Ascendance of a Bookworm

“Excuse me, apprentice, but where are your attendants? You can’t walk around without one right?”

“…Huh?”

I assumed that I didn’t need one since Damuel would be escorting me, but supposedly a bodyguard was not the appropriate choice. It would be uncouth for a lady to not have an attendant so I had to turn to my last resort.

“Delia, I need to meet Wilma in the orphanage. I will need you to escort me.”

“But Sister Myne…” Delia didn’t finish her words as her face drained off colour and she pursed her lip with a frustrated look. I could tell she didn’t want to accompany me but couldn’t reject me due to our positions.

By now I would have backed down because I didn’t want to force Delia into doing something she didn’t want, but I couldn’t do that with a knight like Damuel pressing me.

“I only need you to escort me to the entrance to the orphanage. That should be good with you, right? To make it easier on you, Wilma can walk me back here.”

“…As you wish.”

Delia walked in the front of us with her shoulders hunched. I was walking in the back but I could tell her whole body was stiff and her step was unstable. Though I couldn’t see her face, I was already picturing her sorrowful expression. Delia stopped right at the entrance to the orphanage.

“Alright, I’ll take my leave now.”

“Not yet, attendant. Open the door first. Are you going to make the apprentice, your mistress, open the door for herself?”

Damuel berated Delia just as she was about to leave. I was not allowed to open the door myself, and a knight couldn’t do so too, that was why attendants were needed to do such work.

Upon hearing that she had to open the door, Delia’s face completely froze and all the blood drained from her face. But she did her best to seem unaffected and walked towards the door. She closed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw and reached for the door with her trembling hands.

The door creaked open. The door lead to the orphanage’s dining hall so the place was lined with rows of long tables. At the end of the dining hall laid a large cushion with Dirk on top of it. He was encircled by a group of gray shrine maidens and they all looked towards us when they heard the door open. They turned away from Dirk and knelt down with their arms crossed to greet me.

“I shall take my leave now, Sister Myne,” Delia muttered with her head down so she didn’t see inside the orphanage.

“Please do. I apologise for having made you do something you’re uncomfortable with. I give you my thanks, Delia.”

“You’re welcome.”

Delia swept her gaze across Dirk just before she turned around, but her eyes went wide and she whipped back around, sprinting right to the end of the dining hall.

“Dirk!”

He was close to completely turning over himself as half of him was hanging out the cushion, but he would have fallen off if he continued to roll over. Delia reached out to catch Dirk right before he fell off the cushion.

“Hey! What are you doing?! Dirk almost fell off! He could have gotten hurt! You’re supposed to look after him!” Delia was burning with rage and she carefully placed Dirk back onto the cushion.

She was yelling at the gray shrine maidens with good intentions but they were not entirely at fault because they had to keep their heads down when greeting a blue shrine maiden. I shook my head in amusement at Delia’s obsession with Dirk.

“…Since you’re already in the orphanage, why don’t you stay here and continue looking after Dirk?”

“AH!” Delia’s eyes and mouth went wide open when she realised where she was. She shot right up and I took the chance to place the rattle I was carrying into her hands. 𝘧r𝑒𝘦𝒘𝘦𝙗ｎovel.𝐜o𝒎

“This is a toy that rattles. I was planning to personally give it to Dirk, how about you do it instead? He’ll be happier to receive it from you than me.”

Delia looked down at the red rattle and her eyebrows knitted together.

“He can probably see the colour red clearly now. Or should I give it to him instead? But he would probably prefer to have his older sister do so, maybe…”

I was about to take the rattle back from Delia but she tightened her grip around it and raised it high up so I couldn’t reach it.

“I’ll leave it to you, then. Wilma, can I talk to you? Everyone else, please continue with your work.”

Wilma and I sat at one of the tables behind Dirk’s cushion, after which the gray shrine maidens who were kneeling on the floor went back to work.

“Dirk, look, it’s a toy from Sister Myne. How does it look?” Delia whispered to Dirk as she shook the rattle in front of him. Dirk’s eyes were glued onto the rattle, the colour and the sound was drawing his attention. .

