"Count Traeburg has requested the right to meet you, and to not cause an interduchy incident, we have no choice but to allow him, though my sister will be sitting in on the meeting as well." Sylvester started after calling Rin back to his office once again, this time with Florencia, Ferdinand and Karstedt in attendance.
"It is as expected, but they can't force me to go with them." Rin said, not terribly concerned.
Count Traeburg was an Archnoble of a lower ranking Duchy. He didn't have the right to make demands of an Archduke of a higher ranking one. The best he could do was hope that Sylvester would hand Rin over in order to avoid looking like the bad guy.
"Please remember that we want to maintain friendly relations with our neighbors." Sylvester reminded her, scratching his head, glancing at Ferdinand. "Also, there is something that I'd like to talk to you about."
"Of course? Whatever it is, I will endeavor to answer it honestly." Rin replied.
"...Is it possible that the former Count Zartedt was not your biological father?" Sylvester asked.
"I see." Rin nodded her head after her adopted father managed to say what was a pretty insensitive thing to say to an orphan. "I never really thought about it, but I guess you are right. It seems pretty unlikely given my appearance and magic power that I am his daughter. Not impossible mind you, but unlikely."
"So… You aren't his daughter?"
"My memory is good, but I don't recall my own birth." Rin said with a teasing smile, one that slid away. "My father wasn't a good man by any stretch of the imagination, and my mother was too weak willed to stand against him. I know that better than anyone. After everything I've been through because of them, I can't help but to hate them. But that doesn't change the fact that they were my parents… and that I still love them."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drag up bad memories." Sylvester said, showing regret on his face, regret that Rin was starting to realize was actually real.
"Don't be. I should be the one apologizing." Rin said with a shake of her head. "You have been nothing but kind to me, but I have treated you all with suspicion. I couldn't help but see my father, who never looked at me with anything but stern eyes, and only ever saw me as a child with a lot of elements and mana. The man who left me in the care of that damned Fake Priest, who took pleasure in making my life a living hell."
"Fake Priest?" Ferdinand said, catching the girl's nickname for him.
"The black robed Priest who my father assigned to guard me. The man was a psycho who took pleasure in the pain of others. I remember finding the secret room where he kept a bunch of orphans chained up as living magic reagents." Rin said, swallowing from minor flashbacks.
Ferdinand was taken aback, though he now understood why the girl was so adamant about saving the orphans.
"Anyways, I'm sorry that I treated you so unfairly." Rin said, giving a short bow.
"It's alright. We understand." Florencia said as she went and gave Rin a pat on her head.
As usual, Rin flinched and fought against the urge to defend herself, but now, rather than swallowing it down in order to play the part of a young girl, she just lowered her head with guilt.
"Tohsaka. I asked if Count Zartedt might not be your father because Ferdinand suspects that rather than being related to Count Zartedt, you were one of the lost children of royalty who was being hidden at their estate." Sylvester said, not specifying which one. "If others start to suspect this in the future, and we did not report our own suspicions to the royal family, then Ehrenfest could get into a lot of trouble. But if you want us to, we will pretend to be ignorant."
Ferdinand frowned at this but nodded his head in understanding.
"...I don't want you all to get into trouble, so report it if you must. But I don't want to join the royal family. I don't want to be Aub and I want to be Zent even less." Rin said, knowing there was no way out of it.
Without her being at least the daughter of an Archduke Candidate, no one would believe that she had all the elements by chance.
"Thank you, and know that no matter what happens, you will always be welcome here." Sylvester said.
They talked for a little while longer before Rin left the room.
"A black robed priest." Ferdinand said, scratching his chin. "Black robes are the uniform used by the Professors at the Royal Academy. So she is most likely talking about Lord Burtenzel, the Professor of Theology who was executed during the purge for his support of the First and Fourth Princes, involvement in the rebel faction, and his crimes against the Gods. A Fake Priest indeed."
Tohsaka, having never met a Professor before, would have no idea of the Academy Professor dress code being a plain black robe. So she would assume that they were pretending to be a Priest.
"What makes you so sure it was him? Couldn't it have been any of the Professors?"
"There weren't many Professors that wanted to be involved in human experimentation. Burtenzel, formerly of the now dead Werkestock Duchy, is the only one I can think of who was openly supportive of experiments on unwanted noble children and on the commoners with the Devouring. Though there could have been others wise enough to keep such opinions secret." Ferdinand said. "Burtenzel is probably the number one reason why the purge in Werkestock was as bad as it was, after his experiments involving infusing Black Feystones into human hosts."
Ferdinand himself had lived at the Royal Academy for five years straight, and had been well acquainted with most of the Professors there, whether he wanted to be or not.
