Chapter 102
“Akion. Is there anything you want?”
“Tell Lady Karena. If there's anything you want, I'll grant it to you. Heehee.”
“This Uncle Xeros will grant you anything!”
Akion's second semester had begun to grow busy.
More precisely, there were simply more annoying matters to deal with.
“Then please, I'm begging you.”
The three dragons who had raised the Tower Master and her sister...
had been coming in and out of Akion's lab every day!!
“Please, couldn't you go wait outside so you don't interfere with our research?”
“Ahem. Akion! The comprehension of dragons, myself included, transcends all creation!”
“So it would be more helpful for us to be here. Ohoho!”
“Come on, tell this Uncle Xeros anything you need!”
“Just get out already. Hurry!”
It was serious enough that Akion even blurted out something rude.
But how dare he? Was it really all right to treat dragons this way just because he was human?
“Tsk, how dare a mere human...!”
“Still, let's not offend him. He's the Heavenly Lord's agent, remember?”
“Let's be careful... If we make one wrong move, he might blow up the world....”
“Ugh! Get out!!”
There were enough misconceptions and misunderstandings piled up that he could get away with it.
Since their last meeting, those three dragons...
had come to regard Akion as something like the Heavenly Lord's representative.
Thus, they were showing their faces like this in an attempt to win his favor somehow.
“Good grief.”
The problem was that, being dragons, there was no one in the Empire who could stop them, so Akion had to personally drive them out.
He let out a deep sigh and returned to the lab.
“D-did they leave?”
“Phew... They make me nervous every time....”
With beings from beyond the heavens dropping by every day, how could anyone focus on research or assignments?
Every time Hermione and Astera saw the three dragons—Asterion, Karena, and Xeros—they would stiffen up,
“Can't the Tower Master do something?”
“Even this time, there's nothing I can do....”
To the Tower Master, those three dragons were no different from doting parents she couldn't stop,
“Your Highness....”
“How could I possibly stop such great beings? I'm merely a princess....”
To Flare, they were the three elders above even the highest elders of her family.
For the record, even the Emperor had heard the news and fled after saying, “I'll leave it to you....”
In the end, Akion's lab was effectively running a dragon raid every day.
“This can't go on...!!”
There was no immediately urgent research, but the lab members still needed to work on their own research,
and Akion wanted to research prosthetic arms, which had caught his interest this time, but he was being interrupted!
If those three dragons kept invading his territory... Akion really might go insane!!
“Since things have come to this, I have no choice.”
In other words, he had to redirect those dragons' interests elsewhere.
And while he was at it, get some prosthetic-arm technology out of that Asterion.
“Hmm. I'm uneasy. Whenever Akion says something like that, he always causes a major incident.”
“Tower Master, Tower Master. Goldie thinks that major incident will be good for us, don't you?”
“Oh dear! I misspoke. It will be a major boon.”
“Oh, please, stop that and tell me what dragons like.”
After pestering and pestering the Tower Master, who was always spreading malicious rumors,
“Hmm. To tell the truth....”
“Yes.”
“We quite like carriages.”
“What.”
He had discovered that the dragons were car-camping enthusiasts.
* * *
What is a carriage?
It could be described as a wheeled cart pulled by a horse.
“More precisely, we simply have a great fondness for things with wheels.”
But in this era, the representative wheeled vehicle was the carriage,
so the notion that “a wheeled thing = a carriage” had become ingrained.
“But why do you like wheeled things?”
“Why would I know that?”
But apparently, most dragons liked wheeled things.
Akion was somewhat confused.
“But you're dragons?”
“I don't know.”
“Why not?”
“Because they're cute. It's so cute watching tiny things climb into less tiny things and trundle around.”
Akion tried imagining humans as hamsters.
If he imagined hamsters huddling into a tiny model compact car, it was pretty cute.
“Sometimes, some even hugged a carriage as if it were a pet, or climbed inside and fell asleep with their shrunken true forms wedged snugly within.”
“Hmm.”
“As for what we have in common... Though I am the same, driving a carriage oneself is quite enjoyable.”
“Mmmmmm....”
But from what he heard, there seemed to be some strange aspects to it as well.
Unable to erase the theory of dragons being car campers from his mind....
“Anyway, I just need to make one, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“A buggy.”
The dragons' new wheeled toy,
he planned to make a buggy.
*
“A new external power source?”
Asterion, one of the three dragons who had invaded the lab again, voiced his doubt as he looked over Akion's buggy blueprint.
Since anything pulling a cart was normally a carriage by default.
- Whiiiiir~!
“This will do, right?”
“Good heavens! A magic tool that rotates on mana...!”
But Akion had already implemented a motor powered by mana, so why would an external power source be a problem?
Magic stones were overflowing, and the mana that could replace them was no more than dust to a dragon.
“How fascinating. It mimics rotational motion endlessly.”
“Hmm, it might come in handy for mass production?”
All three dragons, including Asterion, were impressed.
Anyway, Akion had in fact already implemented a mobile vehicle powered by a motor.
Back in his workshop days, a maid and a few workshop employees had gone ahead and tried applying it to a carriage.
“Young Master, what do you think?!”
