Thermal Shock Peel
1.
Out of nowhere, Ms. Erien was asking where I lived.
Why would she even ask where I live?
She hadn't so much as seen my face, and now she wanted an address? On top of that, she kept calling me things like "future Child of the Forest."
Was opening that document really that big a deal?
Yeah?
I know.
That was true. Demand for blacksmiths was sky-high, but the Heirs of Fire had all but died out, and things had gotten pretty desperate.
Ah…?
Hold on.
Back when I was a regular undergrad, there was a day when a lab wouldn't cooperate no matter what I did, so I ended up grinding on it straight through till morning. The moment I finally turned to leave, I found my professor sitting behind me — no idea when he'd gotten there.
— Here's a little tip for you.
And with those words, I got dragged into his office… and from that day on…
Yeah, never mind.
Anyway.
I guess that meant I was the kind of talent a whole group desperately needed. Grad students do make things rough when you don't have any.
That bad…?
Anyway.
At least I understood why Dolores was so desperate to keep me hidden.
"Alright then. How about I just ask the questions I'm curious about?"
In other words, questions only. Keep the information I give out to a minimum.
Okay.
I ignored the DMs for now and went back to the section on gem-cutting. That one line that had been driving me crazy earlier:
Gem-cutting begins with physical labor.
Why. Just… why.
Weren't the Fairies supposed to have evolved toward low-effort techniques because of their small frames?
And then, as if determined to betray every expectation, the next line hit:
Because of their small frames and small hands, Fairies are capable of delicate work no other race can imitate.
"……."
So because their hands were small, they could do those cute little precision jobs. They had their own brand of suffering over here, huh.
I kept turning the pages. Whatever else, the first step always had to be total immersion in the theory manual. Once you knew the theory cold, any application became possible. It just took time.
One hour.
Two hours.
I lost track of how much time passed as I tore through page after page. The one core idea I was trying to extract from this textbook was simple:
How the hell do you turn something stocking-like out of minerals?
Tmir's footpads were supposedly woven from gemstones. I still couldn't figure out how you turned jewels into something that behaved like cloth.
And the conclusion was…
"Holy shit. Is this for real?"
Along with a process that left me reeling.
I was just starting to think my research was roughly done when—
— Bang.
The workshop door flew open.
It was Dolores.
"…… Mama?"
I looked up, wondering what was going on — and the corners of her eyes were wet. She strode straight over and, before I could stop her, wrapped her arms tight around me.
"Ghk."
W-wait a second…
I'd already been running on nothing but dopamine and pure focus, no caffeine or any other crutches, just barely keeping the fatigue at bay — and now her embrace came crashing in. Both arms locked around me so completely I couldn't move. The cool chill of her Ninefold Pulse seeping into my back… and that soft, squishy, springy body…
It felt like being wrapped in a cool mat — all softness and comfort. What even was this…
Drowsiness hit. In an instant I felt the sleep debt I'd been putting off finally get paid in full, and my eyes slid shut.
"W-wait — that—"
Through closing lids, I pointed at the thermal boots.
Please just chuck those things…
I never managed to get the words out.
I simply fell asleep right there.
2.
I opened my eyes.
"What the hell."
My last memory wasn't of some ergonomically designed squishy cool mat — it was of blacking out in Dolores's arms. I'd pushed myself too far. Straight-up passed out.
The first thing waiting for me in the air when I woke was a floating message window.
56 unread
Yikes. Someone was in a hurry.
I got up and stepped out into the hallway. Truth be told, I was a little impatient myself. That walk from finishing a full theory review to heading into the lab the next morning was always the most exciting part — the same buzz as hearing a rhythm-game studio had just dropped a new chart. After absorbing a whole new crafting method, I was practically vibrating.
I was on my feet in an instant.
"How long was I out?"
Slept well, then. Catching up on all the missed rest left my body feeling clean and sharp.
I threw myself down the corridor in a hurry. Twenty-four hours without eating anything had me ready to scavenge whatever I could, so I headed for the dining room. Luckily, a ciabatta was sitting on the table — I just grabbed it, stuffed it in my mouth, and walked toward the workshop.
— Chomp, chomp.
On the path through the garden.
What the hell?
Aside from how fresh the air was and the flowers blooming along the way, this was starting to feel uncomfortably similar to those mornings I'd suck down coffee on the way into the lab.
Hadn't I already graduated from grad school?
Thoughts for later. The body kept moving. I opened the workshop door and stepped inside.
Ruby and Mama Dolores had apparently gone into the nearby forest for magic practice — I'd overheard it in passing. Thanks to that, the house was empty, and I could focus on the work.
The second I was in, I cranked the water full blast into the giant tub.
— Screee.
Cool water flooded the basin. A cooling vat. Think of it as the place where overheated minerals take a cold shower.
"Hah…"
While the water filled, I chewed through the ciabatta and walked back over yesterday's theory manual in my head — the core of gem-cutting I'd cracked open the day before. The technique of craft itself.
