Volume 4 Chapter 20-2 The New Journey of the Bookish Girl
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”So, I’m…”
”Hey, you’re not incompetent at all.”
No way. She’s actually super strong. I want her on my team.
”Yomi, you can even read spellbooks. So you’re a real deal magician, you know?”
I say it quiet, and Yomi snaps her eyes to me.
Her eyes are a big mix of shock, relief, and happy all at once.
”Oh… so that’s how it is…”
She says it teeny-tiny, almost a whisper, looking kind of far away.
People always called her useless, always brushed her off.
But now, she finally gets it──they were wrong.
Yomi zones out a bit, but then turns slow to face me.
There’s a whole different light in her eyes this time.
”Mr. Taro, um… th-thank you…”
Yomi mumbles it, real soft.
”Hm? What was that?”
I pretend not to hear, and she blushes hard and looks away fast.
”N-no, it’s nothing, idiot.”
”You’re welcome.”
”You totally heard me!”
Yomi’s face goes all red and she splashes water at me──splash, splash!
But even her voice sounds kind of happy now.
She’s just so cute like this, I can’t help but start laughing.
”Good for you, Yomi-Yomi.”
Tifi smiles and hugs Yomi’s shoulder, nice and gentle.
”Yeah… thanks… sniff…”
Yomi wipes her eyes, sniffling small through her nose.
She’s trying not to cry, but the tears just won’t stop.
”There, there.”
Lifia reaches over and pets her head, just like she’s calming down a little kid.
”Let’s all do our best together from now on!”
Kéa makes a fist and yells it out, all fired up.
”…Yeah!”
Yomi wipes her tears away and gives a big, sure nod.
Her friends are with her now, so she’ll be just fine.
I’m super happy we got more firepower.
But even better than that is seeing Yomi smiling like this.
Girls hanging out──yeah, I wanna see them smile.
And seeing all these n*ked cuties flirting in the hot spring is beyond blessed, I’m not even gonna lie.
It’s good.
* * *
”So this is it.”
Yomi took the spellbook I handed her and flipped through the pages with a rustle.
We got this spellbook from a treasure chest in a dungeon a while back.
The cover is black leather with a complex magic circle drawn on it, faintly glowing with a soft light.
The edges are reinforced with gold hardware, making it look pretty fancy.
But we couldn’t really use the spellbook.
It’s written in ancient script, so we can’t understand it without translating.
And just translating it isn’t enough.
We’d have to fully understand the magic theories written in it to actually use it.
It was too hard, so we gave up on using it and just left it as a decoration in the love hotel for a long time.
”Looks pretty tough, huh?”
Yomi muttered, squinting at the ancient script on the pages.
”If I read the whole thing, I should be able to understand it.”
”That’s what I’m counting on.”
With Yomi’s ‘Reading Comprehension’ skill, she should be able to fully absorb the knowledge in the spellbook once she’s read it.
If that’s really possible, we might finally be able to use the spellbook effectively.
”That’s fine, but there are a bunch of words I can’t read.”
”I’ll borrow a dictionary tomorrow, then.”
Tifi suggested.
”Yeah, I’m counting on you.”
The adventurer’s guild has a dictionary of ancient script.
If we use that, Yomi should be able to read it too.
In fact, if Yomi reads the dictionary once, she’ll probably remember it all.
Then, decoding the spellbook shouldn’t take much time.
”So, I just need to read this starting tomorrow, right?”
Yomi closed the spellbook and traced the cover with her finger, saying,
It’s quite a few pages, even if I’m just reading it.
Definitely not an easy job.
It’ll take a few days, for sure.
”Yeah, it might be tough, but do your best. I’m looking forward to it.”
As I said that, patting her head, Yomi blinked in surprise.
”Hey, don’t treat me like a kid.”
She complained, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Her eyes narrowed happily.
Her gesture was just too cute, and I found myself loosening up around the mouth.
”So, about what’s next”
After that, we decided to talk again about Yomi’s future.
If she can decipher that spellbook, she’ll be able to use some powerful magic.
She can join us in exploring the dungeon.
It’s still way healthier than being a s*x slave waiting around at a Love Hotel.
The issue is how to deal with the castle.
According to Yomi, there’s an official from the castle who came with her and is waiting on the surface.
While the heroes are dungeon diving, he’s up there waiting for results.
Kind of like a supervisor, or an auditor, I guess.
Even if the castle dumped these troublesome heroes, it doesn’t look like they were completely left to their own devices.
They’re still being watched, just not joining in on the dungeon runs.
Which means, he probably doesn’t have any fight in him.
Either way, the question is how to explain it to him.
The other 9 heroes who were with Yomi are all dead.
If we keep hiding like this, Yomi will be assumed dead too.
But, staying hidden forever isn’t realistic.
Eventually, we’ll get found out.
So maybe we should make the first move.
Talk to the official, tell him Yomi’s the only one who survived, and get him to agree to work with me.
That’s what we’ll be focusing on next.
”I was considered the weakest of the rejects, so I think I’ll be fine, but”
Yomi’s presence wasn’t highly valued.
If she was treated lightly before, they might let her go freely.
If not?
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
We’ll figure something out.
* * *
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai. Thanks for reading.
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