Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 2.4 - Chapter 4

The Ink Guild and Succession 

“Myne, Master Benno told me to ask when the next day you’re free is,” said Lutz. 

It was about ten days after Kamil’s birth that the Gilberta Company called for a meeting with me. I guessed that Benno had found a wax workshop to take me to—or rather, that was the only reason I could think of for him to call me over. 

“He wants to take me to a wax workshop, right? It’s better if I have Fran with me, so how about the day after tomorrow in the morning?” 

“Nah, apparently there’s someone who wants to meet you.” 

“...Whaaat? Aw.” My hype died in an instant. I wanted to go to a wax workshop as soon as possible, but my dreams were not being granted. I agreed to go, albeit with pursed lips. 

“You might want to bring Gil with you instead of Fran. Master Benno said it’s a craftsman from an ink workshop.” 

Those words made my hype roar back up like a reborn phoenix. I had been wanting to meet someone from an ink workshop to talk about developing new ink; this would be a good opportunity to talk about making colored ink. 

“Eheheh. I can’t wait, Lutz.” 

“Your mood sure improved fast.” Lutz shot me an exasperated look, which made me realize something. The deceased head of the Ink Guild had been probing for information about me. Maybe the new head was carrying on his legacy. 

“...Um, wait, should I really be meeting and talking with someone from the Ink Guild?” I asked worriedly. 

Lutz looked at me, then fell into thought for a second before replying: “If Master Benno thinks it’s fine, it probably is.” 

“Okay. I’ll go ahead and look forward to it then.”

On the scheduled morning, Lutz came to get me, and we departed for the Gilberta Company with Damuel and Gil. Even though Mark seemed really busy, he still came outside upon noticing us through the store window. 

“Good morning, Lady Myne. Your visitors are already here.” 

“Good morning, Mark. Would you be so kind as to take a moment from your busy day to guide us to them?” 

With his usual calm smile, Mark guided us to Benno’s office in the Gilberta Company building, where I found a familiar-looking foreman and a not-so-familiar young woman waiting. The ink workshop foreman had his brows furrowed in the same high-strung way I remembered from last time. 

I could tell that the young woman had come of age because she had done her reddish-brown hair up, though it was just a single braid that she had twisted into a bun, so I could guess she didn’t care all that much about appearances. The way her gray, curiosity-filled eyes flitted all over made her look really young. 

“Hey, hey, Dad. Is that her?” 

“She’s rich. Don’t point.” 

Apparently, they were father and daughter. He warned her in a lower voice, and she immediately hid her pointing finger behind her back. But her eyes—two little balls of unceasing curiosity—remained locked on me. 

“Good morning, Lady Myne.” Benno welcomed me into his office and gestured for me to sit next to him. I nodded and looked up at Damuel, who smoothly escorted me there and helped seat me with trained elegance. I expected nothing less from a noble. 

“I’m Bierce. Wolf passed away, and now I’m the new head of the Ink Guild. I didn’t want this, but now that I’ve taken the job, I want to do as much as I can to help save the Guild,” the foreman said before rubbing his brow and explaining what was happening in the Ink Guild. 

Apparently, the circumstances of Wolf’s death had been very suspicious, and none of the ink workshop foremen in Ehrenfest wanted the job. Nobody had stepped up to the plate, instead trying to push the responsibility onto someone else until Bierce ultimately took the fall. 

My sympathy. 

“I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but... Wolf went too far and got involved in things he really shouldn’t have,” Bierce said, his head hung low. It seemed he was having an extremely hard time cleaning up after all of Wolf’s messes, which had been mercilessly pushed onto him. 

He continued, kind of mumbling his words like someone not used to talking much. “I want to keep the workshops running and bring them all together. But I’m not a good talker, as you can tell. I’m no salesman.” 

Normally, ink workshops just had to make ink; the actual selling was done by merchants from the Merchant’s Guild or local stores. But there was only one stationery store in the lower city that sold ink, and Wolf had been using forceful measures to monopolize business with nobles. 

“The craftsmen were fine making ink no matter how it was sold, but somebody’s got to deal with the nobles now that Wolf’s dead. You wouldn’t expect the old man running the stationery store to suddenly have to start dealing with nobles out of nowhere, would you?” 

Business with nobles brought in a lot of profit, but there were more than enough problems to balance that out. From my perspective, Benno may have been dealing with nobles no problem, but in reality he was deeply on edge whenever he met with Sylvester or the High Priest, with plenty of stress-induced headaches following afterward. That was reasonable—there was a lot you had to memorize just to greet nobles, and a single mistake could financially ruin you. 

