Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.2 - Chapter SS2

Gossiping by the Well 

“Okay, Mom. I’m going to go wash the dishes.” 

“Thank you, Tuuli.” 

After finishing breakfast, Tuuli took the dirty dishes and headed to the well. I opened the door and saw her off, then sighed and walked straight to the bedroom. 

Today was Earthday, which meant that both I and my daughter Tuuli were off work, but my soldier husband Gunther had the morning shift. He had already left so as to take his place at the gate before it opened at second bell. Once Myne and Tuuli left to go gather in the forest, I planned to do the laundry then preserve the food we bought yesterday for the winter. 

Everyone was already setting out, but Myne was still rolling around in bed and showing no signs of getting up. “Would you wake up already, Myne?! Second bell has already rung. Aren’t you going to the forest with Tuuli and Lutz today?” 

“Uh huuuh. I’m goiiin’...” Myne struggled out of bed, looking sleepy, and started washing her face. She was already bathing enough that it was beyond me why she felt the need to go out of her way and wash her face each morning. Myne’s hatred of being dirty was so extreme that it was something of a joke among the neighborhood wives. 

“Myne, you can wash your face later. Focus on finishing your breakfast first.” 

“...Okay.” She pouted a bit, looking unhappy, but she quickly bundled her hair up with a stick. With a little heave ho, she climbed up the chair closest to the hearth and began eating breakfast. Myne was late to wake up and slow to eat — nothing would get done if I waited for her to eat breakfast. 

“Tuuli’s already gone to the well to clean dishes. I’ll be following her soon after to do laundry. You may use the water in the jug, so please try to wash your own dishes once you’re done eating.” 

“Okaaay.” I listened to Myne’s sleepy reply from behind as I picked up a basket packed with dirty clothes and made my way outside. Cold air immediately blew against me. 

“It certainly got cold early this year.” The wind was getting colder as autumn went on. I speedily walked down the steps and shuddered at the thought of how cold the well water would be. 

Excluding soldiers like Gunther, the majority of people had Earthday off. The well was surrounded by a number of wives, all doing laundry and cleaning dishes. 

“Hi, Mom.” Tuuli stopped cleaning dishes to wave at me. “I’ll go to the forest once I’m done with the dishes. Did Myne wake up?” 

“She’s eating breakfast right now.” 

“Myne’s always so slow. Doesn’t she know Lutz is coming to see her?” she said with a pout as she gathered up the dishes. “I’ll go hurry her up and start getting ready myself. The things I do for her...” 

Lately, Tuuli had been taking such good care of her sister that I had to question whether Myne was so lazy in the morning because she knew Tuuli would be there for her. I could imagine that some of it had to do with Myne getting healthier and learning her limits. In the past, she had always just cried and said it wasn’t fair that only Tuuli got to go outside, but now she sincerely complimented her sister for being capable of doing so many things she couldn’t. 

There was no mistaking that Tuuli was absolutely overjoyed that she could go to the forest with Myne now. Even when she sounded frustrated or exasperated, her expression was soft and her step had a brisk skip in it. I was just glad they were getting along. 

“Tuuli is such a lovely little girl, working hard and even taking care of her sick little sister.” 

“Mhm. Tuuli is so perfect I almost find it strange.” I responded to my neighbor’s praise with a smile and secured a spot for doing laundry. I weaved between the wives toward a slightly open spot and set my basket down with a thump. 

“Morning, Effa.” 

“Good morning, Karla. It’s hard to do laundry with so many boys, isn’t it?” Beside my basket was one twice its size, filled with dirty clothes that Karla was cleaning at a rapid pace. She let out a sigh and spun her arm in a circle. 

“Oh, do I wish I had a girl to help me. What I would do for one of those boys to be a girl instead.” Karla was Lutz’s mother, and she had four sons she was raising. Sons tended not to help around the house in ways daughters did, and vice versa, so Karla was always complaining about wanting a daughter like Tuuli. 

“Tuuli works hard, but you’d be in even more trouble if you ended up with a daughter like Myne,” I said, letting Karla’s complaints go in one ear and out the other as I took my tub to the well. I needed to fill it with water. 

