Chapter 83
Chapter 83
The Ill-Fortified Structure Being Built, the Solid Foundations Strengthened.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You human race. You should be grateful that I’m even providing spatial construction for you; why should I also take into account your long-term health and longevity?’
That was what Buremhyde thought, but what came out of his mouth was different.
“Then, if we cover the front and back with aluminum plates and seal it….”
“That would be fine for now, but you never know when it might rust and leak. Rather than doing that, don’t use silicate rock. Instead, melt silicon dioxide and borax at high temperature into a glassy form, then turn that into fibers.
It’s called glass fiber. Please replace all insulation materials with that.”
“Silicon dioxide, you say? Hmm, that’s quite demanding.”
“You can’t do it?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. When I say demanding….”
Until now, no one had ever given Buremhyde direct orders like this.
In fact, right after the clubhouse was first built, Buremhyde had expected Idnia to feel grateful. He hadn’t expected her to treat it like a client and keep pointing out revisions, so he felt somewhat offended.
The house Buremhyde had created was, in terms of facilities, a concept far more advanced than the mansions currently inhabited by royalty and nobility.
‘Honestly, these ignorant fools. When they’ve been building houses, they’ve just stacked stone and wood. Did they even have a concept of insulation?’
But after going to the trouble of installing insulation, Idnia went a step further and insisted that asbestos was harmful and needed to be replaced.
‘Human beings who never even used insulation before are now telling me what insulation is good or bad. How amusing.
…And yet, it’s persuasive.’
But agreeing would make him look foolish. So Buremhyde stalled for time.
Then Idnia said,
“Professor Rakias seems to produce designs that are very aesthetically pleasing.”
“What did you say?!”
He knew this kind of provocation would hit his pride. Reacting to it would itself be ridiculous.
But he had lived a long time, and in the Academy where they were all confined together, hearing that someone had better sense than him while another had worse sense was something his pride could not tolerate.
How dare this brazen human!
Did she think he couldn’t kill a young lady from a ducal house that had even produced an emperor of the Holy Eldar Empire?
Who was she to provoke him with such shallow tricks…?
‘But if this girl dies, the Wizard Ball team will fall apart.’
Besides, something else bothered him as well.
‘Do young people these days think Rakias has better aesthetic sense than me?
Impossible.
I interacted with elves in Lancaster. I’ve refined my sensibilities through all sorts of elven crafts and artworks, and you’re telling me I’m worse than that reckless fallen angel?
Hah. She must have said that just to provoke me without meaning it.
Of course, that must be it.’
So while his pride was wounded, Idnia poured even more fuel onto the fire.
“They even understood both the functionality and aesthetics from just my trivial blueprints and refined them so beautifully.
Professor Rakias….”
“Ah! I understand! How about this?!”
Buremhyde immediately produced glass fiber.
However, Idnia let out a soft groan.
“Even though it’s made of glass fiber, now that I think about it, visually it isn’t much different from asbestos. And asbestos is carcinogenic because of its sharp microstructure that isn’t expelled from the body. Glass fiber is actually quite similar structurally.”
Glass fiber is better than asbestos mainly because it breaks into smaller fragments that are less likely to scatter, but it is still an irritating material.
“Instead of that, I think it would be more eco-friendly to expand wood and make it porous to use as insulation. It’s called a lignin porous structure… what do you think?”
“What now… If you keep changing your mind like this, am I your subordinate or something? You expect me to handle all of that?”
Buremhyde was dumbfounded, but Idnia did not back down.
“This is better for health. Since we’re at it, we should make it properly impressive. This is the first clubhouse of the Dunais Wizard Ball Division. If it becomes a magnificent clubhouse, everyone will be impressed by Professor Buremhyde’s aesthetic sense.”
“Hmph. It is an insult for ignorant humans to even comment on my sense.
Do you think I would be swayed by the evaluations of such foolish human beings?
This is purely due to my perfectionism.”
Grumbling, Buremhyde still followed Idnia’s instructions and put the glass fiber aside, preparing wood instead.
‘Tch. It’s annoying and irritating, but thinking about the plague of Albion, I can’t ignore her words.’
Having once developed a spell that turned copper into gold and unintentionally ruined the Albion region, Buremhyde could not take Idnia’s request to replace harmful asbestos lightly.
Buremhyde gathered timber from a nearby forest.
“Ah, you’re not clear-cutting, are you?”
“I’m harvesting fallen ones.
Lignin porous structures can be made from waste wood, so there’s no need to cut down living trees.”
Lightning burst forth from Buremhyde and made the trees pop like popcorn.
He had precisely controlled it to avoid burning the wood, instead evaporating internal moisture and killing insects and bacteria… but perhaps because he was irritated by Idnia’s constant corrections, his control slipped and the wood caught fire.
“Ah… oh dear….”
“It’s merely a minor mistake.”
Buremhyde immediately extinguished the fire with telekinesis and squeezed the wood while compressing it as an excuse.
Just as Idnia used overwhelming techniques to compress materials into tools, Buremhyde used telekinesis to shape the wood into porous panels.
He effectively recreated sponge or Styrofoam using a lignin porous material.
Then he attached aluminum plates coated with aluminum oxide film to both sides to form the walls.
Despite the minor mistake of accidentally igniting the wood with lightning out of frustration, it was still an extraordinary display of magical skill.
“Ah, impressive. But….”
Idnia tapped on the wall, then examined the windows.
