Change and Recognition (3)
As always, Ted rose with the early dawn, loosened his body with a few light stretches, and looked out the window.
Knights circled the training grounds; soldiers drilled under their eye. Wedged among them, doing his earnest best to build stamina of his own, was his third son as well.
What ought to have been a heartwarming sight had lately become nothing but irritating. He could not understand why.
My discipline is lacking.
Was the Iron Knight Ted Blædwin truly so shallow that something as trivial as a car could stir such petty feelings in him? Impossible. No—he refused to allow it.
For the sake of mental cultivation he went to his private sparring hall, swung his sword through a light session, then mounted his horse and rode a slow circuit of the territory.
"Tch."
It was not satisfying. This was not the taste he wanted. No matter how hard he rode, he felt no real sense of speed.
"Haa…"
A sigh slipped out before he could stop it. After a quick glance around to make certain no one had seen, he casually checked the garage.
Just as expected—his Black Terahole R1 was gone.
"Damn it."
Mealtime arrived. The entire family took breakfast together; that was a rule Ted himself had established. Skip the morning meal and your strength flagged; the whole day's efficiency suffered.
Even when it was a bother and appetite was nowhere to be found, one still had to eat.
"Oh, Father?"
On the way to the dining hall he ran into Robon. The boy carefully gauged Ted's mood, then scuttled straight into the dining room. Ted could not even work up a proper scolding. Haa.
"Robon."
"Yes, Father."
"How is the construction of the new vehicle progressing?"
He asked as casually as he could manage, tossing the question out as if it were nothing more than a passing remark.
"It's going smoothly."
"I see."
Good. That had sounded natural.
"How long will it take?"
"Ah, um… I'll try to finish it as quickly as possible."
The boy neatly sidestepped giving a real answer. It looked as though it would take quite a while. It might actually be faster to wait for Burgess to bring the Black Terahole R1 back and simply repair that one.
"I hear the Black Terahole R1 is broken. Can you fix it?"
"Of course. A day or two at most."
"Understood."
What a relief. Soon he would be able to tear down the roads again.
Or so he thought.
"Someone has arrived from Lobel, my lord."
Head butler Lefry delivered the news.
"And Burgess?"
"He has come with them."
"I'll go out."
How many days had it been? Ted forced his racing heart to settle and strode toward the garden.
But then—
"What… is this, Burgess?"
His second son, unable to meet his eyes the way he normally would, answered in a low voice.
"It… broke. I'm sorry, Father."
This was no mere mechanical failure. The front of the car was crumpled, and deep dents pocked the body as if something had battered it again and again.
"Explain in detail—"
"Big Brother! You're ba— …uh?"
Robon came running, then froze on the spot like a statue the moment his eyes locked with Ted's.
Right. This one was here too.
"Robon. Did you not say you could fix it in a day or two? Fix it."
With those words Ted spun on his heel and walked straight back into the mansion.
He simply did not want to hear the answer.
I'm screwed.
He had heard it was wrecked, but he never imagined it would be this bad.
Big Brother Burgess was busy rolling his eyes anywhere but at Robon. Father's expression was deadly serious.
"Robon. Did you not say you could fix it in a day or two? Fix it."
"F-Father!!"
Ted did not even wait for a reply before disappearing inside. He was thoroughly furious. Frost formed on the ground with every step; if Robon chased after him right now he might freeze solid on the spot.
Thud.
His legs gave out. The to-do list was mountain-high, Andersen was off on vacation and nowhere to be found, the Black Terahole R1 had returned as a heap of scrap, Father wanted it fixed in a day or two, and manpower was short…
"…Then I'll just be go—"
"Where do you think you're going, Big Brother?"
Robon snagged Burgess's wrist as he tried to flee. A hand speed even a five-star knight could not dodge—maybe Robon actually had a talent for fighting?
"You're going to take responsibility, right?"
"…I'm busy."
"Want me to make you really busy? If I tell Father I can't fix it because you won't help…"
"What do you need?"
"First, move that thing up to the lab."
"Fine."
With a gloomy face Burgess harnessed the horses and hauled the cart up the mountain path.
"What's wrong? Why the long face?"
Just then Siena, who had been staying at the mansion, approached and asked.
"You were here?"
"…Me?"
Robon seized her hand without hesitation.
