The Abandoned Duchess Seems to Want a Peaceful Life - Chapter 158

Chapter 158: New Tools and Inventors

Summer arrived, and with it, the wheat harvesting season in the Enkar region.

Since it rarely rains during this time of year, the sky was blue and clear again today, and the dry air was pleasant.

The smell of wheat straw from the already harvested fields drifted in through the open carriage window.

After traveling for a while, they arrived at Melto Village, where Nid and the main leaders of Melto Village welcomed them.

“Nid, thank you for today.”

“Welcome. The pleasure is all mine.”

When she called out to him, he greeted her politely. Then, his gaze flickered to the group of carriages behind Melfina.

“Let me introduce you. This is His Excellency Duke Alexis von Oldrand, and Young Master William von Oldrand of the Oldrand family. The Duke, Young Master, this is Nid, the village chief of Melto Village. He is an excellent village chief who greatly contributes to the governance of the Enkar region on a regular basis.”

“I am Alexis von Oldrand. –Since you are said to be excellent, you must be quite the capable one.”

“Yes, because we are governed by someone like him, Melto Village has been developing smoothly. I am always grateful.”

“…I-I am honored.”

He was now quite used to dealing with Melfina, but he seemed nervous around Alexis and William, whom he was meeting for the first time. Melfina smiled at Nid, who had stuttered a little, and turned her gaze to the people behind him.

“Those are the engineers from Soarasonne who accompanied us from the Duke’s family. Since this visit is for technology transfer, we have experts with us. Where are Lord Julius and Rena?”

“I will guide you.”

Nid stiffly bowed and began to walk, and Melfina followed a little behind him. Alexis offered his arm, and she gratefully accepted his escort.

“About half of the harvest is already finished.”

“Yes, we plan to plant the next crop as soon as the wheat is done, so we are hurrying a little.”

“The yield looks better than the wheat in other regions.”

“We managed to sow somewhat better seeds than last year, and the increase in livestock and fertilizer production is a big factor. Therefore, the harvest should be larger next year than this year, and the year after next than next year.”

August had told her that the average wheat yield in the north was about three to four times the amount of seeds sown. She was planning to eventually raise it to seven to eight times.

–Beyond that, even with variety improvements through Appraisal, it will be difficult without chemical fertilizers.

It is said that rice is made with soil fertility and wheat is made with fertilizer, so fertilization is very important for wheat cultivation. With compost from livestock and human waste, that would be the limit.

After walking for a while, they reached the central square of Melto Village. Bundles of dried wheat were piled high on straw mats, and Rena, who had noticed them, waved her hand and ran towards them.

“Lady Mel! Welcome!”

“Lady, we have been waiting for you!”

Today too, the Julius and Rena duo were full of energy. Julius stepped forward slightly in front of Rena, who had stopped when she noticed Alexis next to Melfina, and gave a gentleman’s bow.

“Your Excellency Duke, please allow me to greet you. I am Julius von Savini, an alchemist residing in the Enkar region. This is my assistant, Rena.”

Melfina was impressed by his slow and different way of speaking than usual.

Julius had been acting like a child with high spirits ever since he came to the Enkar region, but he was the first seat of the Ivory Tower, a first-class magician, and also held a position with a political side to him.

…I tend to completely forget that normally, though.

“I have heard rumors about you. That you are a very talented magician and alchemist.”

“I just happen to have a little more magical power than most, but thanks to that, I am able to be of some use to the Duchess, which is the height of good fortune. In order not to take up too much of Your Excellency’s valuable time, I would like to show you right away. First, this device here. I came up with the idea with the help of the Duchess, and named it the Rotary Thresher.”

Julius removed one of the three cloths covering the items set up in the center of the square.

The thresher was about the height of Melfina’s waist, with a cylindrical part supported by left and right boards.

Long nails bent into a V-shape were stuck at equal intervals on the cylindrical part.

“By stepping on this part with your foot, the cylindrical part rotates, and the wheat is threshed by applying the heads to it. Godot, the wheat, please.”

“Yes! When you step on this board and the cylinder starts to rotate, you can thresh the wheat from the heads by applying the dried wheat like this.”

Godot brought a bundle of wheat that he could barely hold in his arms and gradually put it into the thresher. The sound of the threshing was louder than expected, but after a while, the wheat was cleanly separated from the heads.

The separated wheat fell into a basket placed under the thresher.

“If you touch the cylinder while it is rotating, you will get hurt, so be sure to check that it has stopped. Now then, everyone, please take a closer look. We have prepared plenty of wheat, so please try threshing as well.”

As soon as Godot took his foot off and the rotation stopped, the blacksmiths and carpenters immediately surrounded the thresher.

