Chapter 42

The night after Queen Aura of the Kingdom of Carp gave birth to her first child exactly one month (twenty-nine days) later, the capital city of Carp was filled with flames that dispelled the night darkness and the boisterous noise of the crowd.

At the intersections and parks on the main streets, large bonfires were lit, and throughout the night city, patrol soldiers with torch-bearing attendants were on the move.

Looking at the bustling commercial district, most of the restaurants had lit multiple oil lamps inside and were busy with their temporary night operations. Although the cost of oil is high and the risk of fire is significant, making it a practice for most shops not to operate late at night, today was an exception.

It was the joyous news that most of the citizens of the Kingdom of Carp had been eagerly awaiting. This was a memorable night to celebrate the birth of the first male heir to the royal family.

“To the health of Queen Aura!”

“To the birth of Prince Carlos!”

“To the future of the Kingdom of Carp!”

“““Cheers!”””

Cheers and the sound of wooden mugs clinking filled the night tavern. The tavern was lit only by the flames in the oil lamps at the four corners, but the atmosphere in the room made the dim light seem bright.

Tonight was a festival night to celebrate the birth of the prince. Although the actual birth was a month ago, in this world where medical technology is underdeveloped, even royal children are not guaranteed to grow up safely. Therefore, it is customary to hold the birthday celebration a month after the actual birth.

And tonight was that month later. The capital had turned into a city of light.

Of course, the majority of the drunkards here were indeed celebrating the birth of the prince, but most of them were simply reveling in the free drinks and free food.

Indeed, the cost of lighting and food for this night was, in principle, entirely borne by the royal family.

They arranged for firewood and oil for the bonfires, gave silver coins to the restaurants in advance, and arranged for patrol soldiers to prevent fires and fights. For the royal family, which was still in the process of recovering from the war, this was by no means a light burden, but they could not afford to neglect such popular events. Moreover, such generous spending was expected to have the secondary effect of temporarily boosting the economy of the capital.

Even if the royal family provided free drinks and food, these were limited to cheap fruit wine and inexpensive soup made in large pots. Even with these, one could get drunk and fill their stomach, but once the alcohol took effect and they felt more confident, some would inevitably reach for more delicious drinks and food, even if it meant spending their own money.

As a result, each restaurant would record a significant profit, even excluding the money provided by the royal family.

“Still, it’s been a string of good news lately. We won the war, and Queen Aura got married. And a year later, the birth of the prince—it’s almost too good to be true.”

A muscular man in his thirties, sitting in a chair with his legs spread, said this loudly and slammed his empty mug on the table. The wooden mug hit the wooden table with a satisfying thud.

“Well, it was tough for a long time before that. All the good things that had been pent up are coming all at once, I guess.”

The man sitting across from him replied. Compared to the man sitting in front, he was somewhat slimmer, but a closer look revealed that his body was well-toned from hard labor. They were probably both manual laborers working in the capital.

The slender man scooped up some hot soup with a large wooden spoon and brought it to his mouth.

The soup contained chopped cooking bananas, cheap leafy vegetables, and a small amount of old dragon meat (meat from old dragons that could no longer work). However, it was strongly seasoned with salt and spices, making it quite delicious when eaten hot. Salt, spices, and black sugar were not particularly expensive in the Kingdom of Carp.

During the hot season, drinking spiced soup and sweating, then drinking water to replenish the lost fluids, was a common way to endure the heat in the Kingdom of Carp.

“Well, that’s true. After such a tough war, it’s only right that some good things should follow.”

The muscular man agreed with the slender man’s words. Both were in their mid-thirties, and a closer look revealed faint scars from swords and arrows on their arms and chests, suggesting they had fought in the recent war.

Given this, it was only natural that their words carried a sense of reality.

“That’s right. But, if it’s free drinks and food, I wish they had started in the morning. I feel like I lost half a day. Still, there’s a certain charm to having a meal in the darkness of night.”

The slender man, who had returned his spoon to the wooden soup bowl, laughed as the muscular man, who was already tipsy, responded.

“Ha! ‘Charm’? You’re the one talking. But I get what you mean. Children are a gift, and they don’t choose when to be born.”

Usually, the celebration of a prince’s birth lasts a whole day, but unfortunately, it was the hottest time of the year. The scorching heat, with temperatures exceeding forty-five degrees Celsius, threatened life. If the entire city were to drink and celebrate in such conditions, there would be a continuous stream of fainting and deaths. During the day in this hot season, people try to stay indoors to conserve their energy and avoid the heat, and if they must go out, they wear white hooded cloaks to protect themselves from direct sunlight.

The cloaks are usually made of thick cotton. While breathable fabrics like linen feel cool in temperatures lower than body temperature, no matter how much wind blows through the fabric, if the wind is hotter than the body, it only makes the heat worse.

