After hearing that question about her eyes from Jin, Saki smiled and nodded.
“Ohoho, you found out, huh? You noticed my habit of frowning. I’ve always been able to see nearby things clearly, but for a long time far away things seem to get blurry.”
It was just as Jin had thought.
“Reinhart, are there eyeglasses in the Shouro Empire?”
“Eyeglasses? What do you mean by ‘eyeglasses’?”
From that answer, it appeared that there were no such things as glasses to correct vision impairments in this world.
That was a surprising fact, especially knowing that on Earth, even lenses are said to have been used as early as before the Christian era.
Jin had read somewhere that Aristotle, or Archimedes, had used a giant lens to burn down an army of assaulting enemies, and that monocles had been used as eyeglasses since as early as the Middle Ages.
However, this magical world does not seem to follow the same way of development as the Earth. Jin also remembered that people here did not know what a microscope was.
“Umm, I think it’s best if I show you rather than just explaining. Saki, could I use some of your raw materials?”
Before Saki could reply, Jin was already walking towards the raw materials rack from before and took some transparent crystal, silver, and copper.
“Separation. Forming. Separation. Forming. Alloying. Forming. Finish.”
Once again, he began to use Engineering magic in succession.
The materials began shining faintly as they transformed. The crystal became two lenses, and the silver and copper had alloyed into 925 silver, which then transformed into a thin frame.
Since he was unable to create screws, he could not make the frame foldable, so something like hanging them from a shirt’s collar when not in use would not be possible. So he made them in such a way that they could be kept in place with a pin. Furthermore, he added pieces of previously prepared natural rubber to the nose pad to prevent slipping.
“These are eyeglasses.”
The silver-framed eyeglasses with round lenses were completed. They had an antique-ish design, however, that was not intentional. It was Jin’s sense of design that had determined the level of style for the eyeglasses.
“What do you mean? Let me see if I get this straight. Are those for seeing things?”
Saki said this looking at the eyeglasses in Jin’s hands.
“That’s right. Please try them on.”
As he said that, he had Saki put on the eyeglasses. He then used alteration magic to adjust them to fit her ears, nose, and face size.
“Well, how are they? I didn’t make them too powerful, though.”
Since there was no eyesight testing involved, both crystals had the same corrective power, and they were not that strong, to begin with. They were made like that because when people who are not used to wear eyeglasses suddenly put on eyeglasses that are too strong, they tend to experience headaches or dizziness.
“First, close one eye… Ah, yes, just like that… Can you read the cover on that book’s back on that shelf?”
“Huh? Yeah, for some reason, I can…”
Then, Jin asked her to do the same thing with her other eye closed. She could read that just as well. So it would appear that both eyes needed the same degree of correction.
“Alright then, please try to take a look outside.”
“Yeah… Th… This is great! I can see so well! These eyeglasses are amazing…!”
Saki then went over to the window and looked outside.
“Waah! I can see everything! I can even see the small birds perched on those branches! I can also see clearly the leaves on every tree! Has the world always been this beautiful!?”
At first, Saki was overwhelmed by the fact that her field of vision had just gotten better. After a little while, her emotions settled in, and she hurriedly went over to where Jin was and took his hands.
“Jin, thank you so, so much! How can I repay you? Just name it! If it is within my power, I’ll do it!”
Jin accepted her thanks with a smile.
“Haha, it’s my pleasure! That being said, there’s a purpose behind my interest in alchemy. I would like you to help me with that.”
“Ohoho! I’d be honored! I wish to do research together with a Magi Engineer such as you, Jin. So, what do you want to do?”
At that moment, Saki’s stomach rumbled.
“… That was a shameful display, huh? … I’m sorry, Reinhart, but could you get me something to eat? Actually, I haven’t eaten anything since last night.”
“Huh?”
“I’m embarrassed to say, but the servants left the day before yesterday. I’ve been staving off hunger with leftovers, but I ended up running out of them during yesterday’s lunch.”
Saki’s coming out was unexpected. Both Jin and Reinhart were shocked.
At that time, a voice began to come out from Reiko.
“Father, it appears it should be okay soon.”
The maple syrup seems to have boiled down.
“Oh, is that so? Let me see.”
Taking the ladle back from Reiko, Jin scooped up a bit of syrup from it with one of his fingertips and licked it.
“Mmm, it’s good!”
“What’s that now? Come on, Jin! Let me try some too!”
Saki had come along as well, and after dipping her own fingertips on the syrup-filled ladle that Jin was holding, she too tasted the finished product.
“Mmm! This is so good! This is definitely good enough for selling! … Reinhart, without a doubt this will a specialty in this region!
Reinhart tasted the syrup as well, and then made a face as if agreeing.
“Hmm, this will definitely become a specialty! Let’s consult this with my father at once.”
Saki nodded while grinning cheerfully.
“Oh, I’m counting on you, Reinhart! I’ll be very happy if this region becomes richer because of this.”
