“What is this...! Why is it so complicated!!”
Freyr stumbled back appalled when she saw the blueprint.
“I thought I was going to die after I made that donut-thing for you last ti!”
“So?”
“‘So’? What do you an ‘so’?! This looks even harder to make than that! It’ll take a good month to transmute this without mana-deficiency!”
Freyr had suffered from mana-deficiency when she was making the tokamak. She’d sohow managed with mana grass, but since I gave that away to Kasha.... Whatever the case, I felt bad about it.
I had no intentions of becoming like Professor Hasfeldt by getting caught up in the work before . This had to benefit not just , but Freyr as well.
“It’s alright, you can take it slow this ti.”
“... Really?”
“Really.”
Freyr was a bright and bubbly friend. Which, on the other hand, made her distracted in so ways.
Of course, the fact that she got accepted into Tilette was proof that she was a gifted person with great ability to focus. But from what I’d seen of her for the last half year, I knew that she didn’t show much interest in things she didn’t like.
That was the kind of person she should’ve been, but right now, she wasn’t saying anything about quitting despite all the complaining.
“Still, if I complete this, I can remove so of the prejudice that people have about the Youko being stupid.... hehe.”
Because like I did for Lotte, I’d also told Freyr about the plan to build nuclear weapons. That is, the plan to build the most powerful bomb in the world to wipe out the Beasts and bring this world back to the way it was.
I wasn’t going to be here by then, but I hoped that the kid would live happily in the world that was left.
Freyr had hidden her identity and entered Tilette for the sake of reviving her people. She was soone who would do anything for the revival of the Youko.
Over ti, the animosity between humans and beastkin had grown deep. There were even records of the beastkin being called monsters before the appearance of the Demon Army. It wasn’t surprising as humans would discriminate against others just because they had different eye colors.
No, maybe it wasn’t only humans. It was instinct to hate other races even for the beastkin or elves.
People persecuted and hated each other. It wasn’t as bad anymore now that a third of the continent was taken over by the Beasts, but those who discriminated still did it.
But even in that kind of situation, Freyr wasn’t hostile against humans. She didn’t fear nor look down on them.
To create a world of equality that went beyond the differences between races–that was the answer Freyr had given when Miss Heerlein asked about future goals.
“You, , and Lotte are going to finish this! If this becos the key to victory in the war against the Beasts, then it’ll be good for you, for Lotte, and for ! People might even tell tales later on–that our kind was actually good and aweso!”
“Sure. So how about we make this?”
“Uuugh.... You sound like an evil professor.”
“Such harsh words.”
Smiling wryly, I held out a cup of coffee to her.
“It’s cheap instant coffee, but there’s nothing better in value for what you pay.”
“I prefer this, actually! I don’t get why people drink black.”
There wasn’t even ti to enjoy the aroma. It was purely for caffeine intake so it needed to be gulped down like juice.
After cleansing our palates with the coffee, I gave Freyr a cigarette. It wasn’t ‘Goldenstein’, just a common brand of mana grass that could be found anywhere in the market.
We looked between the blueprint and the stones while savoring the bitter taste of the cigarette.
“I grabbed the iron bars and titanium for the main body from the museum so there should be enough.”
“No, if we think about the density reconstruction, it might not be.”
“Density reconstruction?”
“We have to make it as sturdy as possible, no? Look here. It’s nearly five ters tall and if we want to make it solid as well, we have to grind the materials and condense them. It’ll take a lot of mana and iron bars.”
“Well, now that you ntion it....”
After a bit more discussion, we decided to start with the skeleton.
Unlike the internal structure that was going to hold the ‘explosives’, the outer shell was relatively easy to make. And it consud that much less mana.
It was only because I had a friend who was an expert at transmutation serving as a blast furnace. If this hadn’t been an arcane punk universe, I would’ve been cursing my way through the process. No, before that, I wouldn’t even have had the courage to make a nuclear weapon on my own.
“Alright. This should be enough to make the skeleton today.”
“Do you want to finish the internal structure while you’re at it?”
“No?”
I was trying to make a joke but stopped when Freyr’s face hardened.
The part that took long was the inside. We needed to install several mana stones and connect a lot of circuits like you did for a scroll. Then load the explosives, and do this and that....
If I thought about it, the process of making an atomic bomb was classified back on Earth. But why I knew this information wasn’t an issue.
Aether had been around since the ti that the Demon King raised an army, at least. And the Demon King had been sealed a thousand years ago, so.... hm, let’s stop here.