In that sense, the fact that the men in the tavern, all in sleeveless shirts and thin trousers, could be there was a testament to the fact that the night was indeed ‘cooler.’ However, this was a relative assessment compared to the deadly heat of the day, and the night was still hot.

The slender man, who had finished his hot soup, was fanning his collar, but the tropical night was not so kind that he could cool off with just that.

“This is unbearable. Hey, I’m going to sprinkle some water. Got it?”

Unable to bear it any longer, the slender man twisted his body in his chair, grabbed a wooden ladle leaning against the back wall, and shouted loudly enough for the entire tavern to hear.

“Yeah, go ahead!”

“Yeah, it’s hot enough!”

“No one’s going to object!”

In response to the man’s voice, the drunkards in the tavern all agreed.

“Alright, here I go.”

With the consent of the tavern’s patrons, the man stood up from his chair, holding the long-handled large ladle, and walked to the narrow wooden water tank set up in the corner of the tavern.

Setting up a water tank filled with water in the tavern is a service that almost every shop in the area provides. Just having water in the room can lower the temperature slightly, and if the water is sprinkled on the floor, the evaporation can provide a significant cooling effect. Of course, puddles will form on the stone floor and water may splash onto the patrons’ shoes and trouser hems, but there are no delicate people here who would mind such things. In the high temperatures, which can exceed thirty-five degrees even at midnight, the water would dry up in no time.

Moreover, one of the patrons said to the man.

“Ah, that’s too slow. Just pour it down!”

“Pour it down.”

In other words, instead of sprinkling the water at the feet, he was telling the man to pour it more boldly over their heads. Pouring water on the floor to cool off is one thing, but pouring water directly on the head inside the tavern is considered a bit uncouth in the Kingdom of Carp. However, this was a backwater tavern, and the rough suggestion was met with applause and cheers.

“Yeah, pour it down!”

“It’s too hot like this!”

“Wait, wait, cover the food first!”

The man efficiently covered the soup bowls and thin pancakes on the table, suggesting that this practice of ‘pouring water’ had become routine. Even the owner, who was watching the large pot behind the counter, only smiled wryly, without any attempt to stop it.

“Just be careful not to get the oil lamps wet.”

With those words, he gave his permission.

The man, hearing those words, laughed and said, “Got it,” and dipped the ladle into the square water tank. Then,

“Alright, here we go, ready, go!”

With his right hand, he swung the ladle in an arc, raining water into the night tavern. The water droplets flying through the air were illuminated by the flames of the oil lamps in the four corners, sparkling.

“Whoa, it’s cold!”

“Ah, I feel alive again.”

“Don’t be stingy, more, more!”

The drunkards shouted various things.

“Ah, shut up, just wait a moment.”

The man, after cooling himself by pouring the water from the ladle over his head, repeatedly and quickly swung the ladle, pouring water into the room.

“Phew, it feels great! Long live the Queen!”

“Yeah, long live Prince Carlos!”

“Long live the Kingdom of Carp!”

The drunkards, feeling refreshed by the water, raised their voices in cheers again.

“And, by the way, um, what was it? ...Ah, anyway, long live the Queen’s husband!”

It seemed that the name of the Queen Aura’s husband, ‘Zenjiro,’ was so unknown that the tipsy commoners in the backwater tavern couldn’t recall it on the spot.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

When the night ends, the morning comes.

The festival night, colored by flames and alcohol, comes to an end with the sunrise. When the scorching sun rises above the horizon, it’s back to the usual daily routine. Especially now, during the hottest time of the year, the early morning hours, when the sun rises and the surroundings brighten but the temperature has not yet risen significantly, are precious.

In the streets of the capital, where the night has just turned to dawn, people are already moving about actively. During this season, to avoid heatstroke, it is customary to take a nap indoors during the hottest part of the day. Therefore, if one doesn’t do as much as possible in the morning and evening, there won’t be enough time.

The bustling and active morning of the capital. Amidst this, Zenjiro, in the heart of the capital, in a room of the harem, was enjoying a leisurely morning as usual.

In a room where classic furniture with a foreign atmosphere and mass-produced Japanese electrical appliances coexisted, Zenjiro stretched widely.

The room, lit only by the morning sun seeping through the gaps in the wooden shutters, was dark, even though it was already morning.

“Phew... Ah...!”

Wearing a gray T-shirt and white linen trousers with two pleats, Zenjiro stretched his arms up, rotated his head, and opened the living room window.

When the intricately carved window was opened, the strong sunlight and stifling heat poured in, unlike what one would expect from the morning.

“Whoa!?”

