Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 7 Part 8
Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 5 Volume 7 Part 8
No sooner has Rozemyne’s fourth year at the Royal Academy begun than she ends up somewhere unexpected. How will the saint respond when an incident in Ahrensbach leaves everyone else feeling defeated?
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So the Adalgisa villa has no lockable door of it's own, to keep Ahrensbach from just barging into it at their leisure? oO Ahrensbach sure enjoyed massive trust in the distant past and a load of ignorance since then. Well, maybe not quite so much, if it really needs people on both ends to activate it, as they tell Leonzio, but even so that is still a rather massive risk. A single infiltrator or traitor is enough to open up a route of attack, in addition to the dormitory. And unlike the dormitories, this route is far more likely to be overlooked.
But the same goes both ways. If Rozemyne's strike team were to learn of the opening of this teleporter, and they could coordinate with someone loyal to Ferdinand, Strahl or Letizia within Ahrensbach (or somehow manage to trick Ahrensbach into believing one of Raublut's loyal subordinates wants to come through, to deliver an important message or something, to make Ahrensbach let them in on their own), they would have a route directly into Ahrensbach's noble quarters, rather than having to teleport to the country gate and travel over a stretch of open ocean, thus maximizing the moment of surprise by appearing right inside the perimeter, without a chance to be spotted from afar. Or they could do a pincer attack of their own. Wait for the ocean raid party to be spotted and Ahrensbach's defenses to get engaged with them, and then slip in the backdoor, while the majority of the guards are distracted with the party from the country gate, thus greatly reducing the resistance the second team has to face, to break through to the temple.
Rozemyne will likely only find out about this teleporter when she's already in Ahrensbach. But she would be able to just close it and cut the Lanzenave force in the Sovereignty off from their forces in Ahrensbach. Though Alstede would notice if the foundation is taken by someone else and could warn Lanzenave before the teleporter is closed. Or, if Alstede notices that the unexpected invaders wear Dunkelfelger colors and the foundation was taken far too quickly, she could try to save her skin by surrendering and giving Rozemyne all the info she has on Lanzenave and tell her how to shut down the teleporter.
Switching sides and pleading for mercy... I'm torn about this. On one hand it is the best chance she has for getting out of this more or less intact, but then again, Alstede probably only knows the official version of the civil war purge and thus likely believes Trauerqual to be utterly merciless, never having learned that he tried to avoid it, but couldn't stand up to his allies. On top of that, even if she was only following orders, she still defied direct orders of the royal family and conspired with foreign invaders and traitors to the crown, for which I strongly suspect the punishment to be death, or rather more likely the kind of erasure that Ferdinand enacted on the Hasse traitors.
This fear of being killed either way, might well make her fight to the bitter end. I hope that won't happen, but it would make absolute sense.
Then again, if she wanted to get gains on the pro-royals side, locking the teleporter gate and trapping the Lanzenave king in the Royal Academy and freeing Letizia would be pretty big pro-royal family deeds and might just be enough to earn some mercy. Even so I'm thinking more along the lines of life-long imprisonment in an ivory tower or some similar structure. But since the alternatives are deathes of varying levels of gruesomeness, that's probably still the preferable choice for her.
If she can feel that the foundation is being dyed and notices that it happened in so short of a time (while remembering how long it took her), she might consider the enemy is just impossibly powerful that not fighting might at least save her husband and child from being purged
Or make her even more scared and commit family suicide, to escape whatever what she believes Trauerqual would put them through. Again I would prefer it not to end up this way, but it would not surprise me in the least.
Then again, they have a way to escape: They could try to take a ship and flee to Lanzenave. If they were interested in Letizia and her female retainers, to get more mana-rich blook into the country, then they probably would welcome her and her family.
Not sure if Alstede wants her daughter to be welcomed in Lanzenave.