this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
20 points (95.5% liked)
PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm
240 readers
4 users here now
Navigation Links:
A Space for discussing the weekly chapter releases.
Even though this is a separate community please be aware that Post titles and in some cases the first few lines of text will be displayed in the local and all feeds, so avoid spoilers there as much as possible anyway. Thanks.
synonyms
- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- Honzuki no Gekokujou
- 『本好きの下剋上』
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't really understand what you're proposing. Assuming they had permission to take an assault force through the Sovereignty, Rozemyne and co. could meet up with Dunkelfelger's knights quickly in the Royal Academy, but then what? I'm just not really understanding how they would get from the Royal Academy to Ahrensbach.
When Rozemyne visited Kirnberger a couple of books back, the Giebe explained a few details about the country gates. First of all they are pairs, an outer one controlled by the Zent and an inner one controlled by the local Aub. Every one of the outer country gates has a teleportation circle that connects it directly with the Sovereignty, so the Zents can go directly to the gate in question, and don't have to bother the local Aub, or travel through multiple duchies, everytime they want to lock or unlock a country gate.
That is almost asuredly why Rozemyne became so interested, when she heard that Ahrensbach already unlocked their inner gate, because it means they can teleport right there, and not only have less distance to cover to reach Ahrensbach's capital, but they can do so flying solely over uninhabited ocean, as opposed to going through Dunkelfelger's duchy gate, from which they would have to cross over multiple Giebe controlled provinces, and thus would have had considerably more chance of being spotted early and attacked by the local knights, serving the Giebes, long before they reached their destination. Of course there are Lanzenave ships going to and fro down on that ocean, but as we've learned the previous volume, Lanzenave mana-wielders can't use Ordonnanzes and whatever communication method they use instead, does not work in Yurgenschmidt. So the attackers could easily subdue the ships, or just bypass them by flying too high for their weapons to reach them and without having to worry that a warning might get through to the capital, before they themselves arrive there. This in turn means they can preserve the element of surprise pretty much until they are in direct visual range of the city
So yes, they could go to Kirnberger to use the country-gate's teleporter to go to the Sovereignty... but why, when they have a teleporter right in the archduke's castle?
I just assumed Rozemyne was going to teleport from Kirnberger directly to Dunkelfelger then directly to Ahrensbach there by bypassing the Sovereignty completely and not needing to get permission or the royal family's involvement. And though I imagine it would be convenient for the Zent to have a teleporter connecting each country gate to the Sovereignty, I see no mention of that in the books at all.
The Zent had the power to create teleportation circles between duchies—and, since the country gates existed outside of the aubs’ borders, he probably hadn’t even needed their permission to make them. - P5V4 (Kirnberger's County Gate)
We know that you can create a teleporter between duchies, as long as you have both Aub's cooperation, which they have, so there is no need to make a country gate to country gate connectoin between Dunkelfelger and Ehrenfest. With both Aub's cooperation, they can just make the connective points literally anywhere in their duchies, so why bother going all the way to Kirnberger, when they can just make one in the castle? Going from country gate to country gate would bypass permissions they already have and add a lot of unnecessary distance they'd need to travel, especially in case of Dunkelfelger. Their country gate is near enough at the westernmost point, while Ahrensbach is to their east. With how wide Dunkelfelger is from west to east, going via the royal academy is bound to be faster than going via the country gates.
I don't have my books with me right now, so I can't check, but I am absolutely certain Giebe Kirnberger did mention those teleportation circles between the country gates and the Sovereignty. I'll check once I get home.
Creating an interduchy teleporter to Dunkelfelger's border with Ahrensbach would have been a fast travel option, but there are some reasons it may have been unfeasible.
To prevent assassinations and ambushes, only the archduke could place the kinds of teleportation circles used to transport people—and these circles were limited to travel within the duchy. Those used to cross duchy borders, such as the ones that provided access to the Royal Academy, required the king’s approval. - P4V9 (Finding the Book)
Human teleportation was so consequential that only aubs could make and operate the means to it. - P5V4 (Archducal Family Meeting)
“What a waste...” I muttered on instinct. Making teleportation circles required a variety of materials. - Matthias P4V9 (Out of Time)
Just the time to make the teleportation circles may have prevented it from being an option considering all the things both archdukes need to do to prepare. Rozemyne intended to ask Aub Dunkelfelger to place teleporters between the country gate and the gate bordering Ahrensbach until Justus informed her that Ahrensbach's border gate near the country gate was open. This probably would have been a problem considering the above mentioned issues.
I’d assumed the border gate in question would be closed, so I’d planned to ask Aub Dunkelfelger to place teleporters between his country gate and the border gate he shared with Ahrensbach. - P5V8 (Their Information and Name Stones)
Geibe Kirnberger mentions the teleportation circles within each country gate, but I don't see any mention of those being connected to the Sovereignty.
“There’s no need to worry about that,” Giebe Kirnberger cackled. “To my knowledge, there are teleportation circles within each gate. They can be used only by Zents wielding the Grutrissheit.” - P5V4 (Kirnberger's Country Gate)
I noticed something interesting today while reading through "Royal Academy Stories - First Year" again:
Kirnberger was several days away by carriage. The journey could be reduced to a single day by highbeast, but I had never attempted it before, and I wasn’t confident that I could manage it without getting lost. - Judithe
Considering Justus and Eckhart arrived a little after 6th bell, then ate dinner, chatted, and made a name swearing box, it's probably nearing 7th bell. Pretty sure midnight would be 8th bell, but not positive. That certainly doesn't leave a lot of time to get to Kirnberger. Since Judithe mentioned it takes a day by highbeast, perhaps Rozemyne planned a different way of getting to Kirnberger.
We've seen Clarissa and her knight go all the way from Dunkelfelger's capital to Ehrenfest in a single day, which is multiple times as much distance as Kirnberger and Ehrenfest are apart, by just going ham on pouring mana into their highbeasts for maximum speed and downing loads of rejuvenation potions.
When Judithe estimated a full day on highbeast, she probably considered a more reasonable, non-emergency pace with occasional breaks to eat along the way and either no, or just very light use of rejuvenation potions. Also that was before she got the Rozemyne mana compression, if I remember correctly.
That's a good point. The mednoble retainers may be pretty exhausted after going all out, but they should be able to make it in time. It's possible they could use Steifebrise's blessing to go faster too.
I don't think that'll be a problem. Remember that despite having the official ranks of mednobles, Matthias and Laurenz are from families that have archnoble levels of mana (due to archnobles Ahrensbach females marrying down into their families), they were taught Georgine's mana compression method and got a bonus from being Rozemyne's name-sworn on top, plus a little more extra mana efficiency from having a couple of extra divine protections, compared to the majority of nobles.