Now back at you H.Q of Science, you started right away and measured the quantity of sand and charcoal you'll be using. That step was simpler that you imagined.
"But what's next won't be so easy." Senku chuckled. "This is going to be completely different from heating earthenware. The temperate of the fire you get from burning wood reaches 700 degrees at most. But in order to turn Iron sand into iron, the temperature we'll need to reach is..." a pause for the effect. "1500 degrees."

"Whaaat?" you said. "How in the world?"
"She's right, we're not even close to hot enough then." Kohaku nodded.
"We blow the hell out of it." he bluntly responded.
You sighed, smiling as the others were shocked.

You walked over to the furnace Senku made, which you still had a hard time believing he did.
"We'll need to keep feeding it oxygen, non-stop." he explained. "By continuing to give it a steady supply of air, we'll essentially be using bikill on the flame to raise its attack power from 700 to 1500!"
'Again with the dragon quest references.' you thought before catching some puffing contraption he tossed at you and the others.
"Oh~ those things!" you said, having forgotten their names.
"It blows air! With a tool like, I feel like I could even handle this on my own." Kohaku smiled.
"Save that big talk for after you've tried it." Senku said. "Even if everyone in the village helped us, we'd still need more."
"Then we'll just have to do it super fast." you kneeled in front of the furnace. "Easy!"

"You fucking asshole son of a bitch you bastard I'll fucking stab your eyeballs and feed them to your damn parents!!!" you screamed at the top of your lungs while huffing and puffing like crazy.
You were the type that swears when doing a exhausting physical effort.
"(Y/n) please!!! There's a little girl here!!!" Kohaku screamed as well.
"Shut up and huff-puff that motherfucker!!!"

"My arms are throbbing and numb at the same time!!!" Chrome screamed (everybody screamed).
"Don't rest or the temperature will drop!!!" Senku said.
"How many more minutes do we need to keep this up for?!!" Kohaku asked.
"Let's see... At least... Another day or two!!!"
"Iron making is insane!!!" Chrome and her exclaimed.
"Fuck science dude fuckin hell!!!" you paused. "I said that out of frustration obviously!!!"
"Stop wasting your breathe!!!" Senku yelled.
"You stop wasting your breathe!!!"
"Both of you shut up!!!" Kohaku shouted.

Suika fell down, completely out of energy.
"Don't push yourself too hard Suika! Just go rest!" Kohaku said.
"Don't worry! We got this!" you added.
Though, it was only a matter of time before you all fell one by one, immediately passing out.

You were never the one who wakes up first, yet here you were.
'Guess it's better that than going to sleep at 2am.' you thought.
You looked over at your friends and you were glad to see them peacefully asleep. You washed your face full of soot with water and checked on the bridge to see Ginrou talking in his sleep. Then came back, everyone was still asleep, but you didn't want to wake them up.
You sat down. A moment of silence passed.
'Now what...?'

You contemplated the nature a bit. Then your gaze shifted to the furnace. You knew five people alone wasn't enough to make iron, but you kept your hopes up. You wondered what else Senku could make with iron. Maybe weapons? But in case of some bad guys approaching, he'd never make that kind of stuff.
You could think of a couple of instruments he could make with iron but we don't have time for that.
'Okay I'm bored!' you quickly stood up.

You walked over to Senku and gently shook his shoulder. As soon as he was fully awake, he kicked the other two awake. He broke the furnace open and, surprise, the iron sand was unchanged. You all sighed with the thought that all this energy was for nothing,
"Man-power is our top priority." Senku mumbled.
"We need more people in the kingdom of science!" Chrome said.
"Then I think you're gonna like this." you gestured them to follow you.

"Silver... Spear..." Ginrou said in his sleep.
Senku cackled.
"Ginrou's practically ours."
"This pattern will totally work!"
You, Chrome and Senku looked at each-other.
"We'll get more man-power using science as bait!" the two boys said with as evil smirk.
"Awesome, I'm into it!" you smiled, full of enthusiasm.
"'Bait' is a little condescending..." Kohaku folded her arms. "And again with the two opposite atmosphere."

"But we're not gonna be able to woo every villager with a shiny spear." Senku said. "We need to gather intel. What we have to figure out is what everyone currently wants..."
"That's Suika's specialty!" Suika excitedly raised her hand. "Since Suika can sneak into all kinds of places unnoticed!"
She twirled around a couple of times before jumping and entering her whole being into the watermelon shell. The four of you were astonished.
"Not bad at all!" Senku smiled. "Alright then. Ace detective Suika-sama, gather some information and see if there's any people that we can easily recruit."
"We're counting on you Ace Detective!" you smiled at her.
She very obviously was loving her new title, she went back in camouflage mode and rolled across the bridge, on a mission.
"You go girl!" you encouraged her.

'I'm glad she found a way to be useful in her own special way.'
Then, a question popped up in your head. You smiled faded, you looked down.
The seed that was planted in your head was beginning to bloom.

'Am I useful?'

You turned away, hiding your face from the others as you thought deeply with a hand covering your mouth.
Back in the modern world, whenever someone said that a character from any fictional story was useless, you had a method: replay the events as if that character was never there, to see how important they really are. And yeah, of course you were useful! You helped as hard as you could in every task. And as Senku said, man-power is a priority, any help is accepted.

But then again, you weren't strong. Literally anyone in that village would be twice as effective as you were.
You could feel your heart sink like a rock in the water as you came to the realization that you haven't brought anything to the Kingdom of Science. Just an extra pair of hands.

Your hand gripped your face, squeezing your cheeks.

What a horrible feeling.

"(Y/n)! Come on!" you heard Senku call.
After quickly checking that your eyes weren't watery, you turned around and rushed to join them and go back to the H.Q.
"Yeah, coming!" you smiled.
'Let's at least try to be a good extra pair of hands...'

The seed in the back of your mind blossomed into an ugly, nasty flower.

So nasty you can't take your eyes off of it.

And there's no one to blame for that.