Ascendance of a Bookworm

Volume 6, Chapter 7 Normal life in winter

I was finally allowed to walk around the temple as I wished, now that I had Damuel as a bodyguard. It was a bit hard for him, as he had to travel here from the Nobles’ quarter every day, but he used the flying horse he made with his magic stone, so unlike Lutz and Tuuli, the snow posed no problem for him.

Wow, magic sure is convenient.

Thanks to Damuel, I was able to go back to the orphanage and bookroom, which provided a great distraction. My family couldn’t visit me as much as before because of all the thick snow, but I could forget how much I missed them by absorbing myself in books. Only when I read could I forget my loneliness.

The problem was that the library was incredibly cold. I couldn’t stay for long no matter how much I bundled up, and neither Damuel nor Fran liked going there.

“Apprentice,” Damuel said, “could you ask Lord Ferdinand if you could bring the books back around to their rooms, so we don’t have to stay in the book room?”

“I agree with Sir Damuel’s wisdom,” said Fran, “You’ll end up sick if you go there too often.”

Damuel and Fran got along surprisingly well. They often seemed to agree on things, but perhaps Fran was used to dealing with nobles. Either way they were on good terms.

“…Head Priest. For the reasons stated, may I bring books from the book room to my rooms?”

“You may borrow the books I brought myself. I wouldn’t want you to fall ill just before the Dedication Ritual, after all… Hah. I win.”

The Head Priest let out a faint smile after hitting me in reversi. As I expected, his skill level was far superior to mine now that he understood the game. What kind of adult was he, going all out with a little girl? Sure, I only looked like a little girl, but still.

“I think it’s cruel of you to get serious at a child, head priest.”

“That’s ridiculous coming from you, who went all out against a beginner. I see you’re a sore loser, huh?”

The Head Priest was a bit immature at times, but he was a good person. He lent me his books, and when the loneliness got to be too much for me, he let me break into his room and exchange organizational papers or do a lot of math for precious cuddle time in the hidden room. He usually grimaced when I asked him, but I was too caught up in my own problems to worry about his. Our arrangement was fine with me.

“Good morning, Myne, how have you been?” asked Tuuli.

“You don’t sleep all day, do you?”, Lutz questioned.

Tuuli and Lutz came to visit me on a day that was less snowy than usual.

Tuuli was working on learning her letters. She brought the children’s bible, as these were used as textbooks in the temple school, as well as her stone slate and a pen so she could study with the other children in the orphanage.

Lutz knew how to read and write and mathematics, so he reviewed the winter work, taught the children along with the gray priests, and instructed Gil on how to write reports on the production of the workshop.

“Who are those two, apprentice?”

“Sir Damuel, that’s my big sister Tuuli and my friend Lutz. They come here a lot when it’s not winter, so be sure to remember them.”

I introduced Damuel to Tuuli and Lutz. They looked at him open-mouthed.

“Tuuli. Lutz. This is Sir Damuel. He is serving as my bodyguard for now. I called him ‘sir’ because he’s from the Knight Order.”

“… The Order of Knights?! Woah, that’s awesome!”

“A noble is protecting you, Myne!”

They both looked at Damuel, sparkling with excitement and envy, which shook him a little.

“Apprentice, what should I do at times like this?”

“Just smile, I guess.”

Damuel forced a stiff smile on his face, dealing with Tuuli and Lutz as best he could.

I heard later that Damuel, who had rarely left the Quarter of Nobles where he was raised, had barely interacted with commoners before. And although he had an older brother, he had no younger siblings and was therefore unsure how to deal with young children. On top of all that, his family had such a low status within noble society that no one had ever looked at him with envy before.

“It’s all right, Myne. I have to go to the orphanage with Lutz,” Tuuli said, patting my arms around her.

I just shook my head, squeezing tighter.

“I’ll go with you today. The High Priest said I can walk around the temple now since Sir Damuel is with me, and I’ve been wondering how the temple school is going.”

