HOT NOVEL UPDATES

Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.1 - Chapter 17




Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

Clay Tablets Won’t Work 

As expected by basically everyone, going to the forest, making clay tablets, and exploding with rage all took so much out of me that I ended up bedridden with a fever. Apparently I had murmured “clay tablets” under my breath over and over the whole time. 

I clenched my fists, resolved to go right to the forest to make more clay tablets, but Dad wouldn’t let me. “No way, not a chance! We gotta see how your health holds up. Wait until tomorrow. Alright?” 

“...Okaaaay.” Naturally, he wouldn’t give me permission to do something as reckless as go straight to the forest the day after recovering from a fever. But still, he said I could go to the forest tomorrow if I didn’t get another fever today, so I started preparing for tomorrow with excitement in my heart. 

First, I took a board from the storage room (whose true purpose I didn’t know) and put it on the bottom of my basket for stability. I then took some torn-up cloths that Mom was intending to sew into rags and stealthily put them into my bag. With all that done, I could wrap the clay tablets up and bring them home with me.

Okaaay, time to make tons and tons of clay tableeets! I woke up in excitement the next morning, but it was raining hard. In fact, it was a torrential downpour, which was rare for this area. Things were so bad it was like a typhoon. We could hear the wind and rain even after tightly shutting our windows. 

“NOOOO! Rain?!” In a world without weather forecasts, we were at the mercy of Mother Nature’s whims. Or really, I was sick so much that I only ever left the house when my family said I could, which meant up until now I never had to worry about the weather. 

Visions of the clay tablets falling apart beneath the rain flashed through my mind. Although I had hidden them beneath some sturdy-looking shrubbery, they would definitely not survive this storm unharmed. 

“NGYAAAAAH! My (clay tablets)! They’re gonna turn into mush!” 

“Hold it, Myne! Just where do you think you’re going?!” 

“To the forest!” I immediately tried running outside without a second thought, but Mom grabbed the back of my neck and stopped me. 

“What in the world are you thinking?! You already get sick so easily, this storm would kill you! Do you not realize it’s so bad we can’t even go to the well?!” 

The sounds of the storm raged through our home despite the tightly shut windows, emphasizing just how bad the storm really was. I would never survive outside if even healthy adults hesitated to step outside to reach the well. 

I sunk to the floor. “My (clay tableeets)... Awww...” 

“Don’t worry, Myne. Everyone said they’ll help you, so you’ll be able to make new ones faster than before. You don’t need to get super mad again.” Tuuli rubbed my head, consoling me. She really was a good older sister. 

The rare storm continued for two days, and it took another two days after that before we kids were allowed to go to the forest again. 

It was a bright and sunny morning, and everyone looked excited to visit the forest again after so long. And today was a day where apprentices didn’t have work, so there were a lot more kids than usual, especially big ones. Lutz’s older brother Ralph was going to the forest too. He had a large basket on his back and was carrying a bow. 

“Heya, Myne. Feeling better?” 

“Hi, Ralph. I’ve been better, but the day Dad said I could go to the forest again, the storm hit.” 

“Now that’s rough.” Ralph rustled my hair and then went to see Tuuli. “Sup, Tuuli.” 

“Ralph! It feels like it’s been forever since we saw each other.” Perhaps due to having started work as an apprentice, Ralph looked a lot more mature and confident in himself. And Tuuli, who I had been cleaning up in preparation for her baptism, beamed an angelic smile. 

...Uh huh, these two would definitely be a nice couple, I think. Ralph and Tuuli both care a lot about others, so I think they would be a good fit for each other. I watched the two of them, grinning, when suddenly Lutz pulled me over to him. 

“Myne, get a grip. You gotta start at the front of the group since you walk so slow, remember?” 

“Right, sorry.” 

The platoon of kids, myself included, walked on and passed through the gate. What was normally a grassy wonderland had been scarred deeply by the storm, with mud scattered everywhere. Um... Does this world have financial assistance for natural disasters? 