I wanted to see Dirk’s reaction so that I could predict how Kamil would react to it too. Seeing that Dirk was amused by the toy relieved me, Kamil would probably like the rattle too.

“Wow, he’s really looking at it,” one of the shrine maidens commented.

“Do you think he would like music too?” someone else said.

The shrine maidens were extremely absorbed at the sight of Delia playing with Dirk because they were not experienced with babies. That was when Delia realised that she was outside and others could hear her. She jumped back up and turned towards me with flushed cheeks.

“Sister Myne, I will take my leave now! Everyone, please look after Dirk.”

Delia handed the rattle over to a shrine maiden who was standing behind her and ran out of the orphanage. This was the first time she stepped back into the orphanage, and I was pretty sure she would be coming back here more frequently, she was gradually overcoming her fear like Wilma.

“Sister Myne, do you think Delia is fine? I am sure she is still suffering from her past in the orphanage,” Wilma asked with a worrisome face as she watched Delia leave.

“…Well. She’ll probably be fine as long as Dirk stays around here. She believes she still hates the orphanage because of her memories in here, but the cellar looks completely different now.”

Delia had been stuck in that old musky cellar for most her life before she was taken in by the Bishop after her baptism. In her memories, the cellar was a dark and horrible place. After becoming my attendant, she had only passed by the orphanage a handful of times. Delia needed to spend more time here to realise that the orphanage was a different place now. She could start off with getting used to the dining hall first. Moreover, she needed to get comfortable with visiting the orphanage if she wanted to see Dirk. Dirk would be moved to the rooms for pre-baptised children when he stops crying at night.

“I really want her to stay together with her cute brother,” I said.

“Every time I visit your chambers to fetch Dirk, Delia always tries to hold onto him as possible with such a sorrowful look. I always feel as though I’m committing a crime by taking him away. I sincerely wish for them to stay together, so it’s best that Delia gets used to to the orphanage soon.” Wilma gave a melancholic smile but she didn’t look exhausted like Fran and Rosina.

“You don’t look tired, Wilma. Is that because the others here have been helping you?”

“Dirk is only in my care during the day, and the others do help me too. Rosina and Fran have to look after him throughout the night by themselves, right? That must be tough.”

Though Wilma only had to look after Dirk in the day, the other children were jealous of that and started acting like babies too. They would ask her to stay with them whenever it was bedtime.

“You really are the mother of the orphanage, Wilma. It’s been tough on you, having to look after these many children.”

“I still have memories of my mother looking after me in the cellar before I got baptised, so i want to do the same for these children who have lost their own mother. There’s nothing better than having the kids treat me like their mother,” Wilma cracked into a smile as she thought about the small kids. Seeing her this way made me truly thankful that I had placed her in charge of the orphanage.

We moved on from talking about Delia to the topic of picture books. I told Wilma that we needed the stencils soon as we would be starting production of the new picture books. Next, I informed her that the coloured ink was ready and that we would be incorporating it into future picture books. We would still be printing the same images, so we would need new stencils for coloured ones. After all that, I told Wilma that she could start drawing more detailed art once the wax stencils were done.

“You really love books, Sister Myne. It’s amazing how you keep inventing new products to make them… I will make sure I make the best drawings for you.”

“Thank you, Wilma.”

Right when we finished our talk and that I had taken the stencils Wilma completed did Dirk get hungry. He was wailing for food and the gray shrine maidens moved instantly to prepare the goat milk before Wilma said anything. They were all used to doing this without Wilma’s help by now. I should take the opportunity to return to my chambers now, I didn’t want to trouble them by staying around because they hand to be mindful of their actions when I was present.

“I know that it’s hard on you, but I hope that you can continue looking after Dirk. Wilma, will you escort me back to my chambers?”

I returned to my chambers after exchanging a few words with the gray shrine maidens.fre𝑒𝘸𝚎𝚋n૦ѵℯl.c𝒐𝘮