I had been stuck in my rooms even when Lutz and Tuuli came to see me, but now I could go to the orphanage with them. And so I did, heading for the orphanage dining room with Rosina and Damuel in tow.

“An apprentice shrine maiden is serving as the orphanage director? There really is a labor shortage here…”

“Yes, there simply aren’t enough blue priests. The High Priest has enough on his hands, and I took on this role in hopes of helping him. Although I’m really only the director in name only.”

There was no need for me to explain that I had stuck my nose into temple affairs uninvited and ended up in the role after sticking my head. What mattered was that when something important happened at the orphanage, it was the High Priest who signed it. At best, I was just a bureaucratic go-between who managed the day-to-day affairs of the orphanage.

“You must be very talented if you are helping Lord Ferdinand with his work,” Damuel sighed. He told me that when the High Priest had been in the Knightly Order, he was hard on those who lacked talent, giving extra work to those who lagged behind the others and ultimately cutting anyone who couldn’t keep up. Some people even came to think of him as a monster.

Considering how those in the temple assigned to be his assistants became first class in their jobs or were fired, it seemed that his intense method of training still continued today.

“But I’ve heard from Fran that the High Priest only sets a job that he thinks the person would be capable of, albeit with a little perseverance.”

“Being able to pursue that job is proof that you have talent. He’s never given me work to do before. I don’t think he knew I existed, as I was just a laynoble apprentice.”

Damuel mumbled about how he wished the High Priest would give him work too, so I decided to ask the High Priest to do it the next time I saw him. I was sure he would love to give someone work to do.

“Welcome, Lutz, Tuuli. Oh, and to Rosina. I see Sister Myne is with you.” Wilma greeted us with a smile, but then froze where she saw Damuel. She looked at me with teary eyes, trembling a little. “Sister Myne, who could this well-dressed gentleman be?”

“This is the gentleman who serves as my bodyguard. He’s very kind and serious about his job, and he won’t mistreat the women or children here. Right, Sir Damuel?”

“Of course. I swear as a knight that I mean no harm or ill will to anyone here.”

Wilma had only experience with cruel blue priests and obnoxious nobles who came to the orphanage in search of flowers, so she remained on guard against Damuel as he invited us in.

“It’s quite warm in here,” Damuel commented, wide-eyed with surprise.

Thanks to our efforts during the winter preparations, the oven in the dining room was burning brightly, heating the entire room. And everyone in the orphanage spent their days in the dining room, and the children’s building remained empty to save as much firewood as possible. That meant more people in one place, which naturally heated the room even more.

“We thoroughly prepared the orphanage for winter,” I explained. “This is the best place for all of them.”

A temple school session was running late in one corner, while the apprentices who had already learned their letters were hard at work on winter work in another corner.

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“Oh, they’ve already started. Bye Myne, I have to go!” Tuuli exclaimed.

“Same here,” nodded Lutz.

Tuuli headed toward the temple school session as Lutz approached the working corner.

I myself made my way to a seat where I could see the classroom from a distance great enough to stay out of their way.

“Apprentice, what are they doing?” Damuel pointed to the corner that held the classroom with a curious look on his face.

“That’s where we’re teaching the children to read and write.”

“…You’re teaching orphans to read and write? But why?”

In this world, only people of relatively high status and those who worked with them learned to read and write. From their perspective, it made no sense to teach these skills to orphans.

However, considering that orphans had a high probability of becoming blue priest assistants, they were more likely to need to be literate than most of the artisans in the lower city. And in terms of increasing the literacy rate, it would be more efficient to start by teaching the people who would benefit most from reading and writing before moving on to the children of artisans, etc.

“The temple orphans will someday be attendants here or servants in the Nobles’ quarter, so the sooner they learn to read and do math, the better. It will help them do their jobs someday.”

“That makes sense. That means they won’t have to be trained as much when the time comes.”

