Chapter 143: Utilizing the Insulation Stones

The next day, after finishing breakfast, Isamu and the others gathered at the workshop.

“We know there’s an absorption effect, but I don’t understand the differences in bubble size… Since there’s also the insulation aspect, maybe something similar to a refrigerator would suffice.” 

Isamu muttered while incorporating various parameters into the magic circle.

“The size isn’t bad.” 

Eto, who had been measuring the size of the walls with Willem, handed a note with numbers to Isamu.

“Thank you. Set the height and width, and… I guess a thickness of about seven centimeters should be fine. Too thick would make it cramped… Alright, settings done!”

Isamu finished drawing the magic circle and clapped his hands together.

“I’ve been watching from the sidelines, but you’re as impressive as ever.” 

Zvār sighed as he watched Isamu draw the original magic circle with ease.

“Haha, I’ve gotten used to it quite a bit. Oh, Zvār-san, you might want to be careful over there. Since it’s generated to match the ceiling height, it might appear around there too.” 

Isamu warned, considering the effort of installation, they aimed for a height just below the ceiling, making it quite large.

“How many pieces are you planning to produce?”

“Handling several pieces of this size would be difficult, so I decided to make them one by one.” 

Isamu replied. Then, he immediately started the generation of the insulation stones.

“Alright, I’ll keep making them, so please start lining them up!”

“Roger.”

“Got it!”

After confirming responses from the knights in charge of installation, Isamu activated the magic tool.

Following the usual “fon” startup sound, the wide open floor suddenly lit up in a two-and-a-half-meter by one-meter rectangular shape, then the light vanished, leaving behind a chunk of stone of the same size in a yellowish-brown color.

“Oh, so that’s how they’re made.” 

Zvār murmured, fascinated as he watched the scene of insulation stone generation for the first time.

“Okay, let’s start setting up from the corners of the room… Oh! Even at this size, it’s surprisingly light!”

Mizeroi, who tried to lift the freshly made insulation stone (for walls), was surprised.

While they knew about the new type of refrigerator, most of the knights had hardly dealt with the insulation stones themselves, so their surprise was natural.

“Haha, it looks just like a stone wall. The gap is incredible, isn’t it?”

Saying so with a laugh, Isamu moved on to creating the next insulation stone (for walls).

Mizeroi aligned the newly erected pillar in the corner of the room to fit the insulation stones (for walls).

The easiest way to install would be to directly adhere it to the current wall. Despite its size, it wouldn’t topple over.

However, this time, they decided not to adhere it to easily remove or replace it if the effect wasn’t significant.

They erected pillars in the corners of the room and lined up the insulation stones between them without leaving any gaps. Once they reached the end, they crossed them with lintels and skirting boards-like wooden strips to hold them in place. With this installation method, they could easily remove the insulation stones by removing the wooden strips. Since they didn’t need to function as structural elements of the building, this level was sufficient.

If the appearance wasn’t pleasing, they could simply attach decorative boards on top.

By the way, the parts of the doors and windows were easily removable with a fitting system.

The knights of the Klaufeldt family were generally skilled in carpentry since they also served as combat engineers, clearing paths during marches, and repairing and renovating walls and barracks. Even female knights like Marcella and Tiramisu were naturally erecting pillars and hammering wooden beams.

Before they knew it, even Zvār seemed to be enjoying DIY(Do It Yourself).

With that, the construction of the first floor was completed in no time.

“The room has become a bit smaller, but it was originally quite spacious, so it’s no problem.” 

“Yeah, it’s fine at this size.”

“Now, let’s see how effective the soundproofing is right away.”

Leaving some people inside the room, Isamu and the others went outside the workshop.

The confirmation of the soundproofing was done in two ways.

One was simply having a conversation inside the room and listening from the outside. It was primitive but provided the most straightforward test in a situation closest to what they desired.

Since they couldn’t prepare two rooms for before and after comparisons, they checked how much the voices could be heard beforehand and compared it with afterward.

“Wow, there’s clearly no sound leakage.”

“This is quite something. Even with normal conversation, you can’t hear it even if you put your ear to the wall…”

When they checked by putting their ears to the wall, they could visibly (or audibly) feel the level of effectiveness.

