Chapter 69: Learning the Language, Living the Role
"I was thinking maybe I could help with your work," Shiao Yi replied. "I mean, look at Louis—he doesn’t seem good at office stuff at all. He’s not great at organizing either. And you, Dominic, don’t exactly seem to have time for all those small, detailed tasks. I got a pretty good idea just by looking at your desk in the office at the fortress."
Dominic couldn’t find the words to respond. It was true—he was terrible at desk work. To be honest, he hated it and wasn’t good at it at all. If Shiao Yi could handle the paperwork, it would really help him a lot. Louis would probably be thrilled, too.
If that were the case, Dominic thought, he could officially appoint Shiao Yi as his assistant. That way, they could be together all day, every day. His heart jumped at the idea.
"Alright. I’ll arrange it right away," Dominic said.
"If you have a dictionary or anything like that, I’d like to borrow it too," Shiao Yi added. "Once I understand the structure of the language, I don’t think it’ll take me too long to learn it."
...
On a sunny terrace, Shiao Yi sat flipping through a thick dictionary he had received from Dominic. The pages were made of very thin, stretched parchment, and the printing wasn’t done with moveable type. Instead, it was an etching method, where copper plates were carved directly.
Since handwritten manuscripts were still the standard in this world, even dictionaries and other books followed that tradition. As a result, books were extremely rare and expensive.
Perhaps because of that, books were often decorated with ornate designs. In fact, this dictionary looked more like a piece of art than a practical tool.
For practicing writing, Shiao Yi used a blackboard about the size of an A3 sheet and chalk. Although the parchment was tough, it was thick and hard to use casually. There was also paper made from wood fibers, but it was mostly low quality and fragile. Handmade, high-quality paper was more beautiful than parchment, but also more expensive. People usually saved that kind of paper for special private letters or formal occasions.
The letters without understanding their pronunciation or meaning were nothing more than symbols. But since they were used to form sentences, they followed patterns and rules. If he had a computer, he could analyze those patterns to translate the language, but of course, nothing like that existed in this world.
Using what Aaron had taught him, Shiao Yi wrote the different types of letters on the blackboard. They were like this world’s version of the alphabet. But Aaron was often busy and distracted—he was more interested in learning about chemical symbols, chemical formulas, and their reactions. Teaching Shiao Yi often became a low priority.
Shiao Yi already had a basic understanding of chemistry, something he had learned as part of his general education. And as part of his military training, he had been taught specialized knowledge—especially about explosives. If he wanted to, he could probably make a bomb from just the materials lying around.