Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 2.2 - Chapter 18

A Book for Benno and First Fitting 

I was wearing my apprentice outfit since I was going to the Gilberta Company today. But since it and all my other nice clothes were fairly thin with long sleeves, they were naturally a bit cold for late autumn. The hooded poncho that Benno gave me last winter was serving me well here, but I didn’t want to wear it for the rest of my life. 

“I think it’s about time to buy some winter outfits.” 

“You mean for when you go north?” asked Tuuli, and I nodded. Nowadays I only really spent a lot of time at home when I was bedridden, which meant I didn’t need most of my normal clothes. But in return I was going to the temple and the Gilberta Company all the time, and I would need fancy northern clothes to fit in. 

“Invite me when you buy some. I’ll definitely win this time!” 

Oh yeah, Tuuli and Lutz tied when trying to pick out clothes for me last time, I remembered. Ever since then, Tuuli had started to look at clothes more carefully and wander around the city to observe fashion trends. 

“Um, Tuuli. I was thinking about going to get clothes today after giving Benno his book...” 

“Wha? But I have work today.” Tuuli helped out at the Myne Workshop yesterday since she had the day off. But since apprentices had work every other day, she couldn’t go shopping today. 

I smiled at Tuuli and put some finished picture books in my tote bag while she glared at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait. We can go on a day we both have off, since I need to get winter clothes for my attendants too. And you’ll need a pair yourself since you’ll be holding sewing classes in the orphanage, right?” 

“Wha?! You’ll buy one for me, too?!” 

Despite how much Tuuli was helping me—teaching the orphans to cook and sew, taking them to the forest, and so on—I had never paid her for her work. Lutz was being paid a little extra from the Gilberta Company to help me, not to mention his cut of what my new products earned. It was about time Tuuli got rewarded for her efforts too. 

“Think of it as your pay for being a teacher.” 

“...That’s a bit much when I’m not teaching them anything special.” Tuuli was pursing her lips and pouting, but she looked happy and her cheeks were blushing a little red. If she was happy, I was happy. I’ll spend as much as it takes to get a cute outfit for her. No cost is too great! 

“Let’s go, Myne.” 

Lutz came to get me, so I grabbed my bag and went outside. I could feel how much cooler the air had gotten. 

“Morning, Lutz. I see you’ve learned to love the poncho too.” Lutz was wearing his poncho, which happened to be a different color than mine. He had grown so much over the past year that he hated how tight it felt, but it seemed that even he could no longer stand the cold. “I was just talking to Tuuli about going to buy fancy winter clothes on the next day we both have off.” 

“Yeah, makes sense. We need some clothes.” Lutz looked down at his small poncho and sighed. 

By the way, I had grown a little too. The poncho which used to make me look like a bedsheet ghost was now just a little baggy on me. All my growth was no doubt thanks to me consistently donating my mana, which led to far fewer instances of me collapsing from my Devouring. I was as weak as ever, but collapsing less meant eating normal meals more often. Not to mention that at the temple I always ate extravagant meals fit for the nobility. Collapsing less and eating my fill of nutritious food both led to me growing a little. Thank you Leidenschaft, God of Fire and ruler of growth! 

“Praise be to the gods!” 

“What the heck?! Where’d that come from?!” 

“Oh, sorry. It just kinda came out.” It seemed that the customs of the temple were really rubbing off on me. Before I knew it, I was making the goofy praying pose in the middle of town without even thinking about it. I broke into an embarrassed sweat at all the passersby staring at me, and we hurried on to the Gilberta Company. 

“Mark, there’s something I want to show Benno. Is he here?” 

“Yes, the master is in his office. Please wait just a moment.” Mark sorted things out and took us to Benno’s office. Benno was sitting at his desk and blasting away at writing something. 

“Good morning, Benno.” I greeted him after his writing speed slowed down, and he set aside his pen to greet me back. He then looked at Lutz while stretching his back. 

“Understood, Master Benno.” Lutz must have understood what that look meant, as he told me to sit down and then disappeared behind the door that led to Benno’s floor of residence. 

“What was that about?” 

“He went to tell a servant to start getting tea ready.” Benno walked to the table where I was. He wasn’t making a big deal about it, but this was the first time I had seen Lutz climb the stairs behind the door. 

“Is he allowed to go up there?” 

“He’s a leherl, y’know? He’s still living at home and only eating lunch here, but once he’s an adult he’ll be living here just like Mark is.” 

“Oh, I see.” Since I ultimately didn’t become an apprentice merchant, I didn’t have a clear idea of how leherls and lehanges differed. I was just thinking of one as a contract employee and the other as a future administrator. 

