Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.1 - Chapter SS1

Extra Story: A Day Without Myne 

“Hey, Lutz. I’m going on ahead.” 

“Got it. I’ll be right behind ya, Ralph!” 

Upon hearing that my brother Ralph was on his way out, I hurriedly wrapped my ham and bread before stuffing it into my basket along with my hunting tools. Then I hitched the basket on my back and dashed out of my house. 

Ralph didn’t have to go to the forest with everyone else anymore, since he was baptized and working every other day. But now he could go to the forest whenever he wanted, which meant he generally went with friends from work. I didn’t get to go to the forest with him often anymore, so I felt a little excited as I ran down the steps. 

“Oof, guess today’s gonna get pretty hot.” As I headed to the group of kids who were waiting to go to the forest, I felt the changing of the seasons through the heat of the sunlight hitting my skin. 

I could see Fey and Tuuli at the meeting place too. Despite also being baptized, they were going to the forest with the little kids today. Seeing all three of them together here made me feel nostalgic. 

“Ralph, Lutz! Good morning.” Tuuli turned this way and waved after seeing us. 

“Morning, Tuuli. How’s Myne? It’s been three whole days, so I’m guessing her fever’s going now?” Myne had apparently gotten so exhausted from cutting wood and making those mokkan things that she ended up bedridden for days. 

“...No, not at all. It’s been three days since she collapsed in the storage room and her fever’s still super high. I’m really worried.” Tuuli, brows furrowed, looked down and shook her head. A day or two of being bedridden was normal for Myne, but not a high fever lasting three days. She looked sick with worry. 

“She’ll be fine, I’m telling you. Myne hasn’t made a book yet, she won’t die that easily.” Myne was weak and sickly, but she was always chasing her dreams with all she had. I never understood what she was talking about when she brought up books. The explanations just didn’t get through to me. But I did know that Myne was doing absolutely everything she could to make them. Nothing inspired me to do my best more than seeing her work so hard to get what she wanted in her tiny, weak body. 

...Plus, she said she would introduce me to a former traveling merchant. Since traveling merchants were always moving between cities, it was hard for me to find one that would take me as an apprentice. I heard that Myne’s teacher at the gate used to be a traveling merchant, so I asked Myne to introduce me to him. Someone like him probably still had connections with current traveling merchants. Maybe he could introduce me to one and I could become their apprentice. 

When Myne promised to introduce me to him, she said, “I’m helpful to you too sometimes, Lutz” and then laughed kinda proudly. 

“I’ve got a promise with Myne, so she’s definitely gonna get better.” 

“You’re right, Lutz. Myne will be okay. Definitely.” Tuuli’s expression brightened a little. 

“We’re heading out!” With Ralph’s announcement, the group of about ten kids started walking to the forest. 

“We can walk a lot faster without Myne, huh?” 

“Ahaha. Myne really does walk slow. But that’s okay, since you’re always helping her.” 

Once the group of kids was past the city walls, Tuuli, being an older girl with a strong sense of responsibility, always ended up taking care of everyone. She wasn’t able to spend all her time watching over just Myne. 

“Ralph, I’m going with Fey to lead the group. Would you watch over the back with Lutz for me?” 

“Yeah! Anyway... Lutz, I’m surprised you bother doing all that,” Ralph murmured to me in an exasperated tone of voice after seeing Tuuli walk off. 

I glared at him. “Doing all what?” 

“Taking care of Myne. I can tell just by watching it’s a huge pain in the ass.” 

Ralph was known throughout the neighborhood as a nice guy that takes care of others, but he just acted that way in public because he wanted to show off to Tuuli. He treated me completely differently when she wasn’t around. 

“I’m glad I’m the same age as Tuuli.” 

His tone was pretty heartfelt, but I just shrugged. I was taking care of Myne partially for my own benefit, so it wasn’t a big deal. Nobody else seemed to know this but me, but Myne knew all sorts of weird stories, and she knew how to write. She could even introduce me to a traveling merchant. 

“Myne’s good in her own ways,” I said, almost reflexively. Ralph peered toward me, eyes full of interest. 

“Like how?” 

The first thing that came to mind was the stuff about the traveling merchant, but I didn’t want to talk about that. Ralph and my other older brothers always laughed and called me stupid when I said I wanted to become a traveling merchant. I wanted to become one in secret and surprise my whole family. 

“Myne shares her food with me and teaches me good recipes, so yeah.” 

“All you care about is food, huh?” Ralph laughed, but food really was the biggest reason why I was so serious about watching over Myne. Spending time with her meant more food for me. And if I helped her, I could eat really tasty food. 

“What’re you getting smug about? You eat that food too.” 

