Prologue: Dawn of the Second Year
A certain night exactly one month after Queen Aura of the Carpa Kingdom safely gave birth to her first child. The Capital was overflowing with fires, dispelling the night, and merry glee.
In the business district, the majority of the taverns had lit a couple of oil pans within the store and a special night business boomed.
Because tonight was a night to be remembered, where they celebrated the news that most citizens of the Carpa Kingdom had eagerly awaited: The birth of a healthy first prince.
“To the health of Queen Aura!”
“To the future of the Carpa Kingdom!”
“Cheers!”
Shouts of joy and the sounds of wooden mugs, filled with alcohol, clashing against each other resounded through the bar at night.
Tonight was a festival to celebrate the birth of the prince. He was actually born one month ago, but the medical treatment was undeveloped in this world, so there was no guarantee that the child would live on without problems, even if it was royalty. Therefore it was customary to celebrate the birth one month after the actual birthday.
Still, while it was true that the guests here were celebrating the birth of the prince, it was just as true that most of them were simply elated about “eating and drinking for free”.
They prepared the oil or wood for the bonfires, paid the taverns up front and arranged for soldiers to patrol, so that no fires or fights would occur.
Although the royal family was catering “free drinks and food”, it was limited to cheap fruit wine and a cheap soup, which was made in a cauldron all at once.
In the end, the taverns were operating quite in the black, even if the sponsoring from the royal family wasn’t counted.
A corpulent man, sitting on a chair inside the bar with spread legs, declared that with a loud voice and heavily pounded his empty mug onto the table. The wooden mug made a melodic sound as it hit the wooden table.
The one, who replied like that, was a man sitting across from him. That man was relatively slender compared to the man in front of him, but on a closer look, one could tell that his body was firm and trained from manual labour. Most likely, the two of them were doing some kind of physical labour in the capital.
The soup only consisted of chunks of plantain, cheap leaf vegetables and a token amount of meat from a disused dragon (meaning meat from raptorial or hulking dragons that were no longer deployable due to old age), but it was strongly flavoured with salt and spices, so it was plenty delicious when eaten warm.
A common way to overcome the brutal heat in the Carpa Kingdom was to sweat by slurping some spicy soup and to replenish the sweated share by drinking during the heat.
The sturdy man agreed with the slender man. They were around their mid-thirties and a closer look revealed that their arms or chests, peeking out of their clothes, were covered with scars that seemed to stem from a sword or arrow. Considering their age, they most likely had been soldiers in the previous war and experienced the horror of war.
“Right. Still, if they’re going to serve free wine and food, I wish they would’ve done so from noon on. Half a day’s wasted. Well, the night’s its charm, too.”
“Hah! ‘Its charm’? Talking big now, huh? Well, not that I can’t relate. Children are a windfall. You can’t control when they’re born.”
People would die or faint one after another when they raised their glasses to the prosperity of the county amidst temperatures that far exceeded the body temperature. In this season with the lasting heat, people stayed indoors and avoided efforts as much as possible. And when they absolutely had to go outside, they had to cover themselves with a hooded cloak, not exposing the slightest part of their bodies directly to the sunlight.
By that definition, the night was indeed “cool”, since all the men, revelling in the bar, were able to dress in sleeveless shirts and thin trousers.
After finishing his hot soup, the slender man fanned out his collar, but this sultry night wasn’t so innocent that doing so would make it any cooler.
At the end of his limit, the slender man turned around on his chair and reached out for the wooden ladle leaning against the wall behind him while he said that with a voice loud enough to resound through the whole bar.
“Yeah, it’s friggin’ hot!”
All guests in the tavern expressed their approval at once
Having gotten the consent from the others, the man stood up from his chair, then headed for the long and narrow water bucket, which was standing in the corner of the room, with the big ladle in hand.
The room temperature was lowered a bit just from having the bucket there and when someone splashed the water from it onto the floor, just like the man was about to do now, then its vaporization chilled down the room considerably.
A bit of water like that dried in no time in face of this temperature, which was still over thirty-five degree in the middle of the night.
“Oh, splash all you want. Or might as well send it flying!”
Send it flying.
In other words, he was saying that he should amply spray the water over their heads instead of sparsely splash it to their feet.
“Yeah, do it!”
“Hold it! Wait until we cover our food!”
As to substantiate it, the shopkeeper, keeping an eye on the cauldron behind his counter, also made no attempts to stop them and just showed a wry smile on his frowned, brown face.
“Be careful not to hit the oil pans.”
Hearing that, the man grinned broadly, saying “got it”, and plunged the tip of the ladle into the square water bucket. Then,
He swung the filled ladle in a wide arc with his right hand and let it rain over the bar at night.
“Oh, so refreshing!”
“Don’t be so stingy with it. C’mon, more!”
