Chapter 03: The Queen’s Pregnancy
“Uhh, Kuh!”
The morning sun was still touched with red and the refreshing breeze, blowing in from the window, gently brushed over his body.
Bathed in the morning sun, Zenjirou craned his neck and muttered emotional.
Due to that, Zenjirou himself felt that he was “fit and well from today on”.
Looking at the thermometer on the wall, he checked the scale with the red fluid and raised a slightly surprised voice.
At this rate, it might be acceptable to spend the whole day without using ice or the fan today.
“I can’t tell how long the fan or refrigerator will last after all.”
And even before the appliances stopped working, it was quite likely that he would have to leave the inner palace again, like during the previous banquet, and expose himself to the scorching heat of the Carpa Kingdom. Or alternatively, he would have to hide the electrical appliances when a guest visited him like during the sick bed visit from Princess Isabelle.
“Aw, I feel so weak. Though that’s only natural. Maybe I’ll do some toning or ball juggling exercises.
Zenjirou mumbled to himself as he touched his body over his T-shirt and trousers.
It would be dangerous in various ways to return to his shut-in lifestyle like this. Zenjirou could pass up on having a constitution, where he was out of breath just from getting up or walking around, at his young age, so he felt the need to impose some training on himself.
After fishing the white-black soccer ball out of the corner of the room, Zenjirou let it bounce on the carpet to check if it had enough air and said that.
The physical fitness could make the difference between life or death. It was worth falling sick just to realize that.
After juggling the ball a few times with the instep of his left foot, Zenjirou caught a slightly missed kick in his hands and stopped the juggling for now, looking around the room.
He had set them along the walls as much as possible as not to trip over them, but considering the position of the appliances and the length of the cables, some of them had to cross straight through the room here and there.
“The best bet would be to convert an empty room into an exercise room. Many of them are unused anyway.”
“Excuse me, Zenjirou-sama. I am here with your requested goods.”
“Yes, I’m coming.”
Opening the door was the job of the waiting maid, but Zenjirou suspected that her hands were occupied from her words “with your requested goods”, so he opened the door from his end.
“The kitchen staff has made it according to your instructions.”
The snack called “banana chips” was known in modern Japan, too, but he had them made these as a replacement for potato chips.
“Oh, let me try one.”
“Mm…”
“How is it, Zenjirou-sama?”
“Very well. I will pass it on accordingly.”
Zenjirou took the wooden plate from the waiting maid as she lowered her head curtly, and closed the door with these words.
Back in the room, Zenjirou put the plate on the low table and sat down on the couch.
The taste was more nostalgic than delicious.
Zenjirou didn’t fancy himself as a person that made a fuss over food and in fact, he hadn’t anything to complain about regarding the food in this world so far. However, he had realized during his illness that it was a different matter altogether when he was weakened in mind and body.
Zenjirou had more or less stopped eating snacks once he became a working adult, but now that he had tasted the “deliciousness” of pseudo-potato chips, he could no longer ignore a nostalgia due to his palate.
The livestock in the Carpa Kingdom, whose climate was close to the tropical forest, was generally “dragons”— meaning reptiles. Needless to say, reptiles didn’t produce milk. And although they did lay eggs, the eggs of reptiles were rather different from the eggs of birds.
For instance, some places like the palace managed to raise a bird that resembled a chicken as a livestock.
“If I could somehow obtain some milk, I could make them build a manual centrifuge and try to make some butter or fresh cream. Ah, but, I didn’t bring a microwave oven, so it would be difficult to make sweets myself, even if I’ve the ingredients.”
His cooking repertoire only consisted of “curry”, “stew”, “hashed meat with rice” or simple fried stuff from a single fry-pan like fried rice with vegetables.
“In that case, I can only teach the recipe to the kitchen staff once I thought of a feasible dish after taking a look at the available ingredients.”
Sitting on the couch and picking at the banana chips, Zenjirou muttered that while preparing a DVD to watch as a pastime.