I tensed my arms and drew water. Myne was still too weak to draw water from the well. It took all she had to stumble around with a tiny bucket of water, and after that she would be knocked out for the count. 

...Though perhaps she would be fine now, given how much stronger she had gotten? Myne had been weak since birth and caught fevers constantly. She always used to cry out of jealousy for Tuuli, asking me why she wasn’t healthy like her sister. I could only apologize. 

It seemed that Myne had pleasant dreams whenever she fell asleep with a fever, and she was never as happy as she was when talking about the world of her dreams. She could run around in her dreams without ever getting tired, do anything she wanted, and eat her fill of delicious food. She always spoke of strange things I couldn’t understand with her stunted childish words. It got so bad that when she said “My dreams are so much more fun, I want to stay asleep forever,” I interpreted it as “I want to die” and ended up yelling at her. 

...Speaking of which, she no longer talked about her dreams. Myne had stopped talking about her dreams when she grew out of her toddler crybaby phase and entered her rebellious childhood phase. Instead, she started behaving oddly in real life. Though her behavior had settled down bit by bit after she started making paper with Lutz. Myne was growing up, just like any other girl. 

After drawing water into the tub about three times, it was full enough for laundry. I took the tub filled with cold water to my secured spot and sat down next to Karla. Once I got my soap and started cleaning, it was time for our usual gossiping by the well. 

“Myne’s going to the forest today, isn’t she? I’ve been worried for a long time that her weak body and constant fevers would kill her before long, but it sounds like she’s getting a lot better.” 

“It’s thanks to Lutz watching over her all the time. We owe him so much.” Myne, despite being dead weight to the others, could go to the forest and gather with her small basket thanks to Lutz. She could also make paper and hairpins to sell thanks to Lutz. There was no doubt that she would have been unable to do anything on her own without his help. 

“Mmm, I guess Lutz is doing some good out there after all. He’s a hard-head that won’t stop being silly about being a merchant and stuff despite how much he’s worrying us, so it feels a bit strange to hear others compliment him like that,” said Karla with a shrug. He might have been a pain to his parents, but to me, Lutz was such a good kid that I would have liked to have him as my own son. “Lutz is always kind to Myne and takes good care of her.” 

“That’s because Myne introduced him to a merchant, right? And they’re selling paper, or whatever? He was making weird wooden sticks earlier, too. I can appreciate the money he’s earning, but why not just become a paper-making craftsman? I just don’t get why he’s so obsessed with being a merchant in particular. It’s got to be Myne, don’t you think?” 

“Who can say? I was surprised myself when Myne came back with a merchant apprenticeship on her own. I heard that she got the introduction from a former traveler merchant that works under Gunther, but I hadn’t expected the merchant to actually accept them.” I had assumed that Myne was going to the gate with Gunther just to do paperwork, so imagine my surprise when she told me that she had locked in an apprenticeship with a wealthy merchant. 

“I just don’t know what Lutz sees in merchants. Bunch of conniving liars those lot are, if you ask me.” 

“They’re getting paid properly for their work and he’s supplying their materials, so I can’t imagine that he’s anything but a just man.” He had paid a stunning amount of money for the fancy hairpins. Myne and Lutz always spoke of their business with smiles, and when Myne collapsed with a fever, an incredibly well dressed man came to apologize profusely. It was hard for me to think that the Gilberta Company was owned by a liar or a cheat. 

“If you say so, Effa, I can believe he’s a good merchant. But I’m still worried. Who would want to work at an unstable job like that, willingly?” 

“Boys will be boys. It’s not uncommon for them get inspired by tales of traveling merchants and minstrels. Even Gunther had a phase when he wanted to leave the city and go exploring. Maybe you should just be glad that Lutz has decided to become a proper merchant rather than a traveling one?” 

“Well, I’d rather him be a soldier like Gunther, really. Better than a merchant or a traveling merchant. In the first place, how’s a carpenter’s son gonna be a merchant? He can’t read or do math, how’s he gonna work? Lutz is just gonna get fired on the first day. That means he’ll be a season or two behind all the other kids working normal jobs.” 

