PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm

Congratulations Leonzio, you managed to shoot up to the top of most hated people in the story, even above Detlinde! I hope you are proud of yourself. I was kind of hoping he'd be disgusted by how aweful Detlinde is and only playing the love-stuck fool to manipulate her, but nope, he seems to be at least as evil as her, taking outright delight in tormenting Letizia... except that he didn't get tortured and abused by his mother his enough life, like Detlinde was, to turn him into this monster, which makes him even worse than her to me.

I hope his death will be exceptionally painful and drawn out over a long time.

Not sure whether to put Georgine on his level or slightly below him though.

Looks like I guessed correctly, that they hid an antidote in the candy, so facilitate balming Letizia. Still nice to see that Ferdinand's first instinct was to kick Letizia out of the poison cloud to protect her. Though I was clearly wrong about Ferdinand initiating the contact with Rozemyne intentionally. Seems like his shouting of her name, was a reaction to her mana surging out of the charm, rather than a deliberate act to show her what was going on, as I had assumed.

I'm also glad Ferdinand has Jsutus. That idiot Eckhart was so lost in his own little world once again, that he nearly betrayed Ferdinand for his own need for revenge. If it wasn't for their long history together, I would be tempted to have Ferdinand send Eckhart packing, for being too thought- and reckless to the point of being in danger of being a hindrance rather than an asset, unless very tightly managed. In this regard Hartmut is faaaar better as a retainer.

I didn't have much time for Sigiswald before, but this chapter form his POV really made me dislike him a whole lot less. He certainly is a lot sharper and aware than either Rozemyne's or Adolphine's POVs made him out to be and also a lot less selfish and more concerned about the country. Still far from a paragon of good behaviour, but hardly anything too far out of the ordinary among the majority of Yurgenschmidt nobles and a whole lot better than certain other individuals who showed their colours this volume. This once again brings me be back to one of Ferdinand's earliest lessons to Myne, about getting information from all sides, before making up your opinion.

Though I would have liked the Sigiswald chapter to go on a couple more sentences, explaining why Sigiswald immediately allowed Rozemyne to depart, rather than getting at least a perfunctury explanation