Chatper 17: Working the supply line
The last days of the winter term came, and soon the preparations for the Interduchy Tournament swept over the dormitory.
I mostly noticed the changes during our knight training. The older knights were stuck in a constant drill, focusing on coordination in killing feybeasts as fast as possible. They even fed various feybeasts around our gathering spot to train against bigger and stronger opponents.
However, it meant that the second-years were kicked out and joined us first-years in our separate practice. There was no point in training coordination with those who wouldn’t be present during the speed ditter.
Since I wasn’t a knight, nor had I any research to publish, I tried to at least help with setting up our duchy’s stand during the last few days before the upcoming tournament. The bustling activity at the location reminded me of establishing workshops, albeit on a much lesser scale. It didn’t feel like work at all, more like a relaxing pastime.
The only downside was the mood among the apprentice attendants as they didn’t expect many visitors to show up.
“It feels a bit pointless,” someone remarked behind me.
Careful what you wish for. I bit my tongue every time I heard such a complaint.
My hindsight might have collapsed at the start of this season, but even if nothing I remembered happened, we still had so much in store for the next year that I expected us to be completely overwhelmed.
At minimum, the connection between prayers and protections should make us the star of the next Interduchy Tournament.
As such, I was enjoying this breeze before the upcoming storm.
The day of the tournament had arrived. From the early morning, I worked on the supply route between the kitchen and the Ehrenfest’s stand. Sure, it wasn’t expected of me since the younger students were supposed to enjoy free time among the general public, but no apprentice attendant would say no to a free helping hand. Me pushing a cart with sweets and refreshments in the background meant that someone else could save their time for attending to the visitors.
As for me, I just wanted to stay in the background this year. Because of all the rumors around me, it felt like the safest option.
Hanging around our stand seemed like an opening for exploitation. The visitors who wished to stir trouble could merely point at me and make a few bad remarks. Even the visitors who might merely be curious could start an uncomfortable interrogation, derailing everyone else’s efforts at our stand. Our attendants were graded on their performance in presenting Ehrenfest; I definitely didn’t want to disrupt their focus and tank our rank.
Wandering around might cause conflict as well, except I could end up surrounded without any backup from our students. And the surrounding nobles might be adults with way higher status.
During the whole season, I had mostly interacted with mednoble students, who were easy to deal with. And those few archnobles in between hadn’t pushed me too hard. Today’s crowd seemed way more daunting. As such, the best strategy was to not play and keep away.
My attitude was vindicated quite early. A couple of passers-by with red capes had spotted me during one of my deliveries. For a split second, their eyes widened, before both of them showed displeasure on their faces, watching carefully my every move.
I tried to be done with everything as fast as possible, successfully retreating before they could address me and cause any kind of trouble for our apprentice attendants.
When I returned to the dormitory, the archducal couple, together with their entourage, were moving through the main hall. In the middle of their walk, Sylvester glanced my way.
I kept an unassuming noble smile. Ferdinand had already interrogated me about my time in the Academy, so I didn’t expect any more interaction.
Though, I did kind of derail that discussion and then left… ehm… was there anything else?
As if to respond to my thoughts, Sylvester stopped. “Mila, I would like to hear in greater detail about the incident between you and the student from Klassenberg,” he remarked with a serious tone.
But I thought it was already solved, I whined in my head.
“As you wish.” I crossed my arms and knelt.
Sylvester, and the rest of their procession, continued towards the exit. One of his attendants remained to inform me about the time and place. I was being summoned after the awards ceremony. All students who happened to be present in the main hall were giving me looks of pity.
I mean, it can’t be that bad, right? If I had been in real trouble, he would have summoned me back in Ehrenfest. Though, naturally, it was still making me a little bit nervous. Being summoned could always spell trouble.
I shook my head. There was work to do; I couldn’t dwell on these distractions.
I continued to the kitchen, and then, once again, back to the tournament outside.
“It is almost time.” Estelle stopped by our stand during one of my deliveries.
Ehrenfest knights were about to start their speed ditter soon. As such, Adeus and I needed to give them Angriff’s blessing to tilt the scales in our favor.
“How do you enjoy the tournament?” I wondered while Estelle escorted me back to the dormitory.