As a fellow parent, I could understand Karla’s fears. But I also understood that Lutz was giving this his all and it wouldn’t be right of me to say anything more. I nodded to myself, and then heard Lutz’s voice 

“Morning, Mrs. Effa. How’s Myne? Is she all ready?” I looked up and saw Lutz walking this way, looking ready to head out to the forest. 

“Oh, hello, Lutz. Good morning to you too. Tuuli just went home talking about getting Myne ready, so she shouldn’t be too long.” 

“Alright. I’ll go up to meet her.” 

“Thank you as always, Lutz.” 

Lutz’s home was on the other end of the street from ours with the well in between them, so he had to pass by this gaggle of wives to go between them. The wives called out to him one after another as he marched forward with a somewhat fearful expression. 

“Why hello, Lutz. Don’t worry your mother too much.” 

“Be sure to help around the house sometimes, don’t just spend all day playing around.” 

Scrunching his face up at the wives who had been deluged with complaints from his mother, Lutz tossed back “I know, I know” while passing them by. He sped up his pace and started actually jogging to escape them. 

“Youngest sons always end up playing around since they’ve got so many big brothers to take care of them.” 

“Lutz will understand once he starts his apprentice work. It’ll be fine, Karla.” 

“You think so?” 

“It’s not just his brothers that are good kids. Lutz takes care of others too. He’s always looking after Myne, for instance. He’s really a big help to us.” I complimented Lutz further and the wives all shrugged. Lutz was prioritizing taking care of Myne to the point of not looking after anyone else. The wives weren’t in the habit of listening to kids much anyway, they automatically believed Karla and had hardened their opinion of Lutz. 

“Later, Mom.” 

“Mhm, be sure to gather lots.” 

Kids poured out from various homes and headed to the meeting point. It was almost time to go to the forest. Tuuli, Lutz, and Myne left our own building. 

“Bye, Mom.” 

“Be careful out there.” 

Myne waved goodbye to me and started walking off with Lutz in the lead. If she didn’t leave early, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the other kids. 

Once the kids were gone, the wives around all loosened up, as if a burden had been lifted from their shoulders. They were so surprised to see Myne healthy that they began to crowd around me. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, but it looks like Myne’s able to go to the forest now. Isn’t that nice?” 

“It really is. She’s been getting stronger bit by bit for a while now. She still collapses and gets fevers a lot, but she’s hardly as bedridden as she used to be.” 

In the past Myne had gone outside maybe once or twice a month, but now you could count on both hands how many days she stayed in bed. Compared to spring when she couldn’t even walk all the way to the gate, she had gotten a lot more healthy. 

“Though now that she’s healthy she’s started doing all sorts of weird things, and it’s a struggle to keep up with her.” With amusement, I told the interested wives tales of Myne’s odd behavior. 

The time she grabbed a broom, determined to clean, and passed out before finishing sweeping the bedroom alone. The time she started doing weird jumps and counting, then collapsed before reaching ten. The time she secretly put clay bricks into the hearth and made them explode. The time she cleaned the hearth to get the soot and fell unconscious inside of it. When it came to Myne, I would never run out of things to talk about. 

“Last year, Myne put herbs into the candles without my knowledge and that certainly turned into a mess. The candles with gierecht and redrum herbs stunk so much we had to open the windows during a blizzard to ventilate.” 

The wives burst out in laughter. 

“That sounds like a disaster. You’ll have to keep an eye on her this time.” 

“Mhm, but the smimosa and demple herbs did improve the smell somewhat. If you all want to try it out, I would suggest using those two.” 

“I would never put herbs in candles. If I have any to spare, I’ll just use them for something else.” 

I tried to tell them of the accidental success that Myne’s weirdness accomplished, but nobody seemed interested in putting more time into their candles than they had to. 

“Sounds like you have your hands full with both Gunther and Myne now, hm? Must be rough.” 

“I’ve given up on it. What else should I expect from Gunther’s daughter? It would be stranger if Myne didn’t do anything weird.” I shrugged and the wives laughed again. Truth be told, I had just as many stories about Gunther as I did about Myne. More people here knew about Gunther’s antics than Myne’s, for obvious reasons. 

