Apprentice Shrine Maiden Volume 2 (Premium)

by Miya Kazuki

  “Okay! I’ll make a black-and-white picture book for the baby first. The children’s bible can come later!”

  “We’ve only got paper and ink, so anything you make’s gonna be a black-and-white picture book.”

  “That’s true, but this is a little different.” I needed to go back to the drawing board and think about what kind of picture book I would want to give the baby. I thought back to what I’d learned in books about babies and in infant health class.

  First of all, it was thought that newborn babies had blurry vision. Eyesight was tightly connected to the development of the brain, and they grew by seeing a variety of different things each day. They would grow to distinguish bright colors like red by the time they were three to four months old, and their eyes would start to track movement.

  They had about the same eyesight as an adult about a year after their birth, but before that outlines tended to be a little blurry and they struggled to distinguish more faint colors. That meant a book for babies below the age of one would want to have high-contrast and easy to understand shapes. For colors, it was easiest for them to recognize white, black, and red, whereas for shapes it was easiest for them to recognize distinct ones like circles, triangles, and squares. That was why books for zero- to two-year-old babies had simple lines, bright colors, and simple text that repeated itself.

  I thought back on picture books for babies I had seen and remembered a black-and-white one with nothing but shapes and their names. Even I could manage to draw something like that.

  “Lutz, I’m staying home today to make a picture book for the baby!”

  “Alright. I’ll contact the temple and come help out once I’ve checked up on the Myne Workshop. When you start making something you’re always a danger to yourself and others, Myne. Gotta keep an eye on you.” Lutz shook his head with exasperation and, unable to argue, I immediately changed the topic.

  “Okay, I want some thick paper for this. Could you bring about ten finished pieces from the workshop for me to purchase?” Although I was the forewoman of the Myne Workshop, I needed to buy the paper from Lutz to keep the workshop’s financial records in order.

  And so, Lutz came to my house the next day after third bell.

  “Oof, this place is a mess. Effa’s gonna be ticked.”

  Soot pens, my notepad made of failed paper, and slate pens were scattered over the table. If Mom were here she would definitely tell me to clean up, but with her and Tuuli at work, there was no one to get mad at me.

  I was sketching designs on my slate to brainstorm what I wanted to draw in the picture book. Once I decided on something, I flipped to a new page on my notepad and drew it with a soot pen. It was easier to get an idea of what the black-and-white art would look like on paper. Dad had a tool for drawing straight lines in his toolbox, so I took that out and was using it to help me draw. I drew a triangle, then a square, then stopped when it was time to draw a circle. I wanted a compass for it.

  “Lutz, do you have a (compass) at your place? Something that looks like this and makes pretty circles by, um...” I drew a compass on the slate and used two fingers to demonstrate how it worked, earning a nod from Lutz.

  “Oh, a compass? I feel like we used to have one, but not anymore.”

  “Darn. No helping that. Guess I’ll try substituting it with some other stuff.”

  I got some of the thread stored nearby and wrapped it around the end of the soot pen. This would be easier if I had a pointed pin, but I didn’t, so I wrapped the thread around a nail I found in the toolbox instead. I held down the flat end of the nail with my left finger, pulled the soot pen away until the thread was taut, then moved it around in a circle. Everything would be fine as long as I didn’t move the nail.

  “Woah, nice.” Most people didn’t need to draw perfect circles, and those who did for work just used compasses. Lutz had never seen my thread method before and sounded impressed. It wasn’t common for someone to compliment me. Feeling a bit proud I drew various other circles, only to find that tiny circles were hard to get right. I would definitely want a template ruler or stencil templates for drawing a bunch of shapes.

  “Lutz, do you know if anywhere sells (template rulers) or (stencil templates)?”

  “You lost me.”

  “...Something like this. A sheet of thin metal or (plastic) that has holes cut out of it to reflect shapes of varying sizes.” They were really convenient for drawing the same pattern or shape over and over since you just had to trace along the edges. If compasses existed, stencil templates had to exist too. But Lutz just shook his head in confusion even after I drew one for him. He had apparently never seen one before.

  “How do you use those things?”

  “Umm, you trace a pen along the edges to draw whichever of the shapes you want.”

  “...Couldn’t you make one of these from thick paper?”

  “Wow! Lutz, you’re a genius!” I started using a thick piece of paper Lutz brought for the picture book to instead make a stencil template. I drew circles, triangles, and so on with gradually increasing size. Then all I had to do was cut them out to complete the template. It was only after Lutz and I finished drawing the shapes together that I realized how difficult cutting them would be. We literally didn’t have the tools for it.

  “This is too small for a knife to cut!” exclaimed Lutz. Looking at the knives we had and the size of the shapes on the paper, I had to slump my shoulders. We could manage to cut out the big circle, and most of the straight lines would be fine. But the small circles were out of the question.

  “This will just be a repeat of the woodcut without proper tools. Let’s have Johann make a (precision knife) for us.”

  “What’re those?”

  “Small, thin knives kinda like pens.” It would be best to really iron out what I wanted since I would be ordering one from Johann.