“Aw, shuddap. Gimme a sec.”
“Fuh, feels good! Long live the Queen!”
“Long live the Carpa Kingdom!”
“And while we’re at it, ehm, huh? What was his name again? …Anyway, long live Queen Aura’s husband!”
Apparently “Zenjirou’s” name recognition as Queen Aura’s husband was so low that the common folk in the outskirts couldn’t remember his name when their ability to think was dulled by the alcohol.
A new morning was breaking.
As soon as the scorching sun appeared over the horizon, business took place as usual.
In the streets of the capital at dawn, people were already full of life and taking up their work.
A bustling, but lively morning in the Capital. Although the inner palace stood in the heart of that very Capital, his room was the only place that had nothing to do with that bustle and Zenjirou greeted a calm morning like any other day.
Zenjirou greatly stretched himself in the room, which looked chaotic on a glance and had classic furniture in an exotic style combined with mass-produced electronic appliances from Japan.
“Fuh… Kuh…!”
Once the window, ornamented with detailed carvings, was opened, stifling air and sunlight so strong that it seemed unlikely it came from the morning sun, found their way inside.
Faced with the mighty light and aggressive heat invading after opening the window, Zenjirou unconsciously turned his face away. As his eyes had been used to the darkness, the bright sunlight stung them, but the heat was even more intense.
He instinctively said that with a serious face.
This living room, where he usually spent his time, and the bedroom next door were cooled down by the ventilator and water buckets around-the-clock.
Zenjirou frowned in response to the stream of hot air, merciless coming in through the open window, and quickly took the tools, so he could get the task over with and shut the window again as soon as possible.
“Good, I’m right on time.”
A small, needle-like nail stood vertically in the centre of the frame.
“…Now!”
7:00
As soon as the liquid crystals in the table clock displayed that time, Zenjirou drew a line with the mechanical pencil by tracing over the shadow line on the window frame.
This had become a daily morning routine for him these days.
He mumbled while looking at the screen of the digital camera. This routine was only a few days old, but every day, he was drawing the same shadow line at the same time, yet the line shifted slightly to the side every day.
This matter, too, was something he had decided to investigate at long last now.
“Well, the clocks from Earth still are applicable even now after a year without tuning, so it’s certain that one day has as good as twenty-four hours either way.”
If that weren’t the case, the clocks he had brought with him would no longer be useful by now. For example, even if a day was only longer by a single minute, it would account for a discrepancy of three-hundred and sixty-five minutes when projected to three-hundred and sixty-five days. To make it easier to understand: Three-hundred and sixty-five minutes amounted to roughly six hours.
“Ignoring the discrepancy in dates, I could measure the discrepancy of one day, if I record the position of the shadow exactly one year later, but… the problem is, I don’t even have the guarantee that one year has three-hundred and sixty-five days here.”
The calendar of this world had a total of twelve months from which six months had twenty-nine days and the other six had thirty days. In short, a year had three-hundred and fifty-four days. However, that apparently caused an obvious discrepancy, so they regulated that by adding an intercalary month every couple of years, making it a year with thirteen months.
“If I could somehow be sure that this world has the same 24/365 allocation as Earth, I would be able to make a few useful suggestions.”
Of course he had no intention to change the current calendar, which the citizen were used to, for his own convenience.
The current calendar caused a discrepancy of about thirty days, since it added an intercalary month every few years.
Due to that, the periods for sowing and harvesting were currently all based on the experience and intuition of the farmers in the Carpa Kingdom.
Nevertheless, the creation of an accurate calendar and the gathering of weather data throughout the year along with it, should prove to be useful in some way in the future.
The sound from knocking on the entrance door resonated trough the wide living room.
Zenjirou looked at the clock reflexively.
While tilting his head puzzled, he raised a voice, whereupon the door opened. Beyond it stood exactly the person, whom he expected.
“Good morning, Zenjirou.”
The tall beauty, tightly holding a small baby against her voluptuous chest like a treasure, was accompanied by two waiting maids behind her and smiled at him.
Zenjirou returned the gentle smile on par with hers and beckoned his wife with their child, into the room.
“Excuse me, but is this position suitable?”
As Aura was sitting on the couch across of him, its effect didn’t reach her, but that was alright for now. She was holding their one-month old baby in her arms after all. It was not a good idea to directly blow cold air onto the sensitive skin of a baby.
“Yes, well done. You may leave.”
Keeping her gaze down on the child in her arms, Queen Aura said that, whereupon the two waiting maids, who had positioned the ice and ventilator, lowered their heads respectfully, then retreated.
The mother dandled the child and the father watched over her. Such a scene was ordinary all over the world, but it wasn’t all that usual for Zenjirou and Aura.
Zenjirou asked his wife, who was sitting across of him, this in the living room after the maids had left.
