Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 22

Short Story:

The Reader and the Elven Warrior

AT PAUL’S FUNERAL, everyone brought something that carried a memory of him to the feast. Elinalise brought a book.

“That Paul. Underneath it all, he was quite the reader, wasn’t he?” she said—and so began a story from when she and Paul had first formed their party.

That morning, when Elinalise went to the dining hall to eat breakfast, she found a young man there. It was Paul. Elinalise was a little surprised at the sight of him. It wasn’t the fact that he was there, of course. He was lodging on the second floor, and so seeing him there was nothing strange. What surprised her was the book open in front of him. It was rare for adventurers, and especially warriors and swordsmen, to read books, as almost none of them studied. Quest postings and contracts at the Adventurers’ Guild were written in letters, so there weren’t many who couldn’t read at all, but almost none of them read for pleasure. This was because books themselves were expensive.

“What a rare sight. But you do know you won’t attract any ladies just by opening a book to make yourself look intellectual?”

Elinalise, therefore, thought it was all for show. She assumed Paul had the book out to make himself look cool to get girls.

“Say what? I’m not reading ’cause I want to attract girls.”

But she was wrong. Paul, it seemed, was actually reading.

“Did you buy that book?” she asked.

“Don’t be stupid. I borrowed it.”

This world’s paper-making technology was relatively advanced, but bookbinding and printing were still developing. Handwritten books were the norm, and they fetched high prices. They weren’t something ordinary commoners could buy on a whim. To cater to commoners who wanted to read, there were book lenders. Basically, it was a book rental industry.

“Wow… What sort of story is that one?”

“Nothing, just adventure stories.”

The book Paul had borrowed was a collection of adventure tales. That being said, the stories were just accounts of the experiences and mistakes of adventurers who had happened to be around, so a lot of them were anticlimactic or ended badly. Such stories were popular with commoners who had no connection to adventurers, though. Back when Paul was the heir of a noble family, he had snuck out of the mansion many times to run down to the book lender and read these sorts of books.

“Even though we adventure every day, these are great, aren’t they?” Elinalise said to herself, then spotted the landlady. “Could I trouble you for some breakfast?” she called, and ordered soup and bread. 

While she waited for her food to arrive, she sat down at the table, rested her chin on her hand, and watched Paul read.

“Ooh…whoa, there…don’t do that…” Paul was entertaining as he read. His muttering to himself followed what was written on the pages while his face went through a whole range of expressions. Paul had always had an expressive face, but Elinalise couldn’t help but smile at the thought that even a book could bring this out of him.

“Tee hee…” The laugh slipped out from Elinalise, making Paul look up. “Oh, pardon me,” she said. “I only got curious about what’s written in there, that’s all.”

“Right…” He must have known she was covering for what anyone could have told was a laugh. But apparently, Paul was more preoccupied with something else.

“It’s a shocker of a story,” he said.

“How so?” Elinalise asked.

“How…? First off, all the characters are morons…” The story Paul was reading was about six adventurers who went to a labyrinth and, through a small mistake, ended up in a tight spot until one of them used their wits to escape. It was a story pattern you often found in these adventure tales. Their one fault was that you were never quite sure if they were true or made up, but because, as a rule, they had happy endings, their popularity endured.

“—and then the swordsman who’s their leader says, ‘We just gotta keep going.’”

“Well, it’s a valid option.”

“Nah, it isn’t. I knew when I read this bit that later they’d run short on supplies and end up screwed. And what do you think ­happened? They run out of supplies and find themselves up the creek without a paddle.”

“Wow…” As she listened, Elinalise had a strange sense of deja vu. She’d thought that pressing on was a valid option, but at the same time, she had for some reason had an idea that they could run out of supplies and be “up the creek without a paddle.”

“Then their magician says, ‘If we go up this hole we can escape,’ and tries to climb up, right, but his belly gets stuck—”

After that, one after another the adventurers botched something and got into hotter and hotter water. Each time, Elinalise’s sense of deja vu intensified. She was sure she’d never heard the story before, yet for some reason it felt like she had.

“Then at the end the healer does something clever and they escape by the skin of their teeth, then everyone lives happily ever after… That’s the story.”

Elinalise paused. “It’s a common story, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah, probably. But you know, somehow reading this story just made my blood boil. Like, surely you could do something before it got that bad…or like, I don’t know…”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Elinalise agreed with Paul. She too felt an irritation at the story she couldn’t put into words.

“Ahhh, if I were there I’d have done it better…” Paul said, vigorously scratching his head before closing the book.

“Oh.” Elinalise realized why she had deja vu. “That story.”

“Hm?”

“Isn’t that what happened when we went down into the Youjmatz Labyrinth a year ago?”

It clicked for Paul as well. “Oh.”

One year earlier, yes, back when the party had only just got together and they were all new to the labyrinth exploring game. Fangs of the Black Wolf had, without making any proper preparations, gone down into the Youjmatz Labyrinth, and they’d gotten their asses handed to them and barely made it out with their lives. The characters in the story had different names, different classes, and the order of their mistakes was different. But it was definitely that adventure.

“‘If I were there I’d have done it better’?” Elinalise said, repeating back what Paul had growled angrily. Paul looked away, his face going red.

“Me now, I meant,” he muttered.

“Let’s say that, shall we?” Elinalise said, laughing. 

Immediately after Paul and the others had escaped the Youjmatz Labyrinth, another party of adventurers had cleared and destroyed it. Because of this, Paul had totally forgotten, but Elinalise remembered what Paul had said after their escape.

Next time, I’ll do it better.

“Tee hee…” Elinalise let out a little chuckle at the thought that even a year later, Paul was saying exactly the same things.