Alright, its monday, meaning the voting window has now closed!

Final results:

Hannelore! With 10 votes, she gets to add the Year 3 Best Character award to her Year 2 Best Girl win. Matthias - 7 votes Rozemyne - 6 votes Sieglinde - 5 votes Lueuradi - 4 votes Anastasius and Lieseleta - 2 votes Brunhilde and Leonore - 1 vote Raimund - 0 votes

@zwabbit

And from what we've seen of Charlotte's personality, this likely pushed her to put even more effort into compression so she could catch up to Wilfried and be of better support for Rozemyne.

On a more general note, mana is the most important aspect of noble society.
The many thoughts, discussions, and reactions we've seen in the text from nobles towards the prospect of increasing their mana has always been universal enthusiastiam.
There's been multiple occasions where Rozemyne had to chastise others about compressing mana in moderation.

All this is to say I think the idea of "slacking" on compression is unthinkable because there's a universally strong desire among nobles to increase their mana.

Sure, they may not put in the now second-nature near inhuman effort that Rozemyne did because she would've died otherwise.
Or the extreme effort put in by special cases like Angelica.
But the rest? They're all putting in effort. Some less than others, but I can't imagine anyone "slacking".

@Axehand
I was a strong proponent of the package being Grausam's medal until he showed up with the prosthetic and Sylvester said they used medals to identify his hand. It's barely possible that he had another noble sacrifice a hand, but I doubt it. The hypothesis that it's the key makes no sense to me, far too removed from any data we have. For all we know it was a sample of blood to work magic on, perhaps to transfer to a medal. If Georgine could immediately poof Sylvester or Karstedt or Bonifatius upon invading Ehrenfest, that would make it so much easier.

@Shanna-Postlewait-okxj9g9 There is a release calendar on the site. Parts of a volume get added to it when that volume starts pre-publication (that is, around the time the first part releases).

@hiroto said in [CORRECTIONS] - Bookworm Part 5 Volume 3:

This is talking about Sylvester given a note to Karstedt (ahead of the meeting) to be passed along to Ferdinand (or verbally communicated to his retainers).

Gotcha. I thought that might be the intended meaning. In that case I'd suggest maybe "...Sylvester had given Karstedt..."

@TheGrimLich

Oh yeah! He would be the world first VA.

@thubar2000 What's more, I wouldn't be surprised if he leaked the details of the purge, giving the way he described said criminals to Wilfred and how surprise surprise the former Veronica faction just happened to be about to do something seemingly major before the purge if it weren't or Matthias's intervention.

@15Redstones generally an interesting thing to think about.

Cases of golden flames as punishment, what the reader would put into context with a magic contract, are limited right now.

The commoner in P4V9 comes to mind who presumably was forbidden to disclose secrets and got burned right before he tried to snitch.

But there is a problem. The punishment for speaking the god of darkness and lights names is that the observer burns and the speaker looses their blessing (I assume power that would be granted by the knowledge of the names).

Meaning there is precedent for punishment before and after commiting the violation of the contract.

As a result of that I think we can only judge contracts that clearly specify when and what punishment would be delivered.

Benno has violated in some way the contract with Myne in the past, but only if he had refused to pay after being reminded to pay would the punishment follow.

In that sense I would be inclined to believe, that the simpler the conditions are the more powerfull the punishment would be.

Tell no one of this -> burst into flames imidiately Tell no one our names (but well I can only try to whisper so much you know) -> Ok only the idiot who desperatly tries to eavesdrop burns, but you were too careless Pay me (well you didn´t specify a timelimit) -> burn if you refuse Don´t be my enemy (well you will be killed if I don´t interfere) -> ok only blatantly obvious actions get the axe

In general "a wizard did it" still applies to magic contracts I think. Whatever plays well with the story that Kazuki thinks up goes.

So a "Hey Wilfried remember the contract for the RMCM? Don´t become my enemy? Please for your own sake be carefull." would be hella funny and a loophole if a retainer of Wilfried has not signed the contract, because the thoughtless intention of opposing Rozemyne could bleed into that retainer without Wilfried actively instigating the murder so to speak.

@mufloon I was debating doing 'best boy' and 'best man' polls next week, and then going on to a general 'best person' poll made up of winners and runners up. If I do go through with that, Fraularm actually has a chance of qualifying as a runner up... Not something I would have predicted before the poll!

@15Redstones I'm sure she can use her own imagination well enough.... She knows what flower offerings are. Despite that, no bloody carnival.
I mean, sure, now that they're under her care for certain she'd enact bloody vengeance if something happened to them, but she doesn't care about what might have been, and she's already decided she doesn't care about other orphans outside of her care.
She's pragmatic and morally flexible. If it's outside of her power to prevent, or would compromise her survival or that of those she cares about, it's "out of sight and out of mind"

@83drew Well, you asked for it - and I had half an hour with nothing better to do - so here's the Year 3 Best Woman poll!

@15Redstones My thought would be the backup HB Bible system activates when there is no true Zent after x amount of time for whatever reason. This is where the occasional Zent from the dutchies comes from.

@Geezer-Weasalopes I can see what you are saying. There is a possibility. But it comes back to the not enough information yet.

Well, this poll looks more interesting than Hannelore's runaway lead in Part One! Lueuradi in first, and Clarissa, Charlotte, and Brunhilde all tied in second, just one vote between them...

Given that Charlotte took second place in Year 2 (a long way ahead of third place Leonore), it seems a little odd that she's behind a newcomer (and tied with someone that got 0 last time around), while our old bronze medallist hasn't attracted a single vote!

Still, I can kinda understand it. Charlotte and Leonore seemed to get hit by a lot of 'out of focus' this year. Meanwhile, Lueuradi got two POV chapters full of her love of romance books, Clarissa got several funny cameos, and Brunhilde took to the field for the annual ditter!

Nunca habia leido un Fic así, quizás al traducirlo de ingles a español algunas ideas son ambiguas, o se confunden, pero realmente sentí todo lo que escribiste y llore, llore mucho

Gracias por tu hermosa escritura