Ascendance of a Bookworm - Book 01 - Soldier's Daughter by Miya Kazuki

Author:Miya Kazuki [Miya Kazuki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 42: Winter Handiwork

“Hey, Maine, why is it that you deposit a silver coin at the guild every time? Why aren’t you bringing it all home to your family?”

As we leisurely walk home, having gotten off the carriage at the Merchant’s Guild, Lutz spontaneously asks me this question.

For commoners, who are used to scraping through their daily lives without any money to spare, there isn’t really any concept of “savings”. At most, when autumn comes around, they start stashing away a little money in their dresser drawers for winter preparations. They don’t do anything like depositing money at the Merchant’s Guild. Of course, since kids learn things by watching their parents, even the children bring all of their earnings home to their families and spend it all on living expenses.

“I’m saving for next time’s initial expenses, you know.”

“Next time’s initial expenses?” he asks, his head tilted curiously to the side.

Drawing on our own experiences, I explain it to him.

“Remember how after we decided we were going to make paper, we didn’t have any tools, any money, nor any adults that we could ask for help, so even getting a single nail was really hard and we got in a lot of trouble?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t all that long ago that we had gotten scolded by Benno for begging Otto for help. Lutz, remembering this, smiles wryly.

“We got lucky when Mister Benno bought the formula for my ‘simple shampoo’ in exchange for covering all of our initial expenses, but getting all of those tools took a huge amount of money, right, Lutz? Whenever you’re starting something, you need money.”

“The pot, the wood, the ash, the thread, the bamboo work… now that I think about it, that was really expensive, wasn’t it?”

Lutz, who has recently been visiting various stores for the sake of stocking up on things, understands the quality and cost of things that are sold not at ordinary street stalls, but actual stores. His face goes pale as he realizes just how much the initial investments for our paper-making enterprise really cost.

“And that’s why I’m saving money. Since we made a working prototype for Mister Benno, he said that we were done with initial expenses, right? I think that we’ll need even more tools to keep making paper from now on, and I also want to start making something new, and all of that requires money. Once we make a lot of paper, and we start trying to make books, we’ll need new tools for that too.”

“So, it’s for the next stuff, huh…”

I can’t figure out if Lutz’s expression means he has or has not actually understood this. I stare at him fixedly. He has far more pressing reasons than I to actually need to be saving money, but is he aware of them? I wonder if he hasn’t even noticed.

After thinking about it for a moment, I slowly open my mouth.

“I don’t really want to say or even really think about this, but… Lutz, if by the time we’re baptized your

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