Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 2.2 - Chapter 12

Making Picture Books with Woodblock Printing 

I added the text of my picture book to the woodcut art Wilma drew, but written mirrored for printing purposes. Lutz would take the woodcut home to have the art and design carved out. The art was pretty detailed, which made me worried, but Lutz just shrugged and said that Ralph and Sieg would make sure it got done. 

While Lutz and his brothers were carving the woodcut, I requested a meeting with the High Priest to show him my simplified bible text and get permission to use it in religious picture books. Although I had only simplified it as much as necessary for kids to understand, I imagined that getting permission to modify the bible and make pictures books out of it would be wise. 

He took me to his secret room to talk, as he always did when he wanted to hear the precise details of whatever new thing I was inventing. I thought that just using the sound-blocking magic tool would be enough, but he said he couldn’t be sure if what I was bringing should be shown to others until he heard about it alone first. 

“A bible for children, hm? That would be useful for teaching them letters and grammar.” 

“I’ll be making them into picture books, and I plan to teach the orphans to read with them as well.” 

“The orphans? For what purpose?” 

To be honest, I didn’t have a particularly noble purpose. I just wanted to increase literacy around the world, starting with those around me. 

“They’ll have to learn to read eventually if they want to be attendants, and I wouldn’t want the employees of the Myne Workshop to be unable to read the books it will soon be creating.” 

“I see, so you speak from the perspective of a merchant?” The High Priest looked over my modified bible text and murmured that it was good enough. He then looked at me, his light-gold eyes narrowed sharply. “Myne, where exactly were you educated? What training have you received?” 

His question was so out of the blue that the smile on my face vanished and I stiffened up. My heart began to pound and my blood raced through me with sickening speed. “I do not quite understand what you mean.” I really didn’t understand. Where in the world had his question come from? 

The High Priest, keeping his eyes locked onto me so as to observe my reaction, smacked a finger against the paper I had given him. “...This text is far too well constructed. It is no easy feat to isolate the key points of the bible, as wordy and difficult to read as it is, and simplify it all into something easy for children to understand. You could barely recognize any words of the bible when I first read it to you. Writing this should be far beyond your abilities.” 

Fear stirred in my heart. Now that I thought about it, I had never shown the High Priest anything I had written all on my own before. I just did the repetitive math when helping him with his paperwork, and all letters to him were written with Fran’s instructions. The story I had given him must have stuck out, given that I needed Fran’s help to write letters and had only a weak grasp on a lot of vocabulary despite learning to read to be a merchant. 

“...Are you saying I did a good job?” 

“Yes, extremely. Such a good job I might believe that you are a foreigner who received strict education in another language, and simply did not know the language of this country.” He looked at me with the guarded look he might give a spy. 

I tightened my lips. Was the High Priest incredible for having derived that much from a single story, or was I just too stupid to have realized how abnormal my writing skills were for my supposed age? 

...Probably both. I let out a slow sigh while my mind raced to think of an answer. Unlike Lutz, I couldn’t trust the High Priest enough to tell him everything. He seemed to think a bit differently from the other blue priests here, but that was because he thought and acted from the perspective of a noble rather than the perspective of a priest. I couldn’t even imagine what someone with significant political power would do with someone like me. 

“High Priest, I was born and raised in this city. I have never left except to go gathering in the woods. This is the first time I have ever even heard that other countries exist.” Myne really hadn’t left this town. In her youth, it was rare for her to even leave her home. It was obvious that she never had any opportunity to be educated. But my reassurance did not satisfy the High Priest’s doubts, and he continued to eye me. 

“The investigation I conducted certainly unearthed nothing suspicious. And yet, it simply does not make sense.” 

My relationship with the High Priest had been fairly positive up until now. If he were to grow suspicious of me, I would have no blue-robe allies within the temple. It was thanks only to the High Priest’s influence that I could exist here without encountering other blue priests. If he turned against me now, I would have no safety net while I still didn’t know left from right when it came to the temple’s culture. 

...That would be a problem. A huge problem. I had to tell the High Priest something, but lies would get me nowhere. I didn’t have a good memory like him. If I tried telling lies, I would forget what I had said before the week was up. A hole would immediately form in any web of falsehoods I tried spinning. I had to trick him without telling any lies. 

“...I have been asked a similar question in the past, about my recipes. They asked me how I learned them.” 

“And? How did you answer?” 

With the High Priest leveling his sharp gaze at me, I answered. “Within a dream. I told them I learned the recipes in a dreamlike place to which I can never return. Would you believe me if I gave you the same answer?” I didn’t know how the High Priest would react to that, but I had no better answer to give. I kept looking into his eyes and clenched my fist, mouth shut tightly. 

...I answered his questions, and I didn’t lie. My body felt hot as sweat dripped down my back, but I felt a chill in the air as we glared at each other without pause. I honestly don’t know how long we sat there in silence. 

