May 13th.
The morning of the day Elena, Tomax Bartman, and the others were scheduled to return to Avalon alongside Deus Ex Machina.
Feigning a pre-breakfast stroll, Jin and Elsa swapped places with their Doppels inside the parked Hurricane.
Jin offered a brief word of appreciation—"Good work"—to Hope, who had accompanied them, before heading back toward their guest quarters.
On the outward trip, there were three of them since Reiko had not been present, whereas on the return trip, there were four. However, no one paid it any mind. Jin figured that if anyone asked, he could simply say he had arranged for overnight maintenance on Hurricane.
Having returned to their room without incident, Jin and Elsa decided to have breakfast first.
Since room service was available, they opted for that this time.
While meals for the students and staff were great, Jin was curious about what sort of breakfast they served to guests.
"So this is what we get when we ask for 'Japanese food'..."
In the Known World of Planet Ars, "Japanese food" referred to a menu centered around rice. Any side dish that paired well with white rice was generally regarded as "Japanese food."
Items like croquettes, Meat-Topopo (nikujaga), and Cowbull (beef) bowls—things Jin personally considered to be more in the realm of "home-style cooking"—were also classified as such.
What arrived was white rice, natsuri (pumpkin) miso soup, dried trevally (aji), tamagoyaki (or rather, a plain omelet), bite-sized cutlets, and oshinko.
The tea served was Kaina tea.
It appeared to reflect Jin's tastes.
(We see pumpkin miso soup from time to time on Hourai Island, but this might be the first time I've seen it served outside.)
Jin liked miso soup made with pumpkin or sweet potato (called itopo here), but since those ingredients were naturally sweet, he figured opinions on it were somewhat divided.
In fact, Elsa did not particularly care for sweeter miso soups, even if she did not outright dislike them. However,
"Want me to drink it for you?" Jin offered.
"No, I can eat this much myself," she replied, shaking her head.
"Well, the only thing Elsa absolutely refuses to eat is kokarisk, after all."
It was the local equivalent of chicken.
"Mm. I just really can't stomach it."
Everyone had ingredients like that, so Jin understood completely.
Perhaps the silver lining was that he had never seen food allergies in this world. Though, of course, homunculi were free of allergies to begin with.
After breakfast, they reviewed their schedule.
"I will go to the Medical Squad and show them this 3D anatomical model."
"Yeah. I'll go check on how the talks about adopting the Magi Circle Reactor as a research topic went, and then I'll drop by the Go-lab."
With that decided, Jin set off with Reiko, and Elsa departed with Hope, each heading toward their respective destinations.
"Good morning, Elsa-sama!"
When Elsa arrived at the Medical Squad, all the members were assembled to greet her.
"We look forward to working with you again today!"
"Mm, likewise."
Just like the previous day, Deputy Laboratory Chief May Shy Joy, commonly known as "3Y," was assigned to assist Elsa.
Since the schedule for the day mainly revolved around unveiling the prepared 3D anatomical model and explaining how to use it, they made use of a medium-sized conference room.
Roughly thirty medical practitioners gathered to listen to Elsa's lecture.
"Ah."
Among the audience, Elsa spotted Najas Kahn sitting in the very back row.
Najas Kahn was the fourth daughter of House Kahn in the Kingdom of Franz. Because she was born to a concubine, her elder half-sisters born to the legal wife had shunned her.
However, after Elsa and Jin discovered her talent for Healing and recommended she study at Avalon, she had been learning here ever since.
Beside her sat Najas's roommate, the gentle and calm Pollyanna Pendleton.
"Now then, since everyone seems to be here, I would like to begin."
Elsa surveyed the conference room before continuing.
"Many of you likely already know me, but allow me to introduce myself once more. I am Elsa Nidou. A practitioner of medicine."
With that, she bowed. A light round of applause followed.
"Today, I have prepared a collection of data that I believe will be useful for medical studies."
Saying this, she gestured to the magi-memory reader.
The screen was quite large, measuring roughly forty inches (though the inch was not a unit used on Planet Ars).
She had requested the largest one available in Avalon.
"This contains recorded data on the Human Body Structure."
First, Elsa projected an image of the human body's external appearance.
Thanks to Laojun's image processing, the facial features were rendered entirely unidentifiable.
"If we remove the skin, it looks like this."
A human body with exposed muscles appeared. A stir rippled through the onlookers.
"If we remove the muscles, it becomes this."
This time, the skeletal frame was revealed along with the internal organs it protected, as well as the blood vessels and nerves extending throughout the entire body.
The murmurs of the crowd grew even louder.
"And if we display only the skeleton, it looks like this."
Next, she demonstrated removing the skeleton to show only the internal organs.
"Conversely, if we display only the internal organs, it looks like this."
"Whoa..."
Someone gasped in awe.
"This is incredible, Elsa-sama!"
Deputy Laboratory Chief May Shy Joy, who was seated beside her as an assistant, grasped Elsa's hand with deep emotion.
"A-Ah, thank you."
Caught off guard, Elsa replied before speaking to hide her bashfulness:
"And the intended way to use it is..."
With that, she cleared away all the organs except for a specific portion.
What remained displayed were the lungs.
"These are the lungs. Normal lungs look like this, but when pneumonia develops, they become like this."
The color of the alveoli shifted. They were inflamed.
Beyond that, Elsa demonstrated various states of injury and disease, such as a dislocated shoulder joint and a mouth afflicted with periodontal disease.
"...And so, as you can see, this 3D anatomical model allows you to observe the condition of the human body even better than the real thing, without needing to perform a dissection."
Elsa wrapped up her summary for the moment.
"Next, I will teach you how to operate it."
"Please do!"
Chuckling wryly at May Shy Joy's eager response, Elsa held up the controller attached to the magi-memory reader.
The controller was essentially a combination of a joystick, a numeric keypad, and a trackpad.
"Sliding your finger across this will enlarge the image, while sliding in reverse will shrink it to display the whole view. Tilting the lever to the right will rotate the image to the right."
The trackpad allowed zooming in and out, while the joystick controlled the rotation of the 3D image.
"Th-This technology is amazing."
"You can determine the depth via key input. 0 is the surface, 1 is subcutaneous tissue, 2 is the muscular layer..."
The entire audience listened intently to Elsa's explanation.