Prologue — Beginning of the Second Year

It was nighttime, roughly one month after Queen Aura of the Kingdom of Capua had safely delivered her first child. The streets of the capital were filled with shouts of joy and cheerful flames, driving away the darkness.

Huge bonfires blazed at the crossroads on the main streets and in the parks, and soldiers patrolled the city, accompanied by torchbearers. In the business district, the majority of food establishments were lit by oil lamps, open until much later than usual.

Most places didn’t normally operate at night; in addition to their lighting expenditure increasing, there was also a greater risk of fires. Tonight was an exception, though. Tonight they were celebrating the wondrous news that most of the citizens had been waiting for: the birth of the first prince of Capua.

Calls echoed throughout one bar as patrons brought their wooden tankards together.

“To our queen’s health!”

“To Prince Carlos’s birth!”

“To the future of Capua!”

“Cheers!”

The only illumination in the room was an oil lamp in each corner, but the atmosphere made even the dim light seem like it was shining brightly. This was a commemoration of the prince’s birth.

The birth itself had happened one month prior, but not even royalty could guarantee that a child would survive given the lower level of medical development in this world. So it was customary not to celebrate a birth until the following month.

That much-awaited night had finally arrived, and the capital would be bustling until dawn. Of course, while even the drunks were celebrating the good news, the majority of them were far more excited about the free food and booze on offer. The royal family was covering most of the costs for the night’s revelries. They had arranged for firewood and oil for the lamps, and had donated money to the places that would be open. They had also sent soldiers to patrol the streets and prevent fires and fights.

This was by no means a light burden upon the country as it continued to recover from the war, but they could never put a price on such an auspicious occasion. Besides, the extravagant spending would have the secondary effect of temporarily stimulating the capital’s economy.

Furthermore, while the royal family was giving out free food and drinks, it was only the cheap fruit liqueurs and soup cooked in bulk. These were enough to fill a person’s stomach and get them drunk, but a fair few would grow more generous as they drank, and fork out extra money from their own pockets for better products in spite of themselves. Even discounting the money coming from the royal treasury, each establishment would be making a considerable profit.

“Man, we’ve had nothing but good news lately. We won the war, the queen got married, and now a year later, we have a prince. It’s all too much,” exclaimed a muscular man as he sat in one of the chairs, legs splayed. He thumped his empty tankard down onto the table, the knock of wood against wood making a pleasant sound.

“Well, the war lasted for years. This is to make up for all the hell from that,” answered the man sitting across from him. He was far more slender than his companion, but upon a closer inspection, one could tell that he was merely lean and had been tempered by years of hard work.

The two of them were probably city laborers. The slighter man scooped up some of his piping-hot soup with a wooden spoon, ferrying it to his mouth. The broth consisted of green bananas, cheap leafy vegetables, and a pitiful serving of drake meat (from dash drakes and the like that had lost their utility due to age). The salt and spices gave it a strong flavor, though, and it was quite tasty if you ate it while it was hot.

Salt, spices, and brown sugar were all relatively cheap in Capua, so even commoners often had heavily seasoned meals. Slurping up soup that was spiced enough to make you sweat, then rehydrating to replace what you lost by sweating was the way most Capuans overcame the country’s overwhelming temperatures.

“Aye, sounds about right. No harm in a bit of good luck after that mess,” the bulkier man agreed.

The two of them looked to be in their mid-thirties. A closer examination of each man would have revealed sword and arrow wounds on their arms and chests peeking out from behind their clothes. Taking their ages into account, they had likely served in the war. With that in mind, the conviction in their voices was no surprise.

“About right. Still, if they were going to hand out food and booze anyway, I wish they’d have done it since noon. Half a day wasted. Then again, there’s a certain charm to eating at night like this,” the smaller man commented as he returned the spoon to his bowl.

“Hah! Forget your ‘charm.’ I get what you mean, though; kids are a blessing, and you can’t choose when you’ll receive them.”

Such a celebration would normally last for an entire day, but the country was unfortunately in the middle of its hottest season. The sweltering temperatures of over forty degrees affected their day-to-day lives. If people raised their drinks to the kingdom while temperatures were higher than those of their own bodies, many would fall victim to heatstroke and death.

As a rule, people stayed inside and conserved their energy as much as possible during the day. When they absolutely had to go out, a thick, hooded overcoat to protect against the sun was needed. The overcoats were mainly made of heavy cotton (thin, breathable linen was only cooling when the heat was less than body temperature). However much the wind blew, if it was warmer than one’s body, it would not provide any relief.