  Lutz and I changed into our apprentice clothes and went to the smithy with our guild cards and a neatly written supply order on volrin paper. Craftsman’s alley was on the south side of town, so Johann’s smithy wasn’t too far from my place.

  “Hello.”

  “Heya, welcome.” The foreman must have just been dealing with customers, as when we walked in he was sitting at the table with a bunch of boards in front of him. He shot me a grin, reminding me of when I ordered the styluses. “You’re that little girl from before. Got another order?”

  “Yes. Is Johann here?”

  “Yeah, take a seat. I’ll call him right over.” He stacked the boards and carried them to the back while yelling at Johann that he had a customer. His deep voice echoed through the workshop and Johann came rushing out in no time, his orange hair bundled up.

  “Sir! Oh, it’s the Gilberta Company. Hello.”

  “Hi. I would like you to make a (precision knife) for me. Please take a look at this.” I held out the volrin paper supply order and turned it around to show the blueprints I’d sketched out. Johann felt the paper, curious, then narrowed his eyes at the design I drew.

  “We get a lot of orders for big blades, but nothing this small and narrow. What in the world do you need this for? You’re not gonna be able to cut anything with a blade this small.”

  “It’s for cutting plant paper. I need a small blade to cut out tiny circles from it.”

  “Hmm. This paper, huh? I’ve never touched any plant paper before.” Johann gripped the paper between his fingers, flipped it over repeatedly, and shook it in front of his eyes to get a feel for it. After letting him satisfy his curiosity, I pointed at the blueprints. I wrote a lot of detailed information about the measurements and usage since I knew Johann would want to know all of it.

  “So, the handle can be made out of wood, but I would like it made so that you can swap out the blades. For safety’s sake the blade needs to fit perfectly into the handle, which is why I want to hire you for this, Johann. It’s very precise work.”

  Johann asked about the blade switching while looking at the blueprint. I gave detai
led answers in reply and soon enough Johann’s eyes were burning with determination. It seemed I had ignited his craftsman’s spirit.

  “...Heh. Pretty interesting. It being so easy to swap blades with this design is something else.”

  “I would also like either a cap to put over it or a special case to carry it. The blade will be dangerously sharp, and its thinness will make it easy to break.”

  “Guess I should make a bunch of extra blades to swap out just in case.”

  After settling on things, I paid the foreman the advance payment with my guild card. “Would you please deliver it to the Gilberta Company when you’re finished?” I wouldn’t be able to pay with physical money if they sent it to my place, but if it were delivered to Benno he would pay for it immediately without issue. I could then pay him in advance with my guild card, which saved me the trouble of carrying around coins.

  “Lutz, Myne!” On our way home from the temple ten days after ordering the precision knife, the guard in front of the Gilberta Company called us down. Mark had told him to direct us inside to get our delivery.

  “Johann arrived with this box this afternoon. He seemed very excited about it.”

  Mark gave us a thin box which I immediately took home to finish the stencil template. I didn’t have a proper cutting mat for it, which meant I would have to use the table and try not to cut too deep. That would probably hurt the blade. But it was sharp and easy enough to use that I finished the stencil template without any issue.

  I put the finished stencil template on top of my notepad and went to town with a soot pen, resulting in a proper black circle.

  “...If I use a stencil to put ink on the picture book, won’t that make carving out a woodcut unnecessary? Wow. Am I actually a genius?” To put my idea into practice, I used the template to design art for the black-and-white picture book. I drew a large triangle, then another upside down beneath that one, and finally added a rectangle to make a tree-like shape. I drew a big circle then put two circle eyes and a triangle nose inside to make a face. Then I drew a curved hexagon with the compass to make a flower. I was having so much fun drawing that I didn’t stop until my family told me to, at which point I cut out the art.

  “Look, Lutz! I finished!” I showed Lutz my finished art with excitement. Each was about the size of an A5 piece of paper, the size of the original A4 paper cut in half. Lutz furrowed his brows at the ten pieces of paper, then looked at me like he didn’t know what to say.

  “Uh, Myne. Is the baby really gonna like that art?”

  “O-Of course! Black-and-white art has a lot of contrast, and since these are just different shapes put together, artistic talent has nothing to do with it.”

  My explanation just made Lutz look even more doubtful. “...Eeeh. Well, if you’re happy, that’s fine with me.”

  Despite his suspicion, Lutz started making the picture book in the workshop that afternoon. This time he put on the black ink with the paintbrush over the stencil. The bristles would push the paper on the smaller parts of the art, so when it came to that I had him tap it with a small stick that had a cloth wrapped around one end.

  “Wow, amazing! It worked!”

  “...What is this, Sister Myne?”

  “What’s it for?”

  The children gathered around the art and peered down at it. While having a gray priest set the pages on a shelf to dry, I answered them with a smile.

  “It’s for a baby’s picture book.”

  “...A baby? Mmm?” None of them really seemed to get it. They tilted their heads and avoided eye contact, each one of them clearly deciding to keep to themselves rather than risk saying anything.

  ...None of them understood. If only the world could catch up to my genius.

  I felt a little isolated, but I finished the pages for the black-and-white picture book. Ideally I would want the pages to spread out like a folding screen, which meant sticking them to boards, cutting holes in the boards, and connecting them with string.