Burtenzel had been a genius, in a way, but nothing he had discovered should have ever been researched in the first place. A human with a Black Feystone infused into their body was basically immune to magical attacks, being able to absorb them and throw them back, but they would die a horrible death because of it, with it being theorized to have destroyed the host's soul.
It was an act that broke so many laws that an entire Greater Duchy was wiped off of the map because of it.
"This will require more investigation." Ferdinand said, getting a groan out of Sylvester.
"Can't you just give it a rest?" Sylvester said, deciding that he really didn't want to know what his adopted daughter had gone through.
Not if the words 'human experimentation' were involved.
The summons came the morning after the weddings were over, and Rin went with Rihyarda, Ottelia, Angelica and Taiga to the dining hall for lunch with Rin's 'uncle'.
They had basically been prepared for this, so Rin was completely dressed up like one of those dolls that all noble children seemed to be, much to her annoyance, as she entered the dining hall.
The gathering was small, considering. Just Sylvester and Florencia, their guards, Count Traeburg, a few associates he was using as witnesses, Constanze and her escorts, and, to the surprise of Sylvester and Florencia, Veronica.
Though the one that shocked Rin and made her take shelter behind Rihyarda's skirt, was Ferdinand.
"Milady, what's wrong?" Rihyanda asked, confused by the uncharacteristic behavior.
"He's smiling." Rin said as she trembled behind Rihyanda. "Why is Ferdinand smiling?"
Ferdinand, a man who had never had anything other than a completely neutral expression on his face was wearing the brightest and most honest looking smile that Rin had ever seen.
It was terrifying. Especially given his status in her mind as being a Fake Priest.
The only time Kirei would have worn a smile like that was when he was in the act of eating a live baby in front of its mother or something equally horrible.
"Oh. That's just what Young Master Ferdinand looks like whenever Lady Veronica is around." Rihyarda explained to Rin.
"Well tell him to stop it! Him smiling goes against the natural order of things!" Rin hissed.
Sylvester and Constanze's mouths twitched with amusement as their little brother was called out, though Ferdinand didn't react at all. Though the pair regained control over themselves as Traeburg stepped forward.
"Tohsaka, I am glad to see that you are alright. Your grandfather and I were worried about you." The man said with a noble smile.
He was about twenty-five years old with green hair that was worn in a long braid, his smile and glasses not hiding his greedy eyes.
"Count Traeburg. You are speaking with the daughter of an Archduke of a higher ranked Duchy. Mind your manners." Veronica said coldly, earning looks of surprise from her children and daughter-in-law.
Traeburg flinched before obediently going down to one knee in front of Rin. "Pardon my rudeness. I was merely overwhelmed by joy that Dregarnuhr, the Goddess of Time, had answered my prayers and woven the threads of our fates together once again." Traeburg said.
Apparently, he was going to play at having met Rin before. She didn't know if this was because he honestly believed that she was his niece or because he didn't think that she would admit that her own backstory was a lie, and even if she said she didn't remember him, she would have been a three or four-year-old child at the time, not someone whose word could be taken into consideration.
"The two of you have met before?" Sylvester asked, looking towards Rin.
"Yes. Even if Tohsaka doesn't remember due to her young age, I had met her several times when visiting her mother." Traeburg said, an obvious lie.
"I think you'd be surprised how good Tohsaka's memory is." Sylvester said, gesturing for Rin to speak.
"...I'd seen his face before, on occasion, but he was never introduced to me as my uncle." Rin said, surprising the man.
If he was going to bullshit, so would she. He would offer credibility to her backstory.
Not that she would go with him.
"I see. So then you really are blood related then?" Florencia said, performing a sigh of relief. "I'm glad that our fears were unfounded, though we will need to send a message to His Majesty at once to clear up this misunderstanding, and apologize for getting his hopes up."
"A message to His Majesty? Why?" Constanze asked, puzzled by the comment as Traeburg stiffened.
"Given her number of elements and her mana capacity, we had believed it was highly likely that Tohsaka was the daughter of royalty, being kept in secret by a known rebel house before escaping during their downfall." Ferdinand said, his smile not matching his words. "Given her age, we thought she might even be the missing Princess Aelita. Naturally, we sent word to the Royal family in order to check our suspicions, but if you can confirm that Tohsaka is indeed the daughter of your half sister, then that means that our suspicions were wrong."
Count Traeburg's noble smile didn't charge, but you could see the panic in his eyes. "That is… some theory. And… I wasn't there when my half-sister gave birth." The man said, trying to stop his own sweating by sheer force of will.
