The next day, William was surprised to see how Young Master Raphael began to act.
Unlike the arrogant, out-of-control young man he knew, Raphael was now acting more... focused.
The first sign of this was the more respectful and polite way he was treating everyone.
Until last week, Raphael treated everyone, including William, as if they were just toys that he could break and throw away at any moment.
Because of this, all the servants hated him and hoped he would never wake up.
But despite knowing this, Raphael never cared how these people felt... until yesterday, when he was polite to William, even regretting wasting money!
William thought that this change was only out of disappointment, that the next day Raphael would go back to being the arrogant young man everyone was used to, but no.
Ever since he woke up, Raphael had been locked in his room drawing on a few sheets of paper.
These papers were extremely expensive, costing a silver coin a dozen, and were only used for official messages.
If this were his only move, no one would be surprised, but Raphael started asking for leather, thread, needles, and other materials that he could use to make a book!
Realizing that this could be the Young Master's petty revenge on the author of the book he loved so much, William even tried to advise Raphael to stop this and not waste the valuable papers, but Raphael's attitude was even more surprising.
On the evening of that day, Raphael returned the book "The Great Warrior Argon III!" to William and ordered him to sell the book as soon as possible and use the money to buy more book materials.
William decided to wait until the next day to get Raphael's confirmation for this, but when Raphael confirmed that he wanted that book sold, even for just 1 gold coin, William didn't hesitate any longer and left the mansion to sell it and buy the materials Raphael had asked for.
He got a good deal for the book, selling it for the original price of 2 gold coins to a local merchant, making a loss of only 1 gold coin.
Despite going against Raphael's orders, William decided to buy only 1 gold coin in book-making materials, saving the other gold coin for an emergency.
Fortunately, 1 gold coin in book materials was already a very large amount of materials, and as Raphael was unaware of the prices, he just accepted that and went back to focusing on creating his book.
While William was in Raphael's room, he looked at the drawings Raphael was making on the paper and was amazed at how beautiful they were.
"Young Master, if you use this skill of yours to draw portraits of other nobles, it's possible that the nobles will line up to have their portraits drawn by you, even paying you a few gold coins for it!" William commented excitedly.
Hearing William talk about gold coins, Raphael looked up from the paper, slightly surprised, before shaking his head while muttering something about "can't scale it..." and going back to drawing.
William saw that there were other papers with drawings spread out on the table to dry the ink and gently approached the papers to observe.
Surprisingly, the drawings were connecting, as if they were telling a story!
The first drawing was of a happy family, with a poor man holding an axe while chopping wood, a blonde woman knitting and two children playing around.
William had to admit: the Young Master's art style was... strange, elegant, but strange.
William wasn't a great connoisseur of art, but after a few years living with the Von Kaelen family, he had learned a lot just by listening to the conversations of other nobles.
The Young Master's art did not resemble the realistic oil paintings of noble halls, nor the religious tapestries he used to see in castles and temples.
There was no classical depth, no traditional shadows.
The features were clean, exaggerated at specific points with big, bright eyes, intense expressions, hair that seemed to be always in motion.
William had never seen anything like it in the countless places he had visited with Raphael.
Even though it was so unique and incomprehensible in origin, the drawing conveyed a very pure and beautiful feeling.
Looking more closely at the man, William was astonished to see his resemblance to Raphael!
The more William looked, the more he realized that the man was identical to the young master!
The straight black hair, an unmistakable mark of the Von Kaelen lineage, fell softly over his forehead even while the man was chopping wood. The golden eyes, rare even among nobles, shone with the same focus that Raphael was now showing as he drew.
A thin, symmetrically beautiful face, with delicate but defined features, the kind of beauty that drew sighs at balls and political gatherings.
His well-contoured jaw, pale, clean skin and soft lips always gave the impression of a dreamy, gentle figure.
He was the kind of man who made young noblemen fall in love at first sight... At least, until they opened his mouth.
(Raphael's Visual Representation on Discord.gg/NunuXD or Patre on.com/NunuXD)
And looking at the young master's wife in that drawing, doesn't she look like Lady Alice D'Averic?!
Looking carefully, William realized that she really did resemble the young lady of the D'Averic family!
Even the children were like a mixture of the two, the little boy being a mini version of the young master Raphael and the little girl a mini version of Lady Alice D'Averic!
Startled, William looked at the picture on the next paper.
There stood Raphael and his children beside a bed with sad expressions, while Lady Alice lay with her eyes closed.
'He drew her dead?!?!' William felt his heart race. 'Did he draw her dead after she humiliated him at the winter ball last year?!'
The more William thought about it, the more he felt it made sense, why else would the Young Master do something like that apart from revenge? That was his personality!
Looking at the next piece of paper, William saw that in addition to the family of three, there was now a woman with an arrogant expression and heavy make-up looking at herself in the mirror with a scowl, while Raphael looked at her passionately, and the children trembled with cold and fear in the corner of the drawing.
Realizing how deep he had gone into this interpretation, William was surprised.
'I could tell the children were cold and hungry just from the drawing?!' He thought as he analyzed the drawing and realized that the Young Master's choice of colors to paint this picture completely changed the feel of the painting, making it clear that this was intentional to show the cold!
Compared to the first paper, where everything was bright and sunny, the second was painted with bluer and colder colors, leaving William even more surprised by Raphael's talent.
