@rsog412 Any assignment that doesn't see Bonifatius assigned to Myne's immediate proximity (and therefore make your D = 0) pretty much takes him completely out of the equation as far as the initial contact goes. If Myne's guard is strong enough to survive the initial contact long enough for reinforcements to arrive, Bonifatius' presence in those reinforcements is mostly moot, since even Bonifatius isn't going to be able to outweigh the entirety of the response that the Knight's Order can muster if one of their archducal candidates gets attacked. If on the other hand Myne's guard can't last long enough, Bonifatius' presence in the rapid response force also makes no difference, since by the time he arrives, Myne would already be dead. The only way for him to make a meaningful difference with respect to Myne's personal safety is if he's there to tilt the balance in the initial point of contact.

It is for the above reason that the balance of whether Bonifatius would be a good guard knight for Myne is solely down to whether your C > A. I'm of the position that A is something that is controllable from the Ehrenfest side, whereas they have zero control over what C can be since they cannot know with certainty what assets their enemies are prepared to commit in going after Myne, so better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

As to whether Bonifatius guarding Myne is the best use of his skills, that I argue is tangential to whether he would be a good guard knight for her. The latter being true does not require the former to also be true.

@IppieLok said in Bezewanst's Mana Embezzlement:

The mana poured into the library's foundation was directly from Rozemyne's schtappe in the form of a chalice so it probably counts as her mana. Remember that the divine tools all have their own mana affinities and it does not matter what type is added, it will come out as the right type.

I think it was, in actuality, mostly her mana.

After the ceremony (and after the royal feystones had already been dumped in) Roz dumped a whole bunch of her excess mana into the tool. Assuming that it was nearly empty by the time she did that, her newly added mana would be by far the largest fraction.

@15-Redstones-776rtbk said in Bezewanst's Mana Embezzlement:

@IppieLok so the chalice might have an additional functionality of being a tool to quickly dye a foundation. According to the recent Justus chapter, Detlinde is expected to take several months to do that the normal way. Rozemyne using a full chalice might be able to do it in 10 seconds, and she doesn't even need to be there herself, she can send her knights to do the pouring.

Nobody but the Aub is allowed in there (assuming they can't use the replenishment hall) but that's a minor thing - we know the liquid mana can be portioned out into other containers, so they could literally just find out how big (or small) a bucket roz can carry with her enhancement magic running, and repeatedly refill it for her until the chalice was empty.

@kurosov Difference in impact doesn't make them unimpacted. The trade that flows through brings in cash, but that cash would only be concentrated to a select percentage of the population that helps facilitate that trade. That's going to be a very small percentage relative to the population as a whole based on what we know about Yurgenschmidt's level of economic development. The rest of it, which would likely be 90%+ that are reliant on agrarian-related work, would be seeing their own incomes dropping precipitously. Ahrensbach's government might be able to subsidize food imports with the trade income to keep people from outright starving, but that's not really sustainable in the long run, since if that big a chunk of the populace are reliant on subsidized food to not starve, they're not engaging in any other economic activity aside from survival, which craters the entire domestic economy of Ahrensbach as a whole.

Ehrenfest "growing rapidly" doesn't automatically put them in the favor of the king. If he has reason to suspect Ehrenfest's loyalty, arresting Ehrenfest's rise in the course of assisting Ahrensbach is a benefit, not a cost.

I mean, what indication do we have that Ahrensbach didn't support direct military aid? Or that Drewanchel did?

@LegitPancake said in Ascendance of a Bookworm Vol. 2 Discussion!:

Pointed out by @mirkosp on Discord, but is Frobetag in Corinna's Married Life supposed to be Frenbeltag?

@Anti-i25 said in Ascendance of a Bookworm Vol. 2 Discussion!:

@LegitPancake
It uses the same katakana (フレーベルターク) so I'd assume it is.

Verified in the latest JNC Premium edition. [Release version: 1.0.5 November 2022]
I've done appropriate screenshots and emailed JNC Support, as that's where corrections to published works need to go.

Good eyes!

Rereading the story was great fun.
Especially Corinna's initial reaction to the visible signs of Otto's instant obsession being that he was a strange man, and then being slightly creeped out.
A reasonable reaction, to be sure.

He won her over in the end...but he's still creepy, OK?
Right up there with Gunther and his family.

@Elisabeth I have not experienced such a personal situation myself.

Maybe this viewpoint is something very unique to your line of work and eveybody else has to go the long way so to speak. But definetly a story worth considering if one wants to think about "right" pronounciation, thank you.

Thinking about it, it feels weird if lets say your neighbour pronounces something "wrong", but if a tourist does the same it isn´t weird at all as they try to speak a different language in the first place and you can´t expect them to be perfect.

Yeah, but now you'll get grease spots on depictions of Myne. Hartmut would be pissed. ... Well, that's what waschen's for.

@zwabbit Agreed that Ferdinand is most likely.

The chapter starts right after the meeting in Liesegang where several retainers including Brunhilde, Hartmut, and Cornelius were traveling with her. Wilfried and Charlotte (and their retainers) were also there. And this is also after the two ACs forcing their way into the meeting with Benno prior to the book sale at the end of winter - so I imagine they would have at least wanted to be there. Also, the very next paragraph mentions Hartmut's decision...

“These are terms that Ehrenfest must not compromise on when forming our agreement with Dunkelfelger, and these are terms that Hartmut says we can be more flexible with,” I explained.

So although I'm not really trying to make a case that anyone other than Ferdinand attended, if we later learn as much it would not be inconsistent with the text. Particularly considering how deliberately she is working to enmesh her siblings and retainers in the print industry.

