Hyouka - Volume 03 - The Kudryavka Sequence - Welcome to KANYA FESTA! (1)

derived from the first ever volume of "Hyouka," which was made in a waterpaint
style, though this year Ibara decided to draw it in a cute style.
Objectively speaking, it didn't look bad at all.
The people working on this anthology included me and Chitanda, and while
Satoshi did contribute, he only participated in writing his part of the
manuscript. Of course, even after the manuscript was completed, the
anthology wouldn't be finished right away. There would still be work
involving confirming the number of pages, choosing the right font and paper
type, arranging the manuscripts, placing the page numbers, etc, before
submitting to the publisher for printing. All that was left to Ibara, who also
worked on the other illustrations as well.
While we were consulted on matters concerning the design of the anthology,
we were merely confirming Ibara's choices. Seeing how troublesome it
looked for her to have to work on so many details, both Chitanda and I had
offered to help her many times.
Yet Ibara had turned our offers down, saying she's used to doing such stuff,
so it's no big deal to her, and how she can easily handle this amount of work.
Besides, she said it would be quite bothersome to teach an amateur from
scratch. Hearing her say that, Chitanda decided to relent on helping.
And so, the anthology "Hyouka" is finally complete. In fact, it was a job well
done. Very well done, indeed.
Upon seeing the final product, Ibara went speechless.
When she brought them over to us the day before yesterday, we too became
speechless.
...The pile of objects lined up between me and Chitanda were the "Hyouka"
anthologies. Rather than "pile," "stack" would be a more appropriate
description. Even "mountain" would not sound far-fetched.
Before, we had only planned on making an order to print thirty copies of
"Hyouka". Taking one for ourselves, as well as one each for our supervisor
and one to keep for archiving, it would leave us with twenty-four left to sell,