Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-1 - Chapter 2

Lutz — My Savior

A previously unpublished chapter that appeared in the web novel around the time of Part 1 Volume 1. Lutz works with his brothers to gather parues, a very valuable winter fruit. These events didn’t appear in any of the light novels, since Myne wasn’t there to witness them, but they show how parues are actually collected.

Author’s Note: It wasn’t until this chapter that I properly fleshed out Sieg and Zasha; before then, they were just Big Bros 1 and 2. This was also the first chapter to show off the magical nature of the Bookworm world.

“C’mon, Lutz! Wake up!”

My older brother Zasha knocked me awake with a firm kick. I got out of bed, rubbing my eyes, and glanced at the crack under the window. For the past few days, the blizzard had kept any light from coming through—but now I could see something dazzlingly bright.

That means... the weather’s clear!

My drowsiness disappeared all at once as I threw open the window, not caring how cold it would make the room. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Sure, the whole city was still covered in snow, but the sunlight made it look all nice and glittery.

I shut the window and raced to the kitchen. Clear days like this were really rare, so kids and adults all rushed to the forest as soon as possible. We really didn’t want to be late.

“Hurry up, Lutz.”

Ralph, my third-eldest brother, had already eaten breakfast and was busily getting ready. I took some hard black bread, dunked it in some warm milk to soften it up, then scarfed it down before joining him.

Today was a great day for gathering. Everybody would go to the forest to get parues, which could only be found during winter. They were in pretty high demand, since sweets were hard to come by no matter the time of year, so we’d need to act fast if we wanted any for ourselves.

Ralph wasn’t the only one coming with me today—Zasha and Sieg were joining us instead of doing their usual apprentice work. We put on our baskets and the like, then rushed outside. With the four of us working together, we were sure to get a ton of parues.

Mom was standing by the well, and she gave us all a wave when she noticed us. “Going to the forest? Be careful, okay? And try to get as many as you can!” We weren’t surprised to see her; she was always out here gossiping with the neighbors.

I’m real impressed she can put up with the cold for so long. Like, whew...

Also standing by the well was Mrs. Effa. She and Mom were good friends, so I’d grown up playing with her daughters, Tuuli and Myne.

“Tuuli and Gunther have already left,” Mrs. Effa said. “You might want to hurry!”

Myne was probably staying at home; she always ended up bedridden when she went outside, especially on days like this. Just last autumn, while making her way to the farm for pig day, she’d apparently fallen sick and passed out in the wagon. The same thing had happened the year before too.

Really sucks that she missed out on the fresh sausages. They’re real good.

Myne was tiny, weak, adorable... and pretty much barely clinging to life. We were the same age, but she was like a little sister to me.

Oh yeah... Back during winter prep, didn’t she say something about wanting some plant stems? That’s rare for her. Wonder what she’s gonna do with ’em...

By the time we’d passed through the south gate and reached the forest, the battle for parues had already started. Everyone was going nuts for them, and for good reason—they were a rare sweet you could only find on really clear winter days when the snow was still thick on the ground.

“Sieg! Go to that tree!”

The moment Zasha gave the instruction, my second-eldest brother let go of the rope connected to our sled and ran off. He pushed through the snow on his way to the parue tree, then immediately started climbing it. The rest of us moved away and started preparing a fire.

We dug into the snow until we could see the earth underneath, then put down and ignited some firewood. Sieg was still up in the tree, deciding which fruit to pick.

“It’s about done,” Zasha said to me. “Get ready.”

At his say-so, I made my way up the tree myself, aiming to reach Sieg. Like all parue trees, it had bark as white as ice and snow, and while all the branches made it easy to climb, the fruit only grew really high up.

To make things even more complicated, parue trees weren’t normal trees—they were feyplants. You couldn’t just remove their fruit with knives, which was what made it annoying to get.

It wasn’t long before I reached Sieg.

“Ready, Lutz?”

