Episode 2

"Life Improvements and Slates" (生活改善と石板, Seikatsu Kaizen to Sekiban) is the second episode of the Ascendance of a Bookworm anime series. It originally aired on October 10, 2019.

This episode was adapted from Part 1 Volume 1 of the Light Novel series (Chapter 5: Lifestyle Overhaul - Chapter 10: Stone Slate Get!).

Myne struggles to adjust to life as a poor commoner and continues her plans to make books. When her sister Tuuli returns from foraging in the woods with an avocado-like meryl fruit, Myne learns how to extract oil from it and uses it to make homemade shampoo. It leaves her hair glossy and sweet-smelling, and her sister and mother are eager to use it as well.

Later, she and Tuuli go to the city gate to deliver their father's lunch. Myne is too frail to walk the entire way, but the neighborhood boys Ralph, Fey, and Lutz volunteer to help carry her. Myne is amused when Ralph compliments Tuuli's hair, but extremely flustered when Lutz compliments hers.

When they arrive at the gate, their affectionate father Gunther praises them for their help. He also introduces them to Otto, a fellow soldier who can read and write. Seeing the parchment and ink he uses, Myne eagerly asks her father to buy her some, but he says it would cost him an entire months' salary. To cheer her up, Otto offers to give Myne a secondhand stone slate and promises to teach her to read and write.

As winter approaches, Myne attends the local Pork Stocking Festival, where commoners slaughter pigs to make bacon and sausage for the cold weather ahead. Once again, she goes faint at the sight of blood, and her family takes her back to the city gate to recover under Otto's supervision. While she's there, he gives her the slate he promised and teaches her how to write her name in the new world's alphabet.

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