Startled by the strong light and the aggressive heat, Zenjiro instinctively turned his face away. The bright morning sun, to which his eyes were accustomed to the darkness, stung his eyes, but the heat was even more intense.

“Wow, this is crazy. Before I even think about it being hot or uncomfortable, I feel like my life is in danger.”

The air was so hot that it felt as if the oxygen concentration was low, and even a deep breath felt suffocating. Zenjiro’s living room and the adjacent bedroom were kept cool with ice and fans every day and night. Even though the living room was spacious and not as airtight as a Japanese house, the room maintained a comfortable temperature, isolated from the outside heat, thanks to the daily placement of ice.

Zenjiro, who winced at the heat pouring in from the open window, quickly fetched tools to close the window as soon as possible.

The items Zenjiro brought from the corner of the living room were a digital alarm clock, a mechanical pencil, and a digital camera.

“Alright, it’s just about the right time.”

Zenjiro placed the square alarm clock on the window frame and nodded slightly at the display. Then, he looked at the shadow cast by the vertical frame on the horizontal frame and waited patiently with the mechanical pencil in his right hand.

7:00

The moment the alarm clock displayed this time, Zenjiro drew a line along the shadow of the window frame with the mechanical pencil.

He then quickly took a picture of it with the digital camera. When the shutter button was pressed and the shutter released, the internal clock of the digital camera showed 7:00:09.

This was a recent morning routine that Zenjiro had come up with.

“Hmm, it’s still off a bit. The problem is, I can’t tell if the discrepancy is due to the fact that a day isn’t exactly twenty-four hours or if the time of sunrise and sunset changes every day.”

Looking at the image on the digital camera, Zenjiro muttered. Although he had only been doing this routine for a few days, the line he marked at the same time every day was gradually shifting to the side.

It had been two years since Zenjiro was transported to this world. After fulfilling his primary role of fathering a child with Aura, he was gradually developing an interest in this world. This was part of that process.

“Well, in any case, the fact that the clock I brought from Earth is still working without adjustment after a year means that a day is almost exactly twenty-four hours.”

Zenjiro muttered to himself.

If not, the clock he brought would have stopped working long ago. Even if the length of a day was only one minute different, after 365 days, the discrepancy would be 365 minutes, or about six hours.

If the clock was off by six hours, even with only vague markers like sunrise and sunset, one would definitely notice. Therefore, it can be inferred that the difference in the length of a day between the original world and this world, if any, is so small that Zenjiro, who has lived here for about a year, has not noticed it. However,

“If I measure the position of the shadow exactly one year from now, I can determine the daily discrepancy without the error caused by the date... The problem is, there’s no guarantee that a year is 365 days.”

Zenjiro sighed again.

The calendar in this world consists of twelve months, with six months of twenty-nine days and six months of thirty days, making a year 354 days. However, to adjust for the obvious discrepancy, a leap month is added every few years, creating a thirteen-month year.

Based on Zenjiro’s rough calculations, a year in this world seems to be approximately 365 days.

“If I could somehow be certain that this world has the same 24-hour, 365-day year as Earth, I could make some useful suggestions.”

Of course, he had no intention of changing the current calendar, which had already been adopted by the people of the kingdom, just because of his whims. However, if he could create a more accurate solar calendar, it would undoubtedly be useful for various purposes. With the current calendar, which includes a leap month every few years, there can be a discrepancy of nearly thirty days from year to year.

Considering that April 1st of last year could be May 1st of this year, it’s clear how meaningless it is to expect this calendar to serve as a measure of seasons. At the very least, it is extremely unsuitable as a guide for planting and water management.

As a result, the timing of planting and harvesting in the Kingdom of Carp is currently determined entirely by the experience and intuition of the farmers.

“Well, it would take decades to surpass the accumulated data and experience of veteran farmers. And this world doesn’t even have thermometers.”

Still, the creation of an accurate calendar and the accumulation of annual weather data would surely be useful in the future.

Convincing himself of this, Zenjiro turned on the six LED stand lights, illuminating the room with artificial white light. Just as he did, a knock echoed through the spacious living room.

“Come in.”

At Zenjiro’s permission, the door opened. The person standing there was exactly who Zenjiro expected.

“Good morning, Zenjiro.”

A tall, beautiful woman, holding a small baby like a treasure in her ample bosom, smiled, accompanied by two maids.

“Good morning, Aura.”

Zenjiro responded with a similar smile and invited his wife, holding their child, into the room.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

“Excuse me. Is this position alright?”

A maid, who had become quite skilled over the past year, took a large piece of ice from the refrigerator’s ice bucket and placed it next to the sofa where Zenjiro was sitting. The fan behind her blew a cool breeze at just the right angle to reach Zenjiro, who was sitting on the sofa.

The breeze only reached Aura, who was sitting on the opposite sofa, as