Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.2 - Chapter 6

Starting to Make Paper 

It was finally time to kick the paper-making into next gear, and I had more than enough motivation. In fact, I was so excited that Lutz had to tell me to calm down. 

Today’s job was to cut down the types of wood that we had decided on using based on the lumber yard foreman’s advice and the information Lutz had gathered. Once we had our wood, we needed to boil it by the river, soak it in water, then peel off the outer black bark while still in the forest. We would bring the peeled bark back to our storage building and dry it. 

We were just making postcard sized pieces of paper here, so we didn’t need that much in the way of raw materials. Excluding firewood, which we needed a lot of to keep the water boiling for hours at a time as was necessary. Thankfully, since we were working in the forest, it wouldn’t be too hard to get as much as we needed, and we could just go get more if we came close to running out. The one problem was that Lutz needed to carry the pot and steamer to the forest and back, which wouldn’t be easy. 

Thus, we began today early in the morning, going straight to borrow the storage building’s key so as to get the pot and steamer. We would be working in the storage building after getting back from the forest, too, so we went ahead and told Mark that we’d be keeping the key for a while. We were completely ready, but things took an unexpected turn. 

“Are you okay, Lutz?” 

“...Yeah,” replied Lutz, but he didn’t look okay at all with both the steamer and pot tied to the basket on his back. He looked like he was about to be squished flat at any moment. 

The root of our failure was simple. When purchasing both the pot and the steamer, we had made sure to aim for a weight that Lutz could carry. And indeed, at both points, Lutz picked it up and said he would be fine carrying it. But we had never considered how heavy they would be when tied together on the basket to be carried all at once. 

“Should I carry the steamer?” 

“It’s too heavy for you.” If it was too much for Lutz, it was definitely too much for me. All I could do was give him emotional support while taking care not to overexert myself on the walk to the forest. 

Just like always, Lutz and I began our journey to the forest with a large group of children. 

“What’s that, Lutz?” 

“What’re you gonna do in the forest?” 

The children, having never seen a steamer before, were curious about the stuff in Lutz’s basket. 

“We’re gonna make something with this pot and steamer.” The basket must have been enormously heavy. Lutz’s answer was short and simple, which made him sound angry, but the intrigued children kept on asking him stuff. 

“Huh? What’re you gonna make? Something cool?” 

“...No. This is part of a test for me to become an apprentice. Try not to get in our way.” 

“Oh, okay. Got it. Good luck, Lutz.” 

I’d thought the storm of questions would never end, but once the kids learned that Lutz’s apprenticeship was on the line here, they immediately gave him space. I asked Lutz why that was later, and apparently, despite most jobs being decided by the introduction of one’s parents, more popular workplaces tended to be swamped with applicants. Sometimes in situations like that the parents would turn to another option, but otherwise the applicants were given a test to determine who would get the apprenticeships. 

It was an unspoken, but firm agreement between children that they wouldn’t interfere with those apprenticeship tests. That ran the risk of their own test getting messed with in revenge, and it would be harder for them to find a job themselves if rumors of them interfering with tests spread. Hm... Neat, neat. I guess every society like this will have popular workplaces that people fight to get into and try to improve their odds with. 

We saw Otto at the gate and he wished us luck. He must have seen the stuff on Lutz’s back and guessed that we were starting our paper-making. 

“Uh huh, we’ll do our best. Oh, Dad. Bye bye.” 

Dad had been a little jealous lately due to me and Lutz spending so much time together. When I waved him goodbye, he waved back with an expression that was a mixture of a grimace and a grin. It was an expression that made it clear he didn’t like how close I was with Lutz and Otto now, but was still happy to see his daughter waving him goodbye.

“Guuuh, I’m so tiiired. That was a lot heavier than I thought.” Lutz placed the steamer and pot down by the river and spun his shoulders in a circle. 

“Good work, Lutz. Want to take a break?” 

“Nah, you’ll be checking up on the wood a bell after the steaming starts, right? I’ll wait until then,” said Lutz while he piled up stones by the river bank, laying the groundwork for a hearth upon which to rest the pot. I expected nothing less from Lutz; he wasn’t wasting a moment. 

In sharp contrast to Lutz’s wealth of experience outside, I had basically spent all of my past life shut up inside. I couldn’t hope to do what he was doing. As always, I was dead weight. The best I could do was pick up some branches lying around and hand them to him. 

Lutz put river water in the pot, placed it on the hearth, speedily put the wood where it needed to be, and lit the fire. “I’m gonna go get some more wood. Myne, you rest and keep an eye on the pot, alright?” 

“You need to rest more than I do, don’t you?” 

