Chapter 9: Days with the Demon King

Following that, the Demon King frequently visited my room.

I wondered if it was okay to come to my room so frequently during the war, but the Demon King said it was fine because he left the war to those who were good at it.

“Shrine Maiden, in what handwriting do you write your name?”

“Handwriting…?

Garen had been asked about the origin of my name before, but this was the first time I had been questioned about the handwriting.

“We speak the same language, but your written language is different from mine.”

Yes, for some reason, I can understand the spoken language, but I cannot read this country’s written language—not hiragana and kanji, but something comparable, such as cuneiform characters.

“This is how I write my name.”

the Demon King looked surprised when I wrote ‘Mika’ in kanji.

“That is very different from our country—Mika is an unusual name to begin with.”

Then he wrote ‘Mika’ beside it, most likely in this world’s language.

I had no idea my handwriting was so bad. I’d been in this world for a year and had no idea.

While I was looking at it, the Demon King wrote something else next to it.

“What’s this?”

“O’Dowell… That is my given name—How do you write it in your native language?”

Next to it, I wrote O’Dowell in katakana. the Demon King is taken aback once more.

“It appears to be different from your handwriting.”

I became enthralled by his words and began explaining kanji, hiragana, and katakana to him. It’s fascinating to converse with the Demon King because he responds well. Despite the fact that he still does not look me in the eyes.

“Your country is fascinating; you employ three different scripts—It must be difficult to learn with so many.”

I never considered it because I take them for granted, but it could be true. Some characters are easier to create… Then I thought of English. English is just an alphabet, but I’ve never been particularly good at it. The only thing that helps is that the letters in this world use the same grammar as Japanese letters.

That’s right!

“Your Majesty, I have a request…”

“What is it?”

“I want to learn the world’s alphabet.”

If you don’t have anything else to do, study. The old me would think I’d gone crazy, but I was so bored. After all, it’s probably pretty sad that I can’t even write my own name after a year here. Would anything have changed if I had made more of an effort to fit in?

“OK, I’ll find you a teacher and some books.”

“Thank you very much.”

──At the very least, I found something to do.