CH 177

Even after returning to my parent’s house, my morning routine hasn’t changed… or rather, Erich and Dominic have been added alongside my parents, making it even more difficult. After finishing my sword tutoring, Erich has settled into House Caan’s swordsmanship instructor. Dominic was originally my escort and spear training partner, but he also teaches the soldiers how to use the spear as a House Caan instructor also.

While I was in the royal capital, Father and Mother took care of me, but when I came back here, for some reason, it had increased to 4 people. No… there are 4 people with weapons, but there was 1 more…

Christoph has also been working on the creation of the House Caan Army’s Mage Unit since my magical tutoring ended. He does the business of recruiting mages to our House, teaching them magic, and how to act as an army in times of war.

My daily training involves a battle against these 5 people. Recently, I had been thinking that I had somehow managed to withstand the onslaught of Father and Mother, but the hurdles suddenly rose again. I still have fresh bruises and it’s definitely not the life of an aristocratic daughter…

By the way, the other tutors like Leon and Olivia were also hired, but since Leon taught me military strategy and tactics, he was hired as a Strategist for the House Caan Army. Olivia is in charge of Education in House Caan. We don’t have vassals spanning generations, so we have to hire amateurs and teach them thoroughly.

Well, in reality, the 2nd and 3rd sons of House Carruthers’ vassals and unmarried women are serving me, so they’re not ordinary amateurs at all… but even those people have poor manners, so they are trained by Olivia.

I made a mistake not telling the House Servants to prepare dinner last night, but their manners and behavior are getting better. With Isabella, Helmut, Katharina, and Olivia educating them, we should have a splendid retinue of servants for a knighthood. However, thanks to that, the House Servants utterly fear Olivia…

Olivia is a little strict at times, but I think she’s a good teacher because she kindly taught over and over again a student with a bad memory like myself. You might think she’s scary and you’d tend to shy away from her, but if you face her properly, she’ll respond properly… right?

“I will go out for inspections today, but I plan to return for dinner. Please prepare our meals,” I said.

“Understood,” one of the servants said.

After finishing the morning training, I talk about today’s schedule around breakfast. Just tell them if you need food or not, and the House Servants will do the rest. It will be a while before the head cook, Damian, returns, but Damian’s apprentices are at Manor Carruthers, so they’ll probably call them over. Of course, if you don’t specify the menu, they will make it for you, so you don’t have to say anything extra.

“That’s why I have to go on a little inspection today,” I said. “I’m sorry for inviting everyone and then neglecting you all, but please be patient with me until tomorrow.”

“We arrived 3 days earlier than planned, so you had time left over, didn’t you?” Mikoto asked.

“My apologies…” I said. “They decided to put in unplanned inspections because I had time left over…”

I sincerely apologize after Mikoto points it out. Rather, if everything had gone according to the original plan, most of the time it would have been fine to just go around with everyone. However, it would be a problem for the inspection destination to suddenly have to accommodate so many more people than was planned at a moment’s notice.

Even if I take them to the sites, it’s full of confidential information and I can’t show it to them, so it’s better to refuse to have them accompany me from the beginning rather than telling them to wait outside. I would feel bad if someone refused to show me where they were going.

Today I’m heading to Hexennacht for an inspection. I just don’t go to Cien. I don’t need to go there today because I’m planning to go there later, or rather, tomorrow by boat. The original schedule was to arrive in Caanburg tomorrow and head to Cien the day after tomorrow, but I was able to arrive early, so I changed my schedule to head to Cien 1 day earlier than planned.

Today we will inspect each facility and site in Hexennacht and return to the Caanburg dock via another highway that goes directly along the Dierbe River, connected to the road going over the Hexennacht mountain range. On the way back, we will also visit the factory areas such as glass factories and mirror factories along the Dierbe River.

I went to the dock yesterday, but I didn’t inspect them yesterday because I didn’t have enough time. Even though my schedule was full, I didn’t have time to observe it because I had an unscheduled meeting and my leave time was further delayed. I thought if I had the time, I would be able to see it at some point, but it was because of that meeting at the tea plantation…

Well, I can’t help but complain. That meeting was important, too. If the tea plantation will be better thanks to the exchange of opinions, why not have as many meetings as possible? Ah… I’m just trying to justify it after all. It’s not a lot, but at least within the bounds of common sense, please.

Aside from that, I have to go out to inspect an important facility today as well. I hope the rest of them can spend their time as they please. If they want to go out, they can tell someone they’re going out, or if you want to stay at Manor Caan or Manor Carruthers, that’s fine. Katharina, Helmut, and the other House Servants will probably do well in that area.

“Then, Isabella will be with me today… Shall we ask Dominic to be our escort?”

Gata…!

Someone reacted, but this is a place where my parents and my guests are. It seemed that he could barely endure it without raising his voice. Oliver is crying a waterfall of tears and has a terrible expression, but I ignore it. Oliver was noisy during yesterday’s inspection, and in the first place, a captain shouldn’t be alone and wandering around. That’s why I’m asking Dominic, who was originally my escort, to join me today.

Dominic is also an Instructor for the House Caan Army, but that’s fine. Even now, it’s not like he’s ever been formally fired from being my bodyguard. Besides, a captain needs to give instructions all the time, but the instructor doesn’t have to be attached to the unit all the time.

Having finished breakfast and finished preparations, I immediately rushed through the highway towards Hexennacht in a carriage.

