Chapter 58
“So, Luna, what are you going to do over vacation? Are you going back home?”
“No. I’m going to stay in the dorm.”
Where would I go? Leave behind this nice bed?
Claire, whose eyes had lit up after hearing me, asked cautiously.
“Hey, Luna. If it’s okay, want to visit our estate? It’s only about three days by carriage from here.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Of course I had no intention of going.
Three days meant six days round trip, or 144 hours. Spend that long dozing in a carriage, sleeping rough, or on the hard cheap beds at inns? Absolutely not.
At that moment, Princess Celestina quietly cleared her throat and joined the conversation.
“I’m also planning to stay at the academy over vacation, Luna.”
So the princess shyly suggested that we should have meals together from time to time.
I tilted my head and asked without thinking.
“Princess, you’re not going back to the imperial palace...”
As I was speaking, it suddenly occurred to me.
The princess might actually feel more at ease at the academy than at the imperial palace, where political infighting was rampant.
“It’s... kind of complicated to go back.”
Watching the princess smile sheepishly and brush it off made my mouth feel oddly dry.
Come to think of it, the princess really had a rough fate.
Considering what happened to the other royals in the original story, staying tucked away at the academy really was a stroke of genius.
I rubbed the back of my neck for no reason and spoke up.
“Well... I’ll come by sometimes.”
“Really?!”
The princess’s face brightened in an instant.
“If you’re coming by, you can stay the night too!”
“We’re in the same building anyway, so why bother...”
“But it gets lonely if I’m on my own~”
Those sparkling, bright eyes were dazzlingly hard to resist.
I took a step back with an awkward expression.
“Well—I'll think about it.”
*
“Hwaaaah?!”
Just as the sun was coming up, I shot out of bed.
The wrestling-style wake-up routine I’d gotten used to over the past semester had forced me awake.
It was about time for the maids to come barging in...
Half-asleep, I focused on the sounds coming from outside the door.
“?”
But today, Linea Hall was strangely quiet.
I couldn’t hear footsteps echoing through the hallway, nor the rattle of doorknobs.
I blinked blankly, then let out a low exclamation: Ah—
“Right, come to think of it, vacation started today...”
In an instant, all the tension in my body drained away like air leaking from a balloon.
A lazy smile spread across my lips without my noticing.
“Hehe... ehehe...”
I buried my face in the pillow and let out a satisfied sigh.
That’s right. Right now, it’s summer vacation.
The head maid, the dean, and even the board chair couldn’t stop me from sleeping in.
I slowly closed my eyes and savored this sweet, refreshing reality.
Today was the very first day of vacation.
A day to gift the best rest possible to me, after being tossed around for an entire semester.
To think I could spend the time stolen by WWE-style mornings and pointless lectures entirely on sleep... Isn’t that amazing?
What’s more, this was a time with no unfair nonsense from the original story.
The Ashen Witch was closed for business for the next two months.
“Yeah, as a celebration... today I’m sleeping straight through a full twenty-four hours...”
Since the sun had risen already, I’d sleep until it rose again tomorrow.
“Huaaah... this feels soooo good...”
Savoring the soft touch of the blanket and the nostalgic comfort of my favorite pillow, I drifted back into deep sleep.
*
My resolve to sleep straight through twenty-four hours didn’t even last four hours.
“Grrr...”
Around noon, with the sun hanging high outside the window.
The clammy heat wrapping my body made me wake up without realizing it.
Cold sweat ran down my back, and my pajamas were clinging to me like waterlogged seaweed.
“What is thisss... why is it so hot?!”
My discomfort level had blown through the ceiling.
The air in the room was hot and stifling, like a steam bath.
Every breath I took stabbed my lungs with hot vapor.
My twenty-four-hour full-sleep project for the first day of vacation was turning to dust before half a day had even passed, thanks to this damn natural disaster.
I threw the window wide open in my clammy frustration, and the harsh blazing sunlight poured straight in.
Suddenly, the ‘temperature-control magic stone’ installed in one corner of the room caught my eye.
“You—aren’t you going to do your job properly?”
It was supposed to be a premium magical tool specially made by Dean Liliana to keep the room at a comfortable temperature.
But even the magical engineering dean’s special invention seemed unable to handle a crazy heatwave like this.
-Beeeep...
A red warning light blinked on the surface of the magic stone.
It looked pitiful, as if it were screaming that I was going to die and begging me to save it.
I absentmindedly reached out, then yelped and jerked my fingers back.
This thing had really overheated.
Even Linea Hall was helpless before this cursed heat.
I let out a deep sigh and flopped back onto the bed again.
The bedding, heated up to the max, was not just warm but stinging.
Even if I closed my eyes and forced myself to sleep, the beads of sweat gathering on my forehead and above my upper lip would make me open them again in less than a minute.
