kscans

Chapter 125 - The Yuri Village Renovation Plan 8. Inside the Glass Door ~Glass Pane~

"Alright... now that the window style is decided, I’ll make the glass panes."

He reshaped and reinforced the current window frame a little with Wood Magic, then made a new frame of the same size. All that was left was to make a glass pane of a size that would fit it. He didn't know how plate glass was made in this world. Whether it was made as it once was in Europe, by blowing glass, cutting off both ends to make a cylinder, and then cutting that open to create a rectangular glass pane, or by pouring molten glass into a mold, or... by using alchemy or Earth Magic, as Yuri was about to do.

"I managed to make the glass itself by referencing an alchemy textbook and the notes left by Master Bunza, who has somehow become a master in Yuri’s heart, but... it seems the master never made plate glass..."

In this world, glassware seems to be quite expensive, and the small glass bottles Bunza made were apparently bought by apothecaries as containers for high-end medicines. To prevent the medicine from deteriorating due to ultraviolet rays, his notes had various methods for making colored glass with low transparency, but conversely, there were no instructions for making highly transparent glass.

"I wonder if they know about lead glass. Well, I’m not going to make, or rather, I can’t make, glass that transparent this time anyway."

The method itself was written in the `Rural Life Guide`, but he had no way of obtaining the decoloring agents like lead oxide or manganese. And as for the crucial method of making plate glass...

"I’ll just use the same technique as making paper, with non-elemental magic or something. It should be fine."

He had decided this quite casually, but since it was indeed fine, there was no problem.

"Now, to fit this plate glass into the window frame..."

Normally, one would probably fill the gaps with putty, but Yuri had the convenient skill `Wood Transformation` that he had just learned. He didn't need to bother preparing putty, he could fit it perfectly into the wooden frame. He shouldn't worry about the fact that if anyone else saw it, he would be in a situation where he couldn't make excuses. ...Since Yuri himself didn't notice.

"Alright... oh, it’s gotten much brighter."

Until now, opening the window would let in the cold air, so there weren't many opportunities to open them from autumn to winter. However, from this year on, there was a glass window, so he could block the cold air and let only the sunlight into the room. His living environment would become significantly more comfortable.

"With `Wood Transformation`, it’s easy to seal the gaps. I’ve learned a good skill♪"

Thinking that he should strike while the iron was hot, Yuri replaced all the windows in his house with glass windows, and riding the momentum, he even replaced the windows in his workshop, which he had recently converted one of the vacant houses into. Part of it was the fun of using his newly acquired skill, but it was also a fact that a bright workspace was an essential condition. Just as he finished replacing the workshop windows, he ran out of the glass panes he had made.

"I’m out... well, I can do the rest later..."

As for the question of whether it was necessary to replace the windows of the mostly unused vacant houses with glass, the answer would probably be "better safe than sorry." In the unlikely event that something happened and his own house was damaged, it would make a huge difference whether he had a spare house or not. Yuri had no intention of neglecting preparations for an emergency.

"Ah... maybe I should have developed lead glass first?"

He thought that if he was going to replace the windows with glass anyway, he should have waited for the development of more transparent glass, but then he reconsidered, thinking he could just replace them again when the time came. It was more important to raise his current standard of living than to wait indefinitely for the development of lead glass, which he didn't know when would happen.

"Ah... speaking of which, I did make some glassware for practice. ...It’s a bit plain as it is, so maybe some cut glass work or sandblasting wouldn't be too unnatural?"

If it could be done with magic or alchemy, it shouldn't be unnatural. As usual, Yuri’s judgment was flying off into a dimension askew from reality, but he himself didn't notice.