Ascendance of a Bookworm

Volume 6, Extra 2: To be a ‘Gutenberg’

“How’s it going, Gutenberg?”

“Would you stop calling me that?!”

“We need to go now, the third bell is about to ring. Hurry up. Move it, Gutenberg.”

The foreman laughed, completely ignoring my complaints and packed the goods into his bag before shoving the door open.

I trudged behind him with a heavy box that stored the metal letter pieces. Today was the day my Ieherl task was due and I was bringing it over to the Smithing Guild for its evaluation. The others in the workshop sent us off with a polite smile.

“Hey Gutenberg, remember to show off you work well.”

“Enough with the ‘Gutenberg’! My name is Johann!”

“Kekeke. It’s rare for someone to be bestowed a title from their contractor. It’s a huge honour worth bragging about to the guild.”

…Ngh! Why does everyone keep teasing me?!

Because of all the foreman’s teasing, everyone in the guild was calling me ‘Gutenberg’ now. But to be honest, the one who caused this was Myne, my only customer.

Feeling the weight of the box in my arms, my thoughts went back to the title she conferred me this title.

~~~

It all took place on the day I went to the Gilberta Company to show them the completed order.

I would consistently bombard my customers with questions on their orders such that no one was willing to be my customer other than Myne. She was so small and one would doubt that she had been baptized already, you really can’t judge a book by its cover. What was more surprising was that she didn’t act like a small girl with the questions she asked, the blueprints she made and the amount of money she offered.

She made an order with me to make some metal letter blocks. Each block needed to be precise down to its exact measurement, this was an exciting job but an insanely tough one too.

…I hope Lady Myne will be happy with it, I pondered how she would react and pulled down the cloth to reveal the letter blocks inside to my only customer. I shut my eyes and waited for her response to it that would determine my future.

“Amazing…”

Myne’s eyes were glued onto the letter blocks, and they were sparkling with so much excitement. Her skin was very pale, likely because she seldom went out, as such the blushing on her cheeks were much more obvious. She looked like a girl in love as she clutched her hand against her chest and let out a sigh, there was so much depth in her eyes that you wouldn’t expect to see in a young girl.

Her hands trembled as she carefully raised up a letter block and moved it across her small hand. She was treating it as though it was the most precious thing in the world.

…Well, glad to see that she likes them.

I released a sigh of relief at this and Myne’s gaze hardened to give her a more calm and serious look. She picked up another letter block and placed them next to each other on the table, she bent over to look at them at eye-level. She squinted her eyes as she began to check for any differences in their width and height.

D-do they look fine?

I started to get anxious again as I awaited her appraisal.

“They’re perfect! You’re really the incarnation of Gutenberg!”

“Huh?”

“Johann, I dub thee “Gutenberg’!?

…Guten-what?

My jaw went slack as I stared at Myne with an idiotic epression. My impression of her as a fragile little princess, like a carefully raised, pretty flower, was completely shattered at this moment.

Lutz was trying to get Myne to calm down, but there was no containing her. His attempts went ignored as she jumped up onto her chair and began babbling about something with an even more flushed expression.

“But, this marks the start of the printing era! You’re now witnessing a historical moment right now! This is the rebirth of Gutenberg! The first’s given name was Johannes, and from today onwards he will go by the name Johann! What an amazing coincidence! A once-in-a-lifetime encounter! Praise thee gods!”

…Yup, she’s not making sense to me.

I recalled being forced to do this odd pose in the temple during my coming of age ceremony, but I have never seen anyone use this pose and thank the gods in their daily life. Everyone was still stupefied by this, but Myne continued on.

“Gutenberg is a famous craftsman on par with a god, whose work forever reshaped history and the world of books. Johann is, without a doubt, the city’s Gutenberg!”

I hadn’t finished rendering the supposed importance of this title I was given when Myne started calling Benno and Lutz the same way too. It would appear I had earned myself some comrades. But anyways, the main issue at hand was that we needed someone to stop her and save us from this weird atmosphere.

I was sending a meaningful look towards the attendant behind Myne. He had a sort of arrogant looking face. Just then, Myne started posing again and was praying to the Goddess of Wisdom, Metisaura. In the next second, Myne collapse forward, locked into that praying pose with a blissful smile. She felt flat on the ground and the room went into an awkward silence.

“…Ah?! Lady Myne?!”

“Girl, are you okay?!”

“Wh-What on earth?!”

It appeared that only Myne’s servant, the foreman and I had been stunned by this scene. Her attendant ran up to her side to see if she was ok while the foreman and I stood stumped to the ground. Other than us, everyone else just sighed.

“That took a while. I can finally relax again,” Benno said, he hadn’t even shifted from his seat.

Benno, Lutz and the others in the room didn’t even flinch at this.

“Fran, carry her to that bench. She will be returning to the carriage soon anyways.”

“Yes, sire. Please excuse me, Lord Damuel.”

The attendant named Fran lifted up Myne who was still unconscious and carried her to the bench that was next to the fireplace. I was confused as to why he took an extra step to lay a thick and cosy looking blanket over her though. His movements were so quick and precise that it made me assume that they had predicted this to happen.

I hadn’t said a word since because I was too shocked. At that moment, Benno started drumming his fingers on the table.

“Well then, let’s give the goods another look. I’ll take over for Myne since she’s unconscious. Would that be fine?”

“What…? Aren’t you going to help her?”