“How do you know so much and so little at the same time?” Benno sighed in exasperation right as Lutz came back. Lutz faltered for a bit, not sure if he should stand behind Benno or beside me. 

“You made this with me, Lutz, so sit next to me this time.” I patted the chair beside mine, and Benno nodded. Lutz sat next to me and gave a small smile. 

“So, what’ve you got for me?” 

“Tadaaa! This! A picture book bible for kids.” 

“...You finished it, huh?” Benno murmured in disbelief, then took the picture book I held out to him. He looked at the front, the back, and narrowed his eyes at the string binding it all together. 

“You’re keeping it together with just string? You aren’t using any glue?” 

“We haven’t made any hide glue yet. I thought about making some starch glue, but that would raise the base price even more, and the orphanage kids didn’t want to waste the flour on it.” They said they would rather eat it than use it to make glue. It was hard for me to argue with that, given how I had seen them starving to death not too long ago. 

Benno felt the plants in the front cover. “Not often you see a book cover not made of leather. This is the same kinda flower paper you made for me a while ago, yeah?” 

“Yes. I put a little extra effort into it since it’s the cover. I think it would be even prettier with some coloring. I thought of getting pigments from fruit, but the orphanage kids always prioritize eating.” 

In the first place, the kids started working since they wanted to have enough to eat. Food was naturally more important to them than books. This time I had them prioritize finishing the books, but in the future I would need to search for pigments that I could get from inedible fruit, plants, stone, and bark. 

“You did this much with just black and white?” asked Benno while opening up to the first page. Wilma’s art was positioned such that it was the first thing you saw when you opened the book. Benno widened his eyes and looked at the art. “...This art’s pretty impressive. How’d you get this done?” 

“Eheheh. I cut thick paper with a precision knife and put ink on top of it. That’s called stenciling. Wilma worked hard to learn this new art style. Isn’t she amazing?” I puffed out my chest with pride for my attendant, but Benno just cradled his head for some reason. 

“An entirely new style of art... You just keep making new things without telling me.” 

“Now now, Benno. You don’t need to get so upset. Plant paper itself is so new that really, it doesn’t matter what else I introduce here.” Books made with parchment already existed, but this was the first time plant paper was being used to make books. Why complain about me tacking on a new style of art on top of that? 

“It doesn’t matter...? Seriously?” 

“I mean, I’m using newly developed ink on new plant paper with art drawn in a new style and printed on paper using new technology that ultimately gets bound together in a new book-binding technique. This picture book bible for kids is built on a mountain of new inventions. Honestly, no part of it isn’t new.” 

Benno looked at the book with a grimace, then scratched his head. “Now I’ve got a headache. But anyway. What’re you gonna price it at?” 

“Considering that we need to cover for the initial investment, I was thinking a small gold and five large silvers would be a fair price. The initial investment will matter less and less the more books we make, so ultimately the price should settle down to about eight large silvers.” 

We gathered the soot this time ourselves, but consistently making ink from soot would cost money. Considering the initial investment, the cost of materials, the cost of labor, and the handling fees, a small gold and eight large silvers seemed like the best price to go with. That was on the cheaper side, too, since we were using the paper we made ourselves without going through Benno. 

“Oh...?” 

“Volrin paper will get cheaper too once more of it’s in the market, right? That’ll lower the price of the books too. But ink, well... No helping that unless linseed oil gets cheaper. The books are just going to be expensive,” I said with defeat. But Benno shook his head slowly. 

“The kinda books that nobles buy run them four to five large golds. Yours are a lot cheaper. Dirt cheap, even. And they’re good for kids, since the writing’s so easy to read.” 

“You can add a leather cover if you want it to look more fancy, too. I’m just personally more concerned about the quantity and quality of the contents than the cover.” Books were expensive enough that you had to be as rich as a noble to buy one. But if they were made even a little cheaper, there would be status-hungry people out there ready to seize the opportunity. And particularly vain rich people would no doubt jump on them if we added on some fancy covers. 

“Makes sense. Rich people would definitely want these. Do you have any plans to make other books?” 

“I intend to make several more picture books like this. Carving out stencils for the words is hard enough that I want to keep the text short. Also, my artist has very limited experience. She’s a caged bird who’s never left the temple and can basically only draw religious figures.” 

Things were getting better in the orphanage now that they were making their own soup, but most of them still didn’t really understand what uncooked food looked like, and they still lacked a lot of things important to living life outside of the temple. Their lack of baskets and knives for going to the forest made that clear, not to mention sewing kits and all that. 

“...That’s pretty extreme.” 

