Myne

Myne (マイン Main) is the protagonist of Ascendance of a Bookworm.

Appearance
Myne is a cute little girl that looks out-of-place with her commoner background. Her skin is sickly pale and clean. Her eyes are deep gold, like the moon, and very expressive. Myne has long dark-blue hair resembling the night sky reaching to her back, which she tied to half updo bun with a wooden hairpin. Due to her suffering from the Devouring, she looks several years younger than her actual age.

As Urano Motosu
Urano Motosu was a young 22 years old recent college graduate, who had just landed her dream job as a librarian. She lived with her widowed mother; her father died in an accident when she was young.

Urano died by being buried by an avalanche of books during an earthquake. Her last memory is praying desperately that she can still read books even in her next life.

Reincarnation as Myne
Before the start of the story, Myne was a very sick girl that rarely ever left her house. Myne had barely ever participated in neighborhood social events, so the local children considered her a rare monster with a low encounter rate. She felt often unhappy besides the time she spent "dreaming of another world". Due to the Devouring, her personality and most of her memories were eventually completely eroded and replaced with that of her previous life as Urano Motosu; the series follows the new Myne from Urano's full emergence onward.

Personality
Effa describes Myne before her "death" as childish, because she throws needless tantrums due to being jealous of Tuuli. After her memories were combined with Urano's memories, her mind became a hybrid of Urano and her original self. Urano, now Myne, developed an energetic and optimistic personality, while retaining her book-obsessed side from her Urano days, bemusing the other villagers for both her odd obsession with literacy (for anyone even a peasant) and inventiveness (for her own needs). Each time she sees blood or death-related situations, she feels sick or faints. Effa thinks that Myne looked like Effa on the outside but has her father's personality on the inside. Both would charge head-on without considering their surroundings or consequences, and feel frustrated if they don't reach their goal.

Awakening as Myne
In the first chapter, Myne dies because of a fever which lead to her past life's memories to emerge inside Myne's body. Due to her strong willpower Myne's body survived the near death situation. Learning she has been reborn to a body of a frail five-year-old girl living in a medieval era, Myne who became depressed decides that as long as she has a book she can overcome anything. She tries to find something to read, only to become frustrated by the lack of books at her disposal.

Upon learning that books are expensive, owned mostly by nobles, Myne declares "I'll make them myself!" beginning her journey into bookmaking. The first hurdle she finds is her frail and sickly body, often left bedridden with a fever after mild exertion. The second hurdle is the language barrier, with the previous Myne's limited vocabulary and only knowing how to write and read in Japanese.

Otto and the South Gate
One day she is visiting the gate where her father works at and is introduced to Otto, a colleague of her father and former traveling merchant. Otto gives Myne a stone slate and shows her how to write her own name. She begins frequenting the south gate, learning new words and the alphabet to help Otto with his paper work. She also helps him with his math paperwork by using the math skills she developed in her Urano days, in exchange for more slate pens.

First Steps towards Paper Making
As her health and literacy increases, she trains her body so she can walk to the forest. Her progress is slow but thanks to her friend Lutz, she is able to manage it. Lutz suspected Myne being someone else after they spend more time with each other and confronts her. Myne agrees to Lutz's claim and telling him that the old Myne most likely passed away. In the end he accepts her for who she is and they make up.

Myne displays many extraordinary skills and ideas like plant paper making which leads to her successful business relationship with the merchant Benno. While Myne expands her connections in the merchant world through Benno, she befriends the grandaughter of Gustav the guildmaster. Freida also suffers from the Devouring like Myne so they are both happy to having found a kindred spirit in the other. One day Myne couldn't contain the heat anymore and was about to be devoured. Freida sold a magic tool to Myne which enables her to extend her life to up to one year. As magic tools are expensive and normally owned by nobles, Myne is confronted with two choices: She either signs a contract with a noble or withers away besides her family. Myne decides to stay with her familiy until the day she dies.

