Chapter 15
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Translator: MJK
Chapter: 015
Chapter Title: The Joy of Knowledge
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Thankfully, Andy's worries turned out to be unfounded.
'...She's teaching really well.'
Contrary to his concerns, Laura taught Andy with ease.
Her explanations were clear, and her instruction was kind. She didn't adopt an unnecessarily superior attitude just because she was the teacher, nor did she waste time with idle chatter.
She seemed skilled at teaching others. As Laura explained,
"I was the one who taught my little brother Frank how to read. I'm used to it."
She had experience teaching her younger brother, which made her comfortable in the role of teacher.
Laura opened the book and began instructing Andy. She wrote out letters, teaching him their pronunciation and how to write them.
Andy followed her directions faithfully, keeping up with her pace.
Laura was quietly impressed.
'This kid... how is his memory so good?'
Andy’s memorization skills were astonishing. He memorized dozens of letters and their pronunciations in an instant, writing and reading them fluently as she instructed.
It wasn’t long before Andy had mastered every letter. This happened less than an hour after opening the book.
How had it been for her when she first learned to read?
It had taken her days just to firmly memorize the letters and pronunciations.
Yet Andy had absorbed it all in under an hour. It was an unbelievable level of memory and learning ability.
'Could he read before?'
The thought crossed Laura’s mind, but she quickly shook her head.
If he already knew how to read and write, he wouldn’t have come here to learn. Besides, he was an orphan. Where would he have had the chance to learn?
He must just be naturally gifted.
Laura looked at Andy with wonder in her eyes. She’d thought he was just some unremarkable kid from the village, but he had talents like this.
Meanwhile, the boy smiled faintly.
'Letters... I thought they’d be hard, but they’re surprisingly easy. No need to worry at all.'
Andy was already proficient in reading rune letters.
Rune letters were the spiritual script used by mages. Even the same letters could branch into dozens or hundreds of pronunciations and meanings depending on their arrangement—a highly complex and intricate system.
If he could now fluently interpret even those runes, learning the far simpler common script was no challenge.
On top of that, Andy now harbored a vast amount of mana. Mana was the power of the soul. The stronger the soul, the more it enhanced both body and mind.
Andy’s mind was no longer that of an ordinary twelve-year-old boy. He could exert astonishing focus and think at speeds beyond the norm. For someone like him to master letters in a flash when concentrating was only natural.
And so, Andy not only learned all the letters but also grasped basic grammar and notation. All in just over two hours.
"..."
Laura stared at Andy as he scribbled notes on the paper, at a loss for words.
Just half a day ago, he couldn’t read a single letter, and now he was fluently reading and writing.
The scratch of the pen on paper was cheerful.
He wasn’t yet fully accustomed to writing itself, so his movements were a bit awkward, but even so, the boy wrote quickly and accurately.
Laura, who had been gazing at him blankly, furrowed her brow slightly.
"This is tricky... I didn’t expect you to learn so fast."
"Tricky? Why? Isn’t it good if I learn quickly?"
"It’s good for me. I don’t have to spend more time on it. But... there’s Dario."
Dario had paid ten gold coins for Andy to learn to read. Or more precisely, he’d cleared Andy’s existing debt, but still.
The request to teach Andy hadn’t come from the boy himself, but from the herbalist Dario.
"If I send you off after teaching you in just a few hours, what will Dario think? That you’re so smart you mastered it in hours? Or..."
"...He’ll think you taught me half-heartedly."
"Exactly."
Going from complete illiteracy to fluent reading and writing in just hours wasn’t something anyone would believe.
'He probably thinks it’ll take at least a week... If I send him off after one day, he’ll misunderstand for sure.'
There was a high chance Dario would misinterpret the situation—as if she’d slacked off for a day and pocketed the money.
Laura worried about that misunderstanding. She could explain it to him, of course, but she doubted he’d believe her right away.
It was more plausible that she’d taught carelessly than that the boy was a learning prodigy.
At that moment, the boy made a suggestion.
"Then how about letting me stay here and read books for a while?"
"Books?"
"Yeah. I just learned to read, but I might forget it quick... and I need to get more comfortable with the letters anyway. Plus, there are plenty of books right there."
Andy pointed to one side of the living room. It was a bookshelf lined with unidentified books.
Looking at the shelf, Laura grimaced at an unpleasant memory.
'Those books... Dad brought them back. Instead of debt payments.'
Village chief Patrick had invested in a new merchant guild in the city, but it went bankrupt.
As a creditor, Patrick had no choice but to take goods instead of money, swallowing his tears. Those books were part of what he’d brought back then.
Laura couldn’t help but sigh inwardly at her father’s foolish investment.
It had ruined their finances, leaving them in poverty for a while...
To her, those books symbolized her father’s failure, and seeing them always soured her mood.
'And they’re not even interesting. Just full of unnecessarily difficult stuff.'
Every book on the shelf was a specialized text. Nothing a teenager like her would enjoy—no literature, just dull topics like history, science, and philosophy.
