The Mechanical Era

The sun's rays travel through the window, landing on Kant's fair face. Its heat and light immediately woke him up from his slumber. After taking his morning bath and breakfast, he headed over to his office, where he found a stack of papers on it.

They all just had a list of disputes between the commoners. Usually, there would be a lot less paper, but ever since Kant's entry to his current position, he found some pretty fraudulent casings to be listed. Arjun was a bit jolted seeing Kant spot them all so easily.

After dealing with such, he ordered a status report on the production of the equipment for the factory. Unfortunately, there have been some delays, and the equipment won't be ready till the day after tomorrow.

With his, however, came an opportunity. Since he found himself with a lot of free time, he wanted to go help out the chefs perfect the pizza he wanted to be made for a future meeting with the merchants.

Kant walked down the hallways to the kitchen. There was no reason for anyone to accompany him in the castle, only to the outside world. When he entered the kitchen, the whole room went silent. He was greeted by dozens of staff members in the kitchen.

Benvolio, noticing the silence, came over to meet the prince.

"Sire Kant! Welcome!" Benvolio looked around to see if anyone was accompanying him.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Head Chef." Kant extended his hand.

"What is..?"

"You shake it."

"Oh!" He took Kant's hand. They shook hands. He figured this was some professional gesture by Kant.

"By the way sire, how did you?"

"Oh did they not inform you all already? Knight Kristina got a letter from... his majesty to lift a lot of the restrictions imposed."

"Ah! I see. Well, we have made the dough balls. It came out the way sire has instructed to have come out."

He showed off the multiple containers with his slimly thin dough ball in them.

"We figured that we would want to test out since we might get some of it in the wrong way. However, now that sire is here, it should not be a huge problem."

"Smart," Kant remarked. There was a bit of silence.

"By the way sire, I wanted to ask you a... question."

"Go ahead."

"Why is the dough left for 24 hours exactly? Couldn't we have kept it for far less than that?" he asked. Kant thought it to be some kind of test, to see if he has any knowledge of cooking.

"Well, in terms of Pizza making, to make sure there is as much flavor, it relies on a resting and rising process to let the yeast ferment the dough to produce an alcoholic flavor. This is the case in breadmaking as well, I think."

Benvolio smiled at his response.

"Alright, we are going to make the topping. Let's get to work."

Kant ordered a staff member to take out a dough ball and turn it into a flat disk, all while the others prepared the tomato sauce and the cheese. When the dough was stretched thin, it was a bit translucent, prompting Kant to authorize adding a bit of flour.

After putting on the toppings on the pizza dough, now a disk, they placed it into the oven for about 12 minutes. When it came out, the results were not as expected.

Kant washed his hands to lift a pizza slice. Though the pizza crust was thin and crispy; about 5mm thin, but it was also a lot weaker than expected.

The staff noticed his reaction and began to gossip among themselves. Benvolio's heart was beating a bit faster while Kant observed the pizza more, thinking he did something wrong. Kant takes a look at the list of ingredients and preparation.

"Did something go wrong sire?" Benvolio asked.

"No. We followed everything to a tea. Where did the water come from again?"

"Uh... from the royal well your majesty."

"So not the river water?"

"No sire. It is too salty and dangerous. Were we supposed to use that?" Kant chuckled.

" No. I just forgot one variable that we had to adjust."

"Oh, and what that is that sire?"

"The water itself."

"Er... I don't understand sire."

"Don't worry, I will explain. The water that we used lacked one element and a compound. They are chlorine and fluoride. The higher the amount of chlorine, the higher the amount of yeast killed. Since not a lot of it is in the water we used, the pizza came out crispier because of it.

The simplified reason is that when the yeast dies, it releases glutathione. Because it has one sulfide bond, it cannot bond with other gluten molecules. So the more dead yeast you have in it, the chewier the bread becomes. That is why the crust is very crispy."

"And the fluoride?"

"The fluoride, or NaF, is what makes the bread as strong. It is what would allow it to be this thin while also having a lot of toppings on it. Since there isn't much fluoride in the water, the pizza bread turned out weaker and softer. Understood everyone?"

They all nodded their heads, pretending to understand half of what he was explaining.

"What do we do then sire?"

"Since NaF is a salt, we can fix this by adding actual salt into our recipe, which is NaCL, sodium chloride. It would make the pizza stronger, crispier, and able to support the weight of our toppings."

He put on a faint smile.

"For our first time, This is an absolute success! Well done everybody!"

...

Stacks of reports were placed on Kristina's table. As she read through them, she spots a worrying trend. Over the past few months, demonic activity had been on the rise, requiring more knights to be diverted to the outside world. However, with the suspicion of Salvator Humat on the rise again, the demand for more knights to garrison the city seems to have risen as well.

She stayed there, trying to figure out a compromise. She checked her sundial, and found it was time to She wasn't sure whether she should discuss it with Prince Kant, as she didn't have much faith in him for handling this situation.

She checked her sundial and found out that it was almost time for her to give him his report. With that, she packed the papers into the leather satchel bag and headed off to the castle.

When she arrived at his office, however, he was nowhere to be found. It was then that she heard that he was in the kitchen when Kristina got a bit suspicious. What was he doing there of all places?

Nevertheless, she went towards the kitchen. What she was greeted by was one perfectly round pizza right out of the oven, on a wooden plate cut into multiple slices. This was their 4th attempt at making the pizza perfectly.

"Kristina! Would you like to try out the pizza that we made? Took a few attempts to get it perfect."

"Sire I don't think..."

"Please?"

Curiosity got the better of her, and she took a little bit off it. A great unique taste of crispy bread with tomato sauce and cheese hit her taste buds. What she thought would be one bite, tuned into one slice instead.

"Well, it is safe to say that the pizza is a success!" Benvolio remarked. Kant nodded in agreement. Kristina, after finishing her slice, came back down to reality.

"Sire, we need to talk."

"Is it about the report?"

"Yes, sire."

"Alright, we will talk in my office then." Kristina left the kitchen. Kant turned around to the chefs that he worked with.

"Well, it was a pleasure working with every one of you. I hope I can come back to help make some more dishes, considering I got a few ideas."

"It has been an honor sire."

"Alright, I will see you all."

"Wait sire!" Kant stopped. It was one of the lower chefs that called him.

"What about the rest of the dough balls? We still got a few left."

"Keep it. Have some competition that allows the winners to bring them home. I don't care."

With that Kant got out of the kitchen and into his office. Kristina had already taken her seat.

"So what is the situation?"

"Well sire, the amount of demonic sightings has increased yet again. It had been increasing for the past few months. Many of them are Harpies along with a few gryphons."

She hands over the papers. Kant picks them up and starts to read through it all.

"They were all accompanied by possessed silver wolves. I would have to dispatch at least a dozen knights in order to eliminate them."

"So what's the catch? Is it them?"

"Yes, sire. Because of Salvator Humat, it is unwise for me to dare pull out knights from garrisoning the city."

"I see. I think I have an idea. How about a police force staffed with regular citizens."