, and a rare instance where many powerful nobles gather outside the Archduke Conference. The Aubs of each territory, as well as the ruler of Yurgenschmidt, are all in attendance. Other nobles may visit if they are the relative or escort partner of a graduating student.

The area surrounding the training field on which the ditter matches are taking place is used not only for spectating the matches, but also for the socializing and research presentations. The available space is divided up between the duchies and marked out with red lines on the floor. Each duchy will then decorate their respective spots with cloth in their duchy colour and bring in furnishing to accommodate their guests. The size and placements of the spots depends on the duchy rankings, with higher-ranking duchies being granted areas both bigger in size and positioned so that they grant the best view of the ditter field.

First Day

Ditter

In previous years, the ditter matches at the tournament were played using treasure-stealing ditter rules. However, due to the loss of manpower following the civil war, students began playing the faster and simpler version of speed ditter.
While treasure-stealing ditter was played outside the buildings over the entirety of the Royal Academy grounds, with the duchies' gathering spots acting as the home-bases, the speed ditter tournament takes place on the largest of the knight's building's biggest training grounds.

Performance in the Interduchy Tournament has a huge influence on whether a student is chosen to join the Sovereignty, as well as their position in their home duchy after coming of age. Lesser duchies and those with fewer nobles are at a disadvantage, since they have no choice but to use all their players rather than their best players.

Unlike the treasure-stealing ditter of the past, at speed ditter, only a single duchy at a time enters the field to fight a single feybeast, while the time to the beast's defeat is measured. The matches are split in two cours, with a pause in the middle to allow the visiting nobles and students to eat dinner.

Unlike most other affairs, the order in which the duchies compete is not determined by duchy rank, but rather by the rankings the duchies' students achieved in a series of mock-battles held during their classes. The order goes from lowest scoring duchy to highest.

The feybeasts to be fought are summoned by a professor determined by drawing lots. To minimize the chance of unfair meddling, it is made sure that no duchy supervisor will be chosen to summon the feybeast for their own duchy. However, if the luck of the draw is on their side, professors are still able to slightly interfere with the competition by summoning particularly difficult to or time-consuming to defeat feybeasts, if they happen to be selected to summon the beast of a rival duchy. This is however limited, since there is only a select list of feybeasts that can be summoned at the tournament. Furthermore, the professor is clearly visible while summoning the beast, which further limits the options of subterfuge.

• In Rozemyne's first year at the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest finished in eleventh place at the ditter section of the Interduchy Tournament. (Historically, it ranked around fourteenth.)
• In Rozemyne's second year, Ehrenfest managed to come in sixth at the pre-tournament mock-battles, ahead of the greater duchy of Ahrensbach despite being four places behind them in duchy ranking. However, they had the bad luck of Professor Fraularm - the dormitory supervisor of Ahrensbach - winning the lot-drawing for their ditter match, and she summoned a Hundertteilung. Despite the admirable performance of the students, the nature of the summoned feybeast meant that Ehrenfest scored below their actual capabilities due to Fraularm's meddling.

Research Presentations

During the tournament, professors, scholars and apprentice scholars showcase their research from the past year. Since Rozemyne's entry into the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest's research topics have included:

• Rozemyne's first year
  • A model of a drivable highbeast (shumil design).
  • Professor Hirschur's and Ferdinand's research into the magic circles on Schwartz and Weiss
  • Research on crest-adorned schtappes.
• Rozemyne's second year
  • Joint research of Rozemyne, Ferdinand and Hartmut into the mechanics of blessing-granting prayers from the Bible, presented under Hartmut's name.

Socializing

The Interduchy Tournament is seen as a time to socialize and gather information on new trends and fashions. Because it takes place at the end of winter, shortly before the Archduke Conference in spring, nobles can gauge interest and form the foundation for business deals that will be solidified later.

The primary duty of apprentice attendants is to serve visitors who visit their home duchy's representatives, push trends and "lavish guests with excellent hospitality". However, lesser duchies rarely have visitors, making it harder for their attendants to demonstrate their skills.

