Spring, 18th of March.
Jin’s group who had travelled to Egelia Kingdom’s capital Asunto to participate in the golem party had gotten over the golem riot incident caused by [Subordination Rewriting Magic], and were travelling to the home country of Elsa and Reinhardt, Shouro Empire.
Because Reinhardt’s work as a diplomat was also done with, they could travel without a care and en route they had lunch on a meadow filled with a field of flowers that closely resembled Chinese milk vetches.
After stopping for a night in the provincial city Rassure they returned to the main road, passed through the towns of Pean and Kaltor, then through the provincial city Buzzard, Fragrant Town, provincial cities Dogran and Desir, spending the night of the 24th in the town of Jiaral.
On the morning of the 25th, the group planned their next overnight stay and aimed to continue until the the town of Delead.
“Hm, did something happen?”
Before noon, at the end of the highway a person like a soldier seemed to be telling them to stop. Judging from their attire, they were a soldier on working for a provincial city.
“Is something wrong?”
As usual, Reinhardt who was riding in Jin’s carriage was the representative and asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry but after this point the road has collapsed and become impassable. It looks like the repairs will take nearly ten days. So, please take a detour.”
Because of the spring it rained a lot. Today was cloudy, but the day before yesterday it had rained. And probably because of that the road had caved in on its most weakest spots.
“No other choice then.”
Reinhardt’s group wasn’t familiar with the details of the side road. However, just the general knowledge should be enough, Reinhard thought so this time Reinhardt had his coachman lead the way.
They asked for directions from the soldier, and the group then headed towards the side road led by the carriage Reinhardt’s coachman drove.
The side road had a lot of bumps and it was narrow. To make matters worse the wheels dug deep into the road because of the rain, making travel hard.
Jin’s carriage was comfortable, but Reinhardt who had returned to his own carriage that had dampers installed found that they didn’t make much of a difference and soon went back to Jin’s carriage.
“Sigh, Jin’s carriage is the best!”
It seemed to be true that when people got a taste of luxury they couldn’t easily return to their original life.
While they carried on like that, it once again began to rain.
“Oh, it’s raining, that’s bad.”
This area was a valley, and in a short time the rain was pouring full force. In the blink of an eye it had turned into a downpour.
At once the road turned ito sludge and the ruts on the road disappeared too. The coachman driving the first carriage worked hard with choosing the way to go, and they continued.
However, because the way blended in with abandoned roads and animal trails, in the middle of the rain the group ended up going towards a completely wrong direction.
＊ ＊ ＊
When the rain stopped it was afternoon. The view had finally cleared up, and the coachman driving the first carriage was in a panic.
“T-this is disastrous!”
In a hurry they got off the carriage and rushed to where Reinhardt was, that is, to Jin’s carriage.
“My apologies, Reinhardt-sama! It seems I chose the wrong road.”
The coachman apologized to Reinhardt, bowing so vigorously they almost prostrated themselves on the ground.
“Oi oi, what in the world is going on? Explain properly.”
“Y-yes. I saw a small village or a settlement ahead, but I was only told that we’d see the next town in the evening, there was no mention of a small village like this.
But Reinhardt didn’t get particularly angry either,
“Hmm, well, that was inevitable. If there’s a village then we ought to consider not forcing it and staying there overnight. Thinking about it, isn’t it better than getting lost in the same way again?”
The rain and the hard to distinguish road. Reinhardt wasn’t so narrow-minded as to reprimand the coachman because of just this. The coachman sighed in relief,
“In that case let us head towards that village.”
The group then headed for the small village.
“What an idyllic village.”
You could call it both a village or a hamlet, it was a truly small village. It looked like a village that scraped along and made its living by growing wheat things like that.
“Hmm, it’s not that far away from the highway so shouldn’t it be more lively.”
Even Reinhardt was puzzled.
“Well, no use thinking of it deeply.”
The group entered the village. Stakes had been set into the ground to easily mark the boundary, and the houses numbered no more than 20. The village was smaller than Kaina Village.
“Oh my, do we have visitors?”
When the carriages were stopped in an appropriate open space and they were looking at the surroundings, an old woman happened to pass by.
“Might you be from this village?”
Reinhardt’s butler asked and the old woman nodded.
“We’d like to spend the night in this village, so where might the village head’s house be?”
