Jack tapped the nail in his hands on the table as he stared at the designs.

There were improvements to be made to the press; he was sure of it… It only happened that he couldn’t see any of them yet. Not with what tools they had available, at least, but why let good time go to waste, with such little else to do.

But days like this, all he seemed to accomplish was smudging ink.

Leaning back, he closed his eyes, tapping the nail quickly before letting out a sigh, then dragged himself forward again, hearing softly approaching footsteps of boots on the shop's stone floor from behind.

“You know, maybe you should step away from it for a bit. Oftentimes the mind does its best work when you're not watching it.” Helmut prodded as he came up on Jack's right, stopping beside him and crossing his arms and looking down at the plan himself, tracing the black lines thoughtfully for a moment before glancing to Jack, noting his eyes still on the page.

After another moment's silence, Jack finally replied.

“But what else is there to do, really? We still need to reconvene now that the company is put together and figure out the next step in this plan, and well, it's not like there's a whole lot to do in this world besides killing monsters, training to kill monsters, and making new people do the former.”

Helmut chuckled.

“Well, this whole situation has certainly given me a tremendous appreciation for the modern age… sometimes I wonder if this was how Newton must’ve felt way back then.”

Jack leaned forward, placing his elbow against the table and resting his arm in his hand, tapping the nail lightly against the wood again, staring distantly into the wall.

“At Least Newton had his friends and family to die of boredom with.”

“Well, I don't think it was boredom they were dying of, probably collera...”

Jack chuckled softly in response.

“... besides, if they can pull us here, they can always send us back, right? We just gotta deal with their Vincoma problem first.”

Jack tossed the nail to the side and stood up slowly, looking toward Helmut for the first time.

“Yeah, you’ve got a point… I think they mentioned something like that when they pulled us here, didn't they?”

“As far as I remember, yeah, they did; now why don't we head to the shop and see what everyone else is up to?” Helmut finished, pointing to the door with his thumb.

“Yeah, let’s go do that.”

Nicholas looked around their makeshift book factory built on top of an old mill. Things were proceeding a lot smoother than he had initially thought. Sure, there had been hiccups, like the time the brake lever inadvertently snapped away from the sheer force of the water current, but that’s just all in a day’s work.

With this newly found downtime, however, he felt an urge to do at least something productive. Maybe tinker with some designs that were flying around his head, or perhaps draw up some simple schematics; anything to distract his brain from the sense of boredom he hadn’t felt since being summoned into this world.

Thinking for a time as he watched the light sky through the window of the mill, it suddenly dawned on him, and, grabbing several sheets from the pile of fresh paper, he began to draw…

Never in a million years would Hervey had thought that he would be working with five upstart young men to create inventions that would flip the entire world upside down, yet here he was, creating this “printing press” thing that could make more books in an hour than an army of scribes could do in a month.

That was the thought in Hervey’s head as he finished up the last parts needed for a “braking mechanism” for their newly found workshop location and stored them all in a crate. These were all to be delivered to his employer’s workshop. Usually, Hervey would just contract a merchant that was going to roughly the direction of the delivery address, but this time, he decided to deliver the crate of parts himself. Besides, it gave Hervey a good excuse to visit what may be the most advanced workshop in the city.

It certainly wasn’t impressive from the outside. In fact, it was exactly how one would expect an old millhouse to look. Unless you looked very closely at the recently repaired waterwheel, you would think that the building had been abandoned for decades, which it had been.

Walking through the recently repaired wooden doors, Hervey saw several workers diligently working throughout the printing process, from making paper to putting freshly printed pages out to dry to binding finished books with leather book covers. Something that would typically be a series of jobs done by a single scribe was split into the work of multiple people so that every worker would just focus on doing their allocated tasks as perfectly as possible. What an ingenious way of doing things!

As Hervey took in the almost mesmerizing scene playing out before him, he noticed Nicholas walking into a small room holding a stack of newly made white sheets of paper from the corner of his eye. That’s right! Hervey still has to make the delivery.

“No… This can’t work; it’ll require far too intricate parts...” Nicholas muttered to himself, utterly unaware of the large blacksmith behind him.

“Whatcha workin’ on there eh Nick? Some new doohicky for me and Attwell to make?”

“O-oh, hey there, Hervey! I didn’t see you there!” Nick responded, “I was just drawing up some designs during my downtime. It’s not nearly production quality, of course.”

“Well, I’m sure I could lend a hand with whatever you got there. So, what is that drawing of yours even supposed to be?”

Nick hesitated for a moment.

“Well, I suppose I could. It wouldn’t hurt to make a few prototypes, but first… we need a supply of gunpowder.”

“Gunpowder?”

“Y’know, The things they put in fireworks; you light it, it flies up into the sky, explodes, and you get colored explosions that look real nice at night? Surely they exist, right?”

“I know the king’s mages use fire an’ wind magic to throw colored fire into the sky during celebrations, but I’ve never heard of this “Gunpowder” thing.” Hervey scratched his head.

“Ah. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to make it. Hervey, while you’re here, can you call Hitomi over from the bookstore on your way back?”

“Why god, why…” Hitomi mumbled to herself as she collapsed against the wall, exhausted, burying her face in her hands. She could hardly bring herself to look at the pig carcass she’d been dragging out here, doing her best to ignore the constant buzzing of flies as they laid their eggs. By this point, she was seriously considering asking a priest what sins she had committed in God’s eyes to deserve such treatment. She had done her best to be kind and understanding of the heroes, even if they didn't seem to be like those of legend, and certainly didn’t act in any way like how she was trained they would…

But this? This was too much! Hitomi couldn’t even fathom what the point of this was. The whole day was spent up, doing nothing productive.

Nothing!

Just buying whole pigs from every butcher in town and hauling them away to a stupid pit!

Hitomi raised her face from her hands and pressed the back of her head against the wall behind her.

No! These are the chosen heroes! There must be a reason for…. This…

Sighing quietly, Hitomi decided she would prod them more about the strange tasks next time she was able… but first she had to finish the task at hand, however reluctantly.

As that was her job, wasn't it?

Standing up again, Hitomi grabbed the carcass firmly by the legs and continued dragging.

She dragged it all the way to the pit.

And when she got there.

She kicked it in with all the rest.

And she went home.

Dirty, smelly, covered in unknowable liquids and matter.

She went home.