Chapter 05: Peaceful Passing of Time
A few days after the night, where Zenjirou learned about the “soul of words”.
He didn’t know the exact temperature. Ever since the day, where the maximum temperature crossed forty degree centigrade during the day already, he had turned around the thermometer, so that he could no longer read it, to keep his sanity.
In the past few days, Zenjirou had closed all the window shutters in the inner palace and lived with the light of the LED lamps in the middle of the day, even though it was “unhealthy”.
In this season, where the permanent high temperature could kill you for working normally, the palace established a three-hour break at noon.
Thanks to that, Zenjirou recently got to spend time together with Aura in the inner palace during the day, too, not just the night.
“Fuh, this cursed heat. Compared to my office, this is heaven.”
“Oh, Aura. Sounds tough.”
“Mm.”
“Lala~”
Zenjirou must have watched her out of the corner of his eyes, as he flustered called out to her in a protest.
However, Aura was completely unperturbed.
Saying so, she put the closed bottle with strawberry syrup back into the refrigerator, took the glass bowl with the shaved ice in one hand and came over to the couch, where Zenjirou was lying.
While protesting, Zenjirou closed the collapsible game console and sat up his lying body on the couch, giving Aura space to sit on.
Aura scooped the shaved rice, bright red from the strawberry syrup, with a long, silver spoon and raised it to her mouth.
Aura confidently responded like that, which caught Zenjirou’s interest.
A boiled down substances from fruits and brown sugar. Maybe it was something like jam? If that was the case, it certainly could serve as a replacement for the syrup.
“…Therefore, I will take this strawberry syrup. You can have that special fruit-sugar juice the cooks make so diligent.”
“…Ahh, my brain is freezing. I cannot get enough of this cold-rush.”
As she felt guilty from her husband’s reproachful eyes, the Queen confessed while averting her eyes.
Zenjirou sighed to the Queen’s honest confession. He hadn’t been hoping for much anyway, but he still felt disappointed.
“Yes, leave the strawberry one to me.”
Zenjirou shrugged his shoulders and resigned to Aura.
Placing his portable game console on top of the table, he stood up and then headed over to the refrigerator.
“For your sweat, Aura.”
Aura was in a muck sweat all over, as she had taken in fluids so rapidly, and accepted the cold towel grateful, then wiped the sweat on her face and body with it.
“…..”
Amidst this night-like atmosphere, Zenjirou’s carnal desire naturally awoke when he saw his beloved wife wiping her body with the towel, even if she was still wearing clothes.
“Anyway, I think I can never repay you for all the benefits I receive from the things you brought with you. And even while I told you that you would have nothing to do, I am having you study manners, common sense and magic.”
Cold drinks and refreshment in the form of a combination of ice and the fan, every day. Aura had no recollection of ever having spent the hottest season of the Carpa Kingdom, which was known for its everlasting summer, in such comfort.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about that.
On the other hand, Zenjirou’s words were genuine as well. Even if Aura had promised him that he “would have nothing to do”, he never considered it very likely that he would actually live like an indoor pet, doing nothing but eat, play and sleep all day.
Besides, business hours in this world were affected by the setting sun, so the “tasks” here were nothing compared to his salaryman days, where he considered himself “lucky” when he was able to return home before the date changed.
“Hey, Zenjirou. Is there anything inconveniencing you?
However, it pains me to continue to restrict your freedom like this and not repay you in any way.”
Even Aura had figured out at this point that the conduct of his husband, never causing trouble or being selfish, was a restriction he had placed on himself to cause as few problems as possible, because he perfectly comprehended the standpoints of his wife and himself.
An effortless Master that wasn’t selfish and overbearing. As an attendant, one couldn’t wish for a better Master.
Humans could get used to anything. It was surprisingly common that attendants, used to an effortless Master, couldn’t cope with their Master’s sudden selfishness.
However, even when he was told all that, Zenjirou had no particular demands.
Lastly, his “sympathetic side”. It was irritating to Aura, but since Zenjirou was brought up in the plain old fashion of the common people, his values made him perceive selfishness as something “unsightly”, nipping the discussion in the bud.
