Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 202: Preparations
Princess Daniela had apparently made time in her busy schedule to come and see us. As soon as our business was finished, she left for her next task. Brother Alex would be leaving us here as well. He had work to do at the townhouse and at the Royal Academy. Apparently the cold going around the Academy had been spreading even more than it had the other day.
“The Academy is a place where people inevitably gather close together, so illnesses spread easily,” Brother Alex said.
“Would it be impossible to suspend the lectures?”
“That would be difficult. It would put some school years behind the others. And we can't simply move the suspended classes into the summer holiday. Everyone already has plans then.”
A large number of the students attending the Academy were nobles. During the summer holiday, nobles returned to their family estates, where they not only helped with the family business but also had to attend tea parties and other gatherings. Those plans had probably been settled a long time ago.
“It sounds like there's nothing you can do about it. What about the lung disease?”
“So far, two more students at the Academy have come down with it. Thanks to the magic medicine you helped spread, Julius, it didn't turn into anything serious, but apparently the medicine tasted absolutely awful. The elementary healing potion they drank afterwards smelled and tasted terrible too. It's already become a bit of a legend. The upside is that more people have started washing their hands and gargling because of it.”
It sounded like they had used magic medicine made by someone other than me. So it really did end up tasting vomit-inducingly awful. I had taught them how to make it, so how did that happen? Was it really that hard to overturn what people had always accepted as common sense?
At the same time that Brother Alex left, the three of us moved to another common room. We couldn't very well have a room like this to ourselves when we were just children. If some high-ranking noble saw us in there, they might find some excuse to make trouble for us later.
Not every noble was favourably disposed towards House Heine. Apparently there were nobles who thought we had stolen Princess Daniela away from them—or so I'd heard. Anyone who saw the relationship between her and Brother Alex should have realised immediately that wasn't what had happened.
My hands were going to be free for the rest of the morning, so I decided to do a little work on the icehouse improvements. The blueprints were back at the townhouse, but I had the whole thing in my head. That wasn't a problem. Unfortunately, I didn't have any of my magic-tool-making equipment here. For now, we began by clearing out the old icehouse.
“Are we really allowed to go into a place like this?”
“It's fine. Once the Panacea is finished, I'll ask everyone else for help, but I don't want to burden them right now. Sorry, but could you two give me a hand?”
“Of course. Leave it to us.”
The three of us worked together, moving the materials somewhere they wouldn't get in the way of the renovations. To make them easier to move, we packed as much as we could into wooden crates. We also made sure to write what was inside each crate.
“This is already a pretty cold room. Even this isn't enough?”
“No. It needs to be cold enough to make you shiver.”
“Won't that damage some of the ingredients instead?”
“Some of them, yes, so I'm planning to divide the inside of the icehouse into separate areas. If possible, I'd also like a place where we can store things outside the cold room.”
Until now, they probably hadn't clearly understood how each ingredient ought to be stored. Every ingredient had simply been put into the icehouse. Naturally, some ingredients were better kept at room temperature. I wanted to make sure that was handled properly from now on.
It would be nice if the practice spread from the Royal Magic Pharmacists' Corps to the Magic Pharmacists' Guild outside the castle and then to other magic pharmacists as well.
Maybe I should make a miniature icehouse just for storing ingredients. But wouldn't that basically be a freezer? In that case, making a refrigerator might be more useful to ordinary people.
“What's wrong, Julius? You look like you're plotting something bad.”
“How rude. I was thinking about a new magic tool.”
“In that case, why don't you just become a magic-tool maker?”
“You say that, Axel, but… Come to think of it, is it possible to be both a magic pharmacist and a magic-tool maker?”
I didn't think I'd ever heard of many people claiming both titles. Did doing so weaken the authority of each profession? Or was it restricted by law? I had no idea.
“I've never heard of it, but if it's you, Julius, you could do it.”
“That's right. You could definitely do it, Julius.”
Where exactly was that confidence coming from? Hey, don't stare at me with those expectant eyes. You'll make me want to try it.
Once we had finished clearing the room, I measured it again and examined the walls. The walls were thick, presumably to keep heat from getting in, but that alone wasn't enough. If possible, I wanted to pack insulation into them. Was there anything I could use instead? Maybe I could put wood between the walls.
“This is going to need some preparation. Improving the icehouse is going to take longer than I thought. It might even be impossible to finish before spring.”
“It'll take that long?”
“Yeah. It looks like I'm going to need some wood.”
“So the question is whether you can get the wood. If you order it right away, maybe they'll still be able to manage.”
That was true. Once winter began in earnest, it would probably be impossible, but right now the snow should still be limited to the areas around the mountain peaks. I needed to place the order quickly. Which meant the measurements had suddenly become very important. After that, the three of us worked together to measure the room.
“I think that's about all we can do this morning. I'll ask them to procure the wood.”
“So our mission ends here. It was our first job, but I'm glad we finished it without anything happening.”
“Can we call that successfully completed?”
“Of course. I'll tell Brother Alex that the two of you were a huge help to me.”
Brother Alex would probably send them some kind of reward. By doing that, he would deepen the connection between me and the two of them and make sure the people around us knew there was a relationship between our families. In a sense, Axel and Ijidol had ended up taking part in the battle between nobles. I wondered if they had realised that yet. Well, they would eventually. Nobles were shrewd and frightening creatures. Creatures like me.