Seriously … I didn’t know how Tom got his hands on such a soft mattress, but I was tempted to do everything to get my hands on one as well. The bedsheet was out of pure satin as well, which meant my back was caressed every time I wriggled a little bit.
My head laid in a comfortable position at Toms right shoulder, which wasn’t the best pillow, but it was better than nothing as all the pillows had been thrown off the bed at some point.
Realising that Tom was fast asleep, I stood up from the bed slowly and went towards a nearby wardrobe. Thankfully Tom was a bit kinky and had a whole school uniform in his wardrobe.
“Bye bye.” I said waving towards the whore who had claimed the other side of Tom. Thankfully we had cleaned each other after having intercourse for nearly a whole night, so I didn’t even need to do anything before wearing it.
“See you.” She said a bit drunken on sleep and nodded to me as I opened the door fully clothed in the strangely realistic uniform. It was exactly the same Tom had ripped to shreds … but who was I to complain?
After hesitating for a bit, I closed the door behind me and turned towards my left. It didn’t take long for me to find the first servant who directly guided me towards Hannah.
“And? Slept well?” She asked right away, strangely averting her gaze with red cheeks. Well, she may have heard a little, but it was her fault for listening in the first place.
“Not a single second.” I said with a grin and picked up the muffin she was eating. It honestly tasted a bit stale, but it was exactly the right food to start the day off … excluding the litre of human blood Tom had bunkered for special events. “So … ready to head back to school?”
“I cannot await the hearing …” Me neither. Especially not because I still haven’t decided on wether I should just get them expelled, or give them another chance. Yawning loudly, she pushed the plate with her sweet breakfast away and stood up. Neither of us were that motivated as we were led outside the mansion and strolled back to the academy grounds in utter boredom. Especially tiring was the procedure at the gates which seemed to be beefed up considerably at this point.
“Hi … Hannah Dove. I’m a teacher here.” Hannah explained and started filling out a lot of paperwork for me and herself. We could have chosen not to take that route simply by using the underground tunnels, but that would also mean we would appear out of nowhere.
And thus, we had to wait a little for everything to be processed and were allowed in right afterwards, just in time for the hearing which would start around twelve. Before that though, we did have someone who wanted to talk with us. Someone who didn’t want to participate in the trip of his class and rather stayed behind to … work? Did he even see it as work? I couldn’t tell.
Well, once again we were back at a place where everything was possible and everything could go wrong at any second.
There wasn’t much that changed since the last time we went here, except that the person we were visiting had a little bit more space now.
“Hey, Lucy, Miss Dove!” He shouted through the whole room filled with strange tools and and apparatuses for and uncountable number of purposes.
“Hi Albert! How are you doing? I hope you don’t mind that I bought my sister with me?”
“No, not at all! She should be here as well in fact. After all, it was her contact that allowed me to pursue my interests.” Right … we gave Albert money so that he could create stuff. And if anything was good, we could take it for ourselves without any legal issues.
“Yeah … regarding the time of the proposed meeting you made though.” I said and looked at the letter Hannah gave me. She had picked it up the day before, shortly after we left the academy but the contents were very weird. Albert had asked for a meeting two days prior to us being even back.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s all fine that you got her two days later.”
“The thing is … we would still be on our trip if everything went right.” I said, deeply curious about his invention for time travel. Because otherwise, I really couldn’t explain this letter.
“Trip?” It took him a few seconds of staring at us until he realised what we were talking about. “Oh! The school trip! Right, right … I totally forgot that.”
How in the world did he forget that? There is nobody else around and he seriously claimed that he forgot everyone was gone? How did he survive?
“Okaay. Well then … what’s up?” I asked and looked at the few mana stones he had gathered on his desk.
“Right, right. So, where was I?” He hadn’t even started. So what was this question. What he always that confused?
“Are you alright?” I asked with a bit of concern in my voice.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking about another invention of mine a lot.” He certainly was somewhere else with his thoughts, that much was obvious. But still, he grabbed a few of these mana stones and waved at us to follow him right away. “Right! The contact you gave me is amazing. As far as I am aware, I signed one of the best contracts with this guy … Mot Backwards was it? I’m given fifty percent of any money he makes with my invention, which is far more than the measly twenty percent others would have given me. I’m also not complaining about the money he gives me at all … but there is apparently a clause which gives him all the rights regarding any invention I make.” He said and stopped outside in the backyard of the house right next to a huge metallic machine.
