“Why on earth did the pressure spike like that?”
The library of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Hanguk University.
I had spread Earth’s thermodynamic data and the figures I’d witnessed at the Pellua workshop moments before the explosion side by side on the desk, and I was tearing my hair out over them.
That horrific rupture I had heard in Pellua.
By my calculations, the boiler should have come to a slow boil, yet in just a few minutes it had smashed through its pressure limit and gone berserk.
“The calorific value of coal? The vaporization rate of water? No, the laws of physics on Earth alone can’t explain this insane explosive force.”
After spending several days and nights running through engineering mathematics, I finally arrived at a single conclusion.
“……Mana.”
The unique nature of a fantasy world.
The fine particles of magical power scattered throughout the atmosphere had soaked deeply into the water of the Rene River and the coal of the northern mountain range.
When they combusted inside the furnace and triggered a chemical reaction, the ridiculous conclusion emerged that the coefficient of thermal expansion increased by at least three to five times compared to Earth’s water.
‘No, maybe even more?’
I hadn’t obtained a precise value, so calculating it right now was honestly difficult.
“Damn it. No wonder even when I gathered Pellua’s finest craftsmen and had them hammer out cast iron, it couldn’t hold. The pressure had exceeded my estimates by an absurd margin.”
Now that I knew the cause, the countermeasure was clear.
“Ordinary low-carbon steel plates for pressure vessels won’t even come close. I need extreme superalloy technology, the kind used in nuclear reactors, deep-sea submersibles, or spacecraft. I have to adjust the ratios of nickel, chromium, and molybdenum down to the decimal point and create the perfect steel. Only then can it withstand the pressure of mana steam.”
In my head, I had already established the perfect composition ratio for the new alloy and the structure of the graphite gasket.
But here, the most realistic and painfully sharp problem caught me by the ankle.
“What good is a perfect theory? Before I go back to Pellua, I need to make it here and test its physical properties!”
To create alloy steel, I didn’t just need a fire hot enough to melt iron. I needed cutting-edge equipment worth billions of won, like an ultra-high-temperature vacuum melting furnace that could perfectly control impurities, an electron microscope, and a tensile and compression testing machine.
I immediately went to the department website and applied to rent equipment from the university’s Advanced Materials Engineering Research Center.
But the result was disastrous.
[Application rejected: This equipment may only be used by graduate students or above and for approved national research projects. Rental for undergraduate students’ personal research purposes is not permitted.]
“Ha! Are they kidding me?”
It was the limit of being an undergraduate.
Who would have thought the price of flatly refusing Professor Park Taejun’s offer to become a lab slave would come back to me like this?
“Should I try renting equipment from a private external research institute with money?”
Clutching at straws, I opened Kang Ujin’s smartphone banking app.
Balance: 34,500 won.
“…….”
In Pellua, I had made gold coins multiply just by breathing, but on Earth, I was nothing more than a pathetic university student who had to tremble while looking at convenience store lunchbox price tags.
‘Should I ask my family for help?’
I searched through Kang Ujin’s memories thoroughly.
But I soon gave up with a bitter smile.
Kang Ujin’s parents were very ordinary and modest people who had spent their lives diligently running a small fried chicken shop in the countryside.
If I suddenly told such working-class parents, “I need to create a special alloy steel that goes into spacecraft, so please send me a few hundred million won for research funds,” they would surely put me not in the mechanical engineering department, but in a psychiatric ward.
“Damn it. I have the knowledge, but no mold to cast it in.”
Feeling frustrated, I bought a can of yulmu tea from the vending machine and plopped down onto a bench in the department lounge.
I was anxiously bouncing my leg, turning over a merchant’s thoughts on how to procure capital and equipment, when it happened.
“Hey, Kang Ujin. What’s got the eternal top student sighing like that?”
When I raised my head, I saw Sanghun, a classmate from the same department, approaching while sipping canned coffee.
Ever since I had changed one hundred and eighty degrees, he had been the easygoing guy in the department who spoke to me most casually.
“Ah, Sanghun. I’m just stuck on something.”
“There are things even you get stuck on? You were the only one who got everything right on the last thermofluid dynamics quiz. What’s the problem?”
I took a sip of yulmu tea and lightly tested the waters.
“Do you happen to know a place where I can personally use something like an ultra-high-temperature vacuum melting furnace or a special steel tensile tester? I have an alloy steel composition I want to experiment with privately. The school lab cut me off because I’m an undergraduate.”
At my words, Sanghun let out a hollow laugh as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Hey, you lunatic. What are you, some superhero Iron Man? Why would an undergraduate personally make special alloys? Equipment like that is only in research institutes under major corporations or government agencies. Where would anyone rent it out just because you paid them a little money?”
“I guess you’re right.”
I shrugged, about to resign myself.
I was just wondering whether I should lower my head to Professor Park after all and sneakily use the equipment under the pretext of a project.
Then Sanghun glanced around, moved closer to me, and lowered his voice.
“But, Ujin. If you really need special steel equipment or materials that badly…… it’s not like there’s absolutely no way in.”
“What? There’s a place like that?”
“I’m not talking about a place. I’m talking about a person.”
