Adelbert

Adelbert was the sixth person to hold the title of Aub Ehrenfest and Sylvester's father.

# History

Both Adelbert and his brother Bonifatius were qualified to become the next archduke, but his brother renounced his claim for the title since he had no desire to lead. The two boys also had a half-sister Irmhilde from their father's second or third wife.

Relatively early in his reign, Adelbert suffered a severe illness that left him close to death. To prepare for the worst, Bonifatius was trained to take up the mantle and taught even the secrets that only the Archduke is supposed to know, but to everyone's relief the Aub recovered.

He would later marry his cousin Veronica, and the pair had three children together.

The first two were the girls, Georgine and Constanze, the former of which was believed to inherit the title of Archduchess over her little sister. Once the archducal couple gave birth to their son Sylvester, what seemed like a foregone conclusion turned back into a fierce competition. Despite Georgine seeming more skilled and motivated to many, Sylvester's greater mana capacity and gender led his parents to choose him as the successor, leaving Georgine devastated. Georgine had harassed and mistreated her brother since the very beginning, but upon losing the title it only became worse. At one point, their parents started to genuinely fear for Sylvester's safety and thus married Georgine off to Ahrensbach, even though that meant she would only be the third wife to the local Archduke.

Apart from the three children with his first wife, Adelbert also had a child out of wedlock. This son was Ferdinand. Veronica always had been abusive to anything she perceived as even the most remote threat to her and her direct family, and she harassed and abused even her half-siblings and their children relentlessly, though few felt her fury and paranoia more than Ferdinand. When Aub Ehrenfest's health declined, Veronica's influence and power grew accordingly... as did her abuse, particularly of Ferdinand to the point where Sylvester advised Ferdinand to enter the temple to escape her.

Adelbert was engaged with his half-sister, who was supposed to become his second wife. When Veronica refused to take care of Ferdinand, Irmhilde was made his guardian and would have accepted him as her son at the boy's baptism. Unfortunately Irmhilde died, before she could even marry Adelbert, some time before Ferdinand's baptism.

When it became clear that he would not live much longer, Aub Ehrenfest had a final meeting with his son Ferdinand, in which he asked him to promise to protect Ehrenfest and Sylvester. His last words to Ferdinand were "I ask of you, brought to me by the Goddess of Time... protect Sylvester, and protect Ehrenfest."

Adelbert succumbed to his illness shortly after and was succeeded by Sylvester, who is now the seventh Aub Ehrenfest.

Due to being a mere blue priest apprentice at the time, Ferdinand was denied a seat of honour at his father's funeral and could only watch from a distance as a priest.

# References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 5. Prologue
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 9. Epilogue
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 8. As You Wish