Ascendance of a Bookworm

I was hit by the shockwave of Delia’s shouting “Geez!” when I reeturned to my chambers. Wilma exchanged befuddled looks. Delia was always happy ever since Dirk appeared in her life, so it had been a while since we last heard her this furious.

“So you heard Delia too.”

“What’s going on?”

“Let’s go in, apprentice,” Damuel said with a cautious look. I quickly walked into my chambers and saw that Fran and Delia were arguing.

“You can’t trust the High Priest!”

“Yes, we can.”

This didn’t feel like a two-way fight, but more of Delia grinding her teeth at him. This was such a weird combination that my eyes grew wide with surprise.

“Fran, Delia, what is the matter?” I asked. f𝙧𝒆𝚎𝑤e𝚋𝓷o𝘷𝗲l.c𝐨m

That was when they had noticed my return. Fran made a shocked expression and quickly apologised to me.

“Welcome, back Sister Myne. I apologise for letting you see this.”

Fran had quickly went back to his professional attitude, but Delia was still furious and she ran up to me yelling, “Sister Myne! What on earth is he talking about?!”

I was confused with what she was referring to.

“Uh, what do you mean?”

“Delia! You are not to be disrespectful to your mistress,” Fran berated Delia, but she ignored him and shook me by my shoulders.

“I want to know what you mean that Dirk is going to be adopted!”

“Delia, I’ve said this countless times, Arno mentioned that that will not be happening. Stop bothering Sister Myne.”

Fran pulled Delia way from me whilst maintaining a calm facade. I was still confused with what she was talking about. I didn’t know anything about this too.

…Is anyone… going to… explain?

It turns out that Wilma was befuddled by this situation too, she just started at Fran and Delia wide-eyed.

Uhm, what does one do in this situation? Ah yes, yes, I need to get both of their perspectives.

I recalled the advise the High Priest had given me, which helped me to better handle this situation. I took a deep break and addressed Wilma first.

“Wilma, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to escort me back. You are free to return now. It wouldn’t be good if something happens in the orphanage if you stay away any longer.”

“Yes, Sister Myne,” Wilma gave her goodbyes. She proceeded to walk out but kept looking back at Fran and Delia on the way out.

“Sister Myne!”

“I will continue speaking to both of you upstairs. Delia, please make some tea first.”

I made my way upstairs with Fran while Delia left to boil some water for the tea, hopefully, giving her something to do would help calm her nerves. We met Rosina on the second floor, she was looking at the harspiel with droopy eyes. When she saw me, she stumbled a little as she got up to greet me.

“Rosina, what’s going on?”

“I do not know. Delia woke me up, but I don’t recall what she said.”

Rosina woke up from her nap because of Delia’s yelling. Rosina’s words had a harsh undertone, which revealed her annoyance at this situation even though she didn’t express it on her face.

“Rosina, feel free to rest a little longer in your room.”

“Thank you, Sister Myne.”

Rosina stumbled back into her room while I sat in the chair Fran pulled out for me. I was planning to hear his side of the story first.

“Pardon me, but I couldn’t quite understand what’s going on. Would you kindly explain the details to me, Fran?”

“Delia ran into Arno on the way back from the orphanage. Arno was on his way here with a message from the High Priest, so they walked here together. I was still resting in my room when Delia yelled for me and I came out to meet him.”

Fran, just like Rosina, had been abruptly awaken by Delia, but he was made to meet Arno and listen to Delia’s yelling. If I had been there, I could have met Arno instead.

“I apologise that I was not present to help.”

“Please don’t apologise, Sister Myne,” Fran shook his head. “Even if you were around, I would very much like to be present when Arno is passing a message along.”

It seemed that he felt like it was his responsibility to hear any messages from the High Priest, regardless if I was around or not.

“I could have easily handled Arno who needed to pass on a message. Delia’s sudden outburst was what caught me off guard.” Fran turned his head towards the kitchen and sighed. I had never seen Fran this exasperated before, which goes to show how far Delia had gone today.

“What did Arno say anyways?”

“The High Priest tried to look for someone to adopt Dirk, but it wasn’t successful just as predicted.”

Fran told me that the High Priest tried to find someone who could adopt Dirk after my request. Arno came over to pass the message; even though they couldn’t find a potential parent yet, there was still some hope and that we should continue caring for him in the orphanage.

I was give up on this when the High Priest told me that baby boys were unpopular choices in adoption. Instead, I was planning to conjure up a contract with Dirk when I get adopted by a noble.

It was painful for me to admit this, but I kind of forgot that I had asked the High Priest to search for someone to take in Dirk.

Well, I’m really too blunt.

I was taken aback by everything Fran said. Apparently Delia had heard everything he said while she was carrying the tea over. She slammed the tray of cups onto the table and glared at Fran with daggers in her eyes.

“Why is the High Priest the one searching for someone to adopt Dirk anyways?!”

Recalling how Fran explained himself, it was apparent that he and Arno didn’t know that Dirk had the Devouring. And based on my observations, Delia was angry that she was left out of the loop of Dirk’s potential adoption.

I shut my eyes in thought. The High Priest advised me to keep the matter of Dirk’s Devouring under the rug. So there was no way for me to tell Delia that we were searching for someone to adopt him and prevent him from dying from his own mana, right?

