Making Gold (3)
Making Gold (3)
In this other world, one Copper Coin held roughly a thousand won worth of value. And a Silver Coin had the value of a hundred such Copper Coins, while a Gold Coin had the value of a hundred Silver Coins.
Simply converting that, Noah's monthly salary came to about ten million won. An annual salary of 120 million won.
Considering that you hear farmers in this other world make good money if they earn ten Silver Coins a month, it was a considerable amount.
And on top of that, room and board provided, plus materials needed for her research? Refusing this would be a truly foolish act. To Noah, Dojin even began to look like an angel.
It's a bit awkward to say this, but if he asked her to suck his dick, she was prepared to open her mouth immediately.
Of course, such a thing did not happen.
Dojin took her to his mansion. Upon arriving at the mansion, Noah got a bit scared.
"Now you can just live here."
"Ah, yes......."
She felt gazes staring her down. The moment Dojin brought her in, three women with eyes practically turned upside down glaring at her, two women looking at her with fascinated expressions, and one woman who looked like she had no thoughts whatsoever.
'What is this person? A harem master... or something like that?'
The gender ratio in the mansion was insane. All the residents were women, the maids were women, the cooks were women, everyone was a woman.
They said there was another man living in this mansion besides Dojin, but Noah had never seen that person.
Because of that, she accepted it as just a lie to reassure her, and Noah proceeded with her research in a state of constant anxiety 24 hours a day, not knowing when Dojin might enter her room.
"I'm currently hunting Werewolves..."
"What are their characteristics? Yes, wolves that walk on two legs... They have a good sense of smell, you say? Roughly to what extent......."
Fortunately, when she was doing research, all other distracting thoughts would disappear. After doing research for a long time and getting tired of it, she would arbitrarily proceed with expensive research she normally couldn't do.
Dojin's expression often stiffened up when she spent research funds, but even so, she didn't stop.
'Hmm, this one's a failure.'
She always succeeded in the research Dojin requested, but most of the things she pursued personally failed.
It couldn't be helped. Dojin's requests were work, and her experiments were a hobby. A hobby could fail, but work couldn't be ruined.
Then one day, Noah met a man wandering around the mansion. He looked a bit haggard, but Noah immediately ran up and spoke to him.
"Dojin-ssi!"
"......?"
"The request you made... um, who... are you?"
"That's what I want to ask."
The man she met was Deokgu. Deokgu looked her up and down, then spotted the item she was holding in her arms and let out an "Ah-" sound of realization.
"You're that alchemist."
"Yes, but you are......."
"The kids didn't tell you? I'm Deokgu."
"Ah, the other man besides Dojin-ssi they said there was......."
It was her first time seeing him. Noah instantly scanned his body and roughly deduced his profession. Seeing the pen callus on his hand, he looked like someone who held a pen a lot.
There aren't that many jobs where you hold a pen enough to develop a pen callus. A scribe or a finance official. Or perhaps a playwright or novelist.
A scribe or finance official being in this mansion was unthinkable, so he was probably a novelist or playwright.
"That... might you be a novelist?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Ah, because you have a pen callus on your hand......."
"I'm a reporter. A newspaper reporter."
Deokgu said that while muttering that he never dreamed he'd end up like this. However, he didn't have any major complaints about his current life.
Work all day, and when bored, roll around in bed with the slave maid he had acquired, and when an idea comes to mind, scribble for the newspaper.
There's no need to explain how great it is to make money and enjoy female companionship without even setting a single foot outside the house.
"Ah, right. You... you're an alchemist, you said?"
"Huh? Yes, but......."
"Then make me a writing tool that's comfortable to use, like a typewriter or computer... ah, that one might be a bit much. Anyway, something like that."
"Could you specify what exactly you mean......."
"You know, that thing, where you dip something like ink onto metal and when you tap it, a predetermined letter is input."
It was a concept that didn't exist in this other world. Pre-stamping letters onto a tool... was he talking about metal type? It didn't seem like he was talking about that.
In Noah's estimation, a much more definite and clear tool was pictured in Deokgu's mind.
'Fascinating.'
Noah instinctively realized that the knowledge he possessed was a concept that no human had ever created until now. She grabbed Deokgu's sleeve.
"Why?"
"That, what's a computer?"
"What a computer is... it's a machine that calculates for you?"
"Calculates for you? How?"
"Uh...... the principle of a computer is......."
Deokgu didn't know the details either, but he remembered the general principle. A tool that extracts results by connecting an infinite number of lines that can only distinguish 0 and 1.
The binary system that sees the world only as black and white, 0 and 1.
The arrogance of thinking everything can be calculated.
And then a rough explanation of the Von Neumann architecture that made it possible.
'This.......'
Detailed information wasn't necessary. If there was a main framework, she could climb up using it.
Noah instinctively realized that the concept Deokgu was talking about was technology at least hundreds of years ahead.
