Let's Try Making a Picture Book

――The next day.

After Bell the Forest Cat went out on its morning patrol, I ate breakfast.

It was the usual soup and bread. I thought it would be a bad idea to give Anemone food from my original world, but...

But she enjoyed it, so I kept giving it to her.

This was our second day here, but everything seemed to be going smoothly.

I had worried that our monster encounter rate might be extremely high—like, "Monster encounter rate: extremely high!"—but that had been needless anxiety.

Today, I decided to install the solar panels.

But Anemone was going to study Japanese at home so she could read picture books. She must have really liked them.

So I went outside alone to install the panels without disturbing her.

First, I checked the direction with a compass. They had to be set up facing south, after all.

"Ah, so that's south..."

I had assumed the lakeside, with the waterfall straight ahead, was south, but apparently the side where the house stood, parallel to the river, was south—the opposite bank was north.

No wonder the sun set beyond the lake.

When I left Dalia, I had set out heading north, but the highway had twisted and turned so much that it seemed to have thrown off my sense of direction.

The cliff's shadow fell over us in the morning, but we soon had sunlight. As planned, I installed ten solar panels on the gentle slope.

But these things really stood out...

I bought camouflage netting from Shangri-La and tried enclosing the north and west sides of the panels.

"Hmm, better than nothing."

It looked unnatural, but it was better than leaving the metal panels and frames exposed.

I immediately took a mobile battery out of my Item Box and began charging it.

"All that's left is the toilet and bath..."

I took the bath and toilet out of my Item Box.

There was plenty of water here, after all. No need to dig a well.

I had planned to build a shed over the bridge and make a flush toilet, but instead I used the old toilet and decided to make compost again.

We had plenty of dried grass from mowing too. Recycling it into compost felt more like slow life.

But wastewater would be purified with a water stone before being discharged into the river.

The house, bath, and toilet were arranged almost exactly as they had been when I built them in the forest.

The fence was all that remained, but I would put it up little by little.

I'd had a hard time building the fence before, but now I had the engine drill I'd bought for the well.

I could use it to dig postholes and put the posts in. Since I wouldn't be using it anymore, I wondered if it would just become Item Box fodder—but the drill was surprisingly useful.

While I was adjusting the toilet's installation, the bushes on the right side of the house, hidden in the shadow of the dark forest, began rustling.

"What's that?"

I took the crossbow out of my Item Box. The bolt was already loaded.

"Heeey! Bell?"

I slowly approached with the crossbow at the ready.

"Myaaaaaaao!"

"Waaaaaaaah!"

A black creature suddenly sprang at me. I nearly fired the crossbow, but a familiar voice made me take my finger off the trigger.

"That was awful!"

The one who had leaped at me was Myaree, a beastfolk woman wearing black fur with a bow slung across her back.

"You?! I nearly shot you with my crossbow—or rather, my bolt launcher!"

"That was awful! How could you disappear without saying anything?!"

"How did you find this place?"

"I followed the smell, nya. The strange oil Kenichi uses, and the Forest Cat's scent, nya."

The oil must have been the reformed white kerosene I used instead of diesel, or the premixed fuel for the motorcycle.

"Huh? Seriously? If that's all it takes to track someone down, there's no escaping beastfolk!"

"I never let my chosen prey escape, nya~"

Myaree's eyes glinted.

"What if I walked down the river forever?"

"If you ran upstream or downstream, you'd definitely have to come ashore eventually, nya. Then I could just follow you again, nya."

I'd thought she wouldn't be able to track my scent through the water, but she really was a hunting expert. An animal might be able to shake her that way, but beastfolk had brains too.

They weren't easy to escape. They weren't good at arithmetic or reading and writing, but it was as if they had put all their points into hunting and combat.

"I suppose... Now get off me."

"By the way, who's Bell, nya? Is she another new woman, nya?"

"What do you mean, 'another'? That's the Forest Cat's name."

"Oh, I see, nya."

I hadn't expected her sense of smell to be that keen. It really wasn't wise to make an enemy of a beastfolk.

If I really wanted to get away, I would have to wipe out anyone pursuing me.

She was holding prey in her hand—a bird.

"I caught it on the way here, nya."

"Myaree, I understand that you followed me, but what are you going to do now?"

"Obviously, I'm going to live with you, Kenichi, nya."

"Is that already decided...? What happened to the beastfolk men who were with you?"

"I'm tired of taking care of those guys, nya! From now on, Kenichi can take care of me, nya!"

Apparently, whenever the men got drunk and caused some sort of trouble, she had to clean up after them. She had grown sick of it.

"Fine—but pay for your own food. Also, I might ask you to run errands in the city of Astrantia, all right?"

"Leave it to me, nya!"

