Bring Me to The Forest
The forest snow had started to melt and seeds were growing, or so Tuuli told me after coming back from the forest.
Kids going to the forest for gathering meant that my horrible hibernation was over. I had learned how terribly full of spare time life was without books, but never again would I suffer through that.
Because now, I can make clay tablets! Tuuli said that there’s still so much snow it’s hard to walk and there’s not much to gather anyway. But the relative lack of plant life is no problem to me.
What I want is sticky clay, and I’ll find it if I dig into the ground. I want to go to the forest and make clay tablets. As long as I can reach the forest, it’s my win.
Of course, I wouldn’t be going to the forest alone. I needed Tuuli by my side, to keep an eye on me. Which meant I needed to do a little more begging.
“Please, Tuuli,” I said while sliding up to her. “I want to go to the forest too. I want to be friends with everyone. Please take me with you to the forest!”
“No way. You can’t walk that far.” Her response was the exact same as last time. But if I backed down, it was all over. I had to resolve her lack of trust.
“I’ve gotten a little stronger! If I can’t walk that far, I’ll just wait at the gate. Please.”
Tuuli was hesitant, but I had spent every day exercising, eating healthily, walking to the well with Tuuli to wash dishes, and just generally building up strength. I should be strong enough to go by now.
“...Only if Dad says okay.” Tuuli gave up on shaking me off and dumped the responsibility onto Dad. That was inevitable anyway, since he would need to take care of me if I had to stop at the gate.
I shifted my sights to convincing Dad. “Dad, can I go to the forest too? I haven’t gotten any fevers lately!”
“Good point...”
I had been very careful over the winter, so I only got fevers and passed out five times total. Um... That’s a lot less, okay? My family was really impressed. They’re like, wow, that’s amazing, you’re doing so much better. And they mean it!
Not being bedridden with fevers all the time meant that I could eat decent meals more often, which naturally meant that I ended up with more nutrition, and I started growing a bit more. I wasn’t as tall as the average kid my age, but I had definitely gotten stronger. Probably.
“If I really can’t make it, I’ll just rest at the gate. Please? Pleeease?”
Dad fell into thought. The fact he didn’t turn me down immediately like Tuuli gave me hope. I kept up my attack, wanting his permission no matter what.
“I just need to get used to it. There are three-year-olds that go to the forest, right? There’s no way I can’t go myself.”
“Aaah, I mean, that’s true, but... Those are the three-year-olds so packed with energy that they rampage around the house. Their parents are basically kicking them out, alright?”
“...So I can go to the forest if I throw a tantrum?”
“No need for that. Don’t be dumb.”
I was desperate to get Dad’s permission because once spring came Mom would start working again, which meant that I would need to go to Gerda’s place for babysitting again.
That place was horrible for me, mentally and emotionally. I hated it there. I’d avoid going there again at any cost. I didn’t want to see kids getting neglected.
“Dad, you’re worried about me not being strong enough, right? Well, what can I do, then? What will make you willing to let me go?”
“Good question.” Dad closed his eyes to think. I waited patiently for his answer. “...Stop at the gate for now.”
“At the gate? How long is for now?”
“Until you can walk to it on your own. You can go to the forest once you can keep up with everyone.”
In other words, he wasn’t letting me go to the forest that easily. I got the feeling that the clay tablets of my dreams had gotten a little further away. But getting strong enough to walk to the gate on my own was absolutely necessary for Dad to trust me despite my history of weakness.
Well, it’s not going to the forest, but at least this way I don’t have to go to Mrs. Gerda’s.
“...Okay. That works for me, Dad.”
I nodded and saw Dad’s expression soften with relief. He probably thought that if I had refused, I actually would have thrown a tantrum.
“Hey, Dad. Does this mean I’ll be walking home after reaching the gate?”
“No. You can stay and have Otto teach you letters.”
“Wait... Really?” Dad got that jealous over Otto teaching me letters, and now he doesn’t mind at all? What in the world happened to him?
