And Then, What We Make

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/29/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Now then, it having come to this, I would have to move various things forward.
Which was what I wanted, in a way.

“Then, first, I’d like to ask Gerda… ah, Nora, could you help as well?
I want this cask of seawater poured into this tub, straining it through this strainer.”
“Ah, a trifle.”
“I just hold this, do I?”

…No, I don’t think it’s a trifle at all?
But Gerda lifted the cask, thirty liters, that is, over thirty kilograms, as if it were nothing.
Oh no, cool…

No, this is not the time to go kyun.

We set the tub, and Nora held the strainer.
Gerda poured the seawater into it, doba doba.
Quite a force and pressure, surely, and Nora held it with a cool face.
Oh no, cool…

So this is not the time to go kyun.

“By the way, Asha, what does this work mean?”
“Ah, um, you see, seawater has a lot of sand in it so fine you can’t see it.
We separate that like this.”
“My word, indeed, sand grains are collecting on the cloth.”

Nora looked at the cloth stretched on the strainer and nodded, impressed.
Island nation or not, there would not be many who had observed seawater at length.
If one had to say, people who made salt might have seen it.

“With this I think the sand is mostly gone… Kira, please.
Would you put ‘Desiccate’ on it so the volume goes down to this line?”
“Yes, all right.”

Kira nodded, chanted that ominous spell again… and ‘Desiccate’ activated.
The amount of water dropped to about a tenth at once. ‘Desiccate’ really is amazing.
Then white grains became visible here and there in the water.

“Hm? This is salt… or not?”
“Yes, this is something other than salt.”

Gerda had apparently noticed from the difference in look.
Yes. This was not table salt, so-called sodium chloride.
A substance called calcium sulfate. A raw material of gypsum, among other things.

Calcium sulfate is dissolved in seawater as well, but the degree to which it dissolves in water, its solubility, is low.
Per a hundred grams of water, only about 0.2 grams or so would dissolve, I was fairly sure.
The proportion dissolved in seawater is small as well, but if you reduce the water this much, it precipitates like this.

“I’m sorry, could you strain this once more?”
“Ah, understood.”
“Aye, leave it to us!”

Ah, Nora is getting really excited.
Apparently she had taken a strong interest in this experiment.

The seawater, reduced to about three liters, was strained in no time by Gerda and Nora.

“Kira, next I’d like ‘Desiccate’ to this line.”
“Yes!”

Ah, is Kira excited too, perhaps?
At a reply that was somehow very lively, I found my cheeks loosening.
I hoped we could keep adding meaning to what Kira could do, like this.

While I was thinking that, ‘Desiccate’ finished.
Familiar white grains appeared.

“This time it is salt. …This is tremendous.”

Gerda murmured it, tasting it.
Whether you draw it into salt fields and concentrate it then boil, or boil from start to finish, both take a great deal of time and fuel.
But Kira could make salt in an instant, without using fuel. This was truly tremendous.
On top of that, work of this degree she could keep up endlessly. How much salt could she mass-produce…
Probably enough, I thought, for Kira alone to throw the continent’s economy into chaos.

“But why don’t you drive all the water out?”

Nora asked a fair question.

“Um, we strain this further. There’s something in this water I don’t want.”

What was precipitating in this situation was mostly sodium chloride.
And in the water, magnesium chloride would be dissolved.
The component of bittern used when making tofu: magnesium chloride.
This had its uses as well, but it was unnecessary for what I wanted to do today, so we would strain further and separate it.

“All right, with this the preparations are done!”

I declared it, high.
Yes. With this, I should have gotten sodium chloride as close to pure as I could currently hope for.

“Oho, at last this one’s turn?”

With a face already sparkling with excitement, Nora brought over the tools I had asked for.

“Yes, at last! First, we’ll use this one.”

I pointed to one of the tools that had been brought.
A tub-like vessel with two copper rods stuck in the inner sides.

From here on it might be dangerous, so I had everyone put on goggles.
Ours were new ones Nora had prepared; Nora’s were her own well-used pair.
On top of that, we began the work.