Yet Andy wanted to read them. Of course, his goal was probably just to practice reading, not the content itself.
After a moment’s thought, Laura nodded lightly.
"Well, like you said, letting you read here isn’t a bad idea. Dario won’t misunderstand, and you can get more familiar with reading..."
"Right?"
"But I’m warning you upfront—those books aren’t easy. I tried peeking at them, and they’re full of tough words and boring. Still okay?"
"Doesn’t matter. I just need to read a lot of text to get used to comprehension. Whatever works."
And so, Andy perfectly mastered the letters and, not content with that, began reading the village chief’s collection of books.
All in just one day.
From that day on, Andy went to the chief’s house every morning to read.
He couldn’t spend all his time on it. He was still just a worker at the inn, after all. He could only read as long as it didn’t interfere with his duties.
Three hours a day.
That was the time he spent at the chief’s house reading.
-Flip.
Today, too, Andy sat at the living room table, turning the pages with a satisfying rustle.
The boy was amazed.
'Knowledge covers such a wide range. A whole world I never knew.'
There were limits to what you could learn in a rural backwater like this.
Farming techniques, herb gathering, hunting methods, sewing... Knowledge tied closely to daily life and livelihood.
Truthfully, they were more like know-how than true knowledge—heavily reliant on personal experience.
But the knowledge in books was different.
Philosophy, science, mathematics, sociology, history, geography...
These were real knowledge—researched and accumulated by countless people over ages, the force that advanced civilization.
Andy immersed himself in accumulating knowledge through books. Though he had preferences, so his reading leaned toward certain subjects.
The books he focused on most were mathematics texts.
'To define all things in the world with numbers... fascinating.'
If common language was the surface tongue for human communication, and runes the deep language of mana and souls,
then mathematics was the grand language that could describe everything in the world.
Math could express so much.
Vectors for mass and momentum, topology for shapes across dimensions, statistics to quantify probability.
From the microscopic to the infinite, from points on a plane to hypercubes in higher dimensions. Even calculating and predicting past and future—that was mathematics.
The boy grew interested in math.
Suddenly, a thought struck him.
'Maybe I can optimize magic through mathematical calculations?'
Researching and refining magic with math would surely allow greater power with less mana—maximum efficiency.
Of course, he couldn’t do it now. He only felt interest and need for it, without deep knowledge.
But he intuited that the time would come.
When growth stalled and he hit a wall, math might be the key to breaking through.
'Still too early for that.'
Besides math, he devoured various books.
Geography expanded his sense of the world’s size, history revealed the continent’s past, science glimpsed the laws of the material world.
Andy marveled anew.
'The world is so vast, ancient, and complex...'
He’d lived only in this small village, lacking diverse experiences.
His knowledge had been shallow and narrow, his world confined to this tiny rural spot.
But now, books flooded his mind with vast information. The boundaries of his world expanded beyond the village.
It felt like hazy vision clearing to sharp clarity.
He smiled contentedly.
"Is this the joy of knowledge?"
Filling empty mental space, the sensation of knowing more—it was pleasurable, comparable even to learning magic.
Andy read at a frightening pace.
And so, a week later,
he had read every book in the chief’s house.
"Thanks for everything, Laura sis."
"No need to thank me. I didn’t do much."
Laura scratched her head sheepishly at Andy’s words.
After teaching him letters on the first day, she hadn’t done much else. She’d just watched over him as he read while staying home.
If she had to name what she did after that, it was explaining unknown words when he asked.
'Though I knew fewer than I didn’t...'
Unfortunately, among the words Andy asked about, she knew far fewer than the unknowns. Vocabulary not used in daily life was beyond her too.
A dictionary would’ve helped, but sadly, the chief’s house had none.
In the end, Andy had to infer meanings from context around unknown words.
Laura gazed at him with wonder.
'To understand those tough books... is this what a genius is?'
The books Andy read were the sort only advanced academy students would tackle.
A twelve-year-old devouring them—and comprehending the content.
To ordinary Laura, gauging his talent was impossible, but she knew his mind was exceptional.
She clicked her tongue softly.
'If he’d grown up in a noble house instead of as a rural orphan... he could’ve been great. What a shame.'
He had incredible drive and matching intellect, but as an orphan, chances to use it would be few.
Rootless orphans struggled just to survive day by day.
Unaware or perhaps aware of her thoughts, Andy bowed politely.
"Well, I’ll be off then, Laura sis. Thanks again for everything."
"Like I said, no need... Take care. Say hi to old man Dario for me."
"Sure. Good night."
Laura went back inside, and Andy turned toward the inn.
He’d read every book in the chief’s house. Though he had nothing material to show, the valuable knowledge filled him with contentment.
As he walked briskly toward the inn,
"...Ah, it’s snowing."
Snow fell from the sky. The first snow of the year.
Andy murmured softly, watching the flakes.
"Winter’s finally here..."
Early winter had passed, and true winter had arrived.
Winter. A harsh season for the poor and destitute. A season of cold and hunger.
Andy frowned, gazing at the snowy sky.