Chapter 5
“Hmph, hm-hmm~!”
Goldie’s daily life has been at an all-time high lately.
That was because her standing in the mansion had changed completely.
More precisely, it was because of the young master she served, Akion.
“Oh my, Goldie. Good morning. Have you thanked the young master yet?”
“Hehe, yes! I passed along what you said, and even though he pretended not to care, his ears turned red.”
During the recent renovations, Akion had installed ceiling fans in every servant break room and dormitory as well.
Thanks to that, the servants’ midsummer nights had become wonderfully comfortable.
“Thanks to Young Master Akion, it’s gotten easier to read magic books at night, you know?”
“It’s all thanks to the incandescent bulbs Young Master Akion made. And thanks to these ceiling fans, it’s even cool… Nights have become so comfortable!”
“Take good care of our Young Master Akion. Here, eat this and keep your strength up!”
“Owowow! Thank you for the snack~!”
And Goldie was enjoying those trickle-down benefits to the fullest.
“Miss Goldie. Have some of this.”
“Thank youuu!”
“Goldie, take this with you, too. Share some with the young master.”
“Thang youuu!”
By the time Goldie, whose cheeks had grown a little plumper thanks to all that, returned to the workshop,
- Zzz….
“Again, again, again! Are you sleeping hunched over your desk instead of in bed?!”
she found Akion snoring with his face buried in the desk.
*
“Good grief, Young Master. I told you to sleep on time! You promised Goldie!”
“Sorry, sorry.”
Now that the motor development and improvement project was over, Akion was focusing on developing products using small motors.
“But it was almost finished─.”
“And then you’ll end up sleeping in the workshop again?!”
“That’s a good idea. We could put in one of those Raku-Raku folding beds….”
“Hey!!”
Engineering-product research was necessary to maintain a comfortable life,
and that research required a budget.
His birth father, Delford, had promised his full support, but Akion couldn’t rely on him forever….
“Honestly, how dare you be so impertinent to the young master you serve?”
“Goldie can use body-enhancement magic, too. Would you like to be beaten with the rod of love? Good. Roll up your trousers, Young Master. Quickly.”
“Are you my mother? Anyway, I finished it. Look.”
Akion pushed Goldie, who was scolding him, aside. Then he showed her the small fan he had tucked into his clothes.
“What’s this?”
“A hand fan. More precisely, a portable fan.”
It was, in fact, a portable fan.
A propeller enclosed in a spiral-patterned grille.
A handle just right for gripping in one hand.
And at the bottom of its smooth, cylindrical body was a recessed loop for tying on a cord.
It could be stood upright on a flat surface, or a cord could be tied to that loop so it could be hung from one’s waist or neck.
Its exterior was made of fine wood coated in waterproof resin, giving it a glossy sheen.
To Goldie, it looked like an otherworldly luxury accessory.
“You really do make things pretty.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult? Anyway, try it for a few days and tell me what you think.”
“Huh? Goldie?”
“Yeah. And you keep it, Goldie. Bring it to me if it breaks. I’ll fix it.”
But Young Master Akion was actually going to give it to Goldie.
He had done the same with the first prototype of the incandescent bulb, simply telling Goldie to use it. It had been his first creation and the only completed one at the time, so it must have been hard to part with.
“I can just make another one.”
“Y-young master…!”
Of course, Akion was a cold laboratory nerd, so making another one was no big deal.
Above all, in his previous life he had been a middle-school student, a high-school student, a soldier, and an engineering graduate student in an integrated master’s-and-doctoral program… so he had no idea what Goldie’s reaction meant.
Even Akion noticed that Goldie’s earlier grumbling had melted away.
Anyway, all’s well!
“Use it for about two weeks and tell me everything you liked and disliked about it. Got it?”
“Yes! Goldie will even bring you a nice, neat report!”
More importantly, Goldie was both a servant and a mage.
Goldie claimed she was a novice mage because she could only cast one spell at a time or whatever… but her insight when it came to analyzing things and finding solutions was excellent. Akion couldn’t help but value her.
“All right, all right. Now go sleep. Shoo.”
“Okaaay!”
