Chapter 21

This is a story from Nicholas's perspective.

About a year ago, around the time when summer was turning to autumn, I was asked by the late Lord Gowan to answer questions for Lord Zacharias.

"Nicholas, I have a favor to ask. Zach has started reading books. I've told him that if there's anything he doesn't understand, he should ask you. I'm sorry to trouble you, but could you please help him?"

I answered "Understood" without giving it much thought in response to the late Lord's request.

Lord Zacharias was three years old at the time. I thought he would only ask about simple words since he had just learned to read.

However, I soon realized my mistake.

The words he asked about were all specialized terms related to politics, military, and commerce. I was particularly at a loss when it came to explaining the difference between "memorandum" and "contract," the relationship between the country and the guild, and the legal status of the guild.

If it were just a child's question, I could have laughed it off, but he asked sharp questions like, "Is a contract a properly formatted document, and a memorandum not?" and "Does the guild not need the protection of the country?" I found myself often scratching my head with my wife Kate.

Moreover, when I looked troubled, he would immediately smile and say "Thank you" and back down, which made me feel even more dejected. There was no dignity left in me as an adult.

About four months ago, the late Lord, the Lord of the Manor, gathered all of us vassals.

At first, I couldn't understand what the late Lord was saying. It was natural, considering he said that Lord Zacharias was a child chosen by the gods, and his soul came from another world.

However, as I recalled the past, it started to make sense. After all, there was no three-year-old child who could ask such questions. If there was, there must have been some special circumstances.

After that explanation, the Lord of the Manor ordered me to stay behind.

"What did you think of what I just said?"

"I might have had a vague feeling... No, I finally understood after hearing your story."

The late Lord, who was standing next to me, nodded and said, "I see."

"Zach says he wants to improve this village. However, there are things he can't do even if he wants to, being only four years old. I want you to help him."

I felt hesitant. I wasn't confident that I could keep up with Lord Zacharias's ideas.

"I might just be a hindrance to Lord Zacharias."

To that, the late Lord replied with a smile, "If you can't do it, no one in our family can."

He then made a playful gesture and said, "Jean is getting married soon. By winter, it will just be Kate and me. Well, if Zach comes, the house will be a bit more lively, won't it?"

The late Lord was worried about being left alone with my wife and me after his daughter Jean got married. He remembered his son Aaron and daughter Marsha, who had passed away eleven years ago, and was considerate of us so that we wouldn't feel lonely.

I felt my eyes well up with tears at his thoughtfulness.

"I will do my best to assist Lord Zacharias."

I held back my tears and accepted the late Lord's request.

When I told my wife Kate about it, she fully supported me.

From then on, our lives changed dramatically.

I had said I would be a hindrance, but honestly, I didn't expect such outlandish things.

First, I never imagined he would start installing toilets.

When I was shown the design, I consulted with the craftsman Craig, but at first, he couldn't understand the design at all.

Craftsmen usually build houses by thinking as they work. They only use blueprints when building castles.

I got some scraps of wood from Craig and started shaping them according to the blueprint.

When I put them together, it formed a small shed, and finally, Craig understood.

Craig asked me to teach him how to draw blueprints, but since I didn't write them myself, I didn't know how. I said I would teach him later to avoid the question.

He seemed a bit disappointed but quickly became interested in the structure of the toilet and started discussing the work.

When it was decided to build a toilet at the manor, I learned how to draw blueprints from Lord Zacharias.

Lord Zacharias smiled and said, "It's not that difficult."

"Just draw what you see from the front, side, and top, and write down the measurements..."

I managed to understand the concept after about an hour of instruction, but I wasn't confident I could draw them myself. Since I couldn't ask again, I made notes on how to draw blueprints.

The next day, I gave a copy of the notes to Craig and taught him what Lord Zacharias had taught me the day before.

He nodded in admiration several times.

Yes, I could somehow understand up to this point.

However, the problem was "soap."

At first, he called for Guy Jakes, who was familiar with the forest, and asked him about the fruits and flowers in the forest. I had no idea what he was planning and could only listen.

After that, he took Guy and me to the Fin River, which flows on the west side of the village. He pointed to the yellow flowers blooming by the river and asked, "How many of these flowers are there?"

After a brief discussion, Guy and I answered, "There are a lot around here on the Fin River, and there are about the same number on the Aarn River."

Lord Zacharias looked a bit disappointed and muttered, "Not enough," before returning to the manor.

On the way back, Guy asked me in a low voice, "What is Lord Zacharias going to do?"

I could only answer, "I don't know."

After that, he asked if we had pig and cow fat and lime. When we said we did, he said he wanted to make "soap."