“I see, when you step on this, this board goes up and the cylinder inside turns. So, this metal fitting is the mechanism that hooks the wheat and drops it.”

“The structure isn’t that difficult. We should be able to make something similar soon.”

“But it’s revolutionary. The amount of threshing that can be done by one person is incomparable to what we’ve done so far.”

“Even if there is only one of these in the village, it should greatly reduce the amount of labor.”

Threshing wheat involves hitting it with a stick wrapped in rough rope or hitting it with a board, which is a lot of work.

No matter how much wheat you grow, it is meaningless if you cannot smoothly thresh it and separate it from the chaff. The heaviness of this threshing work also hinders the increase in the area planted with wheat.

“Next, this is also a tool for threshing. The mechanism is much simpler than the rotary type, but as a result, there is no need to have it repaired by a specialized technician due to breakdowns, and mass production is easy if there is a blacksmith in the town or village.”

Julius removed another cloth. That one was a metal comb attached to a wooden frame.

“As you can see, it’s a metal comb. This requires a little more force than the rotary thresher, but it is easy and suitable for mass production. I think it’s a good idea to spread it quickly to relatively small farming villages.”

It was a tool called a “thousand-tooth rake” in her previous life, used to remove wheat and rice grains from the heads. If she asked the blacksmiths Royd and Carl of Enkar Village, they would calculate the best width based on the size of the wheat grains and make it right away.

“Copper is too soft for the teeth, so I recommend using iron. Also, it would be terrible if you fell towards this, so please be careful of your feet. We will take some time, so please try threshing as well. It will help the villagers.”

When Julius said this in a playful manner, the atmosphere of the group, which seemed to be nervous because of the presence of the Duke and the magician of the Ivory Tower, suddenly relaxed, and each of them began to observe and try out both threshers as they pleased.

“I see, the wheat grains fall from the heads by passing them through this comb. The mechanism is simple when you look at the real thing, so why didn’t anyone notice it before?”

“Craftsmen have been apprentices since they were children… My family home is a farm, but we mainly grew vegetables, so I never helped with threshing.”

“I had heard that it was a lot of work, but somehow, I thought it was irrelevant to us…”

The craftsmen seemed to like it. They were already talking about the time required for mass production, the manpower, and were proceeding on the assumption that they would manufacture it.

For a while, the craftsmen tried threshing wheat as they pleased, talking about whether it could be made larger, or what would happen if it were maximally automated using a windmill as a power source.

When that settled down, Melfina released her hand from Alexis’s escort, and with her own hand, full of anticipation, the last cloth was removed.

“The last introduction is this. Development was done by Julius von Savini and his assistant Rena.”

What came out from under the cloth was the largest device so far.

The main body was a shape that combined a round part and a rectangle, and there was a receptacle on top for pouring wheat. When she gave Julius a nod, he nodded and turned on the main unit.

Without a sound, the air moved softly, and the wind began to flow. The people around them immediately noticed it and gathered around the device with a curious look.

The Nid and Godot father and son pair, holding baskets filled with wheat threshed by the craftsmen, headed for the device. Godot was not tall enough, so Nid poured the wheat into the receptacle.

“This has a wind magic stone inside, and a mechanism that circulates the wind inside. The light chaff is blown away by the wind inside the main unit, and only the wheat falls down.”

After the wheat is threshed, it needs to be separated from the chaff. This is also a time-consuming task, as it involves repeatedly waving it with a sieve to blow away the chaff, or sifting it.

The flour for nobles is made from high-quality wheat that has been thoroughly sifted, but commoners grind wheat that has not been sufficiently sifted, or even wheat mixed with stones and sand, which can cause pain when they bite into bread.

The sifting of the wheat that was put in was quickly finished, and Julius stopped the device and took out a hemp bag that had been set up underneath.

Inside, there were piles of clean wheat grains, and a low voice of admiration resounded.

“Wonderful adjustment, Lord Julius.”

“Well, I had quite a hard time controlling the power of the wind. At first, the wind was too strong and blew away the wheat as well, and the children had to pick it up.”

“There were also times when the wind was too weak and the chaff wouldn’t blow away at all!”

Rena was said to have played a very active role in adjusting the wind strength. She seemed to be able to quickly judge how strong it should be by looking at the falling wheat.

“If we have these three devices, the amount of labor after harvesting will be dramatically improved. If we can process the fields after harvesting with our remaining energy and quickly return them to the next use, it should lead to an increase in overall food production.”

Satisfied with the work of the alchemist and his assistant, Melfina smiled and gave a polite curtsy to the visiting group.

“I would be grateful if the members of the Duke’s family would consider promptly deploying these to farming villages.”