Ascendance of a Bookworm

Volume 7, Chapter 4: Talks with the Ink Guild and Its Successor (Part 1)

“Myne, Sir Benno wants to know when you will be free,” said Lutz.

It had been ten days since Kamil’s birth and the Gilberta Company had requested to meet me. Benno had probably found a wax workshop that could fulfill be requests (or more like that was the only reason I could think of why he would want to see me).

“He has arranged a meeting with the wax workshop, right? We should probably meet two days later in the morning, that way Fran can accompany me.”

“Nope, it’s not that. Someone else wants to meet you.”

“…Huh? That’s a shame.”

My excitement was immediately extinguished. I was looking forward to finding a wax workshop, but it didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. I did agree to meet them, with some disappointment though.

“It might be better to get Gil to come along instead of Fran. Sir Benno said that it’s a craftsman from an ink workshop who wants to meet you.”

My excitement was revived with those words. I was looking for an ink workshop to talk about making a new type of ink, in hopes that they would be interested in making coloued ink.

“Hehehehe. I’m so excited, Lutz.”

“You sure are easy to please.”

Lutz sighed, and that made me remember something. The late head of the Ink Guild had been trying to gather information about me. There was a chance that his successor was doing the same too.

“…Actually, will it be fine for me to meet someone from the Ink Guild?” I asked with sweat in my palms

Lutz looked at me, deep in thought and said, “If Mister Benno says so, it should be fine.”

