Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 1.3 - Chapter SS6

The Roots of the Guildmaster’s Worries 

“Is that all we have to discuss today? In that case, a reminder that we are holding a taste-testing event in the larger meeting room for a confectionery I plan to sell soon. Drop by if you have the time. My granddaughter said that there would be enough for everyone here and their servants. Benno, Freida put her all into this knowing that you would be coming. You wouldn’t betray her expectations, would you?” I said, finishing the meeting. 

Benno stood up with a visible grimace on the face. I understood that as an expression meaning he would go even though he didn’t want to, which filled me with an undeniable sense of satisfaction. His glare felt pleasant to me, and I left the room with a snort. 

I went in the opposite direction of the other interested store owners and climbed the stairs to my office before sitting in my guildmaster chair. 

Now then. How will it go, I wonder? The taste-testing event was an experiment for me, suggested by Myne and enthusiastically supported by my granddaughter as a challenge to face. The goal was to make it clear that the soon-to-be-sold pound cakes were property of the Othmar Company while also searching for the flavors that would be most profitable and desirable. 

I couldn’t hear the bustle from downstairs in my office, but I nonetheless strained my ears to see if I could hear any hints as to how it was going. 

“Master Gustav, are you curious about the taste-testing event?” asked Cosimo, a long-time servant of mine who could be called my right-hand man, while pouring me tea with a slight smile. He was certainly remembering how when planning the event, Freida had asked me not to come, as my “strong influence would make all her hard work vanish like mist.” 

I would have liked to see my grandchildren doing their best, but I had no choice but to quietly step back and let their wings grow. It didn’t please me, but Freida was right. If I attended as the guildmaster of the Merchant’s Guild then it would diminish the idea that it was being held by the Othmar Company in particular. 

“Lady Freida has certainly been full of spirit lately. I suppose it is all thanks to Myne,” said Cosimo joyfully. I thought back to how excited Freida was while preparing the event and felt a small smile of my own form. 

Freida, due to the Devouring ravaging her health, had barely gone outside before signing a contract with a noble. Following that she had started taking lessons at home to prepare herself for moving to the nobles’ quarter after reaching adulthood, which naturally led to all the servants living with her to grow quite fond of her. 

Freida met a fellow Devouring child named Myne not long before her baptism and had seemingly been moved by Myne’s straightforward, unwavering pursuit of her dream. Ever since then she had become quite lively and active. Freida had taken full control of setting up this event, with Myne’s advice guiding her. Of course, her family and I helped her to some degree, but she had displayed a sharp mind and management skills far beyond what one would expect from her age. 

“I am curious, but I am confident it will end well. All I can do is wait for her report.” 

“If you say so, Master Gustav, I am sure it will succeed. Your business instincts have never been incorrect. You said that change was coming to Ehrenfest... and indeed it has,” said Cosimo with a smile. As he said, my business instincts were rarely wrong. 

“...Which is precisely why it hurts that I failed to acquire Myne for myself. Hairpins, rinsham, pound cakes, rumtopf, plant paper... I can see already how Myne’s inventions and ideas will bring enormous change to Ehrenfest.” 

Myne, Freida, and Lutz, under the guidance of Benno, a member of the young generation, were already enacting great change to the markets in Ehrenfest. 

Cosimo nodded slowly and looked at me. “Myne’s influence is still limited to the commoner sphere of the city. But as you said, she is a small seed that will grow into a large, revolutionary tree. In which case, we will need to maneuver such that she is not crushed by nobles who hate change, and to negotiate as best we can such that she is taken in by a progressive noble who will raise her well.” 

That went without saying. Such was the duty of the Merchant’s Guild, and the Othmar Company with its long and proud history dating back to the establishing of the Merchant’s Guild. 

The Othmar Company’s history stretched far into the past. It existed in Ehrenfest before modern Ehrenfest came to be. Even during the reign of the first Archduke, the Othmar Company had sold food to nobles as the Archduke’s favored business. 