“Her upbringing was just that different. Right now, the best thing is for her to keep drawing what she’s best at. I just need to think of stories that allow for that, which shouldn’t be hard since there’s a ton of stories about the gods.” 

“True, but if you stick to just religious stuff...” 

“It’ll get pretty boring,” interjected Lutz. I shrugged. The orphanage kids liked religious stories the best, but people in the city didn’t seem to like them at all. 

“If it comes to making books with just text and none of Wilma’s art, there’s two possible things I’ll want to make first to help with mass production and efficiency.” 

“Yeah? And what are those?” 

“First, the stencil paper for the mimeograph. You have to make a sheet of plant paper thin enough to be seen through, then cover it with a super thin layer of mixed wax and resin or something, but to be honest, it requires an extremely high level of skill to manage that. And since we don’t have any machines for it, I think we’ll need to get the help of a wax workshop at the very least.” 

I really didn’t expect making stencil paper to go smoothly. It would no doubt be a painful journey of forking over failed pieces of plant paper, going through enormous trial and error involving the ratio of mixed waxes, and utterly failing to get the proper thin coating over it all. But if we got it done, things would be a lot easier for us. One could just cut the letters directly into the stencil paper with a sharp pen, no carving out necessary. 

“Wax, huh? That’s not gonna happen this season. The workshops are too busy.” 

“Agreed. The other thing is movable type printing. I’m still thinking about whether I should start making stencil paper, or if I should start making punch letters for movable type printing.” 

“What’s the problem with that one?” Benno looked confused, as did Lutz. 

“Making letter punches will be easy with Johann from the smithy’s help. But movable type printing requires as much arm strength as using a compressor. It would be a little rough for the orphanage kids.” 

The printing presses were named as such since you literally had to press down with force to get the printing done. Movable type printing would require a lot of hard manual labor. 

“Making the stencil paper for the mimeograph will be hard, but once it’s ready even children will be able to do the printing without much effort.” 

“Huh. This is a tough one.” Both Benno and Lutz crossed their arms and fell into thought. 

“But well, either way, I’ll need to save up money before I can do anything. I’ve already spent a lot of my savings on this. I won’t be earning anything off these books, either, since they’re going to be textbooks for the orphanage...” 

“What?! You’re not gonna sell them?! What the hell are you thinking, Myne?!” Benno blew up at me while I was wondering if the orphanage’s winter handiwork would be enough to earn my money back. I jerked in fear and blinked multiple times. 

“It’s not that complicated, Benno. I won’t be able to use them as textbooks if I sell them.” 

“Why would you make something you won’t sell?! They’ll make big money, sell them!” 

“No way! I’m going to use them as textbooks! And they’re a wonderful investment for the future since they’ll raise the literacy rate! I’m just planting the seeds to grow future customers here.” 

This winter would be an important time for seeing how well holding school sessions in the orphanage would go. I wouldn’t sell my textbooks before the big moment. Really, I wanted to buy as many stone slates and calculators as I could get my hands on. But despite my best attempts to explain myself, Benno just shook his head with an exhausted expression. 

“I just don’t get you.” 

“In the first place, we don’t know how well people will take to these picture books, do we? I think that religious stories haven’t really worked their way into the mainstream since most people just hear them at the temple once or twice and then that’s it. At that point it would be better for me to just make new picture books more suited for the public and sell those instead. We would make way more money that way.” I would rather start making new picture books that could sell than let Benno take away my textbooks. 

“New picture books?” said Benno, interested. 

“You’ve already thought of the next story?” asked Lutz. 

Both Benno and Lutz looked pretty surprised, but I had a huge stash of stories hidden away in my head. It’s just that not all of them matched the art that Wilma could draw. 

“I think that a story about a princess could work, since Wilma served a noble that was basically like a princess. I’ll write down a rough draft and see what the High Priest thinks before making it into a picture book.” 

It shouldn’t be too hard to make a picture book based on Cinderella. Sister Christine would probably be a good model for basing the princess on. The prince could be... Well, since all attendants accompanied their masters to the Noble’s Quarter during the Star Festival, Wilma would probably figure something out. She must have seen someone princely in her time there. 

“Guess we can talk about this once it’s made. So, how much do I gotta pay for this book?” 

“That’s a gift from me to you for all your help, so no money necessary. But, well...” I looked up at Benno, faltering, and his lips curved into a slight grin. 

“What do you need this time?” 

“I want to go shopping for winter clothes the next day Tuuli has off. Please take us to a secondhand clothing store.” 

“Yeah, sure. I’ll make sure Mark or I have time that day. Anything else?” asked Benno, prompting me to take out and open my diptych. 

