Detlinde/Story

# Part 4

## Part 4 Volume 1

Detlinde first meets Rozemyne and Wilfried at their first year fellowship gathering at the Royal Academy, where the archduke candidates of different duchies formally greet one another. She greets her cousin Wilfried warmly, but ignores Rozemyne and shows contempt for her.

They later meet again at dedication whirl practice, when Detlinde invites Wilfried to a “cousins tea party.” Reluctant to let him face such a risky social situation alone, Rozemyne points out that she’s also Detlinde’s cousin by adoption and tries to argue her way into being invited as well. However, Detlinde rejects her and plainly says that she does not consider her a cousin.

When Rudiger, Detlinde and Wilfried’s cousin from Frenbeltag, asks to join, Detlinde agrees after some hesitation. However, her vindictive smile suggests that she only agrees to spite Rozemyne.

## Part 4 Volume 3

At the cousins tea party, Detlinde grills Wilfried about how the Ehrenfest students raised their grades so drastically in such a short time, why Lamprecht's marriage was denied, and whether Wilfried is already engaged. While Wilfried later describes it as an amicable meeting, Rozemyne suspects that Detlinde’s veiled insults might have gone over his head.

At Ehrenfest’s joint tea party for all other duchies, Detlinde attempts to damage Rozemyne’s reputation by exposing her background in the temple and revealing that she was absent from the Royal Academy because of the Dedication Ritual. However, Wilfried and Rudiger chime in to support Rozemyne. They explain that both Ehrenfest and Frenbeltag face such a serious mana shortage that archduke candidates are needed to conduct such tasks, and the guests feel sympathetic for their unfortunate situation.

Later at the same party, Rozemyne hands out small samples of rinsham to Eglantine and her friends. Detlinde asks for a jar to use herself. When Eglantine chides her for her making demands after being blatantly rude moments before, Detlinde insists again on the basis that Rozemyne is her cousin. Rozemyne reminds Detlinde that she previously told her to her face that they were not cousins.

However, Justus signals to Rozemyne that she should give Detlinde a jar anyway, and she realizes that it will benefit Ehrenfest to reinforce its familial relationship with Ahrensbach in such a public setting. She gives Detlinde the rinsham, saying she values their relationship as cousins.

## Part 4 Volume 4

In Georgine and Gieselfried's side story, it is revealed that they want to arrange a marriage between Detlinde and Wilfried because Letizia, Detlinde's niece, has already been chosen as the next Aub. To avoid civil war in the duchy, they want Detlinde to marry a husband who lacks the ambition to push her to fight for the title of Aub herself. Wilfried, whose reputation was tarnished after entering the Ivory Tower and who carries Ahrensbach blood, suits their plans perfectly. Unfortunately, Wilfried has already received the king's approval for his engagement with Rozemyne.

## Part 4 Volume 8

At the Archduke Conference following Detlinde's fifth year at the Royal Academy, the king orders the marriage of Detlinde and Ferdinand of Ehrenfest. Due to exceptional circumstances, the usual preparation time will be cut short, and the pair is to marry right after Detlinde's coming-of-age and graduation next year.

This comes as a bad surprise for Detlinde. Over the last year, she had become romantically involved with a young Sovereignty knight, who had been sent to Ahrensbach to investigate the Ternisbefallen attack on the Royal Academy and the subsequent rebellion. With her betrothal ordered by the king himself, she has no choice but to break off her relationship with him and prepare for her upcoming marriage.

Come summer, Detlinde and her mother visit Ehrenfest, officially to allow the two betrothed to grow closer. Once in Ehrenfest, Detlinde uses the opportunity to order a hairpin for her graduation. Despite her wishing to spend more time there, the visit is cut short when an emergency message from home arrives, and Georgine decides they need to return immediately.

Due to barely even knowing her father, she has essentially no feelings toward her father's collapse. Since she had fun in Ehrenfest, she only thinks that he should have collapsed at a less inconvenient time.

The entire Ahrensbach retinue leaves the city of Ehrenfest by coach, though after riding for one day and resting at an inn, Georgine decides to hurry ahead with a smaller group on highbeasts and leaves the majority of her retainers with the slow going coaches. They travel at a speed that soon exceeds Detlinde's stamina, leaving her feeling sick and unable to continue. She tries to show no weakness and insists that she can continue, but her mother says they will take a break in Gerlach to allow Detlinde to recover. This catches Detlinde completely off guard, since in the past her mother always insisted on her working and studying no matter how ill she was.

Georgine exchanges Ordonnanzes with Giebe Gerlach, in which he informs her that he already has other guests, and thus is unable to accommodate even the small party that moved via highbeast. He claims to only be able to accommodate Georgine, Detlinde, and one guard knight and one attendant for each of them. Despite the present knights strongly arguing against traveling with so little protection, Georgine accepts this offer.

## Part 4 Volume 9

Initially, Detlinde ordered a hairpin specifically more glamourous than the one Adolphine received as a gift from Prince Sigiswald. Nearly everyone present, including her own attendants, tried to convince her to change her mind, so she would not be perceived as insulting the royal family, but she would not budge on the issue, stating confidently that she would be the next Aub. Even Wilfried, who would usually be only too happy to stay far away from any discussions involving fashion, decided to caution his cousin that an Aub should know how to show restraint, but to no avail.

Only when Brunhilde, one of Rozemyne's attendants, suggested that she could wear multiple hairpins at once, did Detlinde relent and agree to order hairpins that individually were less fancy than Adolphine's hairpin. Ultimately, she settled on ordering five of them, each featuring flowers similar to the ones Adolphine chose for herself.