The new Archduke had brought with him personal craftsmen and artisans to make clothes, furniture, and so on to his taste. It was natural for nobles to bring workers with them to keep their environment to their tastes. But food was the one thing they had no control over. Even if they brought a chef with them, they would have to rely on the food that could be grown in the new land. 

The Othmar Company bought the best food possible from the surrounding farms and sold them to the nobles and the prior Archdukes. Merchants brought from afar had no way of knowing which seasons were best for which crops, which crops were high quality and which weren’t, and so on. It was thanks to these circumstances that the Othmar Company successfully continued doing business even as the Archduke changed with the generations. 

At the same time, the Othmar Company was selected to be a third party negotiator between the personal workers brought by the new nobles and the personal workers that had already been serving the old nobles. An organization was needed to manage the entirety of business in Ehrenfest. The result was the Merchant’s Guild being founded to be a window into the nobility and manage business disputes among large store owners. 

“Master Gustav, Damian would like to see you.” He had likely come to give a report on the taste-testing event. I said to let him in, and once he was in front of my desk I asked for his report. 

Damian was my grandson and Freida’s older brother. He was not yet an adult, but he had experience in multiple stores as a lehange. My plan was to try sending him to the Gilberta Company once his current contract ended. 

“The pound cakes were received very well. Everyone was comparing the flavors with very serious expressions.” 

“Oh ho... How was Benno?” 

Damian forced a smile and shrugged. “The moment he entered the room, he caught Myne and forced her to change into his store’s apprentice uniform.” 

“I had hoped to build up an association between Myne and the Othmar Company, but I suppose that failed, then.” 

The recipes and inventions Myne learned about “within her dreams,” according to Leise, were too much for one store to monopolize. The entire city deserved them. The newly reformed Gilberta Company could not handle everything themselves, nor should they. My intention had been to show that the Gilberta Company was not monopolizing the profits of her products, but it hadn’t worked. 

“Does Benno intend to collapse his store once again?” The hairpins and rinsham were one thing, but I had offered to handle the plant paper for him — changing the name of the Parchment Guild to the more general Paper Guild — but he had kept it to himself. What good would come from him handling products outside of his store’s focus of clothing and apparel? 

After telling Damian to return to the event, I let out a slow sigh. 

“A single store like the Gilberta Company monopolizing enormous wealth will be the start of chaos. I do understand that Benno is still operating under the mindset of protecting his store and family, yes. But it is about time for him to open his eyes and see the full picture. Unlikely as that may be, given how much of a hot-blooded youth he is.” 

The Merchant’s Guild was focused on bringing profit to all of Ehrenfest, whereas the Gilberta Company merely wanted to bring more profit and prestige to themselves. Conflict between the two was inevitable. Thanks to Benno’s recent unending struggle to monopolize profits for himself, I was spending each day with a headache. 

“The conflict between you two arises not only from your different opinions in economic philosophy, I’m afraid. You are in part responsible for this, Master Gustav.” Cosimo shook his head while giving an exaggerated sigh. 

“...I had only good intentions with that.” 

“Which means nothing if they don’t understand your intentions. It’s no surprise that Benno ended up so stubborn when dealing with you.” 

The Gilberta Company had been growing in influence for a number of decades, but they were not yet a century old. Their name came from the seamstress Gilberta, who once made clothes for nobles. The company started when she married a man who established a clothing store. 

It was under the leadership of Benno’s father that the store began to grow in renown and size such that it could be considered a “large store.” Just as everyone was expecting them to continue to grow, Benno’s father died outside of the city. 

A large store was too much for a young man who had just reached adulthood to handle. Left on its own, the Gilberta Company would no doubt crumble. I would not have liked for a newly developed store to fall after growing for so long. Furthermore, it would have become difficult to deal with nobles had there been no one to fill the niche in business that the Gilberta Company filled. 

My first wife died before me, but I recovered quickly and married not long after her death to preserve a future for the Othmar Company. My second wife also died before me, but our sons had already reached adulthood and my eldest son was well old enough to handle the company if necessary, so I hadn’t married again. 

