Episode 27
“Although I treated it roughly, show it to a proper doctor later.”
“Well, it’s quite meticulous for this level.”
He raised his bandage-bound hand and examined it this way and that. Though he spoke like that, his glare checking if there was anywhere wrong was sharp.
I picked up the glass fragments scattered on the floor. Because if left as is, someone would clearly get hurt, after all.
“Hey, why are you picking that up with your hands dangerously?”
Hastily putting on gloves, Aidan began picking up the glass.
“Why is Young Lord clearing this up himself, then, of all people?”
“Then should I just stand by and watch you clean it up alone?”
“Th-Though that’s not great, of course… Wouldn’t you usually say you’ll order a servant to do it right away?”
Hardly had my words finished when he raised his crouched body.
“Ahem-hem, I was just about to call a servant anyway.”
Opening the door, he rushed outside, then returned and shouted.
“So don’t go hurting your hand by cleaning it up alone, and wait sitting quietly.”
“Yep. I have quite a bit of confidence in staying quiet.”
Carefully wrapping the glass piece I had placed atop my palm in cloth, I nodded my head.
By the way, this glass. No matter how much air is drawn out with a mechanical pump, there is a limit.
‘As expected, a perfect vacuum cannot be made with a mechanical pump alone.’
Because even if sealed with rubber at the gaps, air fills up in that split second. What on earth should be done?
Something that can perfectly push out gas…
‘What if we use the weight of liquid?’
Using a liquid heavier than water, how about dragging down the air inside the glass tube using the force of falling?
“Hey, why are you still holding that like that? What are you going to do if you get hurt?”
“Young Lord!”
“What.”
“Mercury. We need mercury!”
“Mercury, you say. That is toxic, isn’t it? Obtaining it isn’t difficult, but why that all of a sudden?”
Running to the front of the blackboard, I gripped a piece of chalk. And I began drawing a device formed by several interconnected glass tubes.
“It’s this principle. Dropping mercury from above a narrow, long vertical glass tube. Because mercury is 13 times heavier than water, as it falls downward, it will operate like a piston while tightly filling the inside of the glass tube.”
Aidan examined the drawing I had made.
“Mercury drops push down the air inside the light bulb connected behind it?”
“That’s right! Because it’s a liquid, a clearance is formed so there’s no risk of air flowing backward, and the space formed as mercury escapes downward will become a perfect vacuum state!”
Aidan stroked down his chin. A subtle smile was drawn at his lips.
“Creating natural piston movement using the weight of liquid, is it?”
And before long, he burst into a low laugh as if flabbergasted.
“You certainly think up truly amazing ideas every time.”
“Would it be no good, perhaps?”
“How could that be? I’ll gather mercury right this instant. And assembling glass artisans, let’s complete this mercury pump you drew.”
This fast? As expected, money is the best! I looked at Aidan with respectful eyes. As long as I have Aidan’s help, I’ll be able to make and experiment with everything I had only conceptualized.
“What’s with you, why are you looking like that?”
“How did I look, what do you mean?”
“It looks like an expression of having snagged a source of money.”
Ah, as expected, do my emotions show completely on my face? I brushed over my cheeks with my hands. The corners of my lips had risen all the way to my cheekbones. I should start practicing hiding my emotions.
The next day.
“Wow, this really gets done in a single day?”
Looking at the mercury pump made far more elaborately than the drawing drawn on the blackboard yesterday, it was simply amazing.
Aidan opened an iron canister. Inside it, cold-looking liquid metal wavered. It was mercury.
“We have to be careful.”
Wearing masks and gloves, we carefully moved the mercury.
“Let’s begin.”
He opened the fine valve of the glass tube.
Trickle, drip, drip.
Silver droplets began falling.
Before long, the pressure gauge moved no more.
“I’ll connect the electrical wires.”
My fingertips trembled finely.
Aidan took hold of the current control lever. Blue veins stood out over his tense hand. We briefly exchanged eye contact toward each other.
Click.
In a corner of the laboratory where all surroundings were dark, an unbelievable sight unfolded.
Along with a fine vibrating sound of hum—, the thin bamboo thread trapped inside the vacuum glass sphere began heating up red into an amber glow, then an orange light gradually spread to the surroundings.
A corner of the laboratory grew softly bright. Quietly, just as if the sun were rising.
Neither wavering like a candle flame, nor giving off an unpleasant smell like a gas lamp.
It was the Empire’s first light bulb, bloomed purely through electric power.
“Light… The light came on, Aidan!”
“Is it finally a success?!”
Aidan and I cheered at the same time. It was the first time Aidan had raised his voice like this. Without realizing it, I grabbed Aidan’s chest tightly and bounced up and down.
However, it was too early to rejoice. What was important was how many minutes this light could persist. Because if it snapped quickly, it carried no meaning whatsoever.
“Wait, not yet. We have to see how much time passes.”
“R-Right. Because the most important thing is time, after all…”
Releasing Aidan’s clothes, I looked at the light bulb again. The sound of the clock’s second hand flowing was heard terribly loud. 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes…
It was a filament that had always snapped at this timing when it was not in a vacuum state. However, now it stably maintained its orange glow.
“Please last long. Please…”
Muttering softly, I looked back and forth between the light bulb and the clock. Before I realized it, an hour passed, and two hours passed. Fortunately, the light bulb had not lost its soft golden glow even until now.
Neither I nor Aidan returned home, simply staring at the light bulb to check how long it held out. For a long time, we couldn’t say anything.
Fearing it might go out again, holding our breath for no reason, we simply stared at the light bulb.
The sunset outside the window turned into night, and night became dawn once again. Just like that, a whole day passed. The light of the light bulb was still in an unextinguished state.
“At this level, isn’t it a complete success? Right?”
Of course it would be good if it could hold out longer, but enduring a day alone was a grand invention.
When I said I gave up on going to graduate school and became an Imperial Palace civil servant, Dad opposed it.
“Your light bulb or whatever, you kept researching it. But what’s with civil service all of a sudden?”
“Ayy, it was just daydreaming, how was that research?”
I made excuses, trying hard to smile.
“Originally, what you like most shouldn’t be made into a job. What you like most turns into what you hate most. And what’s wrong with being a civil servant? It’s a completely stable job! Salary comes out regularly, and benefits are good! Isn’t Dad’s daughter the absolute best? And I experimented a few times, but with my brain, it didn’t work out. Inventing wasn’t for just anyone.”
“However, Dad thinks that if it’s our daughter, she’ll pull it off.”
Just as Dad said, I succeeded.
If Dad were here at this moment, he would have certainly praised me, saying I was admirable. Like a doting fool, he would call every single member of the mercenary band to brag, then embrace me tight.
Saying ‘Dad told you that you’d succeed, didn’t he!’, he would mess up my hair wildly. Thinking of such a dad, a smile naturally drew on my face.
At that moment, the mirror hanging on the wall came into view. The light of the light bulb was reflected in the mirror. And next to it, there was Aidan.
It was strange. Aidan’s green eyes were looking not at the light bulb, but at me.
“You pulled it off, Cynthia.”
He opened his mouth.
“I thought if it were you, you’d succeed.”
Just as if spring had arrived over snow-covered land, his expression—which used to be icy cold—softened like spring for the first time.
In an instant, whether the heat surging into my cheeks was due to the light bulb or due to his gaze looking at me, I couldn’t tell.
Only, as much as that moment, I was looking not at the light bulb, but only at his eyes.
What was most dazzling in my eyes was not the light bulb.