“It's so faaaast—aaaaaahhhhh─!!!”
“Stop! I said stop!!!”
- Crash!!
“Oh nooooo!!”
“I'm flyyying─!”
Of course, it had no suspension, three-point seat belts, brakes, or distance-detection sensors....
The instant the accident happened, everyone inside and outside the carriage went flying~.
And, as luck would have it, they crashed into the stables and killed a horse Delford had cherished.
It had been a major accident—Akion would have been fired on the spot if he hadn't covered for them.
“Brakes and coilover suspension are essential... For power transmission, should I use a chain or a shaft....”
So this early automobile, dubbed the mana-powered carriage, became a bit of a taboo term in Enasys.
Akion had let it slide at the time since it wasn't immediately necessary,
“Young Master, Young Master.”
“Why are you calling me, why are you calling me, Goldie?”
“It was the same with the Corex furnace, but once you make something difficult first, things are easier later—Mmph!”
Now, it was absolutely necessary to redirect the dragons' interests.
With that in mind, Goldie voiced the opinion that “It's better to get the hard work out of the way in advance.”
“Don't say that when you're not the one making it!!!”
“Y-you bad dog...!”
“Hweeeeng!! Don't pinch both of Goldie's cheeks—!!!”
Hermione and Astera, who would actually be worked to the bone, scolded Goldie mercilessly.
“Young Maaaster, save Goldieee!!”
“It's karma. Take it like a man.”
“Hweeeeeeng─!!”
In a way, it was karma, so Akion decided to pretend not to notice.
Anyway... as Goldie said, developing this drive shaft would make things easier.
But the power source he intended to use this time was a type of electric motor.
It produced consistent maximum torque at all times, from 0 rpm to 10,000 rpm.
“There won't be any need to make a transmission, either.”
For reverse, he could simply switch the polarity,
and there was no need for the complicated multi-speed transmission required by engines that burned fossil fuels.
Instead, he would need a gearbox to sacrifice the motor's rotational speed and increase the torque delivered to the wheels. Anyway.
“In that case... Lord Clad?”
“Ho-ho. It seems the workshop master has summoned me for the first time in a while.”
Since everywhere except Imperial cities and some roads was mostly off-road, it would travel well anywhere if he gave it a reduction gear ratio or something.
“Let's have Sister Astera just draw up the blueprint, and make it ourselves.”
“What?!”
“Aaaah, Akion's going to make it himself?! Without making us do it...?”
“Why would I have you sisters do it? I should handle this, shouldn't I? Aren't you two busy with your graduation theses and defenses?”
In that sense, this project would be carried out entirely under Akion's direction.
The lab intern, Hermione, and graduate student Astera would drop out after the design stage.
“Heh, hehe. I suppose our Akion has developed some respect for his older sisters?”
“Hee, hehe. Aki-chan, thank you.”
“Before I actually put you two to work, both of you, get over here.”
*
Thus began the buggy project.
- Bzzzt!
The outer frame was going to be a steel-pipe frame anyway,
and both Akion and Lord Clad were thoroughly experienced at making steel pipes.
Now that they even had welding, what was there to fear!
- Clack.
“With this, it'll run blazing fast no matter what we put it in, right?”
“Hmm, Akion. Even the small motor was that powerful, so one this size....”
And then there was the special large motor Akion had made himself!
Aicirel remembered the spiral spear incident and was worried, but clamped her mouth shut lest speaking up get the spiral spear confiscated.
Of course, her concern was justified.
- Whiiiiiiiiiiir!!!!
“Whoa?! Why is it going so fast?!”
“Cool, right? Call it a mini car.”
A mini car Akion had made as a scaled-down version of the buggy.
It was currently racing around the circuit Akion had made in advance at tremendous speed.
Apparently he had crammed suspension and a shaft and everything else into that tiny thing... but wasn't it far too powerful for a prototype?
- Whoosh! Bang!
“Eek!”
It was so fast that it even went off course.
And there was also the mishap where it struck Flare in the head as she watched from the side.
Anyone might have assumed it was regicide and gone into an uproar, but....
“Your Highness! Are you all right?!”
“I'm not all right!! What if the mini car broke?!”
“Exactly! Is a dragon getting a bump really such a big deal?!! The mini car breaking is far more serious!!”
“Gaaah, the two of them are completely obsessed with the mini cars...!”
It was in their dragon blood, after all.
Flare was already wildly excited alongside the Tower Master.
How could they possibly hold back when a tiny wheeled thing was zipping around too fast for the eye to follow?!
“Child! I made a few changes to the circuit while you were checking it!!”
“Flare! Hurry and put the mini car on it!!”
“Heh, hehehe!! If only we could use this to hold a race...!!!”
The three dragons who had been tormenting Akion had also forgotten their ages and become completely absorbed in the mini cars.
All of them were too busy modifying the wooden circuit Akion had made on their own and playing with it.
“What do you think of elevating this to an official competition?”
“Ohhh, Elder! That is a truly splendid idea!”
“We should first secure a large stadium where we can hold it!!!”
“Hmm.”
Was this the true nature of dragons, said to be pillars of the Khalid Empire?
Aicirel was beginning to feel slightly disillusioned about dragons.