Ascendance of a Bookworm

“Good morning.”

“Welcome. Oh look who it is! Gutenberg! Lady Myne is here!” A smith I was unfamiliar with greeted me and shouted Gutenberg with a great big smile. It turns out that using the term Gutenberg here was now a norm. Johann trudged into the lobby of the workshop and muttered under his breath to stop calling him Gutenberg, but no one paid it any attention.

“Lady Myne, how can I help you? The styluses are still in work.”

I asked Johann to make lots of styluses to be used on the wax paper, so it would take a little longer before he was done with them.

“I was thinking to have some apprentices work on these instead. I would like to make some small bells.”

I began drawing out the blueprints for the bells as Johann watched on with zest. As I had predicted, Johann had never made such small bells but just those large ones.

“Lady Myne, are you going to use these carvings just decorations?”

“They are needed to make a certain sound. The carvings here don’t have to be that precise, but please try to make them as close as possible to the drawings. The gaps have to be small too so that the balls inside don’t fall out.”

Bells made different sounds depending on the size of the gap on them, as well as the thickness of the metal, size of the ball and the type of metal used. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t remember the extact details. I only knew that the bells were made from putting small metal balls inside a bigger hollow metal case, such that shaking them made a sound. After all that was done, I needed him to put the small bells into another bigger metal case. We needed to put the bells into another case so that the sounds it made would be more prominent when stuffed inside a toy.

“…Alright, they seem quite simple. Will you be using these for printing too?”

“Nope, they are toys for babies. There are things I wish to order that aren’t printing related too,” I pouted.

Johann gave a cheeky smile. “Wow, I never expected to you order something not related to your books or printing. I was sure that your mind was only filled with books,” he said that with some relief.

Though my first priority was still Kamil, I was and always am thinking about books. But I wasn’t going to correct Johann’s misunderstanding. I would let him be satisfied with that thought. It was just then that Lutz interrupted.

“That’s right. Books are the only thing Myne thinks about. It’s too soon for you to think about running away from your position as Gutenberg.”

“You don’t have to tell me. Couldn’t you just humour me this time?” Johann complained sounding a little exasperated. Lutz gave him a consolation pat and told him to get used to me and that there was no escape.

“That’s right. Lutz, remember that you’re my first and most commendable Gutenberg,” Lutz’s shoulders dropped just like Johann’s when I said this.

