8-5. Workshops and Museum Visits
Satou's here. If you're expecting too much on something, the feeling of being betrayed is really great when the real thing doesn't live up to the expectation. I've experienced it with the movie that's made the entire America cry, even if the world changes, let-down is still around after all.
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"Blowpipe~?"
"It's swelling nodesu."
Pochi and Tama are flailing around and point at the workers of the workshop while being carried under Liza's arm.
Pochi and Tama are pointing at the blowpipes that the workshop's workers are using to make glass bowls. There are spell-users who use cooling magic in the passage used for the tour so it doesn't feel hot here, but the workers' face are full of sweats.
When Nana sees the swelling of the glass bowls, she looks unsteady like she's being lured from the tour passage, so Lulu and I catch her hands from both sides to stop her.
"Master, I propose the need to do a detailed observation."
"We're observing from here okay."
"Nana-san, you're going to hinder the workers-san. Please endure it."
In contrast with Nana who's overly interested, Arisa yawns uninterestingly.
Well, I can understand. When I heard about Oak glass workshop, I was expecting some kind of fantasy workshop, but it turns out to be a very normal workshop.
"If you're interested in it, how about experiencing making one yourself when the tour is over?"
"Yes, if it's alright with you, please."
The one guiding the tour is a depressed-looking old man, this person is the workshop head. He's a bizarrely thin man on the later half of his 50s with receded hair.
Next, we're guided to a place where the raw materials for the glasses are being produced. All the workers are wearing cloths that cover their mouths and noses. It's probably measures against dusts.
"This is where we crush stones, granites and quartzites, that will become glasses. You can change them into glasses by mixing this blue powder you get by crushing this oak stones and then heat them."
Oak stone?
Can it be, a fantasy material?
"These stones are mined from a mine on the side of the northern grapeyard mountain, and the powder from the stones will create bubbles if you put it into water. These bubbles are--"
I understand what it is from the workshop head's story, it seems to be a carbonic acid, or rather a natural soda. I've forgotten the name, but there are ores like that in the previous world. I personally am happy that I get to learn various knowledges, but I wonder if other nobles who visits here wouldn't get annoyed from that kind of technical explanation?
The last room in the tour course is the main event.
"This is the sheet glass magic tool used for producing glass in this workshop."
I'm told that this magic tool seems to be a legacy from Oak empire that precedes Shiga kingdom.
"It looks like a press machine huh."
I also understand what Arisa's said. Red hot glasses are poured on top of a pedestal with 1 meter wide, and 2 meters long, then something that looks like a presser comes down from the top, creating a sheet glass.
I remember seeing a video that shows glasses are poured on top of melted metals to make one before, but I can probably use magic as substitute for the membrane to make the sheet glass.
If I use Cubes, it might be unexpectedly trivial to do it.
Furthermore, we're showed the process to make mirrors from the sheet glass. It seems they use silver nitrate. The completed mirror looks close to the mirror that people use in the previous world. I have some silver nitrates since they're raw materials for alchemy, so I probably can make some mirrors if I have oak stones.
"There are two Pochi~?"
"There's Tama over there nodesu!"
Pochi and Tama on Liza's arms are surprised at the mirror while they point at it. They usually use one, but it's a bronze mirror after all. I've thought those things, but it seems that the points of their surprises are a bit different.
"It's like Soruna's compact mirror nodesu."
"It's big~"
I see, they've seen one from the eldest daughter at Muno castle, Soruna-san. It seems they're simply surprised since their whole bodies are reflected.
Not only Arisa and Mia, even Nana and Liza are looking at the mirror while posing. I should buy one on the way back.
However, only Lulu turns down her face from the mirror. This is unfortunate.
I wonder if there's a way to make Lulu stop hating her own appearance. I'll consult Arisa next time.
They're charging fee for experiencing the glass making process using the blowing instruments, so I pay. We're given one blow pipe as a commemoration. I get [Glasswork] skill when I blow the pipe once, and although I don't know when I'm ever going to use it, I activate it like usual.
When we're going home, I ask the price of a full-length mirror, but I'll have to wait for two years since the reservation is completely full. The glasses seem to be popular for the senior nobles of the royal capital and the duke capital to put it for the windows, their production cannot catch up with the demands.
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Continuing after the Oak glass workshop visit, we tour soy sauce, miso, and brewery workshops in rounds.
Apparently, everyone is tired, so I postpone the scheduled visits to the barrier support workshop and silk factory for tomorrow, I ask Shelna-san to take care of the adjustment.