The butler asked in a polite manner, and the old lady pointed at one of the houses.
The village head was an aged gray-haired elder.
“As there’s no one but old people living in this village, we cannot provide any services to respected nobles’ group.”
“That’s fine, all we need is a place to sleep, water, and a some food if you’ve got any to spare.”
They had many portions of preserved food so the butler limited the requests to bare necessities.
“A place to sleep, huh…There are empty houses, if you’re fine with them.”
The village head said, stood up and led the group to the middle of the village where there were two stone houses that they could use.
“There may be a little dust.”
The village head said, but it wasn’t just a little.
“That’s a lot of dust. Young lady, you shouldn’t enter before the cleaning is finished.”
With Mine as the leader, along with the two maids Reinhardt had with him the three began the cleaning as a single group.
But cleaning a whole house was a rather big ordeal. Not to mention there was another house after that.
Jin couldn’t just watch and said,
“Reiko, could you give them a hand?”
Reiko suddenly appeared and nodded.
“I can handle this by myself.”
She said and quickly started on cleaning the other house.
Since she didn’t have to breathe, in the defiance of the flying dust,
“[Breeze].”
She blew up the dust with wind magic and ejected it out of the windows.
Jin who watched that clapped Reinhardt on the back.
“Hm? What is it, Jin?”
“Reinhardt, let’s make a ‘vacuum cleaner’.”
＊ ＊ ＊
“So, like this, have it suck using wind magic.”
“Hmm, hmm.”
“You just need to filter the rubbish out of the inhaled air.”
“I see. Jin, your ideas are as surprising as always.”
Jin felt a bit guilty when Reinhardt praised him upfront. At any rate, it wasn’t his idea but the result of hundreds of years of accumulated technology from his previous world.
“Hm, what’s up?”
Reinhardt asked Jin who looked like he was brooding.
“Ah, nothing, I was just thinking about what material to use.”
“Mmh, that’s right. We’re on a trip so there’s not a lot of materials we can use.”
Jin lied. Nevertheless, the material was the biggest bottleneck.
“How’s this?”
Reinhardt took out an old leather bag.
“Uh, looks good. I found this.”
A rock had inadvertently caught Jin’s eye and looking a it with [Analyze] he found out that it contained a considerable amount of iron.
“In addition this looks like it could be used.”
Reinhardt also took out an old coat, so the two decided to give it a go at once.
“[Extraction], [Smelting].”
Jin separated the iron from the rock,
“[Forming], [Shaping], [Joint].”
And Reinhardt made a hose out of the leather back.
“Jin, is this okay?”
“Umm, can you make it a little bit thinner?”
“Alright, got it, [Forming].”
The leather would go through plastic deformation, so [Forming] was used.
Then Jin made the main part out of the iron he had separated. He wasn’t thinking of a cyclone-type, but a regular vacuum cleaner.
If you want to know why, it’s because Jin has never used a cyclone-type vacuum cleaner.
If Reinhardt made the filter out of his old coat the rest wuold be easy.
The power would come from a Magi Stone. Jin had been carrying one from the start because he had thought it might be of some use.
In the first place the theory behind a vacuum cleaner is simple, so with Reinhardt’s merry assistance in less then an hour the prototype vacuum cleaner was complete.
“Alright, let’s give it a test.”
And so they tried walking towards the houses they were borrowing when,
“Father, I’ve finished.”
The house Reiko was responsible for had already been scrubbed clean.
That being the case, they went to the house Mine and the two maids were responsible for.
That house seemed to be only about halfway done so,
“Mine, try using this.”
Reinhardt handed over the prototype vacuum cleaner.
“Reinhardt-sama, what is this?”
Reinhardt’s maids also tilted their heads in doubt.
“It’s called a ‘vacuum cleaner’.”
Reinhardt started it up with Magic Energy,
“It sucks in garbage and dust like this.”
He gave a practice demonstration of the cleaning.
“Whoa!”
“That’s amazing!”
“It’s a real help!”
Each of the three were astonished, gave their thanks and immediately took the vacuum cleaner to use in cleaning the remaining rooms.
＊ ＊ ＊
The cleaning was finished at around 5 PM. It was around the time the spring sun set.
Even so, while the houses were small they had bathtubs, all present -especially the maids who had been dirtied by the cleaning- were relieved to be able to take a bath as a reward for their hard work.