So the death penalty is off limits for punishing the invaders… Maybe a life-sentence in a far less luxurious prison than the Ivory Tower or the Adalgisa Villa might be fitting, along with taking a line out of Ehrenfest’s treatment of Veronica and Bindewald and regularly drain their mana and use it for the good of Yurgenschmidt.
As Detlinde, I’d lock her into a room with Hartmut for a few hours, with only the instruction that she absolutely has to be kept alive and make sure to never inquite about the details of what happened in that room.
That being said, if I was the next Zent, I would welcome those Lanzenavians who are still in their country, but wish to immigrate, into the Yurgenschmidt with open arms. With the still acute mana shortage, those people would be valuable additions to the kingdom. They might even bring with them some knowledge of techologies, not present in Yurgenschmidt. I doubt that it’s possible to replicate the silver material in a land abundand with mana, but they might have some other stuff that can be used there. To fit into Yurgenschmidt’s nobility, they could give them an accelerated academy course, somewhat similar to what the ex-blue priests got, upon their return to noble society, albeit with more courses about Yurgenschmidt etiquette.
The question is whether it’d be better to split them up and scatter them accross multiple duchies, or make a new duchy just for them, on the territory of one of the disbanded duchies. And whether to give them noble status according to their mana, or start them all out as laynobles with the usual three generation rules to go up in status. Of course the latter can only work, if they are split up. An entire duchy of only laynobles would probably not work very well.
Wow… Gervasio is quite the hypocrite. He didn’t lift a finger, while Leonzio orchestrated the slaughter and kidnapping of dozens, or maybe even hundreds of innocent people, including children and thought about how many people he’d have to kill, once he becomes Zent and yet condemns Ferdinand as evil, for finding a non-lethal way to lock him out of their race.
While he does not come anywhere near the level of cruelty and self-delusion of Detlinde, Gergine and Veronica, he has quite some things in common with them.
I am now super stressed about Rozemyne’s memories. If she has forgotten her family…😭
Oh lord Ferdi’s conversation with Mestionora was terrifying. Every word he said, ever condition he verified and validated, was another nail in Gervasio coffin. How did Gervasio not guess that Ferdi was up to something during that entire conversation.
Though if I am honest I am happy Gervasio was so dumb, as Ferdinand pointed out, he’ll probably make them wish they were dead.
He did spend his time in Lanzenave as one of only two people capable of keeping the capital city in existence, so Gervasio probably never had to worry about someone killing him, or even interfering with his job. That probably isolated him to a certain degree from the worst parts of Lanzenave’s internal politics, even if Lanzenave has as cutthroat politicing as the Yurgenschmidt nobility to begin with.
Gervasio views the gods as all powerful divine beings. There is no way a mere mortal could outsmart them.
Ferdinand seems to view them as fallible beings with their own idiosyncraticies. Probably because he has had time to read his g-book and understand how the gods actually behave.
I had a hunch that Rozemyne forgot her lower city family but that would be to cruel of a fate to end up in. There must be a way to restore her memories.
Ferdinand is a puppeteer and everyone is a puppet dancing on his stage, even gods.
“I should have broken their arms and legs…” - What Rozemyne doesn’t hear she doesn’t need to know.
Based just on what Mesti said, I would say everyone is over thinking it. She seems to be fond of Rozemyne, and needed to keep her distracted. It seems like what she meant to say was “I messed with her memories of things that are more important than reading in this moment”. As in, things that would activly be distracting her. If she could phrase it in a way that would bother Ferdinand, why wouldn’t she
Indeed, when she came back, she did not immediately remember that she was in the middle of a major fight.
Narrativly speaking, I doubt Kazuki would be making such a big deal about this if she wasn’t setting up for something. Having said that, I doubt she would drop all of the threads about re-establish a connection to her real family (moving out of range of the contract; the ability to setup a secret teleporter. ). Also, Myne’s character development throughout the entire series has been about valuing things over books. I doubt we will see all of that thrown away.
On the other end, the big conflict that has been underlying the entire series is pretty much resolved at this point, so we need something to resolve over the next book.
Oh I wouldn’t call the succession of the Zent solved yet. Sure the foreign contender is dealt with, but that still leaves the issue of who to give the magic tool Grutrissheit to. Give it to Trauerqual, Siegeswald or another royal or maybe someone not part of the royal family, like Aub Dunkelfelger? Plenty of options for conflic to be sparked off.