“Not complaints, I want you to tell me your wishes. Oh well. Anyway, you do not need to show any reservation. I want to repay you for your devotion, even for a bit.”
He made a side-glance at the digital clock. The time was three minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon.
Alright. There was enough time left.
“Okay, if you insist… Repay me with your body!”
She properly caught him and embraced him tightly.
With her arms around her husband’s back, she passionately locked lips with him.
“…..”
Every night, if they hugged like this, he would assertively seek her lips and trail her body with his hands, but for some reason he was like a doll, stiff and not moving.
Aura doubtful asked like that after their kiss.
However, Zenjirou didn’t answer and separated from Aura wordlessly, moving to the corner of the room and crouching down there.
First a passionate embrace, then depressed a second later. Aura couldn’t follow the drastic change in her husband and called out to him bewildered.
“…Well, it’s not like I went all out. No, really, I didn’t jump with all my might. But still, my wife caught me head-on so easily, even though I tried to push her down, and what’s worse, she didn’t even realize what I was trying to do…”
“Ah…”
(Oops. I knew the hug was rather enthusiastic, but he actually wanted to push me down)
However, this world was more patriarchic than modern Japan and likewise, physical toughness was considered a virtue. Aura took the sorrow of a husband, who tried to push down his wife, but got caught instead, more serious than Zenjirou himself.
“K- Kyaah.”
“Too late! I never made a special tackle with such a delayed effect!”
Not discouraged from his retort, Aura kept lying on the couch and continued to raise an affected shriek.
“…Kyaah.”
When the shrieking Aura writhed on the couch, her skirt with the deep slit rolled up and partly exposed her light brown legs and thighs.
“…Ei!”
In the end, Zenjirou accepted the delayed effect from the tackle and threw himself at the fallen Aura.
Approximately one hour later.
Zenjirou sat in front of his computer in a pair of fashion trunks, whereas Aura, wearing small shorts and a towel around her neck, stood at an angle behind him.
The tax documents basically only consisted of “places”, “names” and “values”, so it was most suitable to learn the letters and pronunciation of this world, or so claimed Aura.
A few days ago, he had “programmed the foreign letters” by drawing all thirty characters of this country with the mouse as sprites and allocated a key on the keyboard to each.
Then Zenjirou had made study materials to learn the readings of the letters by himself, by writing down the characters of this world from Aura’s tax documents and adding Katakana or Arabian numerals to it.
“So, Zenjirou, are you done with the papers?”
Zenjirou sent the fruit of his labour, the spreadsheet data to the printer. He had brought this printer with him as an extra, since it would have been a waste to throw it away.
Therefore he wasn’t particular stingy with the printouts and printed the data from yesterday’s efforts in good quality.
“Okay, then let us check if your pronunciation is correct. Zenjirou, read it out aloud from the first page.”
While Aura was looking at the printouts, Zenjirou directly read from the spreadsheet on the computer display.
“Ah, this one does not read as ‘Viscount Bonija’, but ‘Viscount Bonilla’.”
The places and family names were proper names, so the “soul of words” didn’t work and he heard the correct spelling even when someone spoke it out, which might make it perfect for becoming familiar with the letters. Furthermore, Zenjirou even learned about nobles esteemed enough to appear on royal tax documents, on the side.
For example, even an unknown text could be read somewhat when you knew a hundred or two hundred vocabularies.
He had no choice but learn it the hard way, even if it was a bit inefficient.
“Hey, Zenjirou. Why are some numbers written in ‘red’ and some in ‘blue’?”
“Yeah, the different colours make it easier to understand when the calculated value from the program varies from the value on the tax documents. The red colour indicates a shortfall compared to the calculation, the blue colour a surplus.”
Aura raised a quiet voice with an inexpressive face in response to Zenjirou’s answer.
After all, they were a lot of them. It would take a ridiculous amount of dragonskin parchments and personnel expenses to recalculate everything.
And “for some reason”, even these random checks rarely came upon influential higher nobles or nobles with good connection to the inquisitor.
“Zenjirou, could I borrow these for a bit?”
“Yeah, sure. Go easy on them, okay. Wait, I‘m in no position to say that.”
The Queen replied to her husband, who scratched his head, with a grim tinted smile.
