The Author Negotiates
I hummed thoughtfully. “Hmm. Then shall I try to resolve this? But if it works out, what happens to those slaves?”
“Ah, we were planning to expand anyway, so there’s no chance we’d cut them loose or anything like that.”
Right. So that’s how it is. Then there’s no problem.
“Understood. I’ll handle it.”
“Are you truly confident? You’re not a full-time employee of the publishing house, so there might be some issues since you’re an author.”
“I’ll take care of it myself.”
Honestly, it was probably better for an outsider to handle this rather than someone from the company. Just as Jerry said, I wasn’t a regular employee. Even though I was an author, I was still an outsider. So negotiating on their behalf didn’t seem like a bad idea.
That’s what I thought at first. I never assumed it would be easy, but I figured I’d give it my best shot.
“Sigh.”
I looked at the mages sitting across from me at the negotiation table and let out a heavy breath.
“Our resolve is firm!”
“A strike when things are going so well? Don’t you think that’s too much?”
“If you raise our daily wage by forty thousand rinos, we’ll consider continuing!”
These people were impossible to talk to. Their ages ranged from around my own to the mid-thirties at most. Hmm, how should I approach this?
They’d thrown the first punch, so I decided to counter with logic.
“Listen, excluding nobles and bureaucrats, the average wage in the royal capital is 1.2 million rinos. You’re already receiving sixty thousand rinos per day.”
“We are highly skilled professionals! We formally demand a forty-thousand-rino increase!!”
If this was what they considered formal, there would be no such thing as war in this world. Even the notoriously stubborn British from my previous life weren’t this bad. Or… maybe they were? Anyway.
They were acting like thugs while demanding the moon. Really, they were asking for far too much right now. For a brief moment, I regretted coming here. I hated to say it, but I even wondered if the fact that this body was female was making them raise their voices like this.
Oh well. If they wanted to play dirty, I could play dirty too.
I crossed my legs and glared at these utterly wicked mages.
“Highly skilled professionals, you say. Isn’t that why we’re already paying you sixty thousand rinos?”
“We have endured grueling labor until now! Such a demand is only natural! Forty thousand rinos increase!”
They were practically shouting at the top of their lungs.
“You literally just threw the number out there. What are you even—”
“Ahem! In any case, with the current shortage of mages, it would be quite troublesome if we left as well. Don’t you agree?”
Ah. So that’s what they were counting on. They knew the company was short on mages, so they were going all-in, betting that we’d have no choice but to fold. But I had my own ideas.
“Unfortunately, a wage increase is impossible.”
“Forty thousand rinos!”
These people were seriously frustrating. Hmm? Wait a second. Did I really need to play nice here?
If the other side was going to be this shameless, maybe I should match their energy. In negotiations like this, the loudest and most shameless person usually wins.
Alright. Time to push hard.
First, I should give them one last chance. That way, I could say I tried everything. But since they were acting like this, I had no choice.
“No. There will be no wage increase whatsoever.”
“Then we refuse to work!”
Right. If that’s how they wanted to play, then fine.
“In that case, it looks like we’ll have to lower it to fifty thousand rinos.”
“Fifty thousand rinos increase?”
“I mean we’re cutting your wages. You’re already getting sixty thousand and you’re still this greedy? Tsk tsk.”
Even cutting it to fifty thousand still seemed like a lot. Wasn’t that still well above the average wage? Fine. If they wanted to go all out, I could go all out too. I’d be shameless—extremely shameless—and crush them completely.
“Then we demand a fifty thousand rino increase!”
“Reduced to forty thousand rinos. Do whatever you want.”
“Hmph. If you do this, won’t the publishing house be the one in trouble?”
The publishing house would be in trouble, huh? At first glance, that might seem true.
“Then I suppose I have no choice either.”
“Hmph. What can a mere woman possibly do?”
Aha. So that’s it. They really did see me as just an ordinary woman. In that case, there was no avoiding a proper exchange of blows.
“For starters, I am an author who publishes works through Fortmus. In other words, a novelist.”
“A novelist? Hmph, so you’re just another woman churning out mass-produced romance novels? Are you toying with us because you want to get published that badly?”
These guys snorted at me mockingly. I was speechless. After all, wasn’t this their own fault? They were the ones who messed up first.
“My work happens to be a favorite of His Majesty, so it even enters the royal palace.”
“Your work enters the royal palace? That’s ridiculous!”
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you. In short, if there’s any problem with my publication, His Majesty will be furious. Naturally, he’ll want to hold someone accountable, won’t he?”
“T-That… wouldn’t the publishing house itself be in greater danger?”
The publishing house itself would be in danger? How laughable. We’d already secured new workers, and if we just shifted the blame, that would be the end of it. The president hadn’t done anything wrong to begin with, and this was clearly the mages’ fault, so there was no need to protect them. On the contrary, their plan to screw over the president would fail spectacularly.
“We can simply pin the responsibility on you. Besides, our president is also close with His Majesty, so there’s no issue there.”
“Ugh. How underhanded.”
These pathetic mages were trembling with rage. Hehehe. Now I had the upper hand. No matter how loudly they shouted or how boldly they tried to strong-arm us, this was ultimately a monarchy. In a monarchy, the king was absolute. And that king was currently backing me.
