Apprentice Shrine Maiden Volume 4 Read online

  “Could you pour your cheapest wax into these?” I asked, holding out my and Gil’s diptychs. The foreman nodded and did so right away, remembering me from last time.

  Gil stared at the clear wax eagerly. He hadn’t touched it yet since we had told him to wait until the wax had hardened, but he was grinning with excitement anyway. Every now and again he would blow onto it, trying to speed up the cooling process. It was a little cute.

  “Gil, if you do that, the wax may have an uneven surface when it hardens,” I said with a smile. Gil jerked and looked in my direction.

  “Yeah, she’s definitely right,” Lutz added. “She poked hers a lot while it was hardening and it ended up pretty bumpy.”

  “Lutz, shut up!” I glared at him for spilling my secrets for no reason, and Gil stepped away from his diptych while laughing a little. Apparently he didn’t want to repeat my mistake.

  “Hey, Benno. There’s gotta be something else, right? You wouldn’t’ve contacted us if all you needed was this,” the foreman said, walking over to Benno after putting away his tools.

  Benno nodded. “Yeah. I want a small box of every kind of wax you sell here.”

  “E-Every kind? You’re not after candles like usual?”

  “Yeah, and don’t mix ’em up. We want your wax, not your candles.”

  Benno’s order left the foreman dumbfounded. The owner of a major store like the Gilberta Company, who usually only came to get a specific number of candles of a particular size, was suddenly asking for every kind of wax he sold—and not even as candles. He never could have predicted that.

  “What in the world do you need it for?”

  “Now that, I can’t tell you yet.” Benno grinned, and the foreman put a hand on his cheek in thought. He knew Benno had been making new product after new product, and it was clear that he was wondering whether he was bearing witness to the next new invention.

  “Alright. I’ll have ’em to your store by tomorrow.”

  “Could I have one or two boxes of some wax you have on hand?”

  “Yeah, I can get those no problem.” The foreman went into the busy workplace to speak to the workers. Then, once he returned, we left the workshop with two boxes of wax in hand.

  “There. You can start working now, yeah?”

  “Yep. Thanks, Benno.”

  After returning to the Gilberta Company, I tapped cards with Benno to pay for the wax. I then wrote down the salting-out process on paper and worked out a price for him negotiating on my behalf. With that done, Benno would work things out with the wax workshop for me.

  “Okay, let’s start experimenting as soon as we get back to the workshop,” I said, handing Gil the boxes of wax. Lutz gave a worried frown and grabbed my shoulders to stop me.

  “Myne, hold on a second. What’re you doing? What’s the plan? You haven’t given us half of the explanation we need. Get us up to speed, then go back to the temple.”

  Since I couldn’t do any work at the temple, it was necessary that I give my explanation first. My plan had been to do it in my director’s chambers, but it would probably be easier to keep the information under wraps by talking it over at the Gilberta Company.

  I nodded. “You know the thin paper we made, right? We’re going to thinly apply wax to it. We’ll shave the wax down, sprinkle it onto the paper, and then use a (clothing iron) on it. That’s it! Simple, right?”

  “Myne, what’s that and where can we get one?” Lutz gave a little frown at my simple explanation of how to make wax-covered paper. It seemed that the phrase “clothing iron” didn’t get carried over.

  I tried to explain what it was while searching my memory. “U-Umm... It’s a piece of metal with a flat bottom that gets really hot and straightens out the wrinkles on cloth. Does that ring any bells? I would think they exist in clothing workshops or the homes of rich people.” Considering how smooth my robes had been when Corinna made them, I was pretty sure she had one.

  Benno spoke up from the side. “Yeah, Corinna’s workshop has an iron. You need one?”

  According to Benno, rich people and clothing workshops had wide pot-like things that they filled with charcoal to heat up. It resembled a charcoal iron from the past. My family naturally didn’t own one since we just wore secondhand clothes, and Lutz didn’t know about them for the same reason.

  “Benno, do you sell irons in the Gilberta Company?”

