Risou no Himo Seikatsu Vol 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 02: Preparations and Transfer

After doing overtime till the last train, Zenjirou managed to arrive home safely. Entering his one-room apartment, he went straight for the computer and sat down before it.

“Uhh… Three years. 1,5 million yen for only three years.”

He had groaned because of the reply from the company that sold hydropower generators for domestic use.

The company responded to that with “You cannot. You need an electrician license. The responsibly for set-up and maintenance is with the technician, not the buyer, so we ask you to leave the set-up to our company”, “It is possible to do perfunctory maintenance like removing pebbles from the water tanks or cleaning away moss when you read the manual, but we cannot guarantee anything then. If possible, we ask you to leave the maintenance to us too.” and “The guaranteed runtime is three years.”, which heartlessly smashed Zenjirou’s hopes.

“Three years, only three years…”

He was prepared for it to a certain extent. To begin with, even if a dream-like generator existed that functioned until his death without any maintenance, the important electrical appliances— The air conditioning or refrigerator itself had a limited lifespan.

Either way, we would be plunged into the lifestyle of the other world without any cultural conveniences after some time.

“My body will surely acclimate oneself in ten years and if necessary, I can wilfully ask Aura-san to rebuild my room to have water running down the walls like in the old palace of the Maharaja!”

This information originated from the internet as well. Back in the old days when luxury goods like air conditions didn’t exist yet, one of the Maharaja in India used his enormous fortune to build a primitive, but large system, where water streamed down the walls and was drained outside through gutters in the ground, to cool the place.

Such a structure seemed possible in the other world too, but even though Zenjirou knew nothing about architecture, he could at least imagine that it would require a large sum of money.

Would she allow him, a mere stallion by the name of Prince Consort, to waste such a large fortune and manpower during such a time?

“Three years just isn’t enough. The problem is the battery.”

The consumable parts of the hydropower generator were the bearing (from the rotating propeller) and the battery.

The battery had a lifespan of three years. Luckily enough, even a greenhorn could change the battery by the help of the manual, since it was a consumable part to begin with, but that didn’t mean he could just go and buy a lot of spare batteries.

To begin with, a hydropower generator was hard to use in cities due to the terrain requirement, so the majority of customers lived in the country side, where mending wasn’t easily practicable by the maker.

A battery that wasn’t used certainly lived longer than one that was in use 24/7 throughout the year, but even then, it wouldn’t be as good as new anymore after three years with unprofessional storage.

“Well, I guess I can bridge some time when I buy three spare batteries? I somehow want to have enough for ten years. The bearing is good for ten years and difficult to change, so I won’t need a spare. Ah, but since most of the electrical appliances only have a life span of ten years anyway, I might as well try to do some repairs by myself then.”

As a student, he had watched a lot of TV and DVDs, but after becoming a working adult, he just recorded the shows and had no time to watch them, slowly amassing DVDs with the recordings from his hard disk.

Ever since Zenjirou was in middle school, he had recorded and watched two to three famous drama series from the internet per year. He also never missed an episode of the one hour idol group show airing on Sunday evening. However, these recorded shows too only added to his pile of unwatched DVDs after he starting working.

That was a rather unproductive lifestyle, but it was more appealing than anything to Zenjirou as he was currently worn out from work.

“Either way, I can only bring with me as much as fits on the carpet and my money would be useless over there. Okay, let’s spend it all!”

“Mhm, I should be able to set up the air conditioning by myself if I try hard… Wait, how do I lay the ventilation pipe outside? The walls in the palace were out of thick marble… To begin with, can a normal AC even cool down that damn broad and tall room? Will a model designed for 30m² be enough…?”

Nevertheless, Zenjirou immersed himself in his internet research to prolong his brighter future by even just one second while washing down the slightly cooled off meat bun with the tea from the pet bottle.

On busy days time flies.

Leaving his house early in the morning, he went to the company while reading manga on the packed train.

His job now consisted mainly of coordinating his projects with those who would take it over after he resigned.

And lastly, informing the trade partners he was in charge of, about the coming change by going there with his successor and lowering his head while saying “Due to personal circumstances, I will be resigning from my position. Mr. XY will take over from now on, so please treat him well as you have me…”.