Eventually, the High Priest spoke with a sigh. “...I cannot say either way.” His brows were still furrowed, but it seemed like his gaze was a little less sharp than before. I had expected his eyes to sharpen further and for him to say something like “quit messing around” or “give a real answer.” If that happened I would have doubled down and told him I hadn’t lied, but I didn’t have any answer prepared for the direction he took it in instead. 

“Although it sounds comically unrealistic, it would explain many of the mysteries surrounding you. My prediction that you were educated elsewhere would be proven correct as well. Not to mention, you are hideously poor at lying and your thoughts are always written on your face. No noble in the world would find themselves tricked by you or unable to read your emotions.” 

“Ngh...” I pressed on my cheeks so he wouldn’t be able to read any more of my emotions, and he began tapping a finger against his temple. 

“But that is exactly why this is so troubling. I will need time to think on this matter. You may leave, for now.” He returned the paper I had given him, and I left the secret room alone. I felt the daggers of his gaze on my back along the way.

The next day, I stayed home from the temple and went shopping with Benno and the others to get the tools I needed for woodblock printing. This was something I had to do. I wasn’t just avoiding the temple since it would be awkward seeing the High Priest there. Absolutely not. 

“So what the hell do you need to buy, anyway?” 

“I would like paint brushes and (rollers) to paint the woodcut.” 

“Huh? What was that second one?” Lutz and Benno blinked in confusion. I tried explaining what a roller was using as simple terms as possible. 

“Ummm, you take a tube-like cylinder and put a handle on it so you can, like, roll it around.” 

“...Yeah, I’m not following.” They both sighed heavily, neither of them understanding my explanation at all. If Lutz didn’t know it despite his exposure to construction tools, they probably didn’t exist at all in the city. 

“Anyway, let’s try checking out a store.” 

Benno took me to the art supply store that the art workshop had told him about. They apparently sold mortars (in the shape of boards) and pestles there. I looked to see if they had paint brushes or rollers, but not even the storekeep understood when I tried explaining what a roller was. They had wide paint brushes, but unfortunately no rollers. 

“Well, that’s that. What’re you gonna do without that roller thing, Myne?” 

“I’ll see what I can do with paint brushes. If those don’t work, I’ll just have to order a roller in the smithy.” 

“Dunno if they’ll understand what you’re talking about, though.” Benno snorted out a laugh, but I was sure Johann would understand my explanation if I gave precise measurements with corresponding drawings. I believed in him. 

I returned home with Lutz after finishing shopping. The cool autumn breeze blew over us as we walked with held hands. 

“Can’t wait for tomorrow,” he said as we casually walked home without a care in the world. “I didn’t mention it earlier so you wouldn’t go berserk before we went shopping, but my brothers finished that woodcut you wanted. I’ll bring it to you once we get back.” 

“Yay!” 

Once we got home I waited in my room, brimming with excitement until Lutz brought the carved woodcut to me. He handed it over and I could tell from a quick look that there were more than a few messed up parts. 

“By the way, Myne. They wanted me to tell you that it was a real pain in the neck getting this done. There’s just too many tiny details.” 

“...I can kinda tell that just by looking at it.” 

Lutz passed on the message with clear reluctance. There were multiple parts where the cuts were too deep or the lines too disjointed, probably from them cutting with too much force at times and letting momentum get the best of them. It didn’t help that they weren’t used to carving out woodcuts, but Wilma’s art being so detailed was definitely a factor here. If employees of a carpentry workshop like Ralph and Sieg didn’t like doing this, I could imagine it wouldn’t be easy to make woodcuts for a book’s worth of pages. 

“Maybe I’ll ask Ingo’s workshop to do the carvings if this woodcut works like I want it to.” 

“...Yeah. Getting work done officially through a workshop would be smart. This work’s too hard for a side job.” Lutz nodded at my suggestion, but I still felt sad—hiring Ingo meant the base cost of making the book would be significantly higher. 

“So, how’re you gonna use the brush?” Lutz’s thoughts had already ventured towards the printing. He took the brush we bought out of my bag and fiddled with its bristles. I grabbed the baren I made earlier and brought over some ripped pieces of paper to explain how woodblock printing worked. 

“First, we spread out the scrap paper and put the woodcut on top of it. Then we cover it with ink. We’ll want to use the tip of the paintbrush to rub the ink in and make sure it’s spread equally.” I gave Lutz instructions while rubbing the bare paint brush against the woodcut. He watched carefully while noting down the instructions on the diptych. 

“This is where we would want a roller. It could spread the ink equally just by rolling around on top of it, but there’s no use crying over what we don’t have. Once the ink’s spread, put the paper on top, put a layer of scrap paper on top of that, and then rub the (baren) all over it while pressing down to get the ink on the paper. Keep the force steady and don’t go extra hard or gentle anywhere.” 

I rolled my homemade baren over the paper in a circular fashion, and Lutz murmured in surprise about how that weird thing he saw me making was actually useful for something. 