From here, Astrantia was probably about six kilometers away in a straight line, judging by what I'd seen with the drone.

A beastfolk could run at around thirty kilometers per hour, so she could get there in twelve minutes.

If she took the route along the cliff where the forest was thinner, there should be fewer monsters—but she knew the area better than I did.

"Myaree, can you field-dress four-legged beasts?"

"I can field-dress them, nya."

By that, she meant removing the entrails and cooling the meat with water or something similar. Otherwise, the meat would spoil.

"Then we'll eat the bird, and I'll put the field-dressed beasts in my Item Box. When we go to the city, we can take them all to the guild at once."

"Got it, nya~"

Myaree was delighted, but she was surprised when she saw the house I'd moved here.

"You already built a house, nya?!"

"I took out the house I'd stored in my Item Box."

"You can do that too, nya?!"

"Apparently I can."

As soon as Myaree arrived, the commotion outside made Anemone come out to see what was happening.

"Oh, Myaree's here."

"Myaa—Anemone's here too, nya!"

The two of them got along well. Myaree ran around with Anemone perched on her shoulder, and they looked like sisters.

"Hey! I'm going inside!"

"Okay!" "Myaa!"

Inside the house, I took a canned cola out of my Item Box and drank it. I'd put it in the Item Box after cooling it in the portable refrigerator, so it was still cold.

Anemone's picture book lay on the table.

"A picture book... I have a mimeograph and straw paper, so even I can make books. Books are rare in this world, so even thin books should sell."

I don't mean that kind of "thin book," okay?

While I was looking at the picture book, Anemone and Myaree came inside.

"What's that, nya?"

"It's a picture book."

"Myaa! The pictures are so beautiful, nya! Even if you can't read, you can understand it, nya!"

Apparently, even beastfolk understood moe-style art. That was an unexpected discovery.

"I see. A lot of people can't read, so picture books might be a good idea."

But adapting fairy tales from my original world into picture books... What would be a good subject...?

"Aren't there any folktales from around here?"

"There are! The story of Forest Elf-sama."

According to the story, a human man and an elf woman fell in love despite the divide between their races.

Was it something like The Little Mermaid from my original world? Stories like this really were universal classics.

It sounded interesting, so I decided to make a picture book of about twelve pages, including the cover, drawing one or two pages a day and printing them with the mimeograph.

Since I could make many copies of the same book with a mimeograph, I thought I'd make around ten. As for the price—one small square silver coin per book (5,000 yen) seemed about right.

Ten books would earn 50,000 yen, and a hundred would earn 500,000 yen. It might become a source of regular income.

I'd made a school anthology with a mimeograph when I was in elementary school, so based on that experience, I should be able to print fifty or a hundred sheets.

Old school test papers had been made with mimeographs and straw paper too. I thought photocopiers had already begun spreading by then, but my school still used mimeographed copies.

That might simply have been because we lived in the middle of nowhere.

Even so, once everyone began using photocopiers, the companies making mimeograph equipment withdrew one after another, and mimeographs disappeared in no time.

I might have been part of the last generation to use one.

Leaving mimeographs aside—even a book priced at one small square silver coin shouldn't be too expensive for ordinary people to afford.

Still, if I wanted guaranteed sales, erotic books would be a better choice.

They would definitely sell for more. But there were ethical concerns, and in a world where that sort of thing was out of bounds, getting arrested for violating public morals would be bad.

Still, judging by what the old manuscript seller who had been one of my regular customers told me, erotic material was popular even in expensive books.

Well, there was no need to take unnecessary risks.

If I got arrested, Anemone would be left with nowhere to go.

------◇◇◇------

After that, I used my spare time, between building the fence around the house and tending the field, to draw the picture-book manuscript.

I managed about two pages a day, but as a former professional illustrator, this was easy for me.

The straw paper I'd planned to use at first was A4-sized, but books in this world were somewhat smaller, perhaps to save paper.

I switched to B5 to match them and bought new straw paper from Shangri-La. It was the same size as the notebooks used in schools.

While drawing, I also read through the ebook about biodiesel fuel and gained a rough understanding of the subject.

Simply put, you add alkali and alcohol to salad oil or something similar, causing a reaction called transesterification that separates out the components that diesel fuel doesn't need.

I searched Shangri-La, and it sold both the alkali and the alcohol I needed.

The chemicals were powerful, so I had to be careful, but apparently I could make it myself with simple equipment.

I had no choice but to do it.

Once I finished the picture book, biodiesel fuel would be next.

If it worked, my diesel machinery would be that much more useful!

The picture-book manuscript was finished, so I decided to print it.

After dinner, I lit the LED lantern in the room. The solar panels had started working, so we had electricity now.

I took the mimeograph equipment out of my Item Box.

