this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm
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synonyms
- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- Honzuki no Gekokujou
- 『本好きの下剋上』
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I expect this pre-pub part to be the calm before the storm, with mostly funny, wholesome and reflective events happening, like various people within Ehrenfest reacting to Rozemyne's new appearance and getting ready to see her off to the Sovereignty, as well as preparations for Georgine's attack.
Considering how Ferdinand and Detlinde are bound to be married by royal decree, I feel like Georgine has to make a move, before the archduke conference starts, but I expect it to be later in this volume. I've thought about her attacking during the archduke conference, but I don't think that's likely. It would be too suspicious if she didn't show up at the archduke conference and unlike Sylvester, she has no direct teleportation into Ehrenfest, so she would need to port into Ahrensbach or Werkerstock castle and then travel to Ehrenfest via highbeast. From Clarissa we know it's possible to do that within 24 hours, but not if you want to be left in a state were you can still fight at the end. Also going missing for 24 hours from the archduke conference is also risking that Sylvester catches wind of her attack and returns to thward her plans. Not to mention you never know what kind of incidents Detlinde might cause, if left unsupervised, so leaving her alone in the Sovereignty for that long, especially now that she distanced Ferdinand, isn't a good option either.
So TL;DR, unless Georgine can find a way to postpone Ferdinand's marriage another year (or Leonzio does something to the same effect), she needs to act now. Giving Ferdinand a poison that will make him fall into a coma for long enough to miss the window for the wedding would be a good plan to win time against most nobles, but won't work on someone as cautious and experienced in surviving assassination attempts as him.
It's kind of this odd juxtaposition of "Need to defend Ehrenfest" and "Need to get clothes before I move" going on in the story right now. I think you're right though, maybe we'll find out that there's no sign of Georgine yet and so there will be time to get other stuff done first.
I didn't think about Georgine making her move during the Archduke Conference. That is an interesting idea. I think she'd have to show up for her daughter's starbinding at the beginning, but after that she could feign sickness or some excuse to leave and then go to Ehrenfest. The conference lasts for about two weeks so that's enough time to travel at her leisure. In some past years Rozemyne would stay in the castle during the conference to supply the foundation, which would leave the temple less guarded as well—not that Georgine would probably know that. I'm still not sure if her goal is to obtain the foundation or just to destroy Ehrenfest. If destruction is her only plan then she could just send her name sworn to accomplish the task there by minimizing the danger to herself.
The cover illustration may represent Ferdinand getting poisoned or going into a coma. Honestly if I were Ferdinand I think I'd put myself into a temporary coma just to avoid marrying Detlinde—even better if he could make the blame fall on Detlinde with evidence about her affair with Leonzio.
Looking at everything Georgine did, or in some cases neglected to do, she's at least partially responsible for putting Ahrensbach into the terrible state it's in now. Thus I find it hard to believe her goal is to destroy Ehrenfest. I don't think she'd be so happy to burn down her current home, if she planned to stay there, so yeah, she most likely wants to have Ehrenfest for herself.
Burning down the current Ehrenfest and rebuilding it from scratch might be theoretically possible, but it requires a whole lot of gold dust and mana. She'd need far more family members to realistically pull that off than she has alive, much less on her side.
Besides, she strikes me as the kind of person who wants to gloat over her defeated enemies, if it's at all possible to do and you can't do that when they are all dead.
Yep, I can definitely imagine her wanting to see Sylvester's face when she freezes his heart and pushes him into the valley of despair. It's going to be a challenge to take Ehrenfest's foundation without first draining it and destroying everything though, right? The only other way would be for her to replace Sylvester's mana with her own? Maybe she could drain it like 99% without everything crumbling then add her mana. Not really sure what the rules are.
If it's like with Schwartz and Weiss or most other magic tools, then she only needs to make sure there's more of her mana in it, than there is of Sylvester's. So draining some of it out to make it easier to get the majority is probably a good idea, but there should not be any need to completely empty it.
If she has enough mana/rejuvenation potions to spare, not draining any of Sylvester's mana and just making sure she pours in more than he has in it, would even be useful, since it'd mean she has more time until she needs to recharge it again.
But this made me think of something else: If she succeeds in taking Ehrenfest's Foundation, she will have to remain in Ehrenfest and will be unable to attend the rest of the Archduke Conference. The Foundation needs to be charged daily, and unlike Sylvester, she won't have Bonifatius, Florencia, Wilfried and Charlotte to take up the slack while she's in the Sovereignty. All of Georgine's relatives other than Alstede are either married off to other duchies, dead or on Sylvester's side, so she doesn't have much of a potential archducal family to charge the Foundation in her absence.
I somehow doubt that Alstede and her husband would be able to keep the Foundation charged on their own, without having done so before... we've seen how well the archnobles did in their first Dedicaiton Rituals, despite being guided by Rozemyne. And that's only if Georgine is willing to take them and they are willing to go with her in the first place. Being promoted to archduke candidate status is all nice and good, but there's no guarantee that Georgine isn't going to be punished after all by the royal family, so going with her is a risk. Especially now that the resurgance of religious ceremonies makes it all the more likely that someone might get a Grutrissheit and become a true Zent.
Interesting... If it was like Schwartz and Weiss it seems like other members of the archduke family would be at risk of taking over the foundation on accident. Rozemyne and Ferdinand would likely have put more mana into the foundation than Sylvester at some point. Ferdinand would easily be able to take over Ahrensbach's foundation too.
I suppose Georgine could adopt members into the new archduke family if she acquired the foundation. She probably has enough name sworn still kicking around to fill in for her occasional absence.
The more I think about it, the more I think maybe Georgine might have been trying to just secretly destroy Ehrenfest's foundation. If for instance she had her name sworn destroy it while at the Archduke Conference then she'd have a solid alibi and she'd still get to gloat to Sylvester which would have no duchy to return to and forever be known as an Aub that failed to protect his duchy. What would be better than killing Sylvester? Keeping him around to point and laugh at. Yes, Ahrensbach would still be a declining duchy, but at least it wouldn't be Ehrenfest.
Another problem Georgine faces is her daughter. The moment Letizia becomes the archduchess, Detlinde will be on the chopping block and as her mother, Georgine along with her by association. If she becomes the Aub Ehrenfest, while Detlinde remains behind in Ahrensbach, that would probably put enough distance between them and make Georgine too indispensible to execute. If she remains in Ahrensbach after destroying Ehrenfest however, I think her life is on a timer.
I suppose she could try to make Detlinde the permanent Aub, but that would mean defying a royal decree... and I don't think anyone, Georgine included, would want Detlinde as an Aub, especially now that Leonzio seems to have wrested her away from the tenuous control Georgine had her under.
As an archduke family member, Georgine also can't become a Sovereign noble, until after Letizia is made the full Aub, so she couldn't escape guilt by association that way either, unless the royals delay Detlinde's execution long enough for Georgine to work something out for herself, which I find highly unlikely.