It would just be cruel to expect a store used to casually dealing with the richer demographic in the lower city to suddenly have to do business with nobles. The store owner wouldn’t know how to deal with them, and neither would his leherls or successor. They would have no real opportunity to learn about nobles, and they would be replacing someone who had died in a mysterious way while dealing with them. Nobody would agree to that. 

...Anyone would run away if they thought nobles were involved. 

In reality, only the owners of the largest stores in the city had direct relations with nobles. There really weren’t many, and if you thought of which of those stores could reasonably deal in ink, the number shrank even further. 

“The guildmaster’s store deals in goods for nobles, doesn’t it? Why don’t you ask him?” Benno asked with a raised eyebrow. The fact that he hadn’t offered to sell the ink himself and had instead thrown the offer the guildmaster’s way probably meant that the ink business was really unattractive, had a lot of problems attached to it, or just wasn’t an area that Benno was interested in spreading his business into. 

Bierce, having seemingly hoped Benno would take up the job, slumped forward in disappointment and shook his head. “I wish I could, but this is all stuff the guildmaster’s store was dealing with in the past. Then Wolf monopolized things the second he became head of the Ink Guild. You can guess what’ll happen if I go to him, right?” 

Benno grimaced, having immediately imagined what kind of an attitude the guildmaster would have. “He’d wring you dry. I can see that geezer’s nasty grin already.” 

“Yeah. That’s why I wanted to ask you.” 

It wouldn’t be strange for the Gilberta Company to start selling ink as they were already selling books made by the Myne Workshop, which had invented the new ink in the first place and was guaranteed to become a large customer. But Benno just rubbed his temples and shook his head. 

“It’s not that simple. There’re gonna be nobles wanting me to keep up whatever shady stuff Wolf was doing, and if I start selling ink, the guildmaster’s gonna give me an even harder time than he already is.” 

I looked up at Benno. “So you’d let someone else take the business?” 

I could understand Benno’s hesitation, but if another store started doing business with the Ink Guild, I would have to do business with them too. It was exhausting just thinking about how long it would take for them to not judge me based on appearances and start doing real business with me. 

“We already know that I’ll need a lot of ink when I want to start printing with the Myne Workshop. I would rather do business with you than anyone else, Benno.” 

“See? The girl’s saying it too. C’mon, Benno.” 

“Mmm, but, y’know...” Benno protested, a conflicted expression on his face, but his refusal was weaker than before. Sensing that, Bierce looked at me and pleaded desperately. 

“Could you dig into him a little more for me, girl?” 

“...I don’t mind helping to convince Benno, but only if you help me develop colored ink.” 

“Colored ink? What’re you talking about?” 

While Bierce blinked in confusion, the girl next to him shot up a hand. “I’ll do it! That’s why I’m here!” 

“Umm... Sorry, but can I ask your name?” 

“It’s Heidi. She’s my daughter, and she’ll be running my workshop one day. She loves making ink and discovering new things. She didn’t even calm down when she turned twenty. She and her husband are the ones making the ink you invented for plant paper.” 

Even though she only looked about fifteen at a glance, she was actually over twenty and already married. 

Wowee. 

“Your ink’s so new and fresh, it really rocked my world. Lookin’ forward to working with you.” 

“My name is Myne. I think we will do great things together.” 

“Right now, nobody’s buying plant paper ink except your workshop. Buy lots and use lots, okay?” 

The only real problem with normal ink was that it damaged the plant paper a little too much—it wasn’t useless or anything, which meant that even if more people started buying the somewhat cheaper plant paper, most would probably just keep using the ink they were used to. There was no need for them to go out of their way to buy separate ink. And most importantly, what I taught the Ink Guild to make was highly sticky ink specifically made for printing; it was hard to imagine anyone else but me would want any right now. 

“I guess I’ll have to hurry up with making my second picture book, then.” 

“Yep. And by the way, I thought this while making the plant paper ink, but it definitely seems like you could make different colored ink the same way.” 

Heidi had figured out that you could make colored ink, but wasn’t able to experiment with it herself. This was because her dad, Bierce, had told her that the Gilberta Company had signed an expensive magic contract to transfer rights to the black ink, and that they might have already done the same with colored ink. But she had wanted to make colored ink so badly that she convinced him to go talk to Benno to discuss whether or not they could experiment. Benno barely knew anything about making ink, which is how this meeting with me came to be. 

“It is indeed possible to make colored ink. Please, feel free to make as much as you want.” 

“Well, it’s also, like... what materials should I use? I came here hoping you’d have some ideas for me. I got a lot of materials used for paints and dyes together, but which would be good for ink?” Heidi asked, her gray eyes gleaming as she looked straight at me. 

I started to open my mouth to answer, but Benno clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Myne. You get how this works by now, right?” His eyes were saying it loud and clear: Don’t talk for free. 