“It is lively.” She smiled. “Though, the presence of so many archdukes and archduke candidates makes it a bit uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, I don’t want any incident. It feels safer with a cart.” I smiled as well.
Wait, do you mean that, or… I remembered that she could actually sense them. Though, she didn’t say anything else on that topic. We were mostly talking about the festival itself.
“…and being hosted in Klassenberg was quite an experience, though I prefer the sweets in the temple…” Estelle kept recalling, with a finger on her cheek. “Drewanchel’s students are presenting interesting tools, so I think you would like that particular demonstration,” she suggested before giving me a supportive smile. “No one really gave me a hard time today.”
I was glad that she had a good time. “Well, they are graded on their presentation. One small jab at you as a visitor, and their placement during the awards ceremony might plummet.” I smirked.
Saying that out loud actually made me a little less stressed about visiting the other stands. I was reconsidering my attitude.
“Maybe you could tour the stands later. Adeus suggested going as a group,” Estelle remarked.
It sounded tempting, and I really appreciated them trying to help. I was hesitating though.
As we reached the long corridor with the doors leading to the duchies’ dormitories, we noticed a student tailing us.
Great, Trillia. I sighed as she slowly approached us.
“Did you really ennoble a flower?” Trillia asked right off the bat, her expression baffled.
I immediately looked around. Thankfully, all the doors were closed. No one else was nearby.
“Did you really come here only to ask such an obvious question?” I glared at her.
Sure, it might have been surprising to spot a random student who looked awfully similar to an escaped “farm animal” from her estate. But what exactly did she expect me to tell her?
Estelle glanced my way. “Hey, you can force Trillia to do anything, right?” she asked with a teasing voice.
I understood that she wanted me to play along and make a similar jab, but I didn’t really want to. I hated it with passion when someone with power over my life “jokingly” threatened me.
“I don’t want to needlessly make life hard for anyone. It would force them to start looking for any loopholes possible to circumvent the contract,” I replied in quite a boring fashion.
“Yes, Stelle, you should think before talking out loud,” Trillia retorted with a poisonous smile.
I sighed in annoyance. “Trillia, slap yourself! Unless you want to find a letter with very uncomfortable instructions back at home!”
She looked at me with wide eyes before slapping the right side of her face.
I had to give it to her—she actually used quite a lot of force, not just a slap in name only. Her cheek was getting visibly red.
Maybe she just likes to inflict pain in general?
Though, the more I looked at her, the worse her right side became.
Did she enhance the strength in her arm for that? I frowned.
“Dammit, you can’t leave with an injury like that,” I grumbled.
If someone had seen her coming in our direction and then she showed up with an injured face, we would be in a lot of trouble, even if she stays silent on the topic.
I put my left hand near her cheek and chanted a healing prayer. Within a few moments, she was as good as new. Great, injuring enslaved people and covering tracks with healing. I wanted to sigh heavily.
“Thank you,” Trillia uttered with almost puppy eyes.
Though, I kept my annoyed expression. “Now, again, did you really come here only to talk about my sister?”
“No.” Trillia shook her head. “Despite your duchy keeping its distance from us, some of your mednobles reached out during socializing. They didn’t seem to exchange any valuable information with others, but one of them asked about our particular region.”
It seemed that when it was someone from Ehrenfest asking, even a passing remark about the neighborhood of her province had gotten her attention.
“Interesting.” I nodded and inquired about the names of those involved.
Good, only the ones I instructed. I kept an unassuming expression.
Naturally, I was not going to share such information with Trillia. It was better if she thought of them as some third party instead of my spies.
I thanked her for informing me and sent her on her way.
“What a brat,” Estelle remarked once Trillia was far enough.
“As her almost-kind-of-a-stepmother, you should have disciplined her better,” I faked a serious tone.
Estelle turned my way with a thin smile. “There is no goddess of annoying sisters. I won’t face any divine disapproval.”
“You would miss out on so many opportunities to break laws and risk deathly threats,” I replied innocuously.
“Sure.” Estelle shook her head, and opened the door to our dormitory.
Shortly after our arrival, all our apprentice knights gathered in the common room. Adeus and I quickly chanted the words of prayer to bestow Angriff’s blessing, filling the place around us with blue lights.
“I wonder, should we add more blessings?” I mused out loud after the lights disappeared. “Maybe Schlagziel, since this version of ditter is basically a hunt?”
