On the day Turi went to her first day of apprentice work, I was stunned. Every single task I was assigned to help with, I was utterly hopeless at.
I thought that with my modern knowledge, I'd be able to do it if I put my mind to it, but knowledge turned out to be completely useless.
Turi was the truly great sister.
First, I couldn't carry water. I couldn't draw it from the well. I was too weak.
I could only haul up tiny amounts at a time, and climbing the stairs was exhausting, so it took five round trips just to carry one bucket of water. Of course, one bucket wasn't enough—you needed a whole water jug full.
Mother helped me carry the water, but filling the jug at her pace took just as long as filling my bucket.
I'm completely useless.
Then I was told to light the fire in the hearth to prepare lunch.
I'd learned how to build a fire during camping training back in my student days, so I could manage that much. I arranged the thicker logs with the thin, easily combustible ones, creating gaps for airflow, and placed dried grass on top so the kindling would catch easily. I managed all that.
But I couldn't actually start the fire. In camping training, we'd used flint strikers. I'd never used a flint and steel before. I tried to imitate how Turi did it, watching and copying.
"Hyah!?"
When I struck the stones together too hard, sparks flew, as one would expect. The flash of sparks right in front of my eyes startled me, and I dropped the stones. It was like fireworks, and I thought I might get burned, so after that I was too scared to strike them with any force.
In the end, Mother took over midway through.
I'm seriously useless.
I thought I could at least help with the cooking. I was wrong.
The kitchen knife was too heavy—I couldn't lift it without using both hands. When I looked at the trussed-up chicken, I froze.
All I could manage was cutting pre-chopped ingredients with a small knife, or providing recipes. There was very little I could do myself. I wasn't tall enough, so even standing on a stool, I couldn't stir the pot.
Mother praised the recipe I came up with, but I was honestly discouraged by my own inadequacy.
I'm truly worthless.
"What's wrong, Mine?"
Turi came back from her first day at work and called out to me, sitting there looking thoroughly dejected. Mother answered with a wry smile in my stead.
"...She helped out today, but she's upset because she couldn't do anything."
"Huh? At this point?"
Yes, at this point.
At this point, it finally hit me.
I'm useless.
"...I tried everything, but I couldn't do any of it."
"Well, now you know where you stand. You just have to work hard, right?"
"Besides, when it comes to cleaning, Mine's the best!"
As long as it was just sweeping with a broom and wiping with a rag, I had experience, and it didn't take much strength to manage. I might get a fever if I overexert myself, though.
Besides, cleaning wasn't really "helping out" for me. It was just that I couldn't stand living in an unsanitary environment. I was already sickly, so I was just improving conditions that would have made my illness worse. It was for my own sake, not the family's.
Back in modern
Honestly, I never expected it to be this hard. Turi, who's only a year older than me, can do it all—why was I stuck with such a frail, useless body?
If I was going to be reincarnated, I wished I'd gotten a sturdier body. At the very least, one that wouldn't be such a burden.
"Haha, Mine. Worthless? You've been worrying about that?"
"...Of course I'm worried."
"Well, yes, but... Father never had any expectations for you in the first place."
"Huh?"
Wait—was he smiling while saying something unexpectedly terrible?
I never thought I was the kind of person who'd have expectations placed on me, but hearing this doting father say it straight to my face was something else.
As I stood there dumbfounded, Father lightly patted my head and, for some reason, his eyes began to brim with tears.
"You could die at any time. The next time you collapse, it might be for good. I've always thought that, so just seeing you healthy and going about your day is enough."
It was Turi who shrugged at Father's words.
"I think what Dad says makes sense, but the way things are now, nobody's going to hire Mine anywhere. I mean, Mine can't do anything."
Father shook his head at Turi's words.
"No, she can work at the Gate."
"Huh? What job could Mine possibly do there?"
Turi and Mother tilted their heads in puzzlement, but I couldn't understand why they were confused.
Hadn't I told them before about what I did at the Gate and they just hadn't listened? Or had they not believed it was real?
"What job? Paperwork. Even now, when I go to the Gate, I help out
"Wait, what!? So you weren't just going to the Gate to take breaks the whole time?"
"So Mine wasn't exaggerating after all!?"
Turi, why are you so shocked? And Mother, that's mean.
Their painfully honest reactions actually hurt.
"Mine especially gets high marks for her math work. If she wants, she could work at the Gate after her
"Huh? No way. I'm going to be a 'Bookstore' owner or a 'Librarian'."
Unfortunately, going to work with Father to do paperwork at the Gate was not remotely on my list of future plans.
However, both the bookstore and the librarian profession, neither of which I'd ever seen in this world, apparently didn't make sense to anyone, and everyone tilted their heads.
"...Um, Mine. What exactly is that?"
"A person who sells books... so, a merchant? Hmm, merchant doesn't really suit me, but it's a job related to books."
"Well, I don't really get it, but if you've found something you want to do, that's fine. For now, just start with what you can do. Half a year ago, Mine couldn't even walk to the forest. She didn't even want to go outside. Now she can go and come back on her own."
"...Yeah."