I tilted my head in confusion as Dad furrowed his brows a little.
“Your body’s weak, Myne. But Otto said you’re smart. He said you’d have no problem getting a job that uses your head. The best thing I can do is let him teach you letters. The more you know, the easier that’ll be.”
Otto had understood my musclehead father’s love for his daughters and given him the perfect argument to convince him. I was so grateful that I could almost cry. I hadn’t expected at all that he would officially let Otto be my teacher.
“I was thinking you’d be a good fit for a job that uses your hands, but Otto told me jobs that take smarts pay better, and they’ll be easier on your body.”
“Jobs that take smarts? What kind of jobs are those?” I couldn’t imagine what kind of jobs there would be in this world for smart people. Were there really any jobs where I could just use my head?
“Well, he said there are people that write paperwork for administrators and nobles. You could do that at home when you’re feeling unwell, no problem.”
Writing paperwork for others? That was probably similar to a paralegal back in Japan. That was definitely the kind of job I could do at home, as long as I was qualified. Though I had no idea what getting qualified would imply.
“Otto’s a soldier, but he used to be a traveling merchant. He’s still got some connections to the Merchant’s Guild. Your mother and I can’t introduce you to many jobs you’d be good at, so don’t waste what you have with Otto.”
Um... Dad sure has gotten mature about this, huh?!
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll do my best.”
As Dad ruffled my hair, I turned to look at Tuuli. “Tuuli, will you help?”
“...You won’t make it.” Tuuli shook her head. She also took good care of me as her little sister, helping me with whatever I needed, but she wouldn’t budge on taking me to the forest.
Dad seemed like he was on Tuuli’s side there, so he just nodded gravely. “I know she won’t. Not now. But Myne’s the one who’ll suffer if she can’t make it to the forest.”
“That’s true, but... she’ll get in the way...”
“She will. Right now, she’s a burden on everyone.”
Both Tuuli and Dad considered me a burden. Dead weight. I knew it was true, but hearing them say it right in front of me really did hurt.
“She needs to get strong enough to walk as fast as everyone else first. Until then, she’ll stop at the gate. I’ll walk with her until she can reach the gate. Once she gets strong enough for that, I’ll want your help, Tuuli.”
“...In that case, I’ll do my best.” Tuuli, with her strong sense of responsibility, gave a big nod.
But I just slumped my shoulders. My family had utterly no faith in my strength whatsoever, just like always.
...I can’t believe they think I won’t even make it to the gate. Don’t they know I barely get out of breath walking to the well now? Sheesh.
The next day, I went to the gate with Dad in the late morning, when the sun was already high up. I could only go to the gate with him when he had noon duty.
There were three shifts at the gates: morning duty, from the opening of the gates to noon; noon duty, from noon to the closing of the gates; and night duty, from the closing of the gates to the opening of the gates. Until I could walk to the gate on my own, I would need to walk with Dad on the way there and then, depending on my health, either wait for Tuuli to come back from the forest or wait for Dad to finish work so I could go home with him.
“Don’t push yourself too hard, sweetie. Keep a close eye on Myne, Gunther.”
“Yeah, ’course. Let’s go, Myne.”
“Bye bye.” I waved Mom goodbye as she looked on with worry, and then held hands with Dad as we walked to the gate. I had built up enough strength that I didn’t need to rest as soon as we reached the bottom of the stairs, but by the time we reached the main street, I was already a little out of breath.
You know... now that I think about it, I’ve never walked to the gate on my own before. Someone’s always carried me on their back or shoulders, not to mention the cart.
“Feeling alright, Myne?”
“I’m, still... okay...” If I gave in too soon, he might never let me go to the forest for the rest of my life. I said I was still okay to avoid that, but I really wasn’t okay at all. My body felt so heavy I wanted to just slump onto the ground.