I kept moving, looking around me in a dazed surprise, when something suddenly got in the way of my eyes. Surprised, I looked to the side and saw that Lutz was waving his hands in front of my face. 

“Wha? Is something up?” 

“Nah, I was just wondering if you were actually awake. Hey... Myne. Are you gonna make those, uh, (clay tablets) again? What are they, anyway?” 

Even if I wasn’t writing in Japanese, Lutz was illiterate. He had no idea what I was writing. Not to mention that his daily life involved no paper or writing whatsoever. There wasn’t a single letter written anywhere in his home. He no doubt knew nothing of the splendor of media in general, with clay tablets just one of the mediums of recording information he had never encountered in his life. 

I began to teach Lutz, feeling an odd sense of responsibility to proselytize books and writing. “Well, it’s simple. They’re things to write on. Like, if you have something you don’t want to forget, you can write it down on them. That way you can’t forget it, right? If you store the tablet properly, you can look at it whenever you want. That’s what (clay tablets) are for. They’re just one (medium of recording information) out of many. Clay is so squishy that you can just use a finger to wipe away mistakes, and once you’re done, you can harden them with fire. Don’t you think that’s amazing?” 

Maybe due to how I had said that all without pausing, Lutz just tilted his head a bit, mouth hanging open. “...Ya lost me. Anyway, what’d you write down?” 

“I wrote a story. One my mom told me. Like, I won’t forget it if I write it down, you know? What I really want are books, but there aren’t any here. So I’ll just have to make them myself.” 

“Hmmm. So that’s what you really wanna do, Myne?” 

I thought about Lutz’s question and suddenly realized something. I had been thinking for a long time that I wanted to make books, since they were too expensive for my poor family to own, but what I really wanted deep inside wasn’t to make books. 

“Mmm, not quite. What I really want is to live a life surrounded by books. I want tons and tons of new books to be made every month, I want to buy all of them, and I want to spend my life reading them.” 

“Uuuh, so basically, you want books...?” 

“Yes! I want them right now, so bad. But they’re too expensive to buy. They’re out of reach for me. So what can I do but make them myself? Paper’s also too expensive, so I’ll make (clay tablets), write stories on them, and harden them.” 

With that, Lutz finally clapped his hands together in understanding. “You’re making replacements for books right now, huh?” 

“Yeah! Things didn’t go well last time, but that’s the past! I’ll make sure it works out this time!” 

“Alright. I’ll help out.” Lutz was willing to go this far for me just because I shared a few recipes, which made me want to help him too. 

“Okay then, what do you want to do, Lutz? It sounded like you have something you really want to do yourself.” 

“I... Yeah. I want to go to other cities. You know how the bards and traveling merchants go to all sorts of places and know all sorts of things? I wanna do that too.” 

“Uh huh, that sounds really cool.” Speaking of which, back in my Urano days, I often dreamed of traveling the world to visit all sorts of foreign libraries and read their books. Thoughts of that now-unattainable dream flashed through my mind, and soon I lowered my eyes. 

“...You really think that? I mean, I’d be leaving this city, y’know?” 

“Aaah, traveling seems wonderful. You can go all over the place, it seems like so much fun. Like, I actually dreamed of traveling all over the (Earth) and visiting tons of (libraries)...” 

“Haaah... I dunno why I was worried about saying that. Man, Myne. You’re definitely gonna do what you want to do.” 

“What’s stopping you from doing the same, Lutz?” My head was so full of my Urano dreams and wishes that I wasn’t actually looking at him. I didn’t see what kind of face he was making.

Once we finally reached a dry part of the road, we walked on and soon came upon the forest. The slightly open part right inside was our meeting place. 


