Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.3 - Chapter SS1

The Passage of Time and a New Promise

The mostly empty temple was painfully quiet.

After leaving the orphanage director’s chambers, we silently followed Gil down the hall; a carriage was waiting for us at the front entrance to the noble section of the temple. Master Benno climbed inside first, and then Mark. I moved to follow, but then I stopped and turned around. Gil was seeing us off, as he always would.

“Gil...”

He had been let into the hidden room before, so he surely knew what Rozemyne was going through right now. I met his gaze with a firm look, staring straight into his purple, almost black eyes, and my smile of a merchant fit to serve the archducal family distorted as I struggled to maintain it. “Keep a close eye on Lady Rozemyne, alright?”

“Like I need you telling me that. I’m her attendant, y’know?”

Gil didn’t comment on my rude tone—in fact, he shot back at me in an equally crude way. I could feel the relief spread through my chest in an instant; if Gil said that he was going to look after her, he would. But at the same time, it felt like it was being shoved in my face once more that I was no longer going to be the one supporting Rozemyne.

I bit down on my lip and climbed into the carriage, trying to endure the indescribable pain in my heart.

The carriage began moving at once, bouncing high at the start. It went down the paved road of the temple and passed through the gate for carriages. There was no longer any need to act like a merchant; the fake smile I had been desperately trying to maintain crumbled in an instant.

...Fuck!

I glared down at my hands, feeling powerless. “Why did I need to sleep for two whole years?” Rozemyne’s pained words were burned into my mind. She had spoken from the heart then, and she had cried so hard, but I couldn’t hug her or calm her down like I had been doing for so long anymore. Our lives had changed so much that I couldn’t even ease her worries by saying that we’d always be together or that things between us were going to stay the same.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t stop seeing Rozemyne’s face and the tears streaming down her cheeks.

I told Master Benno that I’d get a grip—that I’d stay straight and help her when she got scared—and this is what happens...?

Master Benno had been given an advance warning about the nullification of the contracts, which had given me time to get my feelings in order and console Rozemyne when she needed me. But this goodbye had been too sudden—this announcement that we couldn’t use the hidden room anymore had come completely out of the blue.

But Master Benno knew, didn’t he?

The news had come out of nowhere for me, but both Master Benno and Mark had reacted as though they knew it was coming. That annoyed me. I slowly looked up and found myself making eye contact with Master Benno, who was watching me quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my voice coming out so pointed and reproachful that it surprised even me. I reflexively clapped a hand over my mouth, but Master Benno didn’t criticize me; he just raised an eyebrow and asked what I was talking about. Mark wasn’t giving me a chastising look either, so I continued, relieved.

“You and Mark knew we wouldn’t be able to use the hidden room forever, right?”

“Oh, that...?” Master Benno asked, furrowing his brow and crossing his arms. “We weren’t trying to hide it from you, if that’s what you think. We didn’t mention it since you were in Illgner when Fritz brought it up.”

It was something they had apparently heard from Fritz over two years ago, before Rozemyne had entered her long slumber. He had said they would probably lose access to the hidden room around the time she joined the Royal Academy—and that even if not, she would be leaving the temple for marriage after coming of age.

“After we heard that, we knew it was important to make sure the hidden room being closed off wouldn’t cause any problems for the business,” Master Benno said. “But she ended up sleeping for two whole years, y’know? Our hands were so full with all the demands the nobles were making of us that we didn’t have time to think of what was coming next.”

He was right—we had spent years following Lady Elvira’s unreasonable demands, on top of aiding the gray shrine maiden’s birth in Hasse, traveling to Haldenzel, and so on. Without Rozemyne to stand between us and the nobles, the number of stressful jobs we had to endure had shot up dramatically. Our hands had been so full trying to make a dent in our mountain of work that we hadn’t had time for anything else.

Even if I had known about the hidden room, I would’ve put off dealing with it while Rozemyne was asleep, much like Master Benno did.

As I recalled how little leeway we all had back then, my dissatisfaction melted like snow at the coming of spring. But what sprouted in its place? Unease.

“Then, Master Benno... Did I do my job? Is she going to have the strength to stand alone now?”

Master Benno looked at me with a conflicted grin—an expression like he had simultaneously swallowed something nasty and stared directly at a bright sun. “Yeah. You did good,” he said. “Thanks to you, Rozemyne’s managed to stand on her own two feet. She’s stopped crying and is facing the future.”

Our promises made Rozemyne face forward... I wanted to believe Master Benno was telling the truth, but I couldn’t accept it that easily. I knew that I needed to swallow my feelings, but the sense of loss was just too great.