‘I’ was soone who had done nothing but eat and research until now, so it wasn’t out of the question for to know about this.
“Then do a good job and don’t get distracted.”
“As if I’m gonna.”
I left Freyr to it as she formulated runes without even using a transmutation circle and went back to where Lotte was. Lotte was deep in thought with her head in her hands.
“Oh, you’re here? This is really difficult.......”
Lotte was looking at the incomplete scroll of White Night.
The goal wasn’t to finish White Night itself, as it would take a while even using Aether’s knowledge.
Instead, it was possible to decipher the parts that were already there and teach it to Lotte.
“Help with this?”
“Let’s see....”
I sat down across from her and looked at the bloom unit of White Night.
There were a total of 2n^2 tangent lines at the junction of the scroll. Here, ‘n’ was a natural number like 1, 2, 3... and so forth. Unlike other regular scrolls, the junction of White Night was depicted in the form of an indefinite constant, which was consistent with the number of independent variables that a n-dinsional complex square matrix could have.
“Um.... Aether?”
After so pondering, I spoke.
“Okay, so listen, Lotte. The world that we live in can be described by coordinates. This is middle school stuff so there’s no problem, right?”
Lotte nodded, and I kept going.
“We should be able to represent these coordinates as vectors. In linear algebra, vectors are represented as tuples made of rows or columns. And here we can multiply this by an appropriate-size matrix from the left as we wish. What is this process called?”
“Conversion.”
“That’s right. A coordinate multiplied by a matrix ‘converts’ to a different coordinate which is why we call it that. Then here’s a question: Let’s say there are two coordinates. You can define the distance between the two, right?”
Again, Lotte nodded, aning she understood this as well.
“Then can the distance between the two points be independent of the coordinate conversion?”
“Not generally, no?”
“Yeah, but what if I enforce a condition like that?”
“Then there would be so kind of constraint on that matrix.”
“Oho.... you got it.”
Lotte really was a genius; to think that she had no trouble following along up to this point.
As a freshman, she hadn’t even learned linear algebra properly yet. But if I taught her one thing, she figured out two. she understood beyond that. This was the result of six months of tutoring, but also the culmination of all the studying that Lotte had done on her own.
“Then we can think of the set of those matrices, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s try to derive that for a mont.”
After describing the conditions of a matrix with such characteristics, I proved a few properties and showed the precise form. Lotte kept up with my explanations without any issues.
“Now look at the scroll again.”
“Oh.... wait a minute.”
Looking between the equation I scribble and the scroll, Lotte let out an exclamation of realization.
“So this scroll was what this is geotrically!”
“Exactly.”
“So that’s why we borrowed all these math books and papers...!”
I smiled slightly watching Lotte in her fascination; it was like seeing my old self.
I had studied a ton of math as I went up from undergrad to the first year of my joint Masters-Ph.D, and nearly drowned in the process when I had dipped into theoretical physics. Of what I had learned back then, I just taught Lotte one of the aningful experiences.
At the ti, I had taken mathematical physics as part of my grad school process, and the prof who had taught then had shown us how to derive special relativity using math alone without any physical intuitions. My mouth had dropped open when I first saw it.
And that was Lotte right now. It wouldn’t be long until I could show her how to derive electromagnetism just using math.
It was going to take quite a bit of work to get there. To get to U(1) symtry, I’d have to teach for at least ten hours straight....
“This is fascinating! So can this part be explained similarly? Or will it need a different conversion?”
... probably.
Lotte looked at with bright eyes, and there was sothing familiar about them. Right, they were the sa eyes from when I had first t her at the pub.
In life, you sotis t people whose curiosity prevailed over hunger, sexual desires, and even the need for sleep. Lotte was that exact type. Her stamina was also one of the best amongst the class as she never neglected working out for combat magic.
“It’s easier than I thought with your help. I think I’ll be able to understand everything today at this rate.”
“No.... I need to spread out the explanations over a week at least the bloom unit to.......”
“Will it take about ten hours? Please, let’s not drag this out and finish it all today!”
So that was how we blew through the whole day. At least Freyr had finished building the bomb’s large, bulky skeleton by the ti we finished so that made feel a little better.
Anyway.... there went my sweet Saturday, just like that.
Rubbing the dark circles beneath my eyes, I headed to the dorms. Then stopped at the feeling that I had forgotten sothing.
Wait a sec.
“Oh, right. Verl.”
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