I shut my mouth and gave Benno a nod before turning back to look at Heidi. “I will take one tenth of all profits from the colored ink as payment for my information.” 

“That’s way too much! It’ll cost us a ton of money to develop the stuff before we can even start selling it!” Heidi exclaimed, almost shrieking. She had a very good idea how much research and development would cost. 

I tilted my head in thought. “I will take one tenth of the profits from the colored ink, but will cover half of the research and development cost.” 

“Okay! You’ve got a deal!” Heidi thrust out a hand on the spot, her face shining. Negotiations complete. 

But when I went to shake her hand, Benno grabbed onto my head just as Bierce smacked a hand onto Heidi’s. “That’s not for you two to decide!” 

Heidi and I both looked at our respective guardians, hands on our heads. 

“...But why not? Wasn’t that a fair deal?” 

“Not at all. You were being stupidly generous. If you’re gonna be giving out information, you only need to cover a quarter of the development fees at most.” 

“Yeah, that’s more reasonable.” Bierce nodded in agreement to Benno’s correction. 

The two of them started working out the details, but I just wanted to start talking to Heidi about colored ink already. She seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the hopeful look she was giving me as she wriggled in place. 

“Ma’am, want to come to my workshop? I’ve got all the materials I could think of laid out for you. Though Dad got real mad at me about that.” 

“That sounds absolutely wonderful! Of course I would like to come!” 

I could already tell that Heidi and I would be getting along just fine. We both stood up at the same time, but were grabbed and forced back down by our respective guardians. 

“We’re not done talking yet!” 

“Hold your horses, idiot!” 

Our guardians were completely synchronized. 

Benno let out a heavy sigh while still holding me down. “...Alright. I’ll take care of selling the ink for now. But all we’ll have a monopoly over is the plant paper ink the Myne Workshop uses. That includes the colored ink. Anything else is up for grabs by anyone who comes knocking to join the market. Give the guildmaster more targets to focus on.” 

“Alright. Thanks, this is a big help.” 

Benno and Bierce’s exhausting back-and-forth finally concluded, with sellers for the ink being decided upon. 

“Can I go to the workshop now?” 

“Let’s get to work on that ink.” 

Heidi and I stood up, prompting Benno to call Lutz. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “Keep a close eye on them, Lutz. Seems like we’ve got two Mynes on our hands now.” 

“Master Benno, that’s too much even for me. I’ve got my hands full with just one Myne.” 

An extremely uneasy expression washed over Benno’s face, and I waved goodbye with a big smile as we headed off for the ink workshop. But it wasn’t long before Heidi ran out of patience with my walking speed and just sprinted ahead on her own, saying that she would get things ready for us. Bierce paled and apologized on her behalf, but I didn’t mind. It wasn’t anything to get upset about. 

“So, Lutz. What do you think about Heidi? I think she’s funny and hard working, but kinda weird.” 

“...You’re one to talk.” 

The workshop Bierce took us to looked like a chemistry lab at school rather than a place to make ink; there was a ton of equipment lying around, with craftsmen using scales to carefully measure out materials that would be used to make gallnut ink. The plant paper ink was being made off in one corner. There were several jars packed full of the finished ink, which was where I found Heidi getting yelled at by a twenty-something-year-old guy. It sounded like his complaints could be summarized as, “Finish your work before playing around.” 

“Bierce, is Heidi busy?” 

“...Nah, that’s nothing to be concerned about. Hey, Josef! Don’t worry about Heidi right now. She’s got a customer to deal with today,” Bierce yelled over the din of the workshop. Heidi turned around with a beaming smile, whereas the man named Josef blinked in stunned surprise. 

“Boss, are you insane?! You’re letting Heidi deal with a customer?” 

“This here is an important patron who wants colored ink and is willing to pay a quarter of the development cost for it. We don’t need to stop Heidi’s research today. Just watch and make sure she doesn’t do anything rude.” 

Their conversation was more than enough for me to infer how Heidi was normally treated here. 

“Lady Myne, this is Josef. He’s Heidi’s husband and the de facto successor of the workshop. Hope you and him get along nice enough.” 

“I’m Myne, the forewoman of the Myne Workshop. I have come to buy the plant paper ink you’ve made and also help develop new, colored ink,” I said, which made Josef give a sigh of relief. It seemed the lack of buyers for the plant paper ink had been making him nervous. 

“This is how much we’ve made so far.” 

“Please bring it to our store by the end of tomorrow,” said Lutz. He was buying the ink as a leherl from the Gilberta Company to then sell to the Myne Workshop later. It seemed tedious and unnecessary, but was apparently an important process. 

I left the merchant business to Lutz and instead looked around the workshop. Damuel and Gil had come with us and were peering around too, intrigued by what life was like in the lower city. 

