I Don’t Know This Kind of Rampage
Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/44/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA
Thanks to Lady Dominas, something I had thought would take quite a while was finished in half a day.
That being so, I had no choice but to keep clearing the other things as well!
And so, mornings for clinic, afternoons flying about here and there.
Yes, I really am flying. Or rather, being flown.
Days of working in a way that is, in various senses, beyond common sense: priceless. …Is it?
I was thinking that sort of thing, one day.
“Doctor Asha, we brought today’s lot.
…What happened to you? That’s a face you mustn’t make in front of people.”
“Uwah, Nasti!?
W-was I making that kind of face?”
At Nasti’s voice—she had brought today’s herbs—I hurriedly raised my face.
Bad, bad, I had let my guard down quite a bit. …I really should rest properly once…
Fortunately, perhaps the effect of soap and baths, patients have been on the decline of late.
It might be all right to rest firmly for a day or so.
While I was thinking that, Nasti, who had been watching me a while, sighed as if exasperated.
“Truly, they say it well: the apothecary who will not tend herself.
You needn’t take after Dia that far, you know.”
“Ah, ahaha, I am ashamed…”
No, really, Gerda and Nora only just said it the other day.
I scratched my head as I apologized.
That far? Are there other places I resemble her?
I do not not think it. …I also have a feeling I should not ask.
She probably would not answer straight anyway.
“That won’t do, that sort of thing.
The patients will be in trouble, and we will be out of business as well.”
“Th-that is so, I am sorry, I will be careful.
Ah, that is right, speaking of business… Nasti, can you bring pine resin and glue and such as well?”
Perhaps because I, who had been bowing low, suddenly raised my face as if remembering, Nasti started for an instant.
…That I thought it a little cute is a secret.
Then she thought a little, hm.
“Well, we have an idea, yes.
What will you do with pine resin and glue. Changing trades to a paste shop?”
Incidentally, pine resin is the resin taken from pines, and glue is what you collect by boiling animal sinew and the like until it dissolves—gelatin, so to speak.
Both are often used in place of adhesive.
“No, that is not it. I have something on my hands just now that I think I might be able to use if I do it well.”
“Ah, I see. …But, Doctor.
At a time when patients are few for once, to be thinking only of that sort of thing—how is that.”
“Ah, no, that is so, but…”
Yes, just now patients had left off, and it was a time when it would soon be noon.
If no one came from here it would go straight to the lunch break.
…It was certainly a timing when I could have let my guard down.
And from the back, Kira, who had brought today’s payment, was nodding, koku koku, as well.
“Really, I want Nasti to say it too… When I say it, she does not rest at all…”
“My, even when Kira says it? That is quite something… That won’t do, Doctor Asha.”
“Haa, truly, I am sorry. I shall endeavor to improve.”
I kept bobbing my head. And even as I did, I suddenly thought.
…Have Kira and Nasti gotten close at some point?
Well, they do the handing over of money, so they would have various conversations, but.
Surely it is not that they are only strict with me!?
Uu, if this treatment is only because I am the workshop’s successor, is that not a little unreasonable!?
Thinking that, I took a sip of the lemon water Kira had made.
In the end almost no patients came after that.
We reached noon safely, and I and Kira, and Nasti as well since she was here, ate lunch together at Elma’s shop.
“Oya ma, a rare combination?”
“Yes, Doctor Asha said something like ‘It’s my treat, so eat,’ you see.”
“I did not, I absolutely did not!! Or rather, what is that needlessly extremely similar voice impression!?”
“There, there, we will throw in a little extra on tomorrow’s lot.”
“Then it cannot be helped, can it.”
“Kira!? Please do not be talked around!”
Such a fun? Probably fun scene as we ate lunch. It was delicious as always.
And the conversation between Kira and Nasti was bouncing along, looking enjoyable, so my stomach did not go tight.
Or rather, it was rather a balm. The sight of two beautiful girls talking peaceably.
…I will try not to think about Nasti’s real age. If she sees that I have thought it, my neck will be in danger.
At any rate, the fun, fun? lunchtime ended, and we took a breath.
From the afternoon I was scheduled to head for the factory with Kira.
“Then, Nasti, we will take our leave.”
“My, going on a date, the two of you?”
“D-no, that is not it, it is work again.”
“A date… I see, that interpretation is also…?”
“Wait, Kira, it is not, no, do not make that face.”
Such a wrangle being the result.
“Then, may we come along and have a look as well?”
And somehow it became that, and the three of us headed for the factory.
How did it come to this.
The circumstances aside, we arrived at the factory to confirm, because there were things we would need to make paper next, but.
Looking around the factory, Nasti muttered.
“…What is this.”
“Eh, a soap factory, though…”
“Are we the only one who feels it is terribly different from what we heard…?”