“Then you gently peel the paper off and wait for it to dry. Done!” 

“...Alright, I get how it works now. We’re gonna try it out tomorrow, right?”

I went to the temple with trepidation, but the High Priest didn’t say anything in particular when we saw each other. He just expressionlessly listed out his normal instructions as if nothing had happened. It was a huge relief when I managed to finish my work without him saying anything else. Okaaay, that’s the biggest hurdle cleared. Onward to the woodcut. 

“Now then, if you would excuse me.” I left the High Priest’s room with my heart full of song and my mind full of woodblock printing. The High Priest was staring daggers into my back, but let’s not think about that right now. 

“Sister Myne, you seem exceptionally pleased,” noted Fran. 

“Of course,” I replied, already humming a little bit. “I’ve finished helping the High Priest and now I can make picture books in the workshop.” 

By the time lunch was over and I was on my way to the Myne Workshop, I was so excited it was probably unhealthy for me. 

“I have arrived. Let us begin printing at once. Now, Lutz. I believe you know what to do.” When I arrived at the workshop, Lutz had more or less finished preparing for the printing. Scrap paper was spread out on top of a table, and the woodcut on top of that. Curious children were surrounding the table. 

“Sister Myne, what are we doing here?” 

“Ahaha. You will see soon.” 

I headed to the table and the crowd of children parted to form a viewing spot for me. There I stood while Lutz did his work. He put the ink on the brush and painted the carved part of the woodcut black, which made the kids cry out with excitement. 

“Wow, it’s all black! I can’t see the picture anymore!” 

Lutz raised an eyebrow at their excitement, but continued his steady work without pause. He gently placed a piece of volrin paper on the ink-slathered woodcut and rubbed the baren against it just like I had demonstrated yesterday. 

“Wow, that looks fun! I wanna try it.” 

“Me too, me too!” 

Lutz set the baren aside, took off the scraps, and picked at the corner of the paper. As everyone watched with excitement, he gently peeled the paper off. The ink was stuck to the slightly rolled paper just as I thought it would be, forming a successful woodblock print. 

“Wow, it’s a picture! The block was all black, but there’s white lines on the picture!” The kids beamed smiles and chattered with excitement over how a pitch-black block made detailed art on paper. After instructing them to return to swishing pulp in suketas, I looked at the printed picture with Lutz. 

“How is it, Myne?” 

“...Not perfect.” Despite how excited I was to have printed a picture, I felt conflicted. It definitely had more artistic depth to it than the woodcut I made in art class back in elementary school, though. Asking Lutz’s brothers to make it instead of trying to do it myself had been the right call. “It’s fine as a woodblock print, but I don’t think this is good enough for a picture book.” 

“Yeah. The lines aren’t impossible to read or anything, but white letters on black aren’t the best, I think?” It did kinda hurt to read white letters on black text, and I had messed up the mirrored writing at points. That was my fault, but since the woodcut had both the art and the text on it, we’d need to make a new one from scratch to fix it. Not to mention that the art was so dark that it was actually kinda scary on top of all the mistakes. Lutz’s brothers not being used to carving detailed art didn’t help, but regardless, it would be hard to sell a picture book with art of this quality. 

“Maybe I should use a stamp for the letters? Like, have a stamp made with all the text on it?” 

“Making the woodcut’s already too much work to be worth the time; a stamp with all the text on it’s just outta the question. It’d be way harder to carve around the letters to make them stand out than to just carve out the letters themselves.” 

“That’s true... I might need to rethink this. Woodblock printing itself might not be good for picture books. The art being so filled with black is kinda scary, too.” I put the printed paper on top of a shelf and Lutz started cleaning up. There was no point in printing more when they would all end up just as flawed. 

...Mmm, I think copperplate etching would be better for printing Wilma’s art, but... I didn’t think I’d have an easy time getting corrosive agents like nitric acid to start copperplate etching, and finding alternatives on my own would probably be a huge hassle. Not to mention that I didn’t want anything that dangerous used in a workshop where little kids hung around. 

...But what to do, then? At this point failing didn’t depress me that much, but in this case I had failed after getting Wilma to draw the art and Lutz’s brothers to carve the woodcut. It would be hard to tell them that it didn’t work out and to ask for their help in the future without any guarantees that I would succeed. 

“What’s on your mind?” Lutz finished cleaning up and came back. 

“I’m thinking that maybe I should just give up on adding art to the kid’s bible. It’ll still be a book if it has words in it, sooo...” 

“Doesn’t make a difference to me, but uh, can you call it a picture book if it doesn’t have pictures?” 

“No. It would just be a normal book, not a picture book.” 

“Weren’t you all pumped to give your first picture book to your little brother or sister? Something about it being your first gift to them as their older sister?” 

“Oh! You’re right! I can’t compromise here! I need to make an amazing picture book, no matter what!” 

I can’t give up over a single failure or two. I need to move on from woodblock printing and think of something new.