'......Let's do it.'
She left a word of thanks to Deokgu and quickly returned to her laboratory. She cleared away everything she had been researching and started drawing up new blueprints.
Something that calculates for you. Wasn't that a structure she'd seen somewhere before? It was exactly Magic Tools.
Magic Tools function by supplying magical power to a single, pre-embedded Magic Circle.
However, that had been the limit until now. Magic Tools that perform various spells hadn't been invented. Because it was physically impossible.
Noah was breaking through that impossibility. Just as a mathematician could very easily grasp the concept of quantum physics, an alchemist was pioneering the forefront of magic.
"Ah─."
And then she fails. Of course. If it was something that could be achieved lightly with just one stroke of genius, then the countless geniuses who had passed through history would have discovered it.
What was needed was a small idea to serve as the ignition point.
And perseverance and money.
"This is fun......."
Breaking a new path is always enjoyable. Ecstasy burst forth profusely in her brain.
Noah had a hunch that she would complete this research. And her hunches mostly tended to be correct.
"Hey, what on earth did you do?"
I went to find Deokgu and asked. He looked at me with an expression asking what nonsense I was talking about when he was busy to death.
"What nonsense... what did I do?"
"You requested something from Noah last, right?"
"Noah? Who's that...... Ah, that alchemist?"
"Yeah."
Noah had recently locked herself in her room and hadn't taken a single step outside. The maids said they bring meals and later the empty dishes appear outside, but....
It had already been days since I last saw her face, so I inquired about what she was doing holed up like that, and they said it's been like that since she ran into Deokgu.
Deokgu listened to my words and shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing.
"No, just, writing the newspaper is tough, so I asked her to make me a computer."
"A computer? So she's locked herself up trying to make that?"
"No way, do you know how to make a computer?"
"I don't."
"I don't either. So how is she making it?"
"......Well."
Even Seoyun, the most knowledgeable among our group, wouldn't know how to make a computer. We who came from the 21st century don't know, so a fantasy world resident makes a computer after hearing a few words? It was an absurd notion.
"Then why isn't she coming out?"
"Who knows? Ah, maybe because of the typewriter?"
"Typewriter?"
"Yeah, I explained the typewriter too. That one is plausible to make."
"Really? Hmm...... Even so, does it take this long to make one typewriter?"
"Do you know how to make a typewriter in a few days?"
"I don't."
"It's probably the same for her."
We exchanged such banter, laughed, and parted ways. Yeah, whatever she's making, I need to get her to stop immediately.
What that bastard Deokgu mentioned, isn't that semiconductor technology which is cutting-edge even in modern technology? The kind where big corporations build dedicated research labs and pour astronomical sums of money every year just to barely produce results.
There's no way she could create something like that all by herself. Besides the typewriter or computer, there was a mountain of other items requested.
Because her ability was so good, she would make whatever was asked for the moment it was mentioned, which led to this situation. It was like Doraemon.
I stood in front of Noah's door and slowly knocked.
"Noah?"
No sound could be heard. Considering this house's soundproofing capabilities, the fact that it was so quiet that even my Level 3 hearing couldn't pick up anything was strange.
A 'what if' feeling came over me, so I knocked once more.
"Noah, I'm coming in?"
I pulled on the doorknob. Clack, it hit the latch immediately, but it was useless. Extreme Yang Body, intense Yang Energy augmented my physical strength.
Crack! The latch shattered and the doorknob went loose. I lightly pushed the door open and entered, and a strange chemical smell rushed out all at once in a whoosh.
"...Noah?"
Being in a room like this, it's no wonder she might have collapsed. Covering my mouth, I slowly went inside, and there was Noah hugging a long rod, giggling to herself.
It was a relief. I let out a sigh of relief and tapped her shoulder.
"Noah, why aren't you answering?"
"Ah, Dojin-ssi......."
She had dark circles under her eyes and plenty of pigmentation. Despite that, she didn't lose her smile.
"Look at this. I made it..."
"...What is this?"
"A computer..."
"......What?"
As she said that, what she handed me was a 1.5-meter-long rod. It was a form so vastly different from the computer I knew that a hollow laugh escaped me.
"That's not a computer."
"No, it is..."
"Um, so..."
"Look...... bang."
She held out the rod to me and shouted that. I didn't quite know what it meant, but immediately afterwards, a clump of magical power flew at me from the end of the rod.
Thwump!
It was a sudden ambush, so I couldn't react at all and was sent flying outside the room.
"Uh...... uh!? D-Dojin-ssi!"
Noah finally jumped in surprise and ran toward me. She stroked my stomach and worried over me, but I had no room to pay attention to that.
"Noah, you... were you a mage?"
"Huh? No...?"
"Then what was that just now..."
"Ah, this? I told you. I completed it."
Looking at her grinning like that, I had a realization.
"This is something that will replace all mages."
I had picked up a genius.