It was the perfect opportunity. I offered to wed Benno’s mother so as to protect the Gilberta Company. While she was bedridden with sorrow, her inexperienced young son would no doubt let workers slip through his fingers and make errors that would be hard to recover from, if possible at all. It should be clear after some thought that it was more important to protect the store than to be caught in the past mourning the dead. 

When I proposed, not only was Benno there, but several of his younger siblings were there too. I thought they would all rejoice that their mother would be remarried and the store would be saved. 

That was not the case. The Gilberta Company treated my proposal as an insult. I did not know why they had been so insulted, but those who knew my tendency for such blunders all sighed and shook their heads. 

“Women and men do not think the same way. A widow would never think about remarrying so soon after the death of her husband. If instead of proposing immediately you gave time for her sorrow to fade and the hardships of raising a family alone set in, she would have accepted your proposal immediately.” 

My son and his wife both admonished me, whereupon I understood my mistake. Women and men certainly did approach such issues with different mindsets. 

“Perhaps things would have been different had she died instead of her husband...” 

As expected, lehanges left the Gilberta Company without renewing their contracts and fewer nobles ordered clothes from them, putting the newly adult Benno in extremely poor circumstances. A skilled leherl hired by his father named Mark helped Benno quite extensively, but even so, the store’s decline was happening swiftly. 

Despite being aware of the problem, I as the guildmaster of the Merchant’s Guild was tasked with equalizing profit and could not give indiscriminate backing to one company in particular with no excuse for doing so. Just as I was mourning the sight of a sharp-minded young businessman being crushed before his prime, Benno’s fiancée fell sick and soon died. 

The sooner one acted to halt the decline of a store, the better. Benno should understand that after working so hard as the head of the store to save it. I offered Benno one of my daughters in marriage. 

The result was him being insulted. I didn’t understand. He was a man as well, why was he insulted? 

“They were in love from a young age and spent their lives together, he didn’t want to marry her for connections or political reasons. If you offer a marriage proposal to someone so soon after someone that close to them dies, it’s only natural that they would get mad.” 

I later attempted to go through more proper channels and offer an engagement between Benno’s little sisters and my sons, but one of them fled outside of the city and the other married a traveling merchant. For some reason, Benno began behaving quite hostile and defiant towards me. Very troubling. 

“We went through some rough times, but luckily I’ve managed to warm my relationship with Benno somewhat by selling him information on the Devouring and selling Myne a magic tool.” 

“That is quite an optimistic view of things, Master Gustav. For me it is easy to imagine that Benno is becoming even more defensive around you, especially when Myne is involved,” said Cosimo, which made me frown. 

“...But why? Surely he feels some gratitude towards me after I sold a magic tool I had broken my back to get for Freida.” 

“Myne might be thankful for you saving her life, but Benno is likely more on guard now since you lied about the price to try and trick Myne into your store.” 

“A panic will arise if Myne continues to produce strange, revolutionary products sold only in Benno’s store. The market will collapse if they are kept together, if not worse. Surely he understands the benefits of him being separated from her.” 

“When it comes to the Gilberta Company and Myne, exactly nothing has ever gone as you planned, so I imagine that will continue to be the case,” said Cosimo with a sigh, before suddenly a white bird slid into the room — despite the windows and doors being closed. I opened my eyes wide in surprise, since this generally only happened once every few years, and immediately the white bird turned into a letter in front of me. This was the method of communications nobles used for high priority messages. 

Under normal circumstances, a commoner working for the noble would carry a handwritten letter, but in situations where time was of the essence, magic tools such as these were used. It was common to receive one after the Archduke Conference, but that took place in spring and I could think of no reason why there would be emergency contact now in the summer. 

“What in the world?” I opened the letter and saw that it was a request from the temple, asking for information on Myne. As she would be joining the temple as a shrine maiden, they wanted all the information we had on her workshop, current funds, and so on. Nothing was to be omitted. 

