Chapter 60
Day 4 of air conditioner development.
Thanks to Ms. Odette and the princess taking care of me, my cold had gone away in just one day.
The problem was that the moment my fever went down, the heat of reality I'd forgotten about hit me all over again.
“Huuuu...”
The room was literally a steam bath.
Even standing still, sweat ran down my back, and the bedsheets stuck to me.
Every breath I took made the hot air churn inside me.
“If only...”
I mumbled, having melted into a slime puddle on the bed.
“I'd rather have had the cold still lingering...”
By now, developing an air conditioner wasn't an option—it was mandatory.
“But... how?”
Compressing air with telekinesis is dangerous.
Didn't I learn that this makes natural mana go berserk?
“I need a stable power sourceeee...”
Preferably one that doesn't cost me a dime.
As I stared vacantly at the ceiling, something suddenly flashed through my mind.
An ancient magic golem.
I mean the magic circle engraved into its core.
“It definitely absorbs the natural mana around it and uses it as a power source...”
A light suddenly went off in my head.
If I could turn all that abundant natural mana into cold?
Then there'd be no need to use pricey magic stones as fuel.
Lying on the bed, I used mana as ink and my fingers as a pen, scribbling equations in the air.
If I organized the plan, it'd look something like this.
First, the magic-circle design.
Install a magic circle on the wall that draws in the natural mana floating in the air.
At the same time, draw a conversion magic circle that changes mana's attribute into cold.
Then comes the cooling core.
Create a core that stores and controls cold mana.
It's just for storage and release, so a reasonably cheap catalyst should be fine.
I'd also need to separately design the mana circuit that defines the circulation system.
It wouldn't be enough to just keep the cooled air around the magic circle; I'd have to circulate it throughout the room.
At the same time, I'd have to draw the muggy air back into the core.
Guiding a simple flow of air like that shouldn't be too hard.
The problem is the heat exhaust.
I'd need to vent the excess heat generated during the cooling process somewhere...
“Hmm, how should I twist the piping so the heat vents smoothly...”
This was more a matter of engineering design than magical theory.
No matter how I turned it over in my head, I couldn't come up with a good idea.
Resting my chin on my hand, I scattered every random thought I had into the air.
Before I knew it, the room was filled with the equations, magic circles, and circuits I'd drawn.
*
Day 5 of air conditioner development.
I wracked my brain late into the night, but nothing came.
So I left the magic circles and equations floating in the air and just crashed.
Trusting that tomorrow's me would somehow clean up today's mess.
But even after sleeping and waking up, nothing in particular came to me.
“Mwoeaaagh...”
I lay sprawled out on the bed, blankly staring at the 'blueprints' filling the room.
My brain was so overheated, both physically and mentally, it was on the verge of bursting.
“...Couldn't I just dump all the heat and excess mana out the window?”
For a brief moment, I had a bad idea, but I held myself back.
It wasn't really because I felt guilty.
If I sent out the heated air carelessly, the window frame would melt, or the backflowing heat would turn my room into an oven.
-Knock, knock... knock.
Then I heard a knock at the door.
It was the most timid knock imaginable. Exaggerating a little, you'd think an ant had headbutted it.
Too lazy to even sit up, I answered in a languid voice.
“Come in.”
“U-um... Miss Lunaris...?”
The door opened a crack—just a tiny crack.
Someone peeked in, opening it only as wide as a finger.
Messy, tousled hair and round glasses.
It was Liliana, the dean of the Magic Engineering Department.
“A-are you all right...? I heard you were caught up in the explosion the day before yesterday... Are you hurt anywhere...?”
“As you can see, I'm fine. More importantly, you're asking pretty late, aren't you?”
“Hiiik! S-sorry! I was coming back from the workshop late last night, so...!”
Dean Liliana timidly stepped into the room.
“Anyway, I'm glad you don't seem to be badly hurt. Really...”
Dean Liliana trailed off.
Her gaze locked onto the circuits and equations filling the room.
“Uh... uh?”
The eyes behind her glasses went wide.
“Th-the... Miss Lunaris?”
First, confusion.
Then, curiosity.
And finally, shock.
“C-could it be... you're making some kind of magical tool to cool the room?!”
“Oh— that's right.”
As expected of the head of the Magic Engineering Department.
One quick glance at the magic circles and circuits filling the room was enough for her to immediately figure out what I was trying to do.
“Absorbing natural mana and converting it into cooling... a self-powered system that runs without magic stones... What a beautiful circuit... Haaah, haaah...!!”