Even when he worked until shortly before the last train, there just wasn’t enough time, so Zenjirou later did extra hours in the morning, but never spent the night in the office. It was all for the sake of getting some more funds for his trip to the other world.

If he handed the accounter a receipt, taken in the name of the company, he would get the money back on his pay check the following month, so it usually wasn’t a problem, but as of now, it was a huge problem.

To avoid this, Zenjirou worked overtime late into the night, leaving with the last train, and extra hours in the morning, coming with the first train.

It had been three weeks, since he had handed his superior his resignation.
As of today, thanks to immersing himself in overtime with only a little bit more than four hours of sleep at average, Yamai Zenjirou resigned peacefully and without any problems from the company he had worked at for three years.

“Well then, Chief, thanks for everything. Good-bye.”

The section chief with middle-aged spread only replied shortly with that when Zenjirou paid him a last visit before leaving.

His attitude went beyond indifferent and could have made one feel hated, but Zenjirou knew how stressed the section chief was, so he sympathized with him instead of holding an ill will.

Moreover, he got a bonus for being a section chief, but unfortunately didn‘t get overtime paid in return. Usually a section chief was under suspicion of being a chief “in name only” due to that, but while the chief in this company was given more authority, he had to do the same share of work as his subordinators, since there was just too much work, so he was in a darkish grey area, where a strict investigation would bust him, but was left at large.
Zenjirou, running away from the workload of an average employer at this very moment, lowered his head to the section chief, who was stuck in the bottomless swamp called overtime hell up to his neck and faced his job noble as if to say “This is my life!”, with his utmost respect and left the place.

Afterwards Zenjirou rode his beloved hybrid car and after a drive of a few hours, he arrived at the village he was born in.

After getting out of the car, Zenjirou rolled his stiff shoulders to get rid of the stiffness under the setting sun.

Zenjirou bathed in the twilight and looked at the familiar two-story home, narrowing his eyes a bit.

Since he had lost his parents in middle school, this house, where now the family of his uncle lived in, was “home” for Zenjirou.

He felt a bit nervous as he hadn’t been home in years, so he purposefully spoke out aloud to get a grip and determined rang the doorbell.

“It’s been a while, Zenjirou-kun. You look well.”

The family of his uncle consisted of four people.

The daughter attended a high school far away and lived in a boarding house, so only his uncle, aunt and the son were sitting at the table this night, but there were five chairs, not just four.

They had only taken care of him for nearly one year, from the summer in his second year of middle school, where his parents died, till he moved over to the dormitory of his high school, but the caring couple always kept a chair for Zenjirou even afterwards.

The aunt announced the start of the dinner like that and brought a steaming pot over from the kitchen.

“If you please, Dear.”

Prompted by his wife, the uncle took the lead.

“Thanks for the food.”

The aunt, the son and Zenjirou followed suit and the Yamai family started their dinner.

Needless to say, the talk this night was all about Zenjirou.

“Yes, I plan to leave in ten days. Sorry that it’s so sudden.”

The uncle showed the familiar gentle smile on Zenjirou’s honest bow.

He gave him a warm look.

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

He kind of forced a topic change, since he wanted to get away from that guilt and feared he would reveal the truth if questioned further.

Therefore I want to sign over my car to you, Uncle, and leave it with you.”

“Zenjirou-kun, you don’t need to be so considerate for us.”

“No, that’s not it. I’m really troubled about what to do with it. I’ll be gone for so long that I will not only miss the next inspection, but even lose my license.”

However, the caring uncle hesitated even more after hearing these words from his nephew.

The result was that the uncle suggested this to have his nephew benefit at least a bit. His caring side hadn’t changed at all.

“No, that won’t work. I’ll leave in ten days, so I’ll be gone before I find a buyer.”

His uncle’s good-will exceeded Zenjirou’s expectations as he thoroughly refrained from accepting the car.

“No, it won’t fetch a good price anyway, since it’s a really old car. It’s more reasonable to have you use it.”

The uncle then spoke with a different tone than before as he had noticed his nephew’s zeal.

