Apprentice Shrine Maiden Volume 4

by Miya Kazuki

  Ever since then, Lady Myne, our patron, visited the workshop seemingly every day to help with our research on colored ink. The colors changed dramatically based on the oil and materials used, and faded over time once put on paper. Overall, the research was leading into a string of failures. But we kept making different kinds of colored ink despite all the problems, with Lady Myne writing it all down.

  “What to do, what to do...?” Heidi murmured, getting so absorbed in her research that she would forget to sleep and eat. She kept repeating that she needed to make ink good enough for Lady Myne like it was a magic spell as she changed the kinds of inks and searched the market for materials that looked like they would make good colors. None of that was especially new, so despite my exasperation, I wasn’t really worried about her; all I had to do was wait for the right opportunities to stuff food into her mouth and watch for when she started wavering in her seat so that I could throw her into bed.

  Sadly, that wasn’t enough this time. Heidi had been murmuring something about there having to be a secret to all this while chewing on her morning bread, but I just ignored her and went ahead to the workshop. Eventually, a terrified lehange came rushing up to me.

  “Mr. Josef, Mrs. Heidi’s been arrested or something!”

  “What?!”

  She hadn’t shown up at the workshop yet, but I’d assumed that she was so late because she had fallen asleep during breakfast—in reality, she had been captured by art workshop employees after she started fishing around inside while they were drawing. What the hell is she thinking?! I thought as I raced down the street with the lehange.

  It wasn’t long before I found Heidi surrounded by angry-looking craftsmen.

  “Heidi, what are you doing here?!”

  “I was chewing on my bread, trying to think of good ideas, and suddenly... here I am. Why am I here?” Heidi tilted her head at me while blinking sleepily.

  I immediately shook her awake. “How am I supposed to know that?! Wake up already!” I yelled, then deeply apologized to all of the hard-eyed art craftsmen watching us. “I’m sorry my sleep-deprived wife caused you trouble.”

  Whether she had consciously come here or not, her goal had definitely been to find out the secret behind making ink not change colors when put on paper. But it was a major crime to steal trade secrets like that. I had to convince them that Heidi had just wandered over here sleepily, with no hidden intentions whatsoever.

  “Quit messing around and tell the truth! She wouldn’t just sleepwalk over to a place like this!”

  “If she weren’t sleepwalking, she wouldn’t be here at all. We have no business here.”

  “Obviously she was here to steal the secrets to our paint production methods!”

  “I’m a leherl working in an ink workshop and she’s its successor. We don’t need to know about paint; it has nothing to do with ink. And we both know how serious the punishments are for stealing trade secrets. We would never do that.”

  While I was busy getting yelled at by a bunch of furious craftsmen, Heidi had started to fall asleep on my arm. Despite her own husband desperately apologizing for her own blunders, her head started to bob. By the time she was audibly snoring, the craftsmen had all calmed down and were just shaking their heads and expressing their sympathy for what a crazy wife I had ended up with.

  “Just keep a better eye on her, alright?”

  “Absolutely. It’ll never happen again.”

  Heidi didn’t wake up no matter how much I shook her, so I ended up carrying her to the workshop, at which point fourth bell rang. Noon had come, with us making no progress despite the fact that Lady Myne always came in the afternoon.

  ...Can I actually survive as this woman’s husband? I was so annoyed by Heidi’s bizarre behavior that thoughts of divorce briefly flashed through my mind as I tossed her into bed.

  “Don’t drag us back down now that things are finally looking up. Their method for stopping paint from changing colors is a business secret. You know what we would do to anyone who tried stealing our ink production processes, right?”

  “Ngh... Sorry,” she replied, scooting up in bed. It seemed that she now understood how bad the situation had been as well.

  “You really weren’t thinking, were you?”

  “I’ve been thinking so hard lately that it feels like my head is gonna burst.”

  “I’m not talking about research here, alright?” I poked Heidi’s puffed-out cheek, and she blinked her gray eyes several times in surprise.