What’s wrong? I was only trying to praise him. How odd.

~~~

“I’ll be heading home right now,” I announced to Damuel outside the smithy. Just then, a flurry of bells rung throughout the entire town, these were the bells signalling an emergency. In the next instant, a beam of red light pierced through the skies from the direction of the east gate. That was the magic tool used to signal for help.

Since Damuel was a knight, he was the first to notice the light. He locked his gaze on the red light with a frown and hefted me up into his arms.

“We need to go now.”

He began sprinting to my house right after he said down. He was sifting through the narrow alleys and roads at breakneck speed now that he had memorised the topography of the entire lower city. Lutz was doing his best to keep up with a confused look on his face.

“I am familiar with streets. Lutz, you are free to return home or back to the company. Do whatever you wish,” Damuel spoke up while running. He would usually see me off at the well in the square in front of my house, but this time he brought me up the stairs and knocked the front door.

“Yes, who is it— huh?! Myne?!” Mum moved to the side to let Damuel through so that he could put me down. Mum was absolutely befuddled when Damuel kept looking back and forth from me and her. He had a very grave expression.

“Something is going on at the east gate, they have sent a signal for the Knight’s Order.”

“The east gate?!”

“The beacon was a small one, so I do not think it is anything serious. They have probably called the knights to assist on something pertaining to the nobles. As such, I shall stay her until we are fully confident of Myne’s safety.”

Mum was still a little taken aback by the arrival of a knight, but she still understood the severity of the situation. “Please protect Myne.”

Damuel stood guard at the entrance, ready for any potential danger that could come our way. Kamil started wailing, so Mum went to the bedroom to soothe him, and I took a glass of water to Damuel who was still panting.

“Oh. Thank you, apprentice,” Damuel downed the entire glass of water in an instant and tried to calm his nerves. I was just going to be a nuisance if I stayed around him right now, so I went to the storage room. I was looking to see if we had any suitable clothes to make the stuffed animal on the rattle.

“We have lots of white cloth, maybe I could make a rabbit?”

I chose a few nice looking cloth. After that I sat at the kitchen table and began working on some new stencils. Just then, a white bird that resembled those magical ones burst through the wall towards me. That shocked the life out of me, seeing it appear this unexpectedly, but Damuel didn’t flinch and reached out to receive it. The bird sat on his arm and spoke.

“Damuel, you are to return to the Knight’s Order after taking the apprentice shrine maiden back to the temple or her home.”

The bird relayed the orders three times with a low male voice before transforming back into a yellow feystone. Damuel made his wand appear out of nowhere like how the High Priest usually did and used it to tap the stone and muttered some phrases. This made the feystone transform back into a white bird.

“The apprentice is back at home and is safe. I shall make my way back promptly,” he said and shook his wand which made the bird fly through the wall.

“Apprentice. I have to return to the Knight’s Order to receive further instructions. No matter happens, you are not to leave the house until I return. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Damuel warned me again that I not allowed to even step foot into the plaza, after that he made his way down the stairs. I was clueless as to what was going on, but if he had to return to the Knight’s Order, it meant that the situation might be related to me.

“Myne, where did the knight go?” Mum had finished feeding Kamil and walked out the bedroom with a worried expression. It seemed like she had felt more secure with having Damuel around.

Right now it was just me, Mum and Kamil, so there was no one to help us if a problem were to arise.

“There was an order for him to return to the Knight’s Order. If Sir Damuel doesn’t need to be here, it must mean that I am safe, so I doubt that it is anything dangerous or serious,” I said to comfort Mum.

Mum smiled a little in relief.

“So he left because the problem has been resolved. That’s good to know.”

Well we didn’t have to wait for Damuel to return with an explanation because Dad was the one to do that. He had been posted at the east gate this spring and witnessed everything that unfolded today.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Ah, I think it’s probably best for you to know about it too, Myne.”

After our dinner, Dad drank his beer and told us, “Some noble from another duchy was causing a ruckus when coming into the city.” 𝑓𝑟eℯ𝒘𝗲𝑏n𝑜𝚟𝙚𝒍.𝒄o𝐦

It turned out there was an emergency because a noble from outside had tried to force his way in. The High Priest had mentioned this before that as of this spring there would be more stringent rules for nobles moving in and out the city. One such rule made it so that the nobles from other duchies could not enter if they did not receive the archduke’s permission. Previously, the nobles could enter with a letter from a noble from the city, but that was no longer the case. The nobles from Ehrenfest were all aware of this because the archduke had briefed them about it during the winter gathering, but the nobles from other duchies were unaware about this. As so, the noble who was turned away by a commoner guard was overtly livid.

“Those in charge must have expected this to happen so they were prepared for the Knight’s Order to take action if things got bad.” 𝗳𝔯𝙚e𝒘e𝚋𝘯𝚘ν𝙚l.𝑐o𝙢

“Amazing. The archduke was very thorough about this, huh?”

Dad continued explaining that he was the one to use the magic toll from the Knight’s Order to call for help. The tool was primarily made of two pieces. The first piece resembled a hammer with a red stone embedded in to and the other piece was another red stone. To activate the toll, you had to use the hammer-like tool to strike the other stone. Fran had probably used a similar one in the carriage back during the Spring Prayer.

Nobles were free to do whatever they wanted to commoners, but things were more complicated if the nobles of the city got involved. The foreign noble had stomped off in rage when the Knight’s Order explained that he needed the archduke’s permission for entry.

“Best to let nobles deal with nobles. Frankly, I’m thankful that the knights came to help.”

“Even so, he tried to enter with a letter from a noble from Ehrenfest, right? So why did that noble even give him a letter if they were already aware that they needed the archduke’s permission?”

“Who knows.”

Maybe he gave the letter before spring. I cupped my head and pondered even though though I knew that I couldn’t figure out the answer. Dad turned towards me with a grave expression.

“Myne, you have to take extra precaution. Do you still remember the High Priest’s words? You’re at risk of getting kidnapped by nobles from other duchies,” he said and I nodded back.

“I will do my best to guard the fate and call for the knights if things get too dangerous with the nobles. Always remember to stay with your bodyguard.”

Seeing that Dad was doing his best to protect me made me a little happy. Even though it wasn’t an appropriate thing to do at the moment, I couldn’t help smiling.