Chapter CXVI – For they shall have a class without problem.

14th of Autumn 5859
New Liberty School, Casamonu

“What is this good for?” blurted out Ayomide flipping around the textbook in her hands. It was cheaply-made paperback copy of… something, she couldn’t exactly read what was inside.

“I’m pretty sure we’re here to learn what it’s good for” replied Shinasi. They were sitting right next to each other in a nobleman’s dining hall which had been converted into a classroom. The fancy chandelier and soft chairs were certainly way too luxurious even for the most prestigious of educatory establishments. Most of the common people who had entered the place were more focused on awing at the luxurious room, playing around with the chairs, wondering how that chandelier wasn’t falling down, and certainly not acting orderly while waiting for the teacher. The people inside were quite diverse, from young to old, to freed slaves to the free citizens of Casamonu, and everything in between. Certainly, the idea of “public education” was amusing enough, like a circus troupe coming to town, that everyone wanted in to at least bemuse themselves with the odd ideas of the commander-in-chief, including Ayomide and Shinasi. Both had learned a bit of math from the schooling in Libertycave, though they had never advanced on to writing save for a few letters of Latin script. Ayomide could at least write her own name unlike Shinasi, though the jury was still out on whether “Aonide” was good enough of a spelling.

“It’s a bunch of flabbergast business, but the old man said that reading is lots of fun, so I guess I’ll entertain the idea.” Ayomide looked at the textbook again. Why did they give them one when they couldn’t even read yet… It had a bunch of squares, another bunch of squiggles, and many other drawings which she was certain were there to make fun of them and be nonsensical to an absurd degree.

“Well, for me, I’d rather not have to pay anyone to read the board on some adventurer’s guild ever again.” Having his precious groschen be taken away by the reading nerds who’d read an announcement for one groschen…

Ayomide looked at Shinasi’s face directly to make sure if he was serious “Are you even going to ever go back there?”

“When things settle down one way or another and we don’t need to do battle anymore, we’re still going to need to work to make ends meet. Unless the commander-in-chief finds a way to make money grown on trees that is, but we’re in Gemeinplatz and not Cockaigne.”

“I think making money grow on sheep would be more his style. You’d think that wool is made from silver foil the way he talks about it.” Ayomide immediately got tired of sheep-talk, and she jumped to the first thing that came to her mind “I wonder what job I could do when this is all over.”

“We could adventure together! A tank and a support mage sound wond-”

Ayomide put a finger over Shinasi’s yapping mouth to shut him up “No, I’ve had enough of risking my tail. I’d rather have you settle down as well.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Shinasi deliberated whether to ask ‘settle down with whom?’, but he already knew the answer. “I guess I… we can settle down in my village and work the land.”

“Hmm… You don’t sound too enthusiastic about it. How about we do both: settle down, and travel to new places when we don’t have any work to do on the farm? I don’t think we need some guild to travel around the place.”

“True, true…” Shinasi nodded along. Right before he was about to daydream about living under one roof with Ayomide, he was rudely interrupted by the door (a pretty big one for a grand former dining hall) opening and the teacher entering.

“Adohe shelmiy Boczhe, quieten down please.” Rabanowicz entered the room, carrying a very sturdy looking stick that she was bending with her two hands as if it was a whip. Her being a middle-aged lady with spectacles and an attitude certainly made her appear teacherly. She marched, each and every step emanating throughout the hall with her boots clanking on the stone tiles of the floor, to the head of the grand dining hall table. “Welcome, to our first class. I am Doctor Raban Rabanowicz Rabanow, your teacher. It’s not everyday that you’ll get education from a Doctor of Natural Philosophy, so listen well.”

“Lady, what does a ‘doctor’ mean?” shouted a student from the back.

“It means that I spent way too much time in the University of Cyouc” replied Rabanowicz sarcastically “for now, that won’t matter because we’re starting with the basest of the basics.” She turned around to the open door “Watanabe! Quicker, you were supposed to enter along with me!”