  “Huh? What else but research should I be thinking about right now? I need to solve this fast, while she’s still funding us.” Heidi looked at me as if she couldn’t believe that I didn’t understand that, and honestly I didn’t feel like arguing. I had heard that Bierce and the Gilberta Company had come to an agreement about the research funding; it wasn’t anything for Heidi to worry about. Really, what I needed to think about here was how to keep the patron from being weirded out by Heidi and leaving.

  “Heidi, Josef—I’ve figured out how to make fixing agents!” Lady Myne exclaimed, walking into the workshop with a beaming smile that afternoon. She and Heidi squealed with excitement and immediately started talking about how to make the fixing agent used for dyeing cloth.

  “Woooah! This is amazing! So amazing!”

  Thanks to the fixing agent Lady Myne told us about and taught us to make, we stopped the colored ink from fading when used. It was done.

  ...And the burden was finally off of my shoulders.

  Lady Myne didn’t need to visit our workshop anymore now that the ink was done, and Heidi could spend less time immersed in research. To be honest, having a patron visit our workshop basically every day was exhausting. I had to keep my eyes on Heidi at all times to make sure she didn’t do anything rude, and Lady Myne’s presence made it hard for all the other workers to go about doing their jobs as they normally would.

  I sighed in relief, but Heidi slumped over in disappointment. “Aah, we sure finished that in no time...”

  “Now that the ink’s done, she’s not gonna be paying for the research anymore. Playtime’s over,” I said, poking her cheek. Please, don’t let her or anyone else cause any more problems, I begged on the inside.

  It was a simple wish, but not one the gods were willing to grant: Lady Myne smiled and said, “I don’t mind paying a bit more if you want to continue your research.”

  “Lady Myne, you’re the best!”

  “Please, you’re spoiling her!” I yelled. Who’s gonna keep an eye on her while she does her research?! I don’t wanna live like this for the rest of my life!

  “Heidi, Josef—as far as I am concerned, you are both now Gutenbergs,” Lady Myne said with a smile while pointing at Heidi, who was spinning in place with her arms spread out like an idiot.

  “Guten... huh? We’re a what?”

  “Gutenberg. The name of a heroic—nay, godlike—being whose legendary accomplishments changed the history of books. As it stands, Johann is the Gutenberg of metal letter types, Benno is the Gutenberg of plant paper, and Lutz is the Gutenberg of selling books. There’s also Ingo who helped make the printing press, and now you two are the Gutenbergs of making ink. It is only natural that I would fund the Gutenbergs who are making my dreams of reading a reality.”

  It looked like I was the only one who wasn’t following her. The little boy accompanying Lady Myne had murmured something about there being “another one,” and Heidi was jumping for joy.

  “We’re Gutenbergs, Josef! She has work for us! She’ll fund us! She’ll let me do research! Yahoooo!”

  “I’m sure that knowing why the ink changes color will prove useful in the future, so please, keep up the good work.”

  “You can count on us!” Heidi declared proudly.

  ...Ah, of course. I get it. I’ve been trying not to think about it since she’s our patron, but this little girl is a weirdo just like Heidi!

  That said, while them getting along so well wasn’t good for my heart, La
dy Myne already had her own personal workshop and the backing of the Gilberta Company despite her young age; she was on another level from Heidi and her singular obsession with research.

  “However, your highest priority should be making the ink. If you don’t finish an order before the due date, I’ll cut off your funding without a second thought.”

  “Eek!”

  “You’re the kind of person who loses sight of their surroundings when they get absorbed in their research. I need to make it clear what your priorities should be, and lay out a punishment for when you fail to stay on track,” she said to Heidi, looking confident and authoritative.

  ...Yep, that’s a businesswoman for you. She looks young, but she’s got a proper backbone.

  “Birds of a feather sure know how to clip each other’s wings, huh? Looks like you know exactly how to keep her under control,” the apprentice from the Gilberta Company chuckled, saying exactly what I was thinking.