At night of the same day, Aura and Zenjirou finally had some quality time again in their room of the inner palace after dinner and a bath.
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it. What do you say? May I turn the courtyard or a room in the inner palace into my practice room?”
They discussed Zenjirou’s idea from this morning: “exercise to stay healthy”.
“Mhm, I do not know what kind of exercise this so called soccer is, but if you want to keep yourself in shape, why not try your hand at martial arts? It does not hurt to learn the ‘ten arts’.”
“Ten arts?”
“Right. It refers to the ten martial arts that a soldier is supposed to learn in the Carpa Kingdom: Running, Spearmanship, Archery, Riding on Dragons, Tree Climbing, Swimming, Camping Outside, Stone Throwing, Swordsmanship and Barehanded Fighting.
“Oho…”
“Sounds interesting, but who would teach them to me?”
Aura replied while picking up a banana chip, whereupon Zenjirou showed an expression that seemed to say “figured as much”. Then he shook his head distinctly.
Zenjirou answered like that while recalling the faces of the club advisers from the soccer clubs in middle and high school.
It went without saying that a person would try to approach Zenjirou in some kind of way due to the chance of being his “instructor”.
Aura couldn’t hide her wry smile as she replied to him after swallowing the banana chip.
Zenjirou scratched his head upon his wife’s answer
and replied with that.
Aura kept silent for a while, then looked into the eyes of her husband sitting next to her.
“Then I will not press you any further. Still, when you say that you want to learn martial arts without being tied to a complicated person and without leaving the inner palace, then shall I teach you when I have time?”
“Eh? You?”
“Yes. Although I only have mastered the basic three skills plus riding and swordsmanship.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. Then I’ll take you up on it whenever you’re free.”
Aura nodded satisfied upon his reply and picked up a couple more banana chips from the wooden plate.
“…..”
In no time, the heap of banana chips had decreased so much that the bottom of the wooden plate became visible. Incidentally, Zenjirou had only eaten a handful.
“Hey, my dear wife.”
His wife only turned her head towards him while still holding onto the banana chips with her right hand. Zenjirou faltered for a moment, then opened his mouth without hesitation.
The large plate had been full to the brim with banana chips. Way too much for a little snack and overcharged with calories.
Aura finally stopped reaching out for the banana chips upon her husband’s words. Zenjirou stood up from the couch, took a chilled towel form the refrigerator and gave it to Aura.
“Oh, thanks.”
The extremely unusual rebuke of her husband made Aura shrug her shoulders rightfully as she wiped her hands, sitting on the couch.
The Carpa Kingdom spanned wide enough to have a coastline, but the capital with the palace was located in the deepest interior of the country. Therefore all fish dishes in the palace were made from river fishes without exception.
However, Zenjirou tilted his head puzzled upon Aura’s excuse.
Zenjirou himself had only ever eaten saltwater fishes in Japan, so he disliked river fishes a bit. Wouldn’t he notice it first when the fish tasted noticeable crude, since Aura was used to river fishes instead?
His own senses must have been dulled as he had been ill not long ago. Zenjirou concluded that all by himself and didn’t pursue the matter any further.
After Aura diligently wiped the oil from the banana chips off her right hand with the towel, she made an excuse like that, but Zenjirou naturally didn’t buy it.
Her husband sat down next to her again with these words, whereat Aura pursed her mouth up displeased and made more excuses.
“Yeah, sure, sure. Let’s save the rest for tomorrow, okay.”
“Hmm…”
“Oh, reminds me, I handed over our ‘wedding rings’ to Princess Isabelle to have them made into magic tools. Also, I presented her one of these ‘marbles’, since she estimated them for me. Forgive me for not consulting you as you were sick in bed.”
“Ah, no problem. They were only a backup for when the summoning fails anyway. I already told you that I’m leaving the decision about what to do with them to you.”
Aura assumed a slightly serious expression again and sat back down on the couch, starting to explain swiftly.
“Hmm, fifty gold coins for a single marble, huh.”
