POV: Sammuel

I spent the night in the same inn, it’s the only location I know of after all.

For today I’m thinking I’ll go over to the Request Hall and take a request. If they found me a partner I’ll be able to get a better request, but it’s not a big deal if they haven’t

Once I’m done with that, depending on how long it takes, I’ll either go straight back to the inn, or get directions to a library of some kind.

Arriving at the Request Hall, I immediately head over to the board. Looking through, still unable to read the brief description, I just take the one with the biggest number again. This one is only seven hundred though, thirty percent less than the last one. It’s a shame, but I imagine not everyone has enough money to put up a decently large reward like that one.

When I take the poster to the clerk at the front, he looks slightly confused. Maybe he thought I would wait for my hall certification before taking another request. But alas, I still need the money to hire a reading tutor. I don’t know how much I’ll need for that, but it never hurts to be safe.

“Alright for this one you’ll need to go just outside the city wall, to this area here”

The clerk marks the spot on my map, it’s a little far, but closer than the last one. It shouldn’t take longer than an hour or two to walk there and back.

Walking to the location, I wonder when they’ll be able to find a partner for me. It doesn’t really matter who they are, I only need them to become certified, but the time it takes to find them does matter. The longer it takes, the later I’ll have to start on my plans.

Well it doesn’t do me any good thinking about it, so I’ll just put it off for now. Besides, I’m almost there anyway.

Getting to the house, I knock on the door. A fairly tall woman answered the door. She has quite a strong build, and she looks to be about 30-40 years old.

“Who’re you?”

She has quite a commanding voice, she is definitely quite powerful.

“I’m here to fix something”

“Oh, you’re here for that”

The lady turns back and calls out to someone.

“Ma, someone’s here to fix your lamp”

So it’s a lamp, it should be easy enough as long as nothing goes wrong.

Heading inside, down a hallway I’m met with an older lady holding a large orb. It’s not just a ball though, it attracts light mana, and has quite a bit of light mana inside it. Based on this, it’s obvious that this is the lamp.

“She’s always holding on to that thing, she never lets go of it. Apparently it was given to her by someone important, but she never elaborates further than that. But then recently it stopped glowing, so she went and set up a request instead of just buying a new one that would be cheaper”

Why would she waste her money on setting up a request if getting a new one was cheaper? The people of this world are truly something else.

“Can I see the orb so that I might fix it?”

The old lady seems to consider it for a second, then reluctantly hands me the orb.

Looking at it, there isn’t any obvious reason for the sudden malfunction. From what I can see, it looks like they use pure mana to activate the light mana in the orb, which then emits light.

It’s possible there’s not enough light mana, but I don’t think that would cause this kind of issue. It’s much more likely that the pure mana just isn’t activating it. I don’t know why but it’s not worth trying to fix it that way. I don’t even know how that works so it’d be better to find a different way to fix it.

Fortunately, I think I know just how to do that. If I set up a formation of light energy, just a small amount, then I can have the pure mana put into it mimic the light mana, just like how the fire stick worked. This way, on top of being able to produce light, the user can determine how much light they need by putting in a determining amount of pure mana.

When I finish fixing the orb, I hand it back to the old lady. She hold it, and a second later light emits from it. She seems to realize how to control the amount of light, because she keeps alternating from a large amount, to a small amount.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Alright there you go, now I need you to sign this”

When I hand the old lady the request poster asking her to sign it, the woman who answered the door took it instead.

“She doesn’t know how to write so I always sign things for her”

How does she not know how to write? Writing is pretty damn important I’d say, so how has she gotten this far without learning? This world’s people are truly a mystery to me, everything they do is strange.

Well anyway, it doesn’t really matter to me, I just need to head back and collect my reward. When I get back I’ll get directions to a library like I planned. After that I can finally learn to read this language.

Heading to the Request Hall, my mind wanders back to the topic of my future partner. It really won’t matter who they’ll be. As long as I have someone designated as my partner, then I can just ignore them and work by myself like I usually do. Even if I’m forced to work with them, I just need to take them with me whenever I take a request, and they can’t possibly mess me up.