“The High Priest is having fun breaking families apart! He tore Sister Myne away from her family, and he’s trying to do it again with me and Dirk!”

“How many times must I say that High Priest isn’t such a person?! There must a logical reasoning behind this.”

From Delia’s perspective, she saw the High Preist as a monster who enjoyed breaking apart families. It wasn’t out of place for Fran to get livid when someone he greatly respected was being talked about in such a manner.

“Delia,” I puffed out a sigh and took a deep breath before speaking to her again. “We do not have any shrine maidens in the orphanage who can properly care for a baby. As such, I made a request towards the High Priest to seek for someone capable of looking after him, that might be better for him.”

I became the next target of Delia’s fury. “What?! Sister Myne was the one who wanted to tear us apart?!”

I shocked my head and refuted what she said. “That’s not it. Do you not recall how you were initially against looking after Dirk? I did it because I thought no one would want to care for him.”

I could tell that Delia remembered what she said in the past because her expression froze and she stumbled on her words. “T-that… was only on his first day here.”

“Yes, and that was the same day that I went to talk to the High Priest about it.”

Delia didn’t say anything else as her rage simmered down.

“We do not have any experienced nursing gray shrine maidens, and we too, are not well-equipped to look after him. Since no wet nurses want to step foot in the temple, we have Fran and Rosina looking after him at night, which is taking a toll on them. I believed that it was in everyone’s best interest that I find someone to take him in.”

Though Fran and Rosina had the time off in the afternoon to test and Delia volunteered to care for him longer than her shift, the first few days with Dirk were beyond chaotic. Delia was aware of that, so she didn’t argue any further. f𝐫𝑒𝗲𝙬𝒆𝚋𝐧૦𝘃𝗲l.c𝚘𝘮

“I asked the High Priest for help and he did his best to do so. I didn’t set high expectations because he told me in advance that the possibility of finding someone to adopt Dirk was close to zero, but he still did his best.”

“… Well, I understand it now,” Delia nodded as all her anger faded away.

“I didn’t think you would be this proactive in looking after Dirk, so I’m thankful that we haven’t found anyone to adopt him yet. Anyways, Arno told us that we keep raising him in the orphanage, right?”

“That’s right. The High Priest said that we should stay positive about the situation and continue looking after him,” Fran chimed in and Delia looked stunned. She gave me a side glance, as though she was signalling for me to give her the final reassurance.

“…So you won’t separate us, right, Sister Myne?”

“Definitely not. I know how much Dirk means to you, Delia, and I myself know how difficult it is to be taken away from your family.”

“…That’s a relief.” Delia placed her palm against her chest and sighed in relief. “I can’t bear to be separated from Dirk. He’s… He’s the only family member I have…”

~~~

It took Johann ten days to make the iron. Out of all the products I ordered, this was the first thing to be completed, I guessed it was because it was the easiest to make or maybe because it caught his eye the most. Since the iron was ready, I wanted to give improving the stencils with wax a shot, hopefully we could complete it before next production of picture books. It was alright for the wax to be a little thick because we didn’t have a cutter made yet.

“We can print so much more with these!” I lifted up the stencil and yelled out, but Lutz just crossed his arms with a perplexed expression.

“…Wait a second, Myne, the High Priest did say to cut back on the printing right? Are you sure we should be ramping up production?”

“We can keep reusing the stencils with these wax paper, so we can print so much more.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Lutz roared, but I wasn’t going to stop at stencils right now. I had plans to start woodblock printing for books filled with texts, but I needed to improve illustrations first.

“This would make work easier for Wilma. Shouldn’t we try to fully utilise these reusable stencils?”

Lutz was clearly aware how much time and energy it took Wilma to make the art and cut it out.

He frowned and rubbed his temples. “These will only be used for the illustrations, alright?”

I only upgraded the stencils for the artwork before giving them to Gil. He was now in charge or all the print work and the gray priests in the workshop.

Lutz’s workload had lightened up now that Gil was helping out with managing the workshop. As such, Lutz, Damuel and I could take out time visiting the workshop, Gilberta Company and temple on alternate days. It was almost time for the opening of the Italian restaurant too, with only the door and windows left to complete. Every now and then, I would visit the restaurant with Benno before heading to the ink workshop to stay updated on Heidi’s research.

“Myne, you stopped talking. Is there something on your mine?”

“Yea, it’s about Kamil.”

“Again?”

Though I was practically swimming in work, I was always thinking about new toys for Kamil. I heard from the others in the orphanage that Dirk was completely entranced by the wood rattle I gave him, but it always crashed onto his face whenever he tried to hold it and he would burst into tears. I couldn’t bear to hurt Kamil’s cute face, so I needed to make something better.

“Lutz, I would like to get some small bells.”

“What’s it for?”

“I’m planning to make a smaller rattle for him to hold.”

Bells were not the only metal things here that made noises, but none of them were small like the bells you would find on an animal collar. It was easy to draw a blueprint of it for Johann but I doubt they were going to make nice jingling sounds.

“Alright, time to go to the smithy.”

The smithy was a short walk from the ink workshop, so I decided to pay a visit.