“I don’t want you passing out before the paper’s ready, or after it either. You can gather some branches around here but that’s it, don’t move too much. Also, shout if something happens. Alright?” 

“...Okay.” Lutz was absolutely correct, so I resigned myself to quietly watching over the pot. That said, it would be a long time before the water got to boiling. It was so boring. For lack of anything else to do, I took a nearby branch and threw it into the fire.

Having run out of branches near the pot, I was spreading out my search further away from it bit by bit when suddenly I found a red pomegranate-looking fruit half-buried in the ground. 

“Oh? What’s this? Is it edible? Maybe I can get oil from it.” The majority of things one could find in the forest were useful to one’s daily life. Having spent a year in this world, my way of thinking had naturally been painted by its culture. Never in Japan would I have found something lying on the ground and immediately decided to pick it up to try and get some use out of it. 

“I’ll have to ask Lutz what this is.” I used the twig in my hand to dig the red fruit out of the ground. I picked it up, and for some reason it got really hot all at once. ...Oh no! It’s a weird fantasy fruit! 

Apparently, the red fruit was a brother to those weird ingredients I sometimes had to fight with to make supper. I honestly had no idea what it would do, and thus I had no idea how to deal with it. In a panic, I threw the fruit as hard and as far as I could. Which meant, of course, that it barely flew a couple of meters before plopping onto the ground. 

Immediately, the fruit began bouncing around while making loud crackling sounds and spewing red seeds everywhere. I looked around and saw several plants sprouting from the ground around it. I watched, stunned, as they grew up to my ankles. Um... What?! What’s going on?! What’s with these plants?! 

Things were so obviously wrong that I ran away in confusion, screaming. “LUTZ! Lutz! Luuuuutz! Something’s happeniiing!” 

“What’s wrong, Myne?!” Lutz, who had apparently been nearby, ran in my direction while pushing aside branches. He looked in the direction I was pointing and, the blood draining from his face, blew his whistle. “It’s a trombe!” 

“What’s that?” 

“No time to explain!” said Lutz while swinging his billhook and chopping down the plants. They were already growing to our knees in height and showing no signs of stopping. It was clear that they were dangerous. “Myne, you go wait on the other side of the river, alright?!” 

“O-Okay.” The situation afforded us no time to talk. I followed Lutz’s instructions and ran to the river. Along the way I soon came across the rest of the kids rushing in our direction, having heard Lutz’s whistle. 

“What’s going o — Wait, a trombe?!” 

“Cut it down!” 

As usual, I was the only one who didn’t understand what was going on. The gathered kids all recognized the relentlessly multiplying plant and immediately raced toward it, their billhooks and knives in hand. I sat near the pot and watched the increasing number of kids slice away at the plant. Reason being, I figured that burning the plant would be a lot more effective than cutting it... or at least, that would be my excuse for not running to the other side of the river (in reality, I was completely out of breath after running for less than a minute).

“It looks like it’s not growing anymore.” 

As I spent some time KO’d by the riverbed, the other kids finished chopping up the rapidly growing plant. They were looking around to make sure they didn’t miss any of it. 

“Looks fine now, but there might be other trombes nearby. Keep an eye out while gathering and blow your whistle if something happens.” 

The kids dispersed again to get back to gathering and Lutz walked up to me. “I was gonna ask why you didn’t go to the other side of the river, but... I’m guessing it was too much for you.” 

“...It was too much.” I was breathing a lot harder than Lutz, despite how he was the one who had just been swinging his billhook non-stop. If someone who didn’t know me saw us now, they’d probably think I had been fighting on the frontlines. 

“Lutz, what was that?” 

“A trombe.” Apparently, trombes were plants that grew extremely fast. If you didn’t chop them down the moment they started to grow, they would suck the nutrients out of the entire surrounding area. 

It was possible for a trombe to get so big that it was impossible for normal folk to chop down, in which case the Knights’ Order would need to be summoned to destroy it. ...Wow, this place has a Knights’ Order. Just what I’d expect from a fantasy world. 

“Still, that was weird,” said Lutz, sitting on a rock by the river and collecting his breath. “It’s too early for trombes to be showing up. Normally they only grow later in autumn.” 

“Hmm...” 

“That one was growing super fast, too. But the ground around where it was doesn’t look like it’s gone bad or anything...” 

“Huh.” 

“C’mon, what’s with you? Don’t you think it’s weird?” Lutz glared at me, looking frustrated at my dry responses. 

But what did he expect? That was my first time seeing a trombe, so I had no idea what was weird and what was normal. Trombes in general were weird to me, what with the bulbs sprouting everywhere and growing so fast. 