“Isn’t that pretty normal?” Hannah asked to which I could only nod. We explicitly made sure that Albert wouldn’t have any incentive to go to someone else to fund his projects.
“It is … but the thing is, he purposefully stalls some of my inventions from reaching any potential costumers.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that. We bought everything he made, but we basically put some of the things into the cellar and forgot about them altogether. Things that put us at a disadvantage or could change the world too much in a short time, thus creating a lot of instability we didn’t need.
“Doesn’t he basically buy anything you make anyway?” I asked a bit surprised. He shouldn’t have any problem with money, so why did he even care what we did with his inventions?
“Yeah … but my hope was that these inventions would travel on and change the world to the better.” He said and leaned a against the huge metallic machine in desperation.
“Oh …” We had an idealist in front of us. At least someone who also had idealistic fantasies … maybe this was salvageable by letting him concentrate on something else. “Okay. But you can follow your hobby with his money, right? And besides you have to look at the economic perspective as well. If you make a substitute for a certain product, it may harm these producers and he is invested into a multitude of companies.”
“I haven’t thought about that … okay. You may be right.” I definitely wasn’t, but I was lucky that Albert only cared about his inventions and nothing else. A bit happier, he finally got to work by placing a few of the mana stoves a little container at the bottom of the machine and flipped several levers.
“I also wanted to show you this.” I didn’t know why he wanted to present me anything, but I had shown interest in his inventions in the past, so maybe that played a huge role in his decision. “This is my newest creation which will change the world forever. You do know that creating a constant motion is difficult with the use of magical circles for a long time?”
“Yeah … something about them breaking apart, right?” I asked, not really confident in my answer at all. I hadn’t studied them after all, so all my knowledge was from the books I picked up along the way.
“Correct. Circles moving an object are considered one of the worsts to use. Their effect goes outwards in a circular fashion with decreasing effectiveness, meaning the material is experiencing stress over time. Additionally, putting two on one object is impossible as well, because synchronising them is near impossible. If they are set to different speeds, the object which they are placed on will ultimately tear in the middle …” He looked in my curious eyes a little bit, and then towards Hannah who didn’t get it at all. “It’s like two people are pulling on your arms in different directions.” Nice one. He learned to express himself a little bit better … or that was a fluke of luck.
“Ah.” Hannah said quickly. Shortly afterwards, he pulled another lever and some things looking like spider legs started moving at the side of the machine.
“This is a steam engine.” And that’s where he lost me as well. The machine was quite loud and leaked steam in several places but none of that seemed to explain what it actually did.
“Quick question … what is an engine and what does steam have to do with it?” I asked a bit confused. I never heard of this word at all, so it was to be expected I had no idea what it did.
“An engine … moves things like carriages.” He said and scratched the back of his head a little. His explanation was … bad? I still didn’t get what it did.
“But it’s not moving itself? How is that thing supposed to move a carriage then?” Horses pulled a carriage. But this lump of metal couldn’t even move itself so how was it supposed to pull a carriage?
“Right here.” Albert said and proudly pointed towards a rotating metallic pole sticking out from the middle of the lengthy machine. It did rotate rather fast, but I still didn’t know what he wanted to do with this pole. “It’s like … ehh … imagine the whole thing is on the carriage and the pole is an axis.”
“Ahh … that’s huge carriage though.” I commented and tried to measure the thing. It was probably at least three metres long and a metre wide … and I honestly doubted any wooden frame would be capable of bearing that weight.
“That’s why we make a train!” A train? That sounded a lot like rain … and I hated rain.
“A train … sorry, but what is a train?” I asked and tilted my head to the side, already fearing the worst.
“Oh … ehh … it’s like a long carriage moving on metal tracks?” I couldn’t imagine it at all. And neither could Hannah apparently as she looked at Albert as if he had gone crazy.
“Right … that sounds a bit like out of a fantasy book.” I commented wryly and nodded towards the machine. Albert didn’t get it at first, but he quickly shut the machine off after I tapped his shoulders and pointed towards the lump of metal.
“It’s not! It will work!” I didn’t doubt him at all. He was a reincarnator and most of his creations were probably things that had proven themselves in his world. The thing was … the whole machine was made out of the finest metal we could make, which meant it’s price was probably around that of a small mansion. And if he wanted to build that … train, he surely needed more.