• In Rozemyne's first year at the Royal Academy, Ehrenfest's apprentice attendants received a "middling but respectable" appraisal for their hosting skills.

Award Ceremony

Following the conclusion of the ditter trounament, the duchies are given some time to clean up the stages. At fifth bell, everyone gathers up in the arena where earlier the ditter has taken place, with spots designated for the students of each duchy, while the royal family sets themselves up on a dais.

Once everyone is ready, this year's awards are given out by highly ranked Sovereignty nobles. First comes the rewards for the first three teams in ditter, who get a medal-shaped, translucent blue feystone. Then the three research projects judged to be of the highest significance by the Sovereignty scholars are rewarded with light-yellow feystones. The last rewards are given out for hosting, with the duchies being judged by how many visitors they had and how well they managed to please their guests.

Following this, the students are acknowledged for academic excellence, with honour students being officially declared and the first-in-class students being personally congratulated by the Zent, going through the respective terms in order starting with the 6th year students.

Second Day

Angelica to be escorted by Eckhart

As a tradition, female graduates are to be escorted by a male, whereas male graduates are to escort a female. Graduates could also be escorted by younger students or older adults. Since this is a de-facto open declaration of relationship, the pairs are usually engaged or at least romantically involved with each other. Nobles who are either unwilling or unable to find such partner for their graduation are often accompanied by a member of their family that far exceeds their age. Non-romantic acquaintances or relatives of similar age are seldom chosen, to avoid giving wrong impressions that the two being involved with each other, which could deter prospective marriage partners.

The proceedings of the second day take place in the main auditorium. For this occasion, the partition walls usually in place during classes are removed to reveal platforms with an inward slope for the audience to watch. At the center of the room, a large, circular ivory stage and a shrine are erected.

Coming of Age

Unlike commoners, who have their commoner's coming of age ceremony either in their respective birth season or at the Harvest Festival, nobles all have their Coming of Age Ceremony at the Royal Academy in winter, as part of the Interduchy Tournament. Here in the presence of the King himself, the Sovereign High Bishop welcomes the graduates into adulthood.

The first to enter are the King, followed by the Sovereign High Bishop. After them, the graduating students and their escorts are admitted into the room. After the graduates are lined up and the escorts who are not graduating themselves have left for the spectator area, the Sovereign High Bishop conducts a ceremony that is very reminiscent of the commoner's coming of age ceremony, with the High Bishop first telling tales from the bible, then leading the graduates in a prayer to the god of their respective birth seasons and ending the ceremony with a blessing.

The current Sovereign High Bishop only gives only a verbal blessing, rather than a true blessing.

Once the ceremony comes to a close, a select number of graduating students - singers and musicians alike - gather on the stage to perform a prayer song. Unlike with many other noble performances, here musicians are playing flutes and drums in addition to the harspiels. Once the song concludes, the students step down from the stage and take up positions around it to provide the music for the Sword Dance and Dedication Whirl.

Sword Dance

The 20 best sword dancers from among the graduating students are chosen to perform before the gathered audience under the eyes of the royal family, all the Aubs and the relatives of the graduating students.

Dedication Whirl

After the conclusion of the sword dance, the seven hand-picked students perform the Dedication Whirl.

The students for Dedication Whirl are chosen from among the archduke candidates. Only if there aren't enough archduke candidates graduating in a given year are archnobles chosen to fill the open roles. Sword-dancers are almost exclusively archnobles, since it requires significant mana capacity and skills, though mednobles might also earn the honor to perform in very rare special cases. In Angelica's case, she is able to perform thanks to her exceptional skill, mana capacity and a personal endorsement by Professor Rauffen.

During the dance, a magic circle visually similar to the one hidden in the High Bishop's Bible and visible only to those qualified to become the king, rises above the performing students. Judging how the circle was not visible in a recording made with a magic tool and how there are no audience reactions, it appears that just like its counterpart in the bible, this circle is only visible to a very small number of people.

Graduation Ceremony

After a lunch-break, the Graduation Ceremony takes place. The graduates would enter the hall with their escorts as their names are called, and they would receive the blessings from the Sovereign High Bishop together. This is where their coming-of-age ceremony is carried out.

