Ascendance of a Bookworm

I cried and cried and cried all over yesterday. Whether they told me it was rice or pissed at me for dropping my parents' futon on the floor, I kept crying without being able to react much.

And this morning, my eyes, crying too much, are swollen and hot, and my head is sore with cancer.

However, the fever seems to have dropped completely and there is absolutely no weakness in the body. Finally, I was in a pretty good mood for crying.

Although it was treated like touching something swollen from my family at breakfast.

"Your fever is down."

Touch my forehead with the cold hands my mother has just finished washing. Finally, it holds me down around my swollen eyes.

Cold and very pleasant.

"Hey, if Mine's fine, why don't we go shopping together today?

"Huh? Mom, what's your job? Me, my fever's down, can I take a break from work?

Sure, you didn't say, 'Dye work is the busiest thing right now, so you have to go to work even if Mine has a high fever'? Is that okay, social?

Seeing me leaning my neck, my mother laid her eyes down sadly.

"Toori's not all about seeing Mine, he's pathetic if you don't let him go outside for a little while, and yesterday you said you couldn't stop crying and Toori was in trouble, and Mine was lonely and crying, so I couldn't help but tell the people around me to rest."

I couldn't breathe in the words. The ugliness of wanting to dig holes and fill in the fact that my mental age of 22 is not eye-catching and keeps me crying all day. When you calm down, you're too ashamed of what you've done.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry"

"It's not about Mine apologizing, is it? When you're sick, you're careful."

My mother comforted me so with a gentle stroke of her head, but for a gentle minute, she's going to be crushed by guilt.

I'm sorry. I cried desperately for not having a book, but I never thought I'd miss my mother or anything. I've been so worried about you and looking after you, but I can't look for a book without Thuri just going out, I've been thinking. I'm really sorry.

"Touri's going to the nearby woods with everyone, but you can't have a sick mine yet. You want me to go shopping with your mother?

"Yeah!"

"Oh, you suddenly feel better."

I knew you were happy to be with your mother, what a happy laugh my mother is.

I shall smile at my mother, too.

"Pfft, I'm looking forward to it"

My mother seems happy, so I'm not going to bother to solve the misunderstanding, but when I thought if I went outside I'd find about a book, I just felt up all at once.

I need you to follow me shopping today and buy me a book.

It doesn't have to be thick books. In the meantime, I need a book to learn a few words. At this time, it can be a problem set for children. Aye-aye, you can have a table or something like an alphabet table.

I'm sure he said, "I wouldn't miss you if I had a book. I'm leaving you at home all the time" what a cute thing to say, and if my sick daughter gets laid, she'll buy about a book of pictures.

Ugh, fun ~.

"Bye, Mother. I'm coming."

Touri grinned full face and peered into the bedroom through the door. Because my mother is off today, Tulli will also be free from my guardianship.

"You're going with everyone. Be careful."

"Yes."

Thuri carries a large cage and runs in bouncing footsteps. It's like a fun atmosphere to go play with, but this is also a neat help. Firewood pickup. Finally, they also look for nuts and mushrooms. Whether or not it will be a cheap and delicious table depends on Touri.

Come on, Touri! Colour my diet!

Apparently there is no school in the world of exhaustion, and the kids all help or work. At least there is nothing in my memory of seeing and hearing that is equivalent to school. Kids a little older than Thuri start apprenticing for work.

If I can, I want to be a clerk apprentice or a bookstore apprentice. Today's outing is a place to gather information for that purpose. Check the location of the bookstore, get along with the people in the store, and become an apprentice.

You can praise me for being a calculated toddler, huh?

"Bye, Mine. Shall we go shopping too?"

This is my first outing since I became mine.

For the first time, I wore clothes other than pajamas. As usual, it is blurry in the back, but the fabric allows several pieces of thick clothing to be overlaid. Apparently it's cold out there.

Having been made so difficult to move, I took my first step outside the house by joining hands with my mother.

Cold!

Narrow!

Ouch!

Because of the stone building, it feels like cold air is being released from the building itself, which also stains the clothes that are heavily dusted with cold air.

I want heat tech, fleece, and a hockey for sure.

Then I also want a mask to block the odor and prevent colds.

As soon as I got out of the house, it was the stairs. With only a three-year-old physique, I have such a narrow and steep staircase that I'm afraid to step down.

As my mother drew my hand, I bent down the staircase of a giddy plank over and over again, only from the second floor down was a sturdy and beautiful stone staircase.

It's the same building, but what, this disparity?

I frowned so much that I finally went outside. Once I counted, the five-story building on the seventh floor was the house.

Honestly, being out there is a pretty heavy labor in itself for me to be sick and small and not physically fit. I also take it for granted that I am often at home in my memory.

"Hey, hey... Mother, breath, pain. Wait a minute."

Even now, I'm already out of breath. Without strength I was about to fall before I reached my destination.

"I'm just leaving the house, okay?

"Mm-hmm. It's okay. Go."

At the very least, I just want to check the location of the bookstore. I looked around as I took a deep breath and prepared my breath.

