Chapter 7 – STOVE
Lately Jin has been thinking about something. That is a stove. In Kaina Village… no, in this world, firewood is typically used for cooking.
However for firewood, you need to cut a tree down, clear away the branches, cut it short, dry it, and then after that you can use the wood. Cutting down a tree and carrying it is hard labour, it also takes about half a year to dry it. A tree that’s not dried is hard to burn and it creates a lot of smoke. The concept of using charcoal did not exist in this world and to the general populace, firewood was a source of heat.
「A 《Magic Crystal》 as I thought… no, it’s a 《Magic Stone》 I need」
There was a lot of it underneath the laboratory which Jin regretted. Well, a lot of the goods stored in the laboratory were all over the place though.
（It can’t be helped, what’s done is done. Hmm, from my hypothesis, the substance of magic power is a particle made up of neutrons and protons that form a nucleus. It should have a similar position to a 《Radioisotope》）
Even if it’s the same element, the nucleus needs the substance of magic power to take on magic power, which is the hypothesis Jin made up. Deducing it with the knowledge and magic of the 《Magi Craft Meister》 and the knowledge of a high school level graduate. No one has ever thought of such a thing in this world.
（That is to say, it has a similar concentration to uranium, however there is no materials or equipment for it）
If it was the laboratory, Jin could make a magic element concentration device, but this was Kaina Village so it couldn’t be helped.
「Onii-chan, can we go play?」
Jin was invited by Hanna.
「Ah, yeah, that’s right. Where should we go?」
「It’s hot so let’s go swim!」
To the south of the village is the Erume River, a big river that supposedly runs to the capital. However, there are several waterfalls along the way so it wasn’t used for transportation by water, was what he heard from Roland.
「Alright, let’s go」
So the two changed into their swimwear and headed to the river. Well the swimwear wasn’t much different from underwear though. Incidentally, Hanna didn’t have a problem with only wearing the bottom so Jin didn’t worry about it either.
In the river were other children that came to swim, mixed among them was the village chief’s niece, Barbara. As one would expect, Barbara had wrapped cloth around her chest.
「Ah! It’s Jin-niichan! Hanna too!」
Kurt let out his voice when he saw the two. Mario and Jessie also waved at the two.
「It isn’t good to suddenly enter the river. You should splash a little water on your body and slowly enter.」
「Okay」
He warned Hanna and Jin slowly entered the river. The place to swim was a deep area with gentle flow. Well it’s not really that deep, the width is 20 metres and the deep areas are only about 3 metre in depth.
「Kyahaaa, it feels good」
「Yeah… it really does」
Leisurely floating on the water, Jin rested his head, and then water was poured on his face.
「Pua!」
「Hehe, Jin-niichan, what are you doing lazing around? Let’s play!」
The mischievous Kurt came and squirted some water.
「You sure did it!」
「You can’t catch me~」
「Oh, a game of tag? I’ll also play!」
「Me too! Me too!」
Before he noticed it, the children had gathered and it became a game of underwater tag. Barbara looked at the scene with a smile from a shallow area.
「Caught you Hanna-chan!」
「Caught you Jessie!」
「The only one left is… Kurt?」
「Ah, there he is! He dove underwater!」
「Alright!」
Kurt dived deeper to escape, Jin and Mario chased after him.
Kurt was caught near the bottom by Mario who was skilled at swimming. At that time, Kurt was flailing about, and the sand at the bottom rolled up. Seeing that, an idea flashed in Jin’s head.
「Ahhh, that was really fun~」
The children who finished playing got out of the water. Because it was nearly time for lunch, everyone returned home.
「You guys, quickly take a hot bath at the onsen and then go back home」
「Okay~」
Worrying that they may get sick if they remained with a cold body, Jin called out to them. Well, the children of this village aren’t so weak though.
「Fuu…」
While bathing in hot water, Jin verified the idea he had a while ago.
