Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 594

18 Further Progress Arc

18-14 Belle's House

Soon enough everyone regained their composure after such an emotive reunion. It was already a little past noon.

At this moment, Jin figured it would be a good idea to go back to the village chief's estate for lunch. Barrow's parents did ask him to join them for lunch instead, but he refused their invitation since he didn't want to keep Elsa waiting for him.

"Well then, Barrow, I'll leave you so you can enjoy some quality time with your family."

After saying that, Jin returned to the village chief's house.

"Ah, Brother Jin, welcome back."

Elsa greeted Jin as he arrived at the village chief's guest house.

"And just in time, too. The maid just came in a few moments ago. It seems that lunch is ready."

"Great! Let's go then."

Edgar would stay on house-sitting duty, and Jin, Elsa, and Reiko headed for the main building on the village chief's residence.

The tax collector, Flix Becker, was also sitting at the lunch table.

"Ah, Mr. Jin, Miss Elsa… I'm sorry that this is all we can prepare for you today."

Lunch consisted of boiled corn, bean soup, and salad.

"This area is so dry that we can only grow corn and beans."

Flix added his explanation to the village chief's apology. Flix explains.

"A few days ago, we managed to have a deep well and a pump installed with the help of the Magi Engineer's Guild, but things are still not going so well."

"Huh?"

Jin remembered that, back when he came to the Shouro Empire with Reihnardt, the main road was referred to as the "Dry Road" by the locals.

"Because of the low rainfall in this region, we needed to dig pretty deep in order to build our water wells. And since getting water from such depths with well buckets would take a considerable amount of time, we had these devices called "deep well pumps" installed.

Jin recalled that he had sold the rights to the deep well pump to the head of the Hatata Magi Engineer Guild, who, if he remembered correctly, was called Coates Rhodoit.

"Should I take a look at them?"

The pump that Coates Rhodoit had made back then was not bad at all, but Jin wondered if that would be the case for this village's pumps. After all, they were probably mass-produced, so some of them could be faulty.

With that in mind, Jin offered to help.

"That would be great! Thank you!"

The village chief unhesitantly bowed to Jin. Even if he still didn't know what he could make, he seemed to be aware of what to expect of someone worthy of the title of Magi Craft Meister.

After that, Jin quickly finished his lunch, and went with the village chief to take a look at the pumps. Naturally, Elsa joined them, and since Flix's interest had been piqued as well, he also went along.

"Here's the first one. There are two more pumps, but they all seem to be out of order…"

Though the pump in question managed to pump out water when operated, the outflow had become quite thin compared to when the device was first installed. According to the village chief, it was taking them up to three times more effort to get enough water out of them.

The population of this village was around 200 people. It was easy for Jin to imagine that the wells could be used up if these three pumps were to be used every day.

Jin operated the pump, confirming that the amount of water that was coming out of it was very small despite the high amount of effort he was putting into the pump.

"Okay, let's see… Reiko, sorry to ask you, but could you pull it out?"

"Yes."

Both the village chief and Flix almost dropped their jaws as they saw the little Reiko pull the entire pump, which was more than 10 meters tall, out of the well with absolutely no visible effort.

"…Thanks. …Ah, I knew it… All of the sliding parts are worn out."

Since it was a high pressure pump, it was of the utmost importance that all of its parts were watertight.

Jin attributed the pump's malfunction to an imprecise manufacturing process, and concluded that the pump's durability was remarkably poor due to an insufficient application of "Hardening" on its surface.

"Do you see this as well, Elsa?"

"…Yeah, I understand its structure and principle."

Elsa also knew a lot about ordinary pumps, and she seemed to be able to grasp how these deep well pumps were made right away.

So they quickly started working to fix them.

"'Forming'. 'Hardening'."

First, they would work to reduce the pump's gaps and crevices to a minimum and harden the surface of all of its parts to prevent wear.

Then…

"'Treatment'. 'Toughen'."

They mirror-finished the pump's surface to reduce friction among its parts, and further enhanced its resistance to wear and tear to surface is mirror-finished to reduce friction, and by processing it to prevent wear and tear, which would extend the pump's life.

"This should be good enough. You can put it back down, Reiko."

The village chief and Flix were even more surprised to see that the three of them had finished the pump's maintenance in less than five minutes.

Jin also used "Hardening" and "Toughen" on the pump's lever's bearing, which would aid in reducing friction a little.

"Well, let's give it a try, shall we?"

