When Dwarves and Demonfolk Join Hands

Author: Iwashi-zukushi
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n3388fm/48/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

“No, it is true I asked how you meant to copy.
That said, truly copying is this… what does one call it.”
“Yes… this, and this, are all the same thing… one can hardly tell them apart.”

When we showed what we had printed to the Demon King and Lady Grace, who had given us time, they were struck dumb.
After they had stared a while, those were the words that came out. Nora and I could not help grinning.

“Amazing, isn’t it, really, thanks to Lady Dominas and Nora!”

I said it chest-out, and gazes gathered on me.
No, wait a moment, why is everyone staring like that.
When I am stared at in silence as if they have something to say, it bothers me terribly!?

“Haa… no, already, Asha is that sort of thing, is she not.”
“Yes… I understand well what manner of person she is.”

The Demon King and Lady Grace were murmuring to each other.
W-what is it, I am terribly curious…

“I think that side of Asha is wonderful, you know?”

Dorothea said it with a cloudless smile.
No, that straight ball is, you know… it makes one shy.

The Demon King clapped her hands and reset the somehow subtle air with various differences of temperature.

“At any rate. Asha’s experiment has succeeded splendidly, and with this it remains only to operate in earnest, is that it?
And you want a budget, I take it.”
“Ah, ahahaha… I am sorry, but it is as you say.”
“Good grief… shown a thing like this, I can hardly dislike it.
I will spare no gold; do it to the full.”

I asked, looking apologetic, and the Demon King nodded readily, even as she wryly smiled.
Well, I had known the Demon King would do so. …I have grown thick-skinned, or something.

At any rate I thanked the Demon King for her words and bowed my head deep.

“I am truly grateful for your generous words.
There are still places I must improve as well…”
“Hoh, there is still such a thing?”

Looking at paper that seemed sufficiently cleanly copied, the Demon King was puzzled.
So I took one sheet and rubbed the characters with a finger to show her.
Doing so, they did not come off completely, but the characters smeared a little.

In this state it is, so to speak, only written in pencil, so it fades like this.
At the least it does not have the durability of ink. This is the problem going forward.
I have a solution in mind, provisionally.

“I see, this is certainly a problem. But you have thought of a means to solve it, I take it?”
“W-well, that is so… but whether it will go well is from here on.”

To be honest, the theoretical part aside, the technical part I can do nothing about.
I have no choice but to leave the rest to Lady Dominas and Nora…

“Leave it to me; there’s no mistake in what I make, right?”
“And there is not much I cannot do.”

The two answered, full of confidence.
The two, who ought to have been small, looked unduly reliable.

 

Yes, and they truly were reliable, but.

“And so!! Who said to do this much for me!?”

Beside the seventh factory, a thing one ought to call an eighth factory had been made.
Right in front of it, my scream rang.

But the two principals had thoroughly refreshing faces.

“You see, after that those cyclopes apparently called out to their fellows as well?”
“My subordinates were full of interest and cooperated as well.”

As if it were a matter of course.
This is bad… these two’s full cooperation is too frightening…
Behind the two, a printing press was moving with a mechanical goun goun.
Of course, the power was gears a cyclops turned.

In the main part, a manuscript stuck to a cylinder turns guru guru, and powder is sprinkled from above.
Onto a manuscript charged except where the left-right reversed characters are, charged powder.
When it turns around, powder sticks by static to the characters, and the rest of the powder is shaken off and recovered in something like a receiving tray.

Around the bottom of the rotation paper is fed in, and inside the cylinder near where the manuscript and paper meet, charged thread is strung; powder that repels against it is dropped onto the paper and characters are formed.
That is sent on to the rollers that press it.

