Chapter 88: Wanting People to Use the Reference Room

“Ren, seeing as you’ve got a quill pen of all things, I had you down for a noble’s kid or a merchant’s. But you were making them yourself!”

“Eh?”

After the deputy guild master Mikaila had gone, Victor clapped Ren on the shoulder.

“Because I’ve got a quill pen…?”

“Quill pens are expensive, aren’t they. Normally only a noble’s kid or a merchant’s has one.”

“Is that… so…”

Ren remembered that before he started making his own quill pens, he would cut the shaft back whenever the tip of an old one got crushed and use it until there was nothing left. Buying them costs a fair amount.

“When I learned my letters at the village church, we put sand in a shallow wooden box and wrote the letters with a finger or a wooden stick. A sand board, they call it. Loren and that lot messed about flicking the sand out of the box and got a telling-off, and ended up not going to the church at all.”

That was why Loren could barely read, Victor said, and let out a small sigh.

“…It really is better to be able to read, though. You get to read the reference materials, for one. Fred’s the same…”

“What about me?”

Fred plonked an arm down across Victor’s shoulders. Victor screwed up his face, looking rather stifled.

“Letters. Come on. With this much material about, it’s better to be able to read it, isn’t it?”

“If you read it out for me, Victor, it’ll work out somehow.”

“There might be times when it doesn’t work out.”

“Such as?”

“Er…?”

Ren watched the exchange between Victor and Fred with a puzzled look.

Victor had complained to Jade, the guild employee, about how hard the material in the reference room was to find — but if neither Loren nor Fred could read, they wouldn’t be using the reference materials. Colette seemed to be able to read, but even on the day they met, the only one looking things up in the reference room had been Victor.

Yet even though Fred and Loren couldn’t read, they were pulling their weight properly in the work of organising the reference room. It didn’t look like the sort of relationship where they simply leaned on Victor for everything.

(…Is this what an adventurer party is like, I wonder? The things you’re good at get done by whoever’s good at them? …But still…)

Somehow it left him uneasy.

(Well, Victor and the others are proper adventurers, and there are four of them, so they must be far stronger than me…. It’ll be all right, I’m sure…)

As for the reference materials, Ren had still meant to use only the beginners’ shelf — but Victor had said he wanted to gain more advanced knowledge, and had been trying to read the material for proper adventurers.

(…All the same, I do think being able to read is better…)

He looked around the half-organised reference room. Material still stacked on the floor. Shelves not yet sorted. He had thought out all sorts of classifications so that other adventurers would find it easy to search.

But anyone who couldn’t read letters would never use it.

Even if they understood that the mark of a red feather meant material on magical beasts, it meant nothing if they couldn’t read what came after.

After finishing the first day’s work, Ren caught sight of Mikaila over at the reception counter and went to speak to her. As he came closer, Mikaila raised her face and gave him a bright smile.

“Ren-kun. Good work today.”

“Good work. Um…, there’s something I wanted to ask…”

“What is it?”

“Are there a lot of people who can’t read? …I was wondering how many people actually use the reference room…”

“Ah, well now…”

Mikaila flicked her eyes toward the wall where the requests were posted.

“So long as somebody in the party can read what a request says they manage well enough, but…, I think there are a fair number of people who can’t read.”

“Then organising the reference room isn’t really…?”

“Organising it has enormous point to it!”

Perhaps Ren’s expression had looked anxious; Mikaila leaned forward a little and spoke in a clear, firm voice.

“If the material is easy to find, you can ask somebody else to do it for you, can’t you? I think the method Ren-kun sorted it by is extremely good. If everyone comes to know about dangerous places and about magical beasts, there will be fewer injuries, and the success rate of requests will go up as well.”

“That’s… true.”

Talking with Mikaila let him confirm all over again that organising the reference room was something that would help adventurers — but the fact that no small number of people couldn’t read stayed on his mind.

(If there were something easier to use than a sand board, would it make practising letters easier, I wonder…)

He went out through the village gate, walking at a brisk pace, and set foot into the forest. Spotting a bird-type magical beast moving among the branches, he raised his bow. The simple arrow pierced the bird-type magical beast. He hurried over to the place where it had come down.

Its feathers were a vivid green.

“Oh, that’s pretty…”

The corner of Ren’s mouth lifted a little. Putting it into a small box and finishing it off, he glanced back toward the entrance of the forest. The sunlight visible between the trees had begun to slant a little, but it was still bright.

He had wanted the rainbow-coloured feathers of the Rainbow-Tail Feather Bird, but he thought vivid green feathers weren’t bad either.

“Maybe I’ll leave the Rainbow-Tail Feather Bird for next time…”

Feeling a slight reluctance to let it go, he made his way back toward the entrance of the forest.