Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.1 - Chapter 19

I Love You, Yellow River Culture 

The day Tuuli went to work as an apprentice for the first time, I was stunned. I could barely do any of the chores entrusted to me. I had the knowledge of my past life in a modern world, which I thought would have made things easier, but it absolutely didn’t. 

...Tuuli was truly a mighty older sister. 

First of all, I couldn’t carry water. I couldn’t even get it out of the well properly; I was too weak. The best I could do was get a little water into the bucket and struggle back up the stairs. It took me five trips just to get one normal bucket’s worth. Of course, one bucket of water wasn’t enough. We needed our whole home water jug to be filled. Mom would help, but she was so much faster she would fill the whole jug by the time I had brought a bucket’s worth. I... I was useless. 

Mom told me to light a fire in the hearth so she could prepare lunch. I had spent some time camping in the past, so I knew how to organize firewood. I put thick wood next to thin, easier to burn wood while leaving passages for air. I even put dried grass on top since it was easier to ignite. That was all easy. But I couldn’t start the actual fire. When camping, I had used a lighter. I had no experience using flint stones. I tried remembering what Tuuli had done and mimicking her. 

“Hyaaah?!” I slammed the two rocks together, and naturally, sparks flew. But the sparks surprised me to the point I reflexively dropped the stones. After that I became unable to slam the stones together at all, fearing that the sparks would burn me. Someone else ultimately had to do it for me. I... I was useless. 

I could help with cooking, at least. Or so I thought, but no. The knives were too heavy and I needed both hands just to lift them. And I froze up looking at the chicken being held down. The best I could do was take food Mom had chopped up and slice it into smaller pieces, plus tell her recipes. I couldn’t do much myself. I was so short I couldn’t stir a pot even when standing on something. Mom complimented my recipes, but my own weakness was seriously depressing. I... I really was useless. 

“What’s wrong, Myne?” said Tuuli after coming home from her first day on the job and seeing me thoroughly depressed. 

Mom, forcing a smile, answered for me. “...She’s sad that she couldn’t do any of the chores I gave her today.” 

“Wha? Didn’t we all expect that?” 

Indeed... Everyone had expected it. Including myself, but still. I was shocked by how useless I really was. 

“I tried doing lots of things, but they were all too much for me.” 

“Well, now that you know your problems, why don’t you get to work fixing them?” 

“Myne, you may be feeling sad right now, but just know you’re better at cleaning than any of us.” 

When it came to sweeping with a broom and wiping things down, neither took much strength and I had plenty of experience with both. Though I would get a fever if I got too enthusiastic about it. 

Plus, I didn’t consider cleaning as part of my chores. I just couldn’t stand to live in a filthy environment. I was already sickly enough, I didn’t need a dirty home making my health worse. My actions were motivated by self-interest and nothing more. 

I knew how to clean, wash dishes, and cook thanks to my Urano days, but none of that knowledge was useful here. To be honest, I had no idea doing chores would be this difficult. Tuuli could do it and she was only a year older than me. Why was I so weak? Why was I so useless? 

...I wish I had been reborn into a healthier body. Healthy enough to at least not be dead weight. 

“Heh, Myne. Are you really that worried about being useless?” asked Dad. 

“...Obviously.” 

“Yeah, figures... But I’m not expecting that much from you anyway, Myne.” 

Um? Is it just me, or did he say something really mean with a smile on his face? I knew I wasn’t the most helpful person around, but I didn’t expect a father this obsessed with doting over his daughters to just up and say “I’m not expecting that much from you anyway” right in front of me. 

As I stood there stunned, Dad patted my head and spoke with tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “For years I’ve been worried that the next time you got sick would be the last day of your life. But you’re healthier now, and that’s good enough for me,” said Dad, which made Tuuli shrug. 

“I think Dad’s right, but who would hire Myne at this rate? I mean, Myne can’t do anything on her own.” 

Dad shook his head. “Nah. We could hire her at the gate.” 

“Huh? What job could Myne do there?” 

Mom and Tuuli looked confused, but really, I had no idea why. Dad and I had talked to them about what I was doing at the gate before. 

“What’re you two confused about? Paperwork. She’s been helping Otto each time we go to the gate. Though most of the time he’s teaching her to read and write.” 

“Whaaa?! She hasn’t just been resting at the gate?” 

“Myne wasn’t exaggerating about all those things?!” 

Tuuli, why are you that surprised? And ouch, Mom, that hurts. I can’t believe you thought I wasn’t telling the truth. 

“Myne’s especially good at math, I hear. If she doesn’t find a job she wants by her baptism, she can work at the gate. And you want to work with your daddy anyway, right Myne?” 

“What? No way. I want to be a (librarian), or own a (bookstore).” 

Unfortunately, my list of dream jobs did not include doing paperwork at the gate with my dad. Though naturally, since I had never seen a bookstore or librarian in this world, none of them understood what I had just said. 

“...Aaah, Myne. What are you talking about?” 

“Someone who sells books, so... a merchant? Mmm, I don’t think I have the personality for being a merchant, but I want a job that deals with books.” 

