It took some time but I managed to memorize the whole alphabet. Since she was already helping me, I pushed my luck to the maximum and asked her to teach me a few basic words and read me several sentences. She agreed and, after about one hour, I was in a perfect starting position to study independently.
Glad that everything had gone so well, I took the hands of the girl who ended up sitting next to me at some point and shook them up and down.
"Thanks a lot! You're a huge help."
However, her reaction was the opposite of what I expected. Her face suddenly morphed into one of outrage as she escaped my grip by force as if I were something disgusting.
"Get your hands off me!"
"Huh?"
The kind girl who volunteered her time to help me was gone, replaced by a furious being, taking me completely by surprise.
"How could you touch me like that?!"
I wondered if I had done something wrong. Maybe getting touchy with people in the inner world wasn't as normal as Suuru made it seem.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean anything bad by it."
"I can't believe this!"
"No need to react that badly. I'm sorry, okay?"
"How dare you! You lowlife! Don't you know who I am!?"
Even I thought this was a bit too much. I wasn't one to take a beating for no reason.
"Well, you were a nice and helpful girl a minute ago. Now, you look totally hysterical."
"What!? H-how dare you! You're insulting me right in front of my face? Even though I was nice enough to help you so much? Don't ever come next to me again, you scoundrel!"
She opened the door to the reading room and left while slamming it behind her, anger and disgust filling her expression. I was left bewildered by the event. Talk about bipolar. Fortunately, the Trading Union had been full of crazy people too so it wasn't like I wasn't used to these sorts of things. She actually looked cute in front of some of them.
I wasn't sure who she was to react like this and didn't care much. I was strictly educated to consider everyone to be equal. It might sound strange since I was coming from the organization that dominated the world but there was a reason for it. The trading union had been filled with arrogant folks who treated everyone like they were pebbles on the ground. The problem was that, at heart, the organization was a merchant union. Who wanted to do business with people who looked down on you?
When the reputation of the Union became bad enough to affect sales, they resolved to act on the issue. The problem was that, no matter how skilled one was at acting, it was impossible to never make a mistake and reveal your true feelings your whole life. People forget about a hundred good actions but never let go of any single mistake made.
The solution the Union found was to educate future generations to truly believe that everyone was equal. And it was a brilliant idea. There was no need to act as if you cared about other people when it was your real belief.
That's why I didn't care about status and such and only considered the individuals as they were.
But, if you still wanted to argue about status, then this girl's status and mine couldn't be compared. Even calculating the very best she could be, which was, considering her age, something like being the heir and future ruler of all the domes on the planet, it wasn't much to me. Since domes seemed to have several tens of thousands of people each and there were around a hundred domes, that meant she would rule over several tens of millions of people at best.
What about me? If nothing wrong happened, I was set on the absolute elite path in the Trading Union. I would eventually have ended up belonging to the great council and being one of the ten highest-ranked members of the Union. Each of them held power comparable to the heads of several countries, ruling over the equivalent of hundreds of millions of people.
We simply couldn't be compared. But of course, all of that was only an alternative future that would never come to be. This made me sigh once more at everything I lost, including my family.
Still, there was no point in weeping about my misery again. This world also offered unlimited possibilities. I could make it big here instead.
The good point about the hysterical girl leaving was that I had the room for myself. I could practice reading out loud and not bother anyone. At least for a short while. Now that the girl was gone, other people came into the room to occupy the free spots. It was clear that they were previously afraid of being in the same room as her.
I spent most of the day learning the language and I could feel I made great progress. When the other occupants started to leave the room and the library because it got late, I followed them. I put the books back in their place, thanked the librarians again, and found a quiet place outside to teleport back close to Suuru's house.
She was still working when I arrived and she looked happy to see me reach her home on time today. She stopped her work for the day and prepared food as usual. We chatted while eating, talking about our respective days. She was interested in my experience with the library and I asked her about how her business went. Truthfully, neither of our stories was very exciting but that was fine in itself. This small talk felt like family members talking about little nothings and it felt cozy and warm.
Now, the most important part was to come.
"Are you ready for today's massage?"
"Yes. I think I can take it just fine this time."
I don't think I was mistaken when I saw a glint of anticipation in her eyes.