If he claimed Rin, took her back with him and she ended up being a missing royal, that would look like an act of treason. He and his entire family would be put to death. Even the things he had said already could get him killed.
"You do not appear well, Count Traeburg." Constanze said, getting the man's attention. "Perhaps you should return to your room and rest. I'll speak to my family myself."
"Ah… of course." The Count said before bowing out, visibly doing his best not to run the moment he was dismissed.
Rin wished that she could laugh at the man, though the moment the doors were closed and the magic tools that prevented eavesdropping had cut the man and his group off, Constanze could control herself anymore, and burst into laughter.
"That idiot. Did you see the look on his face?" She said, showing a bright and genuine smile to the party, earning nostalgic smiles in return from Sylvester and Florencia.
"Constanze, you are the first wife of an Archduke visiting an allied Duchy, act appropriately." Veronica scolded her daughter.
"Come on mom, don't be such a stick in the mud. Everyone is family here." Constanze said as she relaxed in her seat, her resemblance to Sylvester becoming all the more obvious, despite her blonde hair.
"Something makes me think that Count Traeburg is going to be dropping his attempts to claim Tohsaka." Sylvester said.
"Yeah, but he is still going to act as if you strong armed him out of it and treat it as a political hill to die on." Constanze said with an annoyed sigh. "Honestly Syl, even after all these years you keep coming up with new ways to cause me trouble."
"Don't act like I've never done anything for you." Sylvester replied with an annoyed sigh.
"True, but family helps each other out." Constanze said with a shrug.
"How bad is it?" Florencia asked, worried about her once home.
"...I'd say it could be worse, but it's bad." Constanze said with a sigh, being completely open with her family. "We aren't able to scrape enough mana together for the fields, Feybeasts are becoming a problem because of a lack of knights and all of our provinces are starting to ignore my husband's calls for us to stand united, instead focusing completely on their own territory. Those girls who are young enough are all trying to marry out of the territory. Can't say I blame them, but things are looking bleak for the future if even the baby makers are disappearing. Honestly, those chalices you sent us last Winter probably saved us from having to pick a few towns to abandon to die. I suppose I have this little cutie to thank for the save."
Rin was surprised as Constanze knelt down and started to pat her head.
"Um… You're welcome." Rin said awkwardly. "But you say you are having starvation problems. Wasn't most of Frenbeltag's food imported? I thought it mainly grew cotton."
"Ah, yes. Well, everywhere we used to import from is also having problems, so we have had to switch over to wheat." Constanze said.
"I see." Rin said.
So not only did Frenbeltag not have food, they didn't have money either.
The country had really screwed itself over with the civil war, but while Ehrenfest was a pitiful state that was basically self-sufficient, many of the other Duchies depended on food imports from somewhere. Only, there wasn't anywhere with a surplus because all of the Duchies had mana shortages.
…And because of this, everyone wanted Rin's mana. Not that even she could support more than one Duchy by herself.
"We'll need to think of a way to increase food production." Rin mumbled before looking up at her adopted aunt. "In the meantime, would you like to watch the first voyage of the new railroad with us?"
"Railroad?"
Great, now Constanze wanted to be in on the interduchy railroad plan too, despite not having the mana to offer to help build it, and Veronica wanted them to expand into Ahrensbach as well, despite them not offering any mana either.
Sylvester was annoyed, but he was sympathetic with his sister about the position her new home was in, and he wanted to make Florencia happy as well. Veronica and Ahrensbach, not so much.
The first run of the railroad went without any problems, and gave Sylvester huge hopes for the future. Not only that, there were reports coming from all over the Duchy following the start of the harvest.
Every single area visited by Tohsaka was reporting twice as much yields as was expected given the amount of mana they had received. This was something that Sylvester and Ferdinand were having a hard time wrapping their minds around.
Strictly speaking, all of the chalices were filled from the same source, so there shouldn't have been any difference between the ones given by Tohsaka and those offered by any other Blue Priest. Yet the fields were positively filled until overflowing.
It was as if the Gods simply liked the girl more.
Either way, they didn't just end the food shortage, they were going to end up with a 15% surplus. This, along with the drastic decrease in transportation costs after the Liesegang forked over the money to be connected to the railroad system, had dropped the cost of their staple foods by as much as 30%, and they had started making arrangements with Frenbeltag to sell off their excess.
There was also a steady supply of timber coming in, and stone and iron.
By the time Autumn was coming to an end, the effects of the railroad were already becoming apparent. Their only problem currently was that they only had one train and not enough spare labor to build more with Winter coming.
But Sylvester was unexpectedly happy when he was listening to all of the reports, until one came in that he was starting to believe just wouldn't show up.
"The Zent has sent a request to meet Tohsaka in person."