Afternoon on the same day. Aura, alone with Secretary Fabio in her office, took out the copy papers she borrowed from Zenjirou at noon.
“Your Highness, what is that?”
“…Oho.”
Seeing Secretary Fabio being cautious about Zenjirou as always, she said without hiding her wry smile.
The secretary replied agreeing, yet obstinate to Aura.
To begin with, the more I get to know about his intelligence and education, the more unbalanced his lack of ambition becomes. We cannot ignore the possibility that his behaviour so far is a well-performed act.”
A plebeian would never concede to his own position. And a noble would never lack ambition towards power and status.
Well, the different world might actually have such a person, since it was kind of obvious that the common sense of this world didn’t apply to someone from a different world.
“I presume it is for the better that you are not vigilant, Your Highness. It is an extremely difficult task to keep one’s innermost thoughts hidden from the person you share meals and bed with. Instead, I will keep an eye on Zenjirou-sama’s actions.”
“Yes, it has been nothing but trouble ever since I became your secretary.”
“…Normally you would respond with ‘No, not at all’ or ‘This is nothing in the services for my Queen’ in such a situation, would you not?”
“I see my job as speaking the outright truth.”
In fact, his home truths statements had helped her numerous times so far, so Aura had nothing to retort.
“Anyway, I had a look at the ‘numerals’ from my husband’s world in the last few days, and I have to say, they are quite convenient. I believe it would be rather beneficial if we implement them in some kind of way.”
Needless to say, Aura mastered the Arabic numerals in no time as she only had to learn ten numbers from 0 to 9 in contrast to Zenjirou, who had to remember all letters and vocabularies.
The convenience of Arabic numerals was very clear from looking at the tax documents she had borrowed from Zenjirou.
“2932” was a short number when written in Arabic numerals, but became extremely long when writing it as “two thousand nine hundred and thirty-two” with the Latin alphabet.
Introducing the reading and writing of them would improve business to no end and it was possible that the uneducated masses would turn into a class that “cannot read letters, but at least numbers”, like Zenjirou had said before.
Secretary Fabio became a bit absorbed in thought on Aura’s positive opinion, then answered.
If you force them to learn it, it will definitely bring about opposition, though I do not know how much.”
Fabio’s realistic insight made Aura be lost in thought for a while with her hand on her chin.
“That would require to obligate at least the civil servants in the palace to learn the numerals, though.”
“Is that a no?”
“No, that much should be okay. I will prepare for it at once.”
Aura nodded satisfied.
For the meantime, it was better not to expect any visible improvements from implementing the numerals.
“Marquis Bervides, Baron Colunga, Feudal Knight Daviino and Feudal Knight Gamez. The discrepancy in their tax documents is especially intolerable.”
As to rebuke the Queen, who showed a smile like a predator, Secretary Fabio declared with a calm voice.
“I know. I am not so foolish as to use drastic measures like finding them guilty. We will merely use it to show them who is in control and get them to compromise.”
The interesting part about humans was that they misapprehended their wrong acts as legitimate when it was left unpunished for years, even though illegal acts were statutory.
That was an emotional point of view, but if there were several of them, even the Queen would find herself in the line of a harsh retaliation when she neglected to show sympathy. The power of the Queen and royal family in the Carpa Kingdom was overwhelming, but not so overwhelming that they could ignore the influence of conspiring nobles.
“…Right. We cannot deny the fact that their services in the war were part of the reason that our country emerged victorious.”
At present, most of the remaining nobles were survivors of the previous great war. Barely anyone of them was so incompetent as to falsify taxes to the Kingdom or pocket heavy taxes from the people in their fief simply for their own good.
That was the reason why the remaining nobles were so troublesome.
However, it was likewise a fact that these taxes could replenish the royal army better if they were collected properly.
Both weren’t mistaken in their approaches, so it was rather natural that discord emerged between the royal family and feudal lords.
In the worst case, the feudal lords could band together to revolt against the royal family, so a balance of power, where the royal army could easily suppress such an attempt, should be preserved.
but there was no guarantee that all successors in the next or after next generation were just as capable and quick-witted.
Aura declared flatly, whereat Fabio mused for a while.
Before long, the secretary settled his thoughts and suggested a compromise plan.