Operating the lever felt much lighter than before, and the water flow had improved as well.

"This one should be good to go. Please take us to the other two pumps."

"…S-Surely! Ah, this'll make things much easier for us. Thank you very much!"

The village chief finally came to his senses after Jin called out to him, and bowed to Jin many times out of deep gratitude.

Then, they went to check on the other two pumps. Both of them had the same issues as the first one, so they were quickly fixed as well.

Even though they had to walk to different parts of the village to fix each of the three deep well pumps, the repairs were completed in less than an hour in total.

＊ ＊ ＊

"Sir Jin Nido, you really did a wonderful job. As expected from the Magi Craft Meister!"

Flix, who had remained silent as they went to each of the three damaged pumps, suddenly became very talkative the moment the village chief left them after they all returned to the residence.

"Well, I heard rumors about your feats at the Technology Expo so I already imagined your work would be impressive, but now that I've seen it in person, I see that you're far more amazing than I imagined!"

"A-Ah…"

"…When I was young, I wanted to be a Magi Engineer, but I was told I had no talent for it. I failed to do even the basic stuff, so I ended up giving up on that dream, but… old dreams are hard to forget, and so I've made a hobby out of watching the work of other Magi Engineers. But the way you work is far superior than anything I've ever seen from other Magi Engineers, Sir…"

After that, Flix's monologue continued for what felt like an eternity, and when it eventually seemed like it was finally over, he started asking questions about Magi Engineering.

Soon enough, Elsa quietly left the room, but it wasn't so easy for Jin to do that.

Before they knew it, it was already tea time, that is, 3:00 PM. Flix had been rambling on for over an hour.

"Brother Jin, tea's ready."

Unable to continue to turn a blind eye to Jin's situation, Elsa finally called out to him. Jin saw that this was his chance at freedom, and was finally able to excuse himself from the room.

Flix, on the other hand, looked like he still had more things he wanted to say, but it looked like all that talking had dried his throat, so he himself went to his own room for some tea.

"Thanks for the save…"

Elsa gave Jin a sympathetic look as he threw himself at the chair by the tea table, looking completely worn out.

"You held on pretty well back there. But I guess that's the price of fame."

"Yeah, but still…"

Elsa had brewed some tea from Perhya leaves, which they had brought from Kaina Village. Its light flavor made it Jin's favorite.

"How about we go see how Belle is doing after this?"

"Sure."

Having heard that Belle's house was on the northern outskirts of the village, Jin, Elsa, and Reiko started by heading in that direction. Once again, Edgar stayed at the residence, just in case he needed to take a message.

Other than having to ask a villager on the way to make sure they were going the right way, they were able to find Belle's house without any problems.

More than the outskirts of a village, the area itself looked like an abandoned part of the village.

The house was a rather small building that actually looked more like a hut. Since it hadn't been inhabited for quite some time, the roof and walls were showing signs of wear.

From a distance, they could see someone inside the house. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, Belle.

She seemed to be sitting on a broken chair and staring blankly outside.

Her signature cheerful expression was completely gone from her face, so Jin decided to call out to her.

"Belle."

Belle nearly jumped on the spot as Jin's voice instantly pulled her back to this world.

"Ah… Master Jin, Lady Elsa…"

Belle stared at the two of them, completely surprised.

"W-Why are you here?"

"Well, I was a bit worried about you, so I thought I'd come and see how you were doing."

Jin answered her question with complete honesty.

"Y-You came here… to see me?"

Jin's answer made Belle even more surprised

"It's only natural, isn't it? After all, you're one of my most important workers."

"…Thank you very much."

Belle met Jin's words with a slight bow of her head.

"As you already know, this is my family's house. Back when I was younger, I lived here with my parents and my younger sister, but… I lost them all at once due to illness."

Belle seemed to be the only one in her family to be spared from such fate.

From what Jin had gathered, this illness seemed to have been some sort of epidemic, similar to influenza.

This epidemic seemed to have hit several other families, and many people were lost to it, but it appeared that Belle's family was the one that suffered the most.

The people of this world had no concept of things like prevention or disinfection, so a single mistake in their habits could easily lead to these kinds of illnesses, and the people would have little tools to defend themselves against them.

(Not only this village, but Kaina Village… and Toka Village, which is also relatively close… we need to be careful about this…)

Since these lands were originally dry, an illness like influenza would have an environment where it could easily thrive and wreak havoc.

Jin wondered if he should do something about it in the near future.