Baptism Ceremony
During her baptism ceremony she faints and is brought into a room to rest. After getting lost in the temple she finds a room which resembles a library. Being excited by the pure sight, she then meets with the High Bishop Bezewanst, the highest entity in the temple, and requests an apprenticeship which would allow her entering the book room. After hearing the amount of money Myne intends to donate, he asks Myne to talk to her parents and offers her to visit the temple to read the bible. Myne's parents got angry with her and explain the reason behind their anger. She understands and intends to decline her apprenticeship. Therefore, Myne visits the temple again where she encounters the High Priest Ferdinand. He was instructed to read the bible to her until the High Bishop arrives. When the Bezewanst arrived, Myne began her argumentation stating her bad health and the Devouring as reasons as to why she isn't fit for working in the temple, and hopes to cancel her apprenticeship. When hearing that Myne suffers from the Devouring, they made her touch a magical tool which shows that she possesses a certain amount of mana. What follows is a summon invitation for Myne's parents and the stronger intention in making Myne join the temple. The High Bishop thought Myne was a rich merchant child due to her appearance, but after seeing her parents he knows better. His friendly behaviour changed to an unfriendly and condescending one towards Myne and her family, even resorting to violence after Myne's parents tried to cancel the requested apprenticeship. Myne witnessing her father's fight loses herself in rage and crushed the High Bishop using her mana until he faints. Ferdinand intervenes before she kills Bezewanst which leads to him being the new target. He convinces her to calm down and hold a proper discussion about her apprenticeship. They agreed on favorable terms, so Myne becomes a blue apprentice shrine maiden.

Becoming a Blue Shrine Maiden Apprentice
After a month, Myne officially assumed her blue shrine maiden apprenticeship. Therefore, she is walked by Lutz to the temple where she meets Fran. She parts with Lutz at the temple's gate and is guided by Fran to the High Priest's chambers. Ferdinand is in charge of her inauguration ceremony where Myne receives her blue robe. Following the ceremony, he introduces her to her three attendants, Delia, Gil and Fran. Everyone has their reasons but they all share one thing. They don't recognise Myne as their proper master while Myne doesn't see them as her proper attendants. While Myne bonds with each one of the three over the time, she learns more about the temple and her role as a blue shrine maiden. When the donation was due, Benno helped her to realise her short comings and was involved to immediately bring the donation over to the temple. Fran had trouble to accept Myne due to her mannerism and his frustration. As Myne changed he also changed his attitude. Gil lost his place to stay and the food he received before, directing his anger at Myne. Myne didn't know she had to take proper care of her attendants as a blue shrine maiden and feeding them the alms of the gods. When she learned about Gil, she works out a plan to offer him a place to stay and food, leading to her acquiring the orphanage director's chambers. Bezewanst was furious after hearing, that Myne got her chambers, which lead to him throwing out Delia. Delia was angry at Myne (due to her own fault though) and barged into her chambers. There she learned through Benno, that she can't get by acting like a hostess. She pleads to Myne to not abandon her, which would mean she had to return to the orphanage.

Inventions
During her time in Ehrenfest, Myne "invented" a number of amazing products and dishes. In reality, she is actually just recreating things from the world she lived in during her previous life as Urano.

Myne was able to recreate most things because of Urano's mother's passion for a variety of things which resulted in dragging Urano along to those activities more often then not. Urano would often finish her mother's work who usually gives up half way through.

When Myne starts to make the printing press, she starts to honour the people around her, who help her make the printing press, by titling them Gutenberg.

Translation Notes
マイン is directly translated as Main, pronounced as Mine. The Light Novel translator uses Myne to avoid confusion among the English readers. The official anime translation has used both Main and Myne in different episodes. However, her name is written as "Main" on the slate using the new world's letters as well in both manga and anime.

Trivia

 * Due to her stunted growth, people sometimes mistake her to be around 3, and her sister Tuuli to be around 7 or 8, but their age difference is only one year (5 & 6 at the beginning of the story).
 * Myne's final memories before being subsumed by Urano were "...It's so hot. It hurts. I hate thiiis..."
 * Myne had dreams of Urano's world, where she could run and play and eat all she wanted. She wanted to sleep forever so she could stay in the other world.
 * Urano has remarked that Myne exceptional, close to perfect pitch, hearing.
 * Myne's favorite fruit are raffles.
 * Effa is convinced that Myne's behaviour is because of Gunther.