With the clear blue sky blanketing the whole port town and hurried people going about.
Silver arrives at the town’s library.
He got inside and looked around.
The library from the outside is not that big; it is just like a small bookstore.
The inside perfectly mirrors its outward appearance; it can only accommodate a few big shelves, which aren’t even full of books; only a very few shelves are.
There is also a lonely, long table by the window where the morning light comes in with a few chairs to accompany it.
The chairs seem too few when compared to such a long table, but seeing that no one is sitting there to read anything, then it might just be too many instead.
Looking at another direction, he found the librarian.
The librarian is an old man with a clean beard and clean hairstyle.
An overall clean look made the white-haired old man look very knowledgeable; combined with the black-rimmed glasses he was wearing, people might just call him “Professor” if he were in a university from Earth.
“Hello, old mister,” Silver greeted politely as he slowly got close while making sure to make his presence known so that the old man wouldn’t get too surprised.
I mean, people should really be careful about surprising old people; they might just have a heart attack because of the surprise.
“Oh? There is finally someone who is willing to come to this sanctuary of mine,” the old man said with a bit of musing.
“Did someone send you for errands here?”
“Eh? How do you know I was running errands?” Silver asked, being taken aback by the question.
“Because no one comes here to read, kid,” the old man said plainly with a look saying it was just the most normal thing.
“As for knowing you run errands? I once saw you run errands on the street. I have a very good memory despite my age, lad. You kids finally got something productive going with you. Most of you finally won’t have to be useless scums who like making trouble.”
The old man said that because the orphan kids were not the only ones who ran errands now.
Other kids started doing it too after finding that the orphans have more money than they had on hand.
“Oh…” Silver mumbled while nodding in understanding.
“Understandable. So what do I call you, old mister?”
“Oh, just call me Old Sax,” the old man replied casually.
“So, what’s your errand here, lad?
“Alright, Old Sax,” Silver agreed.
“But you are wrong about something here. Hehehe. I am not running an errand today! I am here! To read books.”
Silver tried mimicking All Might from his memory, just to amuse himself even if others might not get him and only find it strange or weird.
Now that he had another chance at life, he seemed to have gotten free of most of his restraints.
Like, if it were in his previous life, he would never have been able to interact so freely with strangers, so it would have been very hard to run errands.
While his restraints got loose, his discipline and focus became better.
Like how he actually managed to continue doing exercises and meditation, which he would have stopped on day one in his previous life.
Or maybe it was just because there was no internet and various media to distract him in this world?
“Oh?!” Old Sax exclaimed when he heard him.
“You want to read books?”
“Yeah, I really want to read books,” Silver said seriously, showing a focused look on his face.
“That is if it is free, because I don’t have money right now.”
“You can read every book here. It is free for everyone! You just have to be careful not to ruin any book here because even the most inexpensive book here costs at least a thousand valis,” Old Sax said, explaining.
“Anyway, why do you want to read books?
People in our port town are just simple, honest folk.
There isn’t even a school here.
Everyone just teaches their children how to read and write at home.
They would just continue on, doing their simple, honest lives.
Which is not bad.
There is nothing with that.
It’s just…
Sigh…
The books here are really going to be wasted if there is no one who will make use of them.”
“I want to try getting into the school district,” Silver said casually with a cheeky grin.
“Then become an adventurer, go to Orario, and make something of myself. Maybe become a famous great man on the way.”
“Oh! Ho ho ho ho! You have great aspirations, lad! Unlike most simple folks here in our small town,” Old Sax said, using an extremely fast face-changing technique, from lamentation to excitement.
“Just ask me if you don’t understand anything. Although I might not know everything, I still have read all the books here. Don’t hesitate to ask anything when the time comes!”
“Hahaha! Alright! I will definitely ask if I have something,” Silver said cheerfully.
“Also, I think it’s not that most of our townspeople are unambitious; it’s that they should be thinking that it is too hard to get in the school district, and becoming an adventurer is likewise hard too.
I asked around about how to go to Orario, and only then did I realize that we are really in the boonies!
The travel time is long for normal boats, and the cost is too much for those fast ones.
I don’t know about hitching a ride in the school district, but I guess it must also cost much more.
“Sigh… I know, kid.” The old man sighed again as he nodded in agreement.
“There are advantages and disadvantages to everything after all. There are not many dangers here in our place. Our land here only has a few goblins, and the most dangerous creatures in the forest are actually boars, wolves, and bears. Anything more powerful can only be found in the sea, and that is only occasionally, where it is very close to the ocean.”
“Oh?! There are new things I did not know about in what Old Sax said,” Silver said with a hint of excitement.
-Word count = 1047-