（An atom with a lot of neutrons must be heavy, so an atom with a surplus of the substance of magic power should be heavy too. If that’s the case then sifting it should be possible like the gold dust underwater）
「Onii-chan, haven’t you gotten out yet?」
Hearing Hanna call out, Jin snapped out of his thoughts. Because he pondered too long in the hot water, he returned to Martha’s house while sweating. Hanna had a refreshed face.
「What’s wrong? You look unusually hot after going for a swim」
Martha told him.
「Well… I was thinking about a little something」
Jin said in the same usual tone, bitterly smiling.
Now the afternoon, Jin came alone to the Erume River once again. As for Hanna, she was taking a nap.
「Now then… let’s trying putting it into practice」
Muttering that, he entered the water. In his hand was a large bowl.
First of all he scooped the riverbed of sand with the bowl, and swung it into the water. Doing that, the light sand flew into the water while the heavy sand remained in place.
This technique of picking gold dust is called 『Panning』. Of course Jin didn’t have the experience in doing this, but he has seen it being done on the television. ⚑
After doing it several times, there was a little bit of red sand left on the bowl. He checked if the water was gone. Of course using magic.
「《Analyse》… yep, a fire attribute 《Magic Stone》. It has a higher grade than I thought it would」
He did it several times, but all that he found were red 《Magic Stone》.
「Hmm, maybe there’s some relation with what comes out of the hot spring. But, well, this was unexpectedly fortunate」
Making a stove requires a fire attribute 《Magic Stone》, so this is convenient.
For that day, Jin continued to collect the 《Magic Stone》 until dusk when Hanna came to find him.
The next day, Jin secluded himself in the workshop. This time he was using iron-based materials. Handling fire is dangerous so although he felt bad about it, he had Hanna go out to play alone.
「Well then, the basic form of that 《・・》」
Recalling the form of the general cassette stove, Jin transformed the iron into an iron plate. Once again, he thought magic was convenient. Being able to precisely do it to this point was because he was the 《Magi Craft Meister》, however he did not realise that.
This time he bent the resulting iron plate to make the form of the stove. The burner section used the 《Magic Stone》 for the heater process, and substituting for the cassette gas cylinder was a 《Magic Stone》.
Although the prototype is in the form of a cassette stove, he hoped the final form would be a gas range.
「Alright I’m done!」
The first thing he noticed when making it was the adjustment of the heating. The magic power supplied to the 《Magic Stone》 could be adjusted with a knob he implemented.
「I should try it out immediately」
Bringing the finished stove, Jin went to where Martha was. Just in time, Martha was beginning to prepare for lunch. She had fetched some firewood to boil the pot.
「Um, Martha-san do you have a moment?」
He asked Martha who stopped her hand holding firewood,
「What is that? You’ve brought another interesting thing haven’t you?」
「Well yes… this is a 『stove』, it can boil and stew food without firewood」
「Ohhhh, is it a 『Magic Tool』 as I thought?」
「That’s right. Could you try and use it?」
「I’ll gratefully accept your offer and use it. How am I suppose to use it?」
Placing the stove on top of the kitchen table, he put the pot filled with water on the trivet.
「Using it is simple. First, you raise this lever. Then you turn this knob and when the heater becomes hot, it will boil the water. You can adjust the amount of heating by turning the knob.」
Martha then opened her eyes wide,
「What a Magic Tool! You called it a 『stove』 right? … being able to produce such heat! Jin! This is really amazing!」
she said in great joy, and Jin was glad.
Adjusting the heat of firewood is extremely difficult. The amount and type of firewood can change it. In spite of that, Martha who could make a delicious meal was amazing, but Jin’s cooking skills were at a beginner level so he couldn’t understand how.
But to Martha, this magic tool, the 『stove』 is revolutionary.
After several days of testing the prototype, there were no problems, so he made stoves to go around the village. Jin taught them the method to collect the magic stones for replacing them, and all the homes in the village were very thankful for it.