Chapter 56: Chapter 56: In That Moment, History Moved (The Cooling Chapter)

Translator: ShiroiKaze/Soyokaze Translations

And so, my investigation continued at mister Foras’ place again today.

He has plenty of books with information on monster ecology, but when it comes to detailed properties, I can’t quite discover what I’m looking for.

“Haaa… I can’t seem to find it.”

Heaving a sigh, I remove my eyes from the book, lightly stretch and look over towards Haster.

As usual he’s reading some sort of manual on succeeding in labyrinths while in his boy form.

Strangely, in spite of my heart pounding when I look at his appearance, my reflexive discomfort and feelings of rejection when touching him have yet to heal.

Lately he’s in boy form during the afternoon, and at night he [Transforms] back to his usual golden years self.

Only he also plays around with [Transformation], making it bigger, increasing the number, or making it longer. As his partner this brings all kinds of difficulties to me.

It would be fine if he at least stopped that…

“I’ve accepted everything about him, so consequently any slight changes from how he used to be gives me a feeling of discomfort… Might be what’s going on?”

“Hm? What’s up?”

He must have heard me muttering. He raised his head and inquired into what I was saying.

I thought he was absorbed in his reading, but he sure does have sharp hearing.

“Nothing, I’m just a little tired; do you want to take a breather?”

“Yeah, sounds good. I can feel my eyes getting a bit worn out.”

“I’m not quite finished with this book yet though… Mister Foras, may I borrow this book for a bit?”

“As long as you don’t get it dirty, go ahead.”

I only asked because I had nothing to lose, but though I may have declared myself related to Haster, isn’t he being a little too careless about it?

Well, I’ve been deliberately listening to his stories and indulging in reading his books these past two days, so maybe that means he’s giving me some trust?

“Then let’s go to the place on the main street to eat.”

“Sure thing… Want to come along, Foras?”

“I ain’t getting in the way of your date; wouldn’t wanna be a third wheel. Just take your sweet time.”

“I-i-i-it’s not a d-date!”

While giving a completely unconvincing statement, I went along with him to head out for a bite to eat.

We had a light meal at the previous place with the delicious pie, and we continued reading while pecking at the berry pie we ordered for dessert.

We were sitting at a well-lit window seat in the shop. Together with him, silently reading while carrying tea and coffee to our lips…

Forgetting about time, we spent a while like that, when I suddenly felt a gaze.

—Is Bahamut still lurking around or something?

Suddenly taking a look around, I noticed the number of customers in the shop had increased. Moreover, they seemed to take peeking gazes over in our direction?

“Sure is amazing, yeah, amazing.”

“So cute… No, note quite. Maybe ‘pretty’ would be more fitting?”

“It’s like a scene from a play…”

I heard the women give one quick review after another.

Guided by their voices, I look to the seat across from me, and—

A beautiful young boy in a magician-like robe, turning the pages of a book with a melancholic expression… That’s how he appeared.

The light pouring in brought out the subtle shadows, and even the cooled coffee added to the perfect stage-set to make the flawless scene.

“Whoaa…”

I spontaneously let out a sound of admiration. I’m not the least bit surprised that those women were fascinated by this.

His all too beautiful young boyishness brought blood to my head in excitement, and I could feel the tip of my nose getting warm.

“… No fair.”

I let words of criticism leak from my mouth. This is so unfair.

How am I supposed to keep from being charmed by him when he looks like this?

When I bring my hand to my warm nose, I feel something dripping… Huh?

“Yuuri, your nose is bleeding.”

“Hwah! Awawawa…”

He lines up two chairs next to me, creating a bed-like surface to lay me down on, and furnishes it with his lap as the pillow for me.

“You probably still have some resistance to this appearance, but bear with it for me. Also, manager, sorry, but can I let her lay here?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind. It’s an emergency after all.”

“And we’ve been sitting here for a long while now, too. I apologize for that as well.”

“Bah, thanks to you two, I’ve gotten a bunch more customers; I’m not gonna mind something as simple as that.”

“Is that so?”

Come to think of it, today is the second day we’ve been here, but there sure are a lot more customers than yesterday, huh?

“Since yesterday there’ve been rumors going around of a young and beautiful couple coming here for their dates.”

“This is only the second day we’ve been here though…”

“It’s probably because the impact from the first day was that strong. Strong enough that customers have been asking if you two had come by yet since this morning.”

“Is this a display to them?”

Weariness is writ on his face. I feel that this expression is rare for him.

Well, I can understand him being seen as a spectacle at least.

“You look like you think this is someone else’s problem, but you’re the one the gallery was viewing, Yuuri.”

“… Wha?”

“After all, I look completely average. You’re obviously the one they’re looking at.”

“They’re actually coming here to see both of you, ya know?”

The manager brought cold orange juice over for me.

“Th-thank you very much?”

“It’s on the house, so don’t worry, just drink it down.”

“I see, I appreciate it.”

Taking the effort to make things cold in this world is quite a valuable service. That value should be reflected in its price, but I guess this city has a lot of really friendly people.

Thinking about it, the sunlight has been getting stronger lately, so walking around is starting to become annoying because of it.

This body doesn’t get sunburn, but even so, its pigmentation is weak, so the pain from the blistering sunlight still runs through me.

