Dedicating Books to the High Priest and Cinderella

When I arrived at my room in the temple, I went upstairs first to change into my blue robes. Delia was already waiting with the robes prepared, and she helped me get dressed. If I just changed on my own, Delia would get mad with a "Geez!", so as always, I had to bend and stretch my arms to match her movements.

At first, we were completely out of sync, and I'd pout because it was so much faster to just change by myself. Our movements just wouldn't line up. But recently, I'd gotten pretty natural at letting her help me change.

I thought maybe I was becoming a little more ladylike as I waited with my head slightly bowed for Delia to fix my hair, when she murmured softly.

"That was even more wonderful than I expected."

"Hm? What?"

I tilted my head, not sure what she was suddenly talking about, and Delia's pale blue eyes sharpened as she glared at me.

"Geez! I'm talking about the picture book you let me read first! You said you wanted to hear my impressions, Myne-sama!"

"Oh, the picture book. I just wasn't sure what you were talking about for a moment. I'm glad to hear your thoughts, Delia. ...You were able to read all the way through, right? You've gotten so much better at reading, haven't you?"

Delia studied alone, so she should've been behind Gil. I hadn't expected her to be able to read everything.

"...Gil taught me a little. He showed me the cards too."

"I see. If it's helping you study, that's wonderful."

I tried to imagine Delia, who'd been so rivalry-minded toward Gil, humbly asking him to teach her so she could read a book, and it made me feel quite warm inside.

While I was smiling to myself, Rosina cut in on our chat with a slightly stern expression.

"Myne-sama, that's quite enough chatting. Let's practice the fayscale. We don't have time."

"Rosina, what's wrong? Your face looks a little tense."

"I've received word from the High Priest that you're to perform your second assignment during your audience."

At Rosina's words, I went "Ah," and understood. If we had to perform in front of the High Priest, I could see why Rosina was so nervous.

"Then I'll have to practice hard. When did the High Priest schedule it?"

"After lunch."

Her answer, which skipped right over the date, sent a chill through me, and I slowly tilted my head.

"...Hey, Rosina. After lunch on *which* day?"

"After lunch today."

"What!?"

According to Fran, who'd delivered the letter, the High Priest had to attend a harvest festival being held in a nearby village. Since he wouldn't have much free time after that, he wanted to finish the audience before departing. I was grateful he'd handled things quickly, but having the fyscale performance tacked on so suddenly left me no time to prepare my nerves.

"Hurrying is not elegant, Myne-sama. Please be careful not to let the High Priest see you flustered."

"...Yes."

I practiced desperately until the third bell, then helped with the High Priest's tasks with a calm face. I wanted to make a silent appeal—*I'm not panicking about this sudden debut*—then hurried through lunch and drilled with Rosina right up until departure time.

I'd been practicing seriously, so I was improving, but performing for someone always made me nervous. Especially since this time included a self-composed song—a melody I'd remembered from my life as Urano.

For the original song, I'd dropped the love song that had been a movie theme and switched to a safe school choir piece. Translating the lyrics literally would've been one thing, but making up reasonable substitute lyrics was far too difficult. Every time, the words changed a little, and before I knew it I'd be humming the English lyrics, which left Rosina exasperated.

"If you play calmly, you'll be fine. You're already better than I am."

"Thank you, Delia. I'll do my best."

Encouraged by Delia, I headed for the High Priest's room with Fran carrying the Children's Scripture and the text for Cinderella, and Rosina carrying the smaller fyscale.

"Sorry for the sudden scheduling."

He said this with a perfectly blank face, not looking particularly sorry at all, and gestured toward a chair roughly in the center of the room.

"Now then, let's hear how much you've improved."

I took the fyscale from Rosina, clamped it between my thighs to hold it in position, and took a deep breath. Listening to the pounding of my heartbeat deep in my ears, I plucked the strings.

After the assigned piece, I sang the school choir song "Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree." I'd swapped out "chestnut" for the name of a nut similar to a walnut, so it wouldn't feel out of place.

The High Priest nodded with satisfaction and praised me with a "Very well done."