“You don’t look okay at all, y’know. Up you go.” Dad let out a sigh and lifted me up. In moments, I was leaning against him and breathing heavily in exhaustion. I... I can’t do it! I’m gonna die! My family was right. I could never make it to the forest like this.
“Hey, Dad. Otto’s going to be teaching me letters now, but is it really okay for me to take that much of his time? What about his own work?” Otto worked as a guard. No matter how you looked at it, teaching me to read had nothing to do with his job.
“We have five apprentices that finished their spring baptisms. Part of Otto’s job is to teach them to read.” It was important for a guard to be at least somewhat literate. If they couldn’t read and write the names of people and their jobs, they couldn’t do their job properly.
“So he’s going to teach me with them?”
“Yeah, pretty much. But you’re not gonna participate as an apprentice guard. You’re Otto’s assistant.”
“Assistant?” Is that really gonna work with a kid like me? There’s no getting around the fact that I look like a three-year-old girl. I don’t think anyone will buy that I’m Otto’s assistant.
“Myne. You helped Otto with his work, didn’t you?”
“Well, with the budget reports and stuff... But all I did was a little math.” I only helped Otto once. He had mentioned swallowing his pride, so I thought it best not to spread the word and thus didn’t tell Dad about it. But it seemed that Otto did report it, under fear of getting reprimanded otherwise.
“Yeah. Otto’s been saying for a long time that work’s too much for him to handle alone, but nobody has been good enough at math to help. He himself said he wants to teach you letters and make you his assistant.”
I had asked to learn letters in return for helping him with work, but it looked like he wasn’t joking when he said he wanted me to be his assistant.
“From his perspective, you’re gonna be his assistant, but we can’t actually give work to a kid that hasn’t been baptized yet. So officially speaking, you’re just going to the gate to learn letters. Your payment is in slate pens. When you’re sick, you don’t have to go. Otto was real serious about convincing me. Said I wouldn’t find a cheaper helper for him anywhere.”
To sum things up, they wanted me to help Otto with his paperwork while he taught me to read. Preparations for next year’s budget season, I could guess. To think that Otto would talk to his superior and work out a plan to get me “hired” as his helper with a salary of slate pens... I would expect nothing less from a merchant. I got the feeling he was experienced in earning profit without hurting his own wallet too much.
Dad and I reached the gate, with him having carried me about half the way there. I needed to rest in the night duty room as soon as we got there. I doubted I’d be able to do anything else. In fact, I was so exhausted that Dad set me down onto the bench himself. It wasn’t until past noon that I managed to get up.
“Hey, Myne. I’m about to start class. Feeling up to it?”
“Uh huh.”
Otto came looking for me, so I took my tote bag and left with him to the gate’s training room. One of the corners inside said room had a table with chairs, and there sat five boys who had just been baptized. Those were probably the apprentices that Dad mentioned.
“Myne is the daughter of my captain, and she’s been helping me with my paperwork. She’ll be joining you five in learning to read. No teasing her or anything like that.” Otto introduced me in a very teacher-like fashion and began class. He began writing the fundamental letters of the alphabet on a big slate board. Learning to read would be impossible without memorizing all of them.
“First, learn all of these letters.” He started today by writing five of the thirty-five letters while pronouncing them. I had learned some of them before, so it wasn’t too hard to memorize them.
“...You sure are a fast learner, Myne.”
“I like this kind of thing more than physical stuff, so...”
Unlike nearly all of the children in this world, I was used to studying. Having no resistance toward active studying was the key to learning things quickly, in my opinion. As the saying goes, if you love your work, your work will love you. I honestly felt bad for the five apprentices who were holding a pen for the first time in their lives, and had to get used to the simple act of writing before anything.
“Mr. Otto, I think we’ve studied letters enough for today,” I declared.
Upon hearing that, Otto turned around with his eyes wide open in surprise. “Wha? Already?”
My gut told me that only about thirty minutes had passed since starting, but those were long, painful minutes for the boys around me. They were already starting to move around in their seats, fidgeting. Proof that they had gotten bored.
