We Find Comfort In The Apricity

Measure 26: Winter Preparations

I went back to the village after my bath with my newly dyed dress. And as I was arriving, Kinro, Ginro and Senku were arriving too.

I walked up to Senku and pulled him to the side, "Hey nerd."

"What's up kid?"

"One peep out of ya about earlier and I'm going to turn you into a marshmallow okay?"

"Is that a threat?"

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"Ehh? Well we'll see."

"Senkuuuuu-aghhhh!! Come on don't be like that."

"I'm kidding I'm kidding, I won't say anything about it."

"Great thanks!"

•••

The following morning we were discussing the consistency of the cotton candy so it could match up with the gold wire we'd be making with the same machine.

"Oh okay that makes sense!" -Chrome

"We have to figure out what's causing the clumps in the sugar threads before we throw in the gold."

"It's always trial and error here huh?" -Kaseki

"Hmmm..." Kinro and Ginro demonstrated to us how they were making the cotton candy by tugging on different sides with a rope to twist the machine. "Right there."

"What?" -Kohaku

"When the rope is tugged in the opposite direction it loses its speed and makes it clumpy."

"So how do we make it work without losing speed? Any ideas?" -Kohaku

"We can make a crazy long rope? Like a kilometer long!" -Chrome

"He knows what a kilometer is?"

"No way! We'll die!" -Ginro

"How about we up your brotherly bond!" -Kohaku

"No way! We'll die!"  -Ginro

"Wait that's not answer..."

"What if we spin it by hand like the other generator?" -Kaseki

"No that would be too slow."

"Willpower!" -Kohaku

"Taking shifts!" -Kinro

"That won't work, you need people for that and we need to start preparing for winter. So we can't give all of our manpower to science." Kokuyou joined the conversation. 

"That will always be an issue huh? And we can't revive people with the revival fluid." -Gen

"What if we use cogs?"

Everyone turned around to look at me with a confused look and I felt like I was the character in a movie that just said something stupid and everyone is like huuuuh????

"Huuuhhhhh?" They all said at the same time, ironically...

"We take Kaseki's idea and since we can't have anyone cranking the thing for us, we can use cogs that will basically make it turn by itself."

"Gears huh? Not a bad idea, I guess we'll have to make it in this world."

And welcome to Professor Senku's science class. He explained to everyone what gears were and how we were going to make them. And Kohaku basically had no emotional attachment to the shield her father so lovingly gifted to her. We used it instead to make the gear.