Story

Rozemyne's First Year

Despite being only mednoble from the 13th duchy, Angelica still manages to be chosen to take part in the graduation ceremony's sword dance.

For the Dedication Whirl, Eglantine dances the part of the Goddess of Light and Anastasius the God of Darkness.

While Prince Anastasius escorts Eglantine at their graduation ceremony, a blessing comes out of nowhere and rains down upon the pair, but clearly more focused on Eglantine. The Sovereign High Priest declares this a sign of the gods, but in truth, Rozemyne unintentionally let a blessing slip out while watching the recorded Dedication Whirl from the day before.

Rozemyne's Second Year

Shortly before the start of the award ceremony, a group of rebel nobles unleash multiple Ternisbefallen on the stadium in which all the students and the royal family are gathered and launch suicide attacks toward the zent. They are ultimately defeated without causing any harm to royalty, but many students are hurt by the feybeasts and some even killed.

At the graduation's Dedication Whirl, Adolphine dances the part of Schutzaria, after declining the role of the Goddess of Light, since she doesn't want to be compared to Eglantine's performance the year before. Rudiger performs the part of Ewigeliebe.

Rozemyne's Third Year

Third Year Ditter

In the second half, where all duchies play in flipped order of the ranking they earned over the entire term, Ahrensbach is the first duchy to compete, meaning they came in last of those qualified for the second half. Gilessenmeyer managed to come in 7th, and Ehrenfest was 6th in the preliminary ranking.

During the actual ditter matches, Professor Hirschur was the proctor assigned to Ahrensbach and summoned a Talfrosch for them to fight. Gilessenmeyer had to face a Taunadel, and Professor Gundolf brought out a Gumka Tree for Ehrenfest to fight. Thanks to Leonore's research and some parallels in strategy to facing a Trombe, Ehrenfest finishes the feyplant in a good time.

Third Year Research

As the result of a joint research venture both Drewanchel and Ehrenfest present magic tools based around Ehrenfest produced special paper made from effon bark that play music. Drewanchel used the paper to create music instruments that can use mana and notes written on the paper to play by themselves, while Ehrenfest developed a prototype music box that can play simple songs with a very low mana consumption, designed in a way that even commoners can activate them, if they are in possession of a charged feystone.

The presentation of the improved version of a sound recording magic tool that is both far more mana efficient and considerably smaller than the regular version, which was created in a cooperation between Raimund and Rozemyne is solely done by Ahrensbach, who pretend like Raimund is the true mastermind, with Rozemyne merely providing some assistance to him. Their own negligence in not listening to all the pre-recorded messages, however, leads to their lies being exposed very publicly, since the final message was an advertisment for Ehrenfest novels that Rozemyne personally recorded for the presentation.

The presentation of the outcomes of the joint research project between Ehrenfest and Dunkelfelger into the connection between Religious Ceremonies and the number of divine protections nobles can obtain is presented in two ways. Ehrenfest does a traditional kind of presentation for their part of the results on the stands, albeit they choose to employ diagrams and charts to more comprehensively visualize the data.
Dunkelfelger decided to instead make a first-hand demonstration of a prayer dance beseeching the gods for strength and speed to overcome their opponents, which they do before every ditter match they fight. Since they are very strict about not praying to the gods without purpose, the participants then play a quick round of speed ditter after which they finish the presentation by having Hannelore perform Verfuhremeer's Calming Ritual, which dispels the blessings gained by the pre-battle prayers and dedicates freed up mana to the gods.

Third Year Socializing

During the first half of the ditter matches, Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest have a talk and are able to clear up the series of misunderstandings that caused their archduke candidates to fight their fateful match of bride-taking ditter and how to handle the results.

Following this Prince Anastasius approached them, working through the chaos that was the bride-taking ditter. After Dunkelfelger left, Aub Ehrenfest tells the prince about the trug plant and that it was likely used on the Sovereignty knights that invaded the bride-taking ditter match. Between them, they also negotiate that Ehrenfest's accomplishments this year will be seen as repaying royalty for Ehrenfest's inability to come to their aid in the civil war and thus the duchy will not advance in rank, despite their achievements, since Ehrenfest feels like it isn't yet capable of acting like a proper high-ranked duchy.

