"No, wait. You didn't even hear my whole proposal. You're really just going to do it? Without any conditions?"
"We have one extra lab at my father's research institute that's just sitting there unused anyway. If you go in with my pass, you can use pretty much any of Taesan Special Steel's equipment, so come by on the weekend."
I was at a loss for words.
In Pellua, when I'd had cutthroat negotiations with Muller and other merchants, I'd had to mobilize dozens of contracts and even an Oath of Veritas.
But this chaebol young lady had coolly thrown open the door to a multi-billion-won research facility like she was opening the door to a neighborhood PC bang, just because a college classmate asked to borrow some equipment!
"You... what do you see in people? What if I cause an accident in there?"
When I asked in bewilderment, Sea propped her chin on her hand and looked up at me indifferently.
"Gang Ujin. You're the crazy bastard who locked himself in the library last semester and devoured nothing but major textbooks."
"...Uh, well, yeah."
"A guy who studied that hard and got straight A's—would he borrow lab equipment to make a bomb? You must have some desperate reason to come to me and ask for a favor like this."
Her eyes were far sharper and more penetrating than I'd thought.
She might have seemed indifferent, but she had already completed her own "credit evaluation" of me as a person.
I felt like I'd been smacked in the back of the head as a merchant, but there was no more perfect ally than this.
"Th-thanks. I really owe you big time."
When I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, Sea, who had been about to put her earphones back in, stopped and asked.
"By the way, what on earth are you trying to do? Is there something an undergrad would need a Taesan Special Steel vacuum melting furnace or a tensile tester for?"
The moment I'd been waiting for had finally come.
I began clearly explaining the two core objectives I'd prepared in advance.
"What I need is two things. First, finding the alloy ratio for a special steel that can draw out maximum strength with the minimum alloying elements, even in a 'poor environment' where current refining technology and impurity removal processes are imperfect."
This was a condition based on the crude blast furnace level of a fantasy world.
"Second, exact data on the ultimate yield strength and tensile strength—how many times more ultra-high pressure it can withstand compared to conventional steam engine boiler steel plates currently in use."
I needed to know the limit values that could withstand the abnormal explosive power of mana steam.
Sea slightly furrowed her brows as she listened.
"Refining special steel in a poor environment? An ultra-high-pressure steam engine boiler? What kind of backward research is this? Who makes steam engines and uses special alloys these days? Maybe for deep-sea submersibles or aerospace, but seriously, why are you doing this?"
Hitting the nail on the head, I inwardly flinched.
There was no way I could say, "I have to cross over to another world and boil mana-infused water to make a steam engine that moves a massive ship."
One wrong move and instead of a research institute pass, I'd be handed a business card for a mental hospital.
I coughed and pulled out the plausible excuse I'd prepared beforehand.
"Uh... I'm writing a novel these days."
"A novel?"
"Yeah. A tech-development alternate-history fantasy novel where a mechanical engineering student falls into another world and kickstarts an industrial revolution from the bottom up. But I'm a crazy stickler for accuracy, so I want to use exact data on how much pressure steel has to withstand to make a steam engine in such a crude environment."
I thought it was a clumsy excuse.
I expected this third-generation chaebol with a cold impression to refuse, saying, "What a pointless thing to do."
But.
"Ah, territory-building webnovels where you climb the tech tree? You write those?"
"...Huh?"
A strange spark lit up in Sea's eyes.
For the first time, a faint interest appeared on her previously indifferent face.
"Hey, that sounds fun. I read fantasy webnovels in my free time too. But you're saying you put that much strict accuracy into the setting? Don't readers drop it because it's too difficult?"
This was a completely unexpected development.
To think this cold engineering outcast girl was a webnovel maniac!
"Uh, y-yeah. Readers like detailed stuff these days, so..."
When I answered in a daze, Sea twirled a pen around her finger and tossed out a rather sharp question.
"But your setting. Isn't it a bit inefficient?"
"Inefficient? What is?"
"If it's a fantasy world, there should be mana and magic stones, right? Then wouldn't it be better to use electromagnetic induction, scrape together some copper wire to spin a generator, and jump straight to the electric tech tree? Do you really have to go through that crude, inefficient steam engine era of mining coal to boil water?"
Her question hit the bone.
In actual Earth history, too, the steam engine had been a barbaric machine with thermal efficiency of only about 10–20%, throwing energy away into thin air.