Taking that into account, it was probably only due to how “cool” the night was that the men now reveling in the bar were wearing light sleeveless shirts and pants. Still, that was only when compared to the murderous heat of midday—even the night was quite hot.

The slender man had finished his soup and now flapped the collar of his shirt, but the air wasn’t cool enough for such an action to be much help.

“Ugh, I can’t take it. I’m gonna chuck some water down; you lot good with that?” he called out loudly enough that the whole bar heard. He twisted in his chair and reached for the wooden ladle that was resting against the wall behind him.

“Woo, go for it!”

“Yeah, it’s roastin’ in here!”

“No one’s arguing!”

His fellow patrons around the bar shouted their assent.

“Here we go, then.”

With their enthusiastic support, the man got to his feet and took the ladle in hand before walking over to a nearby tank of water.

It was customary for local establishments to have water tanks—a staple of the service industry. Simply storing the water inside lowered the temperature of the room, and sprinkling it on the floor allowed its evaporation to cool the building a bit. That, of course, led to water collecting in the dips of the flagstones, and it would wet the patrons’ shoes and pants, but no one in the bar was particular enough to concern themselves with such trifles. Facing temperatures of over thirty-five degrees even at night, a small amount of water would dry before they knew it anyway.

“Come on! Hurry up, make it rain!” yelled one of the men.

“Make it rain.” Or, in other words, douse the men rather than just spreading the water around the room. Wetting the floor was one thing, but spraying the customers themselves was considered rather crude even for Capua. However, this bar was on the outskirts of the city, and the provocation received a round of cheers and applause.

“Yeah! Toss it ’round!”

“I’m gonna melt at this rate!”

“Hold on! At least till the lid’s on the food!”

The soup bowls and lightly baked bread were all covered quickly and efficiently. It seemed that “making it rain” was a relatively common practice in this establishment.

Proving the point was the barkeep’s reaction as he watched over the large pot behind the counter. His tanned face simply wrinkled into a reluctant grin, and he didn’t try to stop the other. On the contrary, he offered his permission, telling them, “Mind the lamps would you?”

The slender man chuckled and agreed, thrusting the ladle into the rectangular tank. “You lot ready? Here we go!”

His right arm flashed out in an arc, and water came raining down. The droplets soared through the air, sparkling in the light from the lamps.

“Whoa, cold!”

“Ahhh, I’m alive!”

“C’mon! Don’t be so cheap! More!”

The patrons’ reactions came in a barrage of noise.

“Ah, shut it! Gimme a minute.”

The man upended the ladle over his own head, reveling in the chill before splattering the water around again and again.

“Ahh, that’s great! Long live the queen!”

“Yeah, long live Prince Carlos!”

“Long live Capua!”

The pleasure from the cooling water soon had the patrons yelling out their benedictions again.

“Also, uh...what’s his name again? Whatever; long live the queen’s husband too!”

Aura’s husband, Zenjirou, wasn’t yet well known enough that the alcohol-addled minds of these commoners on the city outskirts could call up his name.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

The night ended and dawn broke. The time of celebration was over, and the scorching sun rose over the horizon, casting its light over a perfectly normal day. This particular time of day, especially during the hottest part of the year, was valuable. The sun lit up the area, but the temperature had yet to rise in earnest.

People rose with the sun, bustling through the streets of the city. It was customary to remain inside when the temperature was at its peak, and to nap through the hottest part of the afternoon to conserve energy. This meant that if they didn’t make the most of the mornings and evenings, the people wouldn’t have enough time to finish everything they needed to do.

In spite of the hurried movements on the streets as the city came to life, Zenjirou was, as ever, relaxing in the inner palace, completely removed from the tumult despite his home being situated in the heart of the capital. The room was a mix of exotic, classical furniture and mass-produced consumer electronics from Japan.

He sprawled out, surrounded by the mishmash of local and otherworldly items. A single shaft of light shone through a crack in the still-closed shutters, so despite the day beginning in earnest, the room itself was still more “dark” than “dimly lit.”

Zenjirou let out a grunt of exertion as he stretched his arms and rolled his neck. He was wearing a white T-shirt and black linen slacks. As he opened the finely detailed shutters, sunlight filled the room, brighter than one would have expected for the early hour, and with it came the overwhelming heat.

“Whoa!”

