Ascendance of a Bookworm

“So it didn’t end without incident after all…”

At the dinner table, the high priest sighed like that, and Bonifatius casually replied, “Greun is a demonic beast that we have to subjugate anyway. Isn’t it good we discovered it early?” At the same time, he muttered that the lack of coordination among the knight apprentices was a far bigger problem than the appearance of Greun. Wilfried nodded emphatically in agreement with that remark.

“Until I saw today’s situation, I didn’t really understand what was wrong with the knight apprentices either. As Rosemine said, the coordination among knight apprentices is important. Don’t they need practice to protect someone?”

“Then how about going on a gathering mission while protecting the civil official apprentices? It would serve as practice for the knight apprentices, and the civil official apprentices can gather on their own. Besides, I want the civil official apprentices to have some awareness of self-defense—the mindset of the protected.”

“What do you mean, Rosemine?”

The high priest looked at me as if he didn’t really understand. I explained the actions of the civil officials when Greun appeared.

“If they can’t at least prepare their mounts promptly, ready their staves, or at least follow the orders of the Guard Knights, then such unaccustomed civil officials will be abandoned by the Guard Knights who are meant to protect the lord family when the time comes... I think familiarity is important.”

“Hmm… Indeed, when Greun appeared, Rosemine acted surprisingly calmly.”

I have faced beasts many times during material gathering in Yureve. Also, having been attacked a few times, I have gotten used to acting alongside the Guard Knights, though I don’t like it.

“In addition to training the knight apprentices, we should also train the civil official apprentices enough so that they aren’t a hindrance... It would be better to prioritize the civil officials within the lord family for this.”

“Lord Bonifatius, it’s fine for you to train the knight and civil official apprentices, but before that, the knights should explore the forest first to check whether there are other demonic beasts to subjugate. Carrying around such a large burden will be problematic if a stronger beast appears.”

Following the high priest’s words, the knights went to explore the forest for several days, and the apprentices’ training was paused for that time.

After the break, it was decided that even the civil officials would join the training, and Filine, who heard this, went pale. Considering the past attack rates, my close aides have a very high chance of being caught up in trouble, so it’s better that Filine also has means of self-defense. If one isn’t conscious of fleeing, they can’t react immediately—that was proven in the forest.

During the training break, I decided to make healing potions together with my aides in the castle workshop. The high priest supervised. I also demonstrated simmering the pot to teach my aides the fourth stage of mana compression.

It seemed that the noble young masters and young ladies had never cooked themselves; they were apparently seeing the process of simmering over fire for the first time. They watched with interest as the water content reduced and the volume decreased.

“Lord Ferdinand, during the mana compression lecture, Professor Hilsure said to simmer the potion, but why is it that even Hartmut, a high-ranking noble in the upper grades, doesn’t know about simmering?”

“There are medicines whose efficacy increases by simmering, but it’s probably not very common.”

Apparently, they mostly do alchemy by putting ingredients in a mixing pot and stirring with mana, so simmering is rarely done. At least, it seems it’s not covered in lectures.

…Teaching first-year students a method that’s not very common as an image of mana compression. Well, surely the professor only wanted to share his own method as a reference.

After teaching everyone the fourth stage of mana compression, I decided to teach Filine the method as well. Since Filine is a lower noble and has the lowest basic mana among my aides, it would require substantial effort.