“Just a moment.”

I quickly pulled off my gloves and grabbed the thin branch that Sieg was holding. He put his own gloves on, then went to hurry back down the tree.

“Eugh, so cold... Lutz, you do the rest. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

The branch I was squeezing was cold as ice, and the air had a biting chill to it. My body temperature was going down fast.

Hurry up and fall already!

I was using my bare hands for a reason: you had to warm parue branches to harvest their fruit. Using fire absolutely wasn’t an option because the mana in the tree would put out the flames.

Still nothing? Come on... What was that about it not taking much longer?

I could feel the branch gradually getting softer, but the fruit just wasn’t falling. My fingers were prickling and starting to go numb... but just as I was about to call for someone to take my place, there was movement.

“Lutz, I’ll trade.”

“It’s almost done, Zasha.”

“Ralph! Here it comes!”

The moment Zasha grabbed the branch, the parue fruit about as big as my face dropped straight down. He had been warming his hands by the fire, so they were a lot warmer than mine were now. Ralph was waiting below to grab the fallen fruit.

“Head back to the fire and warm up,” Zasha said to me. “Your hands are bright red.” He then went to hunt for the next fruit.

I put my gloves back on and climbed down the tree, being extra careful not to fall. Then, after running over to the fire, I took my gloves off again and held my hands up to the crackling heat. The feeling slowly returned to my fingers—along with a prickling ache.

“I’m tossing the fruit over!” Ralph shouted. “Get ready!”

He threw the parue in our direction, then climbed up the tree to trade places with Zasha. The fruit hit the ground a short distance away and rolled over, at which point Sieg snatched it up and dropped it in our basket. Thankfully, parues were like clumps of ice; as long as it was cold, they wouldn’t break no matter how rough you were with them.

“Whew... Talk about cold,” Zasha said, rubbing his hands as he hurried over to the fire. “You go get the next one, Sieg.”

“Right!”

It was Sieg’s turn to put on gloves and run to the tree.

Coordination was a key part of parue gathering—and the more people with warm hands you had to switch around, the better off you were. We’d managed to get five parues so far.

“Almost noon,” Zasha said, glaring up at the sky. “Think we can get one more? Lutz, get your hands as warm as possible, then go swap with Sieg.”

My hands were still red. Worse still, either because of the icy branches or because I was holding them too close to the fire, they’d turned completely numb again. Days like this didn’t come often, though; if we could get one more parue, then I was going to try. I warmed myself up as best I could, ran back to the tree, then climbed all the way up to where Sieg was waiting.

“It’s getting kinda soft. Shouldn’t take much longer.”

“Got it.”

Just as Sieg and I were trading places and our sixth fruit was about to fall, light shone down from above. It was noon. The leaves of the parue trees sparkled as brilliantly as jewels, and the trees themselves began shaking as if they had a mind of their own, creating a loud rustling sound.

“Oh no! Get down, Lutz!” my brothers shouted just as the bough beneath me began to shake. I’d already been leaning away from the tree to warm the branch with the fruit on it, so I soon lost my footing entirely. The next thing I knew, I was dangling from the branch and nothing more.

“Whoa!”

I instinctively reached out and grabbed the branch with my other hand.

“No, Lutz! Let go! You need to get down! NOW!”

But before I could even react, the branch became too soft to hold my weight. It snapped, sending me and the parue hurtling toward the ground.

“Gaaah!”

After a bit of a shock, the thick, fluffy snow broke my fall. Because I’d been hanging from the branch, I’d also landed on my feet, so I wasn’t hurt or anything.

All around us, people were jumping down from the trees. Parue-gathering time was over.

There was even more rustling as the parue trees began growing up toward the sky. They quickly became the tallest trees in the forest as they searched for the sun, waving their lush green leaves like a girl shaking her hair. The light soon reached the fruit that hadn’t been gathered, making it shoot off in all directions.

