The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 618: If you want to see something new, sit. If you continue to run around, I will use your heads as ink stones

Chapter 618: Chapter 618: If you want to see something new, sit. If you continue to run around, I will use your heads as ink stones

By the time Isabella went back to check on her new tools, several hours had passed. The fire in the workshop had burned low, and only a gentle orange light shone over the stone trays.

Her rough paper sheets lay there quietly. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

She touched the nearest one very carefully, like it might crumble if she breathed too hard on it. The surface felt dry and firm. When she lifted one edge, it peeled away without tearing.

The sheet was ugly. It was grainy, uneven, and had tiny holes in it. It was also thick, more like a thin bark than real paper. But it did not fall apart.

"That is right," she said under her breath. "You are ugly, but you are mine. You will work."

Bubu made a pleased sound in her mind.

[Host has created functional Stone Age paper. The gods of education are confused, but I am proud.]

"Good," Isabella replied. "Now we will test if it survives beastman hands."

She picked up several sheets, along with her soot ink and a few of the best sticks and bone pens they had made. Then she headed to the central fire area.

The moment she stepped into sight, heads turned.

Children who had been chasing each other around the fire stumbled to a stop. Men who were tying up bundles of wood paused. Women lifted their eyes from sewing and weaving.

"Isabella is here," someone whispered.

"Look, she is holding something."

"Is that food again?"

Their thoughts always circled back to food. She wondered if they even knew anything apart from the food they kept talking about every time.

These beast people were really something else. But Isabella did not mind.

"Sit," Isabella called. "If you want to see something new, sit. If you continue to run around, I will use your heads as ink stones."

That got them moving.

Soon, a ring of villagers surrounded her. The children clustered closest, eyes bright. Behind them stood curious adults, and behind those, a few men tried to pretend they did not care, but their gazes kept drifting forward.

Isabella sat on a smooth stone and laid out the paper on a flat slab in the center.

"This," she said, patting the sheet, "is what we made yesterday from bark and plants. It is like a thin stone that can hold marks. Today, I will show you how to use it."

Ophelia leaned forward until Shelia had to yank her back by the collar.

"Careful," Shelia hissed. "You will spit on it."

"I just want to see," Ophelia complained, but she swallowed her saliva.

Isabella dipped a sharpened twig into the ink and wrote a few simple marks on the paper. Her wrist moved slowly. She wanted them to see every stroke clearly.

Black lines appeared, soaking into the pale surface.

The children gasped.

"It is like drawing," one boy whispered. "But smaller."

Isabella nodded.

"Yes. Reading and writing are like small drawings that each have a sound," she said. "These marks are the same ones we practiced on stone."

She pointed at the first mark.

"Who remembers this?" she asked.

A small girl with messy hair raised her hand so fast she almost hit the boy beside her.

"Me," she said. "It is the mark that sounds like ’ah’."

"Good." Isabella smiled. "Come here."

The girl walked up, nervous but excited.

Isabella held out the stick coated in ink.

"Hold it like this," she instructed, guiding the girl’s fingers. "Not too tight, or your hand will hurt. Not too loose, or it will fall. When you press, do it gently. The paper is not a stone, you do not need to stab it."

The girl nodded hard. Her tongue stuck out a little as she tried to copy the mark on an empty piece of paper.

The stick shook. The ink blotched. The line came out crooked and thick.

She stared at it, then at Isabella.

"Did I break it?" she asked in a small voice.

Isabella blinked, then laughed.

"No," she said. "It is still the same mark, only ugly. Once you practice, it will become pretty. Look."

She wrote the same mark beside the girl’s attempt. The difference was clear, but the shape was recognizably similar.

The other children became excited.

"Teach me, teach me."

"Give it to me, I can hold it better."

"You held it like a squirrel, that is why it shook."

"You are a squirrel."

Soon, the calm circle turned into a noisy cluster of small bodies pushing.

Isabella smacked her palm against her thigh.

"If you fight," she said loudly, "nobody writes. I take all the paper back and use it to stuff pillows."

Silence fell immediately.

The beastman children were wild, but they feared losing new toys even more than they feared punishment.

She began handing out small pieces of paper, one for each child, and one or two for the braver adults who sat closer.

"Practice the first three marks we learned," she told them. "Do not rush. If you move too fast, you will rip the paper."

That warning came too late for one boy.

He tried to copy the way she had moved her wrist, only he forgot his own strength. The sharpened bone went right through the sheet, leaving a torn hole.

He stared at it, stunned.

The man beside him laughed so hard his shoulders shook.

"You stabbed it like a boar," he said. "You are not hunting. The paper is not your enemy."

The boy’s ears turned red.

Isabella sighed.

"Here," she said, handing him another piece. "Think of it like touching a female’s face. Carefully. If you scratch it, she will kill you."

That explanation finally entered his head.

The next stroke he made was much gentler. Still ugly, but the paper survived.

Adults were not much better.

One older man held the stick like it was a spear. His first attempt looked more like a squashed insect than a letter. He frowned at it, then grumbled.