A New Distribution Strategy
"After all, plenty of adventurers target books in ancient ruins. A book is practically humanity's oldest partner—it's been with us for thousands of years."
"But aren't we already supplying bookstores anyway?"
Though now that I thought about it, was there really a need to separate adventurers from everyone else?
"Ah, my apologies. To be precise, I mean the adventurer's guild. Adventurers spend most of their time wandering outside the cities. They rarely visit urban areas, so they don't often get the chance to browse bookstores. Would anyone really travel all the way to the capital just to read this hero story right now? Of course not. They'd simply stop by the adventurer's guild in a nearby village."
"So we're distributing to the adventurer's guilds too."
"Exactly. That's the point."
Oh, that wasn't bad at all. It might actually work pretty well. So we'd be supplying adventurer's guilds from now on. Wait, but was that really such a big deal? It was just the adventurer's guild, right?
"This is a little awkward for me to say, but..."
"Please, speak freely."
"Still, aren't adventurer's guilds rather small-scale? It seems difficult to expect any major profits from them."
Compared to the domestic market, the adventurer's guild was on the smaller side, wasn't it? Given the guild's scale, betting on extra print runs felt a bit risky.
"Hmm. It might appear that way, but this is a rather different matter."
"Different how?"
"The number of adventurers in this world is quite substantial. The adventurer's guilds maintain branches everywhere. They're like an enormous network of tree roots."
"Ah, I see."
There really were a lot of adventurers. Well, this was a world where monsters existed alongside people and heroes appeared, so of course the adventurer population would be huge. Come to think of it, being an adventurer might not be such a bad gig. After all, my setting was that of a saintess. Maybe the reason my body didn't get tired no matter how relentlessly I wrote was thanks to that saintess constitution. If I ever had the time, trying my hand at adventuring might actually be fun.
Then again, who knows? Unlike the monsters in the novels I remembered, the real ones might be utterly horrific. There was no reason to go out of my way to fight things like that.
"Moreover, in hero stories the hero ultimately lives like an adventurer. In this particular work, the hero's party knows no defeat. The hero races all over the world to save it. Adventurers may have different goals, but they too travel everywhere subduing monsters."
"Right."
Hmm, I think I understood what he was getting at. Even if the guild itself was modest, the sheer number of adventurers created real demand. Or perhaps there was another angle?
Ah, it did seem like there was more to it.
"Naturally this is also of great interest to the adventurers themselves, and as I mentioned, the guild has taken root across the entire world. In other words, the guild can provide us with connections to foreign markets."
"Oh!"
So the adventurer's guild in this world could serve that kind of role. I never imagined the very organization I thought would have zero connection to me could open such doors. In typical fantasy settings, the adventurer's guild existed solely for adventurers, after all. I'd assumed it would have nothing to do with novels. Hmm. Reality really was different from fiction. There was no need to stick to a single predetermined path.
The adventurer's guild—a resting place for those who wandered the world. If our books reached the guilds in every country, overseas expansion would become much easier.
"That way we'll sail right past the tariff issue."
"Oh."
Now that was tempting. With the extra print run already underway, I could keep enjoying the sweet profits from the novel for a while. If I wrapped the story up at the right moment, the money would keep flowing in. And if my next work flopped, I'd just pivot to making soap or cosmetics.
"This is so hard. It's annoying."
These days, every single day felt like torture for Sophia. Yes, it was all because of that wretched queen's education. Once she became queen, wouldn't she never need any of that stuff anyway? Why did she have to learn it? All she wanted was to make Prince Schwald happy—that should have been enough. Something must have gone wrong somewhere. But where exactly had it twisted?
Stealing her sister's position had seemed like a perfect move, so where had everything gone off track?
I just don't understand.
She'd thought that simply clinging tightly to Schwald would solve everything. So why did she have to suffer like this? Sophia bit down hard on her lip. The scolding she'd received from her education supervisor earlier that day echoed in her mind.
Why did she have to endure such humiliation? All of this was simply the process of achieving happiness, so why did it have to be so difficult? Wasn't her father the master of a great house? Shouldn't he take care of something like this?
Her father had no idea about her current situation. Yes. That was the answer. She would tell Father. He hated her sister enough to have banished her, so he would surely be persuaded.
However.
"Ugh."