Zvār was also impressed.

The second method of confirmation was using magic.

They used the magic of the fake burst that they had used in the surprise attack of the previous demonstration match. This magic could adjust the volume based on the amount of magic power infused. They measured the effectiveness by seeing how much magic power was needed for it to be heard.

However, since accurate control of magic power was necessary, only Isamu or Annemarie, who were good at it, could do it.

Annemarie entered the room, and Isamu used magic to gradually increase the magic power while waiting at regular intervals.

When he heard the sound, he opened the door at the entrance to notify, which was another primitive method.

“…It’s quite hard to hear.”

“It was audible immediately earlier…”

“I see.”

“I heard it.”

After some time had passed, they finally faintly heard a small crack.

When they asked Annemarie, she said the magic power level when it was heard was 7.

Before the installation of the insulation stones (for walls), it could be heard from a magic power level of 3, so it was fair to say that there was a noticeable effect.

Since there was no comparative object, a relative evaluation couldn’t be made, but the fake burst with magic power level 7 had about the volume of a starting pistol at a sports day, so it should be sufficient in terms of effectiveness.

“It would be unnecessary if the walls were originally thick like those of a castle, but if they’re not, it’s quite effective.”

“Yes, it’s sufficient. Plus, it has insulation effect. I feel like the room is already warmer than before.”

Zvār nodded in agreement with Isamu’s overall evaluation.

“I’m glad you’re satisfied. With this much effectiveness, it makes you want to sing karaoke or play mahjong… Wait? Mahjong…?”

Isamu suddenly fell into thought, recalling memories of his time in Japan in a soundproofed room.

“Eto-san.”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“Have we ever tried to see how small we can make this magic tool? I mean, a smaller size?”

“No, we’ve only confirmed that it can be made to a certain size.”

“That’s right… um, the size was about this much, right? About two to three centimeters? Oh, but since we need to draw patterns by hand, maybe it’s okay to be a little bigger.”

Muttering to himself, Isamu started drawing a rectangle on his note.

“What’s wrong?”

Eto wondered as he watched.

“Oh, sorry. I just had an interesting idea… In the afternoon, let’s try that out. If it goes well, I might be able to give Zvār-san a nice souvenir.”

“Oh, a souvenir? I don’t know what you’re planning, but it’s from Isamu, so I’m looking forward to it.”

“It’s not decided yet whether it can be made, so I apologize if I got ahead of myself.”

During breakfast this morning, a messenger had come, bringing news that the road would be open by tomorrow.

If the weather held up tomorrow, Zvār was scheduled to depart in the morning.

Since he was considering getting a souvenir, it was a good opportunity.

“After lunch, the lord and lady came to visit the workshop as well.

“Well, first of all, it’s whether we can make stones of this size… If this doesn’t work out, then we’re out of luck.” 

Isamu said as he wrote numbers into the magic circle.

“Alright. I hope it goes well…”

And then, he activated the just-completed magic circle.

*Fon*

*Pikac*

*Colon*

The magic tool operated successfully, and as intended, a small rectangular stone was created.

“Wow! It’s done!! It’s inevitable that the surface is a bit rough. If we coat it with something, it’ll be fine. But as a prototype, it’s more than enough.” 

Isamu said, holding the finished product between his index finger, middle finger, and thumb, gently running his thumb over the surface of the cube.

“Ah, we’ll also need to chamfer the edges. The hardness is fine at this level, but for cheating prevention, it might be better to make it a bit harder… Well, that can be done with coating too.”

“Isamu, what are you planning to do with these small blocks?” 

Eto asked suspiciously, watching Isamu mutter to himself with a grin.

“Oh, sorry. These are for mahjong, a game where you match pictures. I was going to give up on making them by hand since we need about 150 sets, but if we can make them with this magic tool, then we can do it all at once!”

“150 sets is quite a lot…”

Eto was surprised by Isamu’s answer.

“These blocks are called ‘pai’ in mahjong, and you have to draw patterns on them. So, everyone, please help with that later. It’s a simple design, so I think we can do it quickly if we all work together.”

