Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 582

18　Further Progress Arc

18-02　Rainy Day

It was raining in the Klein Kingdom, which was quite a rare occurrence.

Normally, there was little rainfall in the plains of the eastern part of the Loren Continent, where the Klein Kingdom was located. Instead, large amounts of rain and snow would normally fall in its mountainous areas.

This rain and melted snow would later become rivers and subterranean streams which would in turn moisten the soil of the plains.

Each city could secure water by digging wells.

And for this reason, the pumps that Jin made the year before and were sold by the Raglan Firm quickly became popular.

“Autumn rain?”

Gloria Ohlstat, deputy captain of the Klein Kingdom’s Knights of the Imperial Guard, was off duty that day, looking out the window.

“It’s not a super heavy rain, but… I still don’t feel like going out for a run in this weather…”

As part of her daily training routine, she would normally go out for her usual 10-kilometers run, but she didn’t feel like running under the cold rain.

“…On a day like this, perhaps I should be taking proper care of my sword, huh?”

As steel swords were vulnerable to humidity, her own sword was prone to rust under these conditions. To prevent this, oil extracted from chemeria (a camellia-like plant) would need to be applied to it. This oil was non-drying (meaning that it wouldn’t solidify) and was also used as a hair oil.

An oiled sword wouldn’t rust, but it would darken as it absorbed the surrounding dust, so it would need to be wiped off regularly and cleaned before applying a new layer of oil.

To an extent, it was quite the troublesome work, but Gloria, being a sword enthusiast, happily went about it.

Gloria had very short light brown hair, brown eyes, and was 1.68 m tall. It could be said that these features were ideal for her compact 83-57-82 figure.

However, perhaps due to her personality, even now, at the age of 23, she didn’t have a single personal love story to tell.

“This sword made by Mr. Jin is definitely different…”

This was the sword that had once managed to stand its ground against the “Giant Earwigs”. It had been made by sandwiching the blade’s steel with thin adamantite plates.

The steel part was also nickel steel, so it was more resistant to rust. It was a sword that barely needed any maintenance at all.

Still, now that she was able to relax for the first time in a long time, Gloria continued to care for her sword with all her heart.

“…Oh, it’s raining.”

The ruler of Toka Village, Lithia Farheight, looked up at the lead-colored sky with melancholy.

“We won’t be able to reap the wheat.”

It was very rare for it to be raining during the spring-sown wheat harvest season.

Even though clear weather was more desirable for harvesting since the harvested wheat would need to dry, it had been raining continuously for the past five days.

“We were expecting a decent harvest… Would it have been an acceptable harvest for the first year…?”

Staring at the ledger, Lithia furrowed her well-shaped eyebrows. She brought the teacup beside her to her mouth, but its contents were already cold.

“…Is it possible to turn this ‘tea’ into a commodity?”

The tea in Toka Village was also made from ‘Perhya’, just like in Kaina Village.

Lithia had been adding herbs to this tea on a trial-and-error basis to find out ways to increase its commercial value. It was now getting to the point where it seemed like it would soon turn into a fine article for sale.

“Lady Lithia, the village mayor is here.”

“Very well, please let him in.”

Fred, Lithia’s personal secretary, announced the visit of the village mayor.

Fred used to be an apprentice knight, but after Lithia saw that he had better office skills than he had military ability, she pulled him out and started training him as her personal secretary. However, since Lithia herself was also inexperienced, both of them would often make mistakes.

“Well met, Lady Lithia.”

Burak, mayor of Toka Village, entered the room. After bowing to Lithia, he immediately went straight to the point.

“I wanted to discuss this year’s spring wheat.”

Lithia had also been thinking about that, so she urged him to continue.

“Though the crop is good, we haven’t been able to reap it because of the long rains. However, we’ve decided that it would be bad to leave it as it is.”

“What do you mean?”

Lithia was just an amateur when it came to agriculture. So she had no idea what the mayor was trying to say.

“If it continues to rain like this, the wheat will grow moldy, and then it will be useless to us.”