Then there’s the question of whether Gilessenmeyer or the Zent’s wife from there, have to face consequences for Raublut’s deeds. Unfair by our standards, sure, but keep in mind that until Rozemyne muscled in, guilt by association was the norm, be it family or duchy.
They’ll also have to deal with the survivors of Georgine’s faction and thanks to Mestionora’s declaration, they can’t go with death sentences here, so they’ll have to come up with something else for a whole lot of Werkestock nobles.
There’s also the issues of how to deal with the Lanzenavian criminals and the Lanzenavians still in their homecountry, who wish to come to Yurgenschmidt.
Not to mention that there’ll be plenty of nobles, who are either genuinely upset with Ferdinand’s behaviour toward the royal family, or who’ll use that as an excuse to jostle for a better position for themselves.
There’s also potential for conflict between those that see Rozemyne as divine and others, potentially even leading to her and her followers being accused of treason and/or heresy. Not to mention that there’s very likely going to be people who’ll want to make Rozemyne either Zent or Sov High Bishop.
So yeah, there are lots of things the last two volumes could be about, other than the existence or absense of gaps in Rozemyne’s memory.
I bet one look at Tuuli of Kamil will make the memories flood back. Though it’d be quite fitting to the series, if Tuuli handed her children’s bible to Rozemyne and that opened the memory floodgates. ^^
Come to think of it, Rozemyne’s relationship with her commoner family is steeped with connections to books. She trained to go to the gate with Tuuli and Gunther, so she could learn the alphabet of this world, in order to read. She worked with Effa and Tuuli on the hair ornaments, to earn more money for the book busniess. They were there when she finished her first book… Also Mestionora didn’t seem cruel to me, when interacting with Rozemyne, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she overstated the effects a bit to give Ferdinand some payback for his bad attitude toward the divines.
What if Ferdinand became more precious to her than books or lower city family and Mestionora wanted just to bully Ferdinand. Leaving important memories intact.
I wonder how the invaders will be distributed as mana batteries. I can imagen other dutchies wanting a slice of Gervasio and other landsinavians vast quantities of mana. Further more the current royal family’s authority bas basically non existant after King T gave up.
Trauerqual didn’t really give up, but was drugged up and sort of filled with pre-recorded messages, that he’d parrot word by word. And with Raublut having always been loyal to Gervasio from the beginning, there’s a good chance the Zent was already being drugged when he said he’d give the crown to Detlinde, if she got a Grutrissheit. The question is, how long does it take to get the drugs out of his system and come back to his real self, or if there’s some convenient magic tool or spell, that can fix him instantly. Maybe having Rozemyne visit him and heal him with Flutrane and Heilschmerz’s blessings might do the trick.
As for the Lanzenavians, I doubt they’ll ever leave the Sovereignty. They aren’t so many that they can’t be incarcerated there. The more interesting question to me is, what they’ll do about the Lanzenavians who didn’t commit crimes, but wish to immigrate to Yurgenschmidt. Letting them into the country would be a good boost for it’s mana, they might bring some interesting new technologies with them, but they have a very different culture.
I think one option for them would be to make a new lesser duchy and fill it with the immigrants, once Ferdinand finished his magic tool Grutrissheit and Rozemyne bestowed it to someone and they can finally delete the disbanded duchies. And then give them accelerated academy courses like the ex-blue priests got, except with a stronger focus on the cultural things and etiquette of Yurgenschmidt nobility. That would still leave the question of whom to make their Aub. Choosing one of them, would avoid having a stranger leading strangers, but would mean to have someone in charge with no experience and little idea of what the politics are like. Picking someone from a royal branch family would mean the new Aub knew how to do things, but would have a cultural gulf between them and their subjects. It’d also carry a certain risk of the Lanzanvians organizing to rebel or grab power, if they feel they aren’t treated well.
Another option would be to split the immigrant up and spread them over different duchies, which would make any potential rebellion far less likely and would avoid the issues of who to put in charge of them, but depending on how many there are, this might lead to conflicts between the Zent and duchies, with some duchies probably eager to get as much fresh, mana-rich blood, while others might be a bit xenophobic about people from the country that just invaded them. This might be quite the balancing act, with lots of long negotiations.
There’s also the matter of noble status. Do you give the new arrivals a status befitting their mana capacity, or do you start them all out as laynobles, who then have to either marry into Yurgenschmidt noble families or go through the three generation rule to rise in status? The latter is only an option if you disperse them, since a duchy with only laynobles would probably not work well.
