Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.1 - Chapter 13

Helping Out Otto 

In this city the people go too gather parues on sunny winter days. Dad and Tuuli went together last time since it was his day off, but this time, he had work. 

I thought for sure we’d just give up on them, until I saw Mom grabbing her coat. “I’ll be going with Tuuli today.” 

There were plenty of ways to use parue and our family wanted as many as possible. Since I was pretty useless when it came to anything involving going outside, I wanted to at least show emotional support. 

Good luck, Tuuli! You can do it! I believe in you, Mom! 

The problem with Mom going with Tuuli to the forest, however, was what to do with me. I was weak, sickly, and generally dead weight. They wouldn’t bring me to the forest knowing I’d end up bedridden with a fever. But they couldn’t leave me alone, either, as they had no idea what I would do if left to my own devices. It hurt to hear that, but to be honest, they weren’t wrong. 

Dad, after falling into thought for a bit while preparing for work, suddenly clapped his hands together. “...I’ve got it! Myne, how about you wait at the gate with me?” 

Dad would take me to the gate. Mom and Tuuli would go gather parues in the forest. On their way back, they would pick me up at the gate and take me home. We would get our parues and I wouldn’t be left home alone. Everybody wins. 

“That’s an excellent idea. Okay, Tuuli. We’re leaving Myne with Gunther.” 

“Right! See you later, Myne.” 

Mom, congratulating Dad on his idea, quickly prepared her things and left with Tuuli in no time. They had to leave fast since you could only gather parues before noon. 

“Alright, ready to go? The gate’s waitin’.” 

Weeell... It’ll be a nice change of pace from home, I guess. And Otto can teach me some new letters if he’s there, so... 

Honestly, I had gotten tired of spending all day at home. Having failed at making faux-papyrus, the only thing I could do at home was play with my slate or make baskets. Never in my life had I expected that I would end up with so much spare time. Books had been the only things saving me from a life of boredom. 

Incidentally, the song “Haru yo, Koi” (Come forth, Spring) has been playing non-stop in my head. The sooner spring comes, the sooner I can go outside and make clay tablets. To that end, I was exercising every morning in hopes of building up enough stamina to make going outside manageable. 

My family looked at me weird, but I knew that physical fitness was best accomplished bit by bit, day by day, with a lot of determination. Though to tell the truth, as I had been exceedingly unhealthy in my Urano days, I hardly knew any proper exercise routines. I was just winging it. 

“Dad, is Otto there today?” 

“Yeah, I think so.” 

“Yay! I’ll bring my slate to the gate, then.” 

Now waiting at the gate’s going to be fun. I hurriedly got my own things together, the most important thing being my stone slate. 

After bundling on layers and squeezing into my coat, I grabbed the wooden tote bag I had woven over the winter and put my stone slate into it, plus the slate pencil. Preparations complete. 

“Let’s go, Dad!” 

“...Myne, you like Otto that much?” 

“Uh huh, I really like him.” I mean, he’s my teacher (or so I’ve unilaterally decided), and he gave me this slate. How could I not like him? 

We left home and it took about half a second for me to realize the air itself was icy cold. Just a little bit of wind brushing my skin was enough to make me twinge with pain. My face was tingling so hard that even I, queen of all lazybones, immediately began hatching a plan to turn parue oil into some kind of moisturizing cream. 

“Bwuh! So cold!” 

Not to mention that the snow was so deep I couldn’t walk in it. There may have been some trick to snow walking, but as I hadn’t grown up in a snowy area, I had no idea what it was. 

It took exactly two steps for my stubby child legs to get stuck in the snow, rendering me immobile. My fate was sealed. My future, gone. I could only cry out into the void for help, hoping someone came to my rescue. 

“Dad! How do you walk through snow?” 

“...Enough already. Hold on tight and don’t fall off.” 

I was holding my arms out to maintain my balance, legs stuck in the snow, when Dad turned around and walked back with an exasperated expression on his face. He put my tote bag around his neck and stuck his hands beneath my arms before lifting me up into the air and resting me on his shoulders. 

“Wooow! So tall. This is so cool.” My line of sight shot up much higher than when Ralph carried me. The only reason the sudden height didn’t terrify me was that Dad’s shoulders, thanks to his job as a soldier, were wide and muscular. I could rest on them without fear. 

Back in my Urano days I had barely ever interacted with my father, but I did have a few memories of him. He did carry me once, when we went to watch the sakura trees bloom. 

“Be sure to hold on tight, alright?” 

It had been so long since someone carried me on their shoulders that my heart was beating a little fast. After I clung to his head, Dad started walking through the snow. The alley to the road hadn’t been swept and thus he carefully traced the existing footsteps for a bit before reaching the main road and walking normally again. 

