The World Controlled by Dice Chapter 2

Translator: Endless Veil                  

Editor/Proofreader: NONE, so comment section

Chapter 2: University of Lamifa

 

Inside a dark, shabby and dusty antique bookstore, a middle-aged bearded man was sitting lazily behind the counter. He was wearing a slightly worn suit and a pair of glasses, and was reading a book with yellowed pages.

The wind chimes hanging at the door rang, announcing the arrival of the guest. However, the middle-aged man did not raise his head or stand up, only speaking casually: "Please take a look around, and call me if you need anything."

Then he continued to bury himself into the book.

After Siles walked into the bookstore, he took a look around.

The bookstore wasn't very big. According to the words on the door frame, it should be called "Grenfell's Antique Bookstore." There were two rows of bookshelves and a few tables in the store, with many books stacked and cramped together. They weren't brand new, and instead, were books with the smell of old ink.

This bookstore did not appear in the original owner's memory. 

Siles placed the long-handled black umbrella at the door, and as the shopkeeper had asked of him, he searched for the books he wanted on his own. He didn't know why the die sounded in his mind just now.

He tried to talk to the die in his mind, to search for the existence of the die, but to no avail. In the end, he decided to walk into the bookstore.

The first thing he took note of was how old these books were. Old didn't necessarily mean ancient, but it definitely meant that the bookstore owner had a strong background. According to the knowledge in this brain, people only first started printing in the near three hundred years after entering the Age of Mist.

The Age of Mist was the era they were in right now. Before the Age of Mist was the Age of Silence. The literature of the Age of Silence was exactly what Siles specialized in. 

He glanced at the books in the bookstore in a discerning manner and found that most of them were books from this era. 

He didn't really expect that this store would have antique books from the Age of Silence, but for various reasons, he still asked the ever-so-silent shopkeeper: "Excuse me, are there any books related to the Age of Silence?" 

The middle-aged man suddenly raised his head upon hearing this and observed Siles with a slightly strange look. Then he said, "Yeah." He casually raised the book in his hand. "This is one." 

Siles walked to the counter, lowered his eyes to glance at the gray and black stains and dust on the counter, and simply asked, "May I take a look?"

The middle-aged man's expression grew even stranger. He muttered something and looked at the calm, black haired, black eyed young man in front of him. After hesitating for a moment, he placed the book in front of Siles. 

"What should I call you?" Siles asked as he lowered his eyes to view the book. 

"Grenfell, you can call me Gren." Grenfell said slowly, "I have to ask, why are you interested in books about the Age of Silence?" 

"I study the literature of the Age of Silence," replied Siles.

He already realized what this book was. It was not an original work of the Age of Silence, but a book written by contemporary scholars. It introduced several famous works from the Age of Silence, acting similar to that of an introductory guide.  

This was a bit rudimentary for Siles, but it seemed to be a good introductory book for the students who chose to take his course. He had been pondering about the list of books he should give to those students.

Then he realized that Grenfell seemed to have stayed quiet for too long. 

He raised his eyes and looked towards Grenfell.

The middle-aged man gazed at him with an ambiguous look.  

Siles was slightly startled, and then asked: "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Was there anything wrong with studying the literature of the Age of Silence?  

Grenfell stroked his brown beard and then seemed to mutter to himself, "Age of Silence... literature... hmm... no, no, this won't do..." 

Siles glanced at him, then lowered his eyes and turned the pages to find the name of the book, "The Three Blasphemous Novels of the Age of Silence: a Brief Discussion," and he wrote down the name. 

At this time, Grenfell had already made a decision. He pulled out a drawer, took out a business card, and handed it to Siles: "Here." 

Siles took it and glanced down.

"Historical Society of Lamifa. Vice President, Joseph Morton."  

Grenfell said, "I don't have what you desire, but I can give you this business card." His tone was a little suggestive, "This counts a semi-official organization." 

Siles narrowed his eyes and the sound of the dice rolling went off in his mind again.

 

[You need to make a skill check.]

[Knowledge: 45/80, Failure.]

[You couldn't obtain any information from this ordinary business card. You think you should search for the person on the business card.]  

 

Another skill check was triggered? What was the mechanism for triggering the skill check?

In a group run, it was usually the players who made requests to the host for skill checks; in some special cases, the host may also take the initiative to give the players a skill check.

But however it may be, the two skill checks that Siles had encountered so far were triggered automatically, like that from a rigid computer program.

What kind of script was he in? Who was giving him these skill checks?  

Should he have received information from this business card? But this was just the head of a historical society. What could he give Siles? Antique books from the Age of Silence? Documents?

Siles thought as he thanked Grenfell.

He felt confused and alarmed, but the die in his pocket remained there quietly, as if nothing had happened. Finally, Siles left the bookstore with the name of a book and a business card.  

It was almost nine o'clock, and Siles had not yet had breakfast. While waiting for the carriage at the stagecoach station in Logan Market, he bought a small piece of bread from a nearby bakery and swallowed it with some difficulty.

He was thinking that even though he would be leaving the western side of the city in a week, how he should spend this week was also a question.

The original Siles was an excellent student, and had received scholarship money every year. His mother would also send him living expenses every semester. However, during the time he was looking for a job after graduation, his savings were already completely consumed by rent and living expenses. 