“I really want an air conditioner or something about now…”

While this may be obvious, the five big conveniences of modern times; television, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, and automobiles don’t exist in this world.

Water is turned to ice with [Freeze], wrapped in a towel and brought to my neck, while I sip at the orange juice and think.

“Air conditioner?”

“Ummm, it’s a sort of mechanism-like construction which cools the air?”

I give them a rough explanation. I can’t really explain machines to them… Wait, this is…?

“Actually, [Freeze]’s effect is maintained, isn’t it?”

“That is certainly built into the spell. Because it was a spell originally invented to preserve fresh food.”

“What it cools… Doesn’t have to be meat, does it?”

[Freeze] magic was a spell formula invented for storage, but it’s actually a very high difficulty technique.

To [Freeze] a substance, highly concentrated cold air must converge precisely on the target. And yet for storage purposes it must sustain its effect for a long period of time.

For that reason, regardless of it being invented to be useful in normal life, its high degree of difficulty keeps it from spreading well. That’s what kind of technique it is.

“Are you going to freeze the air? I’m pretty sure that would kill us, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s not exactly…”

Maybe this is something I would be better off actually trying to create?

Right, doing things as soon as they come to mind is one of miss Yuuri’s merits.

What I need is… A large, elongated box with a solid frame, a flat board as something to freeze… Flat… No, never mind.

And then one more thing; the spell Bahamut used the other day, [Ventilate]. If I use that…

“Manager, may I have a moment of your time?”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Do you have a long wooden box about this big? Also two or three boards about like this, and an iron plate or something about this size…”

My appearance as I gestured to demonstrate the sizes I need was probably somewhat comical.

While laughing a bit, the manager said, “I’ll go take a look,” and went to the back of the store.

After a short while, the manager brought the items as requested, so I went immediately to experimenting.

“Excuse me, I’ll be borrowing this space for a bit. If this succeeds, then it will be yours free of charge.”

“Uh, yeah? Wait, more importantly, could you tell me what you’re planning to do?”

“Make an air conditioner.”

First, I cast [Freeze] on all the boards. I place those in the wooden box, affixing them to the upper half, and place the lid on.

“Hey, you’re a magician?! Tell me beforehand if you’re gonna use magic. Or are you trying to frighten me?”

“Oh, pardon me.”

“Sorry, manager. She can’t be stopped once she gets like this.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to say magicians are considered suspicious, but ordinary people do tend to keep a little distance from them.

Anyway, time to continue my work now.

Next I cut a slit in the upper part of the lid, and make an exit point for the air to blow out of. I make a similar hole in the lower part of the box as an inlet.

Last is the iron plate… I burn the [Ventilate] spell on to the dish made of iron, fill it with plenty of magic power, and affix it in the lower part of the wooden box.

Truly simple. It is now complete. I didn’t even need thirty minutes for it.

“Now then, experiment begin.”

I activate [Ventilate], inscribed on the iron dish, causing a breeze.

The wind blows out upward, being impregnated with cold air as it blows past the [Frozen] boards along the way.

[Freeze] concentrates cold air to put its target on ice, but it doesn’t control how much cold air the frozen object gives off.

And since it’s a persistent effect, the [Frozen] object will absolutely not melt. In other words it will permanently continue giving off cold air.

It’ll stop working when the plate with [Ventilate] in the lower part runs out of magic power, but [Ventilate] itself isn’t a particularly difficult spell, so it’ll be easy to install a new one.

And this [Ventilate] should be more than enough to maintain itself for a summer.

“If you replace this [Ventilate] inscribed part one a year, you should be able to pass the summer in cool bliss.”

“Oh ho, this is quite nice.”

The principle of it is closer to a cold air fan than an air conditioner, but the ice it’s using was made with [Freeze], so it is very high in effect.

Unfortunately the air power on it couldn’t be adjusted, but… Wait, maybe I could build in three levels of [Ventilate], from weak wind to strong wind?

“I made the command words to start [Ventilate] up, “Air conditioner, activate”. You can use the same words to turn it on or off.”

“Is this one of those magic tool things? I’m pretty sure these things are paid for in gold coins. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes, this is still in the experimental stage, so I wouldn’t take money for it.”

I’ll develop a more detailed commercial version later. I’m sure it would sell fine at 10 gold coins each.

“But this is a surprise… No matter how hot you may have felt, to create a magic tool like this so easily… You magicians sure are somethin’.”

“She’s actually a special case. She is the “Sage of Wind,” Yuuri Albine after all.”

He gently emphasized the Albine name.

His possessiveness is surprisingly strong… I’m happy about it though. I’m really happy about it though!

“The rumored… I’d heard the owner of the title changed, but I had no idea she was still a child.”

“Could you at least call her a beautiful young girl?”

“Ooh, well she must certainly be your girlfriend. Are you sir Haster’s apprentice too?”

“Ah, uh—yeah. I sure… am?”

Haster was surprise attacked while endorsing me, then became tight-lipped.

Don’t you think that was careless? We have a very secret-filled personal history after all.

And thus in the City of Comb, a specialty product called the “Air Conditioner” was born.

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Author’s Note: A story about one of the achievements made by Yuuri.