Once the fruit was all gone, the parue trees basically started to melt, becoming smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely. That was the end of their life cycle. They only showed up on clear winter days and were different from any other trees in the forest.

“Well, that’s that. Time to go home.”

We all got our parues and made our way back. Every home would be preparing sweets this afternoon. Getting the fruit was hard work, but the results were something to look forward to.

“Guess we get one each.”

The parues had been about as big as my face back in the forest, but the outer layer had started to melt soon after we left. By the time we got home, they were much smaller than before.

“Are the bowls ready?”

We used the fireplace to ignite some thin twigs, then pushed them into our parues. The burning wood broke through the skin, and out came this thick, white juice. A sweet aroma quickly filled the house.

My mouth was watering as I made sure to get all of the sweet-smelling fruit juice into my cup. Part of me wanted to drink it all at once, but it was such a valuable sweet that I knew I should treasure every drop.

After getting out the juice, we crushed the rest of the fruit to get parue oil. It could be used for cooking or as fuel for lamps, so it was real nice to have this late into the winter.

Soon enough, we’d squeezed the parues into small pieces. They were dry and barely edible, but they were good for the chickens. We knew that ’cause the chickens that ate parue scraps made even tastier eggs.

“Excuse me. I’m here for a trade.”

Lots of people came to our house to trade their parue scraps for eggs. Personally, I didn’t think it was a very good deal. The chickens loved the scraps, sure, but we probably would have been better off eating the eggs ourselves.

At least bring us meat or something. We always cook enough eggs to get one each, but when we have meat, my brothers take it all before I even get a chance.

As I was thinking that, Myne and Tuuli showed up. They’d brought a bag containing maybe two parues’ worth of scraps.

“Lutz, here. We’ll trade you these for eggs,” Myne said, wearing a great big smile as she eagerly offered me the bag. I wasn’t too happy about the exchange, but I couldn’t just turn them away or else Mom would yell at me.

“We’ve already got enough animal feed,” I said. “Got any meat instead? My older brothers keep stealing all of mine.”

Most of my family stayed at home during winter, which meant my food got stolen more often. In other words, I was hungry pretty much all the time. I knew there was no point in grumbling to Tuuli or Myne, but I couldn’t help myself.

“It’s hard to fight back when they’re so much bigger,” Tuuli said with a sympathetic smile, brushing my complaints aside. Myne must have had some kind of idea, though, because she suddenly thrust the bag at me again.

“Okay, Lutz. Why not just eat this?”

“That stuff’s for the birds!” I yelled without even thinking. I’d always been so nice to Myne, so why was she making such a cruel suggestion?

In response to my outrage, Myne just tilted her head at me and muttered, “Not if you make it right...”

“Huh?”

“It’s only inedible when you squeeze all the juice out. Even leftovers can taste really good if you prepare them right.”

Myne was acting serious, but her words were so hard to believe. I mean, nobody ate chicken feed. I turned to Tuuli for an explanation, but she just shrugged and gave a tired smile. As it turned out, Myne had eaten the actual fruit part of a parue before!

“Seriously?!” I cried. “That’s such a waste! Sure, you could eat the parue and be done with it, but it’s way more efficient to squeeze out the juice and oil, then give the rest to the chickens!”

In truth, it was at this time of year that we needed chicken feed the most, so nobody here would ever think about eating it. Besides, it was crazy to imagine working so hard for some fruit and then not using it efficiently. Myne was probably the only person in the whole city dumb enough to do something like that.

“You said yourself that you have enough feed, right?” Myne asked. “Then shouldn’t you guys eat these scraps yourselves?”

“Aren’t you listening? The leftovers are so dry that nobody would eat them!”

“They only end up like that because people squeeze as much oil out of them as possible. If you’re a little more creative, they’re fine to eat.”

“Y’know, Myne...”

I could feel my strength draining away. Myne kept saying all these crazy things—and with that innocent smile on her face!

