"Rontress, what do those words mean?" Laself leaned close enough that she briefly stumbled. She giggled and continued walking, her eyes continuing to stare at my half-finished scroll. "I understand that you are writing in the runic language but what do those words mean?"

  Since it's not like it will hurt me anyway, I decided to tell her about the runes. Squiggles and random lines, that's what most people often referred to them and they're not really wrong to do so, I can tell most of my explanation went over Laself's head by sheer virtue that the squiggles in the page didn't really register with her.

  Come to think of it, I'm also curious about another, yet similar thing. "Do you know how to read and write?"

  Laself looked away, embarassed. She shook her head, "no, I do not. My stats are fairly low and not to mention,nmy class is rather abysmal, especially when compared to yours."

  Whoa, where did that last part come from? I wanted to ask about her literacy, not her status screen! But since she already mentioned her stats, I decided to go along with it and comforted her, "it's not your fault Laself. Sometimes some of us are born with lower affinities, that's perfectly normal!"

  But it is under people's control, raising your affinity for magic or physical stuff is difficult, but not impossible. On that note, I have a feeling that Laself never bothered with hers, which I guess is obvious?

  "I know." The older girl smiled. It was strained. "Calling myself unfortunate doesn't really fit, moreso I'm not..." She trailed off and I'm guessing several words popped up in her mind just now, maybe proactive? Maybe smart? The best I can do is guess. "... I'm not good enough, that's the only thing I can say."

  "That's not..." True? It is. She's just some poor girl in a medieval-esque world, she's not literate and she didn't have as many opportunities as me either. And more importantly, she's not educated to the same extent as me. "Don't sell yourself short, you've done a lot of good for yourself even without me."

  "I have haven't I?" Laself giggled, "surviving until I met you doesn't sound like a compliment though, it feels like I'm desperately clinging to someone."

  She's retreating into herself huh? What happened? Is it because of me asking her to talk with her parents? The fact that I'm getting a lot of money right now? Something else? From the way she asked me about runes just now I'm guessing that it's most likely because she feels inadequate.

  I'd feel the same way too if I saw a kid half my age suddenly earn more than me, have more achievements than me, and find more success than me.

  But I'm not a kid that's half her age, at least not mentally. I'm an adult in a child's body, saying that is going to cause me problems though so I didn't.

  "Laself, it's okay. You don't have to force yourself." The way she reacted is like eating something bitter, it reminded me of a time when I didn't trust any words of comfort because they all sounded fake. "I'm sure you'll be a great cook one day, do you have a class for it?"

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "... Well, I do have one." The admission is soft, like she's not that confident. "Two, actually, but I don't think that the second class is actually about cooking."

  Hm? Well that's an interesting way to say it, what kind of class did she get? I'm guessing the first one is the typical [Cook] class that most women— if not all. — have in this world but the other is a mystery, did she have it before or after I hired her to help me out?

  "Can you tell me what they are?" Stopping my engraving should be worth it I'm pretty sure, Laself feels like she'll be down in the gutters if I don't help her out.

  "One is [Cook]." That's expected, right, I also have that, my mom, and her mother too. "And the other is something called [Nourisher]? I'm not sure what it means?"

  Nourisher? That's not a class that I'm familiar with either, I wanted to ask Laself what the effects of the class are— which yes, she can read. Knowing the contents of a system is instinctive. — but held myself back.

  "That's also a cooking class, actually I'm pretty sure you'd be able to get a decent job with just that..." Nourisher implies that she's somehow capable of boosting people through the food that she cooks? Or maybe I'm wrong... No, the name makes its effects obvious, Laself must have gotten it because the buyers from our stall are mostly adventurers.

  Do other people have this class? No right? What's the requirements to get it? It must not be that easy to get because otherwise it'd be fairly well known...

  "Rontress?"

  "We should go to the guild after this, I have a feeling that your class is going to have a lot of value." I shake my head in disbelief. "Does it say something in your class that your food helps people?"

  "Yes?" Laself nodded, slightly confident. "One of its effects says [+Nourishment] but I don't know what that means."

  "It means that the food you make is healthy." As for how healthy? I'm not really sure. What I do know is that the effects should stack over time... "Good for you, Laself, that's a good class and we can definitely use that to advertise the food store, people are gonna be flocking to it."

  "That's good?" Now Laself looked like she's happy, which was my goal from the start. Money is nice and all but I can make as much of that as I want in the future, "and useful right?"

  "It is." I picked up where I left off in my engraving. "Good work Laself."

  "Thank you." She beamed.

  No one bothered me by asking questions about runes after that and the rest of our trip to Ghorise had been relatively peaceful. When we reached the town, I made around 17 more scrolls, pair that with the other 20 that I made last night and I'm basically earning another fortune today.

  Increasing the price of my scrolls to 20 gold each is going to make me earn enough to buy not just one, but two stores later today. Assuming that it gets sold out of course, which it will.

  Some adventurers are going to tell me that my scrolls didn't work and that they deserve a refund or something and to that I will respond by saying that so many other adventurers bought my scrolls so their complaints are invalid. Maybe I can say that they used it wrong or something, I dunno.

  "Okay, you guys can go ahead and prepare the stall inside the tavern, I'm going with Laself to the guild and ask them for a stat sheet." I ordered once we passed the gates. "She has a new class and I have a feeling it'll be useful to advertise in the long run so we're gonna get something that can validate my claims."

  "Okay." Howaph watched me hop off the wagon with a strained smile. He stopped pushing it and then looked at Laself, "are you going to be okay?"

  "Yes." Contrasting Howaph's worried expression, Laself is all smiles. "I don't mind a bit of blood, and if Rontress says it's okay then it must be."

  "Right as long as you're sure..." Howaph nodded. "We'll be by the tavern, okay?"

  "Yes, you will." I rolled my eyes and grabbed Laself's hand. "Stop treating your future wife like a kid, she's more than fine on her own."

  Howaph sighed, "yes, I guess you're right. It's just that Laself has never really been to a guild before."

  "What's the point of living if you don't try out new things?" I retorted, so what if Laself hasn't been to a guild before? "I don't see why she should never go to a guild just because... What? She's never been in one?"

  Aren't his words a bit too contradictory? It doesn't really make sense to me either, that's like saying that you shouldn't eat chocolate just because you've never tasted one before, which is just insane.

  We should probably get going though, I can't waste any more time.

  "See you guys later." Howaph nodded at me and said good luck while a wave was all I got from the others, when it was just me and Laself, I turned to her. "Don't worry, guilds aren't as intimidating as you might think."

  "No, I'm fine." Laself shook her head, she smiled shyly. "I'm not sure why Howaph was so overprotective honestly, because I'm not really scared of that particular place, maybe forests? But even then I think I can walk through one just fine."

  "Really?" I ask that because I had the impression that everyone in this world can walk through a forest casually, not like back on earth where people just get scared or something. "You're scared of the forest?"

  "Sort of?" Laself giggled. "I don't want to talk about it though."

  "Yeah, that's fair." The topic was left at that.