“I mean, I’ve never seen one of those before. I don’t know what’s different about it or anything.” 

“Oh, right. You only started going to the forest last spring.” Lutz nodded to himself, and at that moment I heard the pot start to boil. 

“Lutz, the wood?” 

“Should be around... there...” Lutz pointed to where the trombe had appeared, then dropped his head in frustration. The wood he had chopped up while waiting for the water to boil was nowhere to be found, having been lost when he ran to answer my yelling. 

“...Hey, Lutz. Want to try making paper out of the trombe? Everyone just left it there so there’s a lot of it, and since you chopped it as soon as it sprouted, the fibers are probably really soft.” 

“Good thinking. Cutting more wood right now would be pretty rough.” 

I put some of the trombe plant in the steamer and had Lutz put it on top of the pot. All we had to do for a bit was keep feeding the fire so the water would keep boiling. I tossed the branches I had gathered into the fire bit by bit while Lutz kept an eye on it. 

“Myne, sorry, but could you watch the fire for a second? I’m gonna go try to find the wood I lost.” 

“Mmm, okay.” 

Lutz, having recovered a bit from resting, stood up and went to get the wood he had abandoned in his panic. I took a branch in hand and looked at the fire. Over time I had gotten better at managing fires so they didn’t get too big, but I often would take my eyes off it just long enough for it to get out of control. Haaah... Gas stoves were so convenient. Electric heaters and stuff are basically magic, really. Induction heating, how does it work? 

Lutz resumed his gathering while the trombe boiled. Apparently the forest grew a lot more edible plants once summer ended and autumn began, so when we switched spots at the pot, I went off to gather whatever caught my eye. 

“I found lots of stuff, Lutz. How’s it all look?” 

“Let’s see... Crap, Myne! Show me everything! I need to make sure we can bring them back!” Lutz’s expression sharpened after he saw what I brought back, and apparently, about a third of the plants were poisonous. “This one’s no good. It’ll make your limbs tingly and you won’t be able to move for three days. This is no good either. It’ll make your stomach hurt for two days. This is worse, you’ll froth at the mouth and die if you eat it. Myne... If you don’t learn these things, you’re gonna die of poison before any sickness can get you.” 

...He’s right. If I don’t properly learn these plants, both me and my family will die. Since I had no choice but to keep living in this world, I needed to boost up the priority of “distinguish what’s poisonous” on my list of things to do. Without a field guide at hand, I needed to learn from the guidance of another. “I’ll do my best to learn them, but I’ll need you to teach me, then.” 

“Yeah.” 

We heard the faint sound of a bell from the direction of the city, so we took off the steamer. There was enough steam to heat up my face, but just looking wasn’t enough to tell if the wood had been steamed enough. 

“How’s it look?” 

“I’m not sure, but I’m going to try putting it in the river and peeling the bark off.” I dunked the wood into the river and tried peeling the bark while it was still hot. It came right off without breaking apart, easier than I expected. We just might have found some good material. 

“This trombe wood might be perfect for making paper.” 

“Nobody knows where they’ll pop up, so there’s no telling if we’ll always be able to get young trombes before they grow.” 

“...Aw. Then this definitely won’t work.” I sighed, thinking back to how suddenly the trombe had appeared. Too bad. It would have been perfect if we could cultivate them somehow. 

“Hey, Myne. Is that all we gotta do today?” 

“Uh huh. Now we have to wait for this bark to dry.” 

“...Alright. I’ll leave the peeling to you while I clean this pot up.” Lutz began washing the pot and steamer in the river so we could leave. Sitting down by the river and peeling bark was surprisingly fun, so I hummed to myself while peeling away. 

It was time to go back to the city, so I put the bark into my basket along with the various things I had gathered. Lutz pumped himself up and lifted up the pot and steamer on his back. He had his gathered stuff, so the way back for him would be even heavier than the way here. 

Lutz and I both wobbled back to town, then separated from the others to go to the storage building. He unlocked the door and put the stuff down. “Gaah, so heavy!” 

“The stuff you gathered added a lot, huh? I wish I could hold some of it for you...” Unfortunately, carrying my own gathered materials was literally the best I could do. I didn’t have a lick of strength to spare. 

We sat down on the floor of the storage building. Lutz took out some of the black bark from inside of the pot and waved it in my direction. 

“Hey, Myne. How’re we supposed to dry this stuff? And where?” 

“Huh? Ummm... I wonder.” In my mind I had envisioned drying the bark by hanging it from a central pillar like one does rice straw, but we didn’t have a stick to use like that. I looked around, searching for something we could use, and then plopped a hand on Lutz’s shoulder. 

