Chapter 78
“Ah….”
The Academy’s first semester had begun in earnest.
In fact, Academy students’ course registration was more flexible than one might expect.
They chose their affiliated faculty and department, but the system allowed them to enroll in lectures from other faculties if they wished.
“This is youth.”
“Graaagh!”
“Uuugh….”
The only catch was that freshmen could not change their courses during the semester.
This measure had been implemented because far too many freshmen had tested the waters and then fled.
As a result, having made the misguided(?) choice to take Introduction to Basic Science, the freshmen were groaning beneath a tidal wave of assignments.
“I—I can’t take it anymore!!”
“I didn’t come here just to study!! I came to expand my connections too!!”
In the end, several freshmen who could no longer endure it tried to make a run for it, but….
- Click, whirrr.
“For your information, everyone who passes Introduction to Basic Science this time will receive a desk lamp.”
“Aah!! I love science!!”
“I’ve been crazy about mathematics since the day I was born!! Math-yah-hoo!!”
The hostage product was simply too powerful.
Even if they were not as scarce as hand fans, desk lamps had become quite premium items.
From Akion’s perspective, even without industrializing incandescent bulbs, he could secure plenty of bulbs for the lamps,
and making molds for the lamp stands was extremely easy.
“Grrrgh….”
“Be sure to ask about anything you don’t know!”
These days, Akion listened to the groans of his roughly seventy students as if they were classical music.
*
- Slurp.
Akion, who had been enjoying his daily life at the Academy,
“Hmm.”
was enjoying some leisure while sitting in a café inside the Academy.
There were seventy students, but the lectures were held three times a week, and the assignments were meant to be worked on throughout the week… so there was not actually that much to grade.
- Scratch, scratch, scratch!
“Goldie.”
“Mrr?”
Besides, Goldie and the Tower Master, who had already learned all the engineering mathematics, were right beside him. The two were also helping as teaching assistants by grading the assignments.
Thanks to that, Akion had more free time than he knew what to do with these days.
The mass production of clothing ordered by imperial decree would be handled by Enersis on its own, as long as cotton was supplied.
So lately, he had not seen all that much left to develop.
“It’s a somewhat speciesist thing to say, but do you really have to drink milk like that?”
“But it doesn’t taste good if I don’t drink it this way.”
Even if it wasn’t as well-equipped as Enersis’s main house, this place had mana lamps and even a fairly decent water system,
and quite a few things had already been solved magically, so there was no need for him to step in.
“No, that’s not what I mean. It splashes everywhere.”
“That’s because the milk is too watery! Young Master, are you discriminating against beastfolk right now?!”
“I’m starting to consider it. Just drink it normally!!”
With no lectures left and all his work for the week done, Akion was spending a weekday afternoon drinking tea at a café inside the Academy with the others.
“Akion. Don’t bully Goldie too much.”
“How is this bullying? I’m seriously going to discriminate against beastfolk!”
“Hmph, just try discriminating against me! You’ll receive an enormous punishment!”
The princess had left to work on her assignments,
while the Saintess, having business at the Papal See, had handed her protection duty over to Aisirel.
Thus, Goldie, the Tower Master, and Aisirel—the three of them—were enjoying a leisurely break.
“Hmm. Goldie, just what sort of terrifying punishment is it for you to threaten him so boldly?”
“Why, a thirty-minute head-patting sentence—Nyeeeh! Don’t pinch Goldie’s cheeks!!!”
“That only benefits you!!!”
“Uu, Young Master, pinch them gently—Eeeh! Why are you pinching me too, Big Sis Aisirel?!!”
“They really are delightfully springy….”
And so, while Akion, the Tower Master, and Aisirel pinched Goldie’s cheeks over and over….
“Your ordered drink is ready.”
“Woohoo~”
The cup of coffee Akion had been waiting for so eagerly had arrived.
- Steaming.
It was not merely an ordinary cup of coffee.
The barista had painstakingly pounded and ground the beans, placed them in a filter,
and slowly poured hot water from a kettle over them to make…!
“Are you seriously taking twenty minutes to make one cup?”
“Hmm? Isn’t it normally made this way?”
“More importantly, Akion. Why are you trying to drink coffee cold…?”
It might have been the barista’s lovingly prepared drip coffee, but it had taken an absurdly long time to arrive.
To Akion, who had been a modern-day Korean in his previous life, that was incredibly slow.
Where had that iced Americano gone—the one that appeared in a flash less than five minutes after being ordered?!
Of course, coffee had once served him merely as a way to recharge his caffeine. Anyway.
“Hmm. Waiting is an aesthetic in itself. Akion. If you’re a noble, enjoy the leisure befitting one—.”
“Gah (喝)─!!!”
“Whoa?! Why are you suddenly doing that?!”
“Why are you nitpicking everything when you could just drink it?!”
You see, Akion hated the Heavenly Lord who had created this world.
With bunny girls already around, was it really too much to ask for proper technology instead of papering everything over with magic?!
[Damn it, you’ve never even written anything─!]
Somewhere, it felt as if the Heavenly Lord, stung by the mention of narrative logic, was shouting, but anyway.
Even with coffee beans being supplied, the fact that there was no proper espresso machine was a tremendous disappointment to Akion.
Of course, he had searched here and there, but the very concept of espresso did not exist at all.
“This won’t do….”
Akion wanted a rapid caffeine hit from instant extraction.
In other words, he wanted a drink made with an espresso shot.
“I’m going to make one.”
“Hmm? Make what?”
During his previous life, when Akion was forced to take a leave of absence, he had gotten a barista certificate for fun.
In truth, coffee had simply been too expensive, so he had thought he might learn to make it himself, but anyway.
Because of that, he still remembered all the conditions needed to extract an espresso shot.
“This Akion needs espresso….”