Add the damp air and the soggy sheets to that. Truly hot and wet. The worst combination.
“Graaah—this feels gross!”
In the end, I kicked the damp blanket away and shot back up.
“No good. I can’t live like this.”
At this rate, I’m going to turn into dried fish jerky.
I can’t surrender to the heat like this.
The conveniences of civilization... the inventions of the modern age are needed right now.
Luckily, there’s one thing that’s perfect for this situation.
“Air conditioner... I need old man CarriX’s masterpiece...!”
Something that endlessly blows out cold, refreshing air.
Something that also wipes out moisture completely.
If I can make the miracle magical tool called an air conditioner...!
“Yeah, I’m going to become the CarriX of this world.”
I clenched both fists tightly.
This is a fight to secure my right to sleep...!
*
Day 1 of vacation.
And Day 1 of air conditioner development.
I immediately sat down at my desk and opened my notebook.
The hand holding the quill moved quickly, almost as if dancing.
“First, the structure...”
I combined the modern knowledge from my previous life with my prodigy-level magical knowledge to work out ideas for developing an air conditioner.
How could I create a continuous flow of cold air?
A cycle of compressing, condensing, expanding, and evaporating the refrigerant.
I had to translate this complicated mechanical system into magical engineering...
How many cold-attribute magic stones would I need, I wonder?
Scratch, scratch, I lightly sketched a mana circuit diagram that used magic stones as the power source.
It didn’t look like it would have the output to cool an entire room...
I muttered to myself, drawing and erasing the blueprint again and again.
After running the numbers in my head, I came to the conclusion that I’d need at least five expensive large magic stones to build a cooler at the level I wanted.
Even worse, magic stones were consumables. Assuming twenty-four-hour operation, I’d have to replace them once every three days.
“This maintenance cost is going to be insane...”
Looks like getting through this summer is going to cost me decades’ worth of living expenses.
Still, in the forest, the wind blew gently, so it wasn’t that hot.
Was it a mistake to say I’d stay at the academy?
I groaned and mercilessly crossed out the blueprint with an X.
“Efficiency... I need efficiency...”
By the time I’d repeated the cycle of drawing and erasing one blueprint after another while clutching my head, the sky had already grown dark.
Before I knew it, the precious day was over.
“...Ah, forget it.”
My brain really isn’t working.
Exhausted beyond belief, I carelessly tossed the pen aside and buried my face in the pillow.
“Huaaah... I’m melting awayyyy...”
Even though the sun had set, the air in the room was still muggy and hot.
Damn it. This cursed tropical night.
*
Day 2 of air conditioner development.
After a sleepless night of groaning, a single idea suddenly flashed through my mind.
“Right, the principles of compression and expansion.”
There was no reason at all to use expensive cold-attribute magic stones.
I could just use mana itself as the refrigerant.
I immediately went back to my desk.
“If I compress water-attribute mana with telekinetic magic and then rapidly expand it, it’ll steal the heat from around it...”
In short, that would be the principle behind an air conditioner compressor.
As expected, the people who change the world are engineers—no, magical engineers.
I immediately drew a magic circle on one side of the wall.
I drew a large circle and scribbled complex rune characters over it.
“Good... this’ll make cold air gush out.”
After carefully finishing the outer edge of the magic circle, I took a breath and placed both hands over it.
“Start.”
The moment I poured magic power into the core of the magic circle, a low whirring hum went up.
Soon, the magic circle began to emit blue light, and a cool breeze gently brushed my cheek.
“As expected, perfect... huh?”
The mana compressed by telekinetic magic, contrary to expectations, writhed ominously. It had gone beyond the threshold the circuit could handle.
Soon, the magic circle glowed red with heat.
Feeling something was off, I quickly pulled my hands away, but it was already too late.
The water-attribute mana serving as the refrigerant had completely gone berserk.
“W-wait a sec...!”
As I staggered backward, right in front of my eyes, the magic circle exploded with a deafening boom—!
“Cough, cough!”
The room was instantly blanketed in cold.
A chill so unpleasant it felt like I’d flung open the door to a freezer wrapped around my body.
“W-what was that?”
“Are you all right?!”
The maids, having heard the explosion, crashed in and practically broke the door open.
Finding me standing dazed in the white fog, they screamed.
I slowly turned my head to look at the maids.
A pale frost had settled on my hair, eyelashes, and the pajamas I was wearing.
Everything in the room had frozen solid.
“Ah... I failed.”
I exhaled a white puff and murmured in a languid voice.
Then Ms. Odette arrived in my room a step late.
She looked back and forth between the room and me, then let out a deep sigh.
“Haa... young lady.”
“...”
“I understand that you’re hot, but freezing the room is not acceptable.”
“...It’s not like I wanted to do this either.”