Once again though, thinking about it doesn’t do me any good. It’s just difficult not to when there are several ways in which it could go poorly.

As I’m thinking of this I barely realize that I’ve made it back to the Request Hall. I head inside and hand the poster to the clerk at the front. It really is strange how simple these requests are considering the reward. Well, it’s only a positive for me I suppose, so it doesn’t really matter.

Regardless if my ever dwindling understanding of the citizens of this world, I need directions to a library, where I might find someone who can teach me to read.

“Hey, is there a library here? And if so, where is it?”

“Oh, yeah, we have one. Im surprised you don’t know if it, it’s one of the big reasons people come here. The Machi City Library, the largest collection of knowledge in the world. Our town is very proud of this library, we don’t have much else going for us after all.

The library is in the center of town, it’s just east of this hall. The area is quite large and always has a pretty large crowd, you really can’t miss it. There’s tons of other stores and suck as well if you need to buy something.”

This is really good information, not just because of the library, but also because of the retail options. Until now I just haven’t eaten anything, it isn’t the first time I’ve gone several days without food, but I still need to eat eventually. Now I know where to go when I’m getting food.

The more important information is of course, the location of the library. More than that, it’s the largest library in the world, it’ll certainly contain all the information I’ll need about this world. First though, I need to learn how to actually read it.

From what the clerk said, it should be pretty easy to make it there. When I leave, I immediately turn to go towards the library. There, I’ll find someone willing to teach me how to read, and from there I can teach myself to write.

It doesn’t take long for me to reach a large open are with quite a few people. It’s not hard to point out the library. It’s the largest building in the area, and has more people at it than anywhere else.

There are many shops here, and yet the library has many times more people than any of them. I suppose it makes sense, if it’s the biggest library in the world obviously it’d attract a large crowd.

As I head over to the library, I can really tell just how big it is. It’s at least two hundred meters wide, and likely just that long as well. It’s also tall enough to have two or three floors, it is truly a massive building. It’s easily several times bigger than any other building in the area. It still can’t compare to some of the buildings in my previous world, but for an underdeveloped civilization, it’s quite impressive.

The sheer size makes it clear just how much information is in this building. I will definitely be able to find anything I need to learn in here, I just need to learn how to read.

When I reach the library I can get a better look at the inside. There are bookshelves just about everywhere. There’s space for maybe two or three people to stand shoulder to shoulder between the shelves.

Looking through, I can see and area of just tables and desks, with people reading something or other in most of the chairs.

Heading inside, there are areas where workers are stationed in the center of circular counters. They might be able to help me over there.

Heading over there, I can see there’s a surprising lack of people at these stations. I guess people usually don’t need help getting something?

Regardless, they can probably help me so I head over to them. I go up to a fairly old lady at one of these counters.

“Hello, how may I help you?”

“Yes, I was wondering if there was anyone who could teach me to read? I’m unable and I was hoping to find someone here”

“Certainly, we offer courses for each of the three languages covered in the books we hold. Which of these languages would you like to be taught?”

So there’s three options? Well I only really need to know the one used in this area right now, I can worry about the others at a later date.

“Whatever the most common language in the area is”

“Alright, Eigo lessons will cost you 50 doru per hour of lessons”

That is quite a lot, but I can make six times that in a couple hours with just one request, so it’s fine. And that’s only with the baseline requests that anyone can do. I’ll get even more from the higher tier requests.

“Alright, that’s fine”

The lady is writing something on a paper, probably some kind of documenting thing.

“Okay then, you can come in here on weekdays, and we’ll have a tutor for you. You can cancel at any time by coming back here and asking someone. When you come in, go straight to the back, there are separate booths that you go to for lessons. Take this, it’ll be what let’s them know why you’re there”

The lady heads me the paper she was writing on. I look it over, and it has all the relevant information about my reading lessons on it. So I just give this to a person in the back and they’ll know exactly what to do. It’s definitely an important part of the process, but I feel like there’s a better way to do this. Well, it’s not like I can do anything about it, and it gets the job done anyway.

Starting today, I’ll be able to learn how to read and write this language. From there my goal will be many times more attainable.