Chapter 45
Akion only realized one thing after completing the waterbed.
He had been incredibly lucky.
“This would’ve been easier if it were a massage chair…?”
“You crazy bastard…!”
“Whoa, whoa, calm down, Chief. Is this the first or second time the Young Master’s done something like this?”
“Let go of me, Alex! I need to punch that crazy Young Master in the face at least once!!”
What fields of engineering could possibly cause problems when making a waterbed?
Strength of materials, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and dynamics!
On top of that, all sorts of scientific and engineering problems were bound to arise.
He had overlooked all of that because things always worked out for him.
Even if he had ground his employees down like mad, he had solved all of this in just two weeks?
And he had cleared everything in a single attempt, to boot?
“Luck certainly played a part, but I really did make you all work too hard.”
“H-he finally admits his mistake!”
“Sniff, the Young Master is beginning to cultivate kindness in his heart…!”
It was like starting to develop a space-launch rocket from scratch and successfully sending it all the way to the moon on its very first launch.
He really had been incredibly lucky.
“Still, it would be better to get all the hard work over with at once, so if I’d known, I should’ve developed the massage chair at the same time.”
“That lunatic—!!”
“What?! Calm down, Alex!”
Of course, a few employees also went mad at Akion’s lunatic remark. In any case.
If he made them work any longer, the employees would truly sharpen their plans to escape.
And so Akion gave every employee paid leave.
“T-two weeks, you say?!”
“Young Master, you won’t go back on this later! You mean it! It’s a promise, right?!”
An unbelievably long period.
It was the sort of perk that naturally elicited cries of, ‘The Young Master’s gone mad!’
“Then shall we pretend I never said that?”
“Yaaahoo!! Vacation—!!!”
“At last I can go see my fox-like daughter! Sob!”
The workshop employees cheered loud enough to tear the heavens apart, then fled.
Once left all alone, Akion…
“Sigh, I suppose I’ll have to do this myself.”
had to handle the remaining work as the workshop head.
The last stage of the commissioned product—the final step before delivery.
“Head Steward, could you gather some people to move this? It’s going to Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, so have them dress up properly.”
“As you command.”
He moved to deliver it to the client, the Empress Dowager.
*
Empress Dowager Aurelia Pendragon.
“Pheeeew….”
Perhaps thanks to continuously recuperating in Akion’s Workshop’s special sauna,
her apparent age had dropped to the mid-fifties.
“You have truly lovely skin, Your Majesty.”
Even the attendants who had served her for a long time were aghast, then filled with admiration.
No magic or alchemy had ever produced such an effective result.
“If you return to the Imperial Palace like this, people might mistake you for His Majesty the Emperor’s sister.”
“Ho ho ho! Don’t flatter me!”
Naturally, the Empress Dowager’s son—the Emperor—would be startled out of his wits and ask, ‘What on earth have you been through?!’ when he saw her…
That would be a pleasure for later.
As the Empress Dowager excitedly imagined surprising her son upon her return,
- Zzt!
“Oof.”
her back pain returned.
The treatment combining the sauna with baths had helped her back pain as well, but unlike its effect on her skin, the results were not dramatic.
It merely reduced the pain for a short while.
“Child.”
“Ah, Elder. Please don’t worry… It’s the usual.”
“Sigh. I see.”
The Magi Tower Master watched from beside them, frustrated and concerned.
‘Her appearance aside, her bones and muscles haven’t changed much.’
Thanks to Akion’s special sauna, the Empress Dowager’s appearance had regressed by twenty-five years.
However, her muscles and bones still remained those of an old woman.
It was a problem caused by being human, unlike the dragon.
“Still, thanks to the mana infusions you give me from time to time, the pain has lessened lately. Thank you very much.”
“What could I possibly not do for the descendants of my sister?”
As a dragon, the Magi Tower Master had experienced countless farewells.
She had bought them time, but she could feel that this Empress Dowager had only about twenty years left as well.
Of course, that was a long time for a human. In any case.
- Pat, pat….
“Ho ho, that tickles, Elder. I’m not young anymore either….”
“You’re all babies to me. Hehe.”
The Magi Tower Master filled her stroking touch with affection.
She also imbued it with gratitude toward Aurelia, who carried on the trace of her vanished sister.
- Knock knock.