  “Nah, you gotta order those from a smithy. Not everyone needs to use them, and you don’t tend to need more than one anyway. Gotta say, though... irons make a real mess if someone sucks at using them. Are you sure you can handle one?” Apparently, the pot-like irons would spill ashes and dirty up the surrounding area if you weren’t careful. I would have preferred a simple-to-use electric iron, but that was a bit beyond my capabilities to make.

  “For now, I’ll try to improve the shape and order one from Johann.” It seemed that an iron would be out of my reach for a bit.

  I fell into thought. Lutz did the same, crossing his arms while mulling things over.

  “We’ve got the motivation and knowledge, but not the tools. This sure sounds familiar. Myne, think about this some more—do we really have everything else we need?” Lutz asked, remembering how much he had struggled when we didn’t have the proper tools for paper-making. I put a hand on my cheek and tried to remember the exact process for making simple wax paper.

  “Umm... You cut the wax down into small pieces, then sprinkle it on top of the paper. This should be easy since we can just shave it down using a tea strainer, which you can buy at general stores. Then we sprinkle the shaved wax on top of the paper, and...” I froze mid-sentence and paled, my mouth agape. Lutz was right. I had forgotten something else. I squatted on the ground, head cradled in my hands. “NOOO! We don’t have (cooking sheets)!”

  “Huh?! What?”

  I was trying to make wax paper in the most simple way possible, but we didn’t have cooking sheets. Naturally, I couldn’t make those on my own—or at least, I didn’t know how.

  “...It’s just not happening.”

  “Try and think of a solution before you go off and get depressed. Is there anything that could replace it?” Lutz asked.

  I furrowed my brow in thought. Before cooking sheets were invented, people used aluminum foil and paraffin paper. Aluminum foil would get all wrinkled and prevent us from being able to make an even layer of wax, and if you considered paraffin paper as more or less paper that needed a coating of paraffin wax, it was basically the same thing we were trying to make in the first place.

  “Umm, it’s something meant to stop the melted wax from getting everywhere, but maybe sticking normal paper in the way will work? I hope it will, but I don’t know. What do you think, Lutz?”

  Back on Earth, I was pretty sure that a sheet of copy paper could be used to block any excess melted wax, which meant a sheet of normal paper should work too. At least, I think it should. I want to believe.

  “Don’t ask me, I dunno about any of that stuff. Are there any other tools you’d need?”

  “That should be everything for making the wax paper, but I’ll want a mimeograph stylus and a file so that I can test whether it would be usable as stencils.” Making wax paper was as simple as melting wax on top of paper and then letting it dry, and while there was a chance that the iron would get wax stuck on it or otherwise dirty up the area, it probably wouldn’t stop us from succeeding. The only issue was whether or not this wax paper would be suitable for making stencils as is.

  “A mimeograph stylus and a file... Is Johann gonna make those?”

  “Uh huh. Those are both in Johann’s jurisdiction.” I stood up and gave Lutz a big nod, which made Benno’s lips curve into a grin.

  “My sympathies to the Gutenbergs you’re dragging around.”

  “You’re a Gutenberg too, Benno. It’s not just Johann. Why are you talking like you’re not in the same boat?” I asked, which wiped the grin off of Benno’s face. He grabbed my head in one hand and spok
e in a low, growling voice.

  “Every single person you’ve called a Gutenberg is buried under a mountain of work right now, struggling each day to keep their head above water. Don’t you think there’s something you should be saying to all these people you’re dumping loads of work onto, day after day?”

  “Huh? Um... Err...” I floundered, my eyes darting between Benno and Lutz, unable to think of what he wanted me to say. They both looked at me with the same harsh expression, waiting for me to answer. It was clear that I wasn’t going to be getting any hints.

  “Let us continue striving to spread books across the world together?”

  “Wrong! Show us some appreciation!” Benno roared, grinding a fist against my head.