“Yes, certainly.”
“Come to think of it, how goes the tutor search for my husband? I would assume they are assembled for the most part?”
“Yes. Three self-applications and thirty-one recommendations. The greater majority are young, unmarried women with high magical power.”
“God forbid! They are just incompetent if they recommended them without realizing my intention, but it is a bit troublesome if they did so while clearly knowing what I wanted. Am I being underestimated that much?”
“Rather than underestimating you, I would say the appeal of sending in a pawn as Zenjirou-sama‘s concubine, got the better of them despite the danger.”
“Hmpf, I do not think that my husband is so careless as to be manipulated by the wirepuller behind a concubine.”
“Well, yeah. In that case, I guess we will have to ask beldam Pascuala to be my husband’s tutor after all.”
In response, Secretary Fabio opened his mouth, hesitant on a rare occasion.
As you know, they call Lady Octavia the model of a noble woman. Knowledge, education or magic skills, there is nothing to criticize about her.
“Th- That old geezer…”
An already married woman excelling in knowledge, education and magic. Just listening to the recited characteristics, she indeed fulfilled all of Aura’s conditions.
Incidentally, the son of Count Márguez, Raffaello Márguez was a former candidate for being Aura’s husband and one year older than his stepmother Octavia.
Secretary Fabio shook his head to Aura’s speculation.
As you may know, Lady Octavia is the “perfect noblewoman” by our country’s common sense. She is a woman proficient at natural compliance, tickling a man’s self-esteem and giving him a dynamic confidence.
Most men would get ahead of themselves when a conservative beauty praised, flattered and gave them respectful glances. They would feel like they could do anything if they tried. And if she could incite Zenjirou’s mentality into pursuing politics, Count Márguez would have a convenient direct line to royal authority in Zenjirou.
If his guess was correct, the problem was that Lady Octavia herself, in the middle of events, had no ill intentions even when the wirepuller Count Márguez was full of them.
On the surface, she was the perfect candidate for Zenjirou’s tutor.
Even while Aura felt a bit annoyed over the blunt glance Secretary Fabio gave her as to probe her for her intentions, she shook her head and answered.
I cannot reject everything. Count Márguez’s schemes aside, there is no problem with Lady Octavia. In fact, it is a very beneficial choice for my husband. Hire her.”
On Aura’s order, Secretary Fabio answered with a courteous bow.
One day, the inner palace was kind of restless.
Zenjirou was slumped into the couch in one room of the inner palace and took a deep breath for the nth time.
Thanks to his experience of going to see various business partners during his company days, Zenjirou wasn’t particular uncomfortable with meeting someone for the first time, but this time, he would be the “superior” for the first time.
Without the grace of the ice fan, Zenjirou was sweating profoundly from the high room temperature and replenished his water balance by drinking water mixed with adequate amounts of brown sugar and salt for a while now.
Zenjirou recalled the basic conduct Aura had taught him in his head. At that very moment.
“Mm, come in.”
He was about to go to meet them at the door as a habit from his salaryman days, but realized his mistake as he stood up from the couch, and waited in that standing position.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Zenjirou-sama.
I might be ignorant and lacking expertise, but I will do everything in my might.”
(Oho, ignorant and lacking expertise, huh. So “modesty” is a virtue in this country, too)
“Lift your face.”
The Lady— Octavia raised her head with the same fluid movement she had used to lower it.
Gorgeous, trim, virtuous. These words naturally popped up in his head as he looked at Octavia’s face.
However, she had narrow sloping shoulders, so her stature looked slender and shorter than it actually was.
She had a prominent nose and her face as a whole was shallow, so she would easily pass as a “tanned Japanese”.
“I’m Zenjirou, Queen Aura’s husband. I don’t know how long our acquaintance will last, but I want us to be on good terms.”
When Zenjirou recited the words he had desperately thought up in his head, Octavia lowered her head creditable.
“Well then, let’s hear about your guideline, Lady Márguez. Take a seat.”
“? Yes, pardon me.”
After Zenjirou made sure that Octavia had seated herself, he slowly lowered his bottom onto the couch, too.
Sitting across Octavia on the couch with a table in-between them, Zenjirou listened to her explanation about her plan and methods to study manners, common sense and magic, from start to end.