I shifted my gaze towards the bench where the unconscious Myne laid, completely confused with what we should be doing for the small girl who passed out out of the blue. This situation wasn’t sitting right with me.

“Say something would you, Lutz?”

“I suppose she will come to around sunset. She will probably end up in bed with a fever after this, but that’s her own fault, really.” Lutz said so nonchalantly. It appeared that he was used to Myne’s odd antics.

“How long will she have this fever for?” Fran asked.

“…It all depends on how long she’s going to stay this stirred up. I can’t say for sure since I haven’t seen her this excited before.”

I concluded from their conversation that it wasn’t rare for Myne to pass out. But I still wished that someone had given me a heads up on this, because it felt like my heart had stopped for a split second.

“Well, this order review should be an easy one. It must be spectacular given that it made it’s customer pass out from sheer excitement, huh.”

“You can say that again, she was obviously excited,” the foreman added on. “Please do the appraisal, Benno. But it would be great to know what’s their use.”

The foreman sent his gaze towards the box of letter blocks when the younger attendant of Myne’s jerked as though he remembered something and took out something he had been carrying.

“Let me show it to you. Sister Myne asked me to bring this.”

“What are you planning to do, Gil?”

“Obviously. I’m going to put some ink on them and print stuff. Haha.”

Gil was really excited by this as he whipped out the items he was going to use. He placed a rolling pin, some paper, a bottle of ink and an odd round looking thing onto the table. The rolling pin that Myne had ordered from me was entirely black now. But it wasn’t strange for it be so seeing how Gil was lathering it with ink.

“Sister Myne said that the letter blocks are supposed ot be arranged in the order you want the text to look like on the paper. After that you put on the ink.” Gil explained while simultaneously using the roller to apply the ink onto the letter blocks, dying them from their previously shiny silver to a dense black.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

I jumped up in surprise when Gil started dirtying the letter blocks Myne ordered without her permission, but he ignored me and fixed a paper on top of the letter blocks.

“The real process actually uses a press of sorts to spread the ink onto the paper. Since this just a demonstration of the letter blocks’ use we’ll substitute it with a simplified version,” Gil puffed up his chest in pride. After that he used the flat side of the circular thing to press the paper down, pushing it around in circles. It appeared that I was the only one who was disturbed by this because everyone was glued onto what Gil was doing with an excited look.

“After making sure the ink has been printed on, you can remove the paper and set it aside to dry.”

Gil pulled off the paper to display the lines of clear black letters on it. He continued this again to make an identical copy on a separate paper. Gil broke into a large smile and held out the two sheets of paper for us to see.

…That’s it? I don’t get why this is supposed to be amazing. I only see it as a huge waste of paper, I thought to myself. But after looking at everyone else, it seemed like I was the only one who thought so

Benno, the foreman and Myne’s bodyguard expression turned serious when they saw the paper. Especially Myne’s bodyguard, Samuel. He looked quite shaken by this, he couldn’t stop staring at the two sheets of paper with a grim gaze.

“You made these in such a short period of time?,” he said. “Unbelievable.”

On the other hand, the foreman took some of the clean letter blocks into his hand and arranged them together, saying “Each one of them is a letter so it’s easy for you to rearrange them and print any text you wish to make.”

“Well, Myne said that they were supposed to be much easier to use than making stencils every time,” Lut’s comment made everyone scrunch their eyebrows.

“Myne was right. This is revolutionary. I thought I knew everything about printing, but I hadn’t expected the letters to be this easy to use.”

Benno shook his head with an exasperated voice, “What has this bonehead gotten herself into this time…?”

What Benno said really reflected everyone’s thoughts. Everyone turned their heads simultaneously to look at the knocked out Myne. It seemed like I was the only one out of the loop here. But one thing I knew for sure was that by having Myne as my patron, my life was about to take a huge turn.

“Myne did say that the printing press is currently in production, but it will take some time before she puts things into action, I suppose,” Benno sounded more cheerful this time, but he was shot down by the foreman’s next comment.

“She said is going to place an order with the woodworkers soon, so I suppose that she has a rough blueprint for one. And if she managed to reproduce a detailed blueprint like the one she gave Johann before, we can expect to see a printing press very soon.”

Myne knew how to think out her blueprints and make them precise. This was evident from how she made one for me that had all the details I could ever ask for. If she could make one for the carpentry workshop, making a press won’t take long.

Benno scratched his head.

“That might be true but the full impact of the printing press will take time to materialize. This is the one and only city to have started a plant-based paper workshop, and it hadn’t been long since we made a contract with the Ink Guilt to make the necessary inl. Furthermore, there aren’t enough materials so the speed of production cannot reach its full potential. But wait… the workshops in the other cities will only open up in spring, so I suppose the revolution is close.”

He suddenly turned to glare at me. His reaction had changed so much that it made me freeze.

“Johann, you will go by ‘Gutenberg’ from today onwards. Myne conferred you this title so you have no escape,” Benne spoke with lots of spite.

I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded my head furiously.

This is scaring me. I’ll do whatever she demands of me, so please let me go.

Benno seemed satisfied with my response and nodded back. He clearly heard my inner plea of submission.

“Good.”

… I don’t have any other patrons anyways.