Just like Zenjirou had said, Aura would normally have no time to relax like this.
“Yes. Today’s meeting is with Marquis Guzzle. And since the crucial party is arriving late, the start of the meeting has to be postponed.”
“Oh, I see. That’s great. Wait, can I say it like that?”
Aura showed a wry smile for a moment, but right afterwards, she resumed her broad smile and said that, peeking at the face of the child in her arms.
The one-month old baby— Carlos looked up to his mother’s face and laughed happily.
Curly hair in a glossy olive brown tone. A big pair of black wide eyes. Skin coloured in a mixture of brown and yellow. ‘My parental bias aside, could it be that he’s the most adorable being in this world?’ Zenjirou was actually thinking that for real, but he was the only one, who didn’t realize that his opinion couldn’t be biased any more, seeing as he especially added “parental bias aside”.
“Ahh? Kyakya!”
As he liked the reaction of his son, Zenjirou then repeated it over and over and over again.
“Kyakya, Kyakya!”
“Zenjirou, I can relate that you want to make Carlos laugh, but please stop doing these ‘weird faces’ one after another. As your wife I cannot help but feel sad about it, even if I am his mother.”
For a moment, Zenjirou wanted to object with “what’s the point of putting on airs at this point?”, but when he looked at it the other way around, he could understand Aura’s standpoint a bit, too.
Politeness is not just for strangers.
The Queen gave her husband, who reluctantly ceased to do “weird faces”, an affectionate gaze, which differed from the one she was giving their child, and said in slightly teasing manner.
Zenjirou was a bit taken by surprise by the words of this wife and showed that on his face, but nodded.
Their child certainly had another name. A Japanese name that Zenjirou had given him. It was a lot less known in the world than the name “Carlos”, but he had chosen the name for that very reason. After all, this name definitely made up a part of their child, too.
“…Zenkichi.”
After taking a deep breath, Zenjirou called the name in a whisper, as if breathing only a little bit of the air that brimmed his lungs, out.
The second name for his child that he had come up with after a lot of consideration.
In the end, he had given his son the name Zenkichi.
“Carlos Zenkichi Carpa”
That was the official name of this baby, the first prince of the Carpa Kingdom.
It was also possible that he would be called “His Majesty King Carlo-Zen” in the future. But then, “Prince Carlos” was mainly used amongst the common folk, so it was quite likely that he would simply be called “Carlos III”.
“Fuah… Fuah… Fueeeh…”
Half-rising from the couch, Zenjirou called out to him worried, but his wife
answered without any agitation.
He made a sigh of relief upon his wife’s assurance, then asked something he had suddenly realized.
The Queen nodded to her husband’s question.
She mentioned the name of the wet nurse, who was usually taking care of their child.
Nonetheless, from Cassandra’s point of view, it was surprisingly easy to take care of Carlos, seeing as she had three children herself.
The breast milk, milked from the breasts during the day, was perfectly safe to use for around another day, too, when kept cold, so the wet nurse was relieved from the task to have to wake up to breast-feed the baby when it cried in the middle of the night, since it could be fed the stored breast milk, warmed to body temperature, with the baby bottle.
Luckily enough, Carlos was a good sucker, so he could drink the milk from the wet nurse’s breasts, from Aura’s breasts or even from the baby bottle without problems.
“Yeah, sure.”
To satisfy his child’s hunger as soon as possible, he stood behind his wife, who had her red hair tied up, on the couch and reached out for her shoulders.
“Aura, tilt your head a bit to the side.”
Aura obediently inclined her head to the right, whereupon Zenjirou reached out for her right left shoulder from behind and untied the strap there.
One side of her dress gently slipped down and exposed one of Aura’s big breasts.
With one breast bared, the Queen promptly brought her voluminous breast closer to her child’s face.
The baby’s reaction was dramatic.
“Mm… Mmm… Mm…”
Aura looked down at her child, who was sucking on her breast, which had gotten even bigger than before due to the pregnancy, with a truly affectionate gaze while holding him firmly.
Once he confirmed that Carlos had stopped crying, Zenjirou sat down on the other couch again.
“…..”
The baby was drinking milk with all its might while the mother held it. And the father was watching over them from a bit apart.
“Eat your fill. Now is the only time I can give you milk today.”
“…BURP.”
“Mh? What is the matter? Done already?”
Zenjirou, too, couldn’t help but make a gentle smile when he saw his child with drool and milk around his mouth. However, this gentle expression of his crumbled upon Aura’s next words.
“Did you drink your fill? I see, you are full. Then the rest is ‘for Papa’.”
“Papa won’t drink it, you know!? Mama, stop making scandalous jokes in front of Zenkichi!”
Zenjirou resolutely objected with a frantic expression in front of the mother dandling the sleepy baby.