Mark knocked on the wall of the carriage with a wooden board. “Let Lutz down here,” he said.

The carriage stopped along the side of the road. Outside the window, I could see that we had turned off of the main street and onto a road leading to the Plantin Company.

Master Benno directed me to get out of the carriage. “Go call Tuuli; her family needs to hear about this too,” he said softly. “Once noble scholars start getting involved with the temple, communicating through letters won’t be so easy.”

He then gave me a light pat on the head—something he often did when praising or consoling his apprentices. It served as a reminder that I had people who cared about me, which was heartwarming and encouraging... but it wasn’t enough to pull my heart out of the mud.

Even so, I nodded and climbed out of the carriage, making sure to take the wooden board that Mark had held out to me. “It’s pretty cold...” I muttered to myself.

Winter was clearly coming to an end—there had been fewer snowy days lately, and the sunlight was starting to feel warmer—but the wind was still frosty. After seeing the carriage off, I popped up the collar of my coat and started walking down the still snowy path.

...So I’ve gotta be the one to tell Tuuli, huh?

This was going to crush her. I wondered whether Effa and Gunther might even cry after hearing that exchanging letters with Myne was going to be even harder going forward... and those thoughts actually made me feel a little better.

Master Benno and Mark just don’t get it.

They had also been forbidden from using the hidden room, but they only viewed the situation from a business perspective; they couldn’t share my grief. This had also been the case with Myne’s funeral—Master Benno had propped me up, saying that time spent crying was better spent working and earning money, but he hadn’t shared my pain. I had only managed to process my feelings and get back on my own two feet after sharing the grief with Myne’s family and finding a goal to work toward.

At this bell, Tuuli should still be at the workshop.

Taking a guess, I passed by the Gilberta Company to go straight to Mrs. Corinna’s workshop. I had been coming here on errands ever since the time I was an apprentice in the Gilberta Company myself, so I already knew a lot of the people. One such seamstress came speeding over the moment I stepped inside.

“Oh, Lutz. What brings you here today? Is it just me, or have you gotten even taller? Are you thinking of getting measured for new apprentice clothes?”

“No, Master Benno sent me here with a message. Could you call Tuuli for me? It’s going to be a bit of a long conversation, as I’m sure you can tell from the fact I’ve got an entire board here for her, so can you give her permission to go outside?” I asked, ignoring her barrage of questions and handing over the board that Mark had given me. I had learned years ago that being stupidly honest and answering her questions would get us nowhere.

“I can let her leave, but... Go straight to the Plantin Company, you hear me? I don’t want you two wandering down any alleys for some alone time.”

“Huh...? E-Er, no. We aren’t like that!” I exclaimed as she went to fetch Tuuli. But no matter how much I protested, her knowing grin didn’t falter in the slightest.

Gah, come on... I guess we are old enough to be seen like that, though.

In the past, others had considered us no more than fellow children from the poor part of town... but we were too old for that now. I had realized this a while ago. Ralph had a thing for Tuuli, and Fey wouldn’t stop talking about his first girlfriend; there were more and more people around us throwing themselves headfirst into romance. We were at an age where even delivering Tuuli a message at my boss’s order sparked teasing and rumors about a secret romance. For her sake, I needed to avoid inviting any unnecessary misunderstandings.

Same’s true for Rozemyne... It feels weird, since she looks the same as she always has, but she’s getting older too. Guess it’s not unusual that she’s engaged now.

I didn’t know too much about noble circumstances, but still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all happening too soon. I sighed, hoping to expel even a bit of my frustration, and that was when Tuuli came rushing over. She was wearing a coat and accompanied by the same seamstress from before.

“Sorry for the delay! I— Wait, wha...?” Tuuli had come in such a hurry that her breathing was labored and her cheeks flushed. She looked around anxiously, blinked a few times, and then looked at the seamstress. “Didn’t you say Master Benno was calling me?”

“Well, you’re about to go to his store! It’s pretty much the same thing! Isn’t it more exhilarating to meet your secret boyfriend out of nowhere like this? I thought it’d be a nice surprise!”

“Lutz and I aren’t like that,” Tuuli replied with a troubled look. I shared her concern. It seemed like everyone was getting weirdly excited about us supposedly being an item, but I didn’t get why. Had we done something to give off the wrong impression?

“Aw, so shy... Times like this are your only chance to see Lutz this time of year, right? Aren’t you lucky?” the seamstress gushed, ignoring Tuuli and pushing her out the door.

