Tale of Death

Chapter 19 - Childhood? 2

After walking away from the group of annoying kids, Shi soon found herself staring at the amazing items that decorated the stalls of the marketplace, just begging to be sold. There were so many things she had seen before, but also so many more things she had never seen in her life. From odd-looking bones of monsters to armor made from the body of creatures to weapons that looked like they belong on a shelf, and many more interesting things.

The most interesting things that kept catching Shi's attention, however, were the books.

Shi had always been interested in books, she loved using them in order to learn more about the world outside her small cage of a village. And while she may not have been all that good at reading, she still tried her best to learn words that not even some adult commoners in her village knew about, granted, most commoners never had the need to learn how to read in their short lives.

Books were a way for Shi to travel the world from the comforts of her home, they contend things she could only dream of, never to truly enjoy for herself, tales of adventurers on epic quests, battles against fierce beasts that threaten life, depictions of grand events that change history. Those were the things she loved to learn about the most, things that were, as she would like to put it, cool.

Unfortunately for Shi, she could never actually afford any of the books she wanted. As books were a luxury only affordable by the rich, nobles, and merchants alike. Shi had actually once asked about this out of curiosity, why were books so expensive, to that one merchant that didn't show back up for a year. The answer she got surprised her because she simply couldn't understand why it would be that way, she originally thought it was due to how difficult making the book was, however, the merchant had told her, it was because nobles didn't want commoners to learn too much.

That fact alone, if it was true at least, made Shi doubt what else the nobles are doing to limit the commoners, but what could she, a mere commoner, do about it. All she could do is hope that someday when she grew up, she would become powerful enough to change the way things are now, or at the very least, have a better life for her family.

Snapping out of her thought, she spotted a book for sale that she had never seen, and it had an interesting cover. It was an image of a moon and sun interlocking behind beastly eyes, it looked quite odd to Shi, but that only made her more interested in it.

So, while she couldn't buy any of the books here, that didn't mean she couldn't skim through them while pretending she was going to buy them, this was what she often did, leading to yet another reason most of the merchants here didn't like her.

Approaching the merchant, she smiled and tried to act as, 'cute', as she could. 'Who would deny such a cute face,' she thought to herself as she spoke to the man that ran the stall, "Excuse me, sir, could you please tell me about this book?"

'I must say, my acting skills are just too good.' She boasted to herself in her mind where no one else could hear her and possibly deny that claim. Not that they would, she was indeed quite a good little actress, since the man believed her little act and smiled at her, replying with a tone that was trying to be as kind as he could, "Well aren't you a cute little one, sure thing. Which one, this?" He said pointing towards the book that she was looking at.

With a short little nod, she spoke softly, keeping up the act of a cute curious little girl, "Mhm, yep that one, it looks soooo interesting~"

Her reaction caused the man to chuckle, after which he then spoke, "Sure thing, that's quite the big book there for a little one like you, hmm, how about this, I don't mind telling you about it, but it would take a while, so why don't you come on back to my carriage, and I'll read it for you?" He suggested to the girl with a friendly smile.