Nasti’s dazed voice is a fairly rare thing to hear.
But I understand that feeling very well.
We call it a soap factory. The main product is certainly soap.
But both the look and the insides had changed considerably from the start.
Or rather, Nora and the others had apparently designed it from the first with extensibility in mind.
It is true I had asked that it would be nice if this sort of thing could be done later.
But, you see.
In the first factory they make aqueous sodium hypochlorite while collecting the by-product, hydrogen.
In the second factory they produce aqueous sodium hydroxide by the ion-exchange membrane method while collecting the by-products, hydrogen and chlorine.
In the third factory they react the resulting aqueous sodium hydroxide with fats and oils and make soap and glycerin.
In the fourth factory they expose the collected hydrogen and chlorine to the high temperature of spark discharge by lightning magic and generate hydrogen chloride, dissolve it in water, and manufacture hydrochloric acid.
In the fifth factory, in a sealed room, they burn charcoal until the oxygen is used up, pass the gas—now almost only nitrogen and carbon dioxide—through aqueous sodium hydroxide, synthesize sodium bicarbonate, baking soda, from the carbon dioxide, and collect the remaining nitrogen.
In the sixth factory they take that nitrogen and hydrogen from the other factories, put them in a magically super-high-temperature, high-pressure state to react, generate ammonia, and store it as aqueous ammonia.
Yes.
Who. Said. To. Go. This. Far.
This is no longer something cute like “the town soap factory♪”; it is a chemical industrial plant, isn’t it!?
It is true I said it would be nice if this sort of thing became possible.
But that was it would be nice someday.
Who said to make it in under a month!?
At least I did not say it, I did not, all right!?
Why can they do this… dwarves and giant-kin are too much of a cheat…
Well, the greatest cheat is…
“Factory Manager Kira, desiccation over here, please!”
“Nn, leave it to me! ‘I humbly beseech. What I wish is eternal dryness. Wither and be spent, as I desire.'”
Whoa, it has been a while since I heard that dangerous chant!
And the power as always… no, has the power gone up? Is it my imagination??
At any rate, Kira, repeating an amazing amount of desiccation, is without mistake the greatest cheat.
Incidentally she has been recognized as the mainstay of this plant, inherited the title of factory manager, and is cutting through everything with a keen blade.
The basics are the work of desiccating pumped-up seawater in stages and generating sodium chloride.
On top of that she successively dries the large quantities of undried soap and glycerin that are brought now and then.
The glycerin she brings to a pure state, then mixes with water in an accurate ratio and makes lotions and the like.
And the next moment she is drying baking soda in an instant as well.
People and demonfolk who can use magic are helping with the desiccation, but perhaps the aptitude does not match; they come nowhere near Kira.
Over ninety percent of the desiccation of those products, Kira handles.
Perhaps because she has done that many, her skill has gone up as well; soap that used to keep quite a few traces of bubbles from rapid desiccation is now smooth and beautiful.
In Kira’s words.
“If I desiccate it going jwaa… it works.”
That is how it is.
She says jwaa… but it only looks as if it ends in an instant…
Perhaps in units of milliseconds she is doing it slowly.
Incidentally, a butcher who heard that talk brought processed meat and had jerky made as well.
In an instant, beautiful beef jerky and the like, complete.
…I wonder if I should have her make dried vegetables as well…
“Say, Doctor Asha?”
“Nn, what is it?”
“Kira was… this much of a tremendous person…?”
Ah, even Nasti is shaken, as one would expect.
Even I, who knew the situation in numbers, am shaken…
While we were struck dumb, Kira went on applying desiccation.
By the way, public bathing facilities have now been put in here and there in this town, and just under 50,000 humans and just under 100,000 demonfolk are using the baths. Hand-washing with soap has been soaking in, little by little, as well.
Just under 150,000 in total using a great quantity of soap every day.
No, from what I hear it has begun to be used in other towns as well; it might even be several times that.
And those are being supplied sufficiently, without running dry.
Yes, with the enormous sodium chloride Kira generates as the starting point.
To be honest, it does not make sense.
A quantity of seawater I have given up even counting in tons becomes white grains in no time, is carried away, and in time comes back as a great quantity of soap and glycerin.
That sight looked, somehow, like a world of myth.
“Ahahaha… amazing, isn’t it, our secret weapon…”
Rather, this may have been a forbidden weapon that ought to have been kept secret forever.
I was thinking that as I watched over Kira’s work.
“Ah, Asha, how is it? I am doing my best, aren’t I?”
A smile that could only be called radiant was turned on me.
Compared with when she first came to this island, she was overflowing with confidence.
I found myself putting up a thumb.
“The very best.”
I could only answer so.