"Are you drawing something on paper again?"

"Remember the pictures I was drawing? I'm transferring them onto paper."

I'd previously used the mimeograph to make textbooks for teaching the women to read, write, and do arithmetic in the forest, and Anemone had watched me do it.

"Wow!"

At my words about making a book, Anemone's eyes sparkled.

"Kenichi, you can make books, nya?"

"Yeah."

"Amazing! Kenichi can make anything, nya~!"

"It's not like I can make absolutely anything..."

I applied ink to the printing screen and spread it with the roller. Then I raised the screen...

"Here."

I showed Anemone the cover of the freshly printed picture book.

"Amaaazing!"

I wanted to make ten copies for now, so I printed the same picture ten times.

"I want one too."

"Then that's eleven..."

"I want one too, nya!"

"You don't mind even if you can't read?"

"There are pictures, so I can understand the story, nya~!"

"I see... Then I'll print twelve."

I applied ink, spread it with the roller, and raised the screen. The process was simple.

"I want to try too!"

"Sure. It's easy."

I let her try one; she handled it without trouble, so I had her print them one after another. She seemed to be having fun.

"Amazing! It makes lots of identical copies!"

"Twelve of each. Once you're done, switch to the next picture."

"Okay!"

Anemone was having so much fun that I gave her the day off from studying and decided to print the entire book.

I was making twelve copies for now, but as long as I had the master, I could keep printing until it wore out.

As the number of copies increased, the print would gradually become blurred. Once that happened, the master had reached the end of its life.

Ideally, I would buy a computer, lay out the pages with Illu○trator or something similar, create a font for this world, and print everything with a printer. It would look much cleaner that way.

But that would be missing the point. The handmade feel was part of the charm.

If I wanted to improve the print quality and reliably increase the number of copies, I could use copperplate printing instead.

I'd already had experience with copperplate printing in my high school's art club, so that wouldn't be a problem.

When I searched Shangri-La for copperplate-printing equipment, I found a kit with a mini press for 100,000 yen.

They really sold everything. I was genuinely impressed, and I couldn't help laughing.

"Why are you grinning, nya? Are you thinking about some woman, nya?"

"No, it's nothing. There aren't any women—anyway, it's late, so let's go to bed. Tomorrow, we'll turn this into a book."

"I'm not sleepy yet."

――Even as she said that, Anemone's eyes were already closing. Of course they were—it was well past her usual bedtime.

"No, no. Tomorrow. Besides, you've gotten dirty, so we need to wash your hands in the river."

"Okay..."

Perhaps because she'd been absorbed in printing, Anemone had ink all over her. I wondered if soap would get it off.

I took the LED lantern and went outside into the darkness. The sky overhead was filled with stars.

In the forest, the trees had blocked the view, and we could see the stars only directly overhead. Here, we could look out in every direction.

The cliff with the waterfall was the only place casting a shadow, so nearly the entire sky was visible.

Stargazing here would be nice too. But I didn't recognize any of the constellations. This really wasn't Earth, after all.

It was a little shocking to be confronted with reality again, but there was no point worrying about it now. Home was wherever you made it, and we could live a life suited to this place.

After all, we had the cheat that was Shangri-La.

It might have seemed like a dream, but no, this wasn't a dream. This was reality.

I gave Anemone some soap and had her wash her hands.

But while washing her hands, she began nodding off.

"Whoa! Careful! What if you fall into the river?"

When I pulled her away from the river, Anemone hugged me. Apparently, she'd reached the limit of her sleepiness.

I carried Anemone into the house with the lantern in my hand.

"Did she fall asleep, nya?"

"Yeah."

There was no helping it. I undressed her and changed her into pajamas. When I looked at Anemone's hands, the ink still hadn't come off...

I took some alcohol out of my Item Box and wiped them with it as a test. They came clean.

"We should go to sleep too."

"Myaa!"

Myaree took off her clothes and got naked—apparently, she intended to sleep with us too. Bell came along as well, naturally.

A double bed was cramped enough with three people and one Forest Cat...

What should I do?

As I wondered that, Myaree hugged me.

"Kenichi..."

"Hey, Anemone's right beside us, so no."

"She's asleep, so it's fine, nya."

"You'd be surprised. Kids sometimes stay awake at times like this."

"My dad and mom used to do it right beside me too, nya."

"That's why I said no!"

What if I gave her some weird trauma? It wouldn't be good for a child's mental health.

While we were arguing, the Forest Cat slipped in between Myaree and me.

Since Forest Cats were divine messengers to beastfolk, Myaree couldn't treat the cat harshly and obediently backed down.

Honestly. Beastfolk were far too direct about their urges.

Apparently, humans couldn't have children with beastfolk, either—which meant mixed-blood children were impossible.

I didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.