“Alright, let’s get to gathering, everyone. If you’re a littler kid, don’t go too far. Always stay where you can see the meeting place. Alright?” The larger kids made sure the little kids understood the rules before taking their bows and jogging deeper into the forest. The little kids glanced furtively in my direction. I was already exhausted just from walking to the forest, but I immediately began investigating the area to see what had become of my clay tablets. 

“Um, does anyone know where the (tablets) are?” I couldn’t find the tree the other kids had marked for me. At first I thought I had just forgotten where it was, since it had been several days since then, but everyone else was looking around too, just as lost as I was. 

“We definitely put the marker on a tree around here, didn’t we?” 

Fey’s cronies all nodded together. He was pointing at a place where several trees had fallen from the storm. 

“Well, we’ve got an idea on where they are, so we just gotta search.” Once Lutz began digging through the shrubbery, everyone else hesitantly joined in and searched with him. 

And it’s not just Fey’s friends, but everyone... They’re all such nice kids. 

“Hey, ain’t these it?” 

It took a lot of work to find the marker, but Fey waved me over while squatting by some bushes. I dashed over there as fast as I could and found clumps of clay stuck together without any visible letters on them. As expected, the rain had messed them so much all my work had been erased. The tablets had returned to their original form. Aaah... Back to square one. 

“I-I didn’t break them this time, a’ight?!” 

“...I know that.” 

Fey hurriedly covered for himself, but he didn’t have to. I knew it wasn’t his fault. I also knew everyone was buzzing around me, uncertain of what to do, not knowing whether they should console me or not. I knew I was stressing everyone out, but I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing out. 

As I sobbed quietly to myself, I heard footsteps approach. They stopped, and then moments later, someone hit me lightly on the head. 

“Myne, if you’ve got the time to cry, you’ve got the time to make more tablets.” Lutz’s voice broke through to me. He was right. I just had to try again, while Fey and the others were still willing to help me. 

I wiped away my snot and looked up. Right... I won’t let the world beat me! I first failed because of Fey. I then failed because of a storm. I’ve just experienced human and natural disasters. What else could the world throw at me? No matter what happens, I’ll finish these tablets! 

The clay I needed was right in front of me, so I just had to squish them into shape to start writing again. I knew where to get more if I ran out. Compared to when I was cluelessly searching for clay on my own, things were great. 

...This is okay. I’m not back at square one at all. From these failures I’ve learned that I either need to finish the tablets all at once on a sunny day, or I need to work in a building with a roof. Today’s weather is nice, and I have three helpers with more than enough strength and energy to spare. Fey and his cronies are only helping because of the promise they made out of fear, but still. With this many helpers, I should be able to finish the clay tablets in no time. 

“I only need Lutz, Fey, and Fey’s friends’ help. You can go focus on gathering, Tuuli.” 

“Okay... Good luck, everyone.” 

“Yeah!” 

Tuuli's encouragement brightened my mood and I got right to work making new clay tablets. I had Fey and his first crony dig out more clay, then I had Lutz and Fey’s second crony squeeze the clay into the shape of tablets. My job was just using a thin stick to carve letters into them. Uh huh, things are going perfectly. 

“I needed ten (clay tablets) to write the whole story, so once you’ve made that many, you can go start gathering. Thanks!” 

“Y-Yeah.” Fey and the others lined up tablets one by one in front of me, finishing all ten as soon as possible before running off to gather. And yet, Lutz kept digging out more clay. 

“You’re not going to go gather?” 

“Ralph’s here today, so I can stick around and help you instead.” 

“Hmm. Well, I have enough clay, so why don’t you practice writing on the ground?” The ground was soft due to all the rain, so I took my stick and carved “Lutz” into it, using the letters of this world. 

“What’s that...?” 

“Your name, Lutz. You won’t be able to travel the world if you can’t write your name, right?” People of our city could go in and out of the gate without much fanfare, but apparently strangers entering new towns were asked their name and had to write it down. Otto, a former traveling merchant, had told me that. The same was true for our city. Any strangers were checked quite severely before being let inside. If Lutz wanted to visit other cities someday, he had to at least learn how to write his own name. 

