This was a wild one.

The first half was so nice and lighthearted. I wanted to write: "The biggest tragedy of this volume was that Hartmut has agreed to slow down spreading the church of Rozemyne". Alas, that turned out not to be the case.

Going in to this book blind. The first image of the book quickly revealed that I could expect some wet eyes during the book. So I went in expecting the worst.

And then it was just absolute bliss. Melchoir is such a sweet child, It seems to me that he will join Hartmuts efforts to spread the word of Rozemyne. At the beginning of the book he sees her nearly as a god already.

It was interesting to hear about how archduke candidates are taught. It seems quit nice that they build a little "mini duchy" complete with borders, buildings and everything. Rozemyne off course continues to amaze with her mana manipulation skills. Leaving Wilfried, Charlotte, and Melchoir in the dust.

The visit to the Leisegang was quite interesting. It is always good getting new printing workshops up and running. The amount of wrath spraying toward Wilfried and Charlotte was very intense indeed. Is this the first time we hear about Rozemynes wish to be second/third wife? I think she might have mentioned it once before, but only in passing, and it doesn't seem to be something she consistently pesters Ferdinand with.

Eating fish was a nice experience for Rozemyne. I hope she can get the chefs to combine her cooking with fish.

I guess that's most of the good stuff. Then the action happened.

NOOOOO, how will we do without Ferdinand? How will Ferdinand do without Rozemyne? I hope they will both be fine. But they have so little time, and so much knowledge to pass on between them. As we know now, my guess from last volume on the seed of adalgsia was completely wrong. And the evil Ahrensbach is taking our beloved head priest.

Also, we must spend a least a little while here admiring Ferdinands foresightedness. He probably ordered the exact ingredients needed for Rozemynes second Jureve for her sake already during the interduchy tournament. Now that Rozemyne is completely healthy, she will hopefully start growing. It will also be exiting to see if her mana affinity shoots up due to the treatment. It did seem so during the tea party.

I really don't like Ahrensbach people (except Aurelia). They seem very hostile, even internally as a group. So we can just hope Ferdinand will be fine. I do understand Ferdinands choice however. He could never live with killing Sylvester. I wonder how much of a "heart to heart" Ferdinand and the king had. I suspect that the king would have let Ferdinand staid, if the circumstances had been fully explained.

I think that covers my thoughts on the volume so far. I do have a comment I forgot last time: What is up with Ferdinands arch rival being literally named "Hot Shit" (Hot=Heiss, Shit = Shitze) (I know his name is spelled Heisshitze, but it is just not how that name is read)

See you in october 8-)

Edit:

I had forgotten something really important that I wanted to mention:
I really enjoyed the way Rozemyne blackmailed Ferdinand in this book (and the way Ferdinand used it against her). I think this book showed a great deal of character development in two ways for her:

Her willingness to oppose those above her. Previously she would just accept what Ferdinand said, but not anymore. Now she is ready to oppose even the king if he crosses her to gravely. This seems like a very important milestone for her. while she has accepted the gods more willingly than others previously. It seems that she is also beginning to be more interested in speaking up about her beliefs. Previously when praying, she would often mention it being hard not to laugh, and be slightly sceptical. I think the prayer for Hartmut is the first time we have heard her consciously going all out for a prayer (she has done so subconsciously previously)

Overall these developments seem like they will be super important for where the story goes in the coming volumes.

@KingCaesarRex

This is mentioned again in the Damuel SS 'Lunchtime in the temple' P2V4.

Good catch! Though it’s possible that this is a continuity error instead.

@Almond-Magnum said in Myne, Is she truly not normal:

@b-scot-morgan said in Myne, Is she truly not normal:

This suggests that the gods are mainly aware of the world, or at least the people within it, through mana.

That might mean the gods aren't aware of all the intricacies of human society and are unable to micromanage it even if they wanted to. Sort of like an entomologist may be able to tell a queen from a worker from a soldier ant, but can't point to a particular worker right inside the anthill and tell it "You're on foraging duty today, go north".

That explains part of the weird feeling I from the gods. You’d think if they were really the kind of pantheon they resemble from our world, they’d be mingling more with the mortals.

P1V2 because of Myne and Lutz working together to make paper. It's just so important to the series as a whole, but even there, you've still got them sneaking in buttered potatoffels. The other things in the image are nice too, but that bit alone is the clincher for me.

I've been vocal before about how the run between Meeting with the Merchant and Lutz's Myne is the bit that convinced me this series was worth collecting, after I'd seriously considered dropping it during P1V1. I still consider it to be the highlight of P1. Makes the vote pretty easy for me, honestly!

