Published: August 3, 2025
“Gil, Lutz, please print this on the back side of the program.”
The day after meeting Tulli, although my heart felt fulfilled, the loneliness grew stronger, so I clung closely to Lutz in the secret room.
Gil and Darmel were here. I handed over the plate made by Wilma and placed an order at the workshop.
“How many copies are you printing?”
“Well, we’re preparing for 30 seats… so aiming for each person to buy one for viewing, one for preservation, and one for spreading the word, that’s about 90 copies?”
“Huh!? That’s way too many!”
Lutz looked down at me with an incredulous voice. He said it was too many, but I thought it would be fine to print a bit more. Just a hunch, though.
“If the waxed base paper isn’t finished, these will be the only printed materials available at the concert, and I’m sure they’ll definitely sell.”
“Do you have any basis for that? Otherwise, it’ll just be a waste.”
Lutz glared at me with the same mercantile eyes that Benno often had, not allowing me to waste money. While I felt proud of Lutz’s steady growth as a merchant, I presented my reasoning.
“The enthusiasm of Wilma and the others is the basis. I think people who couldn’t come to the concert will want them later, and even if some remain, since this will be the first printed material made with letterpress printing, their price and value will skyrocket in a few decades or maybe a hundred years from now. So it’s fine.”
“Decades from now!? That’s no basis at all!”
It was solid reasoning in my mind, but apparently Lutz couldn’t understand it. Still, I pushed through with 90 copies.
“90 copies, or better yet, 100 copies in one go. Either one, please.”
“Why does it have to increase!?”
I got scolded, but personally, I thought even 100 was too few. Seeing my unwillingness to concede, Gil patted Lutz on the shoulder.
“Lutz, it’s no use trying to persuade Lady Rosemine right now.”
“I know. Just saying it anyway.”
Today was Darmel’s day off, so we couldn’t enter the secret room at the orphanage or the workshop. So I went to the high priest’s room with Fran and Brigitte to help with work.
To be precise, since I had mostly delegated my duties as head priest to the high priest, I was only doing a little of the work that I was supposed to do myself.
“…It looks like expenses have decreased significantly from spring to summer. Income has dropped a bit too.”
“That’s because the head priest changed.”
The high priest naturally explained the reason, but could the change of head priest alone make such a difference?
“…What exactly was that head priest spending money on?”
“He was someone who couldn’t distinguish between temple funds and his own money. I don’t know all of the secretly spent amounts without reports either.”
The high priest shrugged lightly after answering. It seemed he had only been managing the temple’s money for about two years. When he took over from his predecessor who went to the capital, the situation was so terrible he felt dizzy.
The azure priest who grew up in the temple and handled everything loosely and the high priest who studied at the noble academy and worked as the lord’s right hand must have a huge gap in many things.
“…That’s tough.”
“You’ll make the budget clearer and more precise while you’re head priest.”
At that moment, an ordnance flew in through the window. It flapped its wings noisily, circled the room, and landed on the high priest’s desk.
“This is Lamprecht from Ferdinand. I apologize, but I’d like to request a meeting with Lady Rosemine. There’s something I want to discuss regarding Lord Wilfried.”
After announcing it three times in Lamprecht’s voice, the ordnance reverted from a bird to a mana stone.
Communication among nobles uses this ordnance. Once you enter the noble academy, you can use it within a year at most. It’s quite simple.
However, since I left my family before entering the noble academy, contact is made through my guardian, the high priest.