“The windows are pure silica glass.
This tends to deform under gravity and can soften and flow when exposed to rain, making it deform even faster.
It would be better to mix in sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, and, if possible, a bit of boron.
Even aluminum oxide, if evenly mixed, increases strength.”
Even after witnessing Buremhyde’s incredible magic, Idnia calmly continued issuing instructions.
“You have quite a lot of requirements. As for composition? How much should be added?”
“Just adjust appropriately depending on the use. If you add too much, it will crack, so keep it balanced and homogeneous….”
“So basically you’re telling me to figure it out properly, neatly, and with good sense?”
“Actually, lime and soda need to be added in fairly large amounts, but you’ll be extracting them from the local soil, right?
So just extract an appropriate amount.
You can compensate by adding more aluminum oxide. Adjust the material properties as you go and add more incrementally.
Like glass artisans adding additives while watching transparency and viscosity as they heat glass in a furnace….”
Hearing Idnia’s instructions, Buremhyde groaned in disbelief.
“Truly excellent instructions.
Honestly, back when I was the Dragon Lord of Lancaster, I could never have imagined something like this….”
Grumbling, Buremhyde followed Idnia’s words, extracting necessary elements from the nearby soil and mixing them into the molten glass.
And as Idnia had said, the transparency of the glass improved and its strength increased.
“Hmm?”
Seeing genuinely high-quality glass being produced, Buremhyde was surprised and shaped it using telekinesis.
‘Oh?
Look at this.
It’s coming out cleanly and well.
I didn’t realize because I always just remade things whenever they broke, but depending on the additives, glass can actually become quite usable.’
Buremhyde was impressed internally.
In some respects, Idnia’s knowledge of materials seemed to surpass even his own as a great mage.
“Yes. This is really good. It would have been great if the dormitories had been built like this.”
Idnia finally seemed satisfied as well.
“Then I should bring my personal belongings.
I’m thinking of installing the alchemy kit I purchased while I was out on leave.”
“Hmm? An alchemy kit?”
Buremhyde was startled at Idnia’s words.
“No, in a Wizard Ball clubhouse….”
“But we have to manage a vegetable garden, don’t we?”
“What does managing a vegetable garden have to do with installing alchemy equipment?”
But as he said that, Buremhyde suddenly clicked his tongue.
“What I mean is, I want to process the produce from the garden into something more usable.”
“Process it?”
“Do you think I served those upper-class students raw turnips straight out of the soil?
Of course not. I washed and prepared the turnips, added appropriate dressing, and improved them.
Processing and refining harvests is part of gardening work, isn’t it?”
“Wait. So… you’re saying you’ll use gardening as an excuse to install alchemy equipment here?”
“No, why do you call gardening an excuse?
Think about it.
The reason you entrusted the garden to the Wizard Ball circle… was so that its harvest could be used for physical training and nutrition for the circle, right?
Then processing those harvests is also part of circle activities.”
“…Ah.”
Only then did Buremhyde realize he had underestimated the situation.
He had thought that starving the students and using the garden as bait would make them work hard at Wizard Ball out of hunger.
But Idnia intended to bundle a wide range of activities into “club activities” using that as justification.
If that happened, Buremhyde would be responsible, as the supervising professor, for managing whatever Idnia implemented.
‘This is not simple. Why is this young human so shrewd?’
Buremhyde was flustered as he watched Idnia ultimately persuade him and proceed with installing alchemy equipment in the clubhouse.
“So. This is the result?”
Ludwig clicked his tongue as he looked at the impressive clubhouse, the Wizard Ball division building, the garden, and even the greenhouse covered with glass windows.
“That planter was made by Rakias and you.”
“But there’s a roof I don’t recognize on top.
Aluminum framework, covered with fine glass.
The glass looks bluish, so it must contain a fair amount of iron elements.”
“Iron? In glass?”
“Aesthetically not ideal, but good for blocking ultraviolet rays. Indeed, Buremhyde.
The quality of your glass has changed compared to what you used to make.
You used to not care whether it rained and things melted and flowed, just repairing them occasionally with magic, didn’t you?
But now you’ve put in real effort.
Is this the idea of Duke Idnia?”
“That is correct. You understand well, Principal Ludwig.”
Buremhyde nodded.
“Looking at it, it seems you’re placing more expectations on the garden than on Wizard Ball itself. I’m curious what you plan to do.”
Ludwig did not hide his anticipation for what Idnia would create while examining the equipment she had set up.
“Hm. I didn’t expect much from human beings, but she is certainly interesting. Though… perhaps that’s because she is half-demon?”
“Shh. Do not speak carelessly. A student’s lineage is private information we should not discuss.”
“Still, some of the students are full demons. I’m not sure if they themselves are aware… Should we ask them when the opportunity arises?”
At Buremhyde’s question, Ludwig frowned.
“If they’re unaware, then we’d just be unnecessarily informing them that they’re demons. If they don’t know, don’t interfere.”
“Hmm.”
“Besides, no matter what demons do, they won’t be able to do anything to Dunais Academy.”
Ludwig said confidently, then examined the alchemy equipment Idnia had installed.
“Ah, you’ve already improved the alchemy equipment, Principal Ludwig….”
“The glass quality was poor, so I merely adjusted the internal additive distribution to be more uniform.
If left as it was, that section would have cracked over time.”
Principal Ludwig said this as an excuse.
It wasn’t much of an excuse at all.