~~~

Thinking about what unfolded at the Gilbert Company made me nibble on my lip in anxiety. Just then the foreman told me that we needed to return there to tell them the guild’s evaluation of the letter blocks.

I flinched when he said this because I thought he had heard my thoughts but I was probably mistaken.

We walked to the Smithing Guild together. The Guild was located in the central district of town, at the square of the town plaza. This square was filled with numerous guilds and the Merchant’s Guild was the largest of them all. To the southwest of the square was for the crafting guilds, ranging from the Smithing Guild, to the Carpentry Guild and the Building Guild. At the northwest was the Tailor’s Guild and the Dyeing Guild and to the south east was the Hotel Guild and the Restaurant Guild. As for the northeast, it was for the Merchant’s Guild and a building soldiers used for discussions.

Spring was back again so the city was back to life with people making trips to and fro the various guilds.

We entered the always busy Smithing Guild. Some were here with the intention to sell the things they had made over winter, while others were here to hand up their Ierhel work. Anyways, the whole place was bustling.

“Sup, Johann. I heard that you found yourself a patron, hm? Congratulations, man.” the receptionist was always worried about me. I was pretty infamous here for not being able to find a patron.

I titled my body back to raise up the box of letter blocks to let him see them.

“Yup, they were well praised by my patron, too. Looks like things are getting better for me.”

Now that I had a patron and they gave the completed order excellent views, I didn’t have to worry about losing my Ieherl job. Though the task still needed to be evaluated by the Smithing Guild, I wasn’t anxious about what they would say because keeping my job secure was the only thing I cared about.

“That’s all you’re going to care about, huh? It’s a shame a talented man like you doesn’t try to be more ambitious,” the receptionist commented.

Everyone around me said the same thing, but I thought otherwise. To be honest, having a bad or good appraisal from the Smithing Guild wasn’t going to help me get more patrons. That was because in the end it was the customers who determined the value of my work, not the workshop or the guild.

The foreman and I made our way upstairs and we ran into a couple of Ieherls. It seemed like they all just had their coming of age ceremony too as they were all carrying on what was likely their Ieherl assignment and they were accompanied by their foreman too.

“Hey, hey, hey, after complaining so much about not being able to find a patron, you still managed to finish your task in the end,” a boy with short and red hair approached me with an aggressive expression.

Since he was here, I guessed that we were similar in age or a year apart. But there was no way for me to confirm that because everyone took different amounts of time to find themselves a patron and to complete their own assignments.