"You're improving remarkably quickly. This is your next assignment. Also, the song you composed was quite interesting. Make sure you bring another one next time as well."

"...Yes."

I looked over the sheet music I'd received, groaning a little at how the next piece was somewhat difficult, but feeling relieved that I'd made it through safely.

"Rosina, here."

I handed the fyscale back to Rosina and reached for the tea Arno had prepared. Tea after getting through a tense stretch of time tasted wonderfully good.

The High Priest, the opposite of me, had been drinking tea while listening to the fyscale, and he set his cup down on the table with a clink.

"So, your business was about the Children's Scripture picture book, correct?"

"Yes. Here is the picture book for the Children's Scripture."

When I looked toward Fran, he gave a slight nod and smoothly held out the picture book to the High Priest. The High Priest took the offered book, furrowing his brow.

"This is a book? What is this cover?"

Unlike when we were in the hidden room, the High Priest's expression barely changed, making it hard to read him, but his tone had turned accusatory. Not understanding why he'd react with such a sharp voice just from seeing the cover, I tilted my head.

"No matter what you say, it's still paper, isn't it?"

"I can see that. Why are there flowers between the sheets of paper?"

"Hm? Because I put them in."

"I can see that too. I'm asking *why* you put them in."

The High Priest's voice grew increasingly sharp with irritation. I had no idea why his mood was plummeting so fast. Benno had been pleased, saying it would appeal to noble ladies, but maybe pressing flowers between paper was forbidden?

"Why? Because I thought it looked cuter with flowers inside. Was there a problem?"

"...Because it's cute? No, that's not what I meant... Never mind. Let's go."

He furrowed his brows as if to say this was incomprehensible, rose from his seat, and started walking toward the hidden room deep behind the bed. I followed after him, equally baffled by the High Priest, my own brows furrowed in the same way.

"Myne-sama, please take this."

Fran, looking flustered, thrust the paper with the Cinderella text into my hands. I accepted it with a "Thank you," then ducked through the door the High Priest had opened.

Entering the cluttered hidden room as always, I headed for the usual long chair. As I tried to clear the documents piled on it, I remembered that those might be magical texts.

"Hey, I told you not to peek at those."

"Yesss."

Before I could lean in, the High Priest noticed, snatched the documents from my hands, and stacked them on the desk. Those documents on the desk really were magic-related. Thinking that, I looked around the room, and it seemed different from usual—odd.

The High Priest pulled his chair into place, deeply furrowing his brow.

"Stop looking around."

"I'm sorry. ...So, what were you saying?"

"I was asking how it's possible to get flowers between sheets of paper. If it's a trade secret of the workshop, I won't press, but having flowers embedded between paper is strange, isn't it?"

"It's not strange at all. During the papermaking process, you just scatter them in like this."

"...Scatter them in?"

I demonstrated by fluttering my fingers above an imaginary screen, mimicking how the flowers would be sprinkled across the pulp, but the High Priest didn't seem to grasp it at all.

Realizing that the only kind of paper the High Priest fundamentally knew about was parchment, I clapped my hands together. Of course—if the only paper he knew was parchment, there was no way flowers could end up embedded in it. Having them appear faintly caught within the fibers would be completely unthinkable.

"Um, plant paper and parchment are made in fundamentally different ways, so if you're really curious, why don't you come visit the workshop sometime?"

"I suppose. Your explanation is completely unintelligible."

Having apparently given up on getting the answer he wanted, the High Priest crossed his legs, placed the Children's Scripture on his knee, and flipped it open. The moment he turned past the title page and saw the text and illustrations, his eyes narrowed and he glared at me.

"A book is a work of art. It should have a leather-bound cover adorned with jewels and gold, and its illustrations should be filled with lavish color—vivid and beautiful. This book has very low artistic value. The pictures are good, so you should have added color. What a waste."

His idea of a proper book was to have a beautiful calligrapher write the text, commission illustrations from artists or an art workshop, and have a leatherworker create the cover. I recalled the books in the library and shook my head vigorously.

