Chapter 136 - Commoner literacy

When I returned to the mayor's office, I decided to clean up the materials spread out on my desk.

As is the case at New Nellie Castle, the servants don't clear my desk unless I tell them to do so.

Although it was a hassle to clean up the desk, it was more troublesome to change the arrangement of the materials to suit my needs without my permission.

As I was sorting through the materials I needed and didn't need on my desk, I came across a super-secret document submitted by Odie just the other day.

This is something that cannot be shown to anyone else.

"Hmmm... ......"

The true nature of the document was a menstrual chart that listed the menstrual cycles of all the protected girls.

This is the first time I've ever seen such a thing.

If I were to compare them to Japan in a previous life, they might be close to the level of the prettiest girls in their junior high or high school grades.

It's not so much that they are stunningly beautiful girls, but it's nice to feel their simple loveliness.

Odie may have sensed something when she saw me deciding to protect them. A hearing was held later that day, and the menstruation chart was completed.

I did not give any instructions.

I opened the document and checked the contents.

Since I went to visit the pervert's house yesterday, the names and faces on the list match a little. I'm in an erotic mood.

"...... Mm."

I didn't have a girlfriend in my previous life, so I didn't know how to calculate safe and dangerous days.

Even if I remembered, I wouldn't care. Rather, having sex on dangerous days is more exciting.

Incidentally, Odie didn't make this chart with that much thought in mind. She prepared it so that my desire to fuck would not coincide with the target's menstruation.

I don't have any plans to hold the protected girls at the moment, but with young men and women, you never know what will happen when things get exciting.

I'm sure I'll be visiting the pervert house more often from now on, and if I get the chance, I'll be willing to fuck them.

I run my fingers over the names on the menstrual chart, remembering the faces and bodies I saw yesterday and imagining how it would feel to hold them.

They would never dream that I, their hero and idol, would be having such a vulgar fantasy.

"Hmm..."

The names on the menstrual chart are sorted by age, so Tico's name is the one written at the bottom.

Next to Tico's name, there is no information written. This is because you can't write something that isn't there.

The other day, Tico had a lot of semen in her, but she hadn't had her first menstruation yet.

The day after I took them into custody, I was planning to call her up and have some sweet sex with her to ease her mind.

However, Odie had provided me with this chart that showed me that she was not yet ready to be a woman.

Even if I poured my semen into her, she would not get pregnant. The mere thought of this caused my burning cock to rapidly deflate and I stood there.

I loved the look on a woman's face when she became aware that she was going to have a baby.

Whether they are uncomfortable or happy, that is what raises my erection the most.

If it was a woman who was struggling with infertility, I would have another energy to say, "Then I'll impregnate her."

But unfortunately, this didn't apply to Tico. Perhaps rural girls don't develop well. Her breasts were small, too.

Thus, I decided to stop holding Tico and watch her grow up with my lewd eyes.

I told the civil servants to feed her well, hoping that she would mature during the protection period. I want to fatten her up and make sure she tastes good.

I was shocked when I saw the menstrual chart and spent the next few days having sex with Anna in mourning for the sperm that had been wasted in Tico's vagina.

It was a win-win situation for Anna, but she was also happy.

I had just put my menstrual chart in my desk drawer when there was a knock at the door. Judging from the knocking, it must be Rumon.

I gave my permission to enter, and the door opened quietly.

"Excuse me."

The two who entered were Rumon and Kianes. I had asked the staff to tell them to come to the mayor's office when they returned.

Kianes, who seemed to have been trained in some manners, imitated Rumon's movements and quietly entered the room.

"Here, Kianes."

Kianes, who was patted on the back by Rumon, got down on his knees on the spot, put his fingers on the floor, and thanked him for rescuing him from the perverted house.

He must have practiced this beforehand, because his body movements and speech were smooth and different from when he entered the room.

I allowed myself to stand up on the spot in response to Kianes' words.

"I'm glad to see that you have a good understanding of the situation. You don't seem to have a bad head on your shoulders."

Kianes and I are the same age. I'm taller than you, but if we stood side by side, we'd look like two boys.

In response to my arrogant attitude, Kianes seemed to be in awe and took a half step back.

"Thanks for the ......!"

"He can work fine. He can read and write, so he's not too bad to use."