“Lady Myne, over here, over here.” 

I went over to where Heidi was beckoning me and saw small amounts of a wide range of materials placed on a table. They had all been turned into powder already, which made it impossible to tell what was what. There was also a variety of different oils. 

“Heidi, what kinds of oils are these?” 

“I got every kind I could. Just linseed oil might not be enough, right?” 

“Indeed. I was thinking the same thing.” 

An essential component of ink was drying oil, but the only thing like that in the city that I knew of was linseed oil—something I had been able to guess existed when I saw hemp and linen in this world, which were made from the plants that grew from the seeds that were turned into oil. But there wasn’t much linseed oil here, and it was all expensive. I had just been thinking that I wanted to search for oil that could be used in its place, and now would be a good opportunity to learn more about the different kinds of oil in this world. 

“Some oils harden when exposed to air and some don’t, but it’s the ones that harden that are good for making ink,” I said. “They’re called drying oils.” 

“Mm, there’s not much oil like that other than linseed oil. Just mische, pedgen, eise, and turm oil,” Heidi said, grabbing the respective jars of oil from the lined-up row. I hurriedly got out my diptych and wrote down the names of the flowers and nuts she had listed. 

“The ink I’m familiar with is mostly made from grinding minerals into a powder and then mixing it with oil. Let’s see... This yellow clay should make an ink colored something between yellow and brown.” 

“Okay, let’s give it a shot. Josef, lend us a hand.” Heidi called Josef over and got right to work mixing the oil and clay on top of a granite slab. 

“...Huh? It’s not turning brown!” 

“B-But why?” 

Yellow clay mixed with oil should have made a brownish-yellow color. It wouldn’t make sense for it to turn into any other color, and yet the mixture had turned a bright sky blue before my very eyes. I stared at it, in a daze. 

“L-Let’s try using another kind of oil.” 

Josef and Heidi tried mixing the clay with the other oils, one by one. First mische, then pedgen, eise, and finally turm. Eise was the only kind that produced the yellow color I was expecting, while the others turned red and greenish-blue, completely outside of my expectations. All we could do was blink in surprise as we stared at the five different colors on the slab. 

“This just doesn’t make sense, right?” 

“Right. I never would have guessed the kind of oil we used would change the ink’s color. It’s surprising, but I guess we should be glad that we were able to make so many different colors using just a single kind of material?” 

Josef, who was now rolling his tired shoulders to stretch his muscles, looked at me with an exhausted expression. “You’re more optimistic than I expected.” 

“Well, all I want is colored ink, so I’m happy as long as it doesn’t turn transparent.” 

I went ahead and wrote our results on my diptych. Maybe there was a method to the madness. 

Meanwhile, Lutz looked at the ink with a hand on his chin. “How’d this even happen? What’s going on here?” 

“You’re curious too? It’s really weird, isn’t it? Don’t you just wanna figure it out, no matter what?!” exclaimed Heidi, eagerly clasping Lutz’s hands with a manic grin on her face. It seemed she was the type of girl who really, really wanted to figure out anything she didn’t understand. 

I shut my diptych. “Heidi, it doesn’t matter why this is happening right now. What does matter is which colors we can make from combining these materials.” 

“Whaaat?! Something mysterious is happening right in front of you, and you don’t even want to figure out what’s causing it?” Heidi’s gray eyes opened wide, and she looked at me with a mixture of surprise and betrayal. 

Josef immediately reached out from the side to grab onto her head. “Quit it! This fine lady isn’t a weirdo like you!” 

“‘Weirdo’? That’s so mean. I thought she and I would get along great.” 

I sympathized with Heidi, but I wasn’t exactly in this to solve any scientific mysteries. I just wanted to make colored picture books for my cute little brother, Kamil. And by the way, while I wasn’t particularly invested in doing research myself, I welcomed any and all books that compiled the results of any research. 

“I’m more interested in the result than the process that produces the result. Eise gave us the color I wanted, and that’s what matters. Let’s try mixing that blue powder with the eise next. We may find some important connections and differences along the way.” I pointed at the blue powder and Heidi gave a big nod. 

“I can agree with you there. Let’s get back to it.” 

Eise had given us the yellow color I wanted, but mixing it with the blue powder that looked like lapis lazuli produced a bright yellow for some reason. It would be perfect for painting a field of sunflowers, but yellow wasn’t the color I was looking for. In the end, it was the linseed oil that gave us a lapis lazuli-esque blue. 

“...This might be hard,” I said, glaring at the results written on my diptych. The gap between my knowledge and the knowledge of this world was just too great. The huge number of materials and the five different kinds of oil seemed to make an endless number of possible colors. This might be hard, indeed.