Charlotte/Story

# Part 3

## Part 3 Volume 5

### Wilfried's Accusation

Rozemyne and Charlotte first meet a couple of weeks before Charlotte's baptism. In order to learn how to command, Charlotte is put in charge of setting up her own room in the northern building before moving there from the building for unbaptized children. Running into each other on the corridor, Charlotte and her sister make plans for a tea-party, with both sisters being very happy to finally meet each other.

The tea party is held in Rozemyne's quarters, and at first, everything seems nice and pleasant. But then Wilfried storms in demanding that Charlotte stay away from Rozemyne and not be fooled by her. When Rozemyne asks what brought this on, Wilfried, instead of explaining, charges at Rozemyne. Before he can reach her though, Angelica tackles him to the ground and restrains him. 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 obvious surprise, this does not lead his own 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 her head retainer Rihyarda to get Aub Ehrenfest as quickly as possible.

Charlotte is greatly intimidated by all the commotion. When Rozemyne notices this, she signals her younger sister to move close to her, and Charlotte gladly does so, taking comfort in the closeness.

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, then questions his son about the events.

As they find out, during the hunting festival, Wilfried had been tricked by nobles of the former Veronica Faction and their children, to enter the tower in which Veronica was imprisoned, which constitutes a crime. It is only at this point that Wilfried and Charlotte learn of their grandmother's grave crimes, and that it was Sylvester himself, who sentenced her to being imprisoned and forced to wear schtappe sealing bracelets for the rest of her life.

After Florencia tells her children how Veronica practically stole Wilfried away from her, Ferdinand tells Rozemyne to state her experiences and hardships that happened due to Veronica's and Bezewanst's crimes, making Wilfried realize that he is in the wrong, and he apologizes to her for his accusations.

### Wilfried's Punishment

When the discussion moves on to Wilfried's punishment, the children learn how severe the act of entering the tower without the archduke's permission is. In fact, it is considered treason and can even be punished with execution, depending on the circumstance. Since Wilfried was tricked by adults into committing this crime, without any ill intent, the adults are trying hard to find a way to avoid having to disinherit him, but both the law and the stability of the duchy require that Wilfried is punished in some way. They also don't want to show weakness to the perpetrators, since in all likelihood, they instigated the whole affair for that very reason.

It is Rozemyne who manages to come up with the best solution. Sylvester will use the memory searching magic tool on his own son and make this knowledge public. Since this tool is usually reserved for only the worst of criminals, doing so will send a strong message that the Aub will not let his son's crimes go unpunished and be swept under the rug. This will also allow Sylvester to learn the identities of the nobles, who tricked the boy and potentially to see other shortcomings of his education, so they can be corrected. Furthermore, while Wilfried is not entirely removed from the line of succession, the guarantee of his succession is revoked, meaning that in theory any of the archduke's children - including the adopted Rozemyne - could now once again win the competition and be chosen as the next Aub. While this will greatly harm Wilfried's reputation among the nobility, it is far preferable to life-imprisonment or being sent to the temple to become a Blue Robe, which were the most likely outcomes had Rozemyne not come up with a better solution.

Both Florencia and Charlotte are greatly relieved and thank Rozemyne profusely for saving Wilfried.

# Part 4

## Part 4 Volume 4

### After the first Academy year

Even after Rozemyne awoke from her coma, Charlotte and her brother keep helping with the Spring Prayer, dividing up the areas of the central district between the three siblings and Ferdinand. After Rozemyne and Wilfried's first year at the Royal Academy, the children decide that Charlotte will take care of the southern parts. Due to having outgrown Rozemyne's High Bishop robes, Charlotte had already ordered ceremonial robes of her own.

Due to having outgrown Rozemyne's ceremonial robes, which she borrowed in the past, Charlotte had a set of blue ceremonial robes made for herself for the occasion.

Upon hearing of Rozemyne and Wilfried's engagement, Charlotte was quite shocked. When her sister told her that she will always be her ally, Charlotte interpreted this as meaning that Rozemyne would support her bid for the archduke's seat, but with the betrothal, Wilfried's succession is near guaranteed.

Despite this misunderstanding, the two girls appear to still get along very well.

