PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm

Partyway through reading these tow chapters, I started to think that Raublut was the father of the Lanzenave King, but it seems I was wrong on that account.

I too believed Raublut to be a red herring before. He was just too suspicious ironically. Then again, Kazuki sensei was far from suble when establishing Grausam, Georgine and Detlinde too, so I guess we really should have seen this coming XD. I too got immensely worried for Hortensia from reading the new release, but your post actually made me a bit more hopeful.

Lanzenave's side has mind controlling drugs, meaning it would be easy enough for them to make Hortensia open the archive for them. This means they have a good and solid reason to keep her alive, at least until she did that for them. If they kill her however, they run into several risks and problems. First of all, neither we, nor probably they, know if the archive keys have some contingencies built into them. It's entirely possible that should the wielder die, the keys are teleported to the archlibrarian rooms... rooms which only Hortensia is currently able to open, but which she surely locked, when returning to her home... with a key that was absorbed into her body and thus will not drop to the floor upon her death for certain. Or since they are tied to the library and an archive meant for royalty, either the library or the royal family might get an automatic alert upon the death of a keyholder, blowing their cover instantly. There's also the issue of ordonnanzes. If she is dead, no ordonnanzes can be sent to her and if anyone tried, they would become instantly aware of her death, leading to some uncomfortable questions for Raublut. But even if they are certain they can get the archive key from her, without setting off any alerts, it took Hortensia multiple days to dye it. So in my opinion it's probably far more benefitial and less risky for them to keep her alive, than to kill her... that is, IF they really need to get into the underground archive, which is likely, but not entirely certain.

But if they do, that would mean they will also need Rozemyne and Hannelore, since the archive only works when all three keys are used together.

Considering how Gervasio said that Valemaria's death was due to the laws of Yurgenschmidt, I have a feeling that she died as part of the purge and that Raublut's attempts to bring down the royal family started only at her death. Which means he might have proofen himself a capable and seemingly loyal retainer to Trauerqual, before going off the deep end. And once Trauerqual became a Zent with neither the necessary training, nor a Grutrissheit, he probably became so overworked and exhausted, he failed to notice any small slips in Raublut's facade that may have happened.

It would be quite interesting if he was put in a position, were he had to harm Hildebrand, but has grown so fond of the boy, that it is an actual struggle for him to decide whether to go along with this duty, or maybe even have this as his breaking point and abondon his Lanzenave master over it.