Considering how forceful Dunkelfelger women are, when it comes to securing their desired marriage partners, is there also groom-taking/stealing ditter?
I'm sure Hannelore wouldn't do that and especially not to Ehrenfest, after what happens, but do you think it does exist as a concept?
I would imagine that it's handled like Blumenfeld and Korinthdaum, that it's initial rank is just a temporary stand in, that will be properly evaluated at the next archduke conference. I also think that most likely they took over Ahrensbach's rank, minus the two positions for the new duchies, as their temporary rank, which would put them at #8, since they were #6 before.
I'm a bit confused about Letizia's skit-hem getting muddy. Does this mean that Ahrensbach has different customs, when it comes to the length of underaged people's clothes? In Ehrenfest even noble girls will only start wearing floor-length skirts, after their graduation and if memory serves, someone of Letizia's age, would still wear knee-length skirts. The only floor length clothes Rozemyne had, were religious garments, but Letizia was specifically told not to wear any of those.
Seems like Letizia is quite shrap, to notice the possibility of Ferdinand having planned all of this out, where the adult Ahrensbach nobles seem to have bought the cover story hook, line and sinker. ^^
Seems a bit odd that in Effa's eyes, Rozemyne looked 5 to 6 years younger than Tuui and the gap appeared even bigger than what they used to have AFTER Anwachs gave Rozemyne the growth spurt. Everyone else commented how Rozemyne now looked her age... well the fake noble age anyway. If we took Effa's words as gospel, she'd look like she is just about to be baptized, which seriously contradicts what the nobles and even Tuuli said. I wonder if this is a translation mistake and she was actually thinking about how the visual age difference prior to the growth spurt, rather than after. Or she might be just as, or maybe even more, biased as Gunther, but going in the opposite direction. ^^
Keep in mind that Ferdinand is an absolute master in keeping his emotions hidden and putting up fake emotions that seem to fool anyone other than Rozemyne, and maybe his name-sworn, so it's entirely reasonable for the royal to not take him at his word, just because he says he doesn't want to be Zent.... not to mention I seriously doubt he bothered to ask Ferdinand, whether he wanted to be Zent. The only thing we know is, that Trauerqual essentially put an ultimatum before Ferdinand: Replace Sylvester as Aub Ehrenfest, marry Detlinde, or get executed. And as we've just seen in this chapter, he believed that had Ferdinand made a move for the crown, at that time, it'd have resulted in a civil war and thus needed to be averted. Ferdinand making a more to become Zent after marrying into Ahrensbach hadn't been thought of either, since it wasn't an option anyway at the time, and was a path only potentially opened up by the discovery of the magic cricle and the assumptions this lead to.
I very much doubt that Raublut is to blame for Trauerqual's reaction here. His words are entirely in keeping with what else we know of his true feelings. I also very much doubt that Raublut could have forseen Detlinde's action and the immediate reaction by the Sovereign Temple, making it unlikely he could have been able to get Trauerqual drugged up enough to alter his mind, between the incident and this meeting. I also don't really see what Raublut would have to gain from manipulating the Zent here and now.
This makes me wonder... does Yurgenschmidt have cats?
Considering there are cat-like feybeasts (Zantze, Fetze, Goltze line) and how at least some feybeasts and -pants have non-magical cousin animmals, it's entirely possible, but was there ever any mention or appearance, that I fail to remember?
Those paranoid nobles... "She helped us to an imeasureable degree and put all her card openly on the table, instead of keeping them as aces up her sleeve... she must be planning something suspicious!"
Back when the bride stealing ditter happened, I assumed that Hildebrand vented his frustration by saying he wished someone would save Rozemyne, in the precense of the drugged sovereign knights, thus inadvertedly causing the incident, but nope, this was clearly entirely Raublut's doing, since the knights didn't get anywhere near Hildebrand and had more information than the prince.
I don't know about the goddess of time... why would the goddess reveal to them, that Ferdinand was going to be engaged with Detlinde, but wouldn't actually marry her and then erase their memories of it?
If it wasn't for the specific mention of Ferdinand marrying "Aub Ahrensbach," I'd have thought someone tried to make him marry Alstede, or some other female Ahrensbach archduke candidate, but had to scrap their plan and used Trug to hide it ever existed. Could the use of Aub Ahrensbach be a mistranslation, or maybe a missing word, like Aub Ahrensbach's daughter?
Wow... just when a small spark of sympathy is sparked for Barthold, for actually caring for his sister, it is immediately squashed and my bad opinion of him made even worse. And I now also hate Oswald more than I already did. I really hope he'll suffer a fate far worse than merely sinking into obscurity.
That moment of Gunther internally gloating over looking like a knight, on the back of Damuel's highbeast was so cute and so Gunther. ^^
I love the new bonus manga. Lieseleta's picking up "cuteness is justice" from Rozemyne and Ferdinand's reaction were priceless. :D
What I wonder is, what'll happen to Ehrenfest's rank. They were locked in place for one year, when they would have gone up from their efforts, if Sylvester hadn't negotiated to avoid that. But now, there are two new places created above them. So does that mean they went down 2 spots, or that they held their spot, with the two ahead of them being put below them?
Even if you put all of Rozemyne's actions to Alexandria, Ehrenfest still lent support to the defense of the Royal Academy, so if they were allowed to keep their rank and have two other duchies pushed below them, nobody could really complain (too much), what with even Klassenberg falling lower and Dunkelfelger also being rewarded for what they did in the invasion... but would Sylvester want that?
Wait... Ehrenfest was #8 before... so if they held their place and Alexandria just inherited Ahrensbach's place, plus push down from the two new duchies, Alexandria would be one spot behind Ehrenfest...
Anyway, Alexandria has a lot of kudos to coast on for defeating the traitor duchy Alexandria, at the side of Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest and the return to the country's religious roots, thanks to Rozemyne. Plus having a Grutrissheit (well, technically a full one and another one with 60ish %, but that's under wraps) would surely make a good justification for a higher rank too.
But on the downside, Ahrensbach coasted on the imports from Lanzenave for a long time now, which is a thing of the past with the country gate closed and never going to be reopened to Lanzenave. Maybe it'll be reconnected to a new area, but that would mean having to build relations with the locals, or forming farming/harvesting camps if it's uninhabited, which will take time to have any effect on Alexandria's economy.
But then again, Rozemyne revitalized both the land and ocean, meaning that their agriculture and fishing industry will soar to levels that haven't been seen since the civil war, or maybe even beyond that. And while the printing industry will take some time to fully take off, they'll surely be able to get at least one printing workshop up and running in pretty short order, which means that they are one of only two duchies with printing... though for a little while they'll be playing catch-up with Ehrenfest's numerous established workshops.
So many unknowns...