Damn… I already felt bad for Karin, from what little the main story gave us, but I never considered, how the other Klassenberg people might treat her, after coming back. Considering it was Klassenberg that forced through the purge, I would not be surprised if a certain level of vindictivness were to run in the entire duchy, not just the archduke (or rather former archduke). I hope Otto’s being mistaken here. Or alternatively, that Karin does find a way to come to Alexandria and win Benno’s heart… or rather convince him of the economic benefit of their marriage. I think without the need to keep business secrets from her, they’d get along very well, probably better than many other arranged marriage partners do. And with Benno now being associated very closely to a full-on Aub, not to mention the Divine Avatar of a goddess, even Klassenberg merchants should be a bit weary of messing with him and accidentally getting into trouble over it.

I am rather confused about the gods supposedly not approving of traveling merchants drinking alcohol in a bar… why would the god of alcohol exclude hard-working merchants? Maybe it’s a matter of some of the soldiers disaprooving of their haunts being “infiltrated” by “greedy money grubbers” and so the traveling merchants learned to keep a low profile in such places, and they just told their children about this being the will of the gods, to make them accept it more easily. We saw how hostile Lutz’s family was toward any merchant, and I doubt they’d exclude the traveling ones from their ire.

Nice to get some time with Renate. From the main series we know barely more than her existing and playing Karuta with Kamil.

Rico’s chapter was quite something… reading about the horrible conditions from Myne getting pretty much only a glimpse at it, before fainting was already haunting, but now to have the perspective of someone inside? Wow…

So Yurgenschmidt people believe the moon and the sun are the same source of light, with it being called moon, when it’s dimmed by the God of Darkness’ cape at night… so does that mean their moon is never in the sky at the same time as their sun, like it happens at times with our celestial bodies of Earth and consequently they never have lunar or solar eclipses?

The side-story was a bit confusing. First we hear that the second mixing invites extended family, only for the actual thing to have solely the parents and one of Thorsten’s brothers plus his wife present, with excuses being made for the missing siblings alone. Siblings are usually not considered extended family as far as I know. There’s also a sentence that makes it sound as if engagement feystones are exchanged at the second mixing, if the mixing itself goes well, only to once again be contradicted by the actual event, when the pair only makes the decision when to exchange the stones, and even decides to exchange them unusually early, rather than waiting for the third mixing. This feels like someone in the writing or translating pipleline mixed the second and third colour mixings together.

But the final scene with Angelica trying to copy Rozemyne’s mannerism was just adorable. :3

Though now thinking more on it… Kamil was described as a smat child, so shouldn’t he wonder how Myne even knew what a book was, much less love them, at a time, when they didn’t have a single scrap of parchament in their house? With the whole Divine Avatar of the Goddess of Wisdom, there’d even be an easy way out of the true explanation at hand, with which Rozemyne could dissemble. ^^

Even though I wanted to see the explanation to Kamil, I liked the story for Trauerqual even more. After all the suffering he went through and living a life, the endless sisyphus touling, that never showed any payoff and paying for the sins of his brothers, seeing him see the fruits of his labour for the first time since the war, was heartwarming. I hope what remains of the Werkestock population, will come around and be able to forgive him, for what the greater duchies and circumstances forced him to do… or that they’ll at least keep the old grudges to themselves, so they’ll die with their generation, rather then being passed down to their descendance, like it happened in Ehrenfest with the Leisegangs and Gloria followers.

Looking at the map and the alteratered borders discussed in Volume 11, I feel like Eglantine could have given Ehrenfest some of Zausengas’s territory, instead of giving it all to Klassenberg. I know Sylvester said he didn’t need anything beyond walking back on Rozemyne’s adoption and marrying Sigiswald, but everything considered, a bit more appreciation than that would have been warrented, even if it was just a small portion of the former duchy, like drawing a straight line between it’s Frenbeltag and Klassenberg borders, as a symbolic gesture to the rest of the country.

I bet most duchies will think that it was solely Rozemyne and Dunkelfelger who did everything, while thinking the rest of Ehrenfest didn’t do anything and having this false assumption “confirmed” by Ehrenfest not getting any reward for their role in the fight. Sure they only gave rear-line support, but that’s still more than literally any other duchy apart from Dunkelfelger and not-yet-Alexandria.

It’s almost a shame we got the Epilogue from Lutz’s POV. I’d love to be in Rozemyne’s or Kamil’s heads during the reunion. I guess there’s still a chance we will get a Kamil POV chaper, that overlaps with Lutz’s epilogue. I certainly hope so, especially if they give him a more complete explanation, after Rozemyne and Ferdinand left. Nevermind… I am so used to having side-story chapters, after the epilogue, I forgot this was the final release… :( Oh well, maybe we’ll get something in the dedicated side-story books.