With the approaching fight almost upon them, I suddenly felt an urge to add more small improvements to build just a bit more advantage for us.
However, Leonore shook her head. “We only tried one blessing during the training. I don’t want to introduce any new, unknown variables. Our coordination leaves a lot to be desired.”
“Fair.” I nodded. “May Greifechan’s favor aid you all,” I added before looking at my left hand. “It feels kind of fake saying that when my ring doesn’t glow.”
“We appreciate the sentiment alone.” Cornelius smirked and marched all the knights outside.
“Do you want to go to watch them?” Adeus asked with probing eyes.
“Estelle did say that no one had harassed her, so maybe it’s safer than I thought,” I remarked for myself, trying to decide.
“Great. Let’s go.” My brother didn’t give me time for any further musings.
He escorted me to our stand, where I left the current shipment of refreshments, and we departed to see the match.
I hope our knights will defeat their feybeast fast. If they were to get something like a Talfrosch, then I would have to leave in the middle of their fight to avoid causing problems in our supply lines.
Offering help and then stopping shipments unexpectedly was way worse than just not promising anything in the first place, as it disrupted everyone’s plans. Reliability was everything.
While the attendants had complained about expected low attendance during the preparations, from what I had seen, we were getting plenty of visitors this year, which required a lot of supplies. Our students must have been pleasantly surprised.
To be fair, the visitors mostly asked about the grades of our first-years, so I understood that the current numbers were mostly an unusual occurrence compared to the previous years. And even then, when I looked at the more popular stands in the distance, it wasn’t anywhere close to those crowds there.
I followed my brother to the railing at the edge of the audience section. A lot of nobles were leaning over it to watch the apprentice knights down at the arena. Although, since Ehrenfest wasn’t exactly at the top of the rankings when it came to fighting, a big chunk of viewers were merely those from Ehrenfest. Even farther away from us, I saw mostly just ocher and blue capes.
We joined a group of our younger knights and took a spot between Matthias and Judithe.
“Any surprises while I was gone?” Adeus wondered.
“Not really,” Matthias replied haphazardly.
“I wonder what we will get,” Judithe added with an excited voice. She looked almost like a young visitor in a zoo, trying to spot all the exotic animals.
I merely watched silently. It would be funny if Henrietta and Estelle just threw a bunch of our shells at the thing and killed it in like a second. It made me wonder whether the others had these kinds of intrusive thoughts too, like using valuable secret weapons on stupid stuff that would have revealed them to the public.
Finally, our feybeast showed up. It was a Langnatter—a feybeast that kind of looked like a giant blue giraffe, though its neck moved as if it belonged to a snake, with the added bonus of being able to extend its neck multiple times. If one didn’t know about that characteristic of the neck, they were pretty much guaranteed to lose one or two knights during the initial surprise.
“Well, they didn’t train against this one.” I sighed.
It was probably too hopeful to expect something from the Academy’s fauna that was known fairly well by all those who visited gathering spots regularly.
“At least they know it,” Adeus sounded way more optimistic than me.
Leonore shouted a few orders, and our knights immediately split into two groups. The first, smaller, group produced shields and positioned themselves around the feybeast to ward off the attacks. While the rest began to circle behind them, which seemed to confuse their foe.
Though, the Langnatter still attacked in a seemingly random direction that it hadn’t even been looking before. It almost got one of our knights just by pure chance, but the closest designated shield-wielder managed to jerk between the predator and its prey.
“Wow, that was really close,” Judithe muttered.
Since I was using enhancements to observe, it looked quite doable. By the time Judithe finished her sentence, our knights were already done with their attacks on the neck. It was vulnerable only during the stretched attack.
Sadly, our strikes didn’t kill the feybeast on the first try. That would have guaranteed us a great score, maybe even on par with the greater duchies.
“Almost.” Adeus strengthened his grip on the railing.
The problem was in our synchronization. Ideally, they would land multiple hits on the same spot in rapid succession, as if cutting with the teeth of a circular saw. However, such a feat required attacking in a dangerously close range.
Honestly, I was fine with them being careful and spreading it out. It would have been humiliating for our duchy if someone mistimed their attack for a fraction of a second and took down our own knight in front of them.
