Ahhhh this feels sus AF! Multiple Grausam’s, multiple Georgine’s…Some really, really good body doubles, somehow? Is that even possible?
I do like the idea of Gunther punching TF out of enemies though.
I guess it is like how Rosemyne and Ferdinand have the same mana, since Ferdinand dyed Myne. Devouring soldiers can also be dyed if they partially turn into a feystone like Myne did. I guess you then modify their appearance somehow.
Rozemyne considered she might have ended up as a body double for Bindewald or Grausam, so it’s quite clear that magic exists, that allows someone to mold the physical appearance of another person to their liking (which might also explain why, with the exception of Bindewald and Fraularm, every single other noble is very handsome).
Between Rozemyne saying that it is possible, if someone was willing to invest the necessary resources and cruel enough, and Rozemyne’s physical pain while Erwärmen and Anwachs grew her body, it’s very likely quite costly for the performer and painful for the subject. I guess that means that Bindewald was probably either too greedy to invest the resources or too sequeamish to endure the pain of the procedure to make himself pretty.
I think she would’ve been Georgine’s body double. She has the same hair color as her. With a veil no one would notice the difference especially if she didnt speak.
I don’t think they are good body doubles. I think Grausam used his body doubles a lot for public events. So people confused his face.
For example when he poisoned Roz, they sealed the room but Grausam was already in the room.
Plus these two has no morals, so scarring commoners to make them look close. Like cutting off libs or adding scars.
If Bonifatius’ instinct was right, which it usually is, Grausam got in and out of the sealed hall through a secret passage, that just so happened to terminate near where Rozemyne was attacked.
Allowing one of his body doubles to be interrogated by Sylvester, Ferdinand and Bonifatius, would have been a massive risk.
I’m surprised Grausam overlooked the issue of wingless highbeasts. It’s been three years since they’ve been introduced at the Royal Academy and them becoming instantly popular with female non-knight nobles. Hannelore could have just as easily flown over the traps with her drivable shumil. But then he was rather isolated, due to Rozemyne turning the children of his faction against him and losing most of his information network in the purge later, so it isn’t a big issue.
I wonder if it’s possible to give a highbeast a God of Darkness blessing. They all have limbs and mouthes of some discription, which could be used to kick and bite others and some have additional potential weapons like antlers (take Justus highbest for example). And even if it’s not possible to use offensively, it would at least protect from getting drained by black-weapons or mana-stealing feybeings.
I was a bit surprised Quof picked “Hurah” for the knights to cheer with, rather than the Huzah or some other shout common in English speaking countries. Considering how many German words Kazuki-sensei uses for Yurgenschmidt stuff, it is fitting and the meaning is pretty clear from context anyway, so this is no criticism, I’m just surprised.
I wonder what is so worrying for Rozmyne. Georgine can’t steal the Ehrenfests fundation, so Sylvester is at ease. She can steal back the Arhenback foundation through the castle entrance, but neither Georgine nor Rozmyne care about that right now. Georgine logically should go into hiding and make some elaborate plot later on, but during this attack she burned a lot of resources, so she won’t be able to execute such plan. She could make some last ditch effort with suicide attack during the victory feast and hit whole archeducal family once and for all. She could trick Wilfred to do something or use instant poison.
I think seeing the bird turn into a stone and drop down, subconsciously reminded her of seeing people turned into feystones and triggered a mild PTDS attack.
Rozemyne’s most likely going to have more mental problems in the coming days, or whenever she has time to fully relax and have the full realization of events hit her.
As for Georgine, I’m very certain she’s been dealt with. Georgine could not have entrusted taking the Ehrenfest Foundation to a double, so the one Sylvester fought in the Foundation chamber itself must have been the real one.
If the situation was different, there would be the possibility of a double of Grausam or Georgine trying to take over the life of the original, now that the originals are gone. Of couse with Grausam and Georgine being outsted from both Ehrenfest and Ahrensbach and likely having incurred multiple death sentences from unauthorized use of black weapons and collusion with foreign invades, to give just two highlists, I doubt anyone would want to pose as either.
Though considering Georgine and Grausam’s personality, I strongly suspect that all those doubles were either name-sworn or devouring commoners with submission contracts worded in a way that would kill them, should the original die. That would just be like those two monsters.
The body doubles have me slightly concerned but I assume there must be some way to identify a dead person accurately given that body doubles of this type are apparently nothing new.
From the flow of the stoey so far I think we won’t be seeing much more action in the near future, it seems like we’re heading into polit land instead. Very interested in seeing the aftermath of this entire ordeal with the royal family though and how Rozemyne will manage to get them a Gutrissheit.
I do wonder how the doubles actually work.
- Are they full copies of Grausum each independtly?
- Are they just limited functional droid (similar to Shumils)?
- Do they communicate with each other? Also can they use ordinances with each other? (Imagen hi Grausum #1 to Grausum #2 status report).
I am absolutely certain that none of the doubles are living magic tools. Schwartz and Weiss are the pinacles of that technology and they very clearly aren’t able to pass as Human, even if you give them a body that would pass visual inspection. There’s also the issue of mana usage. Even the combat shumil, which have drastically reduced capabilities, still have immense mana concumption, to the point that without someone of royal family level of mana, they can only be run a couple of hours at a time. There is no way Grausam would be able to operate multiple of those at the same time.
Furthermore, how would he have been able to learn to make them? They were originally invented by an absolute genius in magic tool creation, with access to the full ressources of the Zent. It was only by chance that through Rozemyne’s library blessing Hirschur got the chance to copy their magic circles, and even then it took her and Ferdinand’s combined efforts to complete the circles and make their own version.
I really can’t believe that Grausam could either just figure this technology out on his own, or gain access to Hirschur’s blueprints. Not to mention that it would once again drop him back into the mana usage hole and that he already had those doubles, before Rozemyne became the master of Schwartz and Weiss the first time.
I’d guess independent people with perfect magical disguises. That would imply ordonanzes can be sent to the doubles if and only of you know who they actually are/were. Which also brings up the question of how ordonanzes to Grausam get handled. Do they all fly to the original? If so wouldn’t that expose the doubles pretty quickly?
Considering how Rozemyne and Ferdinand are able to receive their own Ordonnanzes, despite Erwärmen being unable to tell them apart, I think we can safely assume that each individual could get their own birds.
But I think that doesn’t lower the risk of exposure via airmail by much. Anyone who doesn’t know about there being doubles, would naturally sent the Ordonnanz to the real Grausam and would probably be quite surprised if the bird took off to fly outside the city, when you “know” that Grausam is just a couple of rooms away in the other direction.
Grausam was said to be exceptionally careful, so he probably used his doubles only sparingly and very strategically, to avoid exposing his little secret.