As I watched the gray priests at work while the masters helped the children read the children’s bibles, writting each letter on their stone chalkboard as they appeared, I discussed the next picture book with Wilma. I showed her a script I had written by examining the thick bible and extracting the information I needed about the subordinate gods and organized them into separate books for each season. She arranged the text here and there, adding some poetic descriptions where they fit.

“Apprentice, what is this?”

“A copy of the children’s bible I made to help the orphans learn to read. They also help them memorize the names of the gods and divine instruments.”

“Oh?”

Damuel flipped through the children’s bible, looking interested.

“It covers the King and Queen of the gods, plus the Five Eternals, and now I plan to make one that covers the subordinate gods. Their names are important for blessings.”

“These sure are convenient. I had a hard time memorizing the names myself.”

Damuel sighed about how many names one needed to know to properly use magic. If he had that much trouble, then it was a safe bet that a simple illustrated dictionary of the gods would go over well with the nobles. I smiled to myself, mentally calculating the benefit that awaited me now that I had a noble who guarantee it.

“Would you like to play karuta with us, Wilma?” an orphan asked.

“Certainly. Sister Myne, would you like to join?”

It seemed that it was standard procedure to play karuta after studying their textbooks, as the karuta cards were already on the floor. Tuuli was looking at some of them with a wrinkled face.

“Tuuli, could something bother you by any chance?”

While I was out of my quarters, I kept my rich girl talk manner even when talking to Lutz and Tuuli. Fran and Rosina had ordered me to do so, so despite how unnatural I felt, I forced myself to be extremely polite to Tuuli.

She frowned slightly, then whispered in a quiet, embarrassed voice.

“… The thing is, I’m the worst in karuta. Out of everyone.”

The kids at the orphanage had been playing karuta together ever since I gave Gil a set, so even if they didn’t know the letters they had the art memorized.

Tuuli, on the other hand, still didn’t know his letters very well, and it took her a while to get used to all the religious symbolism. She was on a completely different playing field than the children at the orphanage: they played every day, while she could only come to play when the snow wasn’t too bad.

“Practice is important, and all you can do is try until you master it. May I suggest focusing only on the gods in the textbook?”

Wilma had drawn the art for both Karuta and the textbook, and both focused on exactly the same themes. If she couldn’t win in Karuta until she had memorized them all, she might as well start by concentrating on the ones she had already mostly memorized to give her a head start.

“I’ll do my best.”

I also tried Karuta, but the kids were as good as could be expected; it was hardly a competition. Besides, some of the trainees were about to come of age, and if you asked me, it wasn’t fair that their arms were much longer than mine.

Noon passed and it was time for Tuuli’s sewing class. It consisted mostly of girls, and she taught them how to make simple repairs.

She had taught the class enough times that she had learned to be a good teacher. The orphans could repair their frayed sleeves, and although they still wore hand-me-down clothes, everything looked much better than before.

“Oh, Gil. Where are you going in such thick clothes?”

I could see a crowd of children centered around Gil, who was wearing thick clothes. There may not have been a snowstorm outside, but it was still snowing a little.

“Lutz told us to get the workshop ready for the parue meeting.”

It was customary to go to meet on clear winter days. Getting ready to leave so early in the morning was a challenge, so it seemed they were being proactive and getting things ready ahead of time.

“In that case, prepare well so you can gather a lot of parues.”

“Yes!”

Naturally, this was the first time any of the children were going to gather. That said, with so many children on the loose, they would surely get a lot of them. I was really looking forward to seeing how many they would get.

After watching the boys run to the workshop to get ready, I heard Tuuli let out a big sigh.

“We won’t get many parues this year, since mom can’t go.”

I was out of the equation, as usual; Mom was too pregnant to climb trees; and Dad worked enough days of the week that there was no guarantee he would be available. Tuuli was on her own, and she had a feeling there would be no candy waiting for her this winter.