First I put half the sodium chloride we had gotten into that tub.
In a little over thirty liters, thirty-odd kilograms of seawater, the salt is about 3.4 percent, around one kilogram. Of that, sodium chloride is about 80 percent.
From the earlier tub, that came to about eight hundred grams of sodium chloride obtained.
…Calculating it this way, making one kilogram of table salt is quite a lot of work, isn’t it…?

At any rate, I added about a liter of tap water to the tub and made a saturated solution.
From here was the real thing.

I stuck into the ground the copper wire running from one of the copper rods in the tub. With this, we should have had a ground.

“Then, Gerda. As we discussed, would you grip this handle and send lightning through? Slowly at first.”
“Understood. Best to be careful, it seems.”
“Yes, please.
And please don’t go near this copper rod; something dangerous may be produced.”

When I indicated the grounded copper rod, Kira and Nora moved away.
Now then, with this the preparations were in order.

“Then, Gerda, please!”
“Yes, then!”

Buwa, Gerda’s hair danced as if blown up.
No, ours too. Apparently a great deal of static had been produced.
Whoa, this is going to tingle…

Gerda, perhaps used to it, showed no sign of minding, and sent the lightning through.

And then.
As planned, Gerda’s lightning passed through the solution and vanished into the grounded earth, and bubbles began to rise, buku buku, from both copper rods.
One escaped as it was into the air.
The other, which one could almost see as slightly yellowish-green, dissolved into the water at once.

“What’s this. Why are there bubbles?
And it’s Gerda’s lightning, and yet it flows, quiet as you please.”
“Ah. This is a first for me as well… what in the world is this.”

Nora and Gerda looked puzzled.
Well, of course they would.

What was happening now was the electrolysis of a sodium chloride solution.
In a sodium chloride solution there exist positively charged hydrogen ions and negatively charged chloride ions.
Well, sodium ions and hydroxide ions as well.
When you pass a current, the current is negative electricity, so the positive hydrogen ions approach, and hydrogen ions that have received the negative electricity become hydrogen molecules and leap out.
Hydrogen hardly dissolves in water. …Hydrogen water, I really don’t know about that.

Meanwhile chloride ions, Cl-, give up electrons near the grounded copper rod and appear as chlorine molecules… but these dissolve well in water, so they hardly leap out.

As a result, the remaining sodium ions and hydroxide ions react with the dissolved chlorine and change into a sodium hypochlorite solution.
Yes, the sodium hypochlorite solution that people in waterworks and related fields drool over!
It’s long, but I will say the full name on purpose!

As proof that a sodium hypochlorite solution had been made, a nostalgic chlorinated smell began to drift, striking the nose.

“All right, we did it!”

I found myself pumping a fist.

Well, Gerda and Kira and Nora, who did not understand the situation, were staring blankly.

“…What in the world happened…? An unfamiliar smell has started.”
“Um, you see… this is a liquid that can strongly kill the things that cause illness.
As it is it’s too strong, and we dilute it quite a lot to use it… but if we use this well, dysentery will almost stop happening, and so on.”
“W-what!? No, that’s a truly amazing thing, isn’t it!?”

Ah, Nora is surprised. Even a water system made by demonfolk, apparently, had not cleared that.
Yes. This sodium hypochlorite is used to sterilize tap water and pools as well.
It has considerable sterilizing power even at quite thin concentrations, so it is used in toilet cleaners and the like.
Effective against various bacteria and viruses, beginning with dysentery bacilli, and extremely effective for preventing infectious disease.
It has a bleaching action as well, so it is effective for bleaching clothes and the black stains in baths.
At any rate, with this, in terms of epidemic prevention and hygiene, it was considerably reassuring.

“Yes. I think it’s probably a considerably amazing thing.”
“Wait. My head cannot keep up.
My lightning made such a thing?”
“That’s right. Gerda’s lightning and Kira’s ‘Desiccate’ made this!”

At my words, Gerda lost hers.
Kira, perhaps having understood as well, had wet eyes.

Yes. The two of you have the power to make something this amazing.
But we aren’t done yet!

“We’re not done. We have to use this one too!”

I brought out the other tool, in high spirits.