  “Thank you! Thank you! I exist as I am today thanks to you and Lutz, Benno! I’ll continue being a burden on you both, but thank you for sticking with me!” I yelled with teary eyes.

  Benno made it sound like I should feel bad about giving all the Gutenbergs a lot of work, but I only had a limited amount of time I could spend with Kamil. I had no intention of slowing down on making picture books—if anything, I wanted to speed up even more.

  Johann looked like he wanted work other than making letter types when I went to get Gil’s stylus, so I gave him the blueprints I had written out for an iron, a mimeograph stylus, and a mimeograph file. When he learned that they were all tools for printing, he truly understood that he would forever hold the title of “Gutenberg,” and before my eyes he wept tears of joy.

  Delia’s Progress

  I had ordered the tools we needed to make wax stencils from Johann, but it would be some time before they were done. In the end, Wilma finished her art for the next picture book before the tools were ready. It was a story about Flutrane the Goddess of Water and her twelve subordinate goddesses, themed around spring.

  “Hey, Lutz. Since it’ll be a while before the tools are ready, should we just start working on the next picture book?”

  Wilma had been working on the art for these since before we had finished color ink, so the stencils had all been made under the assumption that the illustrations would be printed in black and white. As a result, we were planning to print this round of books in black and white.

  If we were printing in black and white with plain stencils, we could print without needing to wait for the tools to be done. We still didn’t have much paper since we had only resumed production in spring, but we could always just buy some from the plant paper workshops Benno had made.

  “I want to use the printing press since we finally have one ready, but—”

  “But the High Priest said no. Give up on it and just get to cutting out the stencils.” Lutz shot me down immediately, so I simply sighed in defeat and got to cutting. It was a true shame; we had worked so hard to make metal types and a printing press, but it was all for naught.

  “There’s a lot of stuff you can do before resorting to using the printing press you were specifically ordered not to use, right? You need to talk to Fran and the High Priest about the colored ink being done, and you should tell Wilma about it as soon as possible so that she can draw art with color for your next picture book. She’ll have to think about that and the printing method when planning her next illustrations.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t had much time to properly sit down and talk with Wilma since she’s been so busy looking after Dirk. I’ll try to go to the orphanage this afternoon to see her.”

  Lutz and I walked down the street while talking. A mother with a child on her back passed us, which made me realize something. I stuck my hand in my tote basket and took out a bag with two wooden tubes and some small stones in it. Dad had carved and hollowed out the tubes, and I had thoroughly cleaned the stones.

  “Lutz, could you put the stones in these tubes, then glue the caps on?”

  “...Sure, but why?” Lutz blinked in confusion at the stuff I had given him. Both tubes were identical, and once the stones were inside they’d function as rattles.

  “They’re baby toys—one for Kamil and one for Dirk. They make noise once you put the stones inside and shake them.”

  “Oh yeah, I know of something like that. They look kinda different, though.”

  “I’d like to color these and make them look cuter, but I don’t want to put ink on something a baby will probably be putting in their mouth...”

  A baby as few months old as Kamil and Dirk wouldn’t be able to see colors that weren’t vibrant enough, so I would want to cover them in bright red ink. But I felt resistance toward putting ink on something that would be going inside a baby’s mouth. Ink made out of edible materials was always an option, but then I would have to worry about bacteria growing inside the ink.

  “Well, they’re not gonna last long either way, right? We can just use some of the ink we made out of edible materials back in the workshop. What else are we gonna use the colored ink we spent so much time on? It’ll be a while before we can print with it anyway.”

  “Okay then. Could I ask you to do that, Lutz?”

  “Sure. I’ll get them to you this afternoon.”

  I said my goodbyes to Lutz in front of the workshop before heading to my chambers, where Rosina was waiting with the harspiel in hand.

  “Good morning, Sister Myne.”

  I gave a bemused smile at Rosina’s brimming enthusiasm, then looked at Delia as she played with Dirk. “Delia, I would like to change clothes. Do you have a moment?”