In fact the powder being sprinkled is a jumble of various things mixed in—pine resin and other resins, glue, wax, and so on—as a fixer and as wax so it will not stick to the rollers.
This is in imitation of photocopier toner. That, too, has fixer and wax stuck to the powder.
I thought reproducing that while making it a fine powder would be trouble…

“Getting this this fine was trouble, truly.”
“I have no sense of it! None at all! It is already, truly, sara sara, is it not!?”

Yes. I had thought crushing something that covered in resin would be considerable trouble.
And yet, before I knew it it was as fine as the charcoal alone in the experiment the other day; what is going on!?

“I proposed a machine that crushes at a low temperature such that the pine resin and such do not get sticky.”
“You can do such a thing!?”
“I could. As expected of me.
In the domain of magic there is not much I cannot do.”

Lady Dominas said it proudly, chest out.
No… certainly, now that she says it, it is a feeling of that hand was there, but…
Ah, I see, it is a thing magic can do if one can ignore the cost of cooling.

“A-as expected of you, Lady Dominas, amazing!
And Nora, who can build that into a machine as well!”
“Fufufu, praise me more.”
“Being told that far, I do get shy, you know.”

At each of their reactions, they were, you know… each cute, and, you know.
No, so restrain yourself, me.

And I also do not understand how the rollers that fix the written characters this cleanly could be realized this fast.
Their role is to melt the resin and such with heat while applying pressure and fix the powder like ink.
Temperature control and pressure adjustment ought to be considerable trouble…
If it is these two and everyone who cooperated, they can do it, I suppose…

But that far is fine.

“Only, you see. If it had been this far, it could have ended as simply amazing.
Why have you attached a mechanism that automatically feeds paper one after another!?
Why have you been able to make it to a precision that feeds it without a hair of deviation!?”

I had imagined something more like a hand-crank that printed one sheet at a time.
Why has it become something of this extent!?

“More than anything!!”

I pointed, bishi, beyond the thing one could only call a printing press.

There the paper that had finished pressing was sent further, turned with a kururi, and flowed face-down.
Beyond that, another printing press.

“Why have you gone and made it able to print both sides automatically!?”

Yes.
It is true that to make a book, the final aim, one needs to print on both sides.
But, you see, my image was to print one side, turn it over, and print again.
And it is this. I would not think they would make a mechanism to flip the paper, set another printing press, and realize two-sided printing!?

“No, you see, with this machine it is a bother to take the manuscript off when you change what you print.
Then at least what you print on the same paper, we may as well do it like this.”
“U, that is, so, but… that said, why can you do this.”

There was a part of Nora’s answer I was certainly convinced by.
I understood that if it could be done, efficiency would rise greatly as well.
But I had not thought it could be done.

“My combination with Nora.”
“…Already, I have a feeling that alone can do anything, which is strange…”

Yes, shown it like this, there is nothing but violent persuasive power.
According to them, they have charged the belt that sends the paper a little positive.
And by the working of static the paper is sent without shifting from the belt, and the negatively charged powder becomes easier to stick, all good things.
The result of that being.

“About twenty sheets a minute are printing, I suppose. I want to make it faster, though~”
“No, that is more than enough…”

The lowest rank of office photocopier in modern Japan prints at about twenty sheets a minute.
Being able to put out that speed at the stage of first making it, one may well call it tremendous enough.

“As a point to improve, I want to do something about changing the manuscript.
For now it is single sheets for practice in lessons, so it is not so bad, but when the kinds of pages to print increase, what to do.”
“Also, the ink used to make the manuscript is a special thing, and that we have no choice but to have Lady Dominas bestow magic, I would like to do something about as well.”

Even if this will do for the time being, if we are to print all sorts of things later I want to think about points to improve from now.
Nora and I were thinking that when Lady Dominas called out.

“Those two, I may be able to do something.”
“Eh. You can do such a thing?”

I found myself staring hard at Lady Dominas.
At my gaze, Lady Dominas nodded, kokun.

“Nn. See, there is not much I cannot do, so.”

Answering, Lady Dominas showed a smile as if a little shy.