By the way, today's lunch is meat pickled with soup, roasted. A bit burnt, but it's quite delicious. According to Arisa, there's similar cuisine in her previous world, although I don't know one in mine.
"What should we do in the afternoon? How about watching the martial art tournament qualifier?"
"Will master participate too nodesu?"
"I won't."
Pochi and Tama react to Arisa's words, but I immediately deny.
"I think master could become the champion, are you really not going to participate?"
"Peerless hence wonderful~?"
"Nn, champion."
Pochi looks downhearted since I immediately deny, but I think watching the game is more fun than participating in it. More than anything, the demerit for being the champion looks to be greater than the merit.
"Master, there are a museum and an opera house nearby, how about going there?"
"Right, let's go to the museum then."
Lulu talks about a different topic right there, so I get on it. I confirm on the map that there's a museum close by.
There's an elf from the same village as Mia in the opera house, but when I ask Mia about it, she doesn't know the name. It's probably an elf who has got out of the forest before Mia's born.
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The visitors of the museum are mainly women who look to be well-off and their servants.
"Yamato~?""Oh, nano desu."
"Fuh~n, it seems they're holding exhibition of the ancestor king Yamato."
"Looks like it's quite crowded there."
"Nn."
The museum is constructed with three connected main halls. Among them, the biggest hall is holding an [Ancestor King Yamato Exhibition] for a limited time.
The order of things are set, so we'll go according to those orders.
First, it's an area for stuffings and skeletal structures.
The ambiance is fundamentally the same as the one in Japan, but there are monster stuffings among them, so the impression is quite different.
"It's dangerous nodesu, please leave this to Pochi and go ahead nodesu!"
"I'll wait it to you~"
"Pochi, we'll wait ahead after defeating the demon lord!"
You girls, please do the tour normally. Why are they holding a small drama. Moreover, what do you mean by [Wait], it's [Leave].
"Master, are they not going to move?"
"Un, they're stuffings after all."
I feel they'd move if they become undeads.
Nana points at the stuffings of a small kingfisher and a squirrel-like small animal.
"It's cute."
"Nn."
Lulu and Mia are looking at a penguin's stuffing. There's one in a parallel world too huh. I pray that it's not a stuffing of penguinman or something.
Oh right.
"Pochi, come here for a bit."
"Yes, nano desu."
I carry Pochi, who has come trotting, under my arm and bring it closer to the mouth of a big monster called Fortress Tiger.
"Wagahai, you, bite whole."
While making odd voice to surprise Pochi, I put my arm inside the monster's mouth.
>[Ventriloquism Skill Acquired]
I didn't intend to though.
"Y, you can't nano desu. Pochi isn't tasty nodesu."
Pochi is panicking and flailing around on my arm.
"Meat, delish."
"Meat is tasty, but Po, Pochi isn't a meat nodesu. That's why eating me is, bad, nano desu."
Since Pochi begins to seriously become scared, I put on the break.
"I'm sorry, Pochi."
"Master is mean nodesu. Pochi was scared nodesu. I demand apology and compensation nodesu."
"Then, how about I make a delicious fish dish for dinner as the compensation?"
"Fish.... Fish attacks so I hate it nano desu."
Well now? Did a fish-shaped monster came out?
I glance at Arisa, who smiles wryly beside us, to ask about it.
"Back when we're going around stuffing ourselves with the cuisines in Gururian city, a fish bone gets stuck in Pochi's throat, it was bad."
"A, Arisa. You promised to keep that a secret nodesu. Not talking about it nano desu."
Pochi has tears on her eyes, unusually so, she's hitting Arisa like a spoiled child. Oh, Arisa's HP is decreasing. Arisa is saying, "O, ouch, ch, Po, Pochi, serious punch is not okay~", like she has some allowance, but in truth, it's seriously painful for her isn't it?
I lift Pochi from behind and her punch stops connecting. Since Arisa says, "Uu~ looks like it'll become bruises.", I give her mana healing with the hand that hold Pochi in reverse.
"Oh~, it feels nice."
"Master, please the mana supplement for me."
"Next."
Since Nana wouldn't understand that this isn't mana supplying, I give the mana healing to everyone who seems to be interested with it.
For some reason, it's become so that I'm healing waist pain of the elderly in the museum too, and since Pochi and the others have been given snacks by the elderly, I can't stop halfway, and finish until the last one. Liza and Lulu accompanied beside me until the end, but the other members go back to tour the museum, maybe because they grew tired. That's unfair.