“Myne, just so you know, Otto’s already married,” said Dad, breaking the silence with something entirely unexpected. 

Um... What? Did I ever say I wanted to marry Otto? I don’t think so. I’ve never said anything about marrying anyone. 

“Ummm... So?” 

“His wife is everything to him, alright?” 

What exactly are you trying to stop your five-year-old daughter from doing? Even if I did like him in that way, he wouldn’t give a five-year-old the time of day. You sure are being dumb, Dad. 

Regardless of realizing what my dad was thinking, I kept quiet. He was being a pain and I definitely wouldn’t reward his petulant behavior with a “You’re way more amazing, Dad!” or a “I love you more, Dad!” 

“So you’re saying that Otto’s an amazing person that’s all about treating his wife well?” 

“...No.” That made Dad so sulky that he kept silent the rest of the way. 

And thus, upon the shoulders of the most tedious father in the world, I arrived at the gate. 

“Good morning.” On instinct I bowed my head to the guards standing at the gate. They looked at me for a second, reminding me that bowing heads was not a customary greeting in this world. Or maybe they were just surprised to see me on my Dad’s shoulders. 

“This is Myne, my daughter. My wife will come get her when she’s done gathering parues. Until then, keep her in the night watch’s room.” 

“Understood.” 

“Got that, Myne? Otto should be there too. You’re welcome.” 

Oof... Dad sounds kinda peeved. Wait, is Dad so jealous that he’s gonna be mean to Otto? Is this complex web of human relationships falling apart? 

“Um, well, I’m just looking forward to Otto teaching me new letters.” 

“Why’s it have to be Otto?” 

Welp... Sorry, Otto. I tried backing you up but I think I just made things worse. I don’t know why Dad has to get so jealous. I’m just looking forward to learning. It’s at times like these that I realize I don’t know too much about father-daughter relationships. 

“I’m coming in.” Dad gave a light knock on the door and walked in. 

The night watch's room had a brightly burning furnace and a lamp on the nearby deck, making it much brighter than our place. The desk was pretty close to the furnace and Otto was doing paperwork on it. 

“Otto.” 

“Captain... and Myne? What’s the occasion?” 

“She’s staying here until the parue gathering is done. Keep an eye on her.” Dad kept his instructions brief, arguably blunt, and set me onto the ground. 

The sudden addition of babysitting to his duties naturally surprised Otto, and he looked between Dad and his paperwork with a troubled expression. 

“Huh? Er, but... I’m busy with these financial reports, budget calculations, and...” 

“Myne. It’s warm here. Make sure not to catch a cold.” Dad left, ignoring Otto entirely. 

I waved him goodbye and turned to look at Otto. “Sorry about this, Mr. Otto. It’s just that, well, getting this slate made me really happy, and seeing you again today made me even happier.” 

“I’m glad to hear that. It’s nice to see you too, Myne, but uh...” Otto gave an awkward laugh and continued, “But that’s nothing to apologize for, right?” with a puzzled expression. 

“The truth is, I complimented you a lot in front of Dad, and he got really jealous...” 

“...Aaaah.” 

“So, will you teach me new letters? I’ll be quiet and stay out of your way until Mom comes to get me.” I could tell from the parchment and ink on the table that he had been in the middle of paperwork. I didn’t intend to get in the way of his work, but I also didn’t intend to miss an opportunity to learn new letters. 

“Well, alright. Somehow I get the feeling you actually will stay quiet and study, Myne,” murmured Otto as he took my slate and scribbled letters onto it. 

This world’s writing system was similar to the English alphabet. There were no syllabaries like hiragana, nor logograms like kanji. The letters themselves determined the sound and meaning of words. Spelling was everything. 

Otto had faith in my willingness to study quietly since I had spent hours playing with the slate after he first gave it to me. 

“Myne. We don’t want you catching a cold and putting the captain in an even worse mood, so here, sit next to me.” Otto gave a troubled smile and scooted a bit to the side, opening up more space by the furnace. 

I fully agreed with his assessment and sat next to him by the furnace without any unnecessary hesitation. “Thank you. It’ll be easier to study now.” 

For a bit, the room was filled only with the sounds of a scraping slate pen, the roaring of burning fire, and an ink pen sliding across parchment. After I had memorized the written letters, more or less, I looked up and saw Otto staring at the parchment in front of him, expression deadly serious as he did calculations. 

He did have an abacus-looking tool next to him, but I couldn’t tell how it worked from a glance. Though in the first place I had only ever used an abacus in elementary school when learning addition and subtraction, so even if it worked exactly like a Japanese abacus, I wouldn’t know how to use it. 

I waited until he finished a section of the paperwork before calling out to him. “Mr. Otto, what are you doing?” 

“Preparing financial reports and budgets. Over the winter we need to prepare a budget for next year and send it off before spring, but most soldiers aren’t great at math. I’m the most used to dealing with money, so I’m writing up our financial reports and budget.” 