“Leave it to me. Would it be okay if I mentioned that the harvesting method is still under research, but that the manufacturing method involves filtering out its impurities and then boiling it down?”
“Yeah, that’s right. As a sample, please take this pot… no, just take half of this pot’s worth of syrup!”
Saki was so hungry, she probably wanted to eat that maple syrup, as she said that with an ashamed expression while scratching her head. Reinhart nodded as he laughed.
“Haha, roger that. You’ve got quite the sweet tooth, as usual!”
After hearing that, Jin quietly uttered a small question.
“Saki, don’t you have any ingredients left?”
He was wondering if there was even a bit of barley, wheat flour, vegetables or even eggs left.
“Hm? There probably are some things left, but… I’m ashamed to say that I’m quite poor at cooking.”
This was the second coming out for Saki today.
“Alchemy and cooking are two different things!”
Saki had suddenly blurted that out as an excuse, but nobody seems to have heard her.
However, it seemed as if Reinhart was aware of what was happening in Saki’s direction because he expressed a bitter smile.
“… It’s true, Jin. When it comes to Saki’s cooking abilities, you’ve only got the ‘lethal’ variant and the ‘certain death’ variant…”
“R… Reinhart! What do you mean by ‘certain death’? At worst, I’m just extremely useless when it comes to cooking…!”
Her voice grew thin as she scolded Reinhart.
“Who was the one that didn’t check whether it was sugar or salt before using it? Who was the one that dropped an open bottle of spices into the cooking pot? Who was the one that served the dish before tasting it even once? Who was it, huh?
“Uuhhh, that was such a long time ago…”
“A long time ago? Come on! You prepared that dish saying it was my farewell gift as I was leaving on my journey! I was shocked! I almost had to delay my departure because of that!
Reinhart’s voice became unusually stern. Jin secretly sympathized with Saki, as he seemed to have had such hard times in the past.
Jin understands this because of his past experiences in the orphanage. Normally, one should challenge basic recipes after mastering the art of cooking, but how many children end up adding ingredients that are not in the recipe, or without measuring first, all of a sudden, without knowing what they’re doing?
On one occasion, he ended up with a sponge cake so flat that it looked like a piece of cardboard, salty chocolate milk, and to top it off, a mint tea full to the brim with mint oil. He thought it would be ok to add a bit of black tea to it, so he put a whole teaspoon in. After that, Jin wasn’t able to eat anything for two days, and what’s more, his whole body had reeked of mint oil for a week.
There is certainly a special kind of people who have no sense of cooking in this world. They mean no harm but have a hard time dealing with it.
Now, back to the story.
Saki has not eaten anything since last night. And she cannot cook. Moreover, she’s all alone in her house now.
“… Where is the kitchen?”
Since it would take Reinhart some time to go back to his house and make preparations for lunch, Jin wanted to know if there was anything that could be prepared quickly.
To Saki, hearing such a question from Jin was as if some god of salvation had spoken to her.
“Oh! The kitchen! It’s right this way!”
Having said that, she rushed out of the laboratory while dragging Jin along.
Reinhart soon followed them while laughing. It seemed that he was not seriously mad at Saki, after all.
“Hmm, wheat flour and eggs, and this… is this milk?”
There were no vegetables. No barley, either. He later found cooking oil and something that looked like butter.
“For now, let me try to prepare something with these.”
Jin had Reiko fetch both the stove he had made and the maple syrup that they had prepared earlier. Meanwhile, he started to get some dough ready by mixing the flour, eggs, and milk together.
“Here you are, Father.”
Saki stared at Reiko with her eyes wide open as the latter brought back the heavy pot containing the maple syrup easily with one hand.
“I didn’t notice back when I didn’t have these eyeglasses, but this girl, Reiko-chan was it? What a wonderfully made automata!”
It would appear that without the eyeglasses, Reiko must have simply looked like a female-styled golem to Saki.
As Jin continued to work with the dough, Jin told Saki that he would talk about Reiko’s story later.
Heating up a frypan that was covered in oil, he poured down the dough he had prepared earlier. Soon enough, it started to make a crackling sound, and a sweet scent began to drift about.
What Jin was preparing was something similar to hotcakes. Since he had no baking powder or baking soda, there were some of them that did not expand as nicely and ended up looking more like crepes.
He then placed them on a plate and cut them into four servings. Jin and Reinhart would be taking one serving each, while the last two servings were for Saki.
Coating them with the butter-like spread, Jin added the finishing touches by pouring the previously prepared maple syrup on top of them.
“Okay, let’s eat!”
As for those crepe-looking hotcakes, Saki’s reaction when eating was akin to something amazing happening.
“W… What’s this? This is tasty! So tasty!”
While lost in thought about asking Jin to come to cook for her every day from now on, Saki had not only wiped her plate clean but also been staring at both Jin and Reinhart’s own servings with greedy eyes. Seeing this, Jin went ahead and once again prepared some smaller crepe-like hotcakes.