  Right, birds of a feather! I nearly burst out laughing myself, but Lady Myne glared at me with a pout, so I hurriedly promised to watch over Heidi’s research to get her back in a good mood.

  And rest assured, Heidi was in a good mood that night.

  “Isn’t it all grand, Josef? She’s going to continue being my patron, and everything’s just going so well.”

  “Heidi, seriously...?” I couldn’t believe she was acting like all the problems she had caused this morning just didn’t exist. But before I could say anything, Heidi beamed a smile as dazzling as the summer sun.

  “Now you’re definitely gonna get your beruf certification.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what our workshop needs now more than ever, right? We finished the new colored ink and secured research funding from a patron, so if we force the issue with the Ink Guild—which owes us for dumping the position of guild head onto Dad—it should be pretty easy for us to get you a beruf certification. Don’t you think so?”

  My jaw dropped to the floor. I probably looked pretty stupid right now, but could you blame me? I never would have expected to hear Heidi talking about the future of the workshop or anything like that. I wanted a beruf certification as soon as possible, but I hadn’t at all considered that this was why Heidi was so absorbed in her ink research.

  “...But you’re the one who’s researching the colored ink, Heidi. You deserve the certification.”

  For each success, only one person could receive certification. Heidi deserved it; she was the one who had been so dedicated to her research that she was forgetting to eat and sleep. But when I said that, she opened her gray eyes wide and tilted her head.

  “I couldn’t have finished the ink this quickly without you, and you’ll need the certification to run the workshop. Is this even something to discuss?”

  “You’re not wrong, but...”

  “I don’t wanna think about all this hard business stuff. I just want to mix a bunch of stuff and learn a lot about ink. Take the beruf certification for my sake, Josef. It’s what your cute wife wants,” Heidi said with a grin. For some reason, confirming that she was cute felt like accepting defeat, so I silently tossed her into bed.

  Some time later in the future, Bierce, as the head of the Ink Guild, awarded me my beruf certification.

  Leon—Sylvester Undercover

  “Leon, we’ve gotta go to the forest today,” Lutz said before racing back to his room so he could change. I went back to my own room to do the same. The two of us always went to the temple once the store was open and we had finished dealing with the initial surge of customers.

  “To think that the Gilberta Company’s leherl work would include going to the forest with orphans...” I grumbled, pulling on the rags I usually wore to stop myself from sticking out when passing through the south gate.

  I came from a family of linen merchants. After my baptism, I became an apprentice at the Gilberta Company, then signed on as a leherl at the age of ten. The entire process was planned from the start by my parents, who wanted to strengthen their bonds with the Gilberta Company and its clothing business. In other words, I was working at the Gilberta Company to help boost my family store.

  Incidentally, due to that Myne girl bringing in weird work all the time, the Gilberta Company had ended up venturing outside its usual area of business to build a high-class eatery. Master Benno had told me to go to the temple to learn how to serve food from the attendants who served nobles there, which was the only reason I was going. That said, I was grateful that I was being trained by attendants who had experience serving nobles, since I did think it would be pretty useful for moving forward in life.

  ...But for some reason, I spent more time working in the workshop than training to be a waiter, and even now I was being made to take orphans to the forest. It didn’t make any sense.

  Unlike Lutz, who was born poor, I had barely gone to the forest before this. I wouldn’t have minded going there, either, if doing so would help my family. But chopping up wood, making paper, and printing books had nothing to do with our family business—in fact, it really wasn’t merchant work at all. Making things was the job of craftsmen, while merchants were in the business of selling those things, so I really had no idea why I was being told to make products myself.

  I found it easier to accept going to the temple and helping Myne when there was something in it for me. She was an apprentice blue shrine maiden in the temple, and the master of Fran, who was teaching me to serve food. Master Benno had told me to treat Myne like the daughter of a noble, but she was actually from the poor part of the city like Lutz. I knew that for sure as I had seen her going in and out of the Gilberta Company in her normal raggedy clothes.