Today I'd been told to go pick up firewood, and Turi left the house with a basket on her back too.
As my family said, I could now walk to the forest, but once I got there, I needed to rest before I could move again, and if I didn't move carefully, I'd be bedridden the next day.
I hated this wretchedly frail body.
Once I arrived at the forest and caught my breath, I started gathering firewood. I just looked for fallen pieces and picked them up, but Turi eyed the branches and cut them with a machete-like blade. Chop, chop, snap!
"Turi's amazing."
I was once again struck by how skilled Turi was.
"I just have to take it step by step, starting with what I can do."
My breathing grew heavy as I picked up branches.
Sitting on a rock to rest, I immediately took out a knife to start making my wooden tablets.
"Ugh, this is heavier than I expected."
Picking up the knife with its dull gleam, I sighed.
It wasn't as if I'd never handled a blade before. I used kitchen knives back in Japan, and I even used box cutters in daily life.
But I had almost no experience whittling wood.
Come to think of it, back in elementary school, there was an assignment to sharpen a pencil with a small knife. I'd complained that pencils should be sharpened with a pencil sharpener and barely touched the knife, and now I deeply regretted it.
I could tell I was handling it clumsily—I could barely use the knife to make wooden tablets! All I'd ever done was shave a pencil with a timid, hunched posture, so there was no way I'd be good with this kind of knife. Could I really make wooden tablets?
I tried whittling one of the thinner branches I'd picked up.
My small, weak hands struggled, but the bark peeled away, revealing the color underneath.
Oh, it's a bit difficult, but it seems doable!
It would serve as practice with the knife, and I could make tablets too—two birds with one stone.
Excitedly, I began shaving the branches I'd collected flat with the knife. I cut long, thin strips of wood to roughly the same length, making as many as I could. If I bound those together with string, I'd have a proper set of wooden tablets. They'd work as memo paper at least.
Ancient China and my ancestors, thank you for this wonderful wisdom.
Father, Mother, thank you for this wonderful knife. Thanks to it, I can make wooden tablets.
All I had to do was pick up branches and shave them, so the effort was far less compared to painstakingly weaving fibers into papyrus-like paper or digging clay out of the ground for tablets.
This was great.
I shaved the wood in my hands little by little with a swish-swish sound, trying to make the writing surface as flat as possible. It would've been nice to have the strength and skill to slice it flat in one smooth stroke, but wishing for things I didn't have wouldn't help.
I diligently whittled away, increasing my stock of wooden tablets one by one. With my current strength I could only shave thin branches, and each tablet would only fit one line, so quantity was key.
"Mine, what have you started making now instead of clay tablets?"
The unexpected question made me tilt my head.
"...Huh? How did you know this was replacing clay tablets?"
"Because, Mine, you look super happy doing it?"
"Huh? Happy?"
"You've got this look on your face like you're about to rub your cheek against the wood. You had the same blissful expression when you were looking at clay back then, right?"
Huh? So I had that cheek-rubbing expression while sitting here all by myself chipping away at wood? That was kind of weird, wasn't it?
...Ugh! Being unaware of how you look is the worst! So embarrassing!
While I writhed with embarrassment inside at his unexpected observation, Lutz examined the wooden tablets I'd cut.
"So, what are you making?"
"...'Wooden tablets.'"
"Mokkan? So you're going to write on these now?"
"Right. That's why I need a lot of them. With my strength, I can't make anything as big as a board."
I gripped the knife again and started shaving another branch.
Lutz sat down beside me and picked up a slightly thicker branch.
"I'll help you. But in exchange... you said before you knew someone named Otto, right? Could you introduce me to him?"
"Why?"
"I want to hear about being a traveling merchant..."
Lutz glanced around and lowered his voice, adding the last part quietly. I'd seen him do this before. That time, Lutz had said he wanted to leave this town someday and travel to various places, like a traveling merchant or a bard.
If he was this self-conscious about being overheard and had to lower his voice, then maybe traveling merchants and bards weren't well-regarded professions in this world. I wasn't sure.
Rather than relying on my own ignorant opinions, it would be better for Lutz to hear from Otto.
"He seems busy, but I'll ask him. Sorry in advance if he says no."
"That's fine."
Lutz exhaled with relief, looking like someone who'd just set down a heavy burden. I could sense that he'd had no one to consult about this until now.
After that, we worked mostly in silence, diligently making wooden tablets together. Lutz had a similar machete-like tool, and he cut several large tablets from the thicker branches.
I used my knife to scrape the surfaces smooth, one at a time. The number of boards ready for use had increased, but both sides were completely blank.
Could I get some of the ink they used at the Gate? Maybe they'd share some or let me have some?
Ink was typically used together with paper, so shops around here didn't carry it.
Come to think of it, ink was stored under strict lock and key alongside the parchment. Maybe it wasn't just paper that was expensive—ink might be pricey too.
If possible, I'd try to negotiate with Otto to pay my future salary in ink rather than stone styluses. While I was at it, I'd pass along Lutz's request too.
Tomorrow was a Gate day.
