Eckhart

Name-sworn to Ferdinand

**Eckhart** (エックハルト, *Ekkuharuto*) is the oldest child of Karstedt and Elvira and the older brother of Lamprecht, Cornelius, and Rozemyne.

He is an archknight, who serves Ferdinand as a retainer. He also helps train new recruits to the Knight's Order, alongside his grandfather Bonifatius.

# Appearance

Eckhart has dark green hair and blue eyes. His facial features resemble his father's, as does his tall and muscular build. He has a generally impassive expression.

# Personality

Eckhart is quiet, diligent, and not easily perturbed. He is friendly to his family and associates, but he is said to have become more withdrawn after the death of his first wife, Heidemarie.

Compared to the average retainer, Eckhart is single-minded in his devotion to Ferdinand. He was devastated when he left for the temple and has sworn to serve him out of deep, genuine respect. He also worries over Ferdinand’s health and occasionally enlists the help of Rozemyne to ensure he looks after himself.

# History

During his time at the Royal Academy, Eckhart grew to deeply admire Ferdinand and dedicated himself to serving him as a guard knight alongside the scholar Justus. He also routinely reported back to his mother Elvira about Ferdinand's various achievements while in school. While Ferdinand was slow to trust Eckhart, he eventually proved his loyalty.

After graduating, Eckhart married his first wife Heidemarie, a fellow retainer of Ferdinand and just as devoted to him as Eckhart himself, whom he loved deeply. However, she died unexpectedly at a young age, and the couple had no children. Ever since then, he has been reluctant to remarry.

His loyalty and admiration to Ferdinand was so great that Eckhart name-swore himself to him, despite Ferdinand being very much in disfavour of Veronica, while she was still the driving power of Ehrenfest's politics.

After the death of Ferdinand's father, Eckhart advocated for assassinating Veronica, or "send this waste of space after your father" as he put it in the heat of the moment, but Ferdinand wouldn't go along with it on account of how many other people would be hurt and of the damage to the duchy such an action would cause.

His official service ended abruptly when Ferdinand joined the temple to escape Veronica's abuse, because he could not serve a priest in an official capacity. However, he refused to serve another master and flatly turned down his father's request that he become a retainer to Wilfried. He continued to help Ferdinand whenever he could, albeit unofficially.

Not too long after Ferdinand entered the temple, Heidemarie died. While the circumstances are as of yet unknown, Eckhart holds Veronica responsible and thus is exceptionally hostile toward anyone loyal to her.

Losing his beloved wife and unborn child hit Eckhart so hard, that he wanted to commit suicide, but due to being name-sworn, his life was not his own to end. Ferdinand ordered Eckhart to live for his wife's sake and to find something to fill the void left by her passing. With Heidemarie being fanatically devoted to Ferdinand and the two of them having sworn they would serve him as a married couple, Eckhart made it his entire live's purpose to live for Ferdinand, for both his own and Heidemarie's sake.

It was around this time that Veronica looked for a new guard knight for her grandson Wilfried. Apparently being unaware of his loyalty to Ferdinand she had her subordinates approach Eckhart, who was willing to take up the position, intending to use it to get close enough to Veronica to assassinate her. Despite despising Veroncia as well, his father still didn't want this to come to pass and when he learned of Eckhart's plans intervened by keeping him busy with paperwork for the knight's order and training of new recruits, while restricting him to their estate in his free time, thus the offer went to Lamprecht who took up the position to protect their family.

On one occasion, he and Justus were tasked with investigating Myne's background in the lower city of Ehrenfest. However, Eckhart became ill due to the foul smell of the commoner's district and spent much of the mission recovering at an inn. He later helped Justus break into the Merchant's Guild and questioned craftsmen who had done business with Myne.

When not assisting Ferdinand, Eckhart served in the Knight’s Order with his father, Karstedt. He was present at the trombe extermination mission that Myne participated in.

# Skills and Abilities

## Magical

* **Highbeast:** Eckhart’s highbeast has the shape of a winged wolf.

## Non-Magical

* **Projectile Proficiency:** Eckhart is very proficient with non-magical throwing weapons. He was able to precisely hit a specific spot on Angelica with a knife thrown in the middle of a howling blizzard, adjusting his aim to compensate for the wind, without Angelica even being aware of his attack until the projectile impacted on her armour.

# Trivia

* He sold information on Ferdinand to his mother for pocket money during their time in the Royal Academy.
* His name was previously translated as "Eckehard" but was revised in Part 3 Volume 1. The anime translation refers to him as "Eckhard."
* He is one of the few people who know that Rozemyne was the commoner Myne.

# References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 4. Prologue
2. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 6. Chapter 4: At Karstedt’s Estate
3. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 5. Chapter 15: Leaving for the Royal Academy
4. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 4. Chapter 10: The Dress Debut and Ferdinand's Return
5. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 1. Chapter 2: Preparing for the Baptism Ceremony
6. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 1. Chapter 10: Starbind Ceremony in the Noble's Quarter
7. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 2. Chapter 11: Hasse's Contract
8. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 2. Chapter 18: Ferdinand and Hirschur's Gifts
9. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 3. Epilogue
10. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 6. Chapter 13: Professor Hirschur's Disciple
11. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 2. Justus's Grand Lower City Infiltration
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 8. Ten Years of Change
13. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 8. Prologue
14. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Short Story Collection 1. Chapter 10: Lamprecht — Where My Path Leads
15. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Fanbook 1. Q&A with Miya Kazuki
16. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Royal Academy Stories - First Year. Chapter 8: Angelica - A Guard Knight at the Temple