Ascendance of a Bookworm

After the bamboo crackled in the hearth, gripping the single remaining bamboo stalk, I was caught in a feverish haze, writhing in the heat once again.

The anger at having my creations burned.

The frustration that no one understood my anger at all.

The despair at the reality that no matter how many times I tried, no book would ever remain in my hands.

Beyond it all, there spread a lethargy that made me want to let go of everything.

I had no motivation to do anything.

I lacked the will to resist.

My mother burned the wooden tablet, and the bamboo slip that Lutz had brought to replace it was burned too, but I didn’t even feel anger anymore.

If only this body were a healthy adult with strength and endurance.

If I were an adult, I could skip over papyrus, clay tablets, and wooden tablets altogether and make washi paper.

If only I had the health and the strength to work like Tulli or Lutz, I could have tried.

But as a sickly, weak child, I couldn’t even cut the wood needed to make paper.

Maybe if I waited until I grew up, this problem might be solved.

But that seemed like an unbearably long time.

And even if I became an adult, would I grow normally? Would I gain strength and endurance? Would my body grow?

There was no hope.

If everything was pointless, maybe I should just give in to the fever raging inside me.

Is there any meaning in living in such an inconvenient, dirty conditions, enduring hardship in a place where no matter how hard I try, I can’t obtain a book?

Maybe it would be better to just disappear.

Just thinking about it made the fever inside me stir, trying to consume me. The heat spread, tempting me to stop thinking and let it swallow me whole.

There was only one regret—I hadn’t apologized to Lutz.

He had worked so hard to find a material that wouldn’t burn, yet I never apologized for the ruined bamboo slips.

Lutz’s voice echoed in my mind when he said he’d go get bamboo.

“This is so I can be introduced to Otto! I already paid in advance, so Myne, you absolutely have to get better! Got it?”

That promise remained.

After all the help he gave me and the promise we made, was it okay to just ignore it and escape into this fever?

Certainly, Lutz had paid in advance.

Though it would be easy to be consumed by the fever and vanish, since I accepted the bamboo slips, I had to get better and introduce Otto.

Telling myself “It’s for Lutz,” I suppressed the fever. Even if I was devoured by the fever, it was better to fulfill my promise to Lutz first.

Tidying up is important. Last time it was too sudden; I didn’t have time for that.

Oh yes, when I died in the earthquake, I didn’t have time to sort things out... ahhhh! What happened to that bundle of my dark past!? I’m so curious! This isn’t the time to die!

Suddenly, memories of my dark past from my previous life flooded my mind, and when I jumped up shouting “I can’t die like this!” the fever inside me had somehow subsided considerably.

Pushing those dark past memories to the corner of my mind and vowing not to think about them, two days later,

I was finally allowed outside the gate with my father accompanying me, and met Otto face to face in the night duty room.

“Otto, I’m sorry. I asked you to come, but then I got a fever…”

While I was down with the fever, the promised holiday passed, and I hadn’t been able to introduce Otto to Lutz.

“I heard from the squad leader that your fever didn’t drop for five days. Are you really okay now?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

Even when I smiled, Otto furrowed his brows and studied my face closely.

“Are you really okay? You don’t look well.”

My pale complexion wasn’t from the fever.

It was from the paper problem I was struggling with.

“Ah, it’s some unsolved worries... Can I ask what you’d do, Otto?”

“Huh? You want me to hear your worries?”

Otto’s eyes widened, peering closely at me.

As a traveling merchant, Otto surely had experiences I couldn’t even imagine. Maybe he’d give an answer I wouldn’t have thought of.