The legal currency used by the Principality of Const, where the city of Lamifa resided, was called the "Duke Coin," a lightweight coin made from precious metals. Comparing it parallel with the currencies on Earth, Siles believed that a Duke coin was roughly equivalent to 100 yuan. (~$13)

There were also Marquis coins equivalent to ten yuan, and Earl coins equivalent to one yuan. 

Most of the conversion units in this world used the decimal system, 1 Duke = 10 Marquis = 100 Earl, which was quite convenient. For He Jiayin, an earthling, it was very accommodating and made him feel extremely relieved. 

There were also paper money. However, the denominations of paper money were quite large. The commonly used ones were the hundred-coin note, which was equivalent to a hundred Duke coins, and the ten-coin note, which was equivalent to ten Duke coins. 

Currently Siles still had three ten-coin notes, four Duke coins, and some Marquis and Earl coins. All of his savings added up to around forty duke coins.

The simplest and crudest way to put it was that forty Duke coins could allow him to live in the city of Lamifa for forty days. But that was when the living conditions were stable. 

He was about to begin work, and he needed to buy teaching materials, formal professor clothing, and daily necessities. He also needed to prepare for writing academic papers after starting work. Even if some of these expenses could be reimbursed by the university, it could not be said that forty Duke coins were enough.

After all, his salary would only be paid at the end of the month after school started. His monthly salary was fifty Duke coins.  

Siles sighed slightly in his heart and swallowed the last bite of bread that was worth one Earl coin. At this moment, the stagecoach drove along the specific track, dragging the two carriages behind it. 

Siles opened his pocket watch and found that it was exactly nine o'clock. He boarded the carriage with several other passengers. There was no place to sit in the carriage, so they had to stand. 

The carriage moved along a fixed track and route at a speed that wasn't fast, and had to stop at stations from time to time to pick up and drop off passengers. The carriage shook violently and there was often a strange smell that wafted over, but every passenger had already gotten used to this kind of awful riding experience.

Around two hours later, Siles finally arrived at his destination—Lamifa University.  

Lamifa University was located in the northeast corner of the entire city of Lamifa, residing very close to the suburbs. Its main body was a large building that was similar to a castle.

It was said that this place was once a nobleman's castle, but when the city of Lamifa was built and a university was planned to be established, the noble had donated this structure.

There were some other buildings around the main castle, including greenhouses, sports fields, libraries, etc. The dormitory where Siles was about to move in was located in a low-rise building complex on the west side of the main castle.

As he entered the campus, a liveliness and vitality that was different from that of the old city emanated from it.  

Some students who returned to school early were wearing the school robes of Lamifa University. They laughed as they walked past Siles, greeting him because they thought that Siles was also a student.

Siles smiled and nodded at them without explaining the misunderstanding.

The original Siles was a student at Lamifa University for four years. In the first two years, he was an ordinary literature student, and in the last two years, he became a research scholar. Siles realized that his former juniors would probably appear in his classes.  

A short while later, he walked across the large lawn in front of the main castle and entered the castle from the main entrance hall. This ancient building, which was built in the Age of Silence, exuded a heavy and profound aura, which calmed Siles down the moment he had entered here.

The office of the professor of literature and history was located on the fourth floor and was a small isolated office. 

In this world, in this era, although there were universities, there were no "science majors" like those in his hometown. The vast majority of majors in universities were literature, history, philosophy, language, politics, geography, and such.

The overall education system in universities was divided into two parts: one was basic studies and the other was advanced studies, which totaled four years. The arrangement was roughly similar to undergraduate and graduate studies on Earth, but the former still followed the old apprenticeship system.  

The school called the students of advanced studies "mentees" internally and "research scholars" externally. The concept was similar to graduate students on Earth. It was a combination of a master's and a doctoral degree, although they were also required to study under a mentor. 

Siles was a new professor, who also needed to take on mentees, though he didn't have many options. After the school started, he would know who the students he wanted to take in would be. 

...He hoped they were students who were easier to get along with. 

In addition to taking in mentees, Siles also needed to be responsible for two public elective courses, as well as two professional elective courses within the School of Literature and History. Because he joined very hastily, he only held a general understanding of his future responsibilities after the interview yesterday afternoon.

...To be honest, this made it even more unbelievable that he could become a professor. How hasty must the previous professor have been when he left his job that a newly graduated student had to become a professor within a week? 

With these thoughts in mind, Siles used the key to open the door to the office that the previous professor had used. 

As soon as the door opened, he detected the scent of old books. The heavy air and dust entered his nostrils, causing Siles to subconsciously furrow his eyebrows. 

He looked at the messy scene in the office, and a moment later, he lightly sighed. 

Books and papers were scattered randomly in this ten square meter room. The ink was spilled, and the feathers of the quill pens were torn. The desks and chairs were overturned, and the books and items on the bookshelves were scattered on the ground. 

The sofa was covered with crumpled paper balls and tattered scraps of paper, displaying a complete mess.

Exactly how hurried and anxious was the former owner of this office when he left?

For a period of time, Siles didn't know whether he should go in or not.  

"Siles, aha! I guessed you would come today!" An old but robust voice sounded from the far staircase in the corridor on the fourth floor. 

Siles turned his head to look over, and then smiled: "Professor Bright."