"W-w-what? Why all of a sudden?"
"Help me out."
"Huh?"
"I need you."
Her face flushed faintly. After a moment of dithering she answered.
"Uh… y-yeah. Okay. What is it?"
There's no way forward like this. First I need to build machine tools.
To manufacture all sorts of equipment and machinery he needed ultra-precision metalworking technology. Cutting, drilling, and shaping metal into the desired forms—current blacksmithing techniques simply hit a wall.
The Ironcliff territory at least possessed highly advanced metal refining, so its smiths were a cut above and could cover a certain amount. Even so, "possible" was about as good as it got.
Even master craftsman Amos made mistakes. How much worse would ordinary smiths be?
Mass production was an impossible dream, and crafting any single piece of equipment consumed an absurd amount of time.
But with a milling machine those processes would compress dramatically.
"What I need is reinforced durability for the steel. I'm going to build a machine that cuts metal."
"A machine that cuts metal? Don't tell me you're planning another engine?"
"Exactly. More precisely, I need a motor."
Siena could not bring herself to argue with Robon's confident reply.
It was not as if Vulcan had never considered a metal-cutting machine. Theoretically it was perfectly feasible.
The problem was the power source—something equivalent to the engine that drove the Black Terahole. And they had never been able to build one.
They had managed something motor-like, but it was garbage: just mana stones jammed in so the blade would move for a short while. You might as well cast a spell and be done with it.
Research was ongoing even now, but with so few people and so much work, progress had stalled.
And he claimed he could make one?
"The issue is that the steel of the blade has to withstand abrasion from friction with other metals, and we still lack the technology to produce that kind of metal. So I want to reinforce its durability with mana circuits."
"That much is possible."
"Oh, really?"
"What about output? The energy source?"
"What else? You saw it yourself. We'll use electricity."
Siena was left speechless.
When he had installed the suspension on the Black Terahole last time, she had written him off as a lucky kid.
Smart, sure, but luck must have been the real reason he had come up with such a device.
She had been wrong.
The Robon who had returned to the Blædwin estate after so long was completely different from before.
A place where light existed even at night. Unlike the researchers at Vulcan who still relied on faint embers every evening, RMEL blazed with bright lights that illuminated the entire laboratory.
The idea of generating electricity from a waterfall—something she herself could never have imagined.
So this is what a real genius looks like…
Any sense of rivalry or jealousy toward Robon had vanished completely after she came here. If anything, she felt respect.
That was why she still had not gone back to Vulcan. Maybe, just maybe, she could learn something more by staying at his side.
"There's only one thing I need from you. When I ask about magic-engineering knowledge, tell me whether it's possible or not, and if it is, how to do it, what it requires, how long it will take—that sort of thing."
"Even though I'll be watching everything from right beside you?"
"So what?"
"I could just copy the technology and use it myself, you know?"
Robon snorted at her words.
"Go ahead if you can. No—I'll teach you, so make it at Vulcan too. They need this just as much."
"…Really?"
"Yeah. I'm going to build a milling machine. One that can precision-finish any metal. And process equipment too."
"What kind of equipment?"
"A machine that produces sulfur. I'll use it for vulcanizing tires. That way tire durability skyrockets."
Siena could not make heads or tails of what Robon was saying.
"W-wait a second. Again! Say that again!"
She pulled paper and pen from her pocket and began scribbling furiously.
Research funds arrived at Robon's magic-engineering laboratory, RMEL.
A full 3,800 gold.
"Feels like I've gotten rich."
Two thousand gold in support from His Grace the Grand Duke, the money earned from selling the Robon 001 this time, plus the thousand gold his father had provided.
With that much he could have bought every house in an entire district of Iron Hall. And he had already spent all of it.
"One A-grade mana stone and thirty B-grade for 2,500 gold… Why the hell are mana stones this expensive?"
This was exactly why magic engineering never advanced. Everyone tried to solve everything with magic. How were you supposed to maintain anything when mana stones cost this much?
In the end research meant money, and efficiency was everything.
Thud!
Big Brother Burgess hoisted a massive apparatus as if it weighed nothing and carefully set it down on one side of the lab.
"That's the spot. Now go bring me some pyrite, Big Brother."
"……Got it."
Having committed a serious offense, Burgess spent a good while playing pack mule for Robon.