"Adding color would be the real waste. Do you have any idea how expensive that would be? I want to use these to teach the children at the orphanage to read, so instead of spending a fortune on one copy, I'd rather prepare multiple copies."

"A book is a work of art and a one-of-a-kind item. What are you saying?"

I wanted to throw those exact words right back at the High Priest. And while I was thinking that, the words slipped out on their own. "What are *you* saying, High Priest?"

"A book is more a crystallization of knowledge and wisdom than a work of art. I don't want to create art—I want to mass-produce affordable books so that everyone can read them."

"Mass-produce? You mean have many people write them out? If every child in the orphanage learned to write, that might be possible, but it would take an eternity."

The High Priest pressed his temple as if to say he didn't quite understand, tapping lightly with his knobby finger.

In my case, I'd been thinking about printing methods from the very start, so I'd never considered such an impossibly tedious mass-production method.

"No. I mean mass-produce through printing. I already have thirty copies of this same picture book, but..."

"Wait just a moment."

The High Priest's eyebrow twitched, and he cut off my words. His golden-orange eyes went slightly wide, and he stared at me as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"What do you mean there are already thirty copies of the same thing?"

"That's what I said—I printed them."

"Printed them?"

I wasn't sure if the High Priest hadn't heard me explain before, or if Fran simply hadn't visited the workshop enough to understand, but he didn't seem to know the details of the business operations. I'd thought Fran reported everything to him since they made proper profit reports and paid the temple its share, but apparently that wasn't the case.

Facing the High Priest's exceedingly fundamental question, I hesitated over where to even begin.

"You know that Myne Workshop makes plant paper, right?"

"Mm."

"We make slightly thicker paper there, then cut out the shapes of letters and the black parts of illustrations. With a cutter... um, a bladed tool like a knife. This is called a stencil sheet."

"You cut the paper?!"

The High Priest's voice came out slightly strangled, and I realized I'd done something completely outside the bounds of common sense. It was too late now, so I decided to pretend I hadn't noticed.

"Then, I lay the stencil sheet on top of the paper I'll use for the book, and apply ink from above. The ink only goes through the cut-out parts. Once a sheet is done, I move it aside, place the stencil on a fresh sheet, and apply ink again. That produces an identical second copy. If I repeat that thirty times for each page, I get thirty books."

From about the middle of my explanation, the High Priest stopped reacting, like a computer that had crashed. I gave a tentative wave of my hand in front of his face.

"High Priest? Can you hear me?"

"...I can. I can hear you, but..."

The High Priest rebooted, squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and let out a deep sigh. Even Benno hadn't reacted like this, and it was *me* who was getting flustered.

"Um... are you alright?"

"...You've done something rather bold, haven't you?"

"Bold?"

I racked my brain, wondering what could possibly be considered bold about the picture book process. The boldest thing I'd done was probably giving up on woodblock printing and deciding to make stencil sheets instead, but that didn't seem to be what the High Priest was referring to.

Not knowing what the High Priest meant by "bold," I tilted my head, and he let out yet another sigh.

"In other words, this printing involves cutting up paper and applying ink?"

"Yes."

"Cutting up paper is already unthinkable, but using ink so freely is equally hard to believe."

Parchment was expensive and rare, so apparently nobody would have wasted it by cutting it up like that. Plant paper cost about the same, but since Myne Workshop produced it ourselves, and I knew about stencil printing, I hadn't considered it a waste at all.

The High Priest and I had fundamentally different ideas about what a book should be, so this was bound to be an unproductive argument. But I was absolutely certain that investing in stencil sheets and printing was a far better use of money than gaudily decorating a cover.

"When you say 'so freely'... I find it harder to believe that you'd spend so lavishly on the cover alone. The ink was made from soot the priests collected, so it was cheaper than commercial ink..."

"The ink too... you really made it from soot?"

I'd explained the soot collection was for making ink when people questioned it, but apparently he hadn't actually believed it would work.

Looking at the High Priest's dumbfounded expression, I felt oddly bewildered.

"...Is it really that surprising?"

"Of course it is."