Sanghun jerked his chin toward the far side of the lounge, pointing at a female student who was always quietly buried in assignments with her earphones in.
She was a quiet, unnoticeable classmate who always wore a cap pulled low, so I could barely even remember her face.
“You know Yun Se-a, right? Our department loner.”
“Yun Se-a? Ah, the girl who sits in the very back. What about her?”
Sanghun widened his eyes and moved his lips.
“Hey, you really haven’t heard the rumors? She may always be squashed into a corner like that, but there are rumors all over our department that she’s actually filthy rich.”
“Filthy rich? How rich?”
“Have you heard of ‘Taesan Special Steel’?”
At that moment, Kang Ujin’s engineering knowledge flashed brightly in my mind.
Taesan Group, one of South Korea’s leading heavy industry conglomerates.
Among its subsidiaries, Taesan Special Steel was the core company that monopolized the production of top-tier special alloys used in pressure vessels, high-heat boilers, submarine outer hulls, and the like.
“There’s a rumor that the daughter of Taesan Special Steel’s president is attending our university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering while hiding her identity. They say that’s Yun Se-a. More than a few people saw a black Maybach parked at the school’s main gate to pick her up during the last festival.”
“……!”
My heart began pounding like mad.
Taesan Special Steel!
If it was a research institute under that company, then the ultra-precision metallurgical equipment and rare metal materials I needed would be piled up like mountains there.
No, it was the perfect experimental environment itself, one that might even withstand Pellua’s mana steam!
“Of course, it’s just a rumor, so it’s not certain…… but if you really have to research special steel, wouldn’t it be better to suck up to a third-generation chaebol than sell your soul to a professor? Haha!”
Sanghun had thrown it out like a joke, but to me, it looked like a rope lowered into a pitch-black well.
“Sanghun.”
“Huh?”
“Thanks. I’ll buy you a meal sometime. No, I’ll buy you ten!”
I dunked the can of yulmu tea into the trash bin like a basketball and shot up from my seat.
The limits of an undergraduate? The sorrow of a dirt-spoon pauper?
None of that mattered.
The blood of Elpanso Carnoble, the greatest merchant magnate on the continent, was boiling hot once again.
To my eyes, Yun Se-a, sitting in that corner, no longer looked like an ordinary female classmate.
Just as I had persuaded Aila in order to devour Pellua’s market, she looked only like the most perfect and excellent “new investor” and “business partner” who would help me complete my second miracle.
“Let’s see how one is supposed to open the heart of a young lady from a chaebol family.”
*
As I walked, I quickly sorted out my negotiation cards in my head.
‘A true merchant prepares an offer the other party cannot refuse.’
The other party was presumably the daughter of the president of Taesan Special Steel, one of South Korea’s foremost heavy industry conglomerates.
Pretending to be friendly and pleading with her to lend me equipment would be the act of an amateur.
Based on thorough give-and-take, I constructed Plans A, B, and C in my head.
Plan A. Guarantee her an A+ in her major courses.
Staking the honor of last semester’s top student, I would offer to shoulder all of her group assignments for the rest of the semester, provide past exam archives, and tutor her one-on-one in thermodynamics.
Plan B. Promise financial compensation.
Right now, all I had to my name was enough for a convenience store lunchbox, but if this research succeeded and the “business” took off, I would guarantee her a fixed share of the resulting profits by contract.
Plan C. An indefinite labor contract.
I would provide the indefinite labor of a healthy adult male she could summon whenever she wanted. In reality, she probably would not be able to use it many times, but at the very least, she would gain a sturdy porter during her school years.
“Phew.”
A corner of the department lounge.
I saw Yun Se-a, her black cap pulled low and noise-canceling earphones in her ears, her gaze fixed on a thick major textbook.
I took a deep breath, equipped myself with my most polite yet confident smile, and sat down in front of her table.
“Hello, Yun Se-a.”
At my call, she did not so much as twitch. Thinking it might be because of her earphones, I lightly waved my hand, and only then did Se-a raise her head and stare straight at me.
The eyes visible beneath the brim of her cap were extremely cold and indifferent.
She took out one earphone and asked in a dry voice.
“Who are you?”
“Me? Kang Ujin, your classmate in the same department. Last semester, during mechanics, I sat in the front row……”
“Ah, the top student. So why.”
She was blunt. Even better.
I started up the negotiation cards I had prepared.
“It’s nothing else. I want to make you a very important ‘proposal.’ I heard through rumors that you have connections to research equipment or infrastructure related to special alloys. I’m currently in a situation where I absolutely have to personally test the physical properties of an ultra-high-strength alloy steel.”
I watched her reaction and continued.
“Of course, I’m not shameless enough to ask you to lend them to me for free. If you can just open up access to the equipment for me, then in return, I’ll perfectly raise your grades in your major courses this semester. Group assignments, reports, exam prep—I’ll handle all of it……”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“……Huh?”
My negotiation Plan A had not even finished.
Without changing her expression at all, Se-a nodded with perfect calm.
“Sure. I’ll do it. You said you need equipment.”
The calculator furiously running inside my head suddenly clicked and stopped.
Flustered, I pointed back and forth between her face and mine.