Chapter 81: Librarian Ernst (2) - The Librarian of the Unopenable Coffin

#81 Librarian Ernst (2) - The Librarian of the Unopenable Coffin

East of Aldridge.

Even as she walked toward the Unopenable Coffin, Eris harbored doubts.

‘But why would a trading company build something like a library?’

At least in Eris’s view, a library was not a facility suited to making money.

Books themselves were expensive, so simply buying them and stocking them required a considerable amount of seed money, and there was hardly any way to recoup that cost besides charging an admission fee just to enter the library.

Lend books out and charge a rental fee?

‘Nobles would rather just buy books than feel miserly borrowing them cheaply, and ordinary commoners usually don’t have the credit. Even if they don’t intend to steal it themselves, there’s a high chance they won’t be able to properly compensate for losses if someone else steals the book or damages it.’

Thus, in most countries, a “library” was either attached as a supplementary facility to an educational institution, or else a noble or wealthy person would open their private library to the public.

In other words, it wasn’t the sort of field a merchant company, which valued profit above all else, should be getting involved in...