The name for the humanoid suit—the man in black—had been decided.
Fuuma Katou.
It was a lottery—that's how we decided it.
I had imagined a ninja based on the black clothing, so I wrote down famous names like Hattori and Sarutobi and threw them into a box as lots. Lu, Tia, Ria, Ann, and Ya from the Mountain Elves helped out as well. Consequently, there must have been over a hundred name candidates inside that lottery box.
The one to draw the lot was one of Zabuton’s children who would be piloting the humanoid suit. They shot a strand of silk into the box I had mixed and pulled a lot out, but the thread's adhesive strength must have been too high; two slips came out stuck together.
Those names were Fuuma and Katou.
Since both were names I had contributed, I wondered if some greater will was at work. Lu and the others took the fact that two came out at once as some kind of message, so they decided that Fuuma would be the given name and Katou would be the family name. The Zabuton’s children who would be operating the suit were also delighted with the choice, so the matter was settled.
To my modern sensibilities, it felt like a slightly strange name, but the name Fuuma wasn't impossible. If they were happy with it, then so was I. In hindsight, I realized I should have suggested names like Kotarou or Danzou as well. I would have to be more careful next time.
Meanwhile, a newspaper was created in Village Five.
Calling it a newspaper might be a bit of a stretch; it wasn't a multi-paged document delivered to every household daily. It was a single, large sheet of paper pasted onto walls. In other words, a wall newspaper.
The project started as a way to test the prototype paper produced by Delzen Papermaking, trial the equipment at Delzen Printing, and check the editorial skills of the Delzen Publishing staff. The content focused entirely on Village Five. Of course, a large portion of the space was dedicated to articles about Yoko—things like what she ate, or how she praised a particular outfit. Beyond that, there were introductions to local shops, current trends, recent incidents, and reports on sports like baseball.
I almost forgot to mention the advertisements placed along the margins and the bottom of the sheet. The wall newspaper was posted on bulletin boards throughout Village Five and offered for free. However, even for a wall newspaper, production costs money. To recover those expenses, we sold advertising space.
In the inaugural issue, the advertisement for the Goroun Company took up the most room. Since they weren't used to the concept of advertising, it was originally just a massive print of the Goroun Company emblem. While I was grateful for the chance to practice printing large illustrations, they were paying a significant advertising fee. I wanted them to see a return on their investment.
If I looked at it objectively, a massive wholesaler like the Goroun Company didn't really need to advertise to the general public reading a wall newspaper. Since they mainly dealt with bulk distribution, I advised them to withdraw their ad. However, Michael-san sensed a massive business opportunity in the medium and insisted on continuing, vowing to find a way to make it work.
I suggested he either highlight specific items for individual sale or use the ads to build general brand awareness. As a result, the Goroun Company’s ad space soon featured illustrations of beautiful women and handsome men holding their products, which became immensely popular.
The Goroun Company had apparently wanted to use Village Five’s mascot, Five-kun, for the ads, but I put a stop to that. It was better to use original characters to avoid complications. Concepts like copyright or portrait rights didn't exist in this world yet, but they were inevitable and necessary. To foster a vibrant creative culture, one must start by protecting creators through healthy systems.
I said all that quite grandiosely, but I had no intention of campaigning for those concepts myself. I hoped they would arise naturally. Or rather, I hoped Delzen Printing and Delzen Publishing would take the lead.
Later, I received a report from Eliza, the acting representative of Delzen Papermaking and Delzen Printing. It seemed people had been coming to Delzen Publishing wanting to buy the wall newspaper. Since Eliza was the one coordinating the project, the requests were routed to her.
"A shop owner in Village Five wanted to buy a copy to display inside their store," she explained.
That made sense. However, we hadn't set a price for individual sales yet. I asked what she had done.
"I gave it to them for free."
That was a splendid decision. The newspaper was a training exercise for the various businesses involved, and it also served as great public relations. Distributing it for free was more effective than selling a single sheet.
