Visiting the Glass Workshop
"I'm Carlo. This is my younger sister, Shelly. Nice to meet you."
A young man with brown hair, around twenty years old, greeted me. His younger sister, whom he introduced, looked very similar to him, so they might be twins.
Today, we were visiting a glass workshop recommended by Raziel.
There were no other employees around—just this brother and sister.
As I listened to their story, I learned that their parents had passed away in a landslide accident on their way back from a neighboring town. Because of that, their work had drastically decreased, and all their fellow apprentices had moved on to other workshops.
Hearing Raziel’s offer, they wanted to take a chance on this opportunity.
"Mr. Carlo, this time, I’d like to request the creation of glass accessories, so the work will require fine detail. Will that be alright?"
"It will be my first time attempting something like this, but we can’t sustain our livelihood as things are now. We have plenty of time, so please let us do it," he said, bowing his head.
Inside the workshop, they had prepared in advance various colored glass rods—red, yellow, green, blue, light blue, pink, and transparent—as well as rods for wrapping the glass, in 2mm and 3mm widths.
The rods had already been coated with an agent to make it easier to remove the glass later.
Both Mr. Carlo and Miss Shelly decided to take on the challenge.
Each of them lit a magic tool to melt the glass—since gas burners didn’t exist in this world, they used magic tools powered by fire magic stones instead.
Mr. Carlo used a blue glass rod, while Miss Shelly used a pink one. Once the glass melted and turned orange, they wrapped it around the coated rods and shaped the surface flat using a spatula.
Next, they used different colored glass rods to create polka dot patterns on the wrapped glass.
To make the polka dots, they had to reheat the glass rods each time before applying them, making it a task that required patience.
Once the pattern was completed, they reheated the glass body to adjust its shape, then moved on to the cooling process.
For their first attempt, both did surprisingly well. As expected of skilled artisans.
Just as I was admiring their work, Mr. Carlo spoke up.
"The thickness of the main glass rod and the one used for drawing the polka dots needs to be different. We’ll need thinner glass rods specifically for detailing."
That reminded me—on the TV program I had seen, they had first heated and stretched the glass rods to make them thinner before using them for polka dot designs.
I had forgotten about it because my memory was fuzzy.
Now that we understood the basics, they planned to experiment with various patterns and shapes.
Since we were here, I decided to request glass pens as well.
I sketched a glass pen on paper and explained the concept of making grooves at the tip to draw up ink.
Mr. Carlo showed great interest.
Miss Shelly wanted to focus on making glass beads, while Mr. Carlo was intrigued by the glass pen.
However, I asked them both to first refine their skills in bead-making until they could produce them in bulk. Once their production was stable, Mr. Carlo could work on glass pens alongside bead-making.
Though he looked a bit disappointed, he agreed.
On the carriage ride home, Raziel commented,
"Glass bead accessories will be unique, even if they have the same pattern, so they can be marketed as one-of-a-kind pieces. The transparency of the glass is beautiful, so I think it will become popular among commoners. However, what caught my attention the most was the glass pen. It seems much easier to write with than a quill."
"Glass pens will depend on Mr. Carlo’s efforts, but if the grooves are made correctly, they should hold ink longer than quills. Also, since the ink washes off easily in water, people could enjoy switching ink colors."
"Young master Reinhardt, you spoke as if glass pens already exist somewhere. Do you know about them?"
Oh no, I slipped up.
"Ah… I only read about them in books. I don’t know if they actually exist or if they were just a fictional idea, but I thought it would be worth trying out."
"I see. If they are completed, I believe glass pens might become even more popular than accessories."
"It’s not guaranteed, so we should focus on establishing the accessories first."
"That’s true. Right now, we’re still in the early stages of setting up the company. But Young master Reinhardt… you’re seven years old, right? Talking to you feels like speaking with an adult."
"Ahaha…"
I could only laugh it off.
What do you think about this chapter?