“Yeah, cause it tastes good and I help make it. Why wouldn’t I eat it?” My older brothers generally stole my food, so I filled myself up by eating nuts and fruits while gathering. Winter was the worst, since I couldn’t go gathering. No gathering meant no fruit, and since the blizzards kept us locked in all the time, food was more scarce than other seasons. 

The parue cakes that Myne thought up one day to help fill my stomach over winter were simple to make, using mainly the parue leftovers we normally left for birds. You could make tons of them no sweat, and they were so good I still couldn’t believe it. 

...And best of all, since everyone got their own plates with their own parue cakes, I didn’t have to worry about my brothers stealing them from me! 

That day marked the beginning of Myne teaching us delicious recipes each sunny day we gathered parues. If I followed Myne’s instructions, I would get lots of tasty food. The moment I realized that, I promised her that I would help her and be the strength she didn’t have. In return, I would get to eat a lot of food. I would work as hard as it took to get tasty food. 

“Okay, we’re meeting back here once fifth bell rings. Alright?” 

“Okaaay!” 

We settled on a meeting place upon reaching the forest and then let the kids scatter to do their gathering. Since Ralph and Fey were here today, I was going hunting. 

“Should be about shumil season now. I’m bettin’ there’s tons of them running around here.” Ralph grinned, holding onto a net. 

Shumils were small feybeasts that even kids like us could hunt. They were about as tall as my knees and were useful for their meat, pelt, bones, feathers, and fat. Their meat was especially soft and delicious compared to other things we could hunt. Since shumils loved to eat rutrebs, a summer fruit, their meat got even better as they grew in number over the summer. 

When hunting shumils, you wanted to split into groups. One to chase the prey, one to lie in wait with a net. 

“Me and Lutz will chase’m. Tuuli and Ralph, keep the net ready,” said Fey, name unrelated to feybeasts, as he began discussing a plan to catch the shumils with us. There was a smallish hill deeper into the forest, and since shumils had a tendency to run to high places to escape predators, the best thing to do was chase them up and into a prepared net. 

After seeing Ralph and Tuuli go up to the arranged location with the net, Fey and I picked up stones and started searching for shumils close together. If we could find a patch of rutrebs, we could expect to find shumils nearby. Hunting shumils was important to stop them from eating our share of the rutrebs. 

“There’s one! Hohwoah! Hohwoah hohwoah!” We discovered a shumil eating a ton of rutrebs super fast, his mouth bright red with juice, and immediately started mimicking the noises of large animals. The shumil jerked and began dashing into the shrubbery. 

“Phiiiiih!” 

“Phih phiiiih!” Other shumils that had been eating nearby also ran off after hearing their friend’s squeals. They all ran off at once, spreading apart and all rushing to the small hill in hopes of maximizing their chances of survival. 

“Hohwoaaaah!” Fey’s voice rang out from a different angle. The shumil that had been running his direction hurriedly changed course. I ran as well, shouting to keep the shumils packed together so that as many as possible ran into Ralph and Tuuli’s net up ahead. In the end, six shumils ran together in a tight group and ran straight into the net. We caught them all without letting a single one escape. 

“Yes!” 

“Alright, let’s go to the river!” 

After stabbing our knives into the net to slice the shumils’ throats and remove their talons, we took them out of the net and dragged them by their back feet to the riverbed. The talons on a shumil’s front feet were poisonous, so we chopped them off preemptively to be safe. 

You only hunt as many animals as you can carry home. Ralph and Fey could carry two, but that was still too hard for me, so I guessed I would just be carrying one. Same went for Tuuli. Even while being dragged to the river, those shumils that hadn’t finished dying flailed and struggled, trying to attack with their front legs. I tightened my grip so that mine couldn’t run away. 

When we reached the river, we began butchering them. I felt a pulse in my shumil and let out a sigh of relief. If it had died, the stench of blood would have seeped into the meat more. The faster I could bleed its meat, the better. 

“Be careful,” warned Ralph. Everyone nodded as we readied our knives. Shumil were feybeasts: magical creatures. If we didn’t butcher them carefully, our knives would hit the hard stone known as a mana crystal within their bodies, and the moment they did the shumil would melt and disappear. 

We all smacked the shumils’ heads with the handles of our knives to knock them out before stabbing their lower stomachs and drawing the knives upward. 

“Kyaaah! I messed up!” Tuuli, looking pitiful, watched her shumil melt into a dark, thick liquid. She then took the mana crystal out of the dark liquid and washed it in the river, shoulders slumped in sorrow. 

“Tuuli, you can have one of mine. Butcher this one and take it home,” offered Ralph, pointing toward one of the shumil he had brought with him. 

“Really? Thanks, Ralph. You can have this mana crystal, then.” Tuuli, resolving not to mess up this time, delicately slid in her knife. 