Tuuli gave me an exhausted look. I was fine, since I lived in the Plantin Company, but she was no doubt going to be teased about this for a long time to come. It made me feel a little bad.

“Sorry. I didn’t think I’d cause a stir like that,” I admitted. “Does it, er, make it hard for you to work there?”

“It’s not your fault, Lutz. Really, I should apologize for having gotten you wrapped up in all this. They love to talk about this stuff. They don’t take the teasing that far when Mrs. Corinna’s there, but ever since Knut was born, she’s been coming to the workshop way less often...”

Tuuli spoke as though she had already accepted the situation, although she still looked fairly depressed about it. I considered showing up less to ease her struggles, but not anyone could come give reports about Myne.

“If you want to get teased less, we could start having someone else deliver these messages... Couldn’t do that this time, though.”

“Ah... Right. It must be important for you to have come all this way to get me. Let’s pick up the pace.” Tuuli had most likely guessed why I was here, as she started to hurry down the snowy path. Meanwhile, my legs grew heavier as I remembered what I was about to have to tell her.

After Tuuli and I arrived at the second floor of the Plantin Company, Master Benno told us to go to the parlor. He had changed out of the clothes he wore when meeting nobles and into his usual attire. Mark was handling the store, and I was instructed to stand behind Master Benno as a leherl apprentice.

“Sorry to have made you come all this way, Tuuli. But I figure you know there’s only one thing I’d call you for.”

“Something major happened with Lady Rozemyne, right?” Tuuli asked. She sat down in the chair for guests and looked up at Master Benno so sharply that her blue-green braid swayed behind her head. Her blue eyes were filled with resolve, just as Myne’s had been when she had accepted our goodbyes and faced the future.

Master Benno told her everything that had happened in the temple—that we could no longer use the hidden room now that Myne was getting older and that nobles such as Lord Damuel, who knew of our circumstances, would not be the only ones accompanying her to the temple. From now on, she was also going to be with her other noble retainers, and since her scholars were going to be handling her paperwork, it was going to become much harder for us to smuggle letters to her.

Tuuli quietly listened to Master Benno’s dry explanation; she didn’t start crying or anything.

“Well, that’s all from me,” Master Benno said after finishing his business-like report. “I imagine you’ll want to discuss what you’re gonna do from here. I don’t mind if you two want to talk alone. I’ll be in my office, so just come get me when you’re done.” He glanced my way and then exited the parlor.

Tuuli watched Master Benno as he went; then, when the door was completely shut, she turned her blue eyes to me. “Lutz, do you want to sit down?” she asked, her face twisting with worry. “You look terrible.”

I had been standing behind Master Benno’s chair like a rock, and it was only at her prompting that I dragged my feet over and plopped down into the guest chair. The moment I no longer needed to mask my true feelings for work, my body and head grew heavy all at once. It was like I couldn’t support myself on my own anymore.

“The hidden room in the temple was the only place I could treat her as Myne, not Lady Rozemyne...” I said. “And now there’s no way for me to speak to her as Myne. I can’t console her, and I can’t have frank business talks with her either. We can’t even trade letters anymore, even though I promised you all that we would... This was the real goodbye. Myne’s gone now.”

From now on, we’d only see Lady Rozemyne, not the Myne we knew. Just thinking about it made tears well up in my eyes unprompted. I lowered my face, not wanting Tuuli to see me cry, and she patted a hand on my head.

“I see... But her growing older and the situation changing is all noble business—it’s not anything that you or Mr. Benno could do anything about. Don’t let it eat you up, Lutz.”

Her head pats were kind and gentle, and she spoke in a tone that carried a peacefulness that made it seem as though she were able to accept anything. But that just made me feel worse, somehow.

“No!” I exclaimed. “I hate this! I can’t only speak to Myne with a fake smile and fake words—things that make it impossible for us to even know whether we’re understanding each other! Could you, Tuuli?!”

Don’t just accept this goodbye! Get mad with me! Get mad at how unfair this all is!

I gazed up at Tuuli, hoping that she would agree with me... but after a moment of contemplation, she slowly shook her head.

“Sorry, Lutz, but I don’t really feel much tragedy here. I’m sad that we can’t trade letters anymore, but I knew this was coming. I can accept it for what it is.”

It was as though someone had punched me in the head. I had thought that Tuuli would share my grief, since, unlike Master Benno, she wasn’t just worried about whether business would go smoothly now that they couldn’t communicate as directly anymore.

“Wh-What? But, why...?”