What’s this I’m feeling? It’s like... I can’t convince her, no matter what I say. Is it powerlessness? A sense of defeat?

“Um, Lutz...” Tuuli said quietly.

At last, a voice of reason. Myne was sure to listen when her big sister Tuuli explained that chicken feed wasn’t for humans. But in response to my hopeful stare, Tuuli just hung her head.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” she continued, “but the scraps really are edible. They, um... They taste so good that it kind of shocked me.”

“Wait, seriously? She made you eat chicken feed, Tuuli?!”

Myne had already tried this weird idea on her family. That explained why she was so confident about it.

“You just need to taste it for yourself,” Myne said, sticking some of the dry-looking scraps in a small cup. “Do you have any fruit juice left over?”

She ended up adding two small spoonfuls of my share of the fruit juice to her cup of scraps before mixing it all together. Then, she took a tiny bite and nodded to herself.

“Open wide, Lutz,” she said.

As if making me eat chicken feed wasn’t bad enough, she’d wanted me to waste some of my precious parue juice too? It all seemed way too vicious. But after seeing Myne eat some without batting an eye, I nervously opened my mouth.

Myne dipped a finger in the yellow stuff we’d made, then placed some on my tongue. The sweetness spread through my mouth right away. It was amazing to think that just a little bit of juice had completely changed the taste of the parue pieces and made them not dry at all. I was used to drinking my share of the juice we made, trying to savor it as best I could, but now I could make it last even longer by mixing it with scraps.

“See?” Myne said, smiling proudly. “Sweet and tasty, isn’t it?” But the words had barely left her mouth when my brothers, who had been watching suspiciously up until now, rushed over and swarmed us.

“Seriously? Lemme try some, Lutz.”

At once, they all stuck their fingers into the little cup. I grabbed it and tried to keep them away, but it was no use; they were so much bigger than me.

“Hey, let go!” I cried. “What kinda people steal from their own little brother?!”

“Your stuff is my stuff.”

“Share your tasty food with everyone, Lutz.”

“Alright! I got it!”

My resistance did nothing. They snatched the cup away from me, then kept prodding their grubby little fingers inside. In the blink of an eye, there was nothing left.

“Gaaah! My parue!” I shouted. But my brothers were too busy gaping at Myne to pay me any notice.

“Tasty...”

“Was that really chicken feed?”

As if she hadn’t already done enough, Myne shyly scratched her cheek and said something even more unbelievable: “I could make something even better while I’m here.”

“For real?!”

I couldn’t blame my brothers for jumping at the offer; Zasha, the oldest, was always complaining about being hungry no matter how much he ate. Having another way to make chicken feed into something delicious would be awesome.

“Ah, but I might need some help...” Myne continued. “Since I’m so weak and all.” I was already well aware that she didn’t have any strength or stamina. If all she needed to make some tasty sweets was a helping hand, then I was fully on board.

“Alright,” I said. “Leave it to me.”

“Hold on, Lutz,” one of my brothers said. “You ain’t getting it all for yourself. We’ll help too, Myne. I’m a lot stronger than him anyway.” All of a sudden, they’d become really willing to assist us.

I was worried that there wouldn’t be anything for me to do, but Myne happily gave all of us tasks to complete.

“Yay! Okay, I want you two to get a metal griddle we can cook with. Lutz can prepare the ingredients, and Ralph can mix them. Oh, and it wouldn’t be fair to only use Lutz’s juice, so how about you all contribute, okay? Come on, everyone, let’s see your juice. No use hiding it.”

She clapped her hands together like Mom would do, acting as if she were an adult, then got us all to put our juice on the table. At that moment, I really thought she was a genuine angel. If she hadn’t forced my brothers to chip in as well, they definitely would have mooched off of me.

“Lutz, would you get two eggs and some milk? Ralph, mix them together with that spatula over there.”