“So everyone just pushed the hard work on you, hm?” 

I looked at the parchment, and although I couldn’t read the words, there were three stacked numbers beside a line of text. If I had to guess, the first number was the price of something, the second number was how many of that something they needed, and the third number was the resulting amount of money. It looked like the first two numbers had been multiplied to get the third, so yeah. 

I looked over the parchment, considering the possibility of it being a request for new equipment, when I spotted a math error. “Wait. Mr. Otto, isn’t this wrong?” 

“Wha?” 

“This is 75 and 30, right? I believe those actually make 2,250.” Although I could read the numbers, I didn’t know what they called multiplication in this world and thus had to be kind of vague in my explanation, but Otto seemed to understand me. 

“Wait, what? How can you do math when you don’t know how to read?” 

“Eheheh. My mom taught me numbers at the market. I can look at the numbers here and do math, but I can’t read anything around them.” 

After hearing that I couldn’t read what was written on the parchment, Otto began thinking about something. I heard him muttering to himself, “No, I shouldn’t... But...” back and forth. “...Myne, I’m going to swallow my pride to ask this. Would you please help me?” 

Um... Is this the kind of offer I should accept? I mean, putting aside all the problems regarding classified information, isn’t it pretty out there to ask a kid for help? I guess he’s in such a tight spot that he’d welcome the help of anyone who can do math, even a child? 

He said that he was “swallowing his pride,” so I can imagine that it isn’t normal to ask kids for help. And I do want to help him, if he’s in that much trouble. Especially since I want something from him, too. This seems like the perfect place for some negotiating. 

“Okay, I’ll help. If you keep teaching me letters and get replacement slate pens for me.” 

“Wha?” He probably hadn’t expected a little girl to suddenly throw out conditions like that. His eyes opened wide. 

Smiling a little at his predictable reaction, I explained my situation. “Like I said, I know my numbers since Mom taught them to me. But I don’t know my letters. I want you to teach them all to me.” 

“I’m fine with that, but... What’s with the slate pens? They aren’t that expensive, are they?” Otto was right, they were sold all over the markets for cheap. 

“Mom and Dad used to buy them for me, but now they won’t, so...” 

“Why’d they stop?” 

“I play with the slate all day. No matter how many they buy, I always need more.” 

“Ahahahahah...” 

Hours of play a day was enough to wear out a slate pen in no time. Since I didn’t get any allowance, one could say that getting a steady supply of slate pens was a matter of life or death. 

“A-Anyway! The point is, I’m not a cheap enough girl to work for free.” 

“...I think those are some pretty cheap terms, but alright.” Otto gave a wry smile and agreed to officially become my teacher. 

“What should I do?” 

“Would you mind making sure the calculations here are correct? Basically, I don’t know where the mistakes are, so checking over everything is taking up a lot of time.” 

Apparently he was in the middle of checking paperwork someone else had made. It was obvious given that this world had no computers, but despite how long it took to make paperwork, the calculations written on that paperwork all had to be checked manually. 

“I guess you guys need another soldier that can do math.” 

“...That would be nice, but I only got hired in the first place 'cause I can do this kinda stuff, so...” 

It sounded like there were some deep circumstances behind Otto becoming a soldier. As someone starved for any sort of information, I was itching to ask for details right away, but our workload was so great I swallowed my curiosity and bottled it up for later. 

“Myne, do you need the calculator?” 

“I don’t even know how they work, so I’ll just use my stone slate.” The slate could easily work in place of scrap paper for calculations since everything written on it could be erased. 

I wrote down math on the slate and helped him with his double-checking work. The numbers of this world had completely entered my head and thinking about the number nine was all it took for the proper symbol to appear in my mind. Writing them was no issue.

“Holy crap, that was easy. I’m impressed, Myne, and I owe you big time. I never thought I’d finish all this double-checking work so soon. Y’know, Myne, with math skills like that, you would be a great merchant. I can introduce you to the Merchant’s Guild if you want.” 

Otto had apparently been stuck handling all the financial paperwork himself for years, so he ended up extremely thankful for my help. 

I might want to start a bookstore once I learn how to mass produce books. Getting a connection to the Merchant’s Guild here may pay off big time. Plus, it looks like Otto’s thinking of me as an important helper now. Perfect. 

“Myne, if you really wanna learn your letters, I’ll take teaching you seriously. That way, you can help me with my written paperwork too next year.” 

“Really?! Yaaay!” 

“Huh? Is that something to be happy about?” Otto blinked in surprise, but why wouldn’t I be happy about him taking my learning seriously? 

I mean, helping with paperwork means touching parchment, right? It means writing letters with ink, right? That sounds amazing if you ask me!