I was just wondering if the ambiguity was intentional and accurately reflects the Japanese. It strikes me as pointlessly obscure (e.g. How hard would it have been to say "Ferdinand and I attended"?).

@Lisast Oh that's a good point! Thank you.

I've gone past all reasonable limits now. Myneday is still 5 days away though...
alt text

@TheGrimLich Now there is a point. Perhaps the colour of chaos mana is clear. Chaos is best achieved when no one knows about your actions.

Therefore, Rozemyne may already have the blessing of the Goddess of Chaos without anyone knowing about it.

@Geezer-Weasalopes said in All Highbeasts, great and small:

It would be interesting if one ever came across a noble who was their equivalent of a naturalist, an animal behaviorist; just how would their highbeast behave?!
How lifelike would it appear?

He might need to model his after an actual flying beast (or feybeast). Sticking wings on any old animal won't cut it.

@DaveHowe We know that in the past there have been conflicts between duchies that resulted in changes to ruling archducal family. We have no indication that such regime changes were not without sanction of the reigning zent of the time. In addition, we have plenty of indication that the current zent would very much care about any instability that would go so far as to displace a ruling archducal family that was allied with him during the civil war, and one which at least one other allied archducal family (the one that's supplying the next queen-consort at that) has invested considerable resources to also propping up. Whatever else the current king might be, he hasn't shown himself to be quite that stupid or uncaring.

@Shiny Yes, Rozemyne has published the "Mum's Stories" book. In her first winter playroom, Philine inspired Rozemyne to finish. Rozemyne then gave the book to Tuuli. The book was then published during the Juvre period because the orphanage workshop ran out of books to print.

@harkmagic rereading and discussion on forums is more like Muriella and less like Rozemyne but she still approves I think.

With all the history examples here, I believe that Uranos knowlege of many history books (at least what she can remember after finishing the books) might supercharge the process.

In our world the limited ability for long travels have led to slow, trial and error induced, isolated progress (sometimes backwards).
Knowing the path to a solution can help in finding a new way without the hiccups.

With the knowledge of many ways to come to a solution Rozemyne can pick the best ways to guarantee success. Just looking at her education reforms. She archieved a feat, not even Drehwanchel could replicate, this term all Ehrenfest students finished their written classes on the first day.

For the firstyears her approach was to develop age appropriate (modern knowledge of what is ageappropriate helps) learning materials for reading writing and theology. After introducing the basics for the playroom she slept for a while (unfortunately) and after the first year at the accademy she uses her experiences to add history and geography on a deeper level to their playroom schedule.

For all other years her approach was even simpler. Help each other out and leave written records. With the combination of the speciality courses she made helping other students worthwhile. Wink, if you compile your study notes and make a flawless mastercopy the next year students can study a fot perfect marks, Wink (Everybody cant believe why they never thought about this).

The main problem for Rozemyne is not to pack 100 years progress into 2-3 years, especially if she had the funds of a greater duchy or royalty, but more the social problems that arise from her revolutionary ways. Ehrenfest is currently under many bad rumors, because their progress is unnaturaly fast.

One way for Ehrenfest to improve in an instant would be: cooperate with the guilds to gain their support. Printing invitations for evey child attending baptisms, for teaching how to read write and do math at the temple. To gain the support of the parents you simply offer that every lesson comes with a full meal and no education fee (Rozemyne is rich and recourcefull enough to make it possible). Lessons are every earthday.

Imma try to string together a possibility that Rozemyne arguably should have done after the cousin tea party.

"Aub Ehrenfest, our tea party with Deltine has revealed that she wishes to stand out by means of filling feystones with mana during the graduation dedication whirl. As with the Hazendel miracle; ceremonies and mana produce unexpected results. We have attempted to dissuade her from attempting this but she adamantly wants attention." - Rozemyne

At last graduation ceremony Rozemyne saw a magic circle on the whirling stage & we have no clue if Ferdinand gave Sylvester any heads up about what might happen with that. But if not it can be argued Rozemyne did the right thing to not warn her alies of ... forbidden? knowledge to avoid further suspicion.

I think competition between commoner merchants would be a better way to drive papermaking forward than nobles interfering, but would other merchants actually dare to compete with the Plantin Company?
Myne would probably appreciate other commoner merchants taking initiative towards making more paper at lower cost, so she wouldn't interfere even if they caused Benno some work, but the Ehrenfest merchants have no way of knowing that. As far as any merchant not affiliated with pre-adoption Myne knows, getting into the paper business in Plantin Companys home turf might be extremely dangerous.

look for threads about it in the forum... people have been posting before/after comparisons in here as the updates show up.

Heres a recent one: https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/6286/part-1-epub-update-summary-nov-2022/1

There was also the lil snippets way back about her not knowing enough financial knowledge to shift to a publicly traded company. Nearly all financial talk has been done in a down to earth individual way instead of country(world) spanning impossible choices. We're getting hints but so far good ole gremlin rampages have only heavily impacted Ehrenfest and those already doing heavy trade with them...

I think the Fandom can expand & further flesh out nearly every aspect to make this fictional universe up there with Tolkien's works or the star wars universe... but an individual got limits unless they isekai'd

@saffire Well, if you insist:

P3 Egmont:

“She got pregnant,” Brother Egmont said tersely, looking down at Lily with a disgusted grimace. “She’s been whining about feeling sick for days, and now she’s throwing up everywhere. I’ve never seen an attendant this useless in my life.”

and P4 Egmont:

On closer inspection, the two figures on the bench were actually Egmont and a shrine maiden, and they had clearly been engaged in something quite indecent.
...
Meanwhile, Ferdinand gave both Egmont and the girl now scrambling to cover herself up cold stares.