Out of the collective dwelling it felt like a small square, where there was a joint well.

It's only cobbled around the well, and I can see some aunts talking and doing laundry. It must be this well that Thuri comes to wash dishes or draw water from water bottles every morning.

"Did your mother wash?

"Yeah, I'm done."

All the clothes look thin and dirty, but they do laundry for once. Maybe the quality of the detergent is poor. Shall I even think about processing soap?

The square is surrounded on all sides by tall buildings like collective dwellings, with only one road connected to the surface street. It's never wide. If we go through that path, we went out on the big street.

Wow, it's a foreign city.

The unfamiliar streets stretched out in front of him, animals like carriages and robas crossed cobblestones with Cappo Cappo, and shops lined both sides of the wide road.

I feel totally in the mood for a tourist trip. I don't have a bookstore, but I find it.

"Mom, which store are you going to?

"Well, Mine. What are you talking about? We're going to the market, right? Something the store barely needs."

Apparently, the store, which is well placed on the ground floor of the building, is basically for people with money there to get in, no use for the poor common people, and everyday shopping makes it a day for the market to stand.

... Does that mean that bookstores are lined up on the ground floor of these buildings?

Looking for a bookstore and looking around, I noticed an oversized building that was likely to be marked. White stone construction, simple yet majestic, is a remarkable and splendid building.

"Ah, the castle?

"That's the temple, isn't it? If Mine turns seven, we'll be there at the christening."

Uh, temple. Temple, hey. I don't like religion being compulsive or anything. Let's not get too close to ourselves.

The feeling of the Japanese makes me somehow want to distance myself from religion. I don't even know if mouthing it would be acceptable in this world, so I turned my gaze to the wall behind the temple with my mouth pulled together.

"Mother, what about that wall?

"The walls. There's a castle with a lord in it and a noble mansion. Well, it doesn't really matter to us."

"Phew."

It's more like a prison than a castle, seeing only tall stone walls. Will it be like that if I consolidate my protection? I thought a Western-style castle was somehow extravagant. Yeah, but that's what a Western castle looked like when I was using it as a fort.

"So what about that wall over there?

"That's the outer wall. The Wall that protects the city. It's a gate straight down this road, and your father's doing his job, right?

"... my father?

I knew you were working as a soldier from Mine's memory, but were you a gatekeeper? I didn't know that.

Nevertheless, can I assume that this is a city for once that there is a castle with a lord, surrounded by walls and exterior walls?

Whether you look at the range surrounded by exterior walls or at the waves of people crossing the street, it doesn't seem like a city that big, but it might not work if you consider Tokyo or Yokohama as a reference point.

Oh, the size of the bookstore should change depending on the size of the city, but I don't know the key criteria!

Is this city big? It's small!?

Tell me, great man!

"Mine, let's go to the market. We're gonna run out of good stuff."

"Yeah."

While heading to the market, I'll look around hard looking for a bookstore, but the shop sign on both sides of the road is basically an illustration. The sign is a painting on a wooden board, a painting carved in metal, or I don't see a lettering symbol anyway.

I don't know the letters. It's easy for me to understand and helps me find a bookstore, but I get a cold sweat on my unpleasant hunch.

Is that it? Instead of the house, there's no lettering in the city, either? Low literacy rate? Maybe the letters themselves don't exist?

I'm so bloodthirsty about my predictions that I've lost my mind all the time.

There has never been an anticipation that the letters themselves do not exist. Without letters, there can't be a book.

"Mine, there are so many people, you can't leave your mother."

"... ugh."

He had arrived at the market at some point while moving his legs in dismay at his predictions.

I look up at the stiffness that pops into my ears and I see a vibrant outhouse lined up and a lot of people hanging out. I felt a little nostalgic for the buzz reminiscent of the Japanese festival stalls.

I unwittingly flaunt my face and peek into a fruit shop nearby, I find an unexpected object and gleefully pull my mother's skirt.

"Mother, that! There's something 'write'!

There is a board stabbed with some kind of symbol on top of the product. Numbers or letters, though unreadable to me, also existed properly in this world.

I am so hungry for typography that my face is so red with just that.

"Oh, the price. I'm trying to figure out how much I can buy."

"What does it say!?

My mother's eyes are amazed at how my daughter is all of a sudden feeling better, but I don't care about that.

If I let my mother read the numbers that go into my eyes as soon as I allowances them, I can see in my head that the numbers I know and the symbols in front of me are connected.

All right, all right, come on! My synaptic circuit!

"So this is 30 lions?

After having a number of numbers read, I read the numbers myself and stare at my mother's reaction.

She seemed to get it right, and my mother looked down as she blinked again and again.

"It's amazing how quickly you remember that, Mine"

"Nfu ~"

Since there are 10 numerical symbols, the calculation method seems to be definite in the decimal method as well. I'm glad it's not a binary or a hexadecimal method or anything. If I only remember the symbols that hit the numbers, I'll likely be able to do the math fine.

Oh, could it be that you flagged genius? It's a flag that feels like you're just a person if you're too talented for 20 in Prodigy 15 at 10.