“Es… press-o? What’s that supposed to be?”
“One sugar stick melted into an espresso shot, then downed in a single gulp from a demitasse… Mmm….”
“Hmm. He’s plotting something again. Leave him be.”
“The Young Master is always like that.”
Akion quickly began designing an espresso machine in his head.
*
There were two essentials when extracting espresso from an espresso machine.
First, the water had to be hot and highly pressurized, at 90–95 degrees Celsius, and free of limescale.
Second, pressure of roughly seven to eleven atmospheres had to be applied during extraction.
“Oh! I never knew Professor Akion knew coffee so well!”
Before that, though, he needed to prepare a grinder to grind the beans.
Thus, Akion went to Ariba Irgachefe, owner of the Academy café and brother to its coffee-bean supplier.
Ariba welcomed Akion the moment he arrived.
“People who can distinguish the various flavors and aromas in coffee are rare. You must have delved very deeply into coffee…!”
“You flatter me.”
Whatever the case, every place this man had visited had struck it rich.
Enersis’s main house, the Imperial Palace, and even Count Gossypium, who grew cotton in the south!
“Where are these beans grown?”
“My elder brother has land in the highlands of the eastern mountain range. These are beans from the coffee trees grown there! They have strong acidity and a powerful aroma, so all the noble lords love them!”
The Irgachefe Viscounty lay in the highlands of the Empire’s eastern mountain range.
Akion recalled his father receiving beans from that region and enjoying them.
“It’s Arabica….”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Anyway, do you roast these beans yourself as well?”
In the first place, Irgachefe was rendered Yegacheffe in Korean.
And Yegacheffe was a representative origin for Arabica beans.
In any case, Akion gathered information about the beans he was supplied.
“Do you ever blend in beans of other varieties?”
“Gasp, how did you know? That’s right! Among those harvested at lower elevations than my elder brother’s estate, there are coffee trees whose beans are resistant to pests and disease.”
“Wow….”
There were also Robusta beans, which went into instant coffee, coffee mixes, and the like.
Akion began to grow excited at finding more to enjoy than he had expected.
“I won’t ask about the ratio, since that must be part of your business savvy, Mr. Ariba. Instead, when you grind the coffee, do you usually do it yourself?”
“Ah, yes, indeed. Since I have to grind it myself, it tends to take quite a while.”
Whether making drip coffee or pulling espresso,
the grinding process required manual labor, which inevitably made it a nuisance for a café.
“Then if I make you a machine that grinds the beans, what could you do for me in return, Mr. Ariba?”
“……Well, having one would certainly make selling in bulk much easier.”
But what if that process could be drastically shortened?
If the beans could be ground easily, quickly, and uniformly, a barista could ask for nothing better.
“I’ll give you one free drink every day for the rest of your life.”
“You’d never regret making that unlimited. Just wait. I’ll make one and bring it over.”
But true to his merchant nature, Ariba had tried to settle the bargain with just one cup.
Akion grinned as if to say “Just wait and see,” then dashed straight to his lab.
- Bang!
“Big Sis Asterra!!”
“Eek?!”
“Kyaa!”
Inside, Asterra, who had been researching a project titled “Development of a Recording and Playback Device Applying Illusion Magic,” had been frantically trying to hide something the moment Akion burst in.
“What are you hiding?”
“I-I’m not hiding anything.”
“You were probably doing all sorts of things to a younger version of me again. Your Highness, come out from behind the desk too.”
“Hmm. We’ve been found out….”
“Your horns were showing.”
Apparently, they had been playing with that shota version of Akion again.
While the two looked sheepish under Akion’s reproach, he grinned and set a sheet of paper down in front of Asterra.
“Sis. Can you draw three-dimensional designs?
“U-um, yes? Yes. I can, but….”
“Then try projecting this as a hologram, broken down by component.”
And if he quickly sketched the grinder parts on that paper and wrote down the values he had calculated mentally?
“Hmm, this one is about this size….”
Asterra then rendered it as a hologram using illusion magic.
Akion had honestly considered kicking Asterra out when he saw the shota Akion dragon version.
“This part goes here.”
“Ah, right. Sorry. Here?”
“Yes, yes. So they interlock… The upper gear needs to move up and down according to the rotation of this shaft.”
But who would have thought Asterra.exe was a hyper-precise design program (human) that put 3D design software to shame?
For Akion, who was recreating engineering devices, he couldn’t have asked for a more welcome slave—er, person!
Flare, who had been doing her assignments nearby and watching the process, observed the two with a soft gaze.
“Hey, Sis. The number of teeth on this gear is wrong. Aren’t you doing it properly?”
“Eeeh, no! I’m sorry!”
Flare thought that a man who concentrated so intently on his work was handsome.
Thus, as the strange engineering device gradually neared completion, Flare asked a question with growing anticipation.
“Young Master. So, what is the name of this magic tool?”
“We’ll call it a grinder. The beans will be trapped and ground between these opposing burrs.”
A machine for grinding coffee beans?
Couldn’t one simply have a servant grind them?
Flare could not understand why noble Akion would make a machine instead of ordering a servant like Goldie to do it.
“So… are you going to all this trouble for a single cup of coffee?”
So she asked the perfectly sensible question, by this world’s standards, of why he was putting so much effort into a magic tool for a single cup of coffee,
“Gah (喝)!! Coffee is a serious matter!!!”
“Eek?!”
Startled by Akion’s rebuke, she nearly toppled backward.
No, was he really shouting at a princess like that over mere coffee?
“Now that we’ve come this far, we should develop an air conditioner, make an ice maker, make a whipped-cream machine, hehehe…!”
“U-um.”
But it did seem genuinely important to Akion….
As his (for-real) fiancée… Flare resolved to cultivate the grace to respect him, even if she could not understand him.