Chapter 1
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 1: It's Fluid Dynamics, Isn't It?
"Sir Rihan von Hayes. It's already been three months since you parachuted into our department, hasn't it?"
The voice of Barman, the Director of the 2nd Laboratory at the Imperial Strategic Magic Headquarters, was cold.
Beyond the office desk, which was plated in flashy gold leaf.
Looking at his eyes, it seemed he had already stamped the dismissal notice.
I swallowed dry saliva and instinctively hunched my shoulders.
'Hiss, this familiar pressure.'
My past life on Earth flashed by like a revolving lantern.
Exactly one week before the international conference submission.
The supervising professor who was reviewing my thesis, which was steeped in all-nighters, had exactly this expression.
In my past life on Earth, I was a physics graduate student at a particle accelerator research institute who ate all-nighters for breakfast.
Just before I died from overwork, buried in my thesis.
When I opened my eyes, I had possessed the body of an incompetent noble scion named 'Rihan von Hayes' in this world.
The second son of the Viscount Hayes family.
While my older brother, who has to lead the family, was called a genius and was on a roll.
I, the second son, have mana sensitivity at the level of a commoner, so I am called the disgrace of the family.
Eventually, the Viscount, having half-given up on me, bribed the Director and pushed me into this lowly administrative position at the Imperial Strategic Magic Headquarters.
I wondered what kind of nonsense this was.
But now, I am accepting it rather plainly.
In fact, the most important thing for me right now is something else.
This place, which I entered by riding the family's coattails.
The fact is that the Imperial Strategic Magic Headquarters is truly a god-given workplace.
A four-day workweek.
Guaranteed personal time.
And decisively..........
'Cream soup with truffle oil and freshly baked rye bread for Tuesday lunch!'
The cafeteria food is insanely delicious.
Walking out of these fantastic welfare benefits on my own two feet is not something an intelligent human being should do.
I have to parasitize somehow.
My goal is to live long and thin, sucking the sweet honey of this sweet Imperial capital.
"Yes, Director. Has it been that long already?"
I put on the most benevolent smile possible.
"Time flies like an arrow. Haha. How heartless."
"Is laughter coming out of you right now?"
Barman's brows narrowed.
"You have only a rat's tail worth of mana. The public opinion is widespread that you, who cannot even unfold a shred of magic in this sanctuary of mages, are just wasting your salary. My patience has hit rock bottom too. My friendship with the Viscount ends here as well."
It was a painful remark, but also a perfectly correct one.
This body has mana sensitivity at the level of a normal person.
Usually, a protagonist of a possession story would shout "Status Window" here and gain a fortuitous encounter.
But this place is terribly realistic.
There is no way something like that exists.
Director Barman nervously threw a heavy bundle of documents.
"This is the last chance I am giving you. The chronic mana backflow phenomenon of the 4th Circle Magic 'Fire Storm' magic circle. Solve this. If you can't solve it, pack your bags and leave tomorrow immediately. Noble family's face or whatever, I can no longer tolerate the waste of the national treasury."
"I can't even use 2nd Circle magic, let alone 4th Circle......?"
"Is that something to brag about right now? I'm not telling you to use it yourself. I'm telling you to reinforce the theoretical design as a magic engineer!"
Hmm, it certainly isn't a brag.
Leaving Director Barman's cold treatment behind, I slowly picked up the blueprint he had thrown down.
Should I at least take a look?
You never know.
I might have some amazing talent.
'Ahem, let's see.'
On the blueprint, complex geometric patterns were dizzyingly entangled.
A normal person would have complained of eye pain in 3 seconds, but it looked different to my eyes.
It's strange.
For some reason, it's familiar.
Like the messy blueprints I used to see during thesis guidance time?
'Hmm, wait a minute. If mana is an aggregate of energy flowing along a path......'
I completely erased the magical perspective and reinterpreted the blueprint solely from the perspective of physics.
'.........This is just a fluid dynamics problem?'
Fortunately, it seems there is a hole to escape even in a tiger's den.
Returning to my seat in the corner of the laboratory, I stared piercingly at the blueprint.
In the air mixed with the smell of ink and old parchment, I twirled a quill pen.
It is a habit I had whenever I solved complex formulas in my previous life.
'The guys in this world worship mana as an intangible phenomenon, calling it a blessing of God or the resonance of the soul and what have you...'
In my view, mana is just a type of energy fluid with a specific density and viscosity.
Fluid. In other words, it means a substance that has a flow, like liquid or gas.