My ‘favorite P1 cover’ vote goes to P1V1; I absolutely love the cramped assortment of goods filling up the space. Seeing stuff littered throughout, not quite recognizing it or understanding its relevance to the upcoming volume, then looking back after finishing and saying “oh this is that thing!” is something I love about the P1/P2 art that has (naturally) lost traction in later volumes, to emphasize the cleaner noble lifestyle and to make room for the expanded cast of characters. Both types of approaches are good, but I’ll always enjoy this cover.

P1V5
C20
I am honestly disappointed with the artist for not giving us an anthropomorphic Myne-Fish for the doesn't that make me like a fish? panel :(

And Tuuli was downright savage at the end of the chapter!

And then when Myne discusses making a new hairpin... Effa and Tuuli look determined, but I think Gunther's going to literally explode in that panel...

C21
I don't think I've ever seen Lutz with eyes that were quite that dead before.

Wait, he means me?! Watch yourself, Myne. That level of obliviousness is how you attract harems! And once this series becomes a harem comedy, you'll never get to finish your book...

Myne resists sweets as well as I do!

Freida has a mean set of puppy-dog eyes on her...

Seems like everything weird I've come across in the last half a year comes from one source. You.

That... isn't going to change much going forwards, I'm afraid...

C22
Well, these are probably the funniest faces I've seen Effa make!

Yes, Myne, you totally nailed the look of disappointment at missing pig killing day!

First Myne, then Benno... must be something weird about Lutz's hair this chapter...

LN: “That’s a secret, and not one you’ll be buying with small golds, either.”
Manga: "That's a secret, and one I won't sell, no matter how many golds you offer."
Interesting to see her rejection of Benno's curiosity is stronger in the manga!

Still, both versions ended up with Myne sticking her tongue out at Benno. Nice continuity between the mediums!

C23
Ahh, poor Gunther. He looked so proud of his chunk of trombe-trunk, too!

You little merchant, you.

Apparently, Effa and Tuuli forgot how much Myne said they'd get paid for the winter handiwork...

Myne's utter inability to look innocent seems to be something she got from Effa :)

C24
Ahh, Lutz looks just the right height for an armrest...

Ooh, merchant ambush! I like the one-frame warning of Benno's boot creeping into shot behind the kids :)

@Almond-Magnum Except that the former Veronica scholar apprentices are a small fraction of the students working their way through the royal academy. Losing them would undoubtedly still hurt, but proportionally, the Leisegang/neutral students in the pipeline would play a far greater role in plugging the manpower gap due to their far greater numbers.

@Derpster In the former Veronica faction, yes, a good chunk support Georgine. In the Veronica faction at the height of her power, the Georgine supporters were a mostly moot minority. Combined with how by all indications all of Georgine's supporters are mednobles at best, power was most certainly concentrated in Veronica's hands, as that means the archnobles of the Veronica faction, of which we know there are quite a few, were all aligned with her.

Veronica being on borrowed time is not the same as Ehrenfest being on borrowed time. Even before Myne showed up, Florencia and the Leisegangs were in the near-final stages of executing a political coup against Veronica by attacking Wilfried. And frankly, it doesn't matter how much Veronica wants her grandson to inherit, if Wilfried crashed and burned at the royal academy, the decision isn't hers anymore. One need to graduate from the academy to be a noble, and one has to complete the archducal course to stand in the succession proper. The way Wilfried was going, he would have failed to do either, at which point it wouldn't even matter what Sylvester wants, his only viable heirs are the children not raised under Veronica.

Not going to email anything for sure, but why is Eglantine the only one without an "a X year archduke candidate" in the description? feels inconsistent

@cfoley said in Promiscuous Princess / Ferdinand's Mother:

I think I can save you folks some time theorizing here. Not long after the initial release of p4v8 part 5 the line about the princesses was changed and made clear. See the quoted section below directly from the available prepub.

spoiler

I just realized my mind has been presuming a fair number of such offspring, which would make keeping them within the Sovereignty 'house' noticeable... but that wouldn't necessarily be the case.
Infant mortality, all male offspring not needing to be accounted for, the total number of female offspring being raised as Yurgenschmidt Princesses could be low enough that 'raised as' meaning adopted into the Sovereign House would be a small enough number that no one would wonder concerning it.
I'd been considering 'raised as' to indicate the type of upbringing they received, not their final destination due to the numbers my brain was tossing out.
But realistically it would rarely be as many as four, more likely just a couple.
Not enough to have significant impact.