“Yes!” Judithe clenched her fists before shouting cheerily. “The second attack did it!”
The headless feybeast collapsed and disappeared a few moments later.
“Was this good or bad?” I wondered. “I haven’t seen the other duchies, so I lack comparison.”
“Pretty good.” Adeus shrugged.
“Pretty good?” Matthias frowned at him. “Last year, they were just launching attacks for who knows how long before figuring out where the carapace was weak. This is on a completely different level.”
“Was it really that bad?” Laurenz behind him asked.
“There were only two duchies below us,” Matthias divulged with a grimace. “We should definitely praise Lady Leonore and Lady Henrietta for their information gathering on feybeasts.”
Definitely. I nodded like everyone else around.
Heh, with so much improvement, I can already see our rank rising. I basked in the feeling for like five seconds, and then I returned to our stand.
This time, the whole place was packed as it was filled with ocher and light blue capes.
Frenbeltag? So I guess the lady with golden hair is Sylvester’s sister Constanze, right? I mused as I closed in.
She seemed a bit annoyed, giving her brother a firm look. “Sylvester, you know our duchy struggles with the mana drought. And yet, I heard today that you have taken a blue shrine maiden from us. Is that true?” Her eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Crap. This ties to our family. Time to disappear. I grabbed my cart and began to turn around.
“It was not my decision to take any blue robe from your duchy’s temple,” Sylvester replied with a collected noble facade.
Though, his presence definitely wasn’t as firm as his sister’s.
“Do you really want me to believe you had nothing to do with it?” Constanze inquired.
By that point, I was facing them with my back, but I was imagining her crossing her arms and staring her brother down. The image felt a bit funny.
“Oh, there is a member of her household present. You can ask her directly,” Sylvester remarked nonchalantly.
Did you just throw me under the bus?! Just because your sister is annoyed?! Seriously?!
I reinforced my noble smile, turned around, and knelt.
Seriously? I kept repeating in my head as I continued smiling and thanking Aub Ehrenfest for the honor of interacting with such exquisite guests, way over my middling station.
“Aub Ehrenfest spoke the truth,” I continued. “He learned about my sister’s existence only after she had already crossed the gate and arrived in our duchy.”
“Interesting.” Constanze kept her neutral facade.
With Sylvester, she didn’t mind being direct as they were family. But she obviously didn’t want to push a lower-status student from another duchy. In that sense, I was a good shield.
“Although, is her enrollment not a late one? Why didn’t you claim her when the other blue robes were recalled as well?” Constanze still seemed suspicious, but her tone was genial.
I guess a normal mednoble first-year would have been panicking hard if they were talking with a member of a foreign archducal family. Though, to me, it didn’t matter. I was only fearful of getting punished for accidentally interacting with influential nobles who could mess up Ehrenfest’s plans. Since Sylvester was the one who had brought me into this conversation, this was his mess. As such, I wasn’t worried about the outcomes at all.
“My late father, our former giebe, climbed the towering stairway last year. The same happened to his sister, and her family, who had helped with provincial administration. As a consequence, a large portion of our employees left the province. We even suffered a kidnapping in our family at the hands of neighboring giebe. It forced us to look for ways to strengthen our numbers,” I explained rather openly.
Frenbeltag might have been impacted by the civil war and the purge, but I thought I had sold our dire straits rather well. One blue shrine maiden was definitely more consequential to a single province than to a duchy. Good luck arguing against this image. Any attempt to take our blue shrine maiden would have made them look horrible.
“That is regretful,” Constanze replied with her neutral facade intact. “Thank you for your time.”
I smiled, knelt, and left the premises.
During lunch, I listened to Cassandra and Gretia about their experiences. They had stood by various stands of other duchies, observing the attendants in their work.
“All the attendants in the top-ranked duchies worked like seasoned professionals,” Cassandra remarked jealously.
“Their presence was flawless.” Gretia nodded along. “They all had such genuine, happy expressions even when hosting aubs from different duchies. It is hard to think of it as a mere facade.”
“I would think they were genuine.” I shrugged.
“Helping to host a foreign aub seems rather nerve-wracking.” Gretia looked doubtful about my claim.