“Lutz, I’m sorry to ask this while you’re tired, but could you beat some nails into this shelf with an equal amount of space between each one? It’s important for drying the bark.” 

“...Fine, fine.” 

I placed the black bark onto the nails that Lutz hammered for me. This would work for now while we didn’t have much bark, but when it came time to mass produce the paper, we would need more space for drying. But well, at that point we could just ask Benno for help. We didn’t need more space just yet. 

“We need to get the bark completely dry. Mold will grow otherwise. Maybe we should bring it to the forest tomorrow and dry it all under the sun?” 

“So we’re just gonna be drying the bark tomorrow, yeah? Nothing else? Guess I’ll be able to do some normal gathering then. That’s a big help, there’s a lot of stuff I gotta get real soon.” 

“Uh huh. I know I want to get lots of mushrooms and dry them. They’ll make good mushroom broth.” 

“...Learn which mushrooms are poisonous, first.” 

The next day, I went to the forest with the black bark, rested them on the corner of my basket, and gathered a lot of mushrooms while it dried under the sun. Incidentally, twenty percent of those mushrooms were poisonous. ...I just don’t get it. How does this keep happening...? 

Several days under the sun dried the black bark completely. I wasn’t sure at what exact point it became completely dried, so I intentionally dried it past the point that looked acceptable. Then I took the crackly bark and went to the forest. The next step was to dunk it in the river for over an entire day, so the weather was important. 

We went to a part of the river that people generally didn’t go to, moved rocks into a circle shape, and put the black bark inside in such a way that it wouldn’t get washed away. 

“Is that all?” 

“...Probably. Let’s check again before we go home.” My lack of experience made it hard for me to feel confident, but I was pretty sure that this was how you did it. I looked down at my feet in the river. It was a warm day and therefore the river felt fine, but as the seasons advanced onward, entering the river would run the risk of death due to the cold. Naturally, this world doesn’t have rubber boots or gloves. 

“Lutz, I think we should experiment with other types of wood before it gets too cold. We won’t be able to go into the river.” 

“...Good point. It’s already pretty cold, too,” agreed Lutz, his face scrunched up at the thought of entering the river during frosty weather. 

“Let’s cut up the wood now and hide it like when we made the clay tablets. If we’re going to bring the steamer and pot here tomorrow, you won’t want to carry the wood too, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

We searched for wood that looked like it would make good paper and cut it down, organized the wood by type, and hid it all beneath a low-hanging tree. We occasionally checked the black bark while gathering. The bark surrounded by stones amid the water wasn’t getting washed away, and was instead swelling up as it absorbed water. 

“I was worried about leaving it here, but looks like it’s doing fine.” 

“...Uh huh.” 

Even after forcing myself to go home, I couldn’t help but think constantly about the bark we had left behind. What if a random deluge overflowed the river and washed it away? What if bandits came and stole it, thinking they’d found mysterious treasure? Weird thoughts came to my mind one after another as I stared vacantly at the ceiling. 

The next day, my heart was beating like crazy on the way to the forest, but the black bark was right where we left it with no bandits in sight. “Whew. I’m so glad it’s still here.” 

“...So, what now?” Lutz picked up the water-swollen bark and tilted his head. 

“We peel off the outer layer of the bark with a knife so that only the inner white bark is left. But first, let’s start steaming the wood from yesterday. We can work with the bark while the wood is getting steamed.” 

The stone hearth we made last time was still there, so after some minor fixes, we put the pot and steamer in place. Once that was done, Lutz and I began cutting off the outer layer of the bark on a large, flat stone near the pot. 

“We can leave the dried bark on this stone. Let’s try to finish making the white bark while it’s still warm.” 

“You got it.” 

We placed the black bark on the stone and peeled off the outside black bark, leaving only the white inner bark. It felt like peeling the tendons out of chicken. But the bark wasn’t that strong, so it broke apart mid-slice. This would probably be better with more efficient tools, but this was the best we could manage. 

“Hey, Myne. This works, but uh...” 

“Mhm. We could really use a cutting board.” 

The screeching sound and bone-vibrating sensation of the knife hitting the stone gave me goosebumps that just wouldn’t go away. I really, sincerely wished we had a flat board to cut this bark on. When making that list of stuff we needed, I had written down everything that came to mind, but now that we were actually doing the work, I realized there was a lot I had forgotten about or otherwise didn’t consider. I thought I knew what I was doing, but it was just too complicated. We would need to add to our arsenal bit by bit while working and realizing what we lacked. 

While peeling off the bark with tears in my eyes and goosebumps on my skin, I became painfully aware of just how important real-life experience really was.