“If I remembered correctly, one gold coins is more or less worth a hundred silver coins? But I’ve no clue about the prices in this world, so just saying fifty gold coins doesn’t tell me anything.”
Since he had written the tax yields of every region into his computer, he knew at least the general currencies, but to be honest, it didn’t feel real to him.
“A whole house? That’s certainly amazing.”
(In Japanese yen, a whole house would cost several millions. Ah, but the prices for a property or the house itself might not be as high as in modern Japan)
“A different world means different prices. I anticipated that, but I’m still a bit surprised.”
Zenjirou casually replied to the curious Aura.
Oh, by ‘yen’ I mean the general currency of my country. The prices here are different, so you can’t covert them one-to-one, but know that a new-build house would cost at least ten million yen at the cheapest.”
“Considering these numbers, it would mean that two marbles could be bought with one silver coin.”
One marble was originally worth around ten yen, but here it was worth fifty gold coins. That was roughly a million times the value.
Zenjirou kept on talking about ideas and discarding them, but Aura stopped listening to them midway.
“Aura?”
“Ah, yeah. I did, why…?”
He was obviously retreating from her, but in her current state, Aura had no leeway to concern herself with that.
“Does that mean it is no mineral? I thought it was mined out of nature like crystals or agate…”
“Sand and lime… Do you know how to produce it?”
He repositioned himself on top of the couch and showed a wry smile, then shook his head.
Aura burst out in laughter right after hearing his answer.
Still holding his right arm with both her hands, Aura hung her head dejected on top of the couch.
“Ah, but one of episodes on the DVDs I brought along should be about trying to make glass. I doubt we’ll be able to copy it from just watching it, but want to take a look anyway?”
“I do!”
Zenjirou gently loosened his wife’s tight grip on his right arm and stood up to get the DVD.
A couple of minutes later, Zenjirou and Aura faced the television, sitting intimately shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch.
Next to Aura, who intensely glared at the screen with a serious expression, Zenjirou translated and explained the words of the characters or narrator while temporarily pausing the show numerous times with the remote control.
“Ehm, temperatures over 1300 degree are needed to melt glass. So you first build a furnace out of ‘firebricks’ that can endure such heat.”
“Ehm… I think they said the melting temperature for cast iron was 1200 during the previous episode where they stroke the iron, so it’s a temperature hundred degrees higher than the one for melting the unclean and hard iron.”
“That means somewhere else there are?”
“Oho, so a technological gap exists in this world, too.”
“Wait, what did they say just now?”
“…Then, how do you make them when you do not have any broken ‘firebricks’?”
The DVD played on with Aura’s mood slightly sour.
“Wait. What did that mean?”
“And how did they build that hearth?”
“…Then, where do you burn the firebricks when there is no place to get them from?”
Zenjirou continued his explanation while trembling a bit in fear next to his wife, whose mood became even more sour.
Her hope for a possible manufacture of glass must have been too high.
Even Zenjirou would go nuts for a bit when he was told that the moulds of clay, mixed with grinded “firebricks”, had to slowly burn in a hearth built with “firebricks” in the process of making “firebricks”.
“I mean, the first ‘firebricks’ were made without ‘firebricks’, correct? Do you know of that method?”
“Uhh…”
“Calm down, my dear wife.”
“Whoa, whoa.”
Seeing as Aura played along with Zenjirou’s jokes, her dissatisfaction must not be from the bottom of her heart.
Zenjirou confirmed the time with a side-glance to the clock and suggested that, but Aura mused for a bit, then shook her head.
“I doubt it.”
At the time displayed on the clock, he would normally already be getting intimate with her in the bedroom.
(Well, what choice do I have? Not like my wife will leave me)
“…Okay, my dear husband.”
Zenjirou showed a wry smile in her bind spot, so that she couldn’t see it, and twined the hand he had on the back of his beloved wife around her shoulders, then continued to interpret and explain the show while he pulled her body into an embrace.
The early afternoon on the next day.