"Since the passage is bent at 90 degrees, a Vortex is bound to form."
It is the foundation of fluid dynamics.
If the flow bends rapidly, a bottleneck phenomenon occurs and pressure skyrockets.
It was a natural result that the magic circle would burst.
I picked up the quill pen and started drawing lines on the blueprint.
I may not know grandiose magic theory, but I know how to make an efficient flow.
It's what I did every day, there's no way I wouldn't know.
The physics knowledge in my head remains the same even if the world has changed.
'Here, I can apply Bernoulli's principle to adjust the flow velocity, and here, consider the Reynolds number to change the turbulence into laminar flow. Do some boundary layer control to reduce wall friction resistance......'
I gently modified the curvature of the magic circle.
In the sections where mana caused bottleneck phenomena, I drilled auxiliary passages to disperse the pressure.
Minimum resistance, and I even added a heat dissipation structure to discharge the heat generated when energy condenses.
I briefly scanned the roughly reinforced blueprint.
'Umm. It's a little regrettable......'
Honestly, if I put my mind to it, I could increase the efficiency by 500% more here.
But I am a pro 'salary thief'.
If I do too well, work will pile up.
How do I know work will pile up?
I didn't want to know either.
Let's stop the digression here.
"If I do this, it won't explode. Let's fix it just enough so I don't get fired, exactly one person's worth."
I picked up the blueprint and stood up from my seat.
I headed to the testing ground with light steps.
In the testing ground, senior researchers, led by Director Barman, were gathered with their arms crossed.
Their eyes looking at me are full of unconcealable contempt and sadistic curiosity.
"Let's see, Sir Rihan. Is this the solution you came up with in three months?"
Director Barman raised the magnifying glass perched on the tip of his nose and scanned the blueprint.
A moment later, his brow furrowed quite visibly.
"......What is this? Why did you twist the mana passages so windingly like this?"
There was irritation beyond disappointment mixed in Barman's voice.
"It doesn't even have the basics of orthodox magic geometry. Doesn't this look like a doodle done by a child who doesn't know the basics, rather than a magic circle? Did the Hayes family teach theoretical magic like this?"
A researcher next to him chimed in, suppressing a sneer.
"Director, let's just give up moderately. I think you expected too much from the second son."
'Hmm. How should I explain this.'
I secured hydrodynamic stability by considering Bernoulli's principle and the Reynolds number?
In that process, I used an approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations?
'Oh my, that's absurd talk. If I did that, I'd be treated as a heretic or called a crazy bastard.'
I opened my mouth after a brief contemplation.
To look as naive as possible.
"That is...... Director. This is a sort of mood issue."
"Mood? are you playing jokes in the Empire's best laboratory right now!"
"If the mana is bent too stiffly when passing through the passage, wouldn't the mana get angry too? So I opened up the path roundly so it could flow comfortably, with the feeling of taking a walk."
Director Barman, perhaps having no energy left to get angry, burst into a hollow laugh.
"Mood? Mana gets angry? Ha, truly...... In all my life, this is the first time I've heard such novel nonsense!"
He pointed to the test target as if he had given up.
"Fine. Let's just see what kind of result your 'good mood' magic produces. Activate it immediately. If even the slightest backflow phenomenon is seen, consider yourself packing your bags and leaving instantly."
The probational researcher looked at me once with pathetic eyes and injected mana into the magic circle.
Usually, the 4th Circle Magic 'Fire Storm' generates a massive vibration and roar right before casting.
This is because the uncontrolled mana collides inside the magic circle, flows backward, and screams.
It was normal to hear an unpleasant and precarious roar like a pressure cooker right before exploding.
But it was strange.
Shoooook—.
".........?"
It's just the sound of air escaping.
The mana flowed into the magic circle smoothly without resistance.
There isn't even a flickering of light due to the backflow phenomenon.
"This...... Is mana being injected? Why is it so quiet?"
The moment the senior researcher checked the mana meter in puzzlement.
Kwaaang—!!!
A blinding flash filled the testing ground.
It is different from a normal Fire Storm.
A pillar of ultra-high temperature flame, like a plasma cutter where thermal energy was condensed into one point and accelerated, pierced through the wall.
".........?"
Silence flows in the testing ground.
The mana-resistant steel plate with a thickness of 30cm, which was the target, evaporated and disappeared without a trace.
Director Barman, with his mouth wide open.
He stared at the pierced wall, not even knowing that the magnifying glass perched on the tip of his nose had fallen to the floor.
I asked indifferently toward their dumbfounded faces.
"......It works, though?"