Angelica was brimming with excitement as she stood upon the open field, having been given permission by Sylvester to take part in Ehrenfest's Speed Ditter demonstration.
Not only that, her Master had given her permission to go all out. The seals on her mana blade were being temporarily lifted, and she was told to use her magic items to their fullest.
It was power that she had been told never to use against a human opponent, or inside of a city. Power that had been meant for bringing down the Lord of Winter itself.
"Are Ehrenfest's Knights ready!?" The professor in charge of summoning the Feybeast shouted, getting confirmation from one of the older students whose name Angelica had never learned. People backed away from Angelica, as she couldn't contain her excitement any longer. Azure blue and golden yellow lines started to dance along her skin as she boosted her strength to the absolute limit. She tapped into every form of Body Strengthen Magic she had learned as she shifted her footing and drew her sword. "Then begin!"
The magic circle flashed with light as a giant bear with bone-like armored plates growing out of its body appeared within the circle.
The moment it had manifested, as it was still collecting itself, Angelica kicked off the ground, dashing towards it with her full enhanced strength and speed, firing mana backwards to propel herself forward even faster still as she swung out her sword. The air was ripped apart as a blade infused with the idea of killing the enemies of mankind grew from a dagger of only a dozen inches into a ten foot long blade of blackened steel.
It all happened too fast for any of the apprentice knights to even register it.
One moment, they were readying themselves for battle, the next bits and pieces of their opponent were flying off in all directions and a large slice being cut out of the earth where the beast had once stood.
They all stared in shock as Angelica's mana blade returned to its original size and she gracefully sheathed it.
She turned back to them with her usual smile, and without a hair out of place. "I think we won."
…Naturally, Angelica was named the year's top Apprentice Knight by the King.
"You are the new Archbishop?" One of the Blue Robe Priests said in shock as Rin stood before them in her white robes, Bezewanst downgraded into blue.
"By Royal Decree, I have been assigned to be the Archbishop of Ehrenfest until my departure in three months. I am sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but I am as powerless to resist such an order as you are." Rin said. "I will be depending on all of you to assist me, since I will not have time to come into my own as the Archbishop, and everything will be restored to the way that it was at the time of Summer Baptisms."
The Priests all nodded their heads in understanding that nothing could be done, even if it was weird that the King would force a six year old girl to play the role of Archbishop.
"Also, after the Spring Prayer concludes, I have been assigned, once again by Royal Decree, to investigate Ehrenfest's border gate, and will not be available at the Temple. At this time, just pretend that Lord Bezewanst is still the Archbishop and do as you would normally do." Rin told them, much to their relief.
Unless she managed to unravel the secrets of the border gate within three months, a supposedly impossible task, her active role as Archbishop would likely only be for the next few days.
"On the subject of the Spring Prayers, we will need to discuss assignments. The Archduke has requested that I be the one to visit the central district personally." Rin said, causing some people to stiffen, as if Rin was overseeing the local districts, that would mean they would need to go further away from the city of Ehrenfest to complete their own assignments. "However, given the time required to visit some territories, and with the High Priest being ordered to focus on the expedition of the railroad, I will still be handling the further territories. The use of the railroads will be allowed, but it's schedules will not revolve around you. So you can feel free to take it to your assigned area and travel to villages around that location while you wait for its return."
With only a single train, and several dozen branching paths, most train stations only saw the train once every few days. But it would still greatly speed up travel for the Priests, who lack a Highbeast.
"As for who goes where, I will leave that up to Lord Bezewanst." Rin said, passing the responsibilities to the former Archbishop. "Now if you will excuse me, I have other duties… by Royal Decree." She said, sounding exhausted as she left the room, earning her looks of pity.
She went back to her chambers and locked herself in with her loyal retainers, Angelica, Nicola, Abigail and Sylphine, since Brigitte was off overseeing some business for her brother and Lieseleta's parents still didn't want her near the Temple, because of its reputation for sexual assault. They only allowed Angelica to go because they didn't have a choice. It was her punishment.
Once she was settled, Rin took the Archbishop's copy of the Scriptures and started to read it.
As to her expectations, it did include several entries that didn't exist in the common copies of the scriptures. Rituals and spells that would likely be considered too dangerous for the common noble to know, as well as information about several of the minor Gods and how to invoke their powers.
But the final entry in the book was the one that the King had been looking for. Though it was written in such an old language that it was hard to understand. But Rin could understand the basics of it.
"Whoever can read this page and see the magic circle engraved in it has demonstrated that they possess the qualifications to pursue the throne." Rin hummed to herself.
There was a lot of flowerful language describing rotations of the Gods, which would have meant nothing to Rin, if she hadn't been at the graduation ceremony and witnessed the 'Dedication Whirl'.
During the dance, Rin had seen the phantom of a magic circle appearing in the air, one that matched the circle in the book. A circle which was supposed to mark someone as being worthy of trying to become Zent, if they could activate it.
Though Rin had been the only person able to even see the phantom of the circle, as it was invisible to everyone else, including the Royal Family.
She wondered what qualifications she had that everyone else didn't.
The first obvious one that came to mind was elemental affinity. She had an affinity for all of the elements. But she hadn't been the only one there who did. Eglantine also possessed all of the elements, which was why she was thought to be the obvious choice for Queen, before Rin came along.
It could just be that you needed a metric fuck ton of magic power, since her current amount surpassed even the Kings. But if either of those were the case, then Ferdinand should have known about it. …She won't put it past the Fake Priest.
Regardless, the stage for the Dedication Whirl was obviously the center of a large ritual magic, just like the stage that Rin had used to bring an early Spring.
