Chapter 11 (1/2)
Chapter Eleven: Only Humans?
More than a week had passed since Eru came to this world
For Yasutaka, it see quite used to this world in those few days
These days, Eru has been exerting uided her by buying children’s hiragana and katakana alphabet books for her and teaching her single-character words in his free time
Eru also see Yasutaka “What is this?” and “What is that?” while looking at pictures and illustrations, andhow Yasutaka pronounces japanese
Even right now, Eru could be heard practicing her pronunciations of 「a」 「i」「u」「e」「o」[1] while looking at the hiragana poster stuck on the bathroom wall as she bathes
Also, Eru see her japanese daily
While thinking that Eru’s aard japanese was charroom
As expected, it’s a student’s duty to study For the sake of going to the same school as Aoi and Takashi+, he unreasonably asked his parents to let hirades to his parents
To begin with, Yasutaka’s grades were by no rades were certainly lower than Takashi+ and Aoi’s, if viewed froe
Also, his childhood friends would coroup studying They would definitely study but, aside from this, they must also have fun
Still, it see up fro well
As he was thinking about such things during his study break, Eru who had just stepped out of the bath entered the living roo her wet hair with a bath towel
「Haa~ The hot water was pleasant The bath felt good too」
Maybe because she just finished her bath, Eru’s cheeks were flush as she sood
Seeing Eru like that, Yasutaka’s heart was shocked and noticeably throbbing
The post-bath appearance of a girl his age ーー or so he thinks ーー made his heart race intensely
The smell of shampoo wafted from her wet hair
Suspending on the pastel yellow paja mounds on her chest
The white skin peeking through froed with red
Yasutaka has seen Aoi’s post-bath appearance many times when Takashi+ and Aoi stay over but in some respects, Eru’s post-bath appearance was different from Aoi’s
If he was asked where, he would be stu about Eru that was different from Aoi
Having thought about it, Yasutaka recalled that a few days ago, soely distant
Did so happened while I was at school? Any instance our eyes ht red and she would blatantly avert her gaze
But then, Eru went back to nor a deal
「? Is so the matter?」
「N, no, it’s nothing, u, un」
Yasutaka as captivated by Eru, reflexively answered, frantically dodging the truth
「Is that so? Your face looks a bit red though…… Ah! That’s right, Yasutaka-san! Please look at this!」
What Eru happily wanted to show Yasutaka was the bathroo a bath
「The words here…… I can already read the japanese characters perfectly!!」
With an ehhen[2], Eru puffed her chest proudly
Then, while pointing at the hiragana written on the poster one by one, she read aloud 「a」「i」「u」「e」「o」, hiragana sequence
「Ooh, that was great You were able to ?」
The instant she heard about writing, Eru who looked proud turned despondent
「U, u is still a bit bad……」
Ehehe, Eru grinned, embarrassed
While Eru smiled sheepishly, Yasutaka decided to have her advance to the next step
「Well, since you can now read hiragana, next lesson iskatakana」
Yasutaka took Eru’s hiragana poster, flipped it over, then returned it to Eru
Written on the opposite side of the poster is the Katakana syllabary, and seeing it caused to Eru blink in surprise
「U, um…… What is this? I think it certainly resembles the table of characters on the other side but……」
「As I’ve said, this is Katakana Written on the chart was Hiragana Both of them are japanese characters」
「Wai, please wait a e!?」
The languages Eru had studied until now never had more than one kind of alphabet, and now there were two
Even on earth, es that exist only have one kind of alphabet and those with two alphabets are the minority
「japanese uses different alphabets to suit different purposes Apart froest obstacle would be Kanji」
When studying japanese, learning Kanji would undoubtedly bring tears to anyone’s eyes
The nuh coh these are only the commonly used ones The fourth level of JIS Kanji has more than ten thousand characters It’s said that the total exceeds fifty thousand character when the Kanji mentioned in the Chinese-japanese dictionaries are included
Yasutaka was struck with the idea to show some of the kanji written on the notebook beside him
「T…… it looks somewhat complicated and peculiar but…… are these really characters?」
「That’s right For example……」
Yasutaka pointed at the character 「人」 written on his notebook
「This character is 「Person (ヒト)」…… In short, this stands for 「Human ( 人間）」 Besides this……」
As he pointed at so of each one
「I see Each and every character has its ownIncidentally, if this 「人」 character represents humans ( 人間 ), then how is 「Elf」 written in kanji?」
「No no The kanji for elf doesn’t exist」
「Eeeeh!? There’s a kanji to represent humans, so then why isn’t there a character to represent elves!?」
「Well, you see, it’s because there aren’t any elves in this world」
「Eh……? There are no elves in this world……?」
It’s true that up till now, Eru has not seen any other race other than humans in this world
However, she thought that the majority of the inhabitants in this toere human, and that the Fairy species such as Elves and Dwarves, and Demi-human species such as Beastkin were just fewer in number
In Eru’s world, humans were the most numerous and still the es were inhabited mostly by humans Toith only Elves and Dwarves exist, however, they are exceedingly fehen compared to the human towns
Furthermore, there are some humans that discri thees and toith only those kinds of people exist
「The, then, how about dwarves? Meroblins and ogres?」