  I hadn’t been told why or how a once-impoverished girl had become an apprentice blue shrine maiden. What I did know, though, was that Master Benno had been pulling strings to maintain her new outward appearance.

  Myne had outfits suitable for wearing in the temple, but they were all used—none of them had been made to order. Her ceremonial robes were a bit different, but since those were made using cloth that Master Benno had given to the temple, she still hadn’t paid for them, and she probably wouldn’t buy any more in the future. Myne was a fake rich girl who would never be of any use to my family at all.

  Of course, I did think her inventions like the plant paper and hairpins made using thread were impressive, and they were definitely profitable for the Gilberta Company; had I never gone to the temple, I would have viewed her from afar as a very impressive child prodigy. But she wasn’t of any use to me, and it was annoying to watch her get so clingy with Lutz all the time, so I didn’t really want to spend more time around her than I had to.

  Lutz was this weird guy who wanted to be a merchant even though he was the son of a carpenter. He had none of the common sense that any merchant should have. The way I saw it, he had only been able to become a leherl because of his friendship with Myne—that was the only way I could explain a failure of a merchant like him getting a leherl contract before turning ten.

  To be fair, he was a hard worker, just like Mark said he was. He had learned to read, write, and do math pretty quickly, and I knew he was doing his best to learn all sorts of work. But he was struggling to keep it all together, and it was hard to imagine he was really understanding it all on a deep level.

  ...’Cause, I mean, isn’t it strange? He’s always like, “I’ll make what Myne thinks up,” but apprentice merchants aren’t supposed to be making things. They’re supposed to be selling things, or spreading them around. Since Lutz loves to work in the workshop and take the kids to the forest, he’s a lot more like a craftsman than he is a merchant. But well, at least he’s managing to do the workshop ledgers properly.

  “Morning, Lutz. Good morning, Leon,” Myne said.

  There were a lot of people in front of the workshop, dressed and ready to go to the forest, and standing in front of them all was a tiny figure in blue robes. It was rare for Sister Myne to visit the workshop without any warn
ing, and if I remembered correctly, this was normally around the time she would be being taught how to play the harspiel.

  “Good morning, Sister Myne,” I replied, before quickly noticing that there was an imposing figure with an immense sense of presence among the orphans wearing tattered clothes. It was the blue priest Sylvester from yesterday, wearing the raggedy clothing that only poor people wore. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, and his arms were crossed.

  ...What the absolute heck is going on?!

  I nearly let out a shriek upon seeing Lord Sylvester, the expensive bow on his back completely contrasting with his cheap clothing. I managed to hold it in by clamping a hand over my mouth, but my mind had gone blank.

  “Lutz, I’m really sorry about this, but I have to ask you to guide Sylvester to the forest. Leon, Gil, I ask that you both keep an eye on the children while they’re gathering. Will everything be fine?”

  What the heck, Myne?! You really expect us to just go and take the archduke to the lower city’s forest?!

  Lord Sylvester was in fact Aub Ehrenfest. I had been able to figure that out because, after meeting him during his tour of the workshop, Master Benno had stayed up late into the night talking to Mark. Lord Sylvester apparently wanted Master Benno to massively expand the scope of the printing industry, and I had been asked my thoughts on that as a leherl.

  ...Is she for real? Is she really expecting us to take him to the lower city’s forest?!

  Gil was enthusiastically nodding, and Lutz seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole situation. It made no sense. Had I been able to, I would have screamed that they didn’t know who they were dealing with here.

  ...Or wait, do they actually not know who they’re dealing with here?! Do they not realize Lord Sylvester is the archduke?!

  On second thought, Master Benno had been dragged out of the workshop the second it was clear he recognized Lord Sylvester, and since Lutz went back to his home at night, he hadn’t been there for Master Benno and Mark’s late-night discussion. Neither Myne, Lutz, nor any of the orphans here knew that Lord Sylvester was the archduke. Only I did.