“It’s not reasonable to expect people who have never held a pen before to concentrate for long periods of time. After having them study letters for a bit, switch to math. Have them sketch maps of the city. Teach them the moral code of city guards and what rules they’ll have to follow. Mix in some exercise. If you cover a lot of different topics in one day, they’ll learn and remember things better.”
Otto looked at me with a shocked expression.
Really though, the lessons one could learn from elementary school scheduling applied here, especially given their age. Think about spending an entire day learning hiragana in class, or any other kind of alphabet. No elementary schooler I knew could bear that. Doubly so when it comes to the kids of this world, who aren’t very used to sitting down for long.
“Let’s move on to math. You can start by counting the numbers.” Thanks to how they’d gone shopping before, each of them could count up to ten. But a few of them seemed a little shaky on some of the numbers, so Otto said the numbers out loud while writing one through five on the slate. Once the kids got antsy again, I suggested we stop with math and move on to exercising to blow off steam.
“I think that’s enough studying for today, Mr. Otto.” Directing the classroom in the form of giving advice to Otto, I let the kids go early. “Be sure to memorize all the letters and numbers we discussed today. If you don’t, you’ll end up behind and it’ll take a lot of extra studying to catch back up. Memorizing letters and numbers is a very important part of your job.”
The children cheered at the early dismissal and left the room. Otto, looking confused, steadily developed a sour expression as he watched them go. “Myne, seriously, they’ll never learn if we go easy on them.”
“Mmm? But if they start associating studying with miserable boredom, it’ll just take longer for them to learn. A pace like today’s is ultimately for the best. You really shouldn’t compare them to me.”
“Ah... Right.” Otto, noticing that he had been subconsciously comparing the boys to me, awkwardly scratched his head.
“Plus, it’s still their responsibility to memorize the letters, so I don’t think this is going easy on them.”
“True. Self-responsibility is rough for little kids just starting work.” Otto gave me a conflicted smile, so I smiled back while letting out a quiet sigh. I had said all that based on my experience from my Urano days, but really, who knew how right it all was.
Otto and I returned to the night watch’s room so that he could use the rest of the time to give me a personal lesson. I had him write some words on the slate, which I then practiced writing myself. Meanwhile, he started his paperwork.
“Okay, it looks like you have a good grasp on your letters. I think now’s a good time to start teaching you words. I’ll start with the ones we use all the time.”
And so, since I had mastered the alphabet, Otto started to teach me words. But all the words he taught me had to do with provisions and other things related to the work of a city guard. He really was fully intending for me to help him with his paperwork. I got the feeling that the moment I had a usable level of literacy, he wouldn’t even wait for next year’s budget season before putting me to work.
...I mean, the first words and phrases he taught me were “Person Inquiry,” “Noble,” “Letter of Introduction,” and “Written Petition.” Um, does he think I’ll ever use those in my day to day life? If he would at least start with the list of provisions from the budget, I could learn some kinda useful words like the names of food, plants, and equipment...
Dad came looking for me while I was in the middle of writing on my slate. The gate was just about to close, which meant Tuuli and the others had returned from the forest. I put my slate into my bag and went home with them.
“Let’s go home, Myne.”
The other kids, carrying baskets and various tools and other things for gathering, stared at me and my single tote bag.
“Wha? Myne?”
“That’s Tuuli’s little sister? I’ve never seen her before.”
The unrestrained stares of the somewhat dirty children made me reflexively hide behind Tuuli.
“Well, there’s no helping that. Myne doesn’t go outside too much.”
Apparently, past Myne had barely ever participated in neighborhood social events, so the local children considered her something of a rare monster with a low encounter rate. Tuuli comforted me by saying “They’re not bullying you, they’re just looking,” but it didn’t really help.
“You walking back home with us, Myne?”