“Eh, well, I dunno what you mean, but I hope you can do what you want. For now, just do what you can. Half a year ago you couldn’t walk to the forest. You didn’t even want to go outside. But now you can walk to the forest and back on your own.” 

“...Uh huh.” 

With all that said, they told me to do my best with gathering firewood, so both Tuuli and I left home with baskets on our backs. Although it was true that I could walk to the forest, I had to take a break once we were there before I could move again, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be bedridden the next day. I really hated how weak my body was.

After reaching the forest and catching my breath, I started picking up firewood. I was just looking around and picking up whatever looked good, but Tuuli used a billhook-esque blade to chop sticks off a tree. 

“You’re amazing, Tuuli.” I was once again reminded of Tuuli’s dexterity. “I need to start at the bottom and do what I can for now, I guess.” It didn’t take long for me to run out of breath picking up branches. I sat on a rock to rest and took out my knife to get right to work on a mokkan. 

“Ngh, I didn’t expect it to be so heavy.” I sighed with the dully gleaming knife in hand. It wasn’t as if I had never used a blade in my life. I used kitchen knives and box cutters all the time in Japan. But I didn’t have any experience carving wood. 

At some point in elementary school, a lesson involved me using a small knife to manually sharpen a pencil. It was only now that I felt sincere, painful regret over how I had barely participated, thinking that in the age of pencil sharpeners I didn’t need to waste my time learning to sharpen them myself. 

...I mean, I can barely even hold the knife right, much less carve mokkan with it! No way could I use the knife well when I was too incompetent to even sharpen a pencil. Would it even be possible for me to make mokkan? 

To experiment, I tried carving off a little bit off the thinnest branch I had collected. It was a struggle with my tiny weak hands, but I managed to get some of the outer layer off, which revealed its insides. Oh... This is kinda hard, but I think I can do it! I could practice my knife skills while making mokkan. Two birds with one stone. I excitedly took the branch and carved it flat with the knife. There were plenty of thin branches about as long as this one. If I just carved them all flat and tied them together with string, I would have some fine mokkan. It might even be usable in place of a memo pad. 

...Yellow River Culture and my ancestors, you have my sincere thanks for this splendid wisdom. I love you all. Father, Mother, thank you for this wonderful knife. I can make mokkan thanks to it. 

Since this just involved picking up branches and carving them, there was much less work involved than the clay-digging for tablets and the fiber fiddling with faux-papyrus. This... This is good. 

I carved down the wood in my hands bit by bit, making it as flat as possible for the purpose of writing. It would have been nice to be strong enough to slice it in half in one go, but there was no use wishing for something I didn’t have. I just had to take my time and put in the work to make as many mokkan as I wanted. It was hard enough for me to cut branches that I would only be able to write a single line of text on each mokkan, which meant I would want a lot of them. 

“Myne, is that what you’re making to replace the clay tablets?” asked Lutz as he peered over my shoulder, seemingly finished gathering his firewood. His unexpected question threw me off. 

“...Wha? How’d you know these were replacements for the clay tablets?” 

“Cause Myne, you look like you’re having tons of fun.” 

“Wha? Fun?” 

“You look like you’re about to rub your cheeks on that wood. I remember you looking at clay tablets the same way.” 

Wait... What? I was carving wood all by myself while looking one step away from rubbing my cheeks against it? Wouldn’t that mean it looked like I was in love...? Bwuuuh! Subconscious stuff is the worse! I’m so embarrassed! While I panicked on the inside, overwhelmed by embarrassment, Lutz took a hard look at the mokkan I was making. 

“So, what’re you making?” 

“...I’m making (mokkan).” 

“Mo-what? Is that somethin’ else you can write on?” 

“Uh huh. So I want a lot of them. It’s too hard for me to make big ones on my own.” I readied my knife again and began carving the branches. Lutz sat next to me and grabbed a somewhat thick branch. 

“I’ll help. If you wanna thank me, could you let me meet that Otto guy you talked about before?” 

“Why?” 

“I wanted to hear about traveling merchants, so...” said Lutz in a quiet voice, as if worried about people around us hearing. He had acted like that before, when he told me that his dream was to leave the city as a traveling merchant or a bard so that he could explore the world. I could guess, then, that traveling merchants and bards were frowned upon in this world. Weird. But regardless of what I thought, the best thing for Lutz would be for him to meet Otto and hear what he had to say. 

“He seems like a busy person, but I’ll try. Sorry if he turns me down.” 

“Hey, that’s all I can ask for.” Lutz let out a sigh of relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. I could tell that he had never been able to talk to anyone about this before now. 

The two of us steadily kept carving, without talking too much. Lutz unsurprisingly had a billhook-esque knife just like Tuuli which allowed him to make several large mokkan out of the thick branch. I used my knife to smooth their surfaces further. I now had wooden boards to use as mokkan, but both of their sides were pure white. 

...I wonder if they’ll let me borrow ink from the gate? Ink was generally used with paper, so it wasn’t sold in stores for commoners either. And speaking of which, both ink and parchment were stored securely together. It could be that ink was just as expensive as paper. 

Well, I’ll try and see if I can negotiate with Otto to be paid in ink from now on instead of slate pens. I can mention Lutz’s request while I’m at it.