He gasped at the sudden assault of hot air, turning away from the open window. The bright light stabbed into his eyes, accustomed to the darkness as they were, but worse was the heat, and he was unable to stop himself from commenting.

“Man, forget being uncomfortable; it feels like it’s going to kill me.”

The seething air made it seem like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, and even deep breaths felt suffocating. Zenjirou usually had a water tank and fan to cool him down in the living room and neighboring bedroom, but recently, he’d been diverting his ice to where the little prince slept, so the temperatures were higher than he was used to.

Still, the difference between the dark interior of the room and the blistering heat beyond was like night and day, and it was much more pleasant inside. He scowled at the open window and gathered his equipment so that he could close the shutters as soon as possible, quickly fetching a digital clock, mechanical pencil, and camera from the corner of the room.

“Great. Perfect timing,” he said to himself, placing the clock on the windowsill and checking the camera’s screen with a nod.

There was a thin nail embedded vertically within the frame. Zenjirou kept his eyes on the slender shadow drawn by it and the clock, waiting patiently.

“Now!”

As soon as the screen displayed “7:00:00,” Zenjirou traced along the shadow. Immediately afterwards, he took a picture with the camera. The characteristic delay from the camera was followed by the click of the shutter as the integrated clock read “7:00:09.”

This was an exercise that Zenjirou had recently added to his daily routine.

“Hmm, it’s changing bit by bit. I don’t know how to tell if that’s because the day isn’t twenty-four hours long, or just that sunrise and sunset happen at different times,” he muttered, examining the photo.

Since he had started this project, he’d attempted to record the same shadow at the same time, but the line was moving a little each day. It was his second year in this world, and he had fulfilled his most important duty of providing Aura with an heir. That meant he could now turn his interests towards more mundane curiosities about his new world.

This was one of the things he had decided to look into—how the calendar here worked.

“Well, the clock’s still usable after a year, even without adjusting it, so a day is more or less twenty-four hours,” he mused.

If not, the clock would have been useless by now. If the length of a day had differed by even a single minute, three hundred and sixty-five days would have meant a drift of that many minutes, or about six hours total.

A change of six hours would have been obvious, even if he only had vague impressions from the sunrise and sunset, which meant that if there was a difference in the length of a day, it was too slight to notice. Still...

“If I measure that shadow exactly a year from now, I could measure the difference in a day without worrying about errors related to the date. The problem is, there’s no guarantee that a year is exactly three hundred and sixty-five days.”

He let out another sigh. The calendar here consisted of six months with twenty-nine days, and six months with thirty days, to make twelve months in all. By that reckoning, a year was three hundred and fifty days. However, that created a clear discrepancy between the calendar months and the solar year, so every few years they added an intercalary month for a year of thirteen months to correct it.

Rough calculations from the calendar let Zenjirou feel fairly confident that a year was three hundred and sixty-five days here as well.

“Man, I could probably give them some useful suggestions if I was sure the lengths of the years and days were the same as Earth’s,” he muttered, closing the shutters.

Of course, he wasn’t intending to alter their established calendar for his own selfish reasons, but an accurate solar calendar would certainly be useful. An intercalary month once over several years meant that there was a disparity of close to thirty days during some years.

Compared to Earth, it was the equivalent of May during one year being the same as April the year before, which made it easy to see how useless it was to define the seasons that way. At the very least, it would have been unsuitable for planning the planting and harvesting periods throughout the year. This meant that Capua currently relied on the experience and intuition of their farmers to know when to plant and harvest.

“It’ll take decades of gathering data before it could beat a veteran’s experience. They don’t even have thermometers here.”

Regardless, he told himself, an accurate calendar and yearly climate data could be of some use in the future. With that thought, he switched on the six lamps, illuminating the room with artificial light.

A knock sounded from across the wide room. A maid would have immediately announced her business, so the lack of any such statement meant there was only one person it could be.

Reflexively, Zenjirou’s eyes found their way to the clock.

“Huh? She’s usually in meetings now. Well, anyway, come on in,” he said, puzzled as he opened the door.

The face greeting him was indeed the one he had expected to see.

“Morning, Zenjirou,” the tall woman returned with a smile, flanked by two maids and cradling their baby like a jewel.

“Morning, Aura,” he replied with an equally bright smile as he ushered his wife and son into the room.

“Excuse me,” asked a maid, “is this location suitable?” She had grown familiar with their routine over the past year and had already taken the huge block of ice from the freezer, setting it up in the path of the fan next to where the family was sitting.