“I mean, unless the two duchies are on bad terms, the visitors aren’t there to stir trouble. They come to socialize and reinforce friendly relations,” I pointed out. Sylvester’s sister had acted nicely towards me, even when they had been in the middle of a disagreement. “You can think of it as if you and I met to socialize. I would rather spend my time on getting along with you than on scrutinizing your servant in the background.”
Well, there had been that one meeting, with Gretia’s “attendant” having a tough time. I widened my smile at that memory.
With the ingrained status thinking, it was rather easy to build up this perfect image of higher status public figures, especially when everyone defaulted to noble smiles and vague speech. There was just nothing to shatter that image of grandeur in the public.
The moment I pointed out Cassandra and Gretia as unreachable high-status figures to those beneath them, they grimaced. It seemed hard for them to think about a foreign aub as someone who would act like them on the inside.
“Besides,” I continued casually, “The apprentice attendants no doubt all worked hard for this very moment. Maybe a professor nearby takes note, which affects their grades. Maybe archducal retainers, who work beside them, observe and potentially recommend them for employment. Maybe they achieve new connections for their duchy, giving them invaluable prestige. They can only gain. I bet they are all nervous, but also genuinely happy to be allowed to show their skills.”
The unhappy ones were probably those in the background, who didn’t get a chance to shine.
“True.” Gretia nodded.
“I thought you would be ‘showing your skills’ beside Professor Hirschur, with her presentation.” Cassandra smirked. “Considering you spent so much time assisting her.”
Let’s just give everyone time to get accustomed to our performance at the awards ceremony. After everyone had gotten over the shock of so many honor students, then I could start introducing more achievements for the next year. Small steps.
“I didn’t even manage to see her presentation. It must have been rather short.” I shrugged.
With my supplier role, I had been appearing at the stand quite frequently, and yet I had only seen her during the preparations.
“I heard that she did her demonstration when the other professors were present, and then she left with them as they were in the middle of their discussion.” Cassandra smiled wryly.
It wasn’t exactly ideal for Ehrenfest’s promotion when the presenter was gone once random visitors would show up.
Well, it wasn’t like Hirschur was publishing her research for the sake of Ehrenfest. The latter merely had a lot of space due to a lack of notable research, and the former had research.
“Not that it matters to me. I’ve seen her brewing it so many times that I know the recipe by heart. With dozens of different variations to choose from.” I sighed.
After lunch, Adeus, Estelle and Henrietta cosplayed as my guard knights, and we did a quick tour through all the stands before they would inevitably start packing and cleaning.
Estelle had been right—I did like the Drewanchel’s exhibition the best since they had the most magic tools on display. They even unveiled an improved version of a cleaning tool that used less mana.
Since cleaning was one of the most frequent duties among attendants, it would definitely save a ton of resources. Though, I had encountered the “predecessor” only at the castle, so I wasn’t sure how much impact it would have on the country when even our rich mednoble household didn’t own that type of tool.
Or is it a rich mednoble household… in Ehrenfest? Were these specialized tools more widespread in other duchies? Suddenly, I had that “backwater” feel at the back of my mind. At least I worked in the castle, so even if the new version landed only in there, I would still be able to study it.
Still, it was kind of funny that some of these tools looked like electric appliances from my world. Especially stuff like a handheld vacuum cleaner. It made it feel both cool and mundane at the same time.
“I wish we could upgrade spells just like the tools,” I mused out loud as we were leaving Drewanchel’s stand.
It was a bit childish on my part, but casting a spell to clean a room felt more magical than using magic tools. I understood that tools were more reliable and adjusted to our specific needs, but like, I had used “magic” cleaning tools in my past life, so it didn’t have such a “wow” effect on me.
“Are you planning something new?” Adeus asked curiously, raising his eyebrow.
Henrietta and Estelle also seemed wary.
“Nope, just wishful thinking.” I snorted.
One can’t even mention random audacious things without it sounding like a plan. It was pretty unfair. Although, we do kind of upgrade the spells. With enough training, one could add a shield to a sword, producing both items with the original spell. The cleaning spell wasn’t an exception—it was rather versatile. Though, so far I only focused on the size of the affected area. What if I adjusted…
“Yeah, she already has that look,” Adeus remarked teasingly.
“OK, on second thought, there might be something to that idea,” I admitted.
Another one for the pile. My backlog kept growing.