No_Nick_Needed

I kind of expected Wilfried to essentially become the next Bonifatius, i.e. remain in the noble's quarter as both the next Knight's Commander, and a backup archduke candidate, should someone need to fill in for the aub, while one of his siblings becomes the Aub and the other the High Bishop, and Henriette as the fourth child and young enough for the royal decree that forbids marrying out of Ehrenfest to run out, by the time she can marry, most likely going to be married into another duchy.

I suppose I can see the arguments for becoming Giebe Gerlach, but with their numbers and especially their combined mana pool having diminished by Rozemyne and Ferdinand departing the duchy, can they really afford to turn Wilfried into an archnoble, and thus lock him out of supporting the foundation and all else that comes with being an archduke candidate?

This seems especially odd, with them just having had a front-row seat and getting caught up in the whole mess of Ahrensbach - a greater duchy - falling apart in no small part due to their archducal family shrinking to a dangerously small size.

This feels like Sylvester is being a bit naive and idealistic, prioritizing faction politics and emotions over partical issues again, like his refusal to take a second wife did for a far too long time. If Florencia's latest daughter and one or two children from Brunhilde were already baptized, I'd fully understand it, but in this situation it's rather iffy to me.

If I had to make a guess, I'd say it's more alike to someone being summoned to Erwaermen, either via the statue of Mestionora in the library or from between the statues of the gods in the chapel.

It certainly doesn't appear to have the invisibility and time-distortion effect of the large shrines, that left those outside unaware the zent candidate was gone for even a millisecond, which would have been the only other instance, where we've seen something roughly alike happen.

Either way, since a prayer to a goddess caused this, I strongly suspect that a deity received the call and summoned her... but the question is, whether the god or goddess did it out of the kindness of their heart, or if they have a task for a mortal and Hannelore just happened to be the first one to stumble into qualifying.

Those still holding out hope for him becoming the successor after all, would surely rejoice. Those who faithfully serve him, for his sake, like Lamprecht after his straightening out, I can see going three possible ways.

• Happy that he's getting a good wife, who's probably going to be able to keep his impulses in check (he's got to be easier to deal with than the ditter-heads Hannelore is used to dealing with).
• They might resent her for the damaged reputation, as you said.
• They might take issue with the finally calmed down situation around his succession surely getting heated up and complicated again.

I don't really know enough about any of them, not even Lamprecht, to make any educated guesses.

It'd be both hilarious and cute, if she ended up appologizing for being so forward, while still on top of him. :3

Though more realistically, she'll only appologize afterwards, but I'm sure she will appologize in some way or another... and be blushing so hard that she'll light up the place like a lightbulb. ^^

I'm surprised that Kenntrips didn't take into account how Sylvester won over his own wife and consequently mentioned as much to Hannelore. He seemed convinced that Hannelore would need Dunkelfelger's rank to essentially force Sylvester to agree to the engagement with Wilfried. But considering how Sylvester fell in love and moved heaven and earth to marry his love, no matter what, there's at least a chance that Sylvester might agree to a romantic partnership of his son. It's probably not enough by itself, but Hannelore is also a real catch for Ehrenfest and will help the duchy, even if it'll complicate the succession again. But the situation since the bride-stealing ditter has changed and they are now further along in the generational shift, and Hannelore would no longer be his second wife, which lessens one of the previous problems and eliminates the other entirely, that the original engagement would have had.

There of course the biggest problem would be, whether Wilfried actually returns Hannelore's feelings, or if he truly was acting solely out of courtesy and the deference to higher ranking duchies that was hammered into him, plus whatever else Veronica more subtly weaved into his (mis)education, since she did raise him to be her puppet at least as much as she unintentionally spoiled him.

For a moment I found Luitpold's timing to be a bit too fortunate, to give Hannelore hope, after she lost all, and consequently considered whether this was a ploy by Kenntrips, but I can't imagine either of them being willing to invoke Lady Sieglinde's name, even if it was indirectly. She's probably have their heads... or certain other round objects on their bodies, if she found out they used her name to manipulate Hannelore. :P Maybe Dregarnuhr is finally taking pity on Hannelore, since if this request would have come after the meeting with Ehrenfest, she truly could have blamed her usual cursed timing. Still a bit odd, he waited until this moment to ask.

It's kind of cute and endearing, but at the same time a bit disturbing, that Hannelore's thoughts went straight to pinning Willfried down, without even talking first, or trying to get Rozemyne to help (which I'm sure she'd be only too happy to do) and how she thinks he'd even try to fight back. In all due likelyhood he'll be so flabberghasted, he'll just freeze up. Not that he's likely to fight back against her out of courtesy and deference to higher ranking duchies in the first place. Now his retainers are more of a legitimate concern, but if she picks a moment in the archduke candidate course, that obstacle is out of the way... she'd better time it to happen at the very end of class though, to not further antagonize Professor Anastasius. ^^

But damn... this isn't going to make things easier for Charlotte. With both Wilfried and Melchior potentially getting wives from Dunkelfelger, her chances to remain the successor are probably going to take a hit. I suppose there's the upside of Wilfried not wanting to become Aub, but even so, him marrying the daughter of the first wife of the first ranked duchy, it will cause friction, and maybe even enough internal pressure that Wilfried will be unable to refuse to be the successor, much like happened when he was engaged to Rozemyne, no matter how much he dislikes it.