@Almond-Magnum said in The Fate of Detlinde:

@Thecardq
So can nobles. Waschen is mass of magic water coming and going out of nowhere. A Highbeast is much bigger than the feystone it comes from, but not so light you can't just set it down somewhere, so it's probably heavier, too.

Highbeasts themselves seem likely to manipulate gravity for flight so their effective weight is probably determined by the user.

Given the work being Ascendance of a Bookworm rather than Hermey's Isekai Life, the possibility that dentistry exists but isn't mentioned must be kept in mind.

Dentistry goes way back in many cultures, and surprisingly advanced once you take into account the differences in technology available for tool making, anesthetics, infection prevention and imaging; the main concepts are ancient.

What can we do to extend useable life?
Can we patch it?
Can we yank it out?
Can we make a fake?

Aww man your keikaku made me have some horrible ideas.... I'll just have to share one of them.

The gods/world is under assault, and only those with high compatibility with an element/God can hope to fight back the rebeling angels. Riding their giant Magick knight/feybeast they must destroy the angels before they can find the Grutrissheit and destroy the world. Watch as a young girl by the name of Main is found and is forced into both nobility and the fight for her world while only wanting to read books. Watch as Ferdinand the commander of AGE, the Absolute Grutrissheit Enshrinement, attempts to fight back against both political intrigue and the encroaching angel threat while dealing with a book obsessed gremlin.

I'm expecting a religious reform of some kind. It's pretty clear how far belief in the gods and the purpose of the temple has fallen, most nobles seem to just go through the motions with anything to do with the gods with Eglantine seeming to be the closest to actually dedicating mana to them but only through dedication whirl.

In Part 1 Myne first hears of the gods and becomes a shrine maiden at the end of it.

Part 2 she genuinely learns about the gods through the scriptures and prayer rituals as she begins to see more of the world around her, she also gains a following in the temple of the orphans and gray priests with Wilma being the most devout to Myne's saintly ways. At the end of the part she is adopted as a noble child and is slated to become High Bishop of Ehrenfest while simultaneously giving the most absurd blessing Ferd, Sil and Kars have ever seen.

Part 3 has Rozemyne showing true blessings to the commoners of the lower city who have no faith before being abruptly blessed left and right in baptism/coming of age/marriage ceremonies, this may not directly cause the commoners to become pious, but it certainly can't hurt. She also showcases her saintly mana levels to most nobles in Ehrenfest, and also happens to inadvertently make Hartmut her first apostle. Throughout the part she has full access to the sacred scriptures, takes an active role in every ritual, saves Wilfried from disgrace multiple times, and even caps off the part with a daring rescue of her beloved little sister which results in a situation where Charlotte contemplates if Rozemyne is actually a saint or more akin to a goddess.

Moving right along to Part 4 we start with Sylvester and Florencia essentially proclaiming Rozemyne as their saviour and showing her the deepest respect a noble could. An act that is later performed by Giebe Haldenzel after seeing the full extent of the true Spring Ritual brought to them by the goddesses of spring. Haldenzel also muses how he afterward truly prayed to the gods for the first time from the bottom of his heart. We also get another apostle in Clarissa and a variety of prayer related shenanigans at the RA, some of which were swept under the rug because Ferdinand was able to run interference in time.

For part 5, we know noble society doesn't understand the significance of their religion, but some of them are starting to realize its importance. The only individual who can likely hold Rozemyne back from shoving the truth in front of everyone's faces is Ferdinand, who won't be able to interfere nearly as much from a distant land (I'm assuming Part 4 ends with him officially leaving). There's also Year 3 coming up, which is the year all nobles need to memorize the names of the gods and receive blessings of some sort. Rozemyne is absolutely going to stand out here somehow, she simply isn't capable of doing anything nobles would consider standard. My guess is that whatever happens is going to lead to either more interrogations, or large scale reforms across all of Jurgenshmidt, possibly both.

@Thecardq I don't think that was made clear though, to me it sounded like this is the thought process of the current nobility (although they don't know it anymore).

It might be the case, and I might be putting too much into too little info. But I don't think it can be ruled out by the text so far, that the HB bibles are true grutrissheits

While this volume offers a barrage of humor, moving scenes, deep insights into the world of the many complex characters, I believe its essence can be captured with a single quote: "I’m finally going to be a normal girl. Eheheh... Eheheheh!"
That same quote doubles as a promise for the next part. Most enjoyable read.

@Weasalopes

Thanks