Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-1 - Chapter 5

Gunther — I’m Not Givin’ Up My Daughter!

An original short story written as a 2015 order bonus for the online store Animate, set around the time of Part 2 Volume 1. A troubled Gunther, upset that Myne’s position as an apprentice shrine maiden is keeping her from visiting the gate, is reminded that he’s not the only one feeling her absence.

Author’s Note: Leckle also appears in the Part 4 Volume 4 chapter “Preventing Destructive Reconstruction.” To those of you eager to know what he was like when he was a little less mature, here you are!

“How’s your daughter, Captain?”

Leckle stopped me at the gate on my way to my shift. From what I knew, he was better than average at math, and Myne’s crazy work had really inspired him to improve. These reasons were why Otto had him pinned as his replacement. Otto had decided that he was going to quit being a soldier in a few years’ time to actually start working as a member of a merchant family.

“Who’s asking?” I shot back. “I’m not gonna let you marry either of ’em.”

“What are you even talking about...? They’re a decade too young for me to even consider that. Gah, let me get back on track. I’m asking since we haven’t seen Myne at the gate all summer. I’ve been stuck helping Otto all alone.”

Otto’s style was to off-load his work on anyone capable of doing it, and Leckle was the only one good enough at math to make a good replacement. He normally got Myne to do the double-checking work when she came by, but that wasn’t happening anymore—the temple had completely stolen her away. Otto was understandably devastated. Nobody could have seen it coming.

“A rich merchant hired Myne to work in his store,” I explained. “She’s doing math for him, so she doesn’t have time to waste here at the gate. Also, don’t forget how weak she is.” We weren’t telling anyone that Myne had joined the temple; instead, we were saying she was being looked after by the Gilberta Company. It wasn’t entirely untrue—she and Lutz were going there to sell the weird things they were making together.

“Man, it’s been rough lately...” Leckle sighed. “Otto just keeps comparing me to your daughter.”

Myne was crazy smart—that was what people told me, at least. I personally wasn’t sure how to measure something like that. What I did know was that Otto had turned down more helpers than I could count, each time groaning that “teaching idiots is a waste of time.” And after just a brief moment with Myne, that same man had practically begged me to let her be his assistant.

I was well aware Myne had negotiated with Otto, then earned the approval of a rich merchant and secured a position under him as an apprentice. Her achievements hadn’t stopped there either—now that she was in the temple, she was serving as the orphanage director and giving the High Priest a hand with his work. I didn’t know what made someone smart, but I did know my daughter was pretty up there.

“Heh. Yeah, the gods sure do love my daughter. She’s special, unlike you.”

But her being special was why the temple had gone after her in the first place. There were times now when I kind of resented the gods.

“Gahhh. You always exaggerate, Captain, but she really is special. And I really hate being compared to her.”

I could hardly blame him there. It must have been miserable staring at boards and paperwork while the other soldiers were training and standing guard. Myne and Otto were two of the rare few who actually liked that kind of work. If someone told me to do math all day, I’d want to quit my job for sure.

“It’s not right for Otto to force all the work onto you, Leckle. I’ll tell him to train some other soldiers too.”

I’ll also try asking Myne if she knows any good tricks for teaching others...

Effa had mentioned that Myne tutored Lutz in math and reading over the winter to help him become an apprentice merchant. He’d apparently made a lot of progress in just one season.

When I spoke to Myne, the first thing she said was that I needed to look for someone who likes paperwork the same as Otto.

“You’ll want to find someone who lacks stamina and wants to do nothing but bookwork, like me. Guards brimming with passion for building muscle and protecting the city will never be good at paperwork; I’m sure they struggle enough with finding motivation to study. At the end of the day, you can’t force people to learn. It’d be nice if you could just hire gray priests, since they’re good at math and used to dealing with nobles, but oh well...”

Gray priests could most likely get a job at the gate with my recommendation, but they didn’t know anything about life out here. They lived in a completely separate world, and the last thing I needed was to look after a bunch of guys who didn’t even know enough about the lower city to buy from stalls.

“As useful as their skills sound, hiring them seems pretty dang tough...” I murmured, remembering how their eyes would dart all over the place as they walked through the city, and the way they’d recoil from shouts and arguments. They weren’t bad people, but they couldn’t work at the gate even if they were doing nothing but paperwork. The lower city would eat them alive.

Myne smiled. “It might not be possible now, but I hope that in ten or twenty years, it becomes normal for orphans to leave the temple. Maybe they could even seek employment in the lower city.”

She was wearing the expression of an orphanage director thinking about her orphans’ futures, and I could suddenly feel the vast gap that had opened up between us. She was getting absorbed into the temple—into a world I couldn’t enter. I instinctively pulled her into a tight hug.

I’m not givin’ up my daughter! Not to the temple or the gods!