On the days Turi went to work, I didn't have anyone watching over me, so I went to the Gate to study. Recently, the number of words I used in daily life had grown, so it was a lot of fun.
Come to think of it, starting today, three new apprentice soldiers—the same cohort as Turi—had started.
Otto, who now had to teach them letters and numbers too, was busy. Once he finished training the newcomers, he'd have to return to the guardroom and finish his regular work on top of that.
I practiced vocabulary and did calculations when asked, while keeping an eye out for an opportunity to talk.
When the paperwork had settled down a bit and Otto started putting his ink away, I seized the chance to speak.
"Otto, I have a question. Is that okay?"
"Sure?"
"How does someone become a traveling merchant?"
"Wha!? Mine-chan, you want to be a traveling merchant!? Wait—hold on! Does this mean it's my fault!? The sergeant will kill me!"
Otto's eyes went wide and he leaned over the desk with a comically loud voice.
I was the one startled by his reaction. I quickly waved my hands back and forth, denying it.
"No, it's not me—it's a friend."
"Oh. Then just tell them not to do it."
"So it really is discouraged?"
The brevity of Otto's reply confirmed that traveling merchant was indeed a profession people would tell you not to pursue.
"'Really'—what exactly do you mean?"
Otto narrowed his eyes at my reaction.
Trying to figure out how to explain this clearly, I spoke up.
"Well, this person gets self-conscious when talking to people, and lowers their voice. So I thought maybe becoming a traveling merchant is the kind of thing that gets opposed."
"Well, their parents would probably give them an earful."
"And traveling merchants are always on the move, right? You figure out what to buy here and what to sell there, traveling back and forth across a wide area. It's a completely different lifestyle from being settled in one place. There are connections passed down from parent to child, regular customers built up over time—a kid from town can't just decide to become one overnight and make it work..."
It was like a farmer's child, rooted in a specific place, admiring nomadic people who wandered freely across the land. The fundamentals of daily life were completely different, and trying to live and work within a world where none of your ingrained common sense applied was far tougher than anyone might expect.
Things you did with good intentions would backfire constantly, and you'd have no idea why. Doing nothing seemed like the right answer, but you'd be blamed for that too.
The unwritten rules that accumulated over a lifetime of daily life had no instruction manual.
For someone like me, who had been thrown into an unknown world and didn't know the right thing to do and wanted to just stay home, the sheer thickness of that wall of common sense was painfully clear.
Well, I needed books to stay home, so I had no choice but to go outside.
"...If you understand all that, why don't you just tell her?"
"Hmm, I think she'd be more likely to listen straight from you, Otto, rather than from me, who lives in the same town. Plus, Father said you have some connections with the commercial guild, right? I thought that even if being a traveling merchant was impossible, becoming a merchant's apprentice might still let her travel out of town for purchasing work."
Rather than setting off on wandering journeys into the unknown, which would be uncharted territory for the family, having a settled home while going on business trips shouldn't meet as much opposition.
"Oh, I see. And you're going out of your way to put in a word for her—so is this girl a special favorite of yours, Mine-chan?"
Otto's lips curled into a grin. I gave a small shrug at his face—so eager to sniff out a romance story.
"She's not so much a favorite as someone I owe a great deal to. If I don't repay the favor when I can, I'll just keep accumulating debts, and that'll be a real problem."
"So the one who helps Mine-chan out would be that blond kid?"
Lutz was the one who kept pace with me on the walk home from the forest when I was exhausted, so Otto had probably seen him when he came to the Gate to report to Father and collect his allowance.
"That's right. But with all the new recruits, you seem really busy, Otto, so if it's too much trouble—"
"This is actually the quietest season. If we do it this season, it works. How about my next day off?"
"Thank you, Otto!"
Even so, if this was the quietest season with this much busywork, then how much must there have been during the accounting and budgeting period when I'd been asked to help? Since I'd been assigned to help out again, it was a thought I didn't want to dwell on.
"Oh! There's one more thing I wanted to ask—could I possibly get a little bit of this ink?"
"This ink here?"
Otto furrowed his brow and tapped the sealed ink jar with a finger. Through the glass, the black liquid inside swayed slightly, and I nodded.
"Instead of paying me with stone styluses, could my salary be paid in ink starting next time?"
"Three years of working for free. No advances."
"What!?"
I couldn't process what I'd just been told and instinctively blinked. I hoped I'd misheard, but Otto was counting on his fingers with a serious expression.
"Once you go from helper to apprentice, your pay changes, but at your current helper level—including the special bonus from the budgeting period—three years' worth should cover it."
"Three years!? That's... expensive!"
My reaction, clearly not having expected it to be that much, made Otto say with a wry smile, "Maybe you should memorize the budgeting vocabulary this time around."
"This stuff is basically only used for noble paperwork, right? It's not a price where you can just make a children's toy out of it."
In other words, it was completely beyond my current means. Understood.
...Then what could I use to write on the wooden tablets?
Having the boards without being able to write on them was pointless.
The shape of the wooden tablets was done. Just the shape, though.
Unfortunately, with a helper's pay that was below even apprentice level, I could not afford the ink.
Next time: a desperate battle to make ink.