Roselle rubbed his temples, then looked up, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Edwin and Stiano.
He had far too many questions right now—
"To put it simply—"
At the question, Edwin smiled and began to explain.
"I arrived in this world over a hundred years after you did.
"Fortunately, I started out as the son of a merchant.
"After saving up my first sum of money, I began promoting electricity and internal combustion engines—"
Edwin paused, seemingly reminiscing.
"And alongside the development of internal combustion engines and electricity...
"At first, Loen's merchants had little interest in those iron lumps that belched black smoke and made tremendous noise. They preferred their carriages and gas lamps.
"Until I showed them how to efficiently synthesize gasoline and diesel from lignite."
"Coal—can be synthesized into gasoline? Isn't that stuff distilled from petroleum?"
Upon hearing this, the glass eyes of Roselle's puppet body instantly widened. He looked as though he had just heard someone claim they had molded gold out of mud.
No, it was even more absurd than that.
He had wanted to develop internal combustion engines back then as well. After all, their energy output efficiency was on an entirely different level from steam engines.
But even after mobilizing the entire nation and turning the whole continent upside down, he had failed to find any petroleum.
This was the first time he had heard that coal could be used to synthesize gasoline.
"It can, because gasoline is merely a complex mixture composed of various hydrocarbons.
"The industrial use of petroleum to refine gasoline is simply a matter of cost.
"During World War II, Germany developed the relevant tech tree due to its oil shortage—"
Edwin nodded as he explained.
"Holy shit!"
Hearing that, Emperor Roselle cursed outright.
It seemed—it really was