“This is about butchering the pig meat in the orphanage, but we’ll need salt and spices, right? What should I get ready, and how much? I don’t know anything about butchering since I’ve always been stuck in bed when it happens, but since it’s the first time the orphanage will be doing it, we need to get the tools and everything ready.” 

“That’ll cost you. Do you have enough?” Benno narrowed his eyes at me. I looked back at his dark-red eyes and gave a firm nod. 

“I’m prepared to dump all my trombe paper earnings on this.” I had established the workshop in the temple to improve the lives of those in the orphanage. Far be it for me to worry about spending the money on its intended purpose, not to mention that the money was earned by their labor in the first place. 

“Alright. I’ll get what you need. But to be clear, I’m gonna be putting the men over there to work. My staff can’t do everything on their own.” 

“That’s fair. Oh, and how are my ceremonial robes coming along?” 

“Right. Corinna was saying that she wanted to do a first fitting with you.” Benno stood up immediately and went to his desk. There he rang a bell to summon a maid, who he asked for Corinna’s plans. 

“If you’ve got time, Myne, go over to Corinna’s today.” 

The servant said that she would summon me when everything was ready, then went back upstairs. 

“You can get back to work if you need to, Benno. That’s all I had to talk about.” Benno, as the head of a successful store with a lot of logistics to keep track of, was especially busy as the time for winter preparations approached. I couldn’t ask him to entertain me forever despite our discussion having ended. 

I discussed the story of Cinderella with Lutz while waiting and started writing out the text to my next picture book. Eventually, I heard a bell ringing somewhere. Benno looked up, told Lutz to take me to Corinna, then looked back down. Lutz took me through the door in the back of Benno’s office and up the stairs to where Corinna lived. 

“Mrs. Corinna, it’s Lutz. I’ve brought Myne.” 

“Hello there, Myne. And thank you, Lutz.” After watching Lutz leave, I looked at Corinna. She was wearing looser clothing than last time, a style that wasn’t tight around her belly. That made her belly look a little bigger than it might have otherwise. Good to see things are going well. 

“This embroidery is quite lovely, isn’t it?” Corinna had drawn large lines for cutting the blue cloth, along which flowed embroidered water with flowers of all seasons stitched in as well. 

“It’s so pretty...” 

“Now, this is for your first fitting. Please try it out. I want to see if there will be a problem with the length.” 

I put on a first fitting outfit made from different cloth than the actual outfit. It fit me perfectly, which made sense given that she made such precise measurements before. But a perfect fit meant that I would grow out of the robes in no time if she made them at this size. See? I am getting bigger! Eheheh. 

“Corinna, I would like for you to make it longer than this. I would like to have leeway to fold the hem and such so that I can keep wearing them even after growing.” I grabbed the hem of my skirt and folded it up, which made Corinna tilt her head. 

“As you did with your baptism ceremony outfit? But would such frills be welcome on ceremonial robes?” 

“I only did that so I could wear clothes made for Tuuli, but it’s the same idea. You can’t really sew on new cloth to make it longer after you’ve cut it short, right? You don’t have to make frills from the folds. You can just take the hem, shoulders, and so on, then fold and sew them.” I spoke while squeezing my sleeve, which made Corinna blink in confused surprise. 

“Why not just order another one when this one no longer fits? One must consider changing fashions, and ill-fitting clothes won’t look as pretty.” 

Kimonos for kids had tucks in the waists and shoulders so they could keep wearing them while growing, but in general the style here was to sell clothes that couldn’t fit to buy new ones. Long-term use wasn’t viewed as important. But I begged to disagree. 

“That’s what nobles would do, maybe. They can just buy as many of these expensive outfits as they want, no matter how much they grow.” 

It was just coincidence that Benno had given some of his best cloth to the temple as a gift. I had skated by just paying for the dyeing and the commission itself, but in the future I would need to custom order cloth to be woven from thread, which would balloon costs enormously. I didn’t have the money to buy pair after pair of ceremonial clothing that required extremely expensive fabric. 

“...A fair point. It seems my sense of context has been skewed since l only ever use this expensive cloth when making clothes for nobles. You are indeed not a noble, Myne.” 

“I don’t think fashion trends will matter much for a simple pair of ceremonial robes, so please focus on making them long-lasting.” 

Corinna nodded with understanding. “In that case, could you teach me those methods you were discussing? Do you know how to fold the clothing in a way that does not harm the appearance?” 

After that we talked about how broad to make the tucks and how to make the outfit long lasting, which marked the end of my first fitting. Oh no...! I think Tuuli might cry if I tell her I had my first fitting without her.