Her timid demeanor was gone without a trace.
Before I knew it, the dean had turned into a magic-engineering otaku, eyes sparkling as she began taking apart my equations one by one.
“Goodness... This is a magic circle that improved the core of an ancient magic golem, isn't it?! To think you'd stack the circles like this to increase stability... Eeeeeek! Look at this equation! How beautiful and efficient...!!”
Somehow, the way she excitedly huffed and snorted through her nose looked pretty perverted.
“T-this is... revolutionary! It's better than any magical tool I saw at yesterday's expo!!”
“But, you know, there are a few parts I get stuck on when I try to actually build it.”
I deliberately let out a deep sigh and pointed at the red-tangled circuit.
“I don't know how to vent the heat. You could say I'm stuck on the piping design...”
“No! You're getting stuck because you're trying to solve it as a piping-structure problem!”
...Yikes.
I flinched without meaning to when Dean Liliana suddenly raised her voice an octave.
“You're creating a bottleneck because you're trying to use a mass-produced metal with low mana conductivity!”
“A-ah?”
“Here, for this joint, use an alloy of mithril, silver, iron, and copper mixed in ratios of 40, 20, 30, and 10 percent, and make the circuit into a spiral double-layer design... Ah! When making the alloy, base it on the principles of alchemy's philosopher's-stone creation...”
Dean Liliana jabbed at the air and fired off her words like a machine gun.
Mm, I kind of get it.
So basically, don't cheap out with off-the-shelf materials.
“O-ohhh—”
I casually sat up a little and chimed in at the right moments.
Instinct told me I'd get nowhere if I barged in unnecessarily.
“Come to think of it, I had some leftover mithril ingots in my lab... Wait here a moment! I'll bring them right away!”
Dean Liliana shot out of the room in the blink of an eye and quickly disappeared down the hallway.
I watched her back and absentmindedly waved.
Though I was dumbfounded, a snort of laughter slipped out before I knew it.
Still, I never imagined the problem I'd been worrying over until yesterday would be solved this easily.
Joining the Magic Engineering Department was definitely the right call.
*
It had been exactly one week since I started developing the air conditioner.
In the end, I actually finished it.
-Whiiirrr.
The sound of the magic circle working tickled my ears.
A vent I'd attached just for the vibe, though it wasn't really necessary, began pouring out white cold air.
Feeling the cool breeze, I threw myself onto the bed.
“Huuuaah...”
In the room so cold it made my body shiver, I pulled the blanket up to the tip of my nose.
The feel of the blanket against my skin felt unusually warm.
“This is it... thiiiis is itttt...”
A languid sense of bliss washed over me.
My mind went blank, and my whole body grew slack with drowsiness.
Ah... I wish time would just stop like this...
Rolling around on the bed with the blanket wrapped around me, I suddenly noticed a lump of metal lying on the desk.
-Th-thanks to you, I really... had fun!
-S-so... p-please use whatever's left, Miss Lunaris...!
-A-any time you run out of materials... come to the dean's office!
-And you have to show me any more fun blueprints like this too! Okay?!
It was the mithril alloy Dean Liliana had left behind.
I flicked my finger and used telekinesis to bring the mithril alloy over to me.
“There's quite a lot left.”
That'd be enough to make one more air conditioner, at least...
*
“Is this heaven...?”
“I feel like I can live again...!”
The break room in the basement of Linea Hall.
The maids were huddled together in one corner of the room.
Above them, on the wall, a plain metal box with a large magic circle drawn on it was humming away.
Some had their eyes gently closed, savoring the bliss.
Others covered their mouths and teared up with emotion.
I watched the scene from a step behind them, scratching my head for no reason.
Seeing them so happy they were crying made me feel oddly embarrassed.
“Thank you, Miss Lunaris.”
Then Ms. Odette came up beside me.
Her posture was as upright and immaculate as ever, but her expression looked much more at ease.
“Thanks to your thoughtfulness, our maids are now able to serve in a much more comfortable environment.”
A neat, sober expression of gratitude without a single unnecessary word.
“It was nothing. I had some materials left over, and I figured it'd be a waste to throw them away, so I made it.”
I shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“And that uniform of yours looks sweltering just to look at.”
What if you overheat and collapse?
There's nothing sadder than collapsing from heat exhaustion while you're working.
I know that better than anyone.
“Well, if you're really grateful, then next semester maybe you could go a little easier on me.”
“Hehe. That's difficult, young lady. If anything, we'll have to take even more care of you out of gratitude.”
...Tch. What a ruthless woman.