An own car was indispensable for living in the countryside. Moreover, for a full-time farmer like his uncle, it was normal to also have a small truck, which could be driven with an ordinary license, for transporting things besides the normal car.

However, Zenjirou had anticipated that answer as well, so he continued his persuasion without delay.

Yes, he raised the name his uncle’s daughter.

“You have a point there. It’s quite convincing coming from you.”

Zenjirou only ever had responded half-hearted to the calls of his uncle asking him to drop by for a visit, when he was in university, and didn’t come back even once in four years, so he felt ashamed now.

“I see. But driving can be dangerous.”

“Hey, are you saying that Sis will use Zen-nii’s car? I wonder if she’ll drive me to Iida then when I ask her.”

“Watch it, Yuusaku. It’s not decided yet, so stay out of it. Either way, it’ll be still a year before Sanae gets her license and you’ll be in the high school boarding house by then.”

“But, but, during summer vacation Sis and I will come home, right? Can I ask her then?”

Most guys would hate it to have their older sister drive them into the city to hang out when they get into high school, but judging by Yuusaku’s words, the siblings got along quite well even now.

“Well, as long as Sanae-chan agrees, I don’t see any problems. Try asking her when she comes back.”

“Ah, hey, wait!”

He most likely was going to send his sister a mail at once.

The uncle couldn’t stop him and had stood up in the middle of the dinner. Then Zenjirou, sitting across him, called out to him.

“…”

The last push was given by the aunt, who had silently watched over their exchange so far.

“I, see. Yeah… okay.”

“Zenjirou-kun.”

“Allow me to take you up on your offer then. Thanks. I’ll tell Sanae to take good care of it.”

Zenjirou showed his uncle, who bowed a bit on the other side of the table, a relieved smile and gave him a bow in return, too.

At night on the same day. After the dinner, Zenjirou went straight to bed.

A study desk in the corner of the room. An old radio-cassette player on top of the dresser that only played CDs.

“I guess this will always be my room…”

His uncle’s family had taken care of him from middle school to university and he loved them for it, but inside his head there were still “relatives” rather than “family”.

“I guess, I‘ve to repay them at least a bit…”

They had kept the room of an adult that already left the house, in order, so he could return at any time. The housing situation in the countryside certainly allowed that, but it was undeniable that this was a perfect example of the good-will from his uncle’s family towards him.

Looking up to the round fluorescent light that brightened up the room, he sighed.

Because his own scent was completely gone from the mattress and gave him the impression that this no longer was a place for him to return.

Zenjirou lay on his mattress face up in his pyjama, opened his collapsible cell phone and confirmed today’s date.

So he decided to keep this convenient cell phone, which could be used anywhere, operable until the very last minute before going over to the other world.

He had already given Aura his okay for re-summoning him in ten days. Even if he faltered now, there was no way to let Aura know about his change of mind. His transfer to the other world in ten days was already an established fact.

When Zenjirou was summoned to the other world in ten days, the next chance to return him to this world again would come in thirty years.

“I’m ready for that… or at least I think so.”

Inside the box was a set of pair rings.

As the diamonds didn‘t stick out from the ring, it lacked a fancy appearance, but the detailed geometric pattern engraved in the socket and the radiance of the three diamonds gave it a sufficient charm.

In face of the ring, Zenjirou recalled the face of the Queen that waited in the other world.

“Guess they call this… love at first sight.”
He still had some restraints, but sorted things out for a bit. Raising only his upper body on top of the mattress, he pulled the string on the fluorescent lamp and turned the light off.

The next day, Zenjirou woke up early in the morning and thankfully ate the breakfast his aunt had prepared for him. Then he went to the tattered hut in the mountains, around thirty minutes away from the village.

“Uwah! I haven’t been here since grade school, but to think it turned into this…!”

When he graduated from university and found a job in the capital, he had kind of forcefully pushed the house and fields he had inherited from his parents onto his uncle, who had managed them as his guardian so far, but his uncle just wouldn’t accept this hut and the lands around it.

That said, the cabin in front of him currently had a roof of zinc, so the hut itself must have been reconstructed after the 90s. Anyway, it didn’t change the fact that it was a tattered hut.