— Chomp, chomp.
I already had a rough picture of what to do.
Take the Sun Dwarves' thermal overshoes and make them out of materials pulled with Fairy Race gem-cutting techniques.
The prep was simple enough. We needed to pull thread and fabric out of gems and ores. How? Under normal circumstances, impossible. You can draw fibers from things like asbestos or basalt, but gems are a different story. Even modern tech can barely touch that territory. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires — hard as they are, they don't pull into long fibers the way thread does.
But this place was different.
I dug a few Flame Ore pieces out of the mineral pouch. The red gems gave off a faint warmth. That heat was mana. Raw stones in this world held mana inside them — that was why mages and blacksmiths used them as materials. And that mana didn't just clump in the core; it also wrapped the surface in layered nets.
Peel off that net.
Strip the mana membrane a gem or mineral holds and draw it out as fabric. With ordinary minerals you'd fully melt them and push the liquid through a nozzle to spin thread — melt spinning. The process here was a little different.
That was the foundational theory behind every Fairy gem-cutting technique: mana skimming.
Seeing is believing. I'd already run the simulation in my head more than a hundred times. I shut off the full tub and called for Yuna.
"Yuna?"
I laid out every step I'd designed and understood from the reading, start to finish.
"…so can you DM the Great Chieftain and ask if that would work? Oh, and tell her I missed her messages because I was asleep, would you?"
Manners mattered.
Now all that was left was the final cross-check. One last verification of whether the theory held — and then we started.
— Ding.
The reply arrived instantly.
Too long. Eighty percent of it was pure rapture, and the other ten was Fairy ancestor flexing.
I scrolled straight down and checked only the conclusion.
Okay.
"Tell her thanks?"
I closed the DM window and focused on the work. Verification was done.
"…Fire's a first for me."
I picked up the black stone sitting beside the forge. Flintstone. I'd heard about it roughly when the workshop was first explained — hit it a few times with a hammer, toss it in with charcoal, and it would catch flame. For some reason it felt like the kind of thing that would buff stamina and skill acceleration.
I set that black stone in front of the forge and took up my hammer.
"Earthborn Hammer."
Been a while. Sorry I kept leaving you for the Enchant Hammer.
"Don't worry."
Today I'd use you till I was sick of it.
— Thud, thud.
A couple of hammer blows on the flintstone, then I flung it into the forge with the charcoal.
Soon—
— Fwoooosh!!
The red stone cracked open glowing and the flames leapt onto the charcoal pile. I looked down at the Flame Ore in my hand. A faint warmth seeped up through my fingers.
Up to now, the thermal gloves and overshoes had only been about insulation, with a faint heating effect from Sun Dwarf inscriptions. This, though — this was a direct heating material. A mineral too ambiguous to call a proper gem, looking like translucent red glass. I was going to use it.
Once the fire was going strong enough, I raked the charcoal aside with tongs, buried a piece of ore in the middle, and covered it again.
"Hah…"
From here, it began.
— Screeee…
I worked the foot pedal. The bellows shoved air through, the charcoal drank oxygen, and the fire climbed. The lubricant made it lighter than before, but it was still hard labor.
— Scree… scree…
— Drip… drip…
Sweat ran down my forehead and hit the pedal. The forge's heat turned the workshop blistering in no time. I'd opened every window, but it didn't help.
— Screeee…
I stamped the pedal in a trance. Sweat soaked my whole body; I had to keep wiping it just to see.
"…How many minutes?"
Flame Ore started melting from the thirty-minute mark.
"Enough."
I immediately raked the charcoal aside with the tongs, pulled out the glowing Flame Ore — and then.
— Hiiiiisssss!!!
Straight into the cooling vat I'd filled earlier.
— Blub-blub-blub…
The water boiled up at once, steam blotting out my vision.
— Bubble.
— Bubble.
— Bubble.
— Blub-blub-blub.
I rode the rhythm of the boiling water, waiting for the beat…
"Now?"
— Thud…
I lifted the Earthborn Hammer and struck the side of the cooling vat.
— Thud, thud, thud…
A steady rhythm, continuous hits. They said to strike as squarely on the beat as possible. Easy. This was my specialty. It felt like playing a rhythm game on the job — imagining a hit circle floating in front of me made it even cleaner.
The vibration carried through the water… and soon, a red aura rose over the surface like a heat haze. Something that wouldn't mix, the way oil floats when you drop it in water.
That was it.
I grabbed the sieve beside me. Too early was bad; too late was worse — before the membrane scattered. In that exact instant—
— Swoosh!
I slid the sieve under and carefully lifted the film that had risen to the surface.
The principle: a sharp temperature shock peeled the mana clinging to the mineral's outer layer free as a thin membrane that floated up. Insane Fairy gem-cutting theory.
"Thermal Shock Peel."