“Mm? Because, I mean, I’ve only ever been able to peek at her from the temple’s door. I’ve only ever spoken to Lady Rozemyne in the formal way that you hate so much; I haven’t met her outside of work. You say that you can’t use the hidden room anymore, but that doesn’t really impact me much.”

Her words pierced my heart like a spear. I thought I had understood, but I hadn’t. Only Master Benno and I had been able to speak with Myne like the old days in her hidden room—Tuuli and the others were forbidden from interacting with her as family entirely, so they had never been taken there to talk normally. They had only been taken there initially because their speech and mannerisms hadn’t been at an appropriate level for interacting with the nobility.

“You know, er... Sorry. I was just being selfish...” I said. Guilt was starting to rise up with me as I realized I had been complaining to Tuuli despite having been lucky enough to speak with Myne freely in the first place, but Tuuli knocked those feelings away too with a smile.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it. I mean, I’m sad too, since we won’t be able to trade letters anymore. But it was getting hard to hide them from Kamil, so this is good timing in a sense. You know, remember the karuta you brought earlier? He’s started to learn his letters, and now he’s super interested in reading.”

There was nowhere in our tiny homes that we could stash our letters, and it wasn’t easy to write them in secret when Kamil was away.

“I’ve been keeping the letters in my room in the Gilberta Company so that Kamil doesn’t find them, but I’m too scared to open them for fear of someone seeing them,” Tuuli explained. “Someone might suddenly come into my room to call me for work or food, right? None of us have been able to reread the letters from Myne much lately.”

Things were changing all over the place. She had mentioned to me before that they were hiding Myne’s circumstances from Kamil—as far as he was concerned, I was the one giving him the karuta, picture books, and so on—yet I hadn’t fully grasped the situation there.

“I guess there’s nothing I can do to keep you and Myne connected anymore...”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. I don’t find it as painful as you do—that is, to the point of wanting to cry—but I know how hard you’ve been working for us,” Tuuli said with an encouraging smile as she started dabbing away my tears with a handkerchief. “There are still times when we get to meet with her directly, thanks to work. And since this is Myne we’re talking about, I bet she’s going to come back with more crazy jobs like an order from a prince. She may be surrounded by nobles, but I’ll still get to see her when delivering her products. And Dad always gets to guard her on the way to Hasse, since she’s already shown him her favor as the High Bishop, and that’s not going away anytime soon, right? I mean, it happens way less often than your business talks, but... still. We at least get to see one another.”

She was right. I had been racking my brain, desperately trying to think of ways for Myne and her family to still see each other... but even without the hidden room, there were thin little bridges connecting them.

“We’re in positions now that aren’t easy to get rid of. So, we’re fine. And you’ll get to meet her as a Gutenberg too, won’t you, Lutz? Aren’t you going somewhere this spring?”

“Yeah. We’re going to Haldenzel, via her weird but surprisingly useful highbeast...”

My mood started to lighten a little as Tuuli listed off all the things we would be doing in the future. Even without the hidden room, I got the feeling we were still going to be doing pretty much the same things.

“I guess our main concern should be Myne herself,” I said. But when I explained how she had burst into tears in her hidden room, Tuuli just gave a sad smile, looking only a little worried.

“I think she’ll be fine too.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, I mean, I’m making hairpins to help her out, right? So I can be with her even when she’s in noble society. And you’re making books for her. We’re all doing things for her, and I know our feelings are reaching her. I trust Myne.”

Somehow, it felt as though Tuuli had completely bested me. Maybe I was the one who didn’t have faith in Myne. She had said that, no matter how painful things got, she would be happy as long as she had books, and that she would always put her all into getting them. I just needed to make books so that she could keep giving it her all in noble society—so that she could feel content no matter how bad things got. I just needed to follow the promise I had made with her.

“Feels like a massive weight’s been taken off my shoulders,” I said. “But, y’know... I sure do always show you my weird side, huh?”

“It’s fine. Your weird side isn’t weird, like, at all compared to Myne’s, and I’m her older sister. It’s my job to clean up after her.”

Hearing that made me relieved. I couldn’t talk to my family about Myne stuff, so it was good to have someone to vent to.

Having calmed down a bit, I went to the workshop the next day. I wanted to make sure that Myne was doing alright. No sooner had I made eye contact with Gil than he gestured for us to go outside.

“Fritz, I’m going to check the tools with Lutz,” Gil said. “I also want to ask how the forest is looking.”

Some of the people who overheard the word “forest” dropped their work and came running over. They clearly were dying to go out after spending so long working inside the orphanage.

“Will we be going to the forest soon?” one boy asked. “If so, we can help!”