Not wanting to be left behind by her two elder siblings, Charlotte is eager to help in any way she can with the changes that were due for the duchy as a result of Rozemyne's first visit to the Royal Academy. She and her retainers play an active and valuable part in researching ways to beautify the lower city in preparation for the influx of foreign merchants and nobles interested in the new products her adopted sister invented and made popular at the Royal Academy. In the course of this research, they find old blueprints for remodeling the lower city with sanitary facilities and a sewer system. When those facilities first became available to Ehrenfest decades ago, the duchy lacked the necessary mana to make these sweeping changes to the entire city, and eventually ended up remodeling only the nobles' quarter and temple, with the plans to do the same for the lower city being pushed back time and again, until they ended up forgotten. Having the original blueprints and making revisions for the current situation saved a lot of time and effort, compared to having to draw up new plans entirely from scratch.

Since the Geduldh's Chalice is required for the Spring Prayer, in addition to the small chalices, the archducal children and Ferdinand perform their parts of the Spring Prayer in sequence, starting with Rozemyne, since she's expected to fall ill from the exhaustion. The second to go on her tour of the southern parts of the central district is Charlotte, with Wilfried and Ferdinand being scheduled to finish their areas afterwards.

## Part 4 Volume 5

During the next Harvest Festival, the archduke's children kept supporting the temple like they did during the spring. They split their workload in the central district the same way they had for Spring Prayer, except this time they were able to start at the same time, since the Harvest Festival does not require any of the Divine Instruments.

Due to Rozemyne collapsing once during her duties, Charlotte and Wilfried finished their respective tours before her.

## Part 4 Volume 6

Charlotte is still frustrated that, so shortly after gaining the chance to one day become Aub Ehrenfest, after her brother's guaranteed right of succession was revoked, the chance was snatched away again by Rozemyne's and Wilfried's engagement. She laments that her father is treating her like it is set in stone that she will one day leave Ehrenfest, but she is still determined to give being an archduke candidate her all, in particular, so she does not end up embarrassing her older sister, whom she holds in the highest regard.

Unlike most high-ranking nobles, who appear to take their retainers' support for granted, Charlotte is unusually aware of how much her own retainers are helping and supporting her and openly expresses her gratitude towards them.

At the behest of her parents, Charlotte and her siblings each send regular reports back to Ehrenfest. Due to lacking the experience of their seniors in Rozemyne's and Wilfried's employ, usually Charlotte and her retainers finish their reports last. This led to the arrangement that Marianne would gather the reports of the other two archduke candidates at the bottom of the stairs separating the levels of boys and girls in the Ehrenfest dormitory, to send them all back home together. This also allows Charlotte and her retainers to read and learn from the reports of their seniors.

At the Royal Academy, she is a bit flustered about how casual Rozemyne appears, while everyone else is cramming hard for their exams, but as her sister informs her, this year the cramming is far less intense than the previous one, on account of everyone having far more time to prepare this year, due to knowing what was coming, and also having access to tailor-made learning materials made in response to last year's mess. This is confirmed by other second year students, some of whom look ill at the mere memory of the past events.

## Part 4 Volume 8

Already in her first year at the Royal Academy, Charlotte manages to be among the thirteen Ehrenfest students, who are able to attain honor student status.

A few days before her younger brother's baptism, Charlotte hosts a tea party for the four children of the archducal couple, enabling Rozemyne and Melchior to finally meet. During the party, Rozemyne dotes on her new younger sibling a lot, making Charlotte bashfully comment on how it feels like she lost her older sister.

Since both Rozemyne and Wilfried are already engaged, Ehrenfest received a veritable flood of marriage proposals for Charlotte at the Archduke Conference following her first year at the Royal Academy, though her parents have not yet made a decision whether they would accept any of them. These offers include proposals for Charlotte to become a second or third wife in greater duchies and even a few high-ranking middle duchies offering her a position as the first wife.

< Charlotte

# References

1. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 5. Chapter 7: My First-Ever Little Sister
2. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 3 Volume 5. Chapter 9: Wilfried's Punishment
3. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Chapter 1: The Feast Celebrating Spring
4. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Chapter 3: Life in the Temple
5. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Chapter 10: Spring Prayer in the Central District
6. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 5. Chapter 11: Groschel and the Harvest Festival
7. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 6. Prologue
8. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 8. Chapter 4: Melchior's Baptism
9. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 8. Chapter 12: Report on the Archduke Conference (Second Year)