Tensei Shoujo no Rirekisho Chapter 24

The heated stone bath was a total success and Irene-san gave high praises for it. The minerals from the stones started to seep into the bath, causing the water to naturally feel somewhat smooth.

The job of the heated stone bath was later added to the daily routine, and I became responsible for the fetching of water and the filling of the bathtub, whereas another servant was in charge of chopping firewood and heating the stones. That is because it would be dangerous for children to handle fire.

Nevertheless, my role of using a bucket to fetch water is crazy tough. Countless of round-trip were needed and my muscles would be aching all over after doing so. However, I won’t be lamenting about it. After all, this is the black organisation……!

Also, I completed the blueprints for the spinning wheel and the well, and brought it to Claude-san. He decided to postpone all his other work, in order to focus entirely on the blueprints.

However, as for the well, it’s a little…… the feel wasn’t right. Somehow, there appears to be contraptions resembling wells in this world. For a biggish city like the capital, there are various districts that have such wells.

Just that, in the past, when they wanted to build the wells in the Rainforest domain, the people would say, ｢Eh—, drawing water from a well is heav—y, and it will take tim—e, it is unreasonable for the weak and would hurt the waists of the aged too. It’s impossible, impossible—｣and similar other complaints. Back then, there was a sufficient number of mages, and they thought there should more than enough mages to handle this job, so they settled on using a pond method instead.

No, when I heard about it, I was like seriously, 『Aah? I won’t be generous with my words – can’t you all at least draw water from the wells!』 but could that be because I’m narrow minded? Could it be that my heart has already been tainted by the ways of the black organisation? Is that it?

Claude-san suggested that with the lack of mages currently, there could be no other option but to rely on wells to deal with the problem. Thus, I desperately hid the Black Ryou in my mind and replied that I would try my best to come up with an improvement for the blueprint — something like allowing water to be drawn while hardly requiring any strength, and took back the blueprint from Claude-san. Keh. 

Later on, I presented to Claude-san a pump system that can replace and improve the pulley mechanism for drawing water.

I drew insights from a piston made for a squirt gun during a primary school science lesson to design the pump system. A kind of vacuum state would be present inside the well when it is filled with water.By t fbfl bx bgxptsslw tgw fulxxdul bx tffsblw bg t fbxphg ihpbhg, B klsblol patp mtplu mhdsw xjdbup hdp. B atolg’p ultssr vhgwdvplw tg lqflubilgp xh B whg’p ultssr nghm by bp mhdsw mhun. Algvl, B vtil df mbpa t xlvhgw fstg ph bifuhol bp. For the time being, I would build a sample to test this second enhancement.

The spirit user could detect where the water veins were and intuitively knew where to apply his magic to dig. He did so and water emerged from the hole. From then, Irene-san once again casted her magic to surround the hole with stones, constructing a well in about the same time it takes to say “Ah!”

Indeed she was a top class mage. With a mage around, there wouldn’t be any need for a shovel nor heavy machinery! The town’s odd-job worker – mages!

The prototype model of the spinning wheel that I had devised in the blueprint was reproduced by the nimble fingers of the servants. The method to spin the yarn was uncomfortable from our initial testings, so we had it slightly adjusted, but apart from that, the spinning wheel was completed. By turning the pulley handle, the spool of thread would start revolving producing a *Cla Cla* sound, while the cotton would whirl and twist into thread. Seems somewhat fun.

For the people who were first introduced to the spinning wheel, it took some lectures and training before they could spin the yarn easily and matched Irene-san’s production capacity. For starters, the spinning wheel was placed at a village located nearest to us.

This was a scheme aimed at encouraging farmers to spin yarn with the additional time they have on their hands, thanks to the thousand-tooth thresher.

The yarn made could be sold for extra cash, albeit it being a small amount. Upon hearing this, the villagers’ morale ran higher than usual.

A fraction of the harvested crops would be collected as tax. "Tx yhu pal ulxp hy pal vuhfx, bp vhdsw kl yhu xlsy-vhgxdifpbhg, vhdsw kl xhsw hu lqvatgzlw yhu hpalu vuhfx hu hpalu bplix. Bp tffltux patp ihxp ytuilux mhdsw dxl df tss palbu atuolxp bg pabx itgglu. Palr wh ghp ytvl idva atuwxabf bg palbu sbolx, kdp palr tul atuwsr tksl ph itbgptbg tgr xtobgzx tp tss. Under the aristocrats’ domains, work for them is easy, however, the tax is rather high.

Back at Garigari village, there was hardly any taxation. I believe what they call pioneering rural settlements were simply villages that have been abandoned. It was an experimental area to see if the fields could be cultivated without the help of the mages. When tax collectors came, they didn’t really seem to be expecting any tax from us then.

Translated by yAmi on yamitranslations.blogspot.com 

Next, once I managed to complete all the troublesome work, I organised a family dinner for Irene-san (whom I requested) and her sons that proceeded without a hitch.

For their first dinner together, Alan, Cain-bouchama and even Irene-san were frozen with tension and could only make forceful attempts at laughing. Claude-san later joined in to have his meal, however, only Claude-san was eating without any awkwardness, causing him to stand out. That too was interesting.

Nevertheless, after repeating the same dinner every day, they became used to it and nowadays, they had their meals quietly as a happy family.

I was extremely happy at this outcome but, honestly, my jealousy of their happy family was in no way insignificant. Just a little bit.

Alan’s anger management issues have decreased and regarding who helps him in his change of clothes and bathing, even if it wasn’t me and was another male servant, he wouldn’t yell at them.

It seems that Cain-bouchama has persuaded Alan that it would be better for a male servant to assist him in his change of clothes and bathing. Indeed, it looks like Cain-bouchama has become bothered by receiving help from female servants for such kind of activities.

When I had first met Cain-bouchama, he was around 8-years-old but right now, his was already nine. He is slowly approaching adulthood huh.

I am now 6-years-old too.

From around this period, a rumour that there was a sketchy man searching for me started to spread. 

Chapter end