“You all have duties to learn before the Gutenbergs’ trip,” Fritz said, instructing the orphans to continue their work. “I will handle this, Gil.”

Fritz let us go outside, having most likely guessed what was going on. Gil and I took some tools for visiting the forest from the workshop and checked over them beneath the cold sky, looking for any chips in the knives or holes in the baskets.

“Hey, Gil. How’s Lady Rozemyne doing?” I asked. He had served Myne since her days as an apprentice blue shrine maiden and accompanied us to the hidden room as an attendant; he knew how different she was inside and outside the hidden room.

“She locked herself up in her other hidden room in the High Bishop’s chambers, but she was smiling when she left, so I think she’s fine. Though she’s not here anymore. She’s already left for the castle.”

“Nice...”

She had cried, as I expected... but in the end, she had found it in herself to leave for the castle while acting like a noble. I had been worried that she’d crumble, but it sounded as though she had gotten back on her feet.

“Once the archduke gives his permission, her noble retainers will start going in and out of the temple too,” Gil said. “Lots of things are gonna change—like, all documents are gonna be passed through her scholars first. Things like that.”

“I heard the gist from Master Benno. He said we won’t be able to exchange letters anymore.”

“Right. I imagine it’s gonna be tough on you guys,” Gil said with a nod. He then looked at me with his purple, almost-black eyes. “But since I’m her attendant here, once her retainers leave, I can tell her a little about you guys in my evening reports.”

“Gil...?” I blinked in surprise, realizing that while everyone else had given up, he alone was still struggling to keep us together. He returned a conflicted look—a mixture of awkwardness and frustration.

“Letters would leave a paper trail, plus they’d need to be kept somewhere... so any messages are only gonna be delivered verbally...”

“You don’t want to get on the nobles’ bad side, right? Why would you go so far for us?” I asked without thinking.

Gil wistfully gazed over the lower city. “I liked it down there. I liked taking Sister Myne home with you and Fran. The smell of the food being made was everywhere, and we talked about everything that had happened that day on the way back, remember?”

The memories came flooding back to me—memories of when Myne was just an apprentice blue shrine maiden. It was ancient history now, but after work in the temple, I’d walk home with Fran and Gil.

“Oh yeah. Fran would carry her sometimes when she couldn’t walk on her own, right?”

“Right, right. And it’d be so late by then that the stands on the main street would sell their food for cheap to get rid of it all. We couldn’t eat too much, though, otherwise Sister Myne’s family would yell at us about her not having room for dinner...”

I hadn’t spent that much time walking through the lower city with Gil and Fran, since Myne hadn’t been an apprentice blue shrine maiden for all that long... but even still, nostalgic memories came to mind one after another. We laughed and chatted about the past, and before we knew it, both our faces were soaked with tears.

“The truth is, back then, I hated that Sister Myne always went back to her family, no matter how hard I worked at serving her. The way there was fun, but the walk back to the temple with Fran always felt so lonely. At the very least, I loved the smile of relief Sister Myne would give when she got home and everyone came to see her,” Gil said, spilling secrets he had no doubt kept bottled up for years. No matter how many times he wiped away his tears, more continued to pour out. The same was true for me.

“I hated going to the temple too. It felt like the nobles were slowly stealing her away. I wanted to do anything I could to stop it, but Myne had to go to the temple to survive, and she’d never have been safe if she hadn’t become a noble herself. I’m grateful for her being safe—I really am—but now I can’t see her in the hidden room anymore. It sucks. And I’m worried about her.”

Gil nodded again and again as he listened. “I’m hurting too. I was always glad to see that nobody had changed at all when we were in the hidden room, so it hurts to think that Sister Myne can’t laugh and cry like that anymore. I hate it.”

A storm surged through my chest as I realized that Gil was sharing my grief and anger. After not even Tuuli had empathized with me, it came as a huge relief to have someone I could mourn with.

“So now it’s my turn,” Gil continued, puffing out his chest despite his face being red from all the tears he had roughly wiped away. “Just as you kept Lady Rozemyne connected to her family, I’ll keep her connected to the lower city.”

I exhaled, reassured that I had been doing the right thing up until now. Things had changed, but everything was still connected. We just needed to keep doing what we had always done—to keep supporting Myne as much as we could, in any way we could.

“I’m counting on you, Gil.”

I dried my tear-stained hand on my pants and then held it out to Gil. He grinned, and after likewise wiping away his own tears, he smacked his hand against mine.

“You can count on me. I’ll move right under those nobles’ noses to make sure she hears you.”

And so, a new promise formed between Gil and me—a promise between men.