"But... um, Benno-sama, whom I gave the earlier version to, said he had a headache about it too, but then immediately moved on to cost calculations and the new picture book, so I thought it wasn't that shocking..."

Benno already knew how to deal with me, and he cushioned the shock by jumping straight into merchant profit calculations. Maybe it was actually normal to be as surprised as the High Priest, and Benno was the unusual one.

While I pondered this with a "Hmm," the High Priest slowly shook his head and gazed out the window with a slightly distant look.

"...Is Benno not actually as much of a worrier as I thought? If everything you create is this far outside the norm, I'd imagine he'd be under tremendous stress."

"Huh!? As a merchant, he wants products that sell. I mean, sure, he goes through a lot of trouble, but he stuck his neck into this voluntarily too. It can't all be my fault. ...Probably."

Benno was the one who'd created the Plant Paper Association to oppose the Parchment Association, the one who'd paid a fortune for Ila's fight and opened an Italian restaurant. At my words, the High Priest shrugged and curled the corner of his lips upward in an expression that said the outcome was already obvious.

"I'd have to hear Benno's side to know for sure. ...By the way, Myne. Didn't you mention a new picture book just now?"

"I did. What about it?"

"Make sure you report to me *before* you start making things. I don't want to be this surprised over and over."

Since I was always making the same kind of thing, I thought it would surprise him no matter when I reported, but I kept that thought to myself and held out the paper I'd received from Fran.

"My next picture book is going to be this Cinderella. Is it alright to make it as-is?"

I showed the High Priest the Cinderella text I'd written the day before, and as he read through it, he pressed his fingertips to his temple.

"A rich man's daughter marrying a prince? That's absurd. Are you stupid? Or do you simply not understand the class differences among nobles?"

"So then, what level of noble would make this a story where everyone's envious of a fairy-tale marriage that even you could approve of?"

If he was going to call me stupid, then it really was a terrible story, and maybe I should look for more of a middle ground. At my concession, the High Priest rested his chin on his hand and pondered for a while.

"...For a prince's bride, she would need to be a well-educated lady of the high nobility—nothing less would do. A fairy-tale marriage is out of the question. Make her a concubine instead. That would be quite the fairy-tale rise as it is."

"No, no, a concubine has no fairy-tale quality at all! It wouldn't work as a story!"

"Look at reality, not fairy tales."

The whole point of the story was the fairy-tale marriage, so if the class divide wasn't overcome, there was no story. But the High Priest flatly rejected it. I wanted to escape into fairy tales through books, not face harsh reality.

"Um, what about a border lord instead of a prince? Would there be some room for a fairy-tale rise then? Would you accept it at a story level?"

"Hmm, depending on the size of the territory, there might be enough leeway even with some class difference. There would be plenty of opposition from those around them, but..."

With some class difference that could be overcome through the opposition of those around them, ending in a happy ending—the story would work as a tale. Finding a compromise point, I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then let's make him the lord's son instead of a prince."

"And make Cinderella a middle-class noble's daughter instead of a rich man's daughter. What's this business about a magician? How could anyone use magic with such a ridiculous spell? Even if you have no knowledge of sorcery, this is terrible."

Through the High Priest's numerous corrections, Cinderella became the story of a middle-class noble's daughter tormented by her stepmother, where the magician parts were entirely rejected. Instead, with the aid of nobles connected to her deceased mother, she attended a ball and caught the eye of the lord's son.

It wasn't Cinderella anymore, but I'd gratefully take the opinions of the noble perspective, since they'd be my primary audience.

"However, this ending says 'they lived happily ever after,' but these two *can't* actually live happily, can they?"

"Huh?"

After pushing through the marriage, they'd either be exiled by her father the lord, or even if forgiven, stripped of the position of heir and relegated to supporting their younger brother. He told me all this, but I had absolutely no intention of writing any of that.

Because of learning the follow-up, the Cinderella I was about to create had become a story with a strange sense of reality and no fairy-tale magic whatsoever for me.

That was the High Priest, confronted with Myne's complete lack of common sense.

He'd probably get used to it eventually, just like Benno.

Next time: discussing winter preparations with the High Priest.