# Part 5

## Part 5 Volume 2

During whirling class, Detlinde witnesses Rozemyne beginning to shine. During the cousins tea party, she questions Rozemyne about the incident and is able to extract the information that Rozemyne accidentally did this by leaking mana into feystones. Wishing to put up a display at her own graduation, she forms the plan to also cover herself in feystones to replicate the effect.

## Part 5 Volume 3

Ultimately Ferdinand and Detlinde's retainers are able to convince her not to wear her full set of hairpins and go with only three, but she supplements those ornaments with flowers and a towering hairstyle that is sure to catch anyone's eyes.

During her graduation her gaudy appearance certainly is successful in standing out, albeit not in a positive way, even though Detlinde herself seems unaware of the negativity she's generating and appears to think the looks coming her way or admiration. During the Dedication Whirl she pumps mana into her feystones, briefly making them shine, but only ever shor a short moment before going out again. Desperate to pull off her act she pumps more and more mana into them seemingly not realizing that the mana is drawn away somehow until she runs out and begins to lose her balance. She first stumbles into Lestilaut and bounces away from him, falling on top of the girl that dances the part of the Goddess of Wind, before coming to lay still on the floor unconscious. For a brief moment a magic circle flashes into visibility upon her hitting the floor before vanishing.

Once she wakes up Detlinde is quick to blame Rozemyne for her blunder, instead of facing her own failure, but is quickly mollified to some degree upon learning that the Sovereign High Bishop announced that the magic circle was proof that Detlinde was a zent candidate.

Upon her return to Ahrensbach her mother finally informs her that Detlinde was only ever supposed to be an interim Aub until Letizia comes of age, but is able to blame it entirely on her dead husband and a royal decree. Georgine graciously allows and even seems to encourage Detlinde to persue the position of zent by establishing relationships with potential allies and searching for the Grutrissheit, but only under the condition that Detlinde limits her efforts to just one year. If she can't find the holy book by the time next year's archduke conference comes around - at which point Ahrensbach will have to officially announce Gieselfried's death and present his successor - Detlinde will have to give up on becoming queen and settle on a position in her home duchy.

For this reason they decided that Detlinde will not completely dye the foundation. They will continue to just supply it like they have done so far, while careful it doesn't get dyed by anyone. Detlinde suggests that Georgine should become the interim Aub, but her mother turns that notion down stating that she has no wish to become archduchess. What Detlinde apparently fails to realize however is that this is mainly done due to Georgine's political acumen. Unlike her daughter she is very much aware that barely anyone would ever accept Georgine as Aub, even if it's just temporary.

For the duration of her search for the Grutrissheit, Detlinde's marriage with Ferdinand will be delayed. While she greatly enjoys Ferdinand's "love" for her, she still prefers not to marry someone who once lived in a temple. As such she intends to cancel the engagement should she become zent, but keeps him around should she fail. In the meantime she and Georgine will have Ferdinand oversee the Ahrensbach temple, since even they finally had their eyes opened to the importance of religious ceremonies and their impact on the harvest thanks to Ehrenfest and Dunkelfelger's efforts. Apart from her engagement cancelation, upon her coronation Detlinde also plans to make a royal decree to elevate either Blasius or Alstede back into archduke candidate status and have them become the next Aub Ahrensbach. She also wishes to present her mother "what she deserves". Howver she intends to be more merciful than her perception of Trauerqual by only eliminating some select individuals, rather than enacting a wide-spread purge, apparently not realizing how different the situation right after the civil war was and that the purge originated more from Klassenberg and other allies rather than the then newly crowned zent himself.

For now Detlinde tries to make Ferdinand give her his name, but he replies that he can not give what he no longer has. When she inquires who the holder of his name is, he replies that only two woman ever asked for his name and that she was alike to her grandmother in this, which makes Detlinde believe that he is sword to Veronica. She demands that he convince her grandmother to give his name back, but due to Ahrensbach refusing to let Ferdinand leave their duchy and visit his old home his hands are bound. Despite this being entirely outside of his control, Detlinde still insults him for being useles.

During a talk with her retainers Detlinde also shows open animosity toward Letizia now that she knows the girl's unwitting role in "stealing" the Aub's seat away from her.

## Part 5 Volume 5

At some point between her graduation and the following archduke conference, Detlinde receives a letter, telling her about the existence of the Underground Archive accessible only to royalty and archduke candidates, and how it presumably contains documents detailing how to obtain the Grutrissheit. At the conference Detlinde registers at the library - something she didn't do the entire time she was a student - so she can enter the archive. To Professors Hortensia and Solange she claims that the letter came from an anonymous source and is surely a divine sign, while also insulting the royal family in a way that some people would consider treason. But when called out on that by Hortensia, Detlinde is entirely unworried about what royals without a Grutrissheit might think, when she is a true Zent candidate.

In the archive Detlinde meets Lady Magdalena, Zent Trauerqual's third wife.

< Detlinde

# References

1. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 1. Chapter 20: Dedication Whirl
2. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 3. Chapter 7: Return to the Royal Academy
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 3. Chapter 11: The Tea Party for All Duchies
4. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 4. Epilogue
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 8. Chapter 20: Ferdinand’s Estate
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 8. Epilogue
7. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 4 Volume 9. Chapter 2: The Harvest Festival and a Meeting
8. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 2. Chapter 4: Frustrating Tea Parties
9. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 3. Chapter 14: Detlinde’s Dedication Whirl
10. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 3. Epilogue
11. ↑ Ascendance of a Bookworm. Part 5 Volume 5. Chapter 5: Zent Candidates