“...Myne is joining the temple?” Myne had been registered as the forewoman of the Myne Workshop just a few days ago, allegedly so that she could make new products under Benno’s protection while working from home. There had been no report that she would be joining the temple as a shrine maiden. I had heard from Leise that Myne said she would be stuck dealing with nobles whether she wanted to or not. Perhaps I now knew why. 

As Myne lacked magic tools and had no intentions of signing with a noble, she only had half a year or so at best to live. I had gambled that even if Benno kept her inventions monopolized, she wouldn’t be able to complete many of them before perishing. 

But that was all water under the bridge if she was joining the temple. The temple had divine tools — religious magic tools — and blue priests of the nobility. Myne’s life would be saved and she would no doubt be forced into a contract with one of the nobles there. 

...Though it was likely that she would be treated with utter cruelty. The temple had an orphanage and everyone understood it to be where commoner orphans with no guardians went. Nobles were given blue robes, orphans were given gray robes. One needed visit the temple only a few times to see that they received entirely different treatment. The truth would become clear after donating goods and gold to the temple. The truth that gray robes are treated as slaves by the blue robes. The truth that they are forced into absolute submission, no matter the circumstances. 

I would not be able to bear Freida being put under such conditions, so I searched for an honest noble with a warm heart to sign a contract with Freida. Myne would not be so lucky, doomed to live as she now was. 

...Did Benno know about this? Dealing with nobles unprepared was a death sentence for commoners. I reflected on Benno’s recent actions carefully. 

“Registering Myne as a forewoman and making a new magic contract with her... Did he do all of that for her sake?” Continuing to protect Myne did open avenues for the Gilberta Company to gain new noble connections and sell her products, but the risk was simply too high for such a gamble. 

“Benno, you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Your youthful ignorance wounds me once again.” There was no doubt that if the Gilberta Company made a large blunder here, the Merchant’s Guild would be dragged down with them in some way or another. 

“Ngh. Yet more headaches.” I would have to give up on getting Myne to join the Othmar Company now that she was joining the temple. It was impossible to say what influence she would have on Freida, who would be entering the nobles’ quarter after reaching adulthood. I had chosen Lord Henrik to be Freida’s partner based solely on his personality. He was a laynoble and had little influence in the nobles’ quarter. At the very least, I should try to minimize the contact they have until it becomes clear what kind of noble Myne will sign with. 

“I feel pity for Freida losing the friend she was so glad to obtain, but her safety comes first.” I let out a sigh and started writing my answer to the inquiry about Myne. It would be wise to make her appear as valuable as possible, so that they might treat her just a little bit better. It was true, in any case, that with Myne’s vast knowledge of unknown products the temple could obtain sizable wealth through her. 

...It was unlikely that this would actually impact how nobles treated her, but given the political events in the Sovereignty and how the temple is lacking in money and mana, perhaps every little bit counts. 

“I will need to summon Benno and ask for the details.” 

“Should I write a meeting request, Master Gustav?” 

“Please do.” 

Cosimo began writing a meeting request for the Gilberta Company. It was at that point that Freida burst into the room, eyebrows arched in fury. 

“We have a problem, grandfather. Benno said that he will begin training chefs of his own! He intends to keep Myne’s knowledge of recipes to himself as well! Even though Myne said she would let Leise take care of all her recipes!” 

...First he monopolized hairpins that fit into his store entirely, then rinsham that could be forgiven as a beauty product in general, then plant paper entirely removed from his business demographic, and now food as well?! 

“He’s sticking his hands into every pie he can find. This will not end well. Does Benno wish to collapse his own store?!” I stood up reflexively and yelled on instinct. Cosimo asked me to calm down. 

“Master Gustav, please stay calm. Such excitement is bad for your health, and we are relying on your abilities. You must at least remain healthy and fighting until Lady Freida reaches adulthood...” 

Benno was continuing to charge forward with his eyes set on monopolizing profit for his own store, while simultaneously attempting to protect Myne as she went into the temple and world of nobles nigh defenseless. The pressure from the rampaging Gilberta Company all fell on me, as I needed to preserve the balance between the large stores. 

...Benno, you brat! Respect your elders more.