Zenjirou put the summary of the contents he had made in his head into words, whereupon Octavia replied with a soft smile.
“And you will have lunch together with me from now on?”
Indeed. She had a point there. No matter how much you heard about manners, you wouldn’t adopt them that way.
However, it was a bit annoying, considering that a teacher would watch his manners and common sense during meals every day from now on.
That said, Zenjirou wasn’t so arrogant that he would reject an efficient study chance for such a selfish reason.
Octavia smiled softly to Zenjirou’s words and lowered her head.
“Ah!?”
Octavia was very careful not to sound reproachful and continued.
Even in a foreign country, you only need to give such a polite greeting to the King himself or the immediate successor to the throne.
“…Okay. I’ll be careful of that from now on.”
(Oh damn… I thought I was being careful, but my salaryman soul kicked in again)
Octavia smiled comforting as she saw through his internal struggle and broached the next subject with a composed voice.
“Yes, please do.”
“R- Right. Ehm… You are allowed to begin your explanation.”
This time it seemed to be correct as Octavia nodded curt, then started her thorough explanation with a mellifluous voice.
“I will begin my explanation about the basis of magic now. We can classify magic into two groups. The first group is the ’Four- Element Magic’ that can be more or less used by everyone. The other group is the ’Bloodline Magic’ that only people with a unique lineage can use.”
Octavia didn’t seem to be offended by Zenjirou’s interjection and replied with a nod and a smile.
There are three conditions necessary to activate magic: the ‘correct intonation’, the ‘correct perception’ and the ‘correct amount of magical power’.”
Given that, it sounded like the magic often found in games or books, but he didn’t understand anything concrete.
“First of all, magic has an exclusive language. We simply call it ’Magic Language’ and the magic will not activate unless you use it. Please watch me.”
‘O invisible water scattered in the air, gather at my finger and form a sphere. As compensation, I will make eighteen offerings of magical power to the water spirit.’
“!?”
(What was that just now? Octavia-san only opened her mouth for a brief moment, but I heard a ridiculous long sentence!?)
Zenjirou had no clue what was going on, whereupon Octavia put the water ball she had created at her finger tip just now, into her empty tea cup and deeply bowed to him.
Due to that, a person, who hears the Magic Language for the first time, gets overwhelmed by the vast amount of information in the short sound. Let me apologize again for forgetting about that. Please forgive me.”
Zenjirou shook his head a bit and replied.
Continue with the explanation.”
“Thank you such much for your tolerance. I will be extra careful from now on that something like this will not happen again.”
Zenjirou was bewildered about her exaggeration, but managed to reply collected without showing his bewilderment.
To begin with, hardly anyone in this world felt something amiss with the discrepancy between the heard information and the spoken sound as the existence of spirits was a common thing. Not to mention that even less people felt shocked about it as if they had received a blow to the head. Going by that, both, Octavia and Zenjirou, had just been unlucky.
After Octavia said that, she put up the index finger of her right hand again and chanted the spell.
The short chant was completely incomprehensible to Zenjirou’s ears. However, the magic didn’t activate.
Saying so, Octavia opened her mouth for a brief moment and uttered a short sound just like before.
This time, Zenjirou heard the same long sentence like on the first successful try, but no water sphere appeared at Octavia’s finger.
‘O invisible water scattered in the air, gather at my finger and form a sphere. As compensation, I will make eighteen offerings of magical power to the water spirit.’
Octavia smiled a bit at Zenjirou, who looked at her, and explained.
Zenjirou listened to her words, more or less convinced, but then raised a surprised voice.
Zenjirou forgot his affected tone on the spur of the moment, whereat Octavia nodded and responded to his question.
Due to that, most magicians with a great magical power have difficulties with small magic like the one I chanted just now. of course there are exceptions, like the archmage Espaldion-sama.”
One did not even need to spare a thought about whether it was easier to fill a glass to the brim by pouring water from a 100ml bottle or from a 10l bottle.
He was pretty excited and thrilled about the fact that he would be able to use magic himself at some point.
“Does that mean you’re not suited for learning typical magic when you’ve great magical power?”
