Chapter 49

“Ding dong.”

The door opened, and the first thing I heard was the cheerful jingle of a bell.

A delightful and sweet aroma wafted into my nostrils.

This was a bakery close to our theater. It was originally called Wilson’s Bakery, after the owner’s last name.

I acquired the shop with the idea of having additional income streams besides ticket sales.

After I bought it, I changed the name to “Children’s Paradise.”

“Countess!”

Wilson, who was now the manager, greeted me confidently.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. Did you get everything ready?”

“Of course!”

Wilson’s body tensed up. He was eager to impress me.

Understandably so.

Before I made my offer, Wilson’s bakery was on the verge of going out of business.

They no longer had the capital to keep it open.

Now that I’d given it a chance to turn around, Wilson wouldn’t want to miss out on having me as a savior.

“I’ll show you right away. Just wait a moment.”

“Okay, hurry up.”

Wilson went into the kitchen to get the product he wanted to show me. In the meantime, I looked around the store.

It was cozily decorated like a fairytale home. The bread display was a cozy-looking basket, with a transparent mylar cover that allowed me to see the bread in all its delicious glory.

Artwork and decorations themed to our play were scattered throughout. Ragdolls and warm, pen-and-ink watercolors mingled with the sweet, savory smells of the shop.

I turned to the checkout counter.

There was promotional material for Pinocchio. Wilson left it there for people to read to ease their boredom while paying the bills.

Each one was my idea.

I smirked.

Even looking at them through the eyes of someone who wasn’t interested in our play, they looked charming.

The exterior of the shop was also painted with plenty of green, making it eye-catching enough for people passing by to stop.

“Okay.

I liked it.

I was right about this shop after all.

‘Dylan is objected, though.’

While researching the different shops in the Sandro district, the history of Wilson’s Bakery stood out.

Wilson, the owner, used to be a baker at a well-known bakery on Government Center Street before he struck out on his own and opened his own shop in the Sandro District.

But alas.

The strategy was wrong.

The bakery he used to work for on Government Street sold expensive bread made from high-quality ingredients, adopting a strategy of sophistication.

Wilson adopted the same strategy when he came to the Sandro District, but the demographics and preferences of the area were different.

People walking on Government Street were mostly tourists. They were willing to pay a premium for expensive bread for the sake of a pleasant outing experience.

But the people in Sandro District are different.

This area was far from being a tourist or recreational spot. Most of the residents lived here.

It’s hard to run a high-end bakery with just these people. They can’t afford to buy bread for their staple food.

It’s not cost-effective, which means it’s not worth it.

To survive, Wilson Bakery needed to attract customers from outside the area, but they didn’t have any unique selling points to make people come to the Sandro District.

As a result, the bakery’s sales plummeted.

It was only then that Wilson realized his defeat.

After that, he hurriedly tried to find something cost-effective, but it was already too late by then.

He had lost his only competitive advantage: flavor.

Dylan kept pointing out the declining sales trend of Wilson Bakery, thinking that there was a problem with the shop, and tried to dissuade me from making the decision.

But after checking out the shop’s history, I decided that this was the place I was looking for.

For one thing, I was able to buy a shop from an established pastry chef with a proven track record, who had worked at a well-known bakery.

And Wilson had found an investor on the brink of bankruptcy.

My purchase of Wilson’s Bakery was as much a win-win for me as it was for him.

During the short time I checked the shop’s interior, Wilson came out of the kitchen.

“Here are the final samples of the goods you ordered. We’ll have them on the shelves by the end of the first show today.”

I glanced down to see what Wilson had in store for me.

Three Pinocchio-themed baked goods were neatly arranged on a tray.

“This is the cookie you requested. I prepared two types: one stamped with a mold and another with a picture drawn using the icing technique you taught me.”

The first item was a Pinocchio cookie.

The molded cookie was a complimentary item to lure in customers for free.

The other was a product with Pinocchio’s face painted with icing.

Wilson looked at me, thrilled.

“You can make something like this by mixing powdered sugar and meringue… Countess, when did you study this? And, can you teach me this for free?”

I’m a little embarrassed by his excitement.

I had merely passed on the icing recipe I casually picked up from a friend who used to bake…

I couldn’t even tell her the exact proportions, because it was really just a snippet.

Like the villainess of the century, I was like, “I don’t need to tell you everything, you can figure it out!”

Well…… there’s no need to be humble, so I smiled with an Oscar-like arrogance.

“See, if you’re good enough, you can do it, right?”

There are no “icing cookies” in this world yet. It was a common commodity on Earth, but it would definitely be a weapon of differentiation here.

The second product is ‘gold coin chocolates’.

It was a coin-shaped chocolate wrapped in a thin gold foil wrapper. This is also a product that is abundant on Earth, but not here.

I picked up the chocolate and turned it over.

Given the difference in technology between here and Earth, the hand-wrapped packaging felt a bit crude, but it was still excellent as an ideal product.

Moreover, kids would go crazy for coin chocolates. It was an immutable truth. It was puzzling why nobody had commercialized this in this world.

It made me bite my tongue.

Once the packaging became more refined, I would have to suggest using molds to make them look like embossed coins.

“Good.”

I said happily.

Wilson’s face lit up at my response.

And now, the eagerly awaited final product.

“It’s ‘Pinocchio,’ Countess.”

I turned my eyes to where Wilson’s fingertips were pointing.

“Like you said, I scraped the cream with a fork to depict the rough wood grain.”

“Excellent.”

The product we would be selling under the name “Pinocchio” was a log-shaped chocolate cake, known on Earth as buche de noel.

A French Christmas dessert, buche de noel.

But there is no France and no Christmas in this world.

So I quickly had Wilson make this one, too, and we named it Pinocchio.

The log cake design itself became our character merchandise.

The quality of all the products exceeded my expectations.

I tasted each one.

I couldn’t help but smile.

Indeed, there was nothing wrong with his skills alone.

It’s just that he has no business sense.

I patted Wilson on the shoulder.

“The price?”

“Oh, yes! I discussed it with your butler, Sir Dylan.”

“Oh, good.”

“And for the ‘Pinocchio Cake,’ as you requested, it will be a limited quantity per day…”

I nodded.

The prices of character products were set slightly higher. It was the price of intellectual property.

But it’s not extortionate. When a company is just starting, it’s easy for consumers to see through the numbers.

Even so, I didn’t exploit it excessively. If we started like that, it would be obvious to consumers in no time. They had feelings too.

I set the price at a level that the guardians of children who enjoyed the play would be willing to pay.

This pricing also required market research, which I delegated to Dylan.

It’s a good thing Dylan and Wilson work so well together.

“I hope this works out.”

I muttered, biting into a Pinocchio icing cookie.

The tickets were sold out.

After the show, they’d be handing out cookies along with stamp books in the crowded theater hall.

We’ll have attendants on hand to send the kids off to Children’s Paradise, where they’ll feel like they’re in for a treat.

If we can get some of the audience to come over here after the show, we’ll have a full house.

That alone will draw in customers who have nothing to do with the theater.

So I was going to get double publicity.

‘And this…….’

A buttery Pinocchio cookie melted in my mouth.

‘It’s just the beginning.’