If he asked a third party like her for a review… she would surely bring back satisfactory results!
Happy that there was still room for improvement, Akion fell asleep for a nap.
*
The following afternoon.
“Y-young master….”
“Hmm? Why are you calling me?”
“Well, you see….”
When Goldie approached him hesitantly, Akion immediately sensed that something was wrong.
Goldie always acted like this when she had done something wrong. What on earth had she done to Akion this time to act like this?
“It’s all right. I won’t get angry, so tell me.”
But whenever Goldie caused trouble, it was always something minor, and she wasn’t even particularly clumsy by nature. She was a sharp maid, just as the elders often said.
“It was taken?”
But apparently, someone had taken the fan from Goldie.
“Yes, um, the First Madam….”
The woman who had married Delford first among his two wives.
And the woman who was not Akion’s birth mother.
“Lady Lucretia?”
“Yeees…….”
Lucretia Enersis.
A fire mage who had been called the Iron-Blooded Young Lady in her birth family, the House of Marquis Isolde. She was the one who had taken Goldie’s hand fan.
“And she left for a banquet at the Imperial Palace in the capital with the count just like that….”
“……Carrying it?”
And she had taken it all the way to the capital.
It was so absurd that Akion asked again, and Goldie answered clearly, without getting a single syllable wrong.
“Yes. She took it to the capital.”
She brought him back to reality.
At that moment, Akion’s mind filled with a single question.
“But why?”
“Goldie doesn’t know either….”
Goldie looked dejected.
Judging by her expression, Akion figured she was trying to think of it as having lost the fan.
And since she seemed intent on blaming herself for it….
“Sigh. Wait here. I’ll make another one just for you.”
“Owowow?! You don’t have to do that because of Goldie! Really, you don’t!”
“Ah, I can’t hear you. I’ll make another one for Goldie.”
He rolled up his sleeves and decided to make her another hand fan.
“Looks like I won’t be sleeping tonight!”
He volunteered for another all-nighter for the sake of his saddened Goldie.
* *
A little less than a thousand years in the past.
It began with a contract between humanity’s first hero and one of the First Dragons.
A contract to join forces and drive the demons away.
Together, the two drove the demons from the continent of Ilias.
And the comradeship between them soon blossomed into love, and the half-human, half-dragon born between them was….
“Let us praise Lady Flema, the first emperor and first empress….”
She unified half the continent of Iliad, watched over it as a sage and benevolent ruler, and served as the mother of all citizens of the Kalid Empire, and so on….
In other words, her bloodline was extraordinary from the very beginning.
Perhaps because of those genes, many of the emperors throughout history were wise empresses, and those empresses always had several men wrapped around their fingers.
Elsewhere, history was inscribed with tales of several men being controlled by a single woman, rife with hypocrisy and double standards. Such was the Kalid Empire.
That was how Akion realized, while reading history books, that this was a romance-fantasy world.
Why did women so often play surprisingly major roles in a patriarchal society?!
“How tedious and pedantic.”
“My lord!”
Such a long-winded tale. Delford found it tedious.
He had hurried here for the pre-Founding Day eve gathering and aristocratic council, but the royal family’s hymn of praise recited at every meeting exhausted him.
“If someone hears you, they’ll try to tear us apart again, so please watch what you say…!”
“It might be amusing to let them try.”
Every marquis and duke in the empire who mattered was here… but Delford was not afraid.
He was a descendant of the great archmage Elena Enersis.
One of the five wealthiest men in the Empire.
The head of House Enersis and an archmage who had reached the Ninth Circle as a mage at a relatively young age.
That was the genius known as Delford.
He was also a politician who had won the countship after a bitter succession struggle with his many siblings.
“I should have brought my youngest son. He could have broadened his horizons by seeing the Imperial Palace’s magical technology.”
That was why he had realized how absurd Akion’s alchemy was and, setting aside the pride of a family head, held on to Akion.
And that choice was—
“My lord. Aren’t you favoring Akion too much?”
“Perhaps. I’m merely giving my youngest as much as I gave the three children you and I had together. Though I suppose I’m doing it rather late.”
not merely excellent, but the best choice he could have made.