While saying that, Isamu replaced the parameter part of the generation with the number of pieces and activated it again.

Increasing the number resulted in them being generated stacked vertically, so he kept it at twenty to avoid a disaster if they fell over.

He repeated this seven times, resulting in 140 tiles being produced.

He repeated it twice more to create the raw materials for three sets of mahjong tiles: one for Zvār’s souvenir, one for Count Maraine Bisseling who Zvār would visit, and one for personal use in their territory.

“Now, it’s time for a little drawing session. I’ll explain from here, so please start drawing on one side.”

Mahjong is played using three types of tiles: numbered tiles with numbers from one to nine, each marked with one of three different symbols, and character tiles with seven different characters such as East, South, West, and North. There are four of each kind, so a total of 136 tiles are needed.

First, they would create these, but since it might be difficult to imagine with the patterns and characters directly taken from Earth, Isamu decided to make some adjustments.

“The first type is the orthodox numbered tiles. These are for Selfers and Nicolette-san. I think you two are used to writing numbers.”

“Got it.”

“Understood.”

These tiles correspond to the Manzu suit on Earth. On Earth, the kanji character for ‘ten thousand’ is used as a unit for numbers, but here, only the numbers are used.

“Next, it’s the handle of a short sword. Draw one to nine short swords like this. Felix and Liddell, I’ll leave this to you two.”

“Understood.”

“Got it.”

These correspond to the Sozu suit. On Earth, they have a bamboo-like pattern, but by using short swords as a motif, they will resemble the Earth tiles.

“Next is… Orihime’s paw print pattern. It’s detailed, so it’s tough, but I really want to complete this. Can I ask Mizeroi and Tiramisu?”

“If it’s Orihime-sensei’s paw print, then of course!”

“Got it!”

The paw print pattern corresponds to the Pinzu suit. On Earth, there’s a pattern inside a circle, but here, they’ll use Orihime’s paw print stamp pattern. It’s the biggest point of obsession with the otherworldly mahjong tiles.

“Finally, it’s the character tiles. Please write the characters representing East, West, South, North, Red, and Green. Zvār-san and Annemarie, I’d like to ask you two. You both have very neat handwriting.”

“You can count on us.”

“Understood.”

For the character tiles, they decided to use the same concept as on Earth since it was already familiar.

“Everyone, please help out wherever you like. We’re not selling these, so skill level doesn’t matter. Just enjoy drawing! Don’t worry if you make a mistake, we’ll replace it right away, so don’t hesitate to ask if you’re unsure about something.”

With that said, Isamu and , everyone started earnestly drawing characters and patterns on the tiles.

The group with the most enthusiasm was the paw print team. Marcela joined them, drawing paw prints with a serious expression, as if battling a dragon.

Beside them, the motif, Orihime, sat in a box seat, swaying her tail while watching over them cheerfully.

The lord and lady duo casually drew numbers. Their son, Julius, joined in, and they all worked harmoniously.

Eto joined the short sword team. They discussed angles and spacing, each showing their work to the other. It seemed everyone was meticulous.

Willem joined the character tile team, surprising Anne-Marie and Zvār with his equally skilled penmanship.

After three hours of work with intermittent breaks, all the tiles were finally painted.

“Thank you, everyone!! Thanks to you all, we have wonderful tiles now. Well, let me explain how to play right away.”

With that, Isamu began explaining the rules.

Setting aside the detailed scoring, he started with the basics of how to match the pictures.

“I see. So, if you match three of the same tiles or three consecutive numbers of the same suit, that’s a set?”

“Yes, that’s the basic idea. Four sets of three tiles each and one pair of identical tiles. The first person to complete their hand with 14 tiles wins. However, the scoring depends on how you match the tiles. Generally, the harder it is to match, the higher the score.”

“I see. So, there’s scoring involved. That means, in the end, the one with the highest score wins?”

Zvār asked a sharp question.

“Exactly. Winning each round is important, but we’ll play at least eight rounds to determine the rankings based on total points. Well, rather than explaining in words, I think it’s easier to understand by actually playing. Shall we start?”

And so, the first mahjong lesson in the world of Ethersia began.

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