Fina stopped at the door, her cheeks puffed up. Shuri walked in behind her.
Had something happened perhaps?
I decided to first greet them before asking.
「Fina, Shuri, I’m back.」
「Welcome back, Yuna-oneechan. Wait, that’s not it! Yuna-oneechan, what is with this book?!」
For a single moment, Fina had broken into a smile, but she immediately puffed up her cheeks again. Behind her, Shuri replied with,「Welcome back, Yuna-oneechan,」but her words were drowned out by Fina’s angry voice.
Fina walked over to me and loudly placed a book on top of the table. It was a copy of the picture book I had drawn for Princess Flora. It must have been one of the copies I had given to the orphanage children as a present.
「What do you want to know about it?」
「What do I want to know about it?! This is me, isn’t it?!」
She pointed at a cartoonish girl riding a bear on the book’s cover. Oh right, I had used Fina as a reference when I had drawn the girl. It was a bit late to complain about it now, though. I was actually more surprised that it had taken Fina so long to find out about the book.
「The children asked me to read a picture book for them, so I did, and then… I saw the girl in the book…」
Fina seemed quite a bit angry. Still, if she didn’t know anything about the picture book before this, how did she find out that I was the one who drew it? I decided to ask her before proceeding with explanation.
「The story is obviously about the two of us.」
That was true…
In the first volume, I told the tale of a girl (very much like Fina) meeting Bear-san, and together they searched for medicinal herbs for the girl’s sick mother and brought them to her. I had changed the way we had met a bit to make the story more suitable for a picture book.
In the next book, the girl’s mother became more ill, so Bear-san searched deep in the forest for a precious flower that could heal her. Once Bear-san found the flower, she used it to cure the mother’s illness.
I couldn’t have possibly written that Bear-san had actually used magic to heal her, so I had changed it to a flower that could cure any illness. Still, no matter how I looked at it, the picture book was based on Fina and me, so it made sense for it to be quite obvious to Fina. The character in the story was created with her in mind even though I had put in some effort into making sure that character wasn’t a split copy of her.
「Fina, this is a fictional story and none of these characters exist in real life. See, I wrote that down right here.」
I said and pointed out a certain part on the picture book with my puppet. There, it stated:
『This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.』
I had made sure to clearly declare it was all fictional, so I decided to try and use this as an excuse to appease Fina.
「Still, this ribbon looks exactly like mine.」
Well, I had modeled the girl off of her, so of course it was.
「Also, this story is clearly about me.」
I had based it on our meeting so I couldn’t contradict that, either.
「No matter how I read it, the book talks about me.」
She declared, fully convinced.
It looked like the common legal statement from my former world had no effect on her. Also, since I had actually used her as a model for the picture book, it was hard to make up any good excuses.
「Why did you write a picture book about me?!」
「Well, I just wanted to make something for Princess Flora.」
「Princess Flora?」
After hearing Princess Flora was involved, Fina’s voice faltered.
「Okay, but why does the orphanage also have this book if you just made it for Princess Flora?」
Seeing there was no other way out of it, I explained the whole story about how the picture book got here.
First, I had drawn the picture book for Princess Flora.
Soon after, it had become a sensation within the castle, and many people had asked for copies, so I had agreed to have the book printed to satisfy the high demand.
「It was a request from both His Majesty and Eleanora-san, so I couldn’t refuse…」
I decided to dump all of the responsibility onto those two. Even though I was the author of the book, the ones responsible for copying and distributing it (within the castle) were His Majesty and Eleanora-san.
As expected, Fina wavered even harder when she heard their names.
I really was a malicious Onee-chan, wasn’t I?
「And back then, since I had seen the opportunity, I asked them to print some for me so that I could give them to the children here.」
「Does that mean there are a lot of people with this picture book?」
She asked me with concern.
I wouldn’t call it “a lot of people”… it was only the people in the castle.
「Only a few select people in the castle own them.」
The books might have spread, but it was still mostly families with young children who were interested in them; they weren’t circulating as widely as Fina thought.
Her response, however, was not what I expected.
「Uuu, I can’t go to the castle now.」
Fina dropped down to her knees and covered her lowered face in shame.
Would it be bad if I actually asked her, 「You were planning to go there?」here?