"Well, it's a clue of how to proceed." Rin said while scratching her chin. "I wonder why the church was keeping this from the Royal Family. Were they hoping to find a candidate for Zent themselves? Even if they did, you'd need more information than is here to claim the Grutrissheit. Does the Sovereignty's Temple have more information?"
How funny. She had been trying to plot for months how to extract the secrets from the book, and she read through it all in less than an hour, and while it wasn't bare of information, it didn't hold all the answers that she was looking for. Just pointed her to the next step on this elaborate scavenger hunt.
Well, at least it left her with plenty of time to focus on her other problems.
"Abigail, Sylphine, I'm going to have to trust the two of you with a message."
Trauerqual read over the letter from Myne before looking up at the very pale Guard Knights to his future adopted daughter. The letter had come with a magic tool used to let the reader see a hidden message. A fail safe for if the girls had been forced to surrender it to unscrupulous hands. Something that many attempted to force them to do.
They had refused to hand over the letter to anyone but the King himself, despite many people trying to pressure them, requiring them to wait multiple days in order to get a short meeting.
Myne was right. He really was surrounded by people who were trying their best to keep him in the dark.
The magic tool must have been something ingenious, as it only worked when the Zent himself was holding it, and he had no idea how Myne had managed that.
"Be at ease. No one is going to harm you." The King said, with his kindest smile. "I am glad you brought me this news. I wasn't expecting to hear from her so soon after parting ways, and the fact that she trusted you with such a message speaks volumes."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Abigail said, though her eyes went to Raublut with fear clear in her expression.
Strange. He had thought that these two were in the Knight Commander's pocket, but it appeared that he was very dissatisfied with them. Perhaps Myne had won over his spies from him.
The letter was simple enough.
It said that Myne had confirmed the Archbishop's Scriptures to be related to getting the Grutrissheit, but in the capacity that it hinted towards the method used to measure if someone was worthy of making the attempt.
She told him that the stage used for the Dedication Whirl was a magic tool, and the letter contained both the original language copied from the Scripture itself and Myne's best attempts to translate it.
It was impressive how quickly Myne, who had inherited the memories of the Tohsaka, could work. In a single week, she had produced more results than all of his own scholars had over the last four years.
…Or at least, more than they had reported to him.
He wasn't even sure what he could do with this information. He couldn't trust his own people to look at it for him, nor could he go and oversee the process himself.
Trauerqual let out a long sigh, one he couldn't hold in, and his exhaustion hit him. Taking just two days off in order to attend the Academy's ceremonies had required him to drain himself to the point of collapse in order to make up for. He still hadn't recovered from it, but he had to maintain appearances.
Why in the world would anyone ever want to be Zent?
"Your Majesty?" Sylphine said, voice full of concern.
"I'm fine. Thank you for your hard work and please, make sure to keep Tohsaka safe." Trauerqual said, omitting the 'all of us are depending on it'.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! RATTLE!
"It certainly sounds like the Gods are trying to kill us all out there." Rin mumbled as even with the sound dampening magic tools she had distributed throughout her room, she could still hear the crash of every bolt of lightning and could feel as the mansion she was given to rest at shook.
"W…We should have just got out of here! Why did you agree to stay NYA!" Taiga cried as she clung to Rin who soothingly patted at her back.
"Sorry. Sorry. You know how insistent Elvira can be." Rin said, putting on a calm front to hide her own mild jumps.
Well, she was still doing better than the year before, when she had to endure this disaster without the assistance of magic tools. She was very glad that no one had been there to see her with her blanket pulled over her head as she tumbled like a frightened child.
Her research had proven helpful in determining exactly how to activate the magic circle to bring Spring. The ceremony just required a prayer to the Goddess of Thunder to be performed by women capable of offering up mana.
Though with the effect that group dedications had, where the stronger one person is, the more magic power they forcibly pull out of everyone else, Rin had nearly killed twenty women by accident, and produced a disaster level storm that was likely twice the size of the one she had produced the previous year.
If she knew that it was going to end up like this, she wouldn't have tried to teach the others how to do it. She didn't care if she wasn't going to be around to help out next year. That was their problem.
'Those fruits had better be worth it!' Rin cursed to herself, glad she had the forethought to bring and set up lightning rods around town. She hoped the Feystones she had hoped would gather residual energy from them wouldn't overload and explode.
It was for the sacred fruits that Elvira and her brother offered up as bribes, the ones that could be used to make top quality potions for restoring magic power, things that were so valuable, that they even blinded Rin of her greed for hoarding magical knowledge for herself.
Rin jumped along with Taiga as the door opened and a particularly loud bolt of lightning hit.
She looked up to see, Lieseleta, Tabitha and Elysia all shaking with tears in their eyes, while Angelica stood behind them with her normal calm expression and a smile that said 'Aren't they cute'.
To which normally, Rin would agree… but right now…
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! RATTLE!
"M…Milady. I… I know it isn't appropriate but… EEP!" Lieseleta jumped as a trio of bolts all struck in quick succession and the entire building shook. She looked up at Rin with teary eyes, and Rin was glad that they had all flinched, stopping them from seeing her jump herself, the sound of the lightning covering the undignified squeak she had made, not so loud as Lieseleta's.
"It… It can't be helped." Rin said, trying to control herself as she gestured towards the girls. "Come on in and shut the door. Did you bring the sound dampening magic tools I had given you?"
"Y…Yes." Lieseleta said as she ran into the room as fast as she could, leaving Angelica to close the door behind her.
'Thank the Gods.' Rin said in relief as the noise was further reduced, though nothing could be done for the shaking.
And so, the six of them all would spend that night together, huddled together for safety and comfort against the raging storm.
No…Not that Rin needed it.