“Have them enter.”
“Pardon the intrusion.”
Then they received some welcome news.
The Empress Dowager’s attendant who entered through the door looked flushed with anticipation.
“Young Master Akion has succeeded in developing a special massage magic tool for Your Majesty.”
“Oh my! My granddaughter’s husband already…?!”
“Hehehe, isn’t he remarkable?”
When she had served as regent, the Empress Dowager had listened closely to reports from the field.
She knew very well how difficult it was to imitate human hands.
For that reason, she had expected the development of the massage magic tool to take years, but….
“I was considering staying here leisurely for a year, but that’s no longer necessary.”
“That boy. Are you planning to drain Enersis dry?”
“Ho ho ho! If it means I can spend time with Elder, I think I ought to be the one paying.”
But he had completed it only about eighty days after being commissioned to make it.
The Empress Dowager was astonished and dumbfounded. And then,
‘I must make him marry my granddaughter.’
she resolved to make him her grandson-in-law.
There was no one so exceptionally gifted among even the Imperial Mage Corps, which consisted of the Empire’s finest. They absolutely could not let him slip away!
Still, the Empress Dowager was anxious that it might fail to live up to her expectations because it had been completed so soon.
“Bring him in at once.”
“Yes, Elder.”
Thus, following the Magi Tower Master with half anticipation and half anxiety, she…
“Welcome, Your Majesty.”
- Ripple~!
found herself facing a bizarre bed beyond anything she could have imagined.
“Could you explain what this is, grandson-in-law?”
“It’s called a waterbed.”
So this was a massage magic tool? A bizarre bed filled with water?
For the Empress Dowager, whose common sense was rooted in the Middle Ages,
“Son-in-law? I may be ignorant about magi-engineering, but this….”
it felt as though he was making fun of her.
The implication was, ‘You’re not looking down on me just because I don’t know much about engineering, are you?’
“Please lie down first.”
Of course, when Akion had first seen a waterbed in his previous life, he had also wondered, ‘Does this even work?’
However, his previous-life self had been suffering from severe body aches at the time.
Figuring that he had nothing to lose—and that it could make money—he had decided to try the physical-therapy device he had made.
- Gloop gloop~
“Th-this really does work, right?”
At the time, Akion had felt as though he were getting a high-pressure car wash.
In a good way.
“All right, I’ll start the operation.”
“Grandson-in-law? Son-in-law, wait—.”
What incredible technology, implementing tapping and acupressure through intense water pressure!
Recalling how satisfying it had been in his previous life, Akion switched on the waterbed.
- Click.
- Whoooosh—.
The mana drawn from the inserted magestone powered the turbine,
and hot water from the preheated boiler traveled through the turbine and out through the pipes,
- Thud-thud-thud!!
“Oh my goodness!”
The pipes opened and closed according to the cylinder pattern connected to the buttons, beginning the massage.
“Are you all right? Does it hurt?”
“N-no, it just startled me. It doesn’t hurt. Rather….”
- Thud-thud-thud!
The sensation was similar to being massaged by the attendants, transmitted through the hot water!
“It’s incredibly refreshing and relaxing….”
“Hehe, you’ve finally stopped doubting it.”
“I suppose I was worrying over nothing. Ho ho.”
Along with the wonder of the magi-engineering Akion had demonstrated,
she slowly closed her eyes as a blissful sensation began to wash over her.
- Burning hot….
“I feel as though I’m being held in my late mother’s arms….”
A waterbed was fundamentally a bed with absolutely incredible heat retention.
On top of that, buoyancy put her in a half-weightless state, so she barely felt her back pain.
The waterbed was comfortable enough for the Empress Dowager to savor even memories from her earliest childhood, and she eventually…
- Snore….
“She’s asleep…?”
“She has fallen asleep.”
forgot all about her back pain and drifted off to dreamland.
“Thank you, Akion.”
The Magi Tower Master felt relieved at the sight of her peaceful expression.
The long-lived dragon carefully stroked the Empress Dowager so as not to wake her.
“They say Lilia’s back pain improved after she came to Enersis, but it was still severe enough to disturb her sleep. This is the first time I’ve seen her sleep so soundly.”
“It really is comfortable, but….”
- Whoooosh—.
Of course, Akion had also felt fantastic when he lay down in it.