The device stood twice Robon's height, with a furnace for intense heat at the bottom and a cooling chamber and drainage channel stacked above.
"I'm still not sure this is right. You're saying sulfur comes out if we do this?"
"Yeah, not a lot, but yes. We can't run a proper Claus process right now."
Heat the pyrite to high temperature, break it down, then cool the resulting gases again so they condense into solid and liquid form.
Because the apparatus required reduced oxygen concentration, extreme heating, and very low-temperature cooling, mana-stone efficiency was abysmal.
"It's only temporary. I need to build Father's Brutal Force right away. Later, once I find a way to get hydrogen and a catalyst, I'll revisit it."
A hydrothermal deposit had appeared recently; he was pinning some hopes on that.
While producing sulfur he also made steady progress on the milling machine. It turned out to be easier than expected—his existing foundation was solid.
About a week later a letter arrived summoning Siena home.
"I want to stay a little longer."
"Auntie told you to come. You should go."
"Tch. You going to be okay without me?"
"I'll be fine. I already know everything I need. The milling machine's almost finished too."
"Ha! Fine. Handle it yourself then!"
Siena suddenly flared up, gathered her clothes, and stood.
Why was she angry all of a sudden?
"Oh, and take the Black Terahole with you. His Grace the Grand Duke said to bring it to him."
"Why me? Send it yourself. Hmph."
Bang!
She slammed the workshop door so hard it seemed ready to fall off its hinges.
"What's her problem? That time of the month?"
Even if she talked like that, she would not actually refuse when the Grand Duke himself had given the order. Yeah. There was no way she was that stubborn.
…Right?
Putting Siena out of his mind, Robon returned his focus to research.
"Chemical engineering really isn't my specialty…"
A flicker of regret hit him—he should have studied chem eng a bit more thoroughly. He had stopped at a master's; maybe he should have gone for the doctorate.
"Sulfur yield is lower than I expected. Is there a decent catalyst? Tch."
He kept trying this and that, but nothing satisfactory emerged. At this rate he would really have to hunt down hydrogen sulfide.
"Still, I'm almost there."
Even with the reduced yield he had secured enough sulfur for one vehicle.
Vulcanization was the technique of adding sulfur to polyisoprene rubber and applying heat to create cross-links between the molecules.
In short, the tires became incomparably harder than before, gained heat resistance, and still retained flexibility.
The old tires tore quickly unless you constantly checked their condition and applied magical treatments—maintenance had been a nightmare.
Now that problem was solved completely.
"Perfect."
After asking Big Brother Burgess to fetch the tires, Robon headed for the forge.
Screeeeech!!
Where the sound of hammering iron had once filled the air, now a harsh metallic grinding noise leaked out of the smithy.
Amos, face-protection mask in place, was operating the milling machine and cutting metal.
"Uncle."
"You're here?"
Amos pulled off the mask and wiped the sweat from his face with a sleeve.
"How is it?"
"How is it, he asks."
Without warning the older man strode over and pulled Robon into a fierce hug.
"You crazy bastard! How the hell did you even make something like this?!"
His voice was flushed with excessive excitement.
"This one impossible machine has completely changed my entire life as a blacksmith!"
Desire burned in his eyes like a man high on some drug. It was almost overwhelming.
"With this I can make everything I never could before!! Just change the shape of the cutter and you can shave metal however you want! This is a tremendous achievement! No—it's a revolution!!"
The force of the hug made Robon feel as though every bone in his body was about to snap.
"I get it, so let go already."
"Ah, sorry."
You could drill holes of uniform size and shape, engrave letters onto metal, or cut a perfectly smooth cross-section.
A broken machine that let anyone perform the high-difficulty techniques of this world's blacksmiths.
Even though the change could have negated his entire life as a smith, Amos was simply overjoyed.
I was worried, but this is a relief.
Stubborn traditionalists would no doubt reject such a change. In the end, though, they would accept it. And they would realize: adapt to change or be left behind.
"Whew… Think you can make these?"
Robon showed Amos the parts and blueprints for the Brutal Force.
"Hahaha! Easy. I'll have them ready in no time."
One advantage of a vertical milling machine was that it was relatively easy to use. Combined with Amos's superb craftsmanship, the match was perfect.
I'll be able to build it soon.
Every man's dream! A pickup truck that could tear across rough mountain roads.