[Oh, Are You a Science Major? (1)]
Hiiiiiing-.
"We have arrived, Administrative Officer."
Aiden stepped out of the carriage and, startled by the sight, let out a short, "Huh!" of genuine surprise.
"There are quite a lot of people, aren't there?"
"Just a few months ago, I couldn't have even imagined this level of activity."
"This is exactly why I suggested a rapid expansion."
In this world, the act of bathing was not particularly familiar to commoners, unlike the nobility. For the average person, the sheer waste of resources required to fill a tub—hauling water multiple times with buckets, chopping firewood, and heating it—was an immense burden. If there wasn't a river or lake nearby, most people barely managed to wash their faces, let alone take a full bath.
"As word spread that you, Administrative Officer, enjoyed the hot springs, the number of visitors increased significantly. After all, you are an object of admiration."
"Admiration? What are you talking about..."
Aiden, feeling a bit awkward at Lapisha's words, scratched his cheek gently.
"Haha. What is so strange about admiration? It is a natural human desire to want to be like someone they respect and look up to. Just as children grow up watching their parents' backs, it is only natural that the people of the territory should smile while looking at the back of their lord."
"Haha. I don't know what to do with such kind words."
He wondered why this woman, who never knew how to—or wanted to—say anything but the truth, was buttering him up so much today.
"Thanks to that, many have opened their eyes to personal hygiene."
Ah, so that was it.
"Personal hygiene?"
When Aiden asked back, Lapisha nodded with a benevolent expression. Having always maintained an icy, cold demeanor, he had considered her closer to a warrior than a healer, but seeing her like this, she was truly the guardian of the impoverished.
"In fact, most of the illnesses that plague the commoners can be greatly improved by solving just two things."
"Two things?"
"What they eat, and how they wash."
"I can understand the food part, but is washing really that important?"
Felix, who had followed along for training, blurted out the question before shrinking back in surprise, his shoulders trembling. "I-I apologize," he stammered, stepping back.
The boy, who had been like a stray cat when they first met, had shown unexpected sides of himself after being well-fed, cleaned, and taught. Among those traits, his enthusiasm for learning new things was particularly notable. While he worked hard to be of help to Aiden, it seemed to be his innate nature.
'Well, they say being observant is a form of intelligence. It seems the boy who was smart from the start has finally found the right clothes to wear.'
That a boy without the shelter of parents, possessing neither great strength nor a sturdy physique, could survive in such a harsh world and even look after other children in similar straits—it must have been because he was that clever.
"Haha. It’s alright. It seems you have an interest."
Fortunately, Lapisha did not rebuke Felix for interrupting. Instead, perhaps pleased by the boy whose eyes shone with pure curiosity, she went on to explain further.
"Washing is important. It is, in fact, even more important than eating. Especially if one has been exposed to something wicked."
"Does that have anything to do with why healers cover their faces when an epidemic breaks out?"
"You have seen clearly. While the exact causality is unknown, keeping one's body clean by washing frequently and covering exposed skin is quite effective against rapidly spreading epidemics."
"So, it prevents the energy of death from entering the body."
"Exactly."
"Then, Lady Japa, does that energy of death dissolve in water as well?"
"Why do you think so?"
"You said that as more people became favorable toward the hot springs and paid attention to personal hygiene, illnesses among the commoners decreased significantly. So, I thought that washing well might suppress the energy of death."
"To be precise, it is closer to being washed away."
"Ah!"
What exactly is the difference between being washed away and being suppressed? Aiden had that question, but he didn't voice it. Science was difficult for a liberal arts major. It was like that before, and it was like that now. People don't change that easily.
Regardless, the two people who were presumably science-minded were excited, leaving Aiden behind and busy talking among themselves.
"If that’s the case, aren't the hot springs a problem? I heard that in this place, many people wash together."
"That is true. That is why we have taken measures so that those who are unwell or have skin diseases can wash in separate, individual baths."
"Ah, I see!"
Aiden, who had only thought of individual baths for those who didn't want to expose their bodies, nodded. He thought it was a good decision to have Lapisha as a consultant for the hot springs.
"Then, is the research you mentioned also related to the energy of death?"
"To be precise, it is for observing the progression of diseases according to temperature and humidity."
"Temperature and humidity—."
"Some illnesses improve in high-temperature and humid places, while others worsen rapidly in damp environments. If we can accurately identify this, we can provide better treatment to the patients."
"That is certainly true."
"I’ve only spent my time traveling battlefields, stitching up limbs and reattaching broken heads, so I have much to study now that I have the opportunity to see new diseases. If you are interested, come visit sometimes. I can see that even if you aren't a professional healer, you could easily pass for a quack."
"Isn't it bad to be a quack?"
As Felix made a tearful face, the disciples who were following Lapisha quietly burst into loud laughter. They meant that, hearing her say that, he should aim to be a 'not-so-skilled healer' rather than a quack. Felix pouted, muttering, "Aren't a quack and a not-so-skilled healer the same thing?"
"Just say, 'Thank you.' It seems Lady Japa has taken a liking to you."
"Ah...!"
Aiden, unable to watch any longer, smiled and gestured with his chin, and only then did the young secretary bow his head.