“Tuuli, weren’t you going to accompany the children from the orphanage? I had anticipated giving the portion of parues to our family as a thank you.”

It would be too much to expect Lutz to lead all the children alone. My plan was for Tuuli to help, and his payment was the parues portion to our family.

“That sounds great!”, Tuuli exclaimed, eyes sparkling. “Phew. I was sure I’d have to last through the winter without any parues.”

It had become tradition in our household to get juice from the parues, remove the oil, and bake pies from the leftovers. I intended to do the same at the orphanage this year, so I had bought large metal pans.

“What are parues, apprentice?” Damuel looked curious, having no idea what we were talking about. It seemed the nobles weren’t going to hunt parue.

The thought of a noble trying to climb a tree made me smile. His droopy sleeves would get in the way.

“They are fruits that can only be picked from the trees on the morning of clear winter days. Their sweetness is famous in the lower town.”

“Sister Myne, are parues really that sweet?”

The children who had been surrounding Wilma heard the magic word “sweet” and gathered around me, eyes sparkling with anticipation. There were so many mouths to feed at the orphanage that they rarely ate anything sweet, so the thought of the sweet grills practically made them drool.

“Oh, yes, they are quite sweet. I always appreciate them so much.”

“Wow, I can’t wait!”

“You’ll take a lot, Tuuli!”

The children moved forward, wanting to go with Lutz and Tuuli.

She smiled at them all.

“Uh huh, we can all go together. but we have to go to the forest super early, so you’ll have to get up really early too! Can you do that?”

“We can do that!”

And so, after several days of heated anticipation, the weather finally calmed down. Dazzling sunlight rained down from early morning, reflecting off the snow and filling the world with a glistening glow that I could see even through my bed curtains.

I jumped out of bed before Delia could come and get me, ran to the stairs and leaned over the banister to shout to the second floor.

“Gil! Gil! It’s parue meeting day! Go tell the kids at the orphanage, hurry up! Get ready!”

Gil, who had already woken up and dressed, shouted “Understood!” and ran out of his room. Delia came running out of her room as well, grabbing my arm with an angry look on her face.

“Sister Myne, please stay in bed until I wake you up! And you shouldn’t lean over the rail in your bedclothes like that! Gee, how many times do I have to tell you all this!”

“Delia, they’ll be meeting today. Lutz and Tuuli will be here very soon. I have to go change right away.”

The people of the lower city would rush to get ready before the doors opened on the second bell; Lutz and Tuuli would be here soon, no doubt. But telling Delia that only made her eyes narrow and her voice sharpen.

“That’s not part of your agenda!”

“The clearings in the snowstorm depend on the whims of Ewigeliebe, the God of Life. No one can schedule for them.”

I hurriedly asked Delia to change clothes so I could wait for Tuuli and Lutz. Breakfast could wait until I dismissed them.

Fran, seeing how nervous I was, started getting ready for the visitors.

My prediction was correct about the money, and Tuuli came running over when she would normally be eating breakfast. I could see Dad behind her.

“Good morning, Myne! Dad is coming with us, he has today off.”

“Dad, good to see you!”

The moment I saw Dad enter the hallway, I ran and jumped into his arms. He caught me and lifted me up until we were face to face. I rubbed his beard with my hands.

“You seem to be doing well, Myne, have you had a fever lately?”

“None at all. Fran gets me to bed right away when I start feeling sick, and every time I really get stuck in bed they make me drink a super gross potion. I don’t even have time to get a fever.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Dad smiled at me and, as I told him how things had been going lately, Tuuli pulled a vial out of his pocket.

“Myne, you mentioned you ran out of this, right?”

Dad left me so I could look at the jar. It was the one that had put natural yeast inside. Tuuli had taken care of it while I was away from home.

I hugged the slightly warm jar close to me.

“Thank you, Tuuli.”

“We just stopped by to give you that and say hello before we gather. Lutz is already at the orphanage!”