Myne was normally useless, but here she was instructing us all with a lively expression. Zasha and Sieg brought over the griddle and started warming it on the hearth. Meanwhile, Myne was adding ingredients to a bowl, while Ralph was mixing them all together with a wooden spatula. I was running around and getting all the other things Myne asked me for.

“Okay, that should be good,” she eventually said. “Lutz, do you have butter?”

We did, so I went and got some. Myne took a small spoonful, then climbed onto a tallish chair to reach the hearth. We were all watching her with our hearts in our throats, worried that she might fall, but she probably hadn’t noticed.

The butter hissed as soon as it touched the pan and started to get smaller. At the same time, it gave off a delicious smell that made me feel even hungrier. Myne then used a biggish spoon to pour in the batter that Ralph had been mixing. The hissing was replaced with sizzling, and the buttery aroma became mixed with the sweetness of the parues. It smelled dangerously good. The actual batter reminded me of the pancakes Mom made from grated potatoffels, but ours was sure to be way sweeter.

“And that’s how you do it,” Myne said. “Would you all work together to make more?” Now that she’d given a demonstration, she was leaving the rest of the cooking to us. At most, she was going to watch the griddle and give instructions.

That was fine, though. We’d only needed to see the process once to learn how to do it ourselves. Plus, it was much safer to have the taller people deal with all the cooking; having to watch Myne wobble on top of a chair wouldn’t be good for any of our hearts. My brothers must have agreed because they took the cooking tools from her right away.

“When they get bumpy, it means they’re ready,” Myne told us. “You should turn that one over now.”

Zasha used the spatula to flip over one of the parue pancakes. The underside was a really good color—so good that I nearly drooled. I could hear everyone else swallowing hard too.

“Move that pancake over,” Myne said, pointing at the griddle. “You can cook another one in the open spot.”

Once a pancake was cooked enough, it was moved to the side of the griddle, then more butter and batter were added to the newly made space. The ones that Myne said were fully cooked were stacked on a plate.

It wasn’t long before we had an entire plate of pancakes.

“Ta-daaa!” Myne announced. “(Simple okara pancakes)!” She was wearing a beaming smile, but none of us had a clue what she’d just said. We all stared at her, a little bit weirded out.

“Wha?” I eventually asked. “Say that again?”

Myne pulled an awkward face like she’d just made some kind of mistake, then said, “Umm... Simple parue caaakes...”

The parue cakes now sitting on the table were giving off so much steam. I wanted to wolf them all down at once.

“Go ahead and eat up!” Myne said. “But be careful—they’re hot!”

I broke off a bite-size piece and stuck it in my mouth. As it turned out, parue cakes were shockingly tasty! To start with, they were fluffy—not at all dry like chicken feed. And unlike the potatoffel pancakes that Mom made, these were plenty sweet even without jam. I didn’t have to worry about my brothers taking my share either, since we’d gotten one each.

“Hey, Lutz,” Myne said. “These were pretty simple to make, right? And don’t they fill you right up?”

“They do. Myne, I dunno what to say. You’re amazing.”

We had tons of parue scraps from all the people who’d come to trade with us, and our chickens laid eggs nonstop, so we had plenty to give. Some people even gave us milk for our eggs, so we’d be able to make parue cakes all winter long.

“I know of some other things you can make with parue leftovers, but I’m too weak to do all the cooking myself.”

“I’ll make them for you if you just teach me how.”

After today’s events, one thing was clear to me: if I followed Myne’s instructions, I’d get to eat more tasty food.

And so, Myne started coming over on sunny days to teach us how to make new tasty dishes from parues. It was thanks to her that I spent the winter way less hungry than usual.

She’s my savior. That’s why I’m gonna use my strength and stamina—things she doesn’t have—to help her out.

From that point on, I was determined to assist Myne however I could. It was a decision that would end up changing my entire life—though, at the time, I was too overjoyed about parue cakes to realize it.