Filia listened to my story in silence.
“Maybe the book was meant to convey the idea that everyone has some natural talent. But after I finished reading it, I just got annoyed. I mean, he lost a magic fight and ran away to cook? Come on.”
It was so unconvincing. Even now, years later, it got a little under my skin.
“If you lose a contest of magic, then you gotta win with magic. That’s clear as day, right? And if you lose at cooking, then you rematch in cooking. If you lose in smarts, then you go at it again until you outsmart ’em. If you don’t get revenge and make a comeback in the same kind of contest, then you didn’t really beat anybody, did you?”
Good for the cook for finding happiness, I guess, but to me the message of that book sounded a lot like “If you lose at something, give it up.” What kinda message was that for children’s literature? If you do happen to lose at something, then you should work hard until you win. That’s all there was to it.
Filia giggled. “Well, I suppose on that point, I don’t dislike this about you, Yuri.”
On that point? What was that supposed to mean? Well, whatever.
“That ending just didn’t sit right with me. It got me all pumped up! In the end, I decided to become the strongest there ever was, never giving up, always getting better one challenge at a time! So I set out on my own journey and rushed out of town to search for the best environment to train!”
“S-such incredible initiative,” said Filia. “And you were six years old? Alone?”
“I’m not saying it was easy. There were a bunch of times I came close to death, but you know how we are as kids. Dumb, naughty little rascals.”
“Not exactly what I was getting at,” said Filia, smiling wryly, her cheeks twitching.
“Sure. Anyway. Several weeks, still a kid, running around defeating monsters here and there, as you do. Finally I got to this forest, and,” I gestured vaguely around.
“I see, I understand clearly now. Can I say just one thing?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“That was absolutely, positively not a normal, mundane kind of story.”
I blinked. Come on, she had to be pulling my leg…right? “C’mon, it’s perfectly natural. Read a bad picture book, get pumped, go to the forest. Bulk up, beat up monsters.”
“Absolutely, positively, literally no one ever does that except for you, Yuri.”
“Huh. Is that really the way it is? Because it’s…it’s the forest, then, eh? Everybody else does it in the hills or by the sea.”
“It’s not a matter of place, it’s—Yuri, are you all right?” Quickly Filia came forward and got in close, face-to-face. “In the first place,” she said softly, “a child can’t go on a training journey alone.”
“Seriously?” I asked. It was so hard to believe.
As Filia stared at me—and I could feel my totally buff face pulling into an expression of shock—she looked so exasperated. “But I suppose you, Yuri, spent over ten years in this forest alone. After all that time, it might seem like common sense to you that your life was a typical one.”
I mulled all this over as we finished our meal preparation and ate beside a river. As we’d traveled through the woods over the past few days, the scenery hadn’t changed much. Plants and birds and rocks and things stretched on. The weird conversation did too.
“What do you mean ‘common sense’?!” I asked, confounded. “If someone just dropped into the woods and told me their common sense would protect ’em, I’d tell them that common sense can go jump in a lake! Better to study proper with a good book.”
“Ugh, I’m getting secondhand anxiety just thinking about it,” said Filia.
I gave Filia a thumbs up, but it didn’t seem to change her sour expression. I clearly needed to explain myself further.
“Really think about it, Filia. When it comes to books, they’re meant to suplex common sense, to roundhouse-kick ignorance. If sense was common, why would we have books to set us all straight? No, I don’t buy common sense at all. Not for a second!”
“I-I see,” said Filia. “I suppose you might have a point,” she added with a quick, more certain nod.
That proved it—my thinking wasn’t wrong after all! The knowledge I’d obtained from reading books couldn’t be wrong since this here muscley bookworm was about to prove the worth of his education by leaving the forest and heading back into the city.
“Glad we’re on the same page. So, that’s why I always carry a handkerchief with me, and if lightning strikes and causes a fire, I run to the fire,” I said, feeling relieved and tucking in to our meal.
“Okay, I was with you on the first half, I’m not going to lie, but what in the world are you talking about with the second part? Why would you do that?” She looked so doubtful. What had I said?
“Well, you’ve gotta pay respect to nature and natural phenomena. Best way to do that? Get hit by lightning directly. Just feel that sweet, sweet nature nibbling at your muscles, channeling through your rock-hard pecs. Good stuff. Highly recommended.”
“I wouldn’t…go recommending that to most people. By the way, that book in your story—do you have it?”
“No point. I’d already memorized it, so I left it at home.”
“Aww. I guess that once you know you can’t read something, you just want to read it immediately. It’s just like how the scarier something is, the more you need to see it.”
Was that common sense too? Maybe we had different definitions of the term. Probably nothing to worry about, but something to keep in mind.