Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 2

Myne Collapses

I knocked on Lutz's door. "Hi, Mrs. Karla. Is Lutz there?"

Since Lutz said that his family wouldn't help him, I decided to visit and help him out a little bit.

"My my, hello Myne. Lutz! Myne's here!" Before Lutz could react to his mother's call, his older brothers were already crowded around the door, eyes shining eagerly.

"What's up? Got a new recipe?" 

"We'll help you. What's step one?"

Sorry to disappoint. I was just visiting to convince them to help Lutz with his winter handiwork. "I'm not here for cooking. I'm just bringing Lutz his pay."

"His pay?"

"Uh huh. Lutz is helping me with my winter handiwork and this is his pay." I pushed through the wall of brothers and stood in front of Lutz. I then slowly paced one middle copper after another onto his palm in full view of his brothers.

"You made five pins, so you get five middle coppers. One, two, three, four, five. All there?" I could tell that his brothers all had their eyes locked on the clinking coins in Lutz's hand. I even heard one of them gulp.

"Hey, Myne. By helping with your handiwork, are you talking about like, the pointy wood sticks Lutz was making earlier?"

Hook, line, and sinker, I thought while smiling at Ralph. "Uh huh. I'm making hair ornaments and he's making the pin part of them for me. One middle copper per pin."

"He's getting a whole middle copper for those?!" shouted Zasha, his eyes going wide and then locking onto Lutz's palm.

Sieg shook his head in disbelief, then looked me square in the eyes. "...Myne. It doesn't have to be Lutz helping you, right? Can I help too?" I could imagine that Sieg was speaking for all of his brothers in that moment. They were each looking at me with grim determination.

Still smiling, I nodded at them. "Of course, anyone can help. But they all have to be the same size and smooth enough to not get stuck on hair, so lazy work won't cut it."

The moment the brothers heard that, they all started to brag about their carving skills.

"Myne, I'm way better at working with wood than Lutz. I do it at work every day, y'know."

"Hey, I'm better than Lutz too."

"And I'm more experienced than any of y'all, remember?"

Lutz listened to his brothers brag with pure shock in his eyes. "Hold on, hold on. Didn't all three of you say you'd never help me with something as boring as making pins? Didn't you all blow me off and tell me to do it on my own? Actually, I remember you all calling the pins stuppghhpph!"

Zasha clamped his hand over Lutz's mouth and glared at him. "You didn't tell us nothing about the pay."

"You were gonna try to keep it all to yourself, weren't you?"

I could guess that Lutz had actually told them about the pay, but they had either ignored him or thought he was making it up. It felt bad seeing him surrounded, so I went ahead and gave him a helping hand. "So you three will make them instead? Five each, please. I won't be able to keep up if you make more than that, so don't try to make too many. I'll come for them in three days. Is that enough time? I know you all have jobs, so..."

Lutz's brothers dropped him immediately and grinned shining grins at my suggestion. They thumped their chests and said it would be no problem.

"Yeah, leave it to us. Won't even take three days."