“Excuse me, Your Highness. Do you feel anything when I press here?”
“And here?”
A voluptuous woman exposed her breasts and an older man felt up her body. On a glance, it looked rather lewd, but Aura was way too unashamed for it to be erotic and Doctor Michelle was simply focussed on his job.
“Okay, Your Highness, you may cover up your front now.”
Aura asked that while she retied the shoulder straps of her dress, whereat Doctor Michelle mused for a while with a wrinkle between his greyed eyebrows, then answered her question.
“Indeed. Also, when I stand up from a chair, my vision gets blurry.”
“Yes. The fish tasted rather crude and I excessively ate a flavourful food that I am usually not fond of.”
“Yes, though I was not aware of it until your exanimation.”
“Yes, but my ‘menstruation’ has always been irregular. During the war, it even had been late for half a year once.”
At first, she had suspected that she was under the weather and called for Doctor Michelle, but considering his question, she could more or less guess what he was going to say.
Pregnant.
This aged physician considered that the reason for Aura’s qualm.
As the last survivor of the royal family, Aura had the obligation to bear a child to continue her bloodline, but it had been her wish in equal measure, too.
Aura leaned forward on the chair and waited for the old physician’s words.
“I cannot be all too sure just yet, but as far as I see it, it is quite likely that you are pregnant. Still, when you are indeed pregnant, please be careful from now on as you are getting into the period with the highest chance of a miscarriage.”
“Oho, I see! But to think that the change in my sense of taste sprang from the pregnancy. I had thought for sure that one would crave for fruits during a pregnancy.”
In the worst case, one may even be thirsting for alcohol and the most unmanageable type ‘does not want to eat anything’, combined with the morning sickness that comes later.”
Aura loved alcohol, even without an exceptional appetite, so she inquired while slightly twisting the mouth.
“That goes without saying. There are a lot of other things you have to take heed of, too. In the first place, the amount of alcohol you usually imbibe is a bit…”
Aura showed the frowning physician a wry smile and raised both her arms in defeat.
“Eh, pregnant!? Really?”
He literally jumped up from the couch, rushed towards Aura, who still stood at the entrance of the room, and inspected her stomach from a short distance.
“Well, it is not certain yet. Just the probability for it is high. My ‘menstruation’ is rather irregular, so not even Doctor Michelle could make a definite statement. Naturally, I will act with the assumption from now on that there is a child in my stomach, seeing as the probability is high. I believe it will cause you some inconveniences as well, but I ask for your help.”
Zenjirou answered Aura as she sat down on the couch, but like most males in this situation, it still didn’t feel real to him that he would become a father and he moved about in confusion.
Until yesterday, he had embraced her shoulders and pushed her down on the bed like it was nothing, but suddenly the body of his wife seemed like a fragile object.
When all is said and done, it was a first experience for Aura, too. Their individual feelings might not be comparable, but she was possibly more nervous than him.
“Ah, right, okay. Mhm, a baby, huh.”
It was an overwhelming feeling like the joy and worry weighted on him like a pressure. A tension that made him want to run away, even though there was no way that he wasn’t happy about it.
He rubbed the palms of his hands together as to warm up his tensed fingertips while he asked a relevant question to disguise his tension.
The bed they usually slept in was ridiculous huge with a size bigger than a one-room mansion in downtown, but they slept in the middle of it while embracing each other.
Aura had kept smiling the whole time, but on Zenjirou’s argument her face twitched.
“Right. Doctor Michelle also said it would certainly pose a remote danger to share the bed now that I am under the suspicion of being pregnant.”
“Then we can’t afford to sleep together. Tonight we’ve no other choice but to sleep in separate rooms and tomorrow, we’ll have them add another bed to our bedroom during the day. Then I’ll sleep on that one from tomorrow on.”
The suggestion sounded very attractive to the wife, but Aura was a Queen before a wife, so she couldn’t agree to it right away.
She asked him while keeping her serious expression.
Zenjirou couldn’t comprehend the meaning behind her question and made a dumbfounded utterance.