"Yes. However, we cannot provide them for free indefinitely," she added.
She was right. But if we set the price too low, people might just steal the copies from the public bulletin boards.
"That newspaper bears the mark of Village Five. I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to steal it, but..." Eliza trailed off.
Given the popularity of the Goroun Company’s illustrations, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
"It is possible," I agreed. "Let's set a price that makes buying it more attractive than stealing it. However, we won't do extra printings."
"So even if there is high demand, we only provide the copies from the initial run?"
"Exactly."
The wall newspaper was published irregularly, but because the staff was so motivated, we were already on the tenth issue. If someone asked for a back issue, we simply couldn't fulfill the request. Individual sales would only be made from the surplus. Currently, we posted about a hundred copies on bulletin boards across Village Five and distributed others to the advertisers. We were only printing about two hundred copies in total; there was no sense in having a surplus.
"Understood. I will discuss the price for individual sales and the initial print run with the staff."
Ultimately, the staff decided that a single sheet of the wall newspaper would sell for one medium copper coin. The initial print run was set at five hundred copies. That seemed like a lot, but apparently, the demand was quite high. The transition from a wall newspaper to a conventional daily newspaper might be closer than I thought.
"Currently, we publish irregularly, but the staff has expressed a desire to move to a daily publication schedule eventually," Eliza reported.
I saw. We were short on staff at the moment, but once that was resolved, it might be fine to let it spin off as its own entity, the Delzen Newspaper.
"The Delzen Newspaper? If possible, we would prefer the Great Tree Newspaper or the Village Five Newspaper."
I asked if it was because the Delzen name would become too prominent.
"Precisely. There is no need to push the Delzen name specifically."
"Understood. I'll take it into consideration."
"Thank you. Also, the Prada Art Museum has proposed a project regarding the display of the newspaper."
I had heard about that. They wanted to display the wall newspaper inside the Prada Art Museum—not just the latest issue, but all past issues as well. They also wanted to archive every published edition. I had no problem with the display, and I felt that preserving them was a great idea, given their potential value as historical records.
"Then, will you grant permission?"
"Actually, a similar proposal came from the Village Five Library."
"It hasn't reached my desk yet."
"It went from the library to the Village Council, then to Yoko, and finally to me."
"I see."
I asked her how we should handle it. I suggested coordinating future newspaper matters so they were all unified under her.
"I would appreciate that, but please make sure the request comes through the Village Council rather than directly from Yoko-sama."
"Understood. We'll do it that way."
"So, to whom will you grant permission? Or will you refuse them?"
"I'll grant it to both. Having more display locations and multiple archives is a good thing. However, there are potential issues with both."
"Issues?"
"For the library, the issue is space. They’re fine for now, but they'll eventually run out of room, especially if our publishing business takes off."
"That makes sense."
"I am securing storehouse space for the library at the Village Five foothills, though."
"The Prada Art Museum shouldn't have any space issues, right?"
"True, but the issue there is that the person in charge is Shalne. She loves anything with writing on it, like books and letters, so she loves the wall newspaper too. In that sense, she’s perfect for the job, but..."
I explained that she didn't really care about the content and was a bit reckless with preservation. She had a habit of stacking books haphazardly and stuffing letters into her pockets until they were crumpled. If these were meant to be archives, I wanted them handled properly.
"Ah... but I think it will be fine. Just because she’s the department head doesn't mean Shalne-sama will be the one physically handling every document."
"Well, that’s true. Let's see how it goes for a while. I'll draw up formal permission documents and send them over."
"Thank you very much."
With the introduction of the wall newspaper, the literacy rate in Village Five climbed even higher. Furthermore, being an illustrator became a highly sought-after profession. Fortunately, Delzen Publishing had already moved to secure talent in advance, so production was unaffected.
Everything was working out for the best. I suppose that was all I could ask for.