Who was this?

The only times I went out was to get some materials or to deliver orders under my foreman or colleague’s request, other than that I liked to stay cooped up in the workshop. Frankly, I knew very few people. This made the foreman nag at me all the time, he said that my cold attitude was why I had such a hard time finding a patron.

“Who cares what you had to make because mine is definitely better than yours,” the strange boy continued speaking.

I didn’t know how to respond to that, let alone talk to someone I didn’t know. I could only squeeze out a little, “Y-yeah.”

He puffed out a chuckle and walked back to his foreman.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s Zach from the Farde’s Workshop,” my foreman told me.

“He sees you as a rival. I’m sure you know that everyone is competing for the best appraisal, right? Stop acting like an idiot. If someone tries to pick a fued with you, strike them down first!”

I was surprised by what the foreman said. Everyone knew that Farde’s workshop was the most famous and popular smithy in this entire city, if this Zack person was a Ieherl there he must be quite a talented smith.

Hmm. Thinking about it the foreman did say something about there being a talented smith my age.

After the third bell, a few of the guild members walked in to grade our tasks. We walked up to them when they called our names, then we each explained what our patrons ordered, what we did to fulfill it and their review of the final product. Finally, we would present them the order and pass up a physical proof of their review.

“This is quite an order.”

Well, Myne did send in a large order even though we met each other not that long ago. It was quite rare for a patron to send in their orders one after another this fast, and they didn’t order unusual things like Myne did.

“Myne is very pleased with Johann’s work. And she is very detailed with the things she wishes to order,” the foreman chipped into the discussion and showed them a blueprint Myne gave me before. Since every guild member here was a smith too, they could understand how detailed the order was.

“Anyways, who is Myne? I have never heard of her. What does her workshop do?” one of the guild members asked with a confused expression when he saw Myne’s name on the board. It was only then did I realise that I myself didn’t know what workshop my patron ran.

“U-uhm…” I fumbled on my words.

Just then the foreman patted me on the shoulder and gestured to a corner of the board with the appraisal.

“Forewoman Myne has not come of age so Benno from the Gilberta Company is acting as her guardian. You should ask him or the Merchant Guild instead.”

“She is tied with the Gilberta Company?” the employee muttered under his breath. The guild members were definitely impressed when they saw Benno’s signature on the board.

The Gilberta Company was one of the biggest stores in the duchy of Ehrenfest. This wasn’t some old store with a dated history, but one that was constantly developing and increasing their profits every day. Since Myne had their support, it meant that she was quite a big-time patron.

“Ok then, let’s see what you have made,” the guild member said now that they had confirmed the authenticity of my patron. Hearing so, I proceeded to take away the cloth in the box and reveal the contents.

“What on earth are these?”

Ha, I reacted the same way too.

Gil had gone out of his way to demonstrate how the letter blocks worked, but I was still confused why they were an important item. I was sure that no smith could understand their worth when they first looked at it.

“It’s called a letter block. Each of these are made of metal and have a specific letter on them. Johann, tell them more about the order.”

“Yes, foreman. The most crucial part of this order is that each block needs to have the same dimensions. The height needs to be the same so that the top surface is completely flat when they are lined up together. I’ll demonstrate it.”

I selected a few of the letter blocks and arranged them in a row, after that I bent over like what Myne did to see them at eye-level. The other guild members followed me and stared at the letter blocks.

“That’s some precise work right there.”

“I heard that they would shatter apart if they aren’t evenly made.”

They didn’t understand the use of the letter blocks but they knew the level of difficulty of this task. The guild members nodded to express their appreciation of the work and praised me for being able to be this precise.

“The Gilberta Company said that this is going to be a revolutionary piece of invention,” the foreman said. He had reiterated what Benno had said and everyone had mixed reactions to this; some laughed it off, thinking that it was a joke, and some grew nervous as they believed that his claims could be true.

“Johann was dubbed the title of “Gutenberg’ because he made these. Apparently this title is only given to accomplished men and women that have or will leave their mark in history. Johann and the higher-ups of the Gilberta Company have been given this title.” the foreman announced this in a boisterous voice.