“When you still let me into the bedroom while I am pregnant, it would mean that you cannot invite ‘other women’ into the bedroom, you know?”
In short, Aura implied the possibility that Zenjirou would lay hands on other women while she was pregnant.
He had learned in the last few months that very few males amongst royalty have had only one wife.
Zenjirou, realising his own situation, openly frowned, then replied with a tone that sounded like he would click his tongue any moment.
His statement was slightly exaggerated, but true to eighty percent. Right now might be one thing, but it certainly was going too far to say that he would worry about Aura’s well-being the whole long time until she gave birth, but in the unlikely event that he accepted a concubine, Aura’s face would definitely pop up in his head if he were to share the bed with the concubine.
His words sounded a bit like a passionate confession of love, so Aura stopped her cheeks from blushing with her willpower and replied while still keeping a serious expression.
“Well, I guess… but Aura, you told me to be a bit more selfish, right? Will you accept it as my selfishness when I say that ‘I don’t want that’?”
She felt a joy that heated up her body to the bone and didn’t even hide her surprise.
Zenjirou sat down on the black leather couch again, then looked straight into Aura’s eyes and nodded.
Well, I’m aware that I’ve to fulfil my role as royalty once I married you, so I’ll do my best to somehow accept one if it puts you or the country at a disadvantage when I refuse, but… to be honest, I’m not confident that I can pull it off.”
Zenjirou showed a wry smile on Aura’s evaluation and denied it with a wave of his hand in front of his face.
I might have even resorted to adultery if it were possible to freely move between our worlds. So I’m not really upright. Just like I said before, it’s just my selfishness.
“Hardly probable that it will become awkward. I certainly will not be pleased when you sleep with another woman, but I know my place as royalty enough as not to express it.”
“It would be awkward for me. I’m not so impudent as to have an affair at night and ask my pregnant wife ‘how’s our child?’ during the day.”
Aura was at a loss for words.
(Oh… Before I knew it, I expected my husband, a commoner from a different world, to have the same values as nobles in our world)
In a way, she had been “spoilt“ by him.
(Not good. I told him to be more selfish, but in my mind, I took it for “granted” that he would not be selfish…)
It came in an unexpected way, but her husband mentioned his first selfishness. She wanted to comply with it, if possible. Moreover, it concerned the “refusal of a concubine”, so naturally, Aura gladly wanted to grant that “selfishness” on an emotional level, too.
In the worst case, it would be misunderstood as Aura’s selfishness instead of Zenjirou’s.
The criticism wouldn’t be fatal, if others were come to the wrong conclusion that Aura ignored her husband’s will and rejected the concubine, but quite painful nevertheless.
“Fine. I will try my best to have it settled in accordance with your will. I promise you. However, I am the Queen. Although it is a familial promise, I will have to break it if brings about a large disadvantage to my country that I cannot ignore.
Aura lowered her head a bit with a serious face, whereupon Zenjirou showed her his usual gentle smile for the first time today.
Aura raised her head as he spoke and relaxed her expression on his words.
Saying so, she stood up from the couch.
The words “one more night in the same bed wouldn’t hurt” were on the tip of his tongue, but Zenjirou forcibly swallowed them down and stood up.
“Okay. Be careful. Try to keep your stomach warm.”
“Ahaha. It just shows how important you and that baby are.”
The six LED floor lamps were placed around the main living area, namely the center of the room, so the space, where she was standing, was gloomy.
Amidst this gloominess, Aura faced her husband one more time before grabbing the door knob and twined her arms around his neck.
Zenjirou accepted the embrace without protest and put his hands on his wife’s back and waist, then pulled her voluptuous brown body closer and kissed her lightly.
“Mm… Mmm… Good night.”
After they exchange a kiss and an embrace to feel each other’s warmth, Aura left the room with a regretful smile.
After wishing her husband a good night, the Queen headed not to a different bedroom, but to a room in the palace.