The hot spring expansion site was, in a word, a spectacle. The few Goblins recruited to sniff out the water would point here and there with their trowels, finish their daily quota, and then guzzle beer before rolling around anywhere to sleep. The human laborers carefully avoided the Goblins, cutting wood and clearing rocks. It looked as if someone's labor site had become someone else's resort, but the laborers didn't have any complaints.
Basically, the dwarves' appearance was quite cute, and even while sleeping like that, when it was time to eat, they would catch root vegetables the size of a forearm or small, tender game, and laugh, "You can eat together, oh noble one!"—so the humans couldn't help but laugh along.
"The reason it's behind the original schedule is because this place is a field of stones."
"It certainly is a rocky area."
"We are mobilizing oxen, but since we plan to utilize more than twice the land of the original site, the groundwork is not easy."
The site manager approached quickly and briefed him. The previous hot spring was in a place where digging the ground wasn't difficult, so the construction ended quickly. But this time, it seemed different.
"The water source must be connected from below, so is it difficult to find better ground?"
At Aiden's question, a Goblin who had been napping under a nearby tree until just a moment ago ran over with his short legs.
"Noble one! Noble one!"
"Ah, hello."
The Goblin, perhaps still not sober, interrupted the manager who was briefing him, his tongue twisting as he insisted on explaining instead.
"If you ask me to find the smell of warm water in a place where it's easy to dig, I can do it!"
"Then why did you choose this place?"
"Because the smell of water was getting weaker."
"Weaker?"
"Yes. Just wait and see. Even if it's hard to dig here, once we dig it all up? I don't know for sure, but the efficacy will be enormous. The smell of water is incredibly strong!"
"It's the same water source anyway, so would it change if we dug in a slightly different location?"
"I don't know. Whether the water is the problem or the ground is the answer. But my nose is certain! My nose is never wrong. Uhehehe."
It was a statement that was hard to understand at first glance, but since an expert said so, what could he do but believe it? Still, this was a bit much. He knew it was a rocky field, but he thought it would be just fist-sized stones rolling around; this was a literal stone mountain where bizarre rocks were stuck into the ground. If such land had been included in a 21st-century redevelopment area, it would have been a mess, to the point where they would have simply given up on development.
No matter how strong the Northern people were, they couldn't just pull out rocks that weighed several tons.
"If only there were a crane."
He had been on policy training in Suwon a few times, and no matter the subject, the anecdote of King Jeongjo and Dasan Jeong Yak-yong always came up. Naturally, he had heard about the crane used in the construction of Suwon Hwaseong Fortress until his ears grew calloused. He had seen countless diagrams and explanations about pulleys and the principles of force, but again, Aiden was a liberal arts major through and through, and he had closed his ears as soon as the talk of force vectors began, so he still didn't understand it.
"A crane?"
However, Felix, who understood the meaning of 'a machine to lift heavy things' in one go, asked back with his eyes sparkling once again. It was a moment when the intelligence returned to the eyes of the secretary, who had seemed a bit bored after Lapisha left to see the hot springs and patients for her research.
"Ah. I don't know it well either. I just brought it up because I thought I heard of it somewhere."
Aiden, who had vaguely brushed it off, searched his memory and added a few more words.
"It uses a fixed pulley and a movable pulley at the same time... or was it a fixed pulley? Anyway, I heard that one of the two changes the direction of force from vertical to horizontal, making it easier to move heavy objects."
"Wow..."
"I don't remember exactly, but the shape was like..."
Aiden picked up a branch from the roadside and mimicked the A-frame shape of a crane. He didn't know the exact number or position of the pulleys used, so he glossed over it, but thanks to having seen the related materials repeatedly, he was able to reproduce the shape roughly.
"That's an interesting shape!"
"......?"
Is there anything interesting or uninteresting about the shape of a crane? Aiden hid his inner thoughts and nodded vaguely. There was still a mountain of briefings to receive.
"This is the recent visitor count and the resulting change in profit margins for the existing public bathhouse. The profit is quite high, more than I thought; it's not just the entrance fee, but the sales of food and beverages are increasing day by day. As word of mouth spreads, the number of guests looking for individual baths is also on an upward trend."
"Have inns been built nearby, too?"
"Yes. If you look here—."
The work continued late into the night. Because it was almost the first leisure facility in the North, there was an endless list of things to instruct on-site.
"I suppose I'll have to stay a few more days. I'll send someone to the Lord's Castle."
"Yes, Administrative Officer."
The schedule had changed, but it was certainly nice to have a secretary. Efficiency skyrocketed since he didn't have to adjust the schedule one by one.
"I'll visit the construction site again after lunch tomorrow. There are things to check."
"Yes, I will draft a plan considering the movement route and come to pick you up."
"No. I'll go straight to the site, so you should rest until then and come just in time."
"Are you sure that's alright?"
"Of course."
Aiden hoped that Felix would experience the hot springs during his free time tomorrow morning. 'His eyes will widen in surprise.' But he should have known when the scent of a science major was wafting off him. That a tech-head's leisure time was not like that.
"Wow-. It works, it works!"
"Isn't it amazing?"
"Little human, you have good hands! Won't you work on my farm? I can pay you a lot of money!"
Lunch the next day. Aiden, who visited the site, witnessed the otherworld version of a crane. Clack, clack-clack. The sound of pulleys moving was echoing through the construction site.