Everyone grew excited by this, while I wanted to roll up into a ball and die of embarrassment.

~~~

“So, how was it?” Benno asked.

The foreman and I were back at the Gilberta Company after finishing my appraisal at the Smithing Guild. We were back here to deliver the letter blocks to Myne and to tell them the Smithing Guild’s appraisal of them. We were guided to the same room we were in last time, that’s where we met Benno who asked this.

“Johann received the highest grade. But this was within my expectations because no other apprentice could do such precise work like Johann.”

Myne was my only patron, but I had done so many orders for her and each of them were out-of-this-world and called for high-tech work to be done. Furthermore, they were worth lots of money. Adding on the fact that I was given a title too. Though everyone in the workshop and the foreman was using it to tease me, everyone else saw a title as something very honourable.

But I don’t want this honour!

It was because everyone was going bonkers about my title of “Gutenberg’ that Zach had scored behind me. Frankly, that wasn’t helping me because that made me earn his hatred. He burst into rage when he found out about his placement, saying that this was a mistake because I had such a notorious reputation for not being able to get a patron for forever.

Believe me, Zach. I would gladly hand over this title of “Gutenberg” if possible. I just want to do things for my patron and improve on myself to make that possible, I don’t care for any titles.

“Stop overthinking about this, Johann. It’s important to get a good appraisal,” the foreman patted me on my shoulder as he said this.

Mark nodded at this too.

“Your foreman is right. It’s important for one to maintain a good reputation for the sake of their workshop. As an Ieherl, you should think about what you need to do for your workshop’s future.”

I only really cared about honing my skills that I never once bothered to think about the workshop’s future and its reputation in the Smithing Guild. It would seem that I needed to change my ways if I wanted to do my best as an Ieherl.

“Anyways, merchants and craftsmen have their own sets of value. You can continue focusing on your work, Johann. That itself will help lift our workshop’s reputation. Don’t worry about it, I will take care of the workshop with the others. Continue working on yourself and get yourself another patron as talented as Myne.”

“…Sir.”

Though the foreman always did his best to tease me, he was still a reliable man. This made me tear up and I made an oath to work even harder.

Mark broke into a gentle smile.

“If that’s so, Johann, please take this chance to improve your abilities. These are from Myne,” he held out a stack of paper that was folded. I was careful in opening them up because these were precious blueprints that contained my new task.

“Huh?!”

The blueprints were for different types of letter blocks. Some were blank ones and others were symbols. I clutched onto the paper, I was not ready to go back to those hellish days of making letter blocks again.

“What… what is this?”

“These are additional orders from Myne, she said she would like you to make them if your first order was good. She also mentioned that she would order more versions of different sizes after you’re done with this order.” Mark said, trying his best to sound encouraging.

But that wasn’t making me feel better. He looked like he was smiling because he was glad that someone was taking over some troublesome work.

“Looks like you found yourself a very capable patron, right?”

I felt the foreman slap my shoulder, and the weight of it felt heavier than the entire world. I glared back at him and came into contact with those eyes he always had right before he was going to tease me.

“Your name is going down in history if you manage to finish all of them, Gutenberg~”

“Boss, please stop calling me that!” I complained and clutched onto my head.

“To think I actually looked up to you for a split second. Give me back my feelings!”

Lutz shrugged and said, “Your luck ran out when you met Myne. Stop resisting, Gutenberg.”

“Since you’re the first person she gave the title, you’re the real Gutenberg, Johannm” Benno chipped in with a frown.

That sent a chill down my back. They were all trying to ditch this title and make me suffer alone. I wasn’t going to walk down this path myself… Or more like, I wasn’t going to let my comrades ditch their responsibilities. I knew what I needed to do now.

“Lutz, Mister Benno, we are all Gutenbergs. Please remember that Lady Myne said this herself!”

Benno clicked his tongue and shot me a glare, but I wasn’t going to back down this time.

“You know, I think you would suit the position of the master Gutenberg, Benno. After all you are the wisest and oldest amongst us.”

“Na-ah. Nice try, Johann. But nothing matters because you are the first one to receive the title.”

“Where did that logic come from?!”

In the end, no one wanted to take the position of master Gutenberg. When I brought this up to Myne and suggested that Benno should be the master Gutenberg, she brushed it off with, “Don’t worry. You are all Gutenbergs. It’s an equal position.”

Ahh! I didn’t want that response.

It is said that the historians recorded this moment as the birth of Ehrenfest’s Association of Gutenbergs. They were also known as the students of the Goddess of Wisdom, and would dedicate their entire life to developing printing and spreading books across the world.