I and the Lord of the Manor were speechless at this.

I had lived in the academic city of Doctus for a while, so I knew soap existed, but I remembered it as a very expensive item.

Certainly, it could be sold as a specialty of the village, but the Lord of the Manor seemed to share the same concern, wondering if it could be made in such a rural area.

Lord Zacharias said with confidence, "I'm not sure if it will turn out well, but I think it will be fine."

I was impressed that he could make it, but the instructions that followed were challenging.

"I know the basic method, but I don't know the quantities. It will take at least a week, maybe ten days, so I want you to take detailed notes on how much of each ingredient you put in each pot and how much you mixed."

Lord Zacharias sometimes used words from his previous life. He said "a week" often because in his previous world, seven days was a unit of time.

He said he needed detailed notes, but we had no measuring tools. When I pointed this out, he brought three spoons and a small cup and said, "Use these as the 'standard' and count how many cups you put in."

We decided to use these as substitutes for measuring tools. Measuring tools could be bought in Doctus, but these would suffice.

He also mentioned time, so I asked how to handle it. There were no clocks in this village.

After thinking for a moment, Lord Zacharias made a simple water clock.

First, he drew patterns on the ground with a wooden stick and string to make a sundial. Then, he made a small hole in a copper pot and set a jar to catch the water below. After looking satisfied, he measured the time it took for the water to fall using the sundial and did some calculations.

"The sundial is too rough for 30 minutes, so I couldn't mark it. I calculated the amount of water that falls in 30 minutes based on the amount that falls in an hour. The pressure on the hole is different at the top and bottom of the pot, so it's not exactly in the middle. It's rough, but it should give a general idea. By the way, the time changes with the size of the hole, so I want you to polish it with cloth every day."

I didn't understand what he meant by calculating with water pressure, but the water clock he made was for one hour, with three marks.

"For 15 minutes or 10 minutes, you'll have to estimate. If the water is one-third of the way to the mark, it's 10 minutes, and if it's halfway, it's 15 minutes."

He finished this in about three hours in the afternoon and returned to the manor.

Left behind, my wife and I started by melting and filtering the animal fat.

Next, we dissolved lime in water and collected the clear liquid from burned wheat straw.

We gathered pots and heated the filtered fat to a temperature similar to body heat, checking it with our fingers.

We then added the water from the lime and the water from the ash and mixed them.

We needed to mix for about an hour until it became a paste, taking turns with my wife, but it didn't become a paste easily.

The house started to fill with a strange smell, so we hurriedly opened the windows and doors.

I continued making soap, doubting if it would work.

Three months have passed, but we haven't made anything that looks like soap.

There are over thirty pots of pasty fat in the house.

When Lord Zacharias saw this, he repeatedly apologized and said he would give up on soap if it was too much trouble.

"We've come this far. Let's try a little more."

He bowed several times and said, "You can stop anytime," but after looking at my notes, he gave more instructions.

After he left, my wife and I laughed, realizing that he didn't want to give up either. Just getting this laugh was worth it.

The toilet improvements also didn't go well.

After the manor, they were installed in our vassals' houses. At first, everyone was confused, but the area around the houses became cleaner, and now everyone is grateful.

However, the ones installed in the village, including at Gordon's place, were not being used much.

When I asked for the reason, I couldn't get a clear answer, so I had to report to Lord Zacharias, who kept reflecting on his mistake.

He then ordered a survey, which again challenged my common sense.

He said to pay people to get their opinions.

At first, I thought my abilities were being questioned. However, when the Lord of the Manor said he could get opinions without paying, Lord Zacharias explained that he wanted honest opinions, including negative ones, and that's why he would pay.

I and the Lord of the Manor didn't understand at first, but as he explained, we understood.

Indeed, the more opinions people gave, the more money they would get, and if negative opinions weren't punished, troublemakers would give negative opinions.

I felt like a veil had been lifted from my eyes.

When it came time to report the collected opinions to Lord Zacharias, I thought it would be too much to just present them as they were. The instructions were to collect the opinions as they were, but that would be too much for Lord Zacharias to read.

My wife and I categorized the opinions.

We divided them into positive, negative, and improvement suggestions, and made it clear which opinions were more common.

When I presented this, Lord Zacharias looked at me with a slight satisfaction and started listening to the report. At the end, he praised us, saying, "You did a great job summarizing. It was easy to understand. You're a good man, Nicholas."

At that moment, I felt rewarded.

Although he looked like a four-year-old child, I realized that Lord Zacharias was a respectable superior to me. I vowed to do my best to help him achieve his goals.

This is the perspective of the main character's primary victim (??).

If you look at the questions, it would be strange if it wasn't noticed.