Rumon explains the reason why he brought Kianes from the perverted house.

As the staff and civil servants had said, they had prepared the job so that Tico and Kianes would not have to return to their home village penniless.

But I was more concerned about something else.

"You can read and write?You're a child of the countryside, aren't you?How well can you do that?"

The first thing that troubled me when I was reincarnated was learning Luo.

In my previous life, I couldn't even speak English, so I was filled with a sense of despair.

However, due to being thrown into an environment where there were no one else who could speak Luo at all times, my linguistic skills rapidly developed over the years, and now I have a Luo brain, not an English brain.

Nowadays, when I think about things, I have a strange environment in my brain where Japanese and Luo are mixed together.

I have a feeling that I will forget all about Japanese in a few decades, so I keep my diary in Japanese.

It took me a great deal of effort to acquire this language, but the literacy rate among the commoners is naturally low.

I've been exploring New Nelly City on the sly, and my feeling is that only about 30% of the citizens can read and write.

That 30% includes those who can only understand their own names and the names of commonly used items. The number of people who can write proper sentences may be less than 10 percent.

It's a good thing that I can read and write Eruo even though I'm from the northern part of the continent, the land of mist. ...... Even if you become educated in this way, you will still end up a sex slave, so life is heartless.

The literacy rate is low even in places like New Nellie, where the level of citizens seems to be high.

"It's hard to say to what degree, but ....... I can write to the extent that I can summarize the events of the day and communicate them to others. My writing is poor, though."

"You're a good writer."

What did you do when you woke up in the morning? What did you do after that? I did this and did that. It was lunchtime. I did my work. Work is the work of doing this and that. After work, I had dinner. I ate dinner and went to bed.

If you can write a crappy diary like this, it's safe to say that you can read and write by commoner standards. In fact, I would even boast that I am good at it.

"How do commoners learn to read?"

As far as I know, there is no such thing as a municipal elementary school for commoners in the continent of Eruo.

In the first place, there is no such thing as a school for nobles to study, so there can be no such thing as an educational institution for commoners.

In the royal capital of the Levios Kingdom, there is a kind of academy where young nobles gather, but this is not for the purpose of study.

The study of noble children is basically a private tutoring system.

In the case of the Quardenze family, they gather their relatives and educated retired knights from subordinate knight families to tutor them.

In this way, the children learn Eruo language, arithmetic, history, how to be a nobleman, and so on, so they can learn without any problems even if they remain confined in the territory.

"Not all commoners study letters. There are a few who do."

"I suppose that's true."

Even if you can't read or write, you won't have much trouble living on the continent of Eruo. There are plenty of jobs that require physical capital.

In fact, you can make a much better living if you have a job in your hands than if you are halfway literate.

As for learning, if a family can afford it, they hire a teacher.

Rumon, the heir to a merchant family, said that the teachers his father hired taught him letters and math.

As the son of a merchant family, Rumon was taught to read, write, and calculate by a teacher his father had hired, who also taught Kohari, who was attached to his brother.

If you can't hire a teacher, there are people in Nambonan who make a living by gathering children and teaching them letters and math. Children from families with some money to spare often go here because they can learn for a low monthly fee.

Apparently, there is a kind of private educational system in Nambonan City. Maybe I just don't know, but New Nellie City has a similar system.

The idea of a lord providing education to his people is nowhere to be found, so a private education system must have arisen spontaneously.

"What about the rural areas?"

"It depends on the village, that's all. In some villages, all the children in the village are taught to read, while in other villages, no one, including adults, can read because they don't understand it."

In the case of villages where no one can understand the script, it seems that the lords are in trouble.

I don't know much about rural governance, but I heard that sometimes they make the village keep some kind of record or report in writing.

For this reason, the lords would force the village to hire a scribe, someone who could read and write.

The village would then have to pay for the scribe's labor in addition to taxes.

Even though it was only one person, the salary of the scribe introduced by the lord was quite high for a poor village. Their finances were on fire.

So why don't the villagers ask the scribe to teach them how to write? However, if we did that, the scribes would eventually lose their jobs.

This is how the illiterate village has remained poor for so long. It's a sad gap in education.