“Weren’t you the ones who started playing dirty first? So? You’re really not going to work? You’re going to run off somewhere else? In that case, I can head straight to the royal palace.”
“Y-You vile—!”
“You’re the vile ones! You said you were influenced by my novel and just threw this out there, right? Thanks to you, I’m the only one dying of guilt here.”
I couldn’t even show my face in public anymore. At this rate, it felt like they might even try to pocket the money I’d given them, and that thought made my stomach churn. Out of the hundred million rinos advance, I’d already used fifty million to free the slaves. I needed to at least hold onto the rest.
But something about these idiot mages had been suspicious for a while now. Why were their eyes suddenly sparkling like that?
“Hah! C-Could it be…?”
“Then… are you truly the author of that work? If even His Majesty is a fan…”
“That work? You mean The Hero’s Party Must Be Eliminated, right?”
From what the president said, it sounded like I was the sole author anyway.
“Ahem. To think the very person responsible would be sitting right here…”
“I-I’m a fan!”
A fan? Really? So that’s why they threw that number out there? Wow. After all that, they ended up becoming my fans? If they really did this purely as fans… well, then I had nothing to say.
I pressed hard on my temples and let out a long sigh.
“Ha… I don’t want to admit it, but you’re saying you really did this because of my novel?”
“Ahem. Well, it’s not exactly that, but… um…”
“So? What will you do now? I can overlook it if you stop right here.”
The fans glanced at each other before finally giving their answer. The result was obvious. Since they were my fans and had only been influenced by my novel, they naturally ended their strike. Receiving my autograph was just a bonus.
And I received a huge show of gratitude from the president of Fortmus.
“Ohhh, thank you so much, Author-nim. I never imagined they would surrender so easily.”
“If we’re being technical, isn’t this partly my fault too?”
“Not at all. The idiots who copied what they read in a novel are the problem. On the contrary, the fact that your writing has this much influence is truly remarkable.”
Wasn’t this person being a bit too nice to me? Did I hold the publishing house’s lifeline or something? If they’d invested a hundred million because of that, I suddenly felt embarrassed.
“No, I should be the one thanking you for giving the slaves jobs.”
“Hmm. Even though you freed them, they still chose to follow you. That’s quite unusual.”
“From what they said, it seems they had nowhere else to go.”
“Well, in any case, that’s fortunate. Now we can continue publishing without any issues. Whew.”
“Was it really that close?”
“Yes. Your work is currently our publishing house’s trump card, after all. With other publishers rising up everywhere, our position was nearly shaken. By the way, there’s something I’ve been curious about. Did you really spend fifty million out of the hundred million we paid you to purchase ten slaves?”
I see. So Fortmus had competitors, and they couldn’t afford to be held back by something like this. No matter how much market share a publisher held, when it came to mass-produced romance novels, other houses could compete on similar levels. My work had completely overturned that balance.
“Yes. Will buying slaves be a problem?”
“Hmm. Not at all. As I said before, the image of slaves has been generalized to illegal slaves, war slaves, or sex slaves. But properly contracted and purchased slaves have nothing to do with those categories. Moreover, if the fact that you bought slaves becomes known outside, the circumstances will come out as well, so it won’t be an issue. On the contrary, if people hear that this author spent her own money to free slaves, she’ll receive quite a favorable evaluation.”
“I see.”
Then I was satisfied. As expected, President Yugo seemed very skilled at media play.
“Still, I never expected you to spend money like that for the sake of freeing them. I was honestly surprised. Most noble young ladies would spend their money on jewelry, cosmetics, or dresses.”
Yeah, that was probably normal. But why did everyone keep seeing me as a noble young lady? Regrettably, I wasn’t the real Milene. I was just Kay, a commoner author who didn’t even know how noblewomen were supposed to walk.
“I’m a commoner.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Of course. You carry yourself with such elegance that I keep forgetting. Still, that’s not a decision most people could make easily, is it? If many people made such choices, there probably wouldn’t be any slaves left in this world by now.”
“So that’s how it works.”
Come to think of it, there were quite a few rich people in this world who could afford slaves. Most were merchants or nobles, but they bought slaves to use them, not to free them like I did. Unless someone was in a situation where they had no choice but to buy slaves like me, they wouldn’t do it. And people like that would be too poor to afford slaves in the first place.
“No, in my situation, there was no way I’d actually buy them to put them to work.”
“That makes sense too. Still, at this rate, we can accelerate the reprinting.”
Huh? Reprint? Did I just hear the word reprint? Did they mean it was already going into reprinting? Was this a dream? No matter what, could things really go this smoothly? A reprint meant it was selling that well.
It looked like I’d be getting along well with the publishing house from now on. But before that, I should probably ask one thing.
“It’s already going into reprint?”
“Yes. It’s spread quite widely throughout the royal capital. We’re even considering selling it to the adventurers’ side as well.”
Adventurers? My novel was going to be sold to adventurers too? Hmm, that actually sounded pretty good. But did adventurers even have time to read? That was another question entirely. In the original story, being an adventurer was described as an incredibly difficult job. That must have been true, since the author wrote it that way.
“Do adventurers even have time to read?”
At my question, Yugo grinned as if he had been waiting for it.