It was funny how Rozemyne said she was glad, Kamil still cried when she holds him. No wonder Lutz thinks he’s dealt with enough wackos for one life time. ^^

I always thought that Florencia was neglectful and was assuming that Rozemyne was being educated by Elvira (without bothering to ask Elvira whether this assumption was true) and thus didn’t lift much of a finger herself. I never realized the precarious situation she was in in regards to Rozemyne.

I guess she isn’t a complete failure as a mother after all… even though I still hold a bit of resentment for it taking the Ivory Tower incident for her to take back control of Wilfried’s education, rather than immediately doing it the moment Veronica was out of the picture, several months before.

Aunty Rozemyne :3

He even run toward Rozemyne of his own accord! Maybe the curse that had all babies she touched in this life and the previous burst out crying is finally broken. And it only took a literal divine possession to go away. :P

Has Quof or anyone at J-Novel said anything about the Hannelore spinn-off? It would be fantastic, if they’d start translating that right after the end of the main series.

I hope someone’s going to have some oversight over Clarissa, when she works on the security shumil, otherwise they’ll probably end up with the things incorporating a voice modulator, that’ll be used to lecture any captured thieves about Rozemyne’s greatness and divinity until the Human guards take them off their hands. ^^

With Philine not having graduated yet, I’m sure we’ll hear a thing or two, or might even get side chapters from her in the Hannelore spinn-off. I’d still want one here too, but even if there isn’t, there’s still a chance later.

Considering the kind of talk put out and encouraged by Detlinde and Georgine, I have a feeling it might well be the other way around with the Ahrensbach nobles finding out the gremlin of Ehrenfest is actually a saint… at least those not already indoctrinated by Hartmut and Clarissa anyway. ^^

Didn’t he say that already once, when she charged into Ahrensbach to save Ferdinand, while Sylvester was stuck in his own duchy, due to knowing of the imminent invastion? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Either way, here I think it shows that Sylvester noticed (and proofes) that for the first time since Sylvester met him, Ferdinand is doing things for his own wellbeing and not sacrificing his all for others.

If I have the numbers correctly in my head, Ferdinand is 13 years older than Myne (not counting the 2 year coma or age-shift for Rozemyne’s fake noble birth), and Benno is another 8 or so years older than Ferdinand. While 13 is a lot, 21 is still quite a bit more… At least Ferdinand isn’t old enough to comfortably be is future wife’s father, which Benno is easily.

There is not a single example of an underage marriage in the entire story. Arranged engagements yes, but not a single noble pair married, before their graduation + coming of age. In fact we have been outright told that it’s exceptionally rare for Detlinde to already marry just a single year after her gradation, when those plans were still on, due to just a single year of engagement being considered a rather rushed affair. That would have put her at 17, meaning that most nobles only marry at 18 or later. As in 18 their calender, which would be well 19 years old in a 365 day system.

We don’t have the details, but we were given a vague explanation of it being a battle of wills of sort, where the interrogator has to force the criminal to show a memory, while the criminal can try to some something useless instead. While it was not mentioned, I would suppose that having more mana would give one an advantage, whether you are in the interrogating or defending position.

That it’s possible for the interrogator to guide the memory search to some degree at least is also clear from the fact that it’s possible to “interrogate” corpses, or just detached heads, albeit we were told that the memories from corpses are difficult to access and most often fragmented.

I’m not surprised about Ferdinand choosing to look into Alstede’s memories over Detlinde. Acidity of personality aside, I’d also expect Alstede to know better. Alstede is a diligent person and was the one who actually dyed the foundation, while Detlinde is often too arrogant to recognize the gaps in (or complete lack of) knowledge and shirked that duty to her sister. If anyone had the complete knowledge, it’d be the older sister, even if Detlinde could be trusted, wasn’t layered in such unpleasant memories for Ferdinand and wasn’t so unpleasant a person. With Alstede being a rather meek person, she also probably had less resistence to the mental interrogation.

I wonder who they’ll make the knight’s commander. Cornelius is a bit young, but definitely can be trusted by Rozemyne and Ferdinand and has the support of his soon-to-be wife Leonore, who complements his skillset quite nicely with her own. Eckhart could be trusted even more by Ferdinand due to being namesworn, but his personality and propensity to extreme actions at a moment’s notice and disregard of anything that isn’t Ferdinand’s will don’t strike me as ideal for the job. Strahl already has experience on the job and would know the former Ahrensbach nobles and the lay of the land better than the two Ehrenfest boys, but would also be least familiar with either Rozemyne’s or Ferdinand’s way to do things and despite having amply demonstrated his allegiance and loyalty, is still less trustworthy than Rozemyne’s brothers. I suppose with two former Ehrenfest nobles in charge of the duchy, putting a local, rather than yet another Ehrenfester on the top of the knight’s order would probably be a good political move, to keep the other nobles mollified.

The execution magic was already scary and horrific enough without knowing the full details, but assuming the gods grant the request, even the souls of those executed are affected…