The middle-aged man with a slender face, standing in the dark room, asked and bowed respectfully.
Aura said with a casual tone, then lowered her bottom onto the chair made of vines as energetic as always, but stopped midday as she suddenly came to a realisation and sat down with care.
Secretary Fabio used the fire of an oil pan to lit the candles on the candle stands while Aura leaned back and started to talk with her eyes still upturned.
“Oho? How rare. What did he say?”
Aura then let her secretary, who warily narrowed his eyes to slits, in on the earlier conversation with her husband with a carefree tone.
“I see now. In other words, he would rather share the bedroom with Your Highness, whom he cannot sleep with, than to sleep with a concubine. Oh my, you sure are loved, Your Highness.”
“Yes. Thanks to that, I am blessed with the happiest married life ever. Still, for that very reason, I have to reflect on myself now. It appears that I took my ‘sympathetic husband’ for far too granted.”
The secretary assumed a poker face and assented to Aura’s words with a small nod.
“Fabio, if you have something to say, say it outright.”
“No, I was just thinking ‘every man to his taste’, but without any malice.”
“Oh? Then do you consider yourself to be the right stuff that men love?”
Aura showed a fierce expression of anger to her secretary’s affected question, but had troubles to object.
Aura herself was aware of that. Of course she wasn’t dissatisfied with her appearance or character, but when she compared herself to an ideal “woman loved by men” like Lady Octavia, she started to have some doubts.
“Well, anyway, this incident was a real eye-opener to me because it seems that I have overvalued my husband a bit, too.
“So it seems. Though royalty and nobility, respectively have to accept something like a concubine as ‘ordinary’.”
“It would be pretentious to expect that from my husband. He is already so very sympathetic and fully understands my position. We never expected a husband that would wholly conduct himself according to our wishes from the beginning, did we?”
“Indeed. However, the refusal of a concubine will not come across as a selfishness from Zenjirou-sama at this point. It will be understood as your selfishness, saying that the Queen keeps other women away from Zenjirou-sama out of jealousy at best.”
Secretary Fabio had struck a nerve, so Aura pressed onto her temples with the thumb and middle finger of her right hand and made a big sigh.
“If you want to grant his selfishness no matter what, then it is necessary that Zenjirou-sama puts himself on the line to a certain extent and actively takes the blame for it.”
It was the same as telling Zenjirou to ruin his reputation to protect Aura’s.
Aura grimaced, whereat her secretary replied with cold words while remaining inexpressive.
Aura clicked her tongue in reaction to Secretary Fabio’s words.
She had been prepared for it, but that was quick.
While Aura sighed yet again, Secretary Fabio broached a different topic as he suddenly thought of it.
Aura raised the volume of her voice a bit surprised upon his words.
“It seems he wants to directly express his gratitude for receiving the ‘dragon bow’ from Zenjirou-sama and pledge his loyalty anew on this occasion.”
Aura recalled the circumstances and was convinced by its inevitableness.
The general must have passed on the “dragon bow” to a promising knight like he was told.
“So, is that knight called Ontario a problematic one? Zenjirou ordered for it to be handed to the one with the greatest ‘loyalty to the royal family’, you know.”
Her secretary denied the question she had asked with strained shoulders.
Well, it seems he is in favour with General Puyol, seeing as he received the ‘dragon bow’ from him, but I doubt he is swayed that easily.”
The secretary consented unaffected to her words.
“…..”
The secretary nonchalantly gave his master, who showed an expression like suppressing a sour face, the final blow.
General Puyol’s aim was as transparent as ever.
“…Where is Knight Otario stationed?”
The words from her secretary were exactly what Aura had expected. The knight with the borrowed “dragon bow” was transferred to the elite unit “Dragonback Archery Knights”. At least on the surface, it embodied no problem at all.
“That means he gave up on his ambition to make his little sister a concubine for my husband?”
“The man is as transparent as ever…”
“Good grief, what a pain.”
The secretary said that to the sighing Queen with a tone void of any feelings, then bowed courteous.