But then, a large magic like that consumes not only a lot of magical power, it also has an extremely long chant, so it is not unusually that it takes months for one to be able to recite the intonation correctly.”
“Then I’ll be frank: How long will it take for me to activate magic when I start learning from today on?”
Octavia keenly guessed what Zenjirou was after, but as his teacher, she couldn’t bring herself to lie, so she shrunk her slender body, ducked her head and answered honestly.
“…Three years.”
“Ah, but the rest is relatively simple once you have control over that, because you only have to learn the correct intonation, draw a vivid picture of it in your head and accurately pour magical power into it. You can learn a simple spell within a day.”
That look cooled down Zenjirou’s head.
(Either way, it doesn’t seem like magic will be useful for my life, even when I learn it)
“Okay. Then let’s take it slowly. Teach me well, Octavia.”
The beautiful female tutor answered the Prince Consort, who recovered himself in no time, faithful with a soft smile.
Evening of the day, where he met Octavia as his private tutor and finished his first lesson without problems.
He had a can of low-malt beer after his bath like always while Aura on the other hand held a glass with brandy in front of her face and enjoyed its ripe aroma.
She drunk it without anything extra as Zenjirou taught her from his faint memory that “it was proper practice to drink brandy straight and unchilled”.
Aura poured the contents of the glass down her throat bit by bit while appreciating the amber-coloured fluid that was sparkling from the light of the LED lamps through the glass, with her eyes.
Aura nodded satisfied to Zenjirou’s question and answered.
“Oho, is that so?”
As ignorant as he was to such things, Zenjirou was satisfied with cold low-malt beer.
“So, how did it go? Tell me your impression.”
“Yeah, let’s see, to summarize it: It was ‘more tiring than I expected’. My lack of manners was pointed out numerous times. Especially during lunch. I barely remember what I ate.”
“Don’t sweat it. It’s necessary, right? Besides, the magic lessons are fun. Well, it certainly depressed me that it’ll take me three years until I can use magic, though.”
It was a matter of fact that he had been pretty excited over seeing magic with his own eyes.
It was far more motivating as he witnessed it himself.
Aura said that, then took the arm of her husband and pressed it into her deep cleavage as to encourage him.
Then the Queen surprised her husband, who narrowed his eyes to slits from the soft sensation, by whispering into his ear with a mischievous smile.
His wife uttered the name of another woman. Zenjirou had done nothing to feel guilty about, yet he flinched out of reflex, maybe out of a habit as a man.
Keeping a firm hold on his arm as to not let him escape, Aura pressed him on, whereat Zenjirou answered while letting his gaze drift towards the ceiling.
“…Oho.”
“You mean, she looked desirable to you as well?”
Zenjirou wasn’t so dense that he wouldn’t notice that the mood of his wife took a turn for the worse.
However, his promptly couched excuse was completely incomprehensible to someone of this world.
Even so, Aura must have understood Zenjirou from his tone and overall nuance.
“So, what do you mean to say? Be more precise.”
He wasn’t the type of person that could overcome his shame to say something like “You’re the only one I love” or “You’re far more pretty” now.
His wife playfully tucked on his arm, but Zenjirou didn’t look at her and kept his eyes on the ceiling, then gave his best answer as a compromise between his shame and his wife’s demand.
While saying so, he felt his own face turning red.
Zenjirou kept facing the ceiling and glanced to the side to take a peek at his wife’s reaction.
“Fuh… Fufufuh. I see, I see.”
Apparently his answer was good enough to sway her heart.
The Queen declared that, then Zenjirou felt her hot and wet lips pressing down on his cheek.
In the middle of the night. Aura slept intimately with her husband Zenjirou in the same bed as always. When she woke up past midnight, she carefully got off the bed as not to wake the soundly sleeping Zenjirou.
Amidst the pitch darkness, she looked for her clothes by fumbling around. Before long, her hands touched a soft, thin cloth.
Before going to bed, she had put on this suggestive nightgown for him in appreciation for the pleasant answer of her husband to her probing question. At that time, Zenjirou had been so overjoyed that he wanted to preserve it with his “digicam” or whatever it was called.
When her husband had raised an empty shriek like that and froze on the spot, Aura had