Seeing the change in the mood of the drawing made William excited to see the next paper, to see how the Young Master would represent the next artwork, and what story this next artwork would tell.
But William was disappointed to see that there was no more paper!
Raphael had only drawn three artworks so far and was painting the fourth at the moment.
William knew he shouldn't try to do something like this, but his curiosity couldn't resist and the old man approached Raphael and tried to look at how the story would continue, only to be blocked by Raphael's shoulder which hid the contents while muttering "No Spoilers!".
William didn't understand what Spoilers meant, but he understood that Raphael didn't want him to see it yet, so despite his curiosity, William left Raphael's room and returned to his own quarters, wanting to share the happiness of seeing something so incredible with his young granddaughter, the little girl Raphael had drunkenly saved.
'The young master wants to use images to tell the story of his book?!' William was amazed at the genius of this idea!
Considering how unique a book like this would be, if the story was interesting, it could be sold for the price of the book he bought in the capital, or even more, since making other copies would be even more difficult!
Seeing how dedicated Raphael was, William was proud.
While William chatted excitedly with his granddaughter, Raphael was struggling to finish the fourth page of the story.
On the first day Raphael had only done 3 pages, which for his previous world, would have been a terrible rate, but considering that the equipment he had available in this world was so precarious, Raphael could only accept it.
Not to mention that he was putting a lot of detail into each page, making each piece of art look incredible.
He knew that even if he did basic drawings, people would probably still buy it and think it was amazing, but Raphael's pride wouldn't let him do it like that.
As a real artist, Raphael wanted to deliver only the best he could, even if it delayed the process of creating the book by several days.
As long as he copied it once with the grimoire, he wouldn't have to draw it again, so why not make the best possible product?
So Raphael continued with the production of the book.
On the second day he made 4 more pages, on the third day Raphael had got used to drawing and painting with feathers and more rustic brushes, so he managed to make 5 pages, finally finishing the book!
Hansel and Gretel had a total of 12 pages, all done in Raphael's style, something that mixed his inspirations from Korean Manhwas and Japanese Anime, creating a very unique and attractive style for this world that has never seen art like this.
In these 12 pages Raphael managed to retell the original story, even changing some of the things he remembered and didn't agree with, and adding some important details to give the story more depth and realism.
If it was a more complex book like The Lord of the Rings, Raphael wouldn't have had the confidence to change anything, as he didn't feel he was any better than the original author, but for a short fairy tale like this, which has been rewritten and edited thousands of times, Raphael knew what to change to better suit the cold, magical reality of this world.
In order not to get into trouble with the wizards by painting a "wizard" as a cannibal in the story, Raphael changed the witch's skin color to green and changed her race to that of a Goblin.
Goblins existed in this world and were angry, uncontrollable creatures hated by everyone, so he had no problem portraying the witch as a goblin.
On the fourth day, Raphael decided to design the book cover as well, drawing Hansel and Gretel with their backs to the camera while looking at the Goblin witch's candy house, with the title [Hansel and Gretel] in the center.
(Visual Representation on Discord.gg/NunuXD or Patre on.com/NunuXD)
In addition to the cover, Raphael remembered that [The Great Warrior Argon III!] had a page that told about the author, making it clear that that book was written by a nobleman, and extolling the author.
Considering that he was also a nobleman, Raphael also took advantage of this privilege and made a back cover for him too, but unlike Argon's back cover, Raphael's had a drawing of him with a gentle smile, as well as a text telling how he was on a journey of self-knowledge.
Describing how he realized that his past attitudes were bad and now he was trying his best to change for the better.
The kind of drivel that Raphael constantly heard from famous people who were canceled in the other world, but which in a world like this, would be super-effective!
Considering how tarnished his reputation in this world was, Raphael knew that any change in perception he could bring to his image, the better his family and the other nobles would see him, after all, it's his family's noble status that has given him so many privileges.
Once the cover was dry, Raphael sewed all the pages of the story together and the first book was finally ready.
Despite the pain in his wrist from drawing so much over the last few days, the excitement of using the grimoire again spoke louder and Raphael soon started copying the book.
It took him a total of four hours to copy the book, not wanting to miss any details and saving the standard version of this in the grimoire as the best possible quality.
Strangely enough, the amount of Mana he spent copying this book was the same amount he spent on [The Three Truths of Laufrey the Merciless]!
'Perhaps the artwork in this book has become so beautiful and detailed that the cost of copying it has also gone up?' Raphael wondered in confusion, but seeing an exact copy of Hansel and Gretel appear above the grimoire, Raphael ignored the lack of Mana and smiled proudly.
The book was exactly the same as the one he had made, even where the ink had smudged slightly on the original, on the copy that part was also slightly smudged!
Feeling his Mana almost depleted, Raphael was ready to close the grimoire, when he decided to look at the first page again and check if the new book was on the list, only to realize that other things had been added there too!
[The Great Warrior Argon III!]
[The Three Truths of Laufrey the Merciful]
[Message Scroll For Raphael Von Kaelen]
[Hansel and Gretel]
↳ Prisoner Resilience
Reduces the effects of hunger, fatigue and confinement.
↳ Fraternal Protection
Gain a boost of stamina or power when fighting to protect someone close to you.
↳ Guardian Ginger
Summons a magical creature made of gingerbread dough that performs tasks for a limited time.
Looking at those three new descriptions below the book he had just copied, Raphael was shocked.
'I can learn skills from the books I make?!'