"In this way, illiterate villages remain poor for a long time," he said. ...... So, in rural villages, knowledge of writing is often protected as a common property of the village. I heard that even in the village of Kianes, they gathered the children and taught them letters and calculations.

"Yes!I learned it from my grandpa, who was a board cutter. ...... I learned it from him!"

It is said that in the village of Kianes, an old man with a weakened body taught the children to write.

However, it was impossible to exchange documents with the lord's civil servants with a writing ability at the level of a crappy diary.

In the village of Kianes, they educate all the children and pick up a few promising ones and train them to become scribes.

"I was told I didn't have much of a chance, so I was dropped from the study. ......"

"It was really frustrating," Kianes said, his face falling.

The village of Kianes must be blessed, because even those who dropped out could write to a certain extent.

It's hard to believe that this is the village of an idiot who was lured by money and challenged the lord to a fight.

"I see."

In a small village, children are valuable labor, so ...... they can't be helped.

Looking at the frustrated expression on Kianes' face, I could feel that he wanted to learn more.

He looked like nothing more than a squealing little monkey in a perverted show, but surprisingly, he seemed to be a child with a plan.

"Mr. Mayor. May I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Kohari is leaving the room today. ......"

A room has already been set up for her in the pervert house.

Today, Kohari will be welcomed into the house, and Rumon will be sent a gift for the occasion.

I don't have to do anything since Odie has already arranged everything.

So the only person left in the live-in room at the mayor's mansion will be Rumon. It's going to be a lonely night.

"May I ask Kianes to join me in the spare room?"

"What?"

Rumon said that he would like to be Kianes teacher and teach him his studies after work.

He also said that it would not be a good idea for Kianes to come and go in the perverted house where Kohari, who had become my concubine, lived.

It seems that he didn't become a shota because he was lonely without his sister. That's good.

"Well, that's fine, but ...... Kianes, are you sure?Even though you can go see her soon, you'll be living away from your sister. ......"

"I'm fine!I want to live here if Rumon can teach me how to study!Yes!"

It seemed that they had discussed this beforehand, and Kianes was willing to go along without any worry.

Tico and Kianes were from a village in the Quardenze, and would be sent back to their village after the winter.

The village of Kianes is in great need due to the plundering by the fugitive mercenaries, and they do not have the reserves to survive the winter if they are sent back now.

Tico and Kianes' mother was very happy to hear that they were still alive and protected, but that was about it. The three of them would have frozen to death or starved to death if they hadn't.

As for Tico and Kianes, they will be living in Nambonan City until spring.

The parents of the other guardian daughters will probably send the same message back to us.

The commoners on the continent of Eruo are well prepared for the winter, so if the number of people suddenly increases, they will be in trouble.

"Only if you really want to. I'll allow you to live with Rumon."

"Thank you very much."

"Thank you very much."

"It's good to be motivated."

If Kianes is willing to work hard and study hard, I might be able to hire him as a scullery servant at Nambonan City Hall.

That way, Tico might want to stay in Nambonan, and it would also give him a chance to call his mother.

After all, she's Tico's mother, and she's likely to be beautiful and in her thirties, possibly even in her late twenties.

If that was the case, it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to take her as a gift.

A mother and sister will give birth to my child, and their brother will work hard for me. Isn't that a wonderful future?

"I'll go back to work then."

"I'm going back!"

Seeing the two of them contentedly going back to work, I remembered the real purpose of calling them.

The status check is just an added bonus.

"Wait a minute, let's do this one last thing."

I took the silver coins out of the bag, laid them out on the desk and showed them to them.

Rumon, who was used to seeing them, was unfazed, but Kianes was amused by the excited look on his face.

Rural children don't often have silver coins in their hands.

"Take Kianes along with you."

He didn't need to say "to the brothel" to get the message to Rumon.

"I'm sure the Leahlight will know a good place. This is for the three of you. Enjoy yourselves."

I felt deep sympathy for Kianes, who had ejaculated after being sucked off by a middle-aged fat man.

Even though he wasn't aware of it, it would be a pity to let him pass the year like this.

That's why I decided to make him understand the benefits of sex.

"Thank you."

Leahlight told me that him and Rumon have been visiting brothels lately.

I've often heard that virgins get into trouble when they get into the sex industry.

I hope he will be careful not to lose himself and become disillusioned with Kohari.