The Otherworld Antique Bookstore is a Life-Risk Chapter 18

 

Chapter 18: Not Enough Books

 

After finishing the inventory reorganization of the main store in the royal capital, which is set to reopen as "Rabbit’s Used Books store," we realized that we have an extremely small stock of picture books and entertainment books, which are meant to be our main products going forward. We didn't even have any picture books at all.

So, Bergana taught me how to order books from the labyrinth's book management area. The method is surprisingly simple. Apparently, all you need to do is place a piece of paper on the floor of the used book warehouse with "200 children's picture books," "2000 adventure and entertainment books," and "500 romance novels" written on it. After waiting a day, those books will be stacked in the warehouse. However, Bergana has hardly ever ordered books before and just says, "It should work." I wonder if it'll be okay.

I also asked where the books in the book management area come from. The butler, Yuke, is knowledgeable about books and knows quite a bit about the inventory in the book management area. Apparently, most of them are discarded books from the Royal Library in the castle and the Royal Academy Library, amounting to about 300 years' worth. Many of them are in book form but are more like researchers' and scholars' notes, and some even include poetry collections written by academy students. Recently, there's been an increase in surplus books sent from the chain stores that started in the neighboring kingdom of Saphio twenty years ago and have now grown to twenty stores.

I learned for the first time that day that Yuke is quite the bookworm, and when he showed me his room, the wall-to-wall bookshelves were impressive. If he had told me earlier, I would have been immersed in reading there.

"All of my books are the latest popular ones, quickly procured through requests to the Imperial Bookstore in the noble district. I don't think there are many households with such a collection," Yuke explained.

So, if I look at the books on these shelves, I should be able to see what's currently popular, right? Let's see. However, the book I picked up was published nearly a hundred years ago. It seems that in the imperial capital, books are published more frequently, but the speed of book distribution in this world is extremely slow. Books slowly spread from the empire eastward to the south, finally reaching here in the Kingdom of Calito. Because of this, bestsellers in this world can continue for hundreds of years.

I also noticed that there were many books by the same author. "That's Ayame Ougi. I'm a fan of hers. This is her representative work," Yuke showed me a book titled "Why Don't People Give Their Best?" Somehow, it sounds like a title I've heard somewhere before.

"This book is read as a bible by knight orders in various countries, considered an immortal masterpiece with many inspiring quotes," Yuke explained.

 

"Is the reason for this book's popularity that it has large, easy-to-read text?" I asked.

"Lady Yuki, you're well-informed," Yuke replied.

He also showed me "Bring It On, Super Magic" for court magicians. Other works by Ayame Ougi on the shelves included titles like "The Baron Who Can't Get Married," "Here Comes the Fashionable One," "Silver Fang Hero Legend," "Rock Dome," and "That Time I Reincarnated as a Slum Boy"... At this point, I can guess that this person is probably someone summoned from another world who made a fortune by remaking stories from their original world.

Thinking that there were people like this, not just heroes, made me curious about the origins of books in this world. "Yuke, do you have any books here that explain the beginnings of publishing?" I asked.

"I don't read history books, but I believe there's a brief description about a book burning incident that occurred in the empire," Yuke replied.

Yuke showed me a small passage of about two pages in a book.

Apparently, the empire summoned a large number of people from other worlds 500 years ago, and not all of them were suited for combat. Among them was a group of skilled artists who caused what's known as the book burning incident. These artists created hand-drawn picture books and developed bookbinding and printing techniques using paper instead of the previous parchment methods. The "Imperial Publishing" was established as the creative source and "Imperial Bookstore" as the sales outlet to spread their culture.

The problem was the content of these picture books. Their thin picture books specialized in "male-male relationships" and "nude drawings of beast people and demi-humans." These spread secretly among imperial nobles as "dark art." The emperor of the time, who advocated human supremacy, saw the spread of demi-human art as a moral decay and harshly suppressed it. He confiscated the Imperial Publishing and Imperial Bookstore, arrested and executed all those involved, and collected and burned all the picture books hidden by the nobles in exchange for pardoning their crimes, erasing everything from this world.

In other words, it seems that a group of otaku summoned from another world caused trouble with their Comic Market-like behavior and incurred the emperor's wrath. They probably saw real beast people and demi-humans who were subjugated in this new world and were driven by the urge to draw them, but this was the result of acting on their original world's sensibilities without considering the current situation. I should learn from this as a cautionary tale.

Looking at the books here, I felt that all the stories portrayed humans as good and everything else as evil. Even fantasy mermaids, typically idols, were objects of aversion. As expected of empire-supervised books. I don't want to stock only these kinds of books in my store just because they're popular.

I actually tried ordering books from the book management area, and indeed, nearly 3,000 books were stacked in the used book warehouse in the warehouse district. The papers requesting entertainment books and romance novels both had large circle marks, but the one for picture books had a big X on it. When I counted, there were only 100 picture books, half of what I ordered.

I checked a few books to see if they matched the order, and they all did. Isn't this the capability of an AI and robot-managed warehouse? The undead in the book management area are amazing. But if this is all they could manage even with their full capabilities, we're in trouble. What should we do?

Bergana told me to "just ask Tubai about that," but Tubai is currently on leave and won't be coming to the store for a while.

The main store in the royal capital has been bustling with activity for days now, with craftsmen coming in to increase the number of bookshelves, renovate the third-floor employee rooms, and move in furniture. We're also building large women's restrooms as a customer attraction in the empty lot behind the store, and I've even ordered employee bathing spaces. Money is flying out like water. Just four large mirrors for the women's restrooms and employee rooms nearly made my eyes pop out.

Until these renovations are complete, there's no work for Tubai and the orphanage children who help with carrying loads, so they're on a break. The remaining female employees come to work every day, studying advanced arithmetic and practicing customer service in a corner of the basement warehouse from morning.

I believe that for elementary school math (in terms of my previous life), repeated practice is the most effective. So I'm having everyone solve calculation drills I've created for arithmetic. I also taught them to recite multiplication tables, which was well-received as "it's good to be able to memorize it like a song." A competition has spontaneously started among them to see who can recite up to the nine times table the fastest.

For customer service, we're currently focusing on cashier duties involving money transactions. It may seem simple, but it's actually a job with heavy responsibility and can be mentally taxing for those not used to it. I've actually seen a colleague faint and convulse on the floor during cashier training, so we're making sure to prepare thoroughly to prevent such incidents.

At noon, all the women go to the market to buy food, and at two o'clock, we all prepare meals to serve the craftsmen during their break. With Natalia and Flam as teachers, Nagi, Fuyu, and Meel are studying cooking. Nagi and Fuyu, who will be living in, will need to cook for themselves from now on. Delivering the prepared meals and water to the craftsmen is also good customer service experience, as it involves interacting and conversing with people of different ages.

In this way, the store preparations are progressing steadily.

All that's left now is the completion of the witch's toilet and securing picture books. The only thing I can do is work on getting those picture books.

If you like what I do, Please consider donating to my Kofi Page

Join the Discord Here