The fan sent the chilly breeze straight towards the sofa Zenjirou had settled into. Aura was on the opposite couch, so the breeze didn’t quite reach her, but that was fine. Her arms were currently occupied by a month-old baby, and it wasn’t ideal to have a cold breeze blowing directly onto a newborn’s delicate skin.

“Indeed. Good work. You may leave,” the queen replied, her gaze still on the bundle in her arms.

“Very well. Please excuse us,” the maids answered in unison, bowing before they withdrew.

The door shut with a thud, leaving husband and wife alone with their child. The scene of a mother with a baby in her arms, and her husband watching over them, was a common one that seemed to span cultures, but that was not the case for this family.

“Aren’t you normally in meetings by now? What changed?” he asked Aura once they were alone in the room.

With the heat being particularly savage at this time of year, even the palace took a recess at midday for safety’s sake. To help make up for that lost time, the queen started her morning business at a very early hour.

Zenjirou was correct; ordinarily, Aura wouldn’t have had the time to relax this way. She rocked the baby as she explained.

“You are correct; there was to be a meeting with Margrave Gaziel this morning. But the margrave himself has yet to arrive, so the meeting was postponed,” she answered happily.

“Ah, that’s great. Or is it?”

“It is far from ‘great.’ The issue has not been resolved, merely delayed, so it is a concern, if anything. However, it has given me some precious free time, so it would be a waste not to use it. Don’t you agree, Carlos?”

A strained expression made its way onto her face, but it was soon replaced by a satisfied smile as she watched her child.

“Ahh, ahhh!” the month-old baby burbled cheerfully as he looked up at his mother.

The infant’s features, which Zenjirou had originally felt resembled those of a sickly ape, had transformed as the young prince grew, suckling from his mother or wet nurse. His cheeks and hands had grown chubby where they stuck out from under his clothes, and it made Zenjirou want to poke at the child as an adorable aura overflowed from him.

The prince had glossy curls of olive-brown hair, a pair of dark eyes that roved widely, and skin that fell somewhere between tanned and a paler shade.

Even ignoring parental bias, is there anything at all cuter than this little guy? Zenjirou sincerely wondered. Of course, he failed to recognize that in claiming his own lack of bias, he was essentially being as biased as one could possibly be.

“Carrrrloss?” he cooed. “Lookie here, blehbleh...bah!”

“Ahh?”

The baby, watching his father play around from the opposite sofa, looked at him in bewilderment for a moment before bursting into shrill laughter.

Enjoying his son’s reaction, Zenjirou continued. “Oh, that got a laugh. Is that funny, buddy? Lookie, bleh bleh...bah! Bleeh bleh bleh bah!”

The baby laughed along joyfully, but his mother finally cut in with an unhappy smile.

“Zenjirou, I understand you want to make Carlos laugh, but please stop with this succession of grimaces. As his mother, I understand, but seeing you like this as your wife is rather awkward.”

“Oh... Right.”

He considered saying that there was no point in putting on airs at this stage, but if he considered her viewpoint, he could see where she was coming from. Although his behavior was meant to make the most amazing thing in both their worlds—Carlos—laugh, the thought of his beloved wife vibrating her lips and sticking her tongue out far enough to lick her chin or nose would have made him want to ask her to stop as well.

Even close relationships needed boundaries.

It was a fact they had to remember. While they were certainly family now, husband and wife alike were, in many ways, still strangers, and to keep their relationship running smoothly, they would need to follow some guidelines.

Reluctantly, he stopped, and the queen gave him a loving smile in return, albeit a different sort of smile than the one she had directed at the boy.

“Besides, should you be calling him Carlos? That is not his only name, and you are the only one who can correctly say the other. Do you not think you should use it?”

Zenjirou was caught off guard by her comment and paused before nodding. “Huh, that’s true.”

She was correct; their son had a second name: a Japanese name that Zenjirou had given him. It was much less known throughout their society than “Carlos” but that was all the more reason for him to make an effort to use it. After all, it was part of their child’s identity as well.

He took a deep breath and spoke in a whisper, letting only a small amount of the air in his chest out. “Zenkichi...”

After much thought, that was the name that he had chosen to give his son. He’d decided to keep things simple and simply use one of the characters in his own name, which had led to suggestions of relatively common names like Yoshihiko and Yoshito. But Capuans like Aura had no concept of ideograms, so explaining that one character could be read as both “zen” and “yoshi” was rather difficult, and Zenkichi was what he had eventually settled on.