First, we headed to the Hexen White Porcelain Pottery. I meet Ehren, a researcher of ceramics and glass, and listens to various reports while inspecting.

Glass can be mass-produced in a factory, but that is not the case with Hexen White Porcelain. A craftsman handcrafts each piece one by one. We put the production number on the back of the product, but there are always products that are broken during the manufacturing process before shipping, or that cannot withstand the color or finishing techniques. These are considered lost items and become serial number combinations that do not exist.

So is there something wrong with the process? I don’t mind if you ask me, but I just thought it would be a pity if collectors desperately tried to get all the numbers in a series, but there was no product with that combination, to begin with.

I’m not very familiar with kilns and ceramics, so it was mostly completed by Ehren’s efforts. I also gave some advice based on my vague knowledge, but that kind of thing is insignificant. Ehren says that it helped him a lot, but that would just be flattery.

After seeing the pottery, we also visit the Botanical Research Institute. After all, a glass greenhouse is built here, and plants are grown in various environments. Of course, it’s not just breeding, but research on breed improvement and ecology. Experiments to extract various components are also conducted here.

It seems that Anneliese is here today, so we decided to talk like yesterday. Unlike yesterday, all the plans from today onward have already been communicated to various places, so maybe Anneliese came all the way here today for me. Ehren seems to be in the pottery most of the time, but I did call yesterday that I’m coming in today for an inspection.

After visiting the two facilities, I go to the Hexennacht quarry. We dig up various minerals including lime. In addition, we are digging here and there to investigate the available reserves. I was delighted to hear that what I thought would be there was found. It’s what is also known as “black diamonds.” Yes, it’s coal.

Coal is simply plants fossils. There was a time when there were few or no decomposing organisms capable of breaking down certain types of plant matter, throughout life’s evolution on earth.

What this means is that right now fungi such as mushrooms and insects such as termites will decompose fallen trees. Eventually, the tree decays and turns back into the soil, but at a certain time, the plant produces a component that is difficult to decompose by the existing organisms then. In today’s world, there is a time when fallen trees would eventually rot if left unattended, but back then they would just pile up and sink into the ground for many years without decaying.

Plants buried in the ground and water without decaying did not decompose further, and heat and pressure were applied to them, turning them into fossils, or rather, coal. So basically anywhere on earth, if you dig to the vicinity of that age’s stratum, coal will be the first to come out more likely than not.

If this world follows a similar evolution to Earth, coal should be found almost everywhere. I thought so, and when I was investigating, it turned out to be right.

Even on Earth, the use of coal is surprisingly old. Regardless of whether it was a major fuel source or not, it has been used as a fuel since ancient times.

I need a lot of fuel from now on. If it was covered with firewood normally, the whole area around here would become a barren area without trees. I still plant trees when I cut down trees for fuel. I’m taking environmental measures from now on, thinking that there will be a shortage of forests in the future.

Even so, considering future development, there is not enough fuel. In particular, we plan to expand our production and move into steel manufacturing. Coal, which has a higher energy potential than firewood, cannot be excluded. In the future, we would like to have something even better like oil, but that is still a long way off. If you think about it normally, I think it’s a development that will play out long after I’m dead.

In any case, various factories and iron processing require a large amount of fuel. I was hoping for coal as said fuel, but I’m glad we finally have a definite source of it from the geological surveys.

But there is another problem. We are taking simple environmental measures, but if we burn coal or make steel, environmental pollution will pile up. Of course, just because you used a little coal, it doesn’t get polluted right away. It’s the same with steel.

It is different from the extremist story of environmental activists who have turned it into a religion of sorts, claiming that burning even one piece of coal will immediately destroy the environment.

It’s silly to go that far, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to let things play out without doing anything. Countermeasures should be taken whenever possible. Even if we can’t take measures to meet modern environmental standards, we have to enact mitigating measures as much as possible.

After completing all the inspections in Hexennacht, I return via a different road from the one I came from, heading towards the Dierbe River. When I went out to the Dierbe River and went south, I could see the factory area. Since the production of glass and mirrors also causes environmental pollution and degradation, we take every possible measure. That being said, I’m an amateur, so I’m sure there will be many problems…

After visiting the plate glass factory, we move to a factory that makes mirrors from glass. When I see the mirrors being made, it makes me think of “that thing” that I want to make. Every man should have thought of wanting to abuse “that”. Yes! I want to make a magic mirror!

The logic of the Magic Mirror is simple. A normal mirror is coated with a reflective material. But if you make countless small holes during the process, you can create a magic mirror.

When viewed from a bright side, even if there are countless holes, the light is reflected and it looks like a solid mirror. However, if you look from the dark side, you can see the scenery beyond through countless small holes. There must be a lot of boys who would like to set this up in a women’s bathroom, a dressing room, or a locker room and see it from the backside.

I know the principle of the magic mirror itself, so I don’t think it would be that hard trying to make it. The only problem is where to install it and how to use it. In the first place, if you want to set up a magic mirror, you have to make a room behind the place where you set it from the construction stage. I have a dream, but it seems that the places where I can actually use it are limited.

Finally, we headed to another factory area a little far from these two factories. It is a factory that weaves thread from cotton. There is also a factory that makes cellulose from leftover fibers. It would be a disaster here if there was a fire, so you need to be careful. After confirming such measures, I returned to Manor Caan through the highway that runs from the same port as yesterday to the center of Caanburg.