As Sea said, running an electric motor was far quieter, cleaner, and more efficient.
But I was Pellua's chief delegate, who knew the nature of the continent better than anyone.
I leaned over the desk and put forth the firm philosophy of both an engineering student and a merchant.
"Sea. You're right. Electricity is much better. But a 'tech tree' is something whose stages you can't skip."
"Why?"
"To commercialize electricity, what do you need? You have to draw out precise copper wire, and you need a chemical industry for insulators like rubber to wrap it. You need technology to process large magnets, and above all, a power grid infrastructure to carry the electricity has to be spread across the entire continent for it to mean anything."
My eyes flashed as I passionately argued.
"But in a fantasy world's medieval infrastructure, it's impossible to build that initial capital and equipment all at once. On the other hand, a steam engine? It's very crude and barbaric, but with just iron, coal, and water—those three things—it can immediately produce explosive, boiling power."
The true value of the steam engine wasn't efficiency.
It lay in the fact that it was humanity's first revolution, the first time man controlled and created 'power' himself without relying on nature—wind, water, or livestock.
"If electricity is a refined tool that promises the future, the steam engine is a crude hammer that smashes the wall right in front of you and breaks through a path. I want the protagonist of my novel to smash all the arrogant vested interests of that world with the most violent and intuitive hammer."
My answer full of conviction.
At the vivid fervor I exuded, as if I had personally hammered lumps of iron in that world myself, Sea stared at me with her mouth slightly open.
A moment later.
A very small smile formed an arc at her previously cold lips.
"...The setting's pretty solid. I like it. You pass."
"Huh?"
"Smashing vested interests with a crude hammer. The development sounds refreshing."
Sea pulled a black magnetic security card from her wallet and slid it toward me.
"Saturday morning at 9. The underground lab of Taesan Special Steel's 3rd Research Building. I'll set everything up beforehand, so let's properly pull out the material ratio for the perfect 'hammer' that'll go in your novel."
I picked up that black card.
A fierce feeling of victory welled up in my chest.
I had broken through the wall of reality.
I had also overcome the limits of capital and infrastructure.
The heart of a perfect steel monster that would tear through the trade routes of another world was about to be forged right here in this chaebol family's research lab on Earth.
"Thanks, Sea. I'm really grateful."
At my words, Sea pulled her cap down low and put her earphones back in.
"Partner, my ass. If your novel hits it big later, just put my name in a line in the author's notes saying you consulted me."
Unfortunately, it would be difficult to keep that promise.
Because what I was writing wasn't a novel.
*
Saturday morning at 9.
In front of the Taesan Special Steel 3rd Research Building, under the Taesan Group known as the heart of South Korean manufacturing.
I looked up at the huge, sophisticated research building made of plate glass and let out a light whistle.
It was a true fortress of knowledge where modern capitalism and engineering technology converged, before which a magician's ivory tower couldn't even present its business card.
"You're here."
When I entered the main lobby, I saw Yun Sea wearing a white lab coat and safety glasses perched on her head.
Gone was the gloomy outcast classmate who usually walked around the lounge with a cap pulled down low; she exuded the air of an elite researcher who looked ready to command a national project at any moment.
"Oh, you came out early."
"Follow me. We're going to the B lab on basement level 3."
She took the lead, walking up to the security gate and tagging a black master card.
With a cheerful beep, the firmly shut glass door opened.
The moment I took the elevator down to basement level 3 and opened the lab door.
"Ooh! Our little Sea— er, Student Yun Sea! You're here?"
"Welcome! We've finished the setup perfectly!"
Several middle-aged men waiting inside the lab all bowed at once and greeted us enthusiastically.
They were genuine field researchers, crude-looking but with fiercely alive eyes in their oil-stained work clothes and lab coats.
"Thank you for your hard work, Chief Kim. I'm sorry you couldn't rest on the weekend."
"Oh my, what kind of disheartening words are those! The president's daughter... ahem, I mean, helping Student Sea with her studies—she's the future of our company—do weekends matter for that!"
The middle-aged man called Chief Kim let out a good-natured laugh as he sucked up to her, then blinked upon discovering me standing behind Sea.
"But... who is this male student behind you?"
A peculiar wariness flashed in his eyes.
Since their precious young lady had brought an outside male student to a private lab early on a weekend morning, from the researchers' perspective, curiosity and hostility seemed to be mixed in equal measure—wondering if this guy dared to harbor wicked intentions toward their lady.