"Tap tap tap~" A knock sounded at the door.
"Tokisaki, are you in?" Natsuki Subaru's knocking hand was already resting on the doorknob.
"Come in."
Natsuki Subaru impatiently opened the door. What greeted his eyes was Kurumi, dressed in a black gown, sitting in a chair with a New World book in her hands.
The book's cover was already worn, and its yellowed pages all testified to the years it had endured.
"What is that? A New World novel?"
With her slender, jade-like hand, Kurumi turned to the next page. She seemed to find an answer there before lifting her head to look at Natsuki Subaru.
"Something like the New World version of Grimm's Fairy Tales."
"Fairy tales?" Natsuki Subaru found it unbelievable. Judging from how far the book had been read, the girl before him had clearly been reading for quite some time. Did adults actually enjoy storybooks like Grimm's Fairy Tales?
Perhaps... girls simply liked fairy tales more?
Natsuki Subaru's mind wandered through all kinds of nonsense, but his gaze gradually shifted to the book on the table.
After being chased away by the fruit stall owner, Natsuki Subaru had learned that the New World's writing differed from Earth's. Though the pronunciation was the same as japanese, still...
Things were just that damn unfair. He had never even wanted to study English, so he really did not want to master another "foreign language."
It would have been fine if all the New World's languages and scripts were the same... but Natsuki Subaru did not dare count on that.
The writing in the "fairy tale book" was pictographic, and Natsuki Subaru did not understand a single thing it meant.
Compared to pictographs, Natsuki Subaru would rather study the Chinese characters of Earth's great Far Eastern nation, because... at least