“Okay. Make sure you find lots of them! I’ll be waiting with lots of fluffy bread at lunch.”

I watched the two of them outside, then put a hand on my cheek smiling. Even a little time with my family warmed my heart. And now it was time to get ready to make juices and bake cakes.

“Fran, could you deliver this to Ella? And inform her that I’m having lunch with Tuuli, Lutz and Dad. I want her to make me fluffy bread.”

“Understood.”

Once Fran had the yeast, I turned to Rosina.

“Rosina, once we’ve finished harspiel practice, go to Wilma and tell her to start getting ready for the parue cakes.”

“As you wish.”

I practiced harspiel until the third bell, then went to help the High Priest. He told me I looked abnormally happy to the point of being unpleasant, and I responded by saying that, indeed I was, just before I went to work. Just the thought of spending lunch with Tuuli, Lutz and Dad once they returned was enough to make me radiate joy.

The fourth bell rang shortly, signifying noon. Damuel saw me to my room, then returned to the High Priest’s room.

“I’m going to have lunch now. Make sure you don’t leave your room while I’m gone.”

“Understood, Sir Damuel.”

Damuel ate lunch in the High Priest’s room, as the kitchen in my room did not have enough food to cater for the grown man who had suddenly been thrown into the mix.

She told me lunch was ready, and I waited for everyone as I wiggled excitedly in my seat.

“We’re back, Myne! And we’ve got lots of them!”

“Yes!”

All three returned with big, satisfied smiles. The human wave tactics were as effective at gathering parues as I had hoped, and they had really found a lot of them. We munched on the fluffy bread made with the yeast Tuuli had brought me while we talked about our plans for the afternoon.

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“Myne, we’ll squeeze them out later, but where should we do that – the workshop? Or the dining room?” Lutz asked.

“We can squeeze them fine in the dining room, but I think it would be faster to get the oil out using the presses in the workshop.”

The workshop had presses meant for squeezing water out of paper, and with the help of Dad and the gray priests, we wouldn’t need to smash the parues with hammers before squeezing the oil out. But my suggestion made Lutz hesitate.

“The parues are pretty tough when it’s cold, so I have a feeling using hammers in the warm dining room will work better.”

“Yes, with so many people we could do it all in the dining room, if we have the hammers for it.”

At Lutz and Dad’s suggestion, we decided to do it all in the dining room. Tuuli, more concerned about what came after squeezing the parues, looked at me excitedly.

“Where are we going to bake the parue cakes – in the basement of the girls’ building, or the workshop?”

“I was planning to use the basement. If Ella finds out about it and spreads the recipe around town, everyone who feeds their animals parue leftovers would be in trouble, right?”

“Yes, definitely.” Lutz scrunched up his face, thinking about his chickens.

Parue leftovers were perfect for feeding animals during the winter. If people started cooking with them instead of basically giving them away for free, everyone raising animals would be in big trouble. It would be better if we just enjoyed the parue pies alone; the secret should be safe if we make them in the basement of the orphanage.

“Let’s divide our parue shares and have them ready in the dining room, then.”

“All right!” exclaimed Tuuli. “I’ll show all the girls how to make parue cakes.”

Once we finished lunch, the three of them hurried to the orphanage to begin their work. I had to wait for Damuel to return before I could go with them.

As usual, Delia was the only one who stayed in my rooms, as she didn’t want to go to the orphanage.

“Apprentice, what’s going on here?”

Damuel stiffened after looking around the orphanage. In one corner there were children poking holes in fruit and pouring the white juice inside into cups, while, in another, several gray priests were violently smashing fruits into juice with hammers. For someone unfamiliar with the parues, it was certainly a strange sight.

“We are squeezing the fruit juice out of the parues and hammering the fruit into juice to get the oil out. The leftovers at the end make delicious sweets and I’m sure the girls are working hard cooking them in the basement.”