Father had drawn a firm line—he couldn't help her. Why was everything turning out like this? Where had it all gone wrong? Why was even Father saying he couldn't assist?
No. Father still loved her. That was why he'd said that since her sister had done it, she could too.
This can't be happening.
Was becoming the prince's woman really this difficult? No. She couldn't let herself crumble over something like this. Yes. She just had to endure this one hurdle. That was all.
"Oh, Sophia. There you are."
While walking down the corridor, her second eldest brother Sein appeared in front of her. Sein, who had helped expel Milene, cherished Sophia dearly. Having grown up watching their father, he naturally hated Milene as well. Sophia had cleverly taken advantage of that gap to win his affection.
Yet in that beloved brother's hand was a single book.
"B-brother, what are you reading?"
"Ah, it's something that's become incredibly popular in the capital lately. There's No Defeat in My Hero Party. It's surprisingly entertaining."
What was with that bizarre title? Who used an entire sentence as a book title? A hero party? So was it a romance about the hero and his party members?
She borrowed it from her brother and read it, but honestly, it wasn't very good.
"Hmm. This is it?"
"Isn't it rather fun?"
Fun? This? Was reading about nothing but fighting supposed to be entertaining? Novels needed romance. With nothing but battles, what was the appeal?
"Romance is much more interesting than all this fighting."
"Is that so? Well, men and women often prefer different genres, so that makes sense."
Shouldn't a brother like whatever his sister liked? That's what older brothers were supposed to do. If he adored his little sister, he should naturally follow her tastes, shouldn't he? What could possibly be fun about something like this?
Now that I think about it, there have been a lot of interesting romance novels released lately. Maybe I should go read some.
It would be a nice change of pace. She'd try on her new accessories and dress, then read a bit before bed. That would be a perfect way to end the day.
But as she read, a thought suddenly occurred to her.
"Couldn't I just write a novel myself? After all, I'm a Holpert. They couldn't possibly ignore me."
That was it. Even the trashy novel her brother was reading had gotten published. If she wrote a romance, surely it would be a massive success. Of course it would. The current trend was romance—why would anyone bother with a hero story? It made no sense. This was the solution. If she took her love story with Prince Schwald, polished it up a little, and turned it into a novel, it would be perfect.
So she wrote diligently.
However.
"President, we've received a novel submission."
"Does it need to come across my desk?"
"It bears the Holpert family seal, so I didn't feel comfortable handling it on my own."
Sophia's submission, which had made its way to Fortmus, reached the president.
Holpert? From the Holperts? The submitter's name was Sophia Holpert. Of course. The girl who had stolen her sister's position. The very woman who had pushed author K aside and taken the prince for herself. In short, the origin point of all those mass-produced romance stories.
For that woman to submit a manuscript of all things. Well, since it carried the Holpert seal he would read it, but there was no way he could accept a shoddy work. He was curious how it compared to her sister's skill.
So he took a look.
"What is this?"
What kind of nonsense had she written and dared to call it a novel? Children who had only just learned to write wouldn't produce something this bad. Every sentence felt disconnected. The content didn't flow at all—the head was a dragon but the tail was a cockatrice. They had nothing to do with each other.
It seemed Sophia was even more hopeless than he'd imagined.
"And it's romance again. Of course. She's utterly obsessed with love. Truly the fountainhead of mass-produced romance."
This was embarrassing even as a fairy tale. No matter how he looked at it, this simply wouldn't do. At least the other noble daughters had received proper educations, so their prose showed some technique—even if it was often excessive and got rejected. But this was so bad that even children would tilt their heads and ask what it was supposed to be.
"Good grief."
President Yugo discarded the manuscript. He almost wished he could un-read it. He suddenly felt the urge to reread author K's manuscript from beginning to end again.
"Now that I think about it, isn't she the young lady who's failing at her queen's education as well?"
From what Jerry had told him, she was arrogant and overbearing. But after seeing this, she seemed completely devoid of substance. At this rate, it almost seemed like author K had been the one manipulated by this Sophia woman's schemes, labeled a villainess, and driven out. A rather reasonable suspicion.
Still, there was no need to concern himself with it. If author K became a noble daughter it would be a tremendous loss, and above all, she herself wouldn't want that. It wasn't his place to meddle.
"Hmm. I wonder when the next volume is coming out."
Perhaps because volume one had released so quickly, President Yugo found himself eagerly awaiting volume two.