But was it really enough to make someone fall this deeply asleep?
- Snore….
Her rejuvenated skin hid it somewhat, but if one looked closely, dark circles were visible beneath the Empress Dowager’s eyes.
If her back pain had kept her from sleeping, her daily life must have been not merely inconvenient but agonizing… Yet the Empress Dowager had shown no sign of pain to anyone except the Magi Tower Master.
“She’s an incredible woman. She endured this for so long.”
“Indeed. She is my proud niece-in-law.”
This must have been the first time in a very long while that such a woman had slept so soundly.
Beside the Magi Tower Master, Akion quietly watched her carefully stroke the Empress Dowager.
*
“Oh my, what happened to the time!”
Thus, the Empress Dowager slept soundly for about three hours.
“Hehe, I’m fine.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Absolutely wonderful…!!”
Her condition was at its peak, even the dark circles beneath her eyes having vanished completely.
No matter how much she had recuperated in the sauna, there were limits to an old, rusted body.
On top of that, she had moved less as she aged, and her muscles had become quite stiff….
“G-good heavens. Was I ever this flexible…?”
“You’re almost completely loosened up…?”
The Empress Dowager’s body had become incredibly flexible, to the point that she no longer needed to worry about any of that.
Back pain? It was hard to believe she had ever suffered from it.
Akion recalled the physical therapy he had undergone in his previous life.
There had been no such dramatic change after physical therapy back then… but Akion had already had a pretty good idea of the reason.
‘Must be thanks to shitty coding, I guess.’
The Lord of Heaven, who must have improperly installed the engineering module, had clearly caused another incident.
Still, as he looked at the Empress Dowager, who had become remarkably flexible for someone in her eighties, he thought perhaps there had been fewer bugs this time, when…
“To think my body would loosen up this much… Lilia. In this condition, do you think you could make a fireball like you used to?”
“Would that be possible? I must have neglected my magic training, so my mana circuits should all be blocked.”
“Nothing to lose, right? Try it once, just as I taught you long ago.”
The Magi Tower Master urged the Empress Dowager to use fire magic.
At this point, Akion sensed something fishy.
“Mmm, mmmmm…!”
The Empress Dowager drew up mana that she had not used in a long time.
Her mana circuits had all stiffened, so the magic clearly should not have activated, yet
- Fwoosh, fwoooosh!!
“Oh my! Good heavens! I haven’t been able to use magic properly since I turned sixty…!”
“Hehehe! Just as I predicted. Your mana circuits have improved!”
The Empress Dowager smoothly conjured a fireball.
Naturally, Akion had expected things to go this far.
How many times had engineering met mana and unleashed all sorts of positive bullshit? This was nothing by comparison.
He had expected that mana circuits, known as the veins of mages, would be sufficiently improved by a waterbed massage device filled with mana.
Akion watched with great satisfaction,
- Fwoooosh!!
“But, Lilia. The firepower is… rather extraordinary.”
“I-I can’t stop it!”
Along with the unease that still had not disappeared,
Akion broke into a cold sweat as the fireball grew larger and larger.
Why was it getting even bigger from there?
In martial-arts terms, the fireball kept growing like the sword aura of a peerless genius who had undergone a meridian-clearing treatment, and then…
- KABOOOOM—!!!!
“Aaaah!! Elder!!”
“Quickly, cut off the mana! The ceiling’s caught fire!!”
The fireball began setting fire to various places throughout the Empress Dowager’s quarters.
- Whoooosh~!
The Magi Tower Master eventually summoned water with magic and put it out.
But the building Akion and the workshop employees had constructed while bleeding from their noses was half burned down.
“I-I couldn’t even use it this powerfully when I was young…! It feels as though the magic circuits that had stiffened up have been completely cleared…!”
“Hehehe, we’ll have to examine you in detail. But one thing is certain… Lilia, the waterbed had an extremely positive effect on your mana circuits!”
“Congratulations, Your Majesty!”
“His Majesty the Emperor will be delighted!”
The Magi Tower Master, the Empress Dowager, and the attendants rejoiced at the result beyond their wildest expectations, utterly unconcerned by the damage.
Beside them, Akion simply…
‘Fuck.’
hated the Lord of Heaven with all his heart.
Had you left yet another coding bug unfixed?