“Alright then. I’m looking forward to it.”

~~~

On that fateful morning, Lutz came to the temple and we walked to the Gilberta Company with Damuel and Gil. Mark was probably flooded with work, but nevertheless, he still came out to welcome us.

“Good morning Lady Myne. Everyone is waiting inside.”

“Good morning, Mark. I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to welcome us, would you kindly take us to them?”

Mark responded with his usual gentle smile and walked us to Benno’s office. We were greeted by someone I recognised and another who I didn’t. As always, the ink workshop foreman had on his usual frowning face and upright posture. As for the other lady, she was someone who had come of age because her bronze hair had been braided and tied up in a bun. She looked quite unkempt, so I guess appearance didn’t matter much to her. Her grey eyes sparkled with curiosity, which made her quite child-like.

“Dad, dad. Is that the girl?”

“She’s a rich lady. Don’t be rude.”

It turns out that they were father and daughter. He lectured her in a serious voice, and that stopped her from pointing at me. But she still looked at me with those eyes burning with with curiosity.

“Good morning, Miss Myne.”

Benno greeted me and gestured me to sit on the spot next to him. I gave him a nod and glanced at Damuel, he stepped forward and lead me to my seat and placed me on it with poise. He was amazing as always.

“Name’s Bierce. After Wolf’s death, I am now the new leader of the Ink Guild. I had no intentions of taking up this position, but now that I have, I want to do the most for the Guild,” the foreman explained the Ink Guild’s current situation, rubbing his forehead with a troubled expression.

How Wolf had died was still a mystery, as such no foreman in the city was willing to succeed in his position. Instead, they all pushed the responsibility around until it reached Bierce, who had no choice but to accept it.

My condolences.

“I am not one to talk bad about the dead, but Wolf… really shouldn’t have done all the things he did,” Bierce dipped his head. He looked really troubled by having the clean up after Wolf, which he had to take full responsibility for now. He continued mumbling, even though he was quite a quiet man.

“I want to make sure that all the workshops can continue working together. But as you can see, I’m not exactly great at talking. I’m not a businessman type of guy.”

In the normal line of work, ink workshops just focused on making their trade of work, and the pitching of sales was done by merchants from the Merchant’s Guild or other related stores. However, Wolf had manipulated the market such that there was only one ink store in the lower city, doing so would allow him to monopolise the trade with the nobles.

“The craftsman had no issue with how their ink was sold, but not the nobles. There’s no way a shabby man like me who was running the ink store can now easily talk to the nobles right now, right?”

Business with nobles was surely profitable, but it came with its own detriments too. From the way I saw things, Benno seemed fine doing business with the nobles, but his nerves were a wreck whenever he had to meet Sylvester or the High Priest. And their meetings would always be followed by more stress-inducing tasks. That was expected, even messing up a greeting with a noble could ruin all your business connections.

It will be absolutely cruel to demand a store that had only been doing business with the richer commoners in the lower city to now handle talks with the nobles. It was expected that a store owner, along with his apprentices and workers, would not know how to approach them. Not only did they not know how to greet nobles, they had to succeed in the position from someone who had an odd death. This situation was absurd.

…No one wanted to be involved with nobles.

Frankly, there were multiple stores in the city who had connections with nobles. Their numbers were already barely a handful, and it got even less if you narrow it down to those who knew how to manage business talks about ink.

“The guildmaster’s store does do business with nobles, right? Why don’t you try asking him for help?” Benno had raised his eyebrow.

Seeing how he had brought up the guildmaster instead of trying to sell the ink himself meant that the ink business wasn’t a very lucrative one, that it had its own problems or that it wasn’t a sector Benno thought was worth investing in. Bierce must have thought that Benno would be interested in this business, but now that it didn’t seem so, his shoulders dropped down and he shook his head.

“If only that was possible. The guildmaster had a hand in this business before, but Wolf had snatched it away the moment he took charge of the Ink Guild. You already know what will happen if I go there now.

Benno frowned, he could already predict how the guildmaster would act.

“He will try to extort as much money as possible from you. I can already see his nasty smirk from here.”

“That’s right. So I had no choice but to approach you.”

Now that the Gilberta Company was selling books from the Myne Workshop, it wouldn’t be weird for them to sell ink too. Furthermore, the Myne Workshop was the one who invented ink and would surely order lots of them. However Benno shot it down.

“That’s not possible. There will surely be lots of nobles approaching me to do the nasty stuff Wolf had been doing for them. Additionally, the guildmaster is going to crack down on me more if I start selling ink too.”

I turned towards Benno.

“So you will let someone else handle this business instead?”

I could understand where Benno was coming from, but having someone else handle the selling of ink would mean I’d have to come into contact with them too. Frankly, it’s going to be a pain in the head having them not judge me for my appearance, and that will definitely delay us from getting the real work done.

“We’re going to need lots of ink when we start printing in the Myne Workshop. To be honest, I prefer doing business with you over anyone else, Benno.”

“Hear that, Benno? Even the girl agrees too.”

“Hmm… But still…” Benno was still reluctant about it, but he was less impervious about it. Bierce seemed to have realised that too, so he pleaded at me.

“Could you give him another push, girl?”

“…Sure, I don’t mind, but under the condition if you help me make coloured ink.”

“Coloured ink? What do you mean?”

Bierce was utterly bamboozled, but the lady next to him raised her hand high up.

“Let me do it! That’s why I came here!”

“Uh… Pardon me, but what is your name?”

“This is Heidi. She’s my daughter and she will be taking over my workshop in future. She loves developing ink and making new things. She’s still this childish even though she’s already twenty. Both she and her husband have been making all that ink you invented for your paper.”

Looks can be deceiving, she looked around fifteen, but in reality she was in her twenties and married.

Amazing.

“Your ink was such a curious discovery, it really blew my mind. Nice to meet cha.”

“My name is Myne. I can already tell that we are going to do some amazing things together.”

“Your workshop is the only one but the ink for plant paper. So continue buying more, alright?”

The real issue with the ink here was that it soaked into the plant paper to some extent. The ink didn’t cause much problems, so people could continue using them even if they bought the slightly cheaper plant paper. They didn’t have to spend more money to buy a different type of ink. Above all, the ink I had the Ink Guild made was a thicker type meant for printing, I was pretty sure I was the only one interested in buying them.

“Well then, I should speed up on making the second picture book.”

“Oh yes, I figured this out when making the ink for plant paper, but you can probably make coloured ink with this too.”

It turns out that Heidi had thought of making coloured ink too, but when it came to developing it, her hands were tied. Bierce had told her that the Ink Guild had entered a special magic contract with the Gilberta Company to obtain exclusive rights to the black ink, and that the contract might have included coloured ink too. But Heidi was so desperate to make her own coloured ink that she begged him to talk to Benno. Benno was absolutely clueless about ink, so that’s how it ended up with a meeting with me.

“You can make coloured ink. Feel free to go ahead and make as many of them as you like.”

“Uh… but what materials should I use? I was hoping that you might have some suggestions. I gathered the ingredients used in paint and dyes, what do you suppose would go well with the ink?” Heidi asked me with eyes sparkling with joy.

I opened my mouth and was about to answer, but stopped when Benno dropped his hand onto my shoulder.

“Myne. You should know better, hm?”

He was basically telling me with his eyes: Stop giving information for free.

I quickly closed my mouth and nodded back at Benno. I turned back to Heidi

“In exchange for my information, I want ten percent of the revenue generated from the coloured ink.”

“That’s going too far! Developing and making the stuff before it hits the shelves is already going to cost us an arm and leg!” Heidi jerked out of her chair screaming. It turns out she was very well familiar with the costs of developing and making new ink.

I crossed my arms and reconsidered it.

“Well then, I will still take ten percent of the revenue but I will help pay for half of amount it takes to develop the ink.”

“Great! I look forward to working with you!”

Heidi shot out her hand, her face beaming.

Mission complete.

But before I could return her handshake, Benno grabbed my head and Bierce slapped Heidi’s hand.

“Stop making decisions by yourself!”

We both looked at our own mentors and grabbed our heads.

“…What’s wrong? Wasn’t that a fair trade?”

“No way. You were so generous that it was almost stupid. Since you’re going to provide them with information, covering a quarter of the research is more than enough.”

“That’s right, that would be better.”

Bierce agreed with Benno’s lecturing. After that, the two resumed the business talk by themselves. I wanted to continue discussing with Heidi about how we could start developing the ink, and judging by how she was shifting around her seat with a pleading gaze at me, she shared the same sentiments as me.

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