“Hey, Myne. This is, uh, my name?” 

“Uh huh. If you want to travel the world, you should start learning your letters.” Lutz started to practice writing his name on the ground with his green eyes sparkling. Meanwhile, I continued to write a story I had learned in this world in Japanese. I will DEFINITELY finish making this book, I chanted to myself over and over.

“Done!” I had finished writing one of the stories Mom had told me. I wanted to keep going and make Bedtime with Mom: A Short Story Collection out of clay tablets. It would be a “book” packed with stories I had learned for the first time by coming to this world. 

I wrapped the finished clay tablets in the rags and stacked them carefully inside my basket, making sure not to break them or rub the words off. Once they were all inside, I let out a heavy sigh. My eyes turned upward and tears dripped out. 

I had finished my first “book.” 

Really, clay tablets weren’t a sophisticated enough medium to really call books, but they were the closest thing I had in this world. I had begun life in this world at the end of fall, and spring was now ending. It took a very, very long time for me to get my first book. But now that I had made one, I got the feeling that my life here had finally stabilized. 

“I can read books again. I can read books in this world. So... I think I’ll be fine.” Since I had been reborn in a world where books were too expensive for poor people to read, and I had been reborn into a weak body that got sick over nothing, I never really cared about pushing myself too hard. I didn’t care if I ended up dying. This sickly child’s body didn’t feel like mine, and I couldn’t imagine living in a world without books. I had no attachment to anything. 

But now that I had a book, I had something I wanted to take care of. I got the feeling that I had finally found something worth living for in this world. I had found my path in this life. 

“You finished, Myne?” 

“Uh huh. I finished, thanks to everyone’s help.” Even if Lutz and Tuuli’s feelings were for Myne, not me, they had in fact helped me make this book. I took off the rag and showed Tuuli and Lutz the finished clay tablets. 

“Um, Myne. What’s written on these?” 

“This is the story of the star children. The one Mom told me on that first night.” 

“First?” Tuuli furrowed her brows in confusion. 

“Uh huh. It’s the first story that I remember.” 

Mom had whispered the story to me in a quiet voice the night I first became Myne, when I had such a high fever I couldn’t sleep. Her voice was filled with love, but it felt to me that her love was for someone else, not me. I didn’t accept having become Myne, so Mom’s feelings and words went in one ear and out the other. They just made my confusion worse. Nothing in the world hurt more than Mom’s love, for it worsened my sense of isolation. 

And yet, when I decided to make my own books, the story she told me was the first thing that came to mind. I got the feeling that by turning Mom’s stories into a book, I would be able to accept the love contained within them. 

“I, um, I really want to write down all the stories Mom told me, so I don’t forget them.” 

“But won’t the letters just disappear again?” Tuuli looked worried, but I just smiled. 

“They will if I leave them like this, which is why I’ll heat them up to harden them. Then we can read Mom’s stories whenever we want.” 

About half a year had passed since I began life in this world. And finally, for the first time, I smiled a truly sincere smile. 

It would have been beautifully emotional for things to end right there, but sadly, I was not so lucky. I wanted to heat the tablets up as soon as I got home, so I waited for Mom to be distracted and immediately put the tablets on the hearth. Whereupon they exploded. 

I’m not kidding. You may think I’m just telling a joke, but it really happened. I heated them on the hearth, and boom! My first book turned to dust and rubble. I just stood there in a daze, and before I could figure out what went wrong, Mom yelled at me and made me swear not to make clay tablets a second time. 

...Wait, what? Did I just get thrown back to square one for real? Um... Well, emotionally speaking, I feel a lot better, so maybe it’s like... Three steps forward, two steps back? Umm... Wh-What should I do now? 



Share This :


COMMENTS

No Comments Yet

Post a new comment

Register or Login