Fey gave a mean smirk. “That shumil kinda looks like Myne, huh? They’re both blue and stuff.” 

“No they don’t! Shut up, you’re making this hard for me!” Tuuli resisted Fey’s bullying and safely finished her butchering, removing the shumil’s organs and washing the blood off them. 

“Think about it. Myne and shumils are both super weak, right? But when they get mad their eyes get all rainbowy and stuff. What’s the difference?” Shumils normally just ran away, but if parents saw you kill their children, their eyes shined like rainbows and they charged you down. Fey said that was just like what Myne did when she got mad. It was true that when Myne got truly mad, her eyes narrowed and her atmosphere totally changed. Then, her normally golden eyes would start changing colors, as if a layer of oil had covered them. 

“That was your fault for getting her mad, Fey. You stomped all over those clay tablet things she worked hard to make.” I glared at Fey as I got ready to leave. I had finished butchering my one shumil, but he was just getting started on his second. 

“I didn’t think she’d get that mad... Gah! Crap, I messed up.” Thoughts of Myne’s anger had apparently messed with Fey’s focus while he was cutting. He clicked his tongue at the sight of the black pool of once-shumil beneath him and then, sighing, took out the mana crystal to wash off the blood. 

“Hey Lutz, go home early with Fey and sell this at that crystal store. Me and Tuuli gotta stay here to watch the little kids.” 

“Got it.” I caught the mana crystal Ralph threw at me and started going home with Fey. We had to get back to the city before the store that bought mana crystals closed. 

We took our shumils, which had finished bleeding, and fastened them to suitable branches which we carried on our backs. We left before the others and got back to the city. Then we slipped through thin side streets, rushing to the crystal store near the west gate. Fifth bell rang right before we got to gate, which meant the more hasty stores were already packing up. Including the one next to the crystal store, which was scary, but in a stroke of luck our destination was still open. We slipped inside together. 

“Mister, we’re selling these.” The crystal store bought mana crystals, and so we put our pinky-sized mana crystals on the counter. The owner of the store pinched a crystal and held it up to examine it. 

“...Judging by the size, I’d say these are from shumils?” 

“Uh huh. We messed up when butchering them.” 

“Hahaha, that’s rough. Here, one middle copper each.” 

“Thanks, mister.” After selling the small mana crystals we couldn’t use ourselves for a middle copper each, Fey and I rushed out of the store. Fey flicked the middle copper in his hand and listened to the nice ring. 

“Lutz, c’mon, let’s hang at the east side.” 

“This is Ralph’s money, not mine. I’ve got nothin’.” 

“He won’t mind sharing a little, c’mon.” The east side of the city had a lot of merchants, inns, and places to eat. With bars opening and merchants calling over potential customers, the east side of the city was definitely going to get real busy real fast. 

We headed that way and Fey immediately used his middle copper to buy two ranshels, a tasty fruit that’s easy to eat. He then threw one my way while telling me not to drop it. I jumped in the air to catch it, definitely not wanting to drop the fruit Fey was going out of his way to give me. 

We started walking home, loudly chewing the ranshels down. Sixth bell rang soon after, which signaled the closing of the gates. Stores and workshops all over the place began closing down. In moments, the street we were walking down was flooded with people walking home just like us. 

We slid into a side alley to avoid the crowds and take a shortcut home. The sun began to sink and I could see the alley getting darker before my eyes. 

“...Y’know, Lutz, you spend a lotta time with Myne. Dont’cha think she’s scary?” said Fey in the darkness, his voice a little quieter than usual. I turned to look at him in surprise and saw that he wasn’t wearing his normal mischievous grin. He looked afraid. 

“When Myne glared at me with those rainbow eyes, it felt like, like, I couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Just thinking about that freaks me out. Myne’s just weird and scary.” 

I tilted my head a bit and tried thinking hard about Myne’s scariness. “She’s kinda scary, since it’s like her head’s built different from ours. If she came swinging at us with like, a club, we’d beat her easily. But Myne would never do that. She’s scary ’cause you don’t know what she’ll do to you. But that’s fine. You just have to not make her mad. And the only thing she gets mad about is book stuff, so yeah.” 

I heard Fey let out a relieved sigh. “Alright. Well, I’m just gonna try to avoid her. I dunno what’ll make her mad or not.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t ask anyone else this, ’cause they wouldn’t get it. Glad I know what to do now,” he murmured as he threw away the core of his fully eaten ranshel. 

...Weird and scary, huh? I dunno about that. I threw away my finished ranshel too and looked up at the darkening blue sky. As it came closer to resembling Myne’s hair, the moon rose, looking just like the color of her eyes.