Tensei Shoujo no Rirekisho - Volume 1 - Chapter 23

While observing Irene-san’s job scope, two thoughts came to mind. First was to build wells and the other was to make a spinning wheel. 

With wells, there will no longer be a need for mages to specially make a trip tp replenish water supplies and with a spinning wheel, it would be possible for anybody to spin thread by themselves. 

It’s just that, for a water well, even building a prototype would be beyond my means and thus, I am going to prioritise first on the spinning wheel. 

However, the construction would have to wait after studying. I have lesson time with the home tutor now. 

Today’s lesson is history. This time, the lesson is on a rather old legend, during the period known as the Age of Mythology. Even though it is a legend, it seems that this country doesn’t have a religion that seems like a religion. The story gave vibes similar to that of the Nihon Shoki or the myths about the Greek gods. It feels right. However, I can’t shake off the feeling that the predicament this country is in stems from their ideology, their raison d'etre for establishing this new nation and their ambitions for it. These were mentioned at the last part of the legend of the founding of the Castel nation. 

According to the narrative, the Castel nation where we all reside in presently was a country built by the gods. 

During the Age of Mythology, magic could be casted without saying their incantations. As of such, mages were omnipotent and they got so carried away that they called themselves Gods. The arrogant mages clustered together and lived together in their kingdom of Gods, the Great Magic Empire Pandora. In this era, their Empire was the only absolute leader of the continent. 

The mages of that time were full of themselves. They were brutal and cold-hearted, turning the whole of the non-mage human population into slaves and toying around with them as though they were lesser beings even when compared to beasts. 

Nevertheless, the non-mage humans soon discovered how to make iron, and could forge resilient swords, shields, armour, helmets and other equipment. The humans that were slaves, stealthily sharpened their fangs, and finally rose their flag of rebellion towards the mages. 

No matter how the prideful mages held the belief that the powerless humans shouldn’t be able to achieve anything with their strength, their numbers were simply too great. Furthermore, their iron armour could some way or another withstand the magical attacks from the mages and that their swords, when skilfully swung on the mages, could also slice them into pieces. 

The war between the mages and the humans grew protracted. 

Not long later, a group of mages brokering for peace for both sides appeared. This third faction would later become the Gods that founded the Castel nation. 

However, at that time, the super-conceited King of Magic of Pandora, kicked their pleas for peace to one side, claiming that “those who possess such feeble mind-sets have no rights to be mages!” and ended up with attacking this third faction of mages. 

Having said that, the humans too, couldn’t accept the ideals of the third faction as they couldn’t trust mages at all. 

It was around this period of time when the King of Magic died all of a sudden and a new ruler was crowned. This ruler was later given insulting nicknames such as Queen of Darkness, Queen of the Undead and the Ruler of the rotting and decaying, and was considered the evilest Queen of Magic. 

This Queen of Magic didn’t give a damn to the appeals from the third faction and of course, ordered the advance of her troops to eliminate the humans. It was truly an intense battle. Among the mages under the Queen of Magic were her necromancers. They were rare mages who knew how to control the dead. 

Because the dead could re-join her army, mages that were killed by the humans could be revived and on the other hand, humans that were slaughtered were revived as part of her army. Yet, this zombie army would mistakenly kill mages who are supposed to be their allies, thus, creating a bloodbath for both the humans and the mages. Most could only think about escaping from it. 

Unfazed by the deaths of her own allies, the Queen of Magic continued to steadily expand her domain. 

“We can no longer stand this!” was what the mages in the third force thought and cooperated. Eventually they managed to corner the Queen of Magic, bringing a stop to her zombie army. 

And next, they vowed never to repeat history again and started their own country. Thus, the country known as Castel was born. 

The mages, in a bid for unity between humans and mages, swore never to tyrannise the humans and promised to give them a prosperous life. The humans were grateful to have been saved from the grasp of the Queen of Darkness and the bloody war. Once again, humans revered mages as Gods and agreed to build a new nation with them. 

The whole plan to have the mages grant riches to the humans while the humans’ job was to worship them, gave birth to the current black organisation. These mages slog away day and night for their sakes. It is a tragic sight. 

From what I have seen at Irene-san’s work, this legend could be a historical fact. 

* 

Classroom learning has ended so the young masters are currently having sword practice. Apart from the laundry and other miscellaneous work, I decided to sit at the place where I laid out the stones and firewood in the morning and wrestle with the construction of the spinning wheel. Seems like Mary-san had finished washing the clothes since wasn’t there anymore. 

To start off, I took out a clump of cotton which I had obtained from Stella-san, and confirmed the process of producing thread. It was likely to be similar to how Koyori can be made from tissues; it was probably twisted until it became a thread. I started twisting some cotton. 

It took some time but after some twisting, a thread-like thing was made. The more twists on the thread, the better it felt but, as expected, doing this manually took a lot of time. 

I want to make it easier to increase the number of rotations. Speaking of rotating…… a spinning top? It is a toy targeted at small children in my previous life. It could with a single turn, revolve for many rounds. 

I searched for a twig near the area, and tried winding the thread on the twig but it looks like the weight (of the twig) wasn’t sufficient and I couldn’t smoothly rotate around it. This time, I tried tying a rock under the twig and did it again, and rotating it felt great. 