“Excuse me doctor…” Watanabe dragged a huge piece of slate enclosed in a wooden frame on two wheels. He regretted having mentioned needing a ‘blackboard’, though the locals here called it a ‘writing slate’. He left the writing slate right behind Rabanowicz, and then sat on a nearby chair to pant his lungs out. “Phew, these things are heavier than I remember…” He himself had dressed the part of an assistant by ironing his professional blue suit and jeans left over from Earth. He regretted having died in a business suit rather than something more comfortable like his pajamas, but it rarely proved useful in times like these.

“Won’t you introduce yourself, monsieur?” Rabanowicz shot a glance at Watanabe. He understood and jumped up from the chair.

“Ah yes, hello… Ahem!” He suddenly stopped being exasperated as he took on the soulless, professional voice of a salaryman “Pleased to meet you, I’m Watanabe Haruhi.” He wrote his name on the blackboard out of habit, in a script that nobody in the room could understand except him “I’m Doctor Rabanowicz’s assistant, and also the Hero. I look forward to working with you.” He politely bowed his head down to complete his perfect self-introduction in record time.

“…wow, that guy couldn’t manage to look further from a hero” commented Ayomide. Other people around the table murmured similar things as well, but they didn’t want to openly go against the claims of an otherworlder.

Rabanowicz politely shoved Watanabe aside and took a piece of chalk that had been conveniently placed next to the blackboard. “Now that introductions are done, let’s get on to writing.” She quickly, yet proficiently with excellent handwriting, laid out 32 letters on the board. “Say with me: A, Ä, Â, B, C, Č, D, E, F, G, guegh, guwa… ah…” She tapped on one letter a few times before giving up on spelling it by itself “This one sounds like the last sound you make when saying ‘dough’, okay? Ahem, H, I, eugh, J, K, L, M, N, O, Ö, P, R, S, Š, T, U, Ü, V, W, Q, Y, Z. Got that? I’ll go over it again…” She read the letters again, and again, in a matter which was impossible to transcribe to text and a futile enough attempt had been made previously in this paragraph. “We’ll go over the vowels today. Please flip to the 3rd page where you’ll find exercises for writing these letters.”

Ayomide and Shinasi did so, finding printed copies of a few of the letters found on the board. The page contained stroke-by-stroke depictions of the letters being written, courtesy of Watanabe being inspired by his time at elementary school having to learn how to write kanji with the correct stroke order and requesting that these be added to the textbooks. Below these depictions were a few empty squares containing space for these letters to be written again and again. Unfortunately, ink was pretty expensive, so Ayomide and Shinasi along with most of the student body had been handed out slates to practice writing on with chalk. Unlike the cramped cave, the dining room/classroom was way more comfortable to be learning in. Not to mention that learning the script of Gemeinplatz, way more widespread than Latin script, felt way better of an investment to Ayomide and Shinasi.

As she finished her second line of ‘A’s, Ayomide entered a sort of trance. A, A, A, A, A, more and more. After a point she wasn’t looking at the board or the textbook, only writing lines upon lines on the enchanting surface of the slate. Forget reading, writing was fun too! The next vowel came after she had memorized A, then the next, and all others, until she had memorized all the vowels and put her slate down.

“Are you tired, Ayomide?” Shinasi was still struggling on getting a good-looking A. He looked over to what Ayomide had maniacally written down “Wait, you finished all of them? Did you skip some?”

“No.” Ayomide closed her eyes and wrote down a letter to prove it “I know them all.”

“Sheesh, after all that complaining about writing not for you, you do this… Back in the guild they said that magic-users had high intelligence, and I guess you’re no exception.”

“Uhm?” Ayomide turned her head around, embarrassed. She didn’t exactly know how to reply to being praised for intelligence of all things. “Thanks?”

“You should help me understand these once we’re out of here.” Shinasi tried another A, magnificently scrunkling it up. “Yeah, I really need help.”

Ayomide laughed at the sight of that letter “You’re beyond help, but I’ll do my best.” She looked at the other letters on the board. “Guess I can work on the others while waiting…”

Learning was fun as it turns out, when one didn’t do it in a dim cave.