Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume Short Story-1 - Chapter 6

Tuuli — Studying Literature and Picture Books

An original short story written for a TO Books crossover in 2016, set around the time of Part 2 Volume 2. After helping Myne put together a picture-book bible from the temple, Tuuli decides that she wants to learn to read. She starts practicing on a stone slate, but progress is slow.

Author’s Note: Tuuli gets really weirded out by Myne’s perception of value, and understandably so! Money is regarded very differently in the lower city.

“But... give me a book for helping, please. I want to learn to read too,” I said, having worked up the courage after Myne asked me to help sew together some pages. I would be going to the orphanage more and more, and the last thing I wanted was to feel like the only person in the world who couldn’t read and write.

I mean, not knowing how to read is supposed to be normal, but everyone I know seems to be able to read and write.

Myne could do both, of course. Even Dad could, since he worked as a guard. It used to be that he couldn’t write very well even though he knew how to read, but when he found out Myne had started to learn from Otto, he had taken up studying on his own to maintain his pride as a father.

Lutz had learned to read just last winter, having been taught by Myne so he could become an apprentice merchant, but now he was good enough to read contracts like they were nothing at all. It was so impressive that Mrs. Karla bragged about it all the time. Mrs. Corinna also knew how to write, since she made notes on the boards she used for work. With my aim being to one day join her workshop, I’d need to learn to read and write too.

And above all else, I didn’t want Myne and Lutz to leave me behind.

“This is a slate pen. You hold it like this. Oh, not like that, Tuuli. You can’t grip it like that,” Myne said.

My lessons started with me holding a white slate pen and trying to draw lines on the stone slate in front of me. Learning to write actual letters was apparently still a bit too advanced for me right now.

I held the pen as Myne instructed and tried drawing a line just as she demonstrated, but for some reason, I couldn’t put enough force into it. The line wasn’t even remotely straight either. It was weird, thin, and wobbled around all over the place.

“Just like there’s a right way to hold a needle, there’s a right way to hold a pen,” Myne explained. “You can draw lines no matter how you hold them, but if you don’t learn to hold them correctly, you’ll smash their tips to pieces.”

I kept drawing lines, making sure I was holding the pen in the way that made it hard to use force, but they still didn’t end up straight. Myne was doing it so easily too.

“Keep trying no matter how much you’re struggling,” she said. “If you can’t draw straight lines or smooth curves, you won’t be able to sketch clothing designs.”

I was even having to practice reading letters in between writing sessions.

“Once you’ve memorized the spoken text, follow along the letters with your eyes. Soon enough you’ll be able to write them yourself. You’ve still got a long time before you need to go to Corinna’s workshop, so you don’t need to rush as Lutz did.”

“But it still took Lutz over half a year, right? I want to ask to move to Mrs. Corinna’s workshop, so I can’t waste any time.”

Lehange contracts lasted three years, and any arrangements to move workshops needed to be made in advance. That only gave me a year of wiggle room at most.

“A year is more than enough. You should try to actually enjoy the process too,” Myne said with a smile. “If you start to hate books and letters, you’ll never pick up any of this stuff. Mr. Otto’s struggling right now because all the apprentices who were forced into learning aren’t remembering a thing.” As she spoke, she spread out the pages of the bible picture book for kids.

“‘The God of Darkness spent a staggeringly long time alone,’” she read, tracing her finger along the words so that I could follow along. The pure joy in her expression was unmistakable, and there was a sparkle in her golden, moonlike eyes.

“The God of Darkness spent a staggeringly long time alone.” I repeated the words to myself, watching as Myne more or less melted with bliss. I couldn’t recognize the letters yet, so the most I could do was repeat what she said.

“Right, right. Good. Next line. ‘The Goddess of Light appeared next to the solitary God of Darkness, brightening his surroundings with light.’”

In the story, the God of Darkness and the Goddess of Light met and got married. They then had four children: the Goddess of Water, the God of Fire, the Goddess of Wind, and the Goddess of Earth.

“‘The first to be born was Flutrane the Goddess of Water. Flutrane has the power to heal and purify.’”

I continued repeating the contents of the book back to Myne. Once we were done, I returned to drawing lines on the slate.

“Great,” Myne said. “Now that you can draw lines that smoothly, I think you can move on to writing letters.”

After much practice drawing individual lines, I finally started to learn actual letters. Myne first taught me to write my name.

“You’ll be using your name the most, after all. Lutz had to write his on a contract when he joined the Gilberta Company. If you want to join Corinna’s workshop, you’ll probably have to do the same.”

“Wait, really?! You should have said that earlier!”