“Okay … for what would we need this train anyway?”
“Transportation. It’s faster than a horse and doesn’t tire out.”
“Okay … and what else could you use this steam engine for?” I asked a bit interested. So far, this invention didn’t seem that dangerous as it was highly impractical to lay down these metal tracks anyway.
“For basically everything! Mining, production, mills, farming … it’s the basis of the industrial revolution.” He explained eagerly.
“What is an industrial revolution?” I asked a bit helpless about all the new words he kept throwing at me every second sentence or so.
“It’s a time period shaped by higher worker productivity, urbanisation and changes in society which we cannot even start to imagine!” That sounded … exactly the kind of development I didn’t want at this point. It may have been my age that made me aversive to these changes he presented me, but I also couldn’t risk instability at that time. We were still at war with the demons … and a revolution was exactly not what I needed.
In a sense … I even pitied that soulless machine a little. It would land in a cellar, somewhere deep underground where no one would find it until I wanted it to be found.
Placing my hand against the warm metal, I patted it a little before turning back towards Albert.
“That’s honestly amazing … but it costs a lot, right?” I asked and looked at the machine one last time before strolling back into the workshop.
“Yeah … I spent all the money I had on it. And I have already asked him two times already. He always accepted but …” It had become a bit much even for Albert, was I right?
“I’ll write him a letter, so don’t worry.” Hannah mentioned a bit worried about his next spending spree. “But you might need to give up on your idea of this revolution. Mot Backwards is always careful with introducing new things, especially in the heated climate of today. He did tell me that your ‘refrigerator’ is ready to be revealed to the public though … whatever that is.”
Hannah may not be familiar with refrigerators, but I certainly was. We did have one in purgatory and on the archipelago world after all. Well, I might have misused them completely as I merely stored leftovers in there which I then used to vent my anger either by throwing them at Aska or outside. Others may use it for keeping ingredients fresh … or so I was told by Tom. In any case, a refrigerator didn’t seem that dangerous, so I allowed it to be spread amongst the populace.
If it got too popular though … well, we might have shot at our own goal by giving him fifty percent of all the profit.
Seriously … I didn’t know how Tom got his hands on such a soft mattress, but I was tempted to do everything to get my hands on one as well. The bedsheet was out of pure satin as well, which meant my back was caressed every time I wriggled a little bit.
My head laid in a comfortable position at Toms right shoulder, which wasn’t the best pillow, but it was better than nothing as all the pillows had been thrown off the bed at some point.
Realising that Tom was fast asleep, I stood up from the bed slowly and went towards a nearby wardrobe. Thankfully Tom was a bit kinky and had a whole school uniform in his wardrobe.
“Bye bye.” I said waving towards the whore who had claimed the other side of Tom. Thankfully we had cleaned each other after having intercourse for nearly a whole night, so I didn’t even need to do anything before wearing it.
“See you.” She said a bit drunken on sleep and nodded to me as I opened the door fully clothed in the strangely realistic uniform. It was exactly the same Tom had ripped to shreds … but who was I to complain?
After hesitating for a bit, I closed the door behind me and turned towards my left. It didn’t take long for me to find the first servant who directly guided me towards Hannah.
“And? Slept well?” She asked right away, strangely averting her gaze with red cheeks. Well, she may have heard a little, but it was her fault for listening in the first place.
“Not a single second.” I said with a grin and picked up the muffin she was eating. It honestly tasted a bit stale, but it was exactly the right food to start the day off … excluding the litre of human blood Tom had bunkered for special events. “So … ready to head back to school?”
“I cannot await the hearing …” Me neither. Especially not because I still haven’t decided on wether I should just get them expelled, or give them another chance. Yawning loudly, she pushed the plate with her sweet breakfast away and stood up. Neither of us were that motivated as we were led outside the mansion and strolled back to the academy grounds in utter boredom. Especially tiring was the procedure at the gates which seemed to be beefed up considerably at this point.
“Hi … Hannah Dove. I’m a teacher here.” Hannah explained and started filling out a lot of paperwork for me and herself. We could have chosen not to take that route simply by using the underground tunnels, but that would also mean we would appear out of nowhere.