What was this motor, the magical tool Akion had made this time?
It was merely a rotating machine whose rotational speed varied according to the mana input… but….
“And the boy is truly clever. He brought to bloom a talent I had never even noticed.”
“Hmph.”
“As his father, I must take responsibility for having neglected him.”
In Delford’s eyes, as a genius on the verge of reaching the Tenth Circle, it had far too many uses.
For example, the sewing machines used only by high-end tailors were operated by pressing a pedal with one’s foot.
If one attached a motor to one, how quickly could it produce clothes?
Besides, since machines performed consistent movements, their precision would increase as well. That could be applied not only to sewing machines, but to countless other machines, too.
“So don’t hate Akion too much, either, my lady. You know, his mother─.”
“I’ll try.”
Lucretia wasn’t unaware of that, either.
She was a high-Circle mage herself, after all, and had broad insight.
It was just that she was a little displeased that something like this had been born from the hands of a child who had not come from her womb.
“Hmph, what’s the big deal?”
- Click, whirrr~!
“What is that?”
What Lucretia had taken out was the hand fan she had snatched from Akion’s personal maid.
When a mana stone was inserted or mana flowed into it, it automatically absorbed the mana and turned the thing called a fan.
Technically, Akion had been the first to define the concept of a magical tool like this, but anyway.
“Akion’s servant told me to pass this on to you. She said it was a gift.”
“Hahaha. Akion, that boy. It seems he’s trying to win your favor, my lady.”
- Click-click.
- Whirr! Whirrr~!!
She could see it.
Countless complex mana linkages occurring in the motor at the center of the fan!
It was operating with such precision and seamless coordination that even Lucretia was intrigued.
But why did it have to come from Akion’s head?!
“Tch….”
Delford had not praised Akion for no reason.
At this rate, he might even pass the countship on to Akion someday.
“Then I’ll go pay my respects to the Grand Duke of the North─.”
“Shouldn’t I come with you?”
“Didn’t you find it burdensome? It’s all right. Rest here and chat with the other ladies.”
“If that is what you wish, my lord….”
If that sort of atmosphere took shape… Lucretia might have to eliminate Akion.
Lucretia felt a little conflicted… but she steeled herself by reviving the viciousness she had possessed as the Iron-Blooded Young Lady.
“Goodness, Lady Lucretia! What is that in your hand…?”
“Was that made by the young master as well? I’ve heard the news. It’s a magical tool that repeatedly performs circular motion!”
She nearly lost her mind.
Every noblewoman had been drawn to this damned hand fan.
“So you used rotary motion to create wind. Goodness! Mana is operating with such precision and smooth coordination inside such a tiny component!”
“It’s technology that makes mana lamps look like child’s play. Is this… what they call magi-engineering?”
“That’s right. Some scholars saw the incandescent bulbs and thought of magi-engineering, the technology said to have created artifacts in ancient times. Of course, that’s absurd… but seeing how smoothly and efficiently this operates, perhaps Young Master Akion has discovered a clue.”
“So, Lucretia, my dear friend. Tell us—was this portable fan a gift?”
As everyone looked at her with shining eyes, demanding an answer….
“……Of course! In fact, Akion and I had a strained relationship until recently. Since he wasn’t my own child, I was cold to him…. But that child took the initiative and offered me this as a peace offering.”
“Oh my! How thoughtful!”
“Taking the initiative to seek reconciliation requires more courage than you might think. What a strong child!”
How could she say anything bad about Akion….
She would become a terrible wife if she did!
“And this is a prototype into which he poured all his talent. Isn’t it lovely? The exterior is coated with resin to bring out the wood grain while─.”
“Today, more than ever, I envy you, my lady!”
Lucretia squeezed her eyes shut and decided to become the kind of mother who raved, ‘I just love my youngest son!’
* *
One week after the banquet began.
“Young Master. The noblewomen have sent a mountain of letters!”
“Why?”
A huge stack of letters arrived for Akion, praising his devoted filial piety while also containing
one request.
They wanted him to sell the hand fan he had (supposedly?) given to Lucretia!