  Oh... I need to make the hide glue for this.

  Preparing for the Children’s Bible

  Regardless of what everyone thought, I finished the pages for the baby’s black-and-white picture book. That was enough to satisfy me as I walked home with Lutz, holding hands amid the chilly autumn air.

  “Since we’re making hide glue after winter prep is done, I want to get back to making the children’s bible,” I said, wanting to finish a book soon since autumn was the season of reading. Lutz fell into thought.

  “Are you gonna try woodblock printing again? Cutting the paper would probably be easier, if even you could handle it.” Lutz was right. Making templates for the pages out of paper wouldn’t be too hard. It didn’t require any arm strength, as was evidenced by the fact that I could do it on my own.

  “I won’t need to write backwards if I’m just cutting the letters out with a knife, too. That won’t be a problem since picture books aren’t that wordy. It will kinda hurt my wallet to buy some extra knives, but new projects having a high initial investment is nothing new to us.”

  The precision knives were a bit expensive since each had to be ordered and custom made, but woodblocks weren’t any better since I would need to order carving tools and such for them.

  “Isn’t that why you’ve been saving all that money anyway?”

  One day, I wanted to make letter punches for this world’s alphabet and transition to movable-type printing, but that would need a lot of letter punches. Each would need a lot of precise work, and making the punches out of metal would end up costing more than I could spend right now. It’d be a while before I could shift to movable-type printing.

  “Haaah... I’ve still got a long way to go before I can reach Mr. Gutenberg.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “A great man who accomplished so much he may as well be a god to me. My goal is to reach the same heights he did. But all I can do right now is improve what I have. Is there anything you think needs improving, Lutz?”

  “...Do you know any tools that could hold the paper down when we’re printing? The paper starts slipping the second I lose focus and the ink gets all over my hand, which sucks pretty bad since it doesn’t come off easy.”

  Lutz was an apprentice merchant in a store that did business with nobles. He needed to keep up appearances, so it would be extremely bad if he had the same dirty hands as a craftsman. We could leave all the work to gray priests, but I knew that Lutz was really determined to make my inventions himself. Which meant I just had to think of a way to do this without his hands getting dirty.

  “Mmm, it would probably help a lot if I made a (mimeograph) frame.”

  “A what-frame?”

  “Ummm, opening holes in boards to print with ink is called stenciling, and (mimeographs) are part of that. A (mimeograph) frame or net will hold down the paper so your hands don’t get dirty. Liiike this.”

  I took out my diptych and stopped in place to start drawing. Lutz, stunned, pulled me to the side while yelling about not getting in people’s way.

  “You make a wooden frame that can open and close over a wooden stand big enough to hold paper. You attach the board to the frame with hinges, with a net inside of the frame. When printing, you put the paper on the board, the stencil on top of it, close the frame to lock them into place, then apply ink from above the net.”

  “Huh. If it just needs wood and a net, we might be able to make it ourselves.” It wasn’t that difficult to make, outside of the stencil. Lutz would probably be able to make most of it himself. I would mainly be worried about the frame with the net attached.

  “Lutz, do you think we could ask the craftsman who made the mat part of our suketa to make this too? Has he finished all the big mats for the workshop’s larger suketas?”

  “...You’ll have to ask Benno and Mark about that.”

  The Gilberta Company had just come into view, so on that note, the two of us went inside. Work seemed to be mostly over, as some of the employees were already clean
ing up. Everyone was calm, but I felt that they were in a hurry as I looked around the store.

  “Oh, if it isn’t Myne and Lutz. The office is open if you have any business.”

  We would just get in the way by talking in the store, so Mark took us to Benno’s office without asking him first. He had been in the middle of looking over a ledger of some kind, but he forgave us with a sigh.

  “Benno, can I borrow Mark tomorrow? There’s something I want to order from the craftsman who makes our suketas, and I would like Mark to come with us to the workshop. Is the craftsman free right now?” I asked, to which Benno nodded while rolling up the ledger.

  “He’s delivered all the orders. Should be free if nobody else has ordered anything. What’re you planning to make this time?”

  “A frame with a net.”

  My answer made Benno frown in confusion. “Huh? A net? What do you need that for?”

  “It’s so Lutz’s hands don’t get dirty when he’s using ink.”

  Benno, failing to understand my explanation at all, looked at Lutz for an explanation. Despite having just explained in detail what a mimeograph was to him, he shook his head.

  “Forget it. I’ll pass the word on to Mark. What time do you need him?”

  “I need to practice the harspiel in the morning, so sometime early in the afternoon.”

  “That’s good for us. Tomorrow, then.”

  After lunch the next day, Lutz and I went to the Gilberta Company and then visited the craftsman with Mark.

  “...You all again, huh?” The craftsman greeted us with a grimace so intense I thought his furrowed brows were going to fuse. It was hard to believe he would show such open displeasure at a customer. “Don’t tell me you want more of those mat things. I finally finished that hellish order of’m, gimme a break.” It seemed that making large suketas was rough work for him. I shook my head as I glanced between the craftsman’s exhausted look and Mark’s calm smile.