WMFW 11 - Big Profit!

At the end of the day, William returned to the castle with a radiant expression.

When Raphael told him to go into his room, William saw some sketches of drawings on the table and became extremely curious, but controlling himself, he began to report excitedly.

"Young Master, the store opening was a success! Of the 15 units available for sale, all were sold! What's more, people loved the Tea and Biscuits you invented, resulting in 200 portions sold throughout the day! Adding up the 180 silver coins from the book sales with the 20 silver coins from the tea and cookies, today we had a turnover of 2 gold coins!" William said excitedly.

Looking at the old man reacting like that, even Raphael cracked a big, excited smile.

'With today's store sales, two thirds of the money wasted buying [The Great Argon Warrior III!] has already been recovered! Even if sales drop as the novelty wears off, it will still be possible to earn enough money to support myself without relying on income from the territory's taxes. Raphael thought with relief.

Ever since he had come to this world, this had been the biggest worry he had felt, and knowing that it had already been dealt with made his heart much lighter.

“All right, William, now we just need to keep the store running and we'll have a great source of guaranteed income!” Raphael said excitedly as he smiled at the trusty butler.

William then began to go through the details of how the store had operated today, how people had reacted, but one big detail frustrated Raphael.

“And since a large part of the population is illiterate, even though many people were interested in the images, there was still a lot of resistance, even among those who had money, to buying the book, since they wouldn't know how to read it.” William said a little frustrated.

This was a problem that Raphael had already imagined he would have, but not one that was so blatant that many people would stop buying picture books.

He imagined that just by having pictures he had already managed to win these people over, but even if that was true for a proportion of them, there was still a large target audience that he was missing out on.

‘What could I do to deal with this problem?’ Raphael began to think. ‘Creating schools would be a long-term solution, but I doubt that adults who have never had to learn to read would go to school just because they wanted to buy a book...’

The problem with adults was that they were already used to their lifestyle, for someone who had never had to learn anything, it wouldn't be until they were old that they would want to dedicate themselves to learning it, so Raphael realized that he would need to think of a way to teach adults without them realizing that they were being taught, or something that would encourage them to want to buy books even though they couldn't read...

“What were these people you're talking about like?” Raphael asked, wanting to get a better idea of the profile he would have to deal with.

William thought for a moment and answered a little uncertainly. “Most of the people who weren't very interested in the book and the story were men, men aged 25 and over who already had jobs and families...”

Hearing this, Raphael nodded, thinking it made sense that this would be the profile of people uninterested in the book.

Looking at the scattered drawings and the original [Hansel and Gretel] book on the corner of the table, Raphael realized that this story, despite being very interesting for women, children, or more empathetic men, for older, brutish and rustic men, despite being beautiful, was still very silly...

'To win these men over, I'll need a story that makes their blood boil, something they'll hear their friends talking about and want to be a part of too... but for a story like that, I'd need a lot more pages... it would be a much more laborious process than [Hansel and Gretel]... Not to mention that it would still have to be simple enough for them to understand even without the dialogue.' Raphael thought intently.

The problem was that this still wouldn't solve the problem of illiteracy immediately... but Raphael decided to brainstorm about it.

What Raphael didn't know was that one of the copies of [Hansel and Gretel] had been sold to a man who, unbeknownst to him, would be of great help to the young author.

- A few hours earlier -

Joel climbed down from the cart slowly, adjusting the weight of his dark overcoat as he looked suspiciously at the movement in front of the small store that had just opened.

Valenford was a modest rest stop on his route between really important towns. A village with the smell of damp wood and crushed grass, where the biggest news of the year had been the repair of the stone bridge to the north and a small adjustment to the road to the neighboring village.

He had arrived in town early, even before the church bell rang once after lunch, and had already heard the gossip in the stable where he had left the horses.

“They say the baron wrote the book himself... that it's a magical story about two children facing a goblin witch in a candy house...”

“My son cried when he heard the ending!”

“Even the blacksmith bought one just for his daughter!”

Joel, a man in his forties with a close-cropped beard and eyes as sharp as polished copper blades, listened in silence, only snorting once or twice with disdain.

“Uneducated plebs...” he thought. He thought. "They've never seen a real Edrion manuscript, or Thorne's enchanted tapestries. They're thrilled by any scribble with more than two colors."

Even so, his curiosity grew the more he thought about it.

A story written by a young baron in a village like this, causing a stir? That could just be collective ignorance... but as he had nothing better to do while the horses rested and the men ate, he decided to take a look.

Outside the store, Joel saw the name [Raphael's Ink] and remembered that the baron of this place had become Raphael Von Kaelen, the useless third son of Marquis Leonel Von Kaelen.

‘So this book was written by the useless boy who was expelled from Averclyne?’ Joel thought, further diminishing the hopes he had for this ‘work’.

When he finally entered the store, he smelled the comforting scent of tea and fresh butter. Sunlight filtered through the translucent curtains, falling directly on the sample copy positioned on a dark wooden stand.

‘At least the decor here was well planned...’ he thought with satisfaction.

Joel waited for the people pretending to know how to read the book to leave, and approached the book in the center with half-closed eyes, prepared to find a shallow narrative, written in crooked letters and childish drawings. But as soon as he turned the first page, he froze.

The line was clean, expressive... the eyes of the children in the illustration seemed almost alive, there was pain, hope and tenderness there.

Looking around and noticing a few copies of this book on the store shelves, all of the same quality, Joel was even more surprised.

'How did this kid manage to copy these books with such quality?! Did he use magic to do it? If he has such a talent for magic, why was he called useless? He asked himself in confusion.

Then he read the first page, then the second. At first, his eyes searched for flaws... then they began to look for what would come next.

The next thing he knew, he was standing with the book open to the last page, completely engrossed.

The story was simple at first glance, but it had a raw emotion that he had never seen before, even though he had read hundreds of books.

The words here didn't try to impress by pushing far-fetched words that nobles loved to use... it just told what really happened! And that made it all the more effective.

The images on each page, rather than detracting from the reading experience, complemented everything by giving it an incredible immersion that Joel never expected to feel in something found in such a small town.

So Joel closed the book slowly, remaining silent for a moment, then walked up to the counter where a young girl was attending to him with a kind smile, being watched by an old butler.

“I want to buy a copy.” He said, without looking at anyone.

The girl bowed discreetly. "Certainly, sir. We only have three copies left in stock today."

Joel was surprised for a moment, but added. “Just pack it well, it's going with me to Draennford.”

As he received the carefully wrapped package, he took one last look at the sample copy on the table.

“That boy...” he muttered quietly. “Looks like he's not as useless as the rumors say...”

And with that, he returned to his caravan wagon.

Initially he had intended to leave the book in storage until he reached Draennford, but feeling that time was taking its toll, Joel couldn't resist opening the package and reading and re-reading the story again.

Sometimes analyzing the story itself, other times just looking at every detail of the drawings on the pages.

When the men arrived to return to their journey, they too became curious about it.

When they finally arrived in Draennford at the end of the day, Joel had already read that book dozens of times and without him realizing it, when he arrived at the house of his friend, Baron Davy Abamond, he was still holding [Hansel and Gretel], something that didn't go unnoticed by the sharp eyes of the baron and his daughter.