“Lutz!” Sincerely relieved to see a familiar face, I looked around to see if Ralph was there too. But I couldn’t see him anywhere, despite how much his tall stature and red hair should have stuck out. “Huh? Where’s Ralph today? Is he sick?”
“Ralph turned seven this spring. He’s at work today.”
“Wow...” Ralph wasn’t even seven when I met him, huh? I did know him from past Myne’s memories, but he was so tall and considerate that I just assumed he was eight or nine. Wait... Is it just me or did Lutz get a lot taller during the winter too? I have to look up a bit more to see his eyes now, I think.
With those thoughts in mind, I started walking home. The other kids sped up naturally, likely wanting to get home as soon as possible to unload their stuff. They were just about to leave me behind, but Tuuli and Lutz backed me up.
“Don’t rush, everyone!”
“You okay, Myne?”
I was trying to walk as fast as I could, but the group kept getting ahead of me. Children were merciless. They wouldn’t wait for me; I was just too slow. “They’re so fast...”
“Sorry, Lutz. Would you take care of Myne for me? I need to go watch over everyone.” Tuuli had become the oldest out of the pre-baptism children, so she found it necessary to prioritize them over me, especially if Lutz could watch over me.
“Alright. Take it slow, Myne. I won’t be able to carry you right now if you pass out.” Lutz was the only one to stay behind with me and walk slowly. I didn’t want to be even more of a burden on him, so I gladly followed his advice and slowed down.
“What were you doing at the gate, Myne?”
“Learning my letters.”
“Letters? You can write?!” Lutz looked at me with utter shock. I got the feeling his eyes were shining with respect and admiration for me, but I didn’t know enough words to really say that I could write. His admiration was just kind of making me feel awkward.
“I can still barely write my own name. I’m still practicing.”
“Holy cow, Myne! You can write your own name? That’s awesome!”
...Um? He looks even more impressed now, somehow. I really didn’t think anyone would get this impressed by me being able to write my name. But thinking about it, I remember Otto mentioning that in a rural village only the town chief will know how to read and write, and that Dad was pretty amazing just for being able to write names.
...I’d looked down on him, thinking that it was obvious to be able to do that much, but in truth I should have been impressed. I now understand just how important being able to help with paperwork really is. Which explained why Otto was more invested in teaching me, rather than his fellow soldiers. Someone satisfied with just writing names would never be able to help with paperwork.
“Haaah... Haaah...”
“You okay, Myne?” Learning letters was simple for me, but building strength was something else entirely. Whether I liked it or not, I had to recognize here that everyone had their own strengths and weakness.
By the time I reached home with a worried Lutz by my side, I was so tired I couldn’t even talk. As expected, I caught a fever and ended up in bed for two days.
“Goodness gracious, I told you not to push yourself!” Mom was peeved, but I really had gotten stronger. A fever that normally would have knocked me out of commission for five days only lasted two. By the third day I was up and about.
I walked to the gate with Dad, ended up tired out halfway through, and got carried the rest of the way. From noon onwards I studied reading and writing, plus helped Otto with his calculations. I walked home with the others, but soon ended up left behind and out of breath with Lutz beside me, worried. When I got home, I ended up in bed.
That routine repeated for about a month, but I was unmistakably building up strength. At first I rested for three days after each trip, but soon those three days became two, and eventually I alternated between going and resting. I was still slow then, but I could manage to walk all the way to the gate on my own.
Eventually, it became two trips per one day of rest, then three trips per one day of rest. My family threw a huge celebration the day I finally went five days in a row without getting sick.
“You did it, Myne. You went the whole week without resting for the first time.”
“My little girl’s all strong now! Daddy’s proud!”
“You’ll be able to go to the forest soon, dear.”
My family’s excitement encouraged me to push myself harder, but that led to me getting a fever that knocked me out for two days. Things wouldn’t be that easy.
It was three months after starting to go to the gates that I finally got permission to go to the forest. Signs of summer were beginning to show, marking the end of spring.
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