Drawing lines was hard enough, so it made sense that memorizing all the letters was even harder. Lutz had memorized them all over the winter, but I wasn’t sure I could manage that in time for when I needed to ask Mrs. Corinna whether I could join her workshop. I was getting super, super nervous.

I wrote my name while carefully looking at the example Myne had provided. She went on to teach me her own name, the names of everyone in our family, the names of my friends, Mrs. Corinna’s name, and how to write “the Gilberta Company.”

“Oh, Lutz is here,” Myne said. “I need to get going.” She was heading to the temple almost every day for winter preparations, and unlike most apprentices, she didn’t get every other day off.

She really is going there as much as she can, even though she gets sick and bedridden so often.

I kept, um... “transcribing” the text from the picture book, at Myne’s instruction. A short while later, I heard a quiet thud. I looked up and saw Mom with her big belly setting a cup of water on the table.

“I see you’re working hard, honey.”

“This is super hard. It’s crazy that Lutz learned all these over the winter, but it’s even crazier that Myne learned them all while helping with math at the gate.”

I wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened, but Myne had mentioned helping Mr. Otto teach the apprentices at the gate. In other words, she was already educating others less than a year after she had gone there for the first time. I hadn’t really understood it at the time, but now I knew how impossible that really was.

“Ahaha. That reminds me of when I was a little girl. My father made me help out at the gate too.”

“Your father, Mom? You mean Granddad?”

“That’s right. He was a gate commander. You know how nobles sometimes have meetings at that one soldier meeting room? He taught me to prepare tea and speak properly there. He never taught me my letters though, since I didn’t have any real use for them.”

Granddad and Grandma were both gone now. Mom didn’t talk about them much.

“If Myne had kept helping out at the gate and doing her writing at home instead of going to the temple, I’m sure she would’ve been taught to prepare tea for meetings, just as I was.”

“Mm... I can’t see Myne actually managing to boil water properly...” I mused aloud. She couldn’t even draw water from the well yet, let alone make tea. Mom and I couldn’t help but laugh as we tried to picture it, but it wasn’t long before my eyes dropped back down to the slate. “Mom, want to learn letters too? We can learn at the same time.”

“I’m a bit busy making the baby’s clothes and diapers, so maybe another day. You can teach me in the winter if we have the time.”

“Wait, you want me to teach you?” I asked, blinking in surprise.

“Mm-hmm,” Mom replied with a mischievous smile. “Be sure to learn well so you can help me out.”

“Okay! I’ll do my best!”

I was so happy to know Mom was willing to rely on me that I felt even more motivated than before. And so, with a fire lit under me, I worked even harder at studying... until a certain question came to mind.

Just how much is this book worth, anyway?

I knew the hairpins I made were being sold at a high price, so when Myne came back from the temple, contemplating about the next one, I took the opportunity to ask about the book.

“Umm... We made it in the workshop, so the base cost isn’t very high... but I guess it would go for about one small gold and eight large silvers in a store?”

“Whaaat?!”

I recoiled in surprise, my eyes flitting between Myne and the picture book. I couldn’t believe she had brought something so valuable home with her, and it was almost unthinkable that she wanted to make even more of them.

“I want to make them a little more affordable, but plant paper is still expensive, and ink is a real bottleneck... With Benno being so forceful about securing profit, I imagine it’ll be a while before the price goes down.”

Myne seemed focused on how to reduce the price, but that wasn’t at all what I had meant. “This isn’t something we should be keeping here at home, right? I shouldn’t be studying with something so expensive!”

“What? What are you talking about, Tuuli...? I made it as an educational resource to help children learn to read,” Myne said. She looked utterly confused, but I was the one who was really bewildered.

Myne apparently wasn’t bothered about leaving something worth almost two small golds here in the house, and she was fine with letting both me and the soon-to-be-born baby use it. I had never thought the picture book was worth so much money. The blood drained from my face when I thought about how carelessly I had been handling it.

“U-Um, Myne... Can books be washed...?”

“No! Tuuli! Don’t wash the book! The paper will get ruined if you soak it in water! Don’t wash it no matter what!”

“Oh... Then how do you clean it when it gets dirty?” I glanced at the book and noticed there were already some white smears on its pages from the dust of my slate pen. That sent a jolt of panic through me, but Myne just gave a casual smile.

“It’s best not to get them dirty in the first place, but it doesn’t really matter that much if you do. Really, don’t worry about it.”

“How can I not worry when they’re so expensive?!” I exclaimed. At this point, I was scared to even touch the picture book.

What should I do?! I shouldn’t have asked for one of my own!