Need to relax

Days passed, and both the maids and butlers worked hard every day. After finishing their chores and tasks at the mansion early in the day, they would immediately head to the backyard and continue producing rows upon rows of soap and shampoo.

Meanwhile, Michael was focused on constructing his clock project.

The hardest part was already over, with most of the gears and mechanisms already produced in his Project Room. Now, all that he needed to do were a few final adjustments before he could at last begin assembling it all together.

After two more days, he finally made a very rudimentary version of a Big Ben clock.

Standing as tall as a wooden cabinet, it featured a simple round face at the very center. And even though the hour and minute hands of the clock were just thin rods of metal and weren't particularly elegant, they served their purpose properly.

As long as no one looks inside, it looks decent, Michael thought, consoling himself.

Since he wasn't a master craftsman just yet, he could only brute force his way into completing the project. If one looked at the inside of the block, one would see a chaotic mess of gears and pulley ropes jammed inside without any care for elegance. But, of course, he had made sure that all the mechanisms worked as intended. Hopefully. 

If it works, then I think it doesn't matter how it looks.

The good thing about this clock was that it didn't have any power source. The bad thing was that he needed to wind up the crank every day, which would slowly lower the weight inside and make the clock's hands move and act like a proper clock.

Michael walked to the side and started to wind up the clock by rotating the crank he had installed.

DING

A satisfying sound resonated from within while Michael felt the liver tighter, making it hard for him to turn the lever more, signifying that it had reached its limit.

This was the moment of truth.

Michael let go of the crank, and finally, 

TIK…TOK…TIK…TOK…

A steady, rhythmic sound echoed in the clock as the hands began to tick down every second.

"It worked!"

A wave of satisfaction gushed in Michael's heart. It had been a challenge to create it, but it was worth it.

"Young master, what is that?"

Michael didn't know it, but there was already a crowd of maids and butlers gathered behind him. Their eyes burned with an intense curiosity as they looked at the giant cabinet that rang out with a rhythmic tik tok sound.

"Listen up, everyone. This is called a clock. It is divided into twelve parts, with each section representing an hour…"

Michael then went into a very long lecture about how clocks worked, but as expected, it was hard for people who had never seen a clock before to understand it. Heck, even people in his previous world had trouble reading a clock even though they had known it all their lives.

"If this hand moves to the next line, it is equivalent to how long a candle lasts."

The moment he equated it to candles, which was how people in this world measured time, they quickly understood the concept.

"I see, young master!"

"Ooooh… another invention from the young master… he's too smart."

Unfortunately, they didn't know how useful a clock was yet. After all, they never had to keep track of their time in their daily lives.

But that was about to change.

"So, from now on, I hereby enforce all of you to only work eight hours a day and not a second more."

His words were immediately met with confusion. They didn't understand why he would impose such strict rules when doing more work, which would result in the production of more soaps, which would lead to a better profit. Wasn't that the goal?

Michael could have asked them to work all night long to create the soaps, and they would have done so without a question. They were, after all, in his family's employ.

But here he was, asking them to barely work half a day!

"Young master, why?" the maids asked. "Are you… planning to let some of us go?"

They were so used to working long hours and working every second of every day that they thought it was normal.

But in Michael's world, everyone found out that working too much led to disastrous consequences. People must have a healthy balance of work and life to truly live the way humans are supposed to live. They weren't slaves, after all.

Although Michael could have treated them that way and earned a lot of money in the process, he was not going to be one of such people.

As for why, well, Michael had one simple reason.

"If I were put in your place, I wouldn't want to work all day long. That's it."

Michael's words, along with the unshakable honesty of a child, struck a deep chord in their hearts.

The staff of the Vanderbilt mansion felt warmth bloom in their chests. How could they have been so lucky as to serve the only young master who saw them not just as maids and butlers but also as humans?

Some of them wiped the tears welling in their eyes and chuckled.

"Hehe, young master. We hope you stay like this even in the future."

"This just makes me want to work even harder!"

"Yeah! Let's create more soaps and keep the young master as wealthy as possible! I will do it all night even if I have to!"

The maids and butlers cheered and immediately went over to their workstations to create more soaps.

Michael shook his head in disappointment and let out a deep sigh. 

They had completely missed his point.

Hmm… perhaps the reason they want to keep working is that they have nothing better to do… maybe I should give them something to look forward to after a long day of hard work…

Sitting on his bed, he cycled through his ideas. There were a lot of leisure activities in his previous life, but some of them required advanced technology.

If I were them, what would I want to do?

Then, an idea hit him.

He almost couldn't believe that he hadn't thought about it till now.

What were the usual pastimes and relaxation spots he usually saw in anime and television?

Hot Springs!