I immediately transferred the limp film I'd scooped up onto the wooden frame waiting beside me. Before it cooled and hardened, I had to set the fabric's shape. Working the limp, hot texture out with my fingertips—
— Sliiiide…
I hung it in the sunlight to dry. Warm sun and the heat the fabric itself still held worked together, and the dampness in the membrane vanished in moments.
"……."
Wet, it had looked like a limp transparent husk. Now, with a faint translucence…
"Silk."
It had become red silk.
Still clutching the result, I dropped straight down onto the floor. A piece of silk the size of my palm.
"Hah…"
Making just one of these felt like I'd poured two liters of water out of my body. The repeated process itself was simple. Keep doing this until I had enough fabric to make thermal overshoes without sweating the materials.
"Is the water hot?"
"The stone?"
I reached into the cooling vat and pulled out the Flame Ore. It was subtly smaller.
"So I just keep repeating this."
Peel the outer mana layer by layer into fabric, until the concentrated mana inside finally shows.
"……."
I pushed back sweat-soaked bangs. As I sat there staring blankly—
I know.
I know, but I was so wiped I couldn't even answer properly.
"Can you take a photo of this and send it over? Just to check if it's done right?"
Time for a Great Chieftain sign-off.
— Click.
Once again, the Great Chieftain read it instantly. But this time, no answer came for a long while.
"…… What's with this person…"
When it actually mattered, she went silent.
"……."
Well. Handing your judgment off to someone else wasn't exactly a great method either. The result looked close enough to the mana-skimming samples in the textbook, so it was probably fine.
I stood up and grabbed the tongs.
"…Again. One more."
— Scrape.
I cleared the charcoal and dropped the Flame Ore back in.
— Screeee…
Back to the bellows.
I stopped counting which round I was on. A decent little pile of translucent red silk had built up on the workbench. Which meant something had been draining out of my body in a pile just as thick. I guarantee it. Like those little crystal beads monks leave behind, you know?
Messages kept coming in; I didn't look at them.
— Creak.
Then the workshop door opened.
Dolores. Outside, the moon was already up.
"…Lady Dolores."
"…Lionel."
"Could I have some br—"
I'm hungry…
But once again, before I could finish the sentence, Dolores pulled me into her arms.
"Ah…?"
My head sank straight into her chest.
Bread…? No, not that kind of bread.
Bread… soft bread…
"Your body's burning up, Lionel…"
"I still have work to do…"
There was no fighting this. From the moment she held me, the strength drained out of me in a slow slide. Coolness and softness were the last things I should have been feeling right now.
"Lionel? I really, truly respect you so much."
"Ah……"
"I don't want to get in the way when you're absorbed in something. Even if you pull all-nighters, even if you skip meals, I've been trying to just watch over you as much as I can."
Dolores's voice trembled a little more with each word.
"But the reason I still came like this…"
"……."
Her arms pulled me in a little deeper.
"Is because I was afraid your body would break."
"……."
"Whenever it looks like you're about to cross that line, I'll come like this as many times as it takes."
Looking down at me, Dolores's eyes wavered faintly. There might have been tears gathering there.
She must have been watching me stuck in front of the forge all day, holding herself back for a long time.
"Don't push yourself, Lionel. Your body… matters more than I do."
"…… Yes."
Her face softened into a gentle smile.
— Stroke, stroke.
With that cool sensation of her brushing my bangs back, I collapsed into her soft embrace. Through closing eyes I held onto the image of Dolores's face…
And I fell asleep.
A single photograph sat in front of her eyes.
How was she even supposed to process this?
"Wh-what is this?"
Great Chieftain Erien's mouth hung open. She couldn't tear her gaze from the photo. With trembling fingertips, she zoomed in on the screen.
Red fabric.
Mana skimming.
Thermal Shock Peel.
She understood all of it. Every piece of it. It was a technique the previous Children of the Forest had spent entire lifetimes refining.
But what shocked Erien wasn't the technique itself.
"…How is the yield this high?"
How was a piece of fabric this large and this wide even coming out?
Thermal Shock Peel. The membrane you could pull from a single ore was, at best, the size of a pinky finger. You had to heat and cool enormous stones over and over — hammer, and hammer again — just to scrape together one scrap of cloth.
And yet the fabric in the photo was nearly palm-sized. Unless someone had been working a boulder the size of a house, that result made no sense. Of course yield varied with a craftsman's skill, but a gap this wide? In her XXX years of life, she had never seen anything like it.
Was this what the dwarves had felt the first time they encountered the Company? What was it called again — the Industrial Revolution… that thing.
"…… Does this even make sense?"
— Clackclackclack.
Erien hammered the keys in a panic.
— Tap.
A young Fairy standing beside her quietly took over the keyboard.
— Clackclackclack.
Rewritten into a more appropriate reply.
— Clackclackclack…
Erien, still hammering keys to the bitter end, finally sighed and shook her head.
"Hah… messaging like this is exhausting. The address, the address — ask for the address."
Tracking down a residence — that, too, she did not forget.