Oh—! As I was thinking, I continued pulling the cotton, rotating and did what you might call coiling around the twig, which in itself might be called spinning yarn. (TN: Not much explanation and description for this. Check out youtube for yarn spinning to gain a better idea :P) 

Nevertheless, while this might be a feasible technique, the method which I had envisioned involves a spinning wheel and should have, you know, a wheel-like thing to spin cotton. 

Most likely, if that was the case, in-sync with the rotation of the wheel, the produced thread would be coiled around a rod. It would work as the wheel spun. In all honesty, I have only seen pictures of its schematics during a history lesson in school, hence, I might not be very sure but I think this should be how it works. 

If it comes down to the wheel-like object, I would require a kind of belt to propagate the rotation. That could be made with wood later, and would it involve shaving of wood? I would have to assemble some equipment but hey, that requires money and I don’t get paid! 

｢Ryou, so you were over here huh. What are you doing?｣ 

When did Cain-bouchama and Alan got so close. Ah, this is bad, I put too much concentrated at work and completely did not notice. Has it been a long time since they were here? 

｢Sorry. Bouchama. Sword practice must have ended. We have to clean off the sweat don’t we? I shall make preparations.｣ 

I got up in a hurry to ready the bath but Cain-bouchama stopped me, squatted down and looked at the spool of thread that I was holding. 

｢No, it is fine for now. By the way, what is that?｣ 

｢This is called a spinning wheel. I am still thinking about making it and have been testing with some prototypes.｣ 

｢What is a “spinning wheel”?｣ Alan and Cain-bouchama’s eyes were both fixated on the tool. 

｢It is a tool to spin thread from cotton. I thought about building one as far as I could with my own abilities but gathering the required tools for construction seems too difficult for me so I have been thinking about sending a drawn up blueprint to Claude-sama.｣ 

He should be able to at least vaguely understand the blueprint, I wager so. Between building it all by myself and discussing it with Claude-sama, the latter approach would yield faster results I believe. While I’m at it, I could try to present another blueprint on wells too. 

For writing materials such as pen and paper, they are easily obtainable from the lessons, therefore, the equipment needed is all there. Mm, I shall do that. 

｢That there existed such a tool. I didn’t know that. What about the campfire-ish stones and firewood that you have piled here, are they for the spinning wheel?｣ said Cain-bouchama as he pointed towards the set of stones and firewood that I assembled in the morning. 

｢No, that has nothing to do with the spinning wheel. That is for Oku-sama’s bathtub. I am thinking of placing some heated stones into the water. There has been arrangements for the head chef to come here at night to set the stones on fire.｣ 

｢Heated stones?｣ 

｢Yes. Placing the heated stones in the water, the temperature of the water would increase and heating the water was the plan. The Oku-sama has been using her bathtub every night but, she would always have to personally use magic to heat the water so, I thought if only we could prepare that on our side.｣ 

｢Is that so? That would be good,｣ said Cain-bouchama. Beside Cain-bouchama who was smiling gently, there was a child that was acting in an awfully strange way ever since started talking about the Madam. Of course, that was Alan. 

It was like, as though he heard something really amazing from me. Because he did that, it cannot be helped, I took a look at Alan, and he looked like he was about to utter something and that he was racking his brain for the right words. 

｢…….Ryou, Okaa-san, is she in good health?｣ 

Alan had at long last, squeezed out his thoughts, and said in a feebl—e voice, while frantically putting on the guise of being uninterested in it. 

｢If were to talk about her health, it would be that she is healthy, however, she has been very busy with work, and has been in a constant state of fatigue.｣ 

｢He-h, I s-see｣ mumbled Mr. Alan. He seemed like he wanted to ask more questions yet he was unable to do so because he didn’t what was good to say. 

｢Nevertheless, she has been concerned about Alan-sama and Cain-sama.｣ When Irene-san got wind of the information from Stella-san that Alan has been acting violently without his boss, she made a prompt decision to send me back. 

As I conveyed her concerns, Alan’s expression became more cheerful immediately. Next, Alan realised that he became delighted unconsciously and knit his brows awkwardly and returned to his usual cheeky expression. 

｢Well, I couldn’t care either way. It’s alright without Okaa-san anyways!｣ he said pretending to be tough. 

His bluff was clear as day. There were no indications of him trying to hide his bluff. No wait, he might be trying to hide it but he was totally unable to conceal it. 

Aww, what is this. Cute. So readable. 

Oh, oh, did he long for his mother that much? 

Just as I was about to grin reflexively, the Cain-bouchama next to me was grinning. It felt like Cain-bouchama was also able to understand Alan’s affection for his mom. Mm. 

｢What is wrong with both of you! Weird faces you’re making! What is going on!｣ 

Alan’s face went all red and he started barking in his usual style. The grinning Cain-bouchama started patting on Alan’s back to calm his agitation. 



If the spinning wheel is completed, there would surely be more time for Irene-san to have dinner together with them on normal occasions. The family time that Alan and Cain-bouchama deeply wanted. 

The one thing that I truly wanted, at all costs, in my previous life.