In the meeting between the Aubs of Frenbeltag and Ehrenfest, Sylvester confides in his sister and brother-in-law that Florencia shows signs of an unplanned pregnancy.

Third Year Rankings

Third Year Ditter Ranking

1. Dunkelfelger
2. Klassenberg
3. Ehrenfest

Rewards given out by Sovereign Knight's Order Commander Raublut

Third Year Research Ranking

1. Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest's joint research into rituals and divine protections
2. Gilessenmeyer's research into mana-amplifying magic magic tools
3. Ahrensbach and Ehrenfest's joint research into making magic tools more mana efficient

Rewards given out by unnamed Sovereignty scholar

Third Year Hosting Rankings

1. Klassenberg
2. Dunkelfelger
3. Drewanchel

Third Year Academic Achievements

• 6th grade
  • overall first-in-class: Unnamed Drewanchel archscholar
  • archduke candidate course first-in-class: Lestilaut
  • Ehrenfest honour Students: Alexis, Leonore

• 5th grade
  • Ehrenfest honour Students: Brunhilde, Matthias, Natalie

• 4th grade
  • Ehrenfest honour Students: Ignaz, Laurenz

• 3rd grade
  • overall first-in-class: Rozemyne
  • archduke candidate course first-in-class: Rozemyne
  • scholar course first-in-class: Rozemyne
  • Ehrenfest honour students: Wilfried

Graduation Ceremony

Sword Dance

Two of Ehrenfest's students manage to win a spot among the 20 students performing the sword dance at the ceremony, Alexis and Leonore. The two Ehrenfest knights are able to finish their performance with grace and skill, bringing honour to their duchy.

Dedication Whirl

For the dedication whirl, Detlinde is dancing the part of the Goddess of Light and Lestilaut the God of Darkness. While Ferdinand was able to convince Detlinde not to wear all five of her hairpins, so as to not offend the royal family, she still came with a towering hairstyle adorned with roses in addition to the five hairpins and was wearing feystones all over her body. During her rather average whirl, she pours mana into the feystones and manages to make them shine a little, albeit the light in them soon flickers out again. This cycle repeats a few times, all the while people in the audience can see her mana shimmering around her and being drained away somehow. Eventually, she stumbles and first hits Lestilaut and then falls on top of the girl that dancing the part of the Goddess of Wind, before coming to rest on the floor unconscious. When she hits the floor, a magic circle shines for a few seconds and then disappears again.

Despite the Sovereign High Bishop's protestations that a religious ceremony can not be interrupted until it is concluded, Ferdinand goes up on stage to order Detlinde's retainers to remove the religious garments she wears over her own clothes, return them to the Sovereignty priests and carry her to their dormitory and gather up the bits of decoration that her tumble and fall scattered over the area. He then profusely apologizes to the girl dancing the Goddess of Wind for his fiancée's embarrassing display and offers to heal the minor injuries she sustained when Detlinde fell on top of her, which she accepts. Then Ferdinand goes to check on Detlinde at Georgine's instruction.

Once they are gone, the Sovereign High Bishop takes charge of the situation and summons the reserve whirler to take Detlinde's place to restart the Dedication Whirl, which concludes without further incident.

Coming of Age Ceremony

Due to being summoned by the royal family, Rozemyne is not present at the Coming of Age Ceremony and the following feast, albeit the official excuse is that she has taken ill, a lie very believable in light of her having missed all previous graduations as well for the same official reason. At the event, the Sovereign Temple reveals to the gathered nobles that the magic circle is part of the zent selection process and that they have thus concluded that Lady Detlinde is a viable candidate to become the next zent. In this they are pretty much alone, since barely anyone seems to consider her worthy of the position after her unfortunate display at the Dedication Whirl. Nonetheless, Zent Trauerqual states that if she were to obtain the Grutrissheit, he would readily cede the throne to her, albeit in private Eglantine confesses that the king based this decision mostly on her having Ferdinand at her side, rather than her own abilities and temperament.