Melchior is potentially marrying "only" the daughter of Aub Dunkelfelger's second wife, probably causing a little less pressure than Hannelore's marriage would, but even so, Lungtase is still an archduke candidate from the first ranked duchy. Plus Melchior doesn't carry the stigmata of past crimes and misbehaviour like Wilfried and we have no idea whether he might want to become archduke, plus the recent increase in prestige of his High Bishop's position, so his marriage might well be the bigger issue for Charlotte.

Well, at least I'm quite sure that it'll only be one marriage or the other. If Hannelore manages to snag Wilfried, that by itself will get Werdekraf the archduke candiate level connection to Ehrenfest he wanted and thus make Lungtase and Melchior's engagement unnecessary, which will free her up to be married into another duchy for even more connections.

It's a cute picture, but why is it showing Schwartz and Weiss? Her new shumil magic tools are green, brown and red... Also Rozemyne is still wearing an Ehrenfest cape, instead of the new midnight blue of Alexandria. Also Rozemyne looks like she didn't yet go through Anwachs' growth spurt, so it's more like a year 4 or earlier pic.

Considering how she's now in charge of her own duchy, and thus her enviroment has to adapt to her, and how she's regularly interacting with commoners, which other nobles don't do... not to mention the special privileges and different treatment she receives from being the divine avatar and owning the name-stone of the Zent, I don't think she'll ever be exactly on the same page as regular nobles.

Then again, what is a "regular" noble anyway. Just look how eccentric Dunkelfelger and Drewanchel are in their own ways.

Sure, but the tea party was on Earthday, on which there are no classes.

I'm also pretty sure if she went anything below 100%, Ferdinand would be upset and her cheek would suffer for it. :P

Awww, look at Rozemyne using euphemisms correctly and effortlessly... right after her common sense once again being out of touch with the rest of Yurgenschmidt's nobility. :3

I am glad, they are adressing the sugar and spice situation. I was actually wondering how being cut off from the Lanzenave imports might affect Alexandria and Yurgenschmidt as a whole.

I do not envy Kenntrips and Rasantark. Hannelore is most likely very pissed about being embarressed like that in front of her friend and kind-of partial idol. It'll be interesting to see the usually quiet and shy little lady explode. ^^

I am slightly disappointed, we were only introduced to the magic tool "retainers." Between the Human retainers that stayed in Ehrenfest and the political situation, Rozemyne is pretty much guaranteed to have taken on a couple of Alexandrian apprentice retainers, for the academy, and yet they went entirely unmentioned.

Ah, Rozemyne and Wilfried are still as oblivious as they've ever been to anything remotely romantic, when it's about themselves and each other. But good on Wilfried to be a nice wingman to his friend... if Hannelore does end up choosing Wilfried, this will hopefully also curtail their friendhship suffering too badly over it, since it's clear Wilfried was both oblivious of Hannelore's feelings and genuinely trying to help his buddy.

But what's up with Korinthsdaum? How can an entire duchy be so universally incompetent? And we can't even solely blame Sigiswald for this, since less than a full year under his rule would surely not be enough to turn previously competent and properly behaved nobles into such idiots. It is certainly in part his failing, for most likely not even noticing how they don't know their place, much less doing something about it, but even so, this feels off.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the new retainers Rozemyne wants to show off, are in fact shumil magic tools. Why else would she call them adorable? I mean, she surely does have a couple of new Human retainers, between those who remained in Ehrenfest and those who graduated, she would need some new apprentices for the royal academy, even without considering the political implications of not having native Alexandrian (i.e former Ahrensbach) retainers. Not to mention that she was always rather on the low side for an archduke candidate of Ehrenfest's rank to begin with and her now being of the 6th ranked duchy.

On one hand they are in the Royal Academy, which used to be called the Land of the Gods in the past.

On the other, Hannelore didn't seem to have put any mana into her prayers, so they should have had only a minimal effect, if any at all.

Maybe her suiters have nothing at all to do with the gods. Kenntrips and Rasantark have been fond of her since she entered the Royal Academy, Raufereg is more interested in opening up his own chance to play ditter against Rozemyne than any genuine romantic feelings. Which leaves only Ortwin, but with them being in the same grade and course, not to mention a good political match, it wouldn't be that surprising if he had developed feelings for her since before she started praying, but just managed to keep them hidden until now.

I wish someone would clear things up for Kenntrips in regards to Wilfried. He seems to believe that Wilfried either intentionally caused Hannelore hardship, or did so due to a lack of care and consideration for her, when it was the exact opposite.

Everything Wilfried did with the whole engagement debacle, was done out of courtesy to Hannelore, since he wrongly assumed she did not want to marry him and was being forced into it against her will.

If Kenntrips wants to hate him, at least hate him for his ignorance and lack of foresight and awareness, not for mistaking his intentions for the exact opposite of what they were.