The child’s full name was Carlos Zenkichi Capua. Carlos was a relatively common name in Capua. There were even two kings who had boasted the name, and including those who hadn’t inherited the throne, there were over a dozen royals who went by it as well. For the purposes of distinction, there were some people who used a combination of the boy’s two names and called him Prince Carlos Zen. One day there might even be a King Carlos Zen when he ascended to the throne. Then again, there was a strong possibility that due to his first name being more prevalent among the commoners, he would simply be called Carlos III.

While those thoughts ran through Zenjirou’s mind, the small prince’s smile suddenly turned into a pout as he began to wail.

“Oh! What’s wrong? Zenkichi? Carlos? Carlo? What’s up?” Zenjirou asked worriedly.

“It is all right, Zenjirou. It means he is hungry,” his wife answered unconcernedly as she sat holding the baby.

“Ah, right,” he said with a sigh of relief before asking, “Really? You can tell from his crying whether he needs food or changing? That’s impressive.”

“I can. I learned it from Cassandra,” Aura said with a nod. “Although I cannot yet tell in which way he soiled himself like she can.”

Cassandra was the name of the wet nurse who handled much of the day-to-day childcare. Such duties were too much for a queen to carry out while running the country. After all, babies were little tyrants who demanded milk at all hours regardless of the hassle it caused, regularly soiled themselves to one degree or another, and threw tantrums if their demands were not met. Raising her child while attempting to carry out her duties for the country would bring Aura down within the week, regardless of her fortitude.

Cassandra, however, had three children of her own and said that caring for Carlos was surprisingly easy. It wasn’t that he was special and required less work, but Zenjirou had brought with him items for storing breast milk, along with bottles and the like, which made things much simpler. Milk, if kept cold, would stay drinkable for at least a day. If it was warmed up to body temperature and sipped from a bottle, the wet nurse could avoid being woken up even in the dead of night. If she was tired or absolutely had to sleep, one of the maids could use the bottle in her place.

Fortunately, Carlos seemed to have no problem with suction and would happily suckle from the wet nurse, Aura, or the bottle at any given time.

“He needs feeding now. As my hands are full with him, could you untie the back of my dress?”

“Mm, sure.”

Zenjirou quickly moved around the sofa to where his wife was sitting. It was out of the fan’s path, so the warm air was unpleasant on his skin, but this wasn’t the time to worry about that. His child needed to be sated as soon as possible, so he stood behind Aura and put a hand on her shoulder. Her long red hair was pulled up out of the way, and she was currently wearing a red sleeveless dress that tied together on each side.

“Aura, tilt your head a bit?”

“Like this?”

She moved her head to the right, exposing her left shoulder. Zenjirou put a hand on the knot and unfastened it. It was usually tied more tightly but was currently in a simple butterfly knot. She had probably assumed that she would be feeding the baby during this time.

Her dress fell gently down one side, exposing one of her large breasts.

“Thank you. Here, Carlos. Milk,” she offered, quickly moving her son’s face to the exposed nipple.

“Bweeeh... Ahh? Bah...”

The baby’s reaction was dramatic. The moment he was close enough, he latched on and began suckling for all he was worth.

“Go ahead, little one,” Aura murmured with a chuckle. “I am truly glad that you are so healthy.” She held her child firmly as he drank, staring down at him adoringly, her breasts still larger than usual from her pregnancy.

“Phew, you must have been hungry,” Zenjirou remarked once he saw that Carlos had calmed down.

He returned to his own seat. The only sounds in the room were those of the baby feeding as his mother held him and his father watched them both. He and Aura had fallen silent, watching the child wordlessly.

“Drink your fill, little one; this is the only time I can feed you today,” the queen said softly. She was a monarch before she was a mother and had precious few opportunities to give him her own milk.

The peaceful moment stretched on until the infant moved his mouth away with a deep sigh.

“Is that enough?” she asked, moving him closer to check, but the prince looked stubbornly away, apparently full.

Zenjirou couldn’t stop a gentle smile from appearing at the sight of his son with milk and dribble running from his lips. However, Aura’s next words froze him in place.

“Is that all you want? I see... You must be full. The rest is for papa, then.”

“No, it’s not! Don’t make such vulgar jokes in front of Zenkichi!” he protested frantically as his wife rocked their son.