“Moldy, huh…”

Yet another problem had presented itself before Lithia.

“Had we known it was going to rain like this, we would have harvested it while it was still sunny, even if it meant we would have a reduced yield…”

But the rain this year was so sudden that they had missed the timing.

“I’m sure you know more about this than I do, Mr. Mayor. So I’ll leave the decision in your hands.“

Despite her position, Lithia had no choice but to come to that conclusion.

The mayor agreed and left. The rain continued to pour down outside the window.

It was raining on Hourai Island as well.

The view of Mt. Hourai was hazy under the rain. Standing at its feet was Jin’s manor.

“‘Völlig Geneseng’.”

“…Ugh.”

“Brother Jin, are you okay?”

“Are you okay, Father?”

He had been under continuous treatment with Healing Magic for 18 days.

Still, the pain that he was subject to when being affected by the Healing Magic spell was greatly reduced, probably since most of his cells composed of Magi Atoms were now activated.

What he felt now was more like a stinging sensation.

“Yes, I’m fine. The pain is much better now.”

“…You should be completely cured in two more sessions.”

“Great, thank you, Elsa.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Jin also felt his body had started to feel much lighter as of late.

The old feeling like he was wearing ultra-precise prosthetic limbs wasn’t there anymore.

A prosthetic limb is just that, no matter how well it does its job. It’s no match for the original body part.

And as his cells became more active and adapted to his body, Jin’s bodily functions also improved.

The Magi Mitochondria in Jin’s somatic cells were already extremely high performance to begin with. It was likely that this feature was something that was implemented at the time of his being summoned into this world, but the important thing at this moment was the result.

In the past, when measuring his own magical power pattern at the Magi Craftsman’s Guild in the Egelia Kingdom, Jin overflowed the circuit of the automata Dorna, which also doubled as a measuring device, due to the amount of magical power he possessed.

By activating the cells composed of Magi Atom, their function has further improved, but so far no one has noticed it.

Since there were only advantages and no disadvantages, no one had tried to investigate this, and it looked like Jin would take a little longer to notice this himself.

“…Rain again today, huh?”

After finishing his treatment session for the day, Jin looked out the window.

“With this temperature and this humidity… Looks like mold is going to grow…”

Jin was worried about these unusual weather conditions.

“Yeah, it’s a bit too damp.”

It seemed that Elsa didn’t like the humid air either.

“Umm, in that case…”

The warehouse on Hourai Island had a system implemented to keep both temperature and humidity constant.

But Kaina Village didn’t have anything like that.

“Air conditioning… And it would be nice if we had a desiccant as well.”

“Desiccant?”

Elsa knew what a dessicant was, but had no idea how to go about making it.

“It’s going to be a bother to explain it twice, so let’s go see Saki and Toa first. We’ll talk about it there.”

“…Sure.”

Since they didn’t want to walk in the rain from his manor to the laboratory, Jin, Elsa, and Reiko used a small Warp Gate to get there instantly.

“Oh, Jin, how are you today?”

“And Elsa and Reiko are with you. Did something happen?”

Saki and Toa seem to be having some kind of research discussion. There were several thin boards used as memo paper scattered all over the workbench.

“Not really, it’s just that it’s with this rain, the weather has become quite humid. So I thought I’d make a desiccant.”

“A desiccant?”

“What was that again? …Ah, I remember now. But what are you going to use that for? Will it be for drying rooms, or…?”

“I wanted to do something about the humidity levels of the food we’re storing.”

Without letting Toa finish, Jin proceeded to explain his plan.

“I see, preserving food during the rainy season is quite troublesome. So you can use a desiccant to prevent it from getting moldy.”

“Jin, do you need our help to make this desiccant?”

“Of course. It would be easy to make with Engineering Magic, but that won’t do for the masses.”

When Jin explained that, Toa nodded profusely in agreement.

“I see, you want to make it widely available to the general public. Let’s get to work then.”

And thus, on this rainy day, began the production of desiccant on Hourai Island.