And thus, we had to wait a little for everything to be processed and were allowed in right afterwards, just in time for the hearing which would start around twelve. Before that though, we did have someone who wanted to talk with us. Someone who didn’t want to participate in the trip of his class and rather stayed behind to … work? Did he even see it as work? I couldn’t tell.
Well, once again we were back at a place where everything was possible and everything could go wrong at any second.
There wasn’t much that changed since the last time we went here, except that the person we were visiting had a little bit more space now.
“Hey, Lucy, Miss Dove!” He shouted through the whole room filled with strange tools and and apparatuses for and uncountable number of purposes.
“Hi Albert! How are you doing? I hope you don’t mind that I bought my sister with me?”
“No, not at all! She should be here as well in fact. After all, it was her contact that allowed me to pursue my interests.” Right … we gave Albert money so that he could create stuff. And if anything was good, we could take it for ourselves without any legal issues.
“Yeah … regarding the time of the proposed meeting you made though.” I said and looked at the letter Hannah gave me. She had picked it up the day before, shortly after we left the academy but the contents were very weird. Albert had asked for a meeting two days prior to us being even back.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s all fine that you got her two days later.”
“The thing is … we would still be on our trip if everything went right.” I said, deeply curious about his invention for time travel. Because otherwise, I really couldn’t explain this letter.
“Trip?” It took him a few seconds of staring at us until he realised what we were talking about. “Oh! The school trip! Right, right … I totally forgot that.”
How in the world did he forget that? There is nobody else around and he seriously claimed that he forgot everyone was gone? How did he survive?
“Okaay. Well then … what’s up?” I asked and looked at the few mana stones he had gathered on his desk.
“Right, right. So, where was I?” He hadn’t even started. So what was this question. What he always that confused?
“Are you alright?” I asked with a bit of concern in my voice.
“Yeah, I’m just thinking about another invention of mine a lot.” He certainly was somewhere else with his thoughts, that much was obvious. But still, he grabbed a few of these mana stones and waved at us to follow him right away. “Right! The contact you gave me is amazing. As far as I am aware, I signed one of the best contracts with this guy … Mot Backwards was it? I’m given fifty percent of any money he makes with my invention, which is far more than the measly twenty percent others would have given me. I’m also not complaining about the money he gives me at all … but there is apparently a clause which gives him all the rights regarding any invention I make.” He said and stopped outside in the backyard of the house right next to a huge metallic machine.
“Isn’t that pretty normal?” Hannah asked to which I could only nod. We explicitly made sure that Albert wouldn’t have any incentive to go to someone else to fund his projects.
“It is … but the thing is, he purposefully stalls some of my inventions from reaching any potential costumers.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that. We bought everything he made, but we basically put some of the things into the cellar and forgot about them altogether. Things that put us at a disadvantage or could change the world too much in a short time, thus creating a lot of instability we didn’t need.
“Doesn’t he basically buy anything you make anyway?” I asked a bit surprised. He shouldn’t have any problem with money, so why did he even care what we did with his inventions?
“Yeah … but my hope was that these inventions would travel on and change the world to the better.” He said and leaned a against the huge metallic machine in desperation.
“Oh …” We had an idealist in front of us. At least someone who also had idealistic fantasies … maybe this was salvageable by letting him concentrate on something else. “Okay. But you can follow your hobby with his money, right? And besides you have to look at the economic perspective as well. If you make a substitute for a certain product, it may harm these producers and he is invested into a multitude of companies.”
“I haven’t thought about that … okay. You may be right.” I definitely wasn’t, but I was lucky that Albert only cared about his inventions and nothing else. A bit happier, he finally got to work by placing a few of the mana stoves a little container at the bottom of the machine and flipped several levers.
“I also wanted to show you this.” I didn’t know why he wanted to present me anything, but I had shown interest in his inventions in the past, so maybe that played a huge role in his decision. “This is my newest creation which will change the world forever. You do know that creating a constant motion is difficult with the use of magical circles for a long time?”
“Yeah … something about them breaking apart, right?” I asked, not really confident in my answer at all. I hadn’t studied them after all, so all my knowledge was from the books I picked up along the way.
“Correct. Circles moving an object are considered one of the worsts to use. Their effect goes outwards in a circular fashion with decreasing effectiveness, meaning the material is experiencing stress over time. Additionally, putting two on one object is impossible as well, because synchronising them is near impossible. If they are set to different speeds, the object which they are placed on will ultimately tear in the middle …” He looked in my curious eyes a little bit, and then towards Hannah who didn’t get it at all. “It’s like two people are pulling on your arms in different directions.” Nice one. He learned to express himself a little bit better … or that was a fluke of luck.
