Don't Burn Them! Even Witches Have Value!

"Damn it, Employee Number One completely doesn't know how to respect the Boss's little sense of humor."

A black-and-blue Lynn walked out of the castle while supporting himself against the wall.

The detoxified Griffin was still struggling, but Lynn believed that time would help him ruthlessly urge the other party to make up his mind as soon as possible.

By tomorrow at the latest, he would break free from his habitual train of thought.

So next, what should he do?

Although he really liked to stand by and watch his employees work when he was bored, right now shouldn't be that kind of lull period yet.

Blackstone Fief still had various industries waiting for him to open up, and many business potentials waiting for him to discover.

Just as he was pondering, a chewing sound captured his attention.

After raising his head, he abruptly witnessed an incomparably terrifying scene—

During working hours, Iyanna was actually holding a large pile of food, chewing while walking!

This was no longer ordinary slacking off!

"I-yan-na..."

A voice like a demon's came from behind, scaring the young girl so much her fur bristled and she jumped up on the spot:

"Awoo!"

Turning her head and seeing a face even more gloomy and terrifying than a hungry ghost, she quickly accelerated the chewing of the food stuffed in her cheeks:

"Iyanna didn't slack off! It was Mishter Theodore who had Iyanna bring him food. He said if food wasn't sent over right away, he was going to die!"

Well, this was indeed a very urgent situation.

But with her way of delivering it, even if she walked over, Theodore would still probably starve to death, right?

Thus, after ruthlessly grabbing the girl back to her work post, Lynn took over the food she had eaten more than half of and headed to the basement.

"Theodore, how is the progress on our new patent? Can we make a profit yet?"

Lynn still remembered that Theodore had previously said he was researching a wonderful use of the Magic Stones, so he thought of dropping by to take a look on the way.

Strange, in the past, he would always get a response as soon as he spoke. Why was it so silent today?

Pushing open that heavy wooden door, the expected sound of explosions and wild ramblings did not appear.

The basement was eerily quiet, with only the sound of dripping water coming from somewhere unknown, and the smell of burning and the sourness of alchemical potions permeating the air.

"Theodore? Slacking off will result in a pay cut, you know. Although, I've never paid you anyway."

Lynn muttered, casually placing the large piece of bread and the half-gnawed ham on the shelf at the door, and walked to the experiment table under the dim candlelight.

The table was messily piled with drawings filled with bizarre scribbles and discarded metal parts.

And in the center of this chaos sat a strange small device.

It looked extremely crude, like a freak forced together with a pile of gears, connecting rods, and unknown metal coils glued by alchemical adhesive.

On one side of the device was a metal groove just big enough to fit a thumb-sized object, while the other side was connected to a set of transmission structures that looked very precise.

"What is this? An automatic pencil sharpener?"

Lynn raised his eyebrows.

After looking around, his gaze fell on several Magic Stone fragments scattered on the corner of the table, emitting a faint red light.

"Hum, hum."

Lynn's nose abruptly twitched.

There was no mistake; he smelled the scent of economic benefit!

Out of some instinct, he picked up a grain of Magic Stone and placed it into the bottom of that groove.

"Click."

With a crisp snapping sound, the originally stationary device seemed to be injected with a soul.

A subtle vibration instantly transmitted to Lynn's fingertips.

The next moment, amidst the tooth-grating sound of metal friction, the gears on the other side began to turn.

At first it was very slow, but in the blink of an eye, it began to accelerate, spinning frantically.

In the end, the airflow it generated even blew away several discarded drafts on the table.

A red light flashed rapidly in the groove, as if something was greedily sucking the energy from within.

A few seconds later, as the light of the Magic Stone faded completely, those frantically spinning gears slowly came to a stop under the influence of resistance.

And that Magic Stone turned back into a tiny grain of lifeless black stone.

Lynn's eyes widened.

As a transmigrator, he knew all too well what this meant.

This was certainly not a pencil sharpener.

It was an engine!

It was power!

It was the key to directly converting magic into kinetic energy!

"...Holy crap?!"

A thousand words converged into a single curse.

In fact, when Lynn had just learned some of the knowledge of this world, he had pondered a question—

Could magic minerals be used as coal for magical steam engines, bringing a magical industrial revolution to this world?

But with more memories awakening, he understood that this was nonsense.

Because the output of magic minerals was completely incomparable to coal, and if there were no Relic-grade charging magic circles, they would turn into ashes once used.

Even if they could be charged, they were completely incomparable to a witch's charging; just like Lynn's necklace, which needed to be charged for three days before it could be used once.

So, in a sense, just like the principle of the magic-suppressing collar, directly using a witch as a human battery was the most reliable way.

And this was also Lynn's planned direction for the future... but clearly, there was a drawback—

And that was that witches were far too few, not enough to be shared among the massive number of machines needed to launch an industrial revolution.

Now, the Blackstone-Magic Stone transformation changed this pattern.

Black stones could transform into Magic Stones under the effect of a witch's magic, and Magic Stones could now be directly converted into kinetic energy using the prototype machine in front of him.

If so, as long as the witches produced Magic Stones day and night, it would practically equal having an infinite supply of energy!

What did this mean?

Automated assembly lines? Magic-powered lathes?

No, no, no.

Rounded up, this was the nonexistent perpetual motion machine that his physics teacher had talked about!

In this era where the world was still driven by human and animal power, or expensive magic arrays, this tiny thing was a dimensional reduction strike!

Lynn cradled the still-hot device with trembling hands.

His eyes gazing at it were incomparably pure, containing only desire without a single speck of impurity.

"Genius! Simply a genius!

No need for complex incantations, no need for scarce witches; as long as there are Magic Stones, a machine can be driven!

We will completely break free from the shackles of human labor! As long as we make Elysia and the others work with all their might, I can possess infinite power!

The GDP of Blackstone Fief is going to explode! We are going to strike it rich!

Theodore! Did you hear that! We are going to become the richest people in the world!

I'll increase your... increase your bonus by 0.5!"

Lynn drooled, opening his arms as if welcoming a rain of gold coins falling from the sky.

And in a spot less than half a meter beside him, on that chair piled high with miscellaneous items, the completely ignored Chief Scientific Officer, Theodore, was leaning back against the chair with a smile on his face, without the slightest response.

Even up to this step, he had not set down the alchemical instrument in his hand.

He was burned out, leaving only snowy white ash...

————————

"Wuwu, why did such a thing happen, wuwu."

Iyanna looked at the two people on the ground with a face full of sadness.

"Alright, I had a fruit grow directly inside his stomach. This way, it should be fine."

Flora looked somewhat speechlessly at the blissfully unconscious Theodore.

"Sorry to trouble you. Alas, he's such a handful."

Elysia rubbed her temples.

For some reason, she always had the illusion of being a mother.

"Then what about the other small fry?"

"Just leave him there. It would be best if a coyote carried him off."

"Wolves won't eat the Boss!"

After leaving behind Lynn, who was lying on the ground with his arms raised, rolling his eyes, and continuously letting out weird "hehe" giggles, the three returned to their posts.

And no one noticed—

A pair of snake eyes was watching all of this from the dark of the mountains.