Gewinnen Set That Plays Ditter

“I have been meaning to ask this, Professor Solange, but do you know of the Royal Academy’s twenty mysteries?”

Lady Rozemyne brought up the topic, setting off a conversation about the mysteries of the Royal Academy. It was a much lighter topic for me compared to conversations with royalty. It seemed I wasn’t the only one, either, as Professor Solange also joined in with immediate interest.

“Well,“—Lady Rozemyne was asked to elaborate—“I know of a statue of the gods that dances on the night of the graduation ceremony, I also know of a gazebo where the Goddess of Time plays pranks and a gewinnen set that plays ditter. There is also the forbidden archive. I do not know the details of any of these, but perhaps Professor Solange and Lady Hannelore do? I would love to hear more about them as well.”

A gewinnen set that plays ditter… She’s talking about that story, isn’t she?

Debating whether to speak or remain silent, I listened to Professor Solange’s stories of the mysteries. She told us about the shrine of the two supreme gods and the gazebo where the Goddess of Time plays pranks. Both were stories I wasn’t familiar with and thoroughly enjoyed.

After Professor Solange was done, Lady Rozemyne looked at me with expectant golden eyes. Prince Hildebrand also directed a similar hopeful gaze. Unable to avoid it, I spoke up.

“I am familiar with the gewinnen set that plays ditter. A gewinnen set the size of a baptized child will begin a game in the middle of the night. I am told many have seen it with their own eyes, but I do not know the details.”

That’s a lie. I do know the details. More precisely, I know the truth.

◆

It’s not an old story at all, actually taking place only some ten years ago. At that time, treasure-stealing ditter matches were still conducted at the Royal Academy, and the apprentice knights from Dunkelfelger had an old tradition of replaying each match using gewinnen as a means of debriefing.

But then, during one year’s debriefing, someone had the idea of playing the game of gewinnen on-site instead of at the game board, as it would be less confusing. Many knights agreed, adding that a board simply can’t account for such things as terrain or obstacles.

And so, in the dead of night above the Royal Academy, the knights attempted to play a game of gewinnen by flying the pieces in the air. However, the gewinnen pieces were too small to see at night. They had no choice but to abandon the idea that year.

However, fundamentally, Dunkelfelger knights don’t give up. They had a gewinnen set made to order, much larger in scale. Each piece was about the size of a newly baptized child and glowed when saturated with mana, making them visible even in the dead of night.

“This is how it should be done.”

The year the massive gewinnen set was crafted was also the year Dunkelfelger suffered its first defeat at the hands of a strategist named Ferdinand. That day, a massive debriefing was held in the sky of the Royal Academy, where the apprentice knights and the knights who came to watch the Interduchy Tournament all joined in, trying to figure out what went wrong and how to overcome the strategy used against them.

In order to recreate the ditter match that occurred that day, the massive glowing gewinnen pieces were flown around next to all the dormitories. Naturally, that sight was witnessed by many people, causing quite a commotion.

The next day, rumors of glowing gewinnen pieces that flew across the sky began to spread in the Royal Academy. To prevent any further disturbances, Professor Rauffen prohibited us from playing gewinnen with those pieces in our debriefings.

Since then, the oversized gewinnen pieces only see use when someone from the Dunkelfelger dormitory wants to play a prank.