Tuuli’s lesson must have gone well, judging by the sweet, fluffy aroma comming up from the basement. They should be making buttery parue cakes, mixing the goat’s milk and eggs I had asked Wilma for that morning with parue juice. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, filling my nose with a sweet aroma.

Not long after I asked Rosina and Fran to prepare dishes, Tuuli came upstairs with a plate full of cake.

“Oh, you’re already here? Perfect. We’re already baking lots of them.”

Behind Tuuli was another apprentice, carrying a plate with a similarly high of parue cakes. They both set their plates in front of me.

“You keep an eye on her, Myne. Make sure no one grabs any before everyone is done,” Tuuli said, and I nodded with a smile.

There was no one in the orphanage who would risk taking food from a blue shrine maiden apprentice without permission. At least they knew they wouldn’t eat again after the first one.

“Wow, that smells so good!”

“I want to have one!”

Some of the kids who had been squeezing the parues rushed over after smelling the parue cakes.

“They won’t eat until all the work is done. Remember: those who don’t work, don’t eat.”

My reminder sent the children hurrying back to their workplaces, and in the midst of their footsteps I heard a loud gulp come from behind me. I instinctively turned around and saw Damuel looking at the parue cakes.

“What are those, apprentice…”

It was written all over his face that he wanted to eat one. I figured that, as a nobleman, he had sugar and could eat sweets with some regularity, so I could only guess that he was just interested in trying something new.

“Parue cakes, made from parues. This must be the first time you’ve seen them if you haven’t had parues before. Would you like to eat them with us?”

“Ahem! Good. I’m a little interested in what people eat here, since I’ll be coming here quite often from now on.”

Once all the parues were finished, the girls and boys took the juice, oil and leftovers to the basement while the boys took the tools they had used to the children’s building. Fran and Rosina separated the parue cakes and began distributing them to the children, who were lined up with plates in hand. I asked Gil to give a parue cake to Delia, and to reserve plates for the children who had been helping Ella in the kitchen in my room.

They were all sitting in the dining room with plates in front of them; Fran had set plates and silverware taken from my rooms in front of Damuel and me.

“Now, let us pray.”

At my words, all the children crossed their arms in front of their chests and began their pre-meal prayer.

“O mighty King and Queen of the endless heavens who honor us with thousands upon thousands of lives to consume, O mighty Eternal Five who rule the mortal realm, I offer you thanks and prayers, and partake of the meal so graciously provided.”

Dad and Tuuli listened to the soft prayer with a dazed look on their faces. It was the same prayer I had memorized. I looked at Damuel and saw that he too was saying the prayer without hesitation. It seemed that the nobles had to say the same prayers.

After finishing the prayer, the children began to stuff the parue cakes into their mouths as if it were a race. They took a bite myself as I watched.

“Wow, so good!”

“So sweet!”

The kids let out squeals of delight as they tucked into the delicious treat, but Damuel froze beside me. He swallowed saliva with wide eyes.

“Apprentice, does everyone in the lower city eat this?”

“They don’t. This is a special treat, just for us. do you like it?”, I asked.

Damuel let out a slow sigh.

“It’s too good. Is it just me, or do the children here live like nobles? They’re eating sweets like these and they’re learning to read and write…”

“This is an orphanage; I imagine they don’t live like nobles. They picked these parues themselves from a snowy forest early in the morning. They can only be collected in the morning on sunny winter days, and they are not sold anywhere.”

Damuel continued to eat his parue pie with an astonished expression on his face, and from then on he always made a point of going to the orphanage on sunny winter days. He seemed to really like parue cakes.

And he wasn’t the only one; everyone at the orphanage loved them.

“Sister Myne, these are delicious.”

“When is the next sunny day coming?”

“There are still plenty of parue leftovers,” I replied, “so we can make more later. And the leftovers can also be used for other recipes, so look forward to it.”

As a result of having taught Wilma and the other cooks at the orphanage the parue cake recipe I had taught Lutz’s family, the battle for parues at the orphanage became more intense than ever.