“Ah.” Hannah said quickly. Shortly afterwards, he pulled another lever and some things looking like spider legs started moving at the side of the machine.
“This is a steam engine.” And that’s where he lost me as well. The machine was quite loud and leaked steam in several places but none of that seemed to explain what it actually did.
“Quick question … what is an engine and what does steam have to do with it?” I asked a bit confused. I never heard of this word at all, so it was to be expected I had no idea what it did.
“An engine … moves things like carriages.” He said and scratched the back of his head a little. His explanation was … bad? I still didn’t get what it did.
“But it’s not moving itself? How is that thing supposed to move a carriage then?” Horses pulled a carriage. But this lump of metal couldn’t even move itself so how was it supposed to pull a carriage?
“Right here.” Albert said and proudly pointed towards a rotating metallic pole sticking out from the middle of the lengthy machine. It did rotate rather fast, but I still didn’t know what he wanted to do with this pole. “It’s like … ehh … imagine the whole thing is on the carriage and the pole is an axis.”
“Ahh … that’s huge carriage though.” I commented and tried to measure the thing. It was probably at least three metres long and a metre wide … and I honestly doubted any wooden frame would be capable of bearing that weight.
“That’s why we make a train!” A train? That sounded a lot like rain … and I hated rain.
“A train … sorry, but what is a train?” I asked and tilted my head to the side, already fearing the worst.
“Oh … ehh … it’s like a long carriage moving on metal tracks?” I couldn’t imagine it at all. And neither could Hannah apparently as she looked at Albert as if he had gone crazy.
“Right … that sounds a bit like out of a fantasy book.” I commented wryly and nodded towards the machine. Albert didn’t get it at first, but he quickly shut the machine off after I tapped his shoulders and pointed towards the lump of metal.
“It’s not! It will work!” I didn’t doubt him at all. He was a reincarnator and most of his creations were probably things that had proven themselves in his world. The thing was … the whole machine was made out of the finest metal we could make, which meant it’s price was probably around that of a small mansion. And if he wanted to build that … train, he surely needed more.
“Okay … for what would we need this train anyway?”
“Transportation. It’s faster than a horse and doesn’t tire out.”
“Okay … and what else could you use this steam engine for?” I asked a bit interested. So far, this invention didn’t seem that dangerous as it was highly impractical to lay down these metal tracks anyway.
“For basically everything! Mining, production, mills, farming … it’s the basis of the industrial revolution.” He explained eagerly.
“What is an industrial revolution?” I asked a bit helpless about all the new words he kept throwing at me every second sentence or so.
“It’s a time period shaped by higher worker productivity, urbanisation and changes in society which we cannot even start to imagine!” That sounded … exactly the kind of development I didn’t want at this point. It may have been my age that made me aversive to these changes he presented me, but I also couldn’t risk instability at that time. We were still at war with the demons … and a revolution was exactly not what I needed.
In a sense … I even pitied that soulless machine a little. It would land in a cellar, somewhere deep underground where no one would find it until I wanted it to be found.
Placing my hand against the warm metal, I patted it a little before turning back towards Albert.
“That’s honestly amazing … but it costs a lot, right?” I asked and looked at the machine one last time before strolling back into the workshop.
“Yeah … I spent all the money I had on it. And I have already asked him two times already. He always accepted but …” It had become a bit much even for Albert, was I right?
“I’ll write him a letter, so don’t worry.” Hannah mentioned a bit worried about his next spending spree. “But you might need to give up on your idea of this revolution. Mot Backwards is always careful with introducing new things, especially in the heated climate of today. He did tell me that your ‘refrigerator’ is ready to be revealed to the public though … whatever that is.”
Hannah may not be familiar with refrigerators, but I certainly was. We did have one in purgatory and on the archipelago world after all. Well, I might have misused them completely as I merely stored leftovers in there which I then used to vent my anger either by throwing them at Aska or outside. Others may use it for keeping ingredients fresh … or so I was told by Tom. In any case, a refrigerator didn’t seem that dangerous, so I allowed it to be spread amongst the populace.
If it got too popular though … well, we might have shot at our own goal by giving him fifty percent of all the profit.