“Gunther’s like a kid who grew up without ever learning to tell dreams and reality apart.” Gunther, the child of a woodworker, had been inspired by minstrel tales of knights to become a knight himself. That wasn’t too uncommon for kids, but only nobles could become knights. Kids had no choice but to give up in the face of reality. That was the point where normal children learned that minstrel tales were just fantasies, separate from reality. 

But Gunther didn’t give up. He ignored the jobs his parents offered to introduce him to and decided on his own to be a soldier. He charged to the gate and informed the commander there that if he couldn’t become a knight, he would become a soldier that protected the city instead. Just like that, he became an apprentice soldier. And by the way, that commander was my father. 

When the soldiers went out to kill rampaging feybeasts, he put his all into hunting more of them than the other soldiers, and felt overwhelming frustration if he failed. On the inside, he was still just a kid. An average soldier wouldn’t get a job for a traveling merchant who just bought his citizenship the day before. 

...And Myne wasn’t normal either, given how she received a work introduction from that merchant at Lutz’s request. Like father, like daughter. 

I had been surprised when she got a work introduction from Gunther’s subordinate without consulting us, but I was even more surprised when she put her all into the interview and came back as a future apprentice merchant herself. That kind of thing didn’t happen with normal children. The way she negotiated and secured an apprenticeship for herself with a merchant who didn’t know her parents was very much like something Gunther would do. She may look like me on the outside, but she didn’t have much of me on the inside. 

Both of them charged straight toward their goals without caring too much about their surroundings, so to speak. I often told both of them to calm down a little. In other words... it was definitely all Gunther’s fault that Myne was acting so weird. Definitely. 

“Still, though, what in the world drove you to marry Gunther, Effa? With sewing skills like yours I bet you weren’t lacking for options.” As the daughter of a soldier, it was expected of me to become a wife that supported a soldier. Most of my suitors were my neighbors and soldiers from my father’s place of work, but yes, I had many options. 

“...It’s a long story.” I let out a sigh and shook my head in an attempt to ignore the subject, but Karla grinned in amusement. 

“I know what happened. Gunther fell in love with Effa at first sight and went after her every single day.” 

“Aaah, I can see that happening.” 

Gunther always charged straight for his goal and he did indeed visit our home every single day, asking my father for my hand in marriage. He eventually wore my father down with persistence and passion until he eventually permitted it. “If Effa chooses you, I will allow the marriage,” he said. 

...At the time, I was mainly annoyed that he was making me deal with Gunther myself. 

“So Gunther’s daily wooing eventually won Effa over?” 

“Ahaha, makes sense to me. Gunther just never gives up.” 

The wives roared with laughter and began discussing what Gunther had probably said to me, listing off lines like you would hear from a minstrel’s stories. I shrugged as I heard the wives rattle off pickup line after pickup line. 

“Which one’s right, Effa?” Karla looked at me, holding a hand over her mouth as she laughed. 

Goodness, enough of this already! I puffed up my cheeks a little in frustration at everyone’s teasing and raced to finish up my laundry, throwing the clothes back into the basket. 

“Oh, trying to run away?” 

“Don’t even think about it. It’s not every day a topic this fun pops up.” 

As I felt the throng of wives tightening around me, I flipped my tub over to empty it of water. 

“Effa, c’mon, at least tell us who was right.” 

“He must have said at least one of those lines, right?” 

I tossed my basket and soap into the tub and lifted it up with me as I stood. “You’re all right. I remember hearing all of those lines from him.” I left it at that and dashed right for my building while hearing the wives roaring with laughter behind me. 

Aaah... So embarrassing... But nobody had said the line that truly won me over, so they could laugh as much as they wanted. 

I returned home and dried my laundry. First Tuuli’s clothes, then Myne’s aprons, then Gunther’s work clothes. I spread them out to dry and remembered what Gunther had said to me. Inspired by tales of knights in minstrel stories as he was, he had mimicked a knight when courting me. He got on one knee before me and held up a magic stone he had obtained after slaying a feybeast. 

“I became a soldier because I genuinely want to protect this city and my family. You didn’t laugh at that, Effa, and I love you for it. I want you by my side.” 

The fact that made my heart thump and fall for him perhaps makes me as much of a dreamer as he is.