  “As you wish. Dirk, I will be back as soon as I’m finished. Wait just a moment.” Delia regretfully separated from Dirk, then speedily started changing me. She put my blue shrine maiden robes on as quickly as she could, tied the sash, then immediately returned to Dirk.

  “Dirk, I’m back.” Delia spoke to Dirk with an absolutely shining expression that I had never seen on her before. She was head over heels for Dirk.

  ...What’s with that cute smile? I’ve never seen her smile like that before.

  Delia already had a beautiful face, so seeing her smiling actually took my breath away. Her smile was so filled with love that I actually felt a bit jealous of Dirk.

  “Sister Myne, Dirk seems like he’s almost ready to roll over. I would expect nothing less from my little brother. He’s such a wonderful little boy.” Delia sat next to Dirk and stroked his head as he tried his hardest to turn over. To her, everything else in the world seemed to fade away. Not even ten days had passed since Dirk had come to the temple, but she was already caring for him like a real sibling.

  “Sister Myne, it would be wise to leave Dirk to Delia so that we may begin harspiel practice.”

  At Rosina’s prompting, I picked up the smaller harspiel and began practicing. I played the piece I was currently learning a few times, at which point the door opened. Breakfast had finished in the orphanage and Wilma, having seen the children off to the workshop, was here to collect Dirk.

  “Good morning, Sister Myne. I have come for Dirk.”

  “Good morning, Wilma. Thank you as always. And while you are here, I plan to visit the orphanage this afternoon to discuss picture books with you.”

  Wilma nodded with a brief “Understood” in response to my plans, after which she talked to Delia while getting Dirk. She had to ask how he had been last night and how much goat milk he had drunk so that she could predict and prepare for the next time he was hungry.

  “We do not have any gray shrine maidens who have experience raising children. If we don’t think of what to do with babies offered to the gods, the orphanage will most likely be unable to function in the future.”

  There were no longer any gray shrine maidens raising their own children who could look after the babies, and considering where those children came from, it was in our best interest for gray shrine maidens to continue not having children. I needed to talk to the High Priest to discuss what to do with future babies given to the orphanage. It wouldn’t be reasonable—or possible—to have my attendants bear the burden of every baby that ended up in the orp
hanage for the rest of time.

  “I always feel so lonely when Dirk leaves,” Delia said, rubbing his head regretfully before eventually giving him to Wilma. The energy always drained from Delia the moment Dirk went to the orphanage, leaving her slumped and melancholic, but Rosina always looked relieved. Their reactions were on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum.

  I practiced harspiel until third bell, at which point I went with Fran to the High Priest’s room where I would help him until lunch. After lunch, Fran and Rosina now went to their respective rooms to rest. They had both started to look a bit better now that they were getting regular naps in the afternoon, but the exhaustion was still clear on their faces.

  “Rest well, you two.”

  “Please excuse our absence.”

  Now that Fran and Rosina had gone to have their afternoon rest, Delia was the only attendant left in my room. She had finished cleaning and was working on her math, while I was busy making stencils at my desk, waiting for Lutz to arrive. It didn’t take him long to finish his lunch at the Gilberta Company and come over with the finished baby toys.

  “Here, Myne. They’re all done.”

  “Yay! Thank you.”

  Lutz shook the darkish-red rattles to show that they were finished. I really hoped they would make the babies happy. Kamil wasn’t quite old enough to really get excited over anything, so my plan was to see what Dirk thought first.

  “I’ve ordered the paper from Master Benno too. He’ll be ready to supply whenever you want to start printing.”

  “You work fast, Lutz.”

  “Nah, I still have a long way to go. Mark’s always telling me how much time and effort I waste when doing things.”

  It seemed that Mark’s education was really bearing fruit; Lutz was saying that he couldn’t yet compare to Mark, Benno, or Leon, but at his age it would be unreasonable to expect him to be that skilled.

  “Myne, don’t forget to bring the stencils from Wilma. I’ll start getting the workshop ready to print.”

  “Uh huh, leave it to me.”