Chapter 4: Blank Paper

「No good!」

I flung the pelts and knife aside, then threw myself onto the straw bed.

「Why are the creatures in this world all so brightly colored...!?」

Red, blue, yellow—every animal hide I hunted was vividly colored and looked utterly unsuitable for paper. Thinking some parts might still be usable by area, I skinned whole bodies, but it was a complete waste.
Even if they’re colored, if only they were paler… but they’re all harsh, eye-searing dark tones. It might be quicker to make white ink instead.

Human skin isn’t much different from what I know, but come to think of it, Rin’s blue hair is something you’d never see on Earth, and there are villagers with unusual hair colors too.
Even Yuuki’s red hair—unlike the auburn common among Earth people—is a vivid, flame-like red.
It might be related to the animals’ skin colors as well.

「Hey, look, look!」

In contrast to me clutching my head alone, the ones who came in with buoyant voices were Nina and Rin.

「Well? I tried making various things.」

I gave Nina half of the hides I’d hunted. She was unusually pleased to have rare pelts from beasts we don’t usually hunt.
She modeled a rainbow of outfits for me, twirling around as she showed them off.

「Hey, they suit you. You look cute.」

To be honest, I have no sense for clothing. I can’t articulate what’s good or why, so I offered a safe compliment for now.

「Well of course.」

Whether it was the model or the maker’s skill—or both; in Nina’s case both—she stuck her chest out as she replied, and her usually inexpressive face had softened a little.

「Yay, thank you!」

Meanwhile, Rin threw both hands up and rejoiced innocently.

「This one looks fine to wear in the water!」
「Ah, that’s sharkskin.」

The clothes Rin wore were slick and repelled water well. It was the hide of a two‑mouthed shark that I’d had her hunt herself.
The color was comparatively pale, and it was light and tough—good traits—but it repelled not only water; both ink and sumi ink beaded right off, making it useless as paper. As material for her clothes, though, it seemed ideal.

After all, mermaids generally wear almost no clothing. They do at least cover their chests with shell bras, but anything more supposedly just gets in the way of swimming.
Rin had been growing more mature, and I often didn’t know where to look—so this was frankly a relief.

「So, you’re still stuck on it?」
「It’s great for clothing, though.」

Lately in Hiiro, making clothes from goat hair and cotton has been spreading. We still can’t produce them in numbers, so most people wear furs, but light, soft cloth will likely become the mainstay from here on.

That said, dyeing techniques for those newly made fabrics are still underdeveloped, so cloth clothing mostly comes in its natural off‑white. Being able to use many colors must have been fun for Nina.

「If you want white so badly, why not just use cloth?」
「Ink will bleed.」

Besides, cloth is just too thick, and if you thin it down it lacks durability to hold up.

Given how much we hunted and still found nothing, maybe we should give up on hides…

If so, we could make plant‑based paper with somewhat poorer longevity. If it’s high‑quality Japanese paper, it should last for centuries.
The problem is, I have no idea how to make Japanese paper…

「Hmm… I feel like I’ve seen a white hide somewhere—where was it?」
「Really?」

Nina knit her brows. If she’d seen it, I should have too.

「Ah, I remember. That one.」

As I was digging through my memories, Nina clapped her hands with a pop.

「Behemoth.」
「I mean, sure, it’s kind of on the whitish side, but still!」

White, or maybe gray—true, it’s a shade that could work for paper.
It does have hair, technically, but it’s short and sparse, so what you see is basically the skin’s color.

But its hide is harder than most stone!

Even my fangs can’t bite through it easily. You can’t even make clothing from it—it’s more like a building material. There’s no way it could be used for paper—

「If it’s only hard, then just make it soft.」

Rin softly drew water out of her waterskin and set it swirling as she spoke.
I recalled the sight of that water—which by rights has neither hardness nor fixed form—catching and restraining the giant bull’s body.

I see. If magic can make something soft become hard, then perhaps it can also make something hard become soft.

「All right. Let’s try it.」


***


In conclusion, Rin’s suggestion was right on the mark.
We often used magic that hardens or sharpens things, and I’m well acquainted with the Sword Clan using the opposite—spells that make things brittle and weak.

The problem is that the effects of such magic don’t last.

In general, the effects of magic disappear quickly.
Flames created by magic die out after a while, and a spear tip sharpened by magic eventually returns to the original stone. Even when I turn a scale into a communicator, it reverts to an ordinary scale with time.

But secondary changes indirectly triggered by magic aren’t bound by that rule.
If you transfer a magically made flame to firewood, the fire will keep burning until the wood is gone. The icehouse is the same: the ice magic fades quickly, but the lowered temperature doesn’t rebound right away.

It’s probably the same reason I don’t revert to dragon form unless I consciously intend to. Magic is merely a switch; I, by nature, possess two bodies—two names.

So even though I can take human form, I can’t change it freely; my human face is always the same.

We were able to process the Behemoth hide in the same way.
While it was softened by magic, we thinned and stretched it, shaved the down, trimmed away excess fat, then cast magic again and stretched it further—repeating the steps.

The Behemoth’s thick hide grew ever thinner, larger, and broader with each stretch, and in the end we wound up with an absurd amount of paper. As for color, the gray hide shifted paler as we stretched it, finally settling into a beautiful ivory.

It’s strange that that rugged Behemoth hide turned into such lovely paper. More like—rather than parchment—elephant‑skin parchment, perhaps.

「We might have to seriously consider farming Behemoths for this.」
「How much paper are you planning to make?」

Nina gave me a look of exasperation as I said it half in earnest.
The thing is, a Behemoth’s body is huge. Even excluding fussy parts like fingertips and the face, you could get enough hide from one to build a house.

On top of that we thin and stretch it to more than ten times the area.
No matter how much we’ll need, there’s no call to take multiple animals. The benefit of breeding them just to obtain hide is slim. Honestly, it’s only that I haven’t given up on Behemoth husbandry yet.

「All right—done.」

Trading such idle banter, I riffled through the beautifully finished book. A red‑covered volume bound in Orthros hide—the world’s first bound book. If I say so myself, it’s quite a fine first attempt.

「Here, Rin.」
「Huh?」

I placed it in a waterproof case made of sharkskin, added a fountain pen with a three‑horned bull horn as the shaft, and handed it to Rin. She blinked in surprise, fluttering her lashes.

「It came out so nice—are you sure I can have it?」
「Of course.」

To be honest, Nina and I don’t have much use for it.
Dragons and elves—perhaps because we live so long—have far too good memories.
It was only natural that Rin, who helped with the bookmaking, be the first to use one.

「You’re forgetful, so you should keep a diary in it.」
「What’s a diary?」
「You write down what happens day by day and what you think about them.」
...

When I said that, Rin fell silent with a smile still on her face.

「You just thought it sounded like a hassle, didn’t you.」
「Eh—n‑no, of course not!」

Nina nailed it, and Rin hurried to cover it up.

In this world—well, that may be overstating it.
At least in Hiiro Village, there’s no religion yet. Therefore there are no monks or priests.

Still, we might end up birthing a “three‑day monk”—in other words, someone who quits after three days—before anything like a real monk.
That was the thought that crossed my mind.