Zenjirou looked at the tattered hut illuminated by the morning sun and mumbled deeply moved.

Two foreigners with a mixed appearances of Latin and south Asia must have stood out in a bad way during the end of the Edo period.

“Well, seeing that the village has not a single tradition about that, they could also have blended in easily.”

Like he had uttered just now, it was quite imaginable that they adapted to the village surprisingly easily.

“Oh, here they come.”
Zenjirou spotted the manufacturer’s truck appearing between the trees, quickly got in his car and relocated it to make space for the truck to park.

After a few minutes, three man wearing grey overalls got off the truck parking in front of the hut.

The seemingly oldest of the three, a middle-aged man called out to Zenjirou, who stood in front of the hut, like that.

The middle-aged man returned a smile on Zenjirou’s words.

Just in case, I would like to confirm your order again.

“Yes, that is correct.”

Truth be told, he wanted to use that hydropower in the royal palace in the other world, but there was no way he could answer them honestly here.

Zenjirou put his request as nonchalant as possible, whereupon the middle-aged man showed a wry smile.

“Yes, of course. Only what I can manage as an amateur.”

“Okay. If that is the case, you are free to record it.”

Having his wish granted, Zenjirou smiled at the middle-aged technician while saying so, then he returned to his car to fetch the “handycam” he had borrowed from his uncle.

“Uaah… This looks more complicated than I thought. To be honest, I might’ve been a bit naïve…”

They started their work at ten in the morning and weren’t done yet after lunch time.

“Maybe I was a bit rash.”

The slogan “easy to set up by just connecting the water intake and drainage” on the homepage apparently meant “easy for professionals”.

The first part was the water tank, which regulated a steady volume of water and filtered out the sand.

The last part was the control system that managed a stable output with an exchangeable battery.

Afterwards, the generator part was positioned at a place sufficient lower than the water tank to allow the water to fall.

After spinning the wheel, the water flowed through a drainage hose back into the river’s downstream.

Drilling a round hole into the wall of the hut and installing a power cable through it, the cable then was connected to the generator part at the river. All the electricity produced by the generator was fed to the control system part.

In a normal house, the control system would be set up to feed the electricity into house’s interior power supply unit, but the tattered hut didn’t have such an advanced thing.

With these outlets it was apparently possible to supply even a TV, a computer and a refrigerator without a problem.

With these words, the middle-aged technician went over to the truck for a moment and came back with an old electric lamp. Most likely for a final check to see if the generator worked flawless.

Then he middle-aged technician peeked out only his face through the opened door of the hut and shouted so to his two subordinators working outside.

“No problems with the generator unit!”

The generator started up.

The sound of a fan spinning came from the rectangle box and the light at the top on the right of the control system shone green, the proof that the device was running regular.

Confirming the green light, the middle-aged technician put the lamp down on the seasoned wooden floor and plugged its cable into the control system. Then he turned on the lamp.

“Ohh!”

Zenjirou was in awe and the middle-aged technician in front of him showed an accomplished smile from finishing his job, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the towel around his neck.

About one hour later.

After the truck with the Technotec guys left, Zenjirou, staying behind at the hut all by himself, muttered that in front of the new-build generator.

Seeing as the lamp for proper charging was shining, the generator operated without any troubles so far.

“Let’s see, the red lamp here is for abnormalities and this value shows the current output. With an output like this, it seems like I can use all my electrical appliances from my apartment simultaneous, but when I bring it over to the other world, I have to reassemble it from scratch and there’s no guarantee it’ll produce the same output then.”

With that, it was evident at a glance how much electricity an electronic appliance roughly needed to work.

The display currently indicated an output of a bit more than 600W at the most.

“That kind of limits the electrical appliances I can use regularly…”

“Maybe should I just bring the appliances I stored away over here and try them out to see how many work with it.”

Either way, it was pretty much a matter of fact already that he would depart to the other world from here, since the hydropower generator was set up here.

With a handbarrow, Zenjirou could load it into the car by himself some way or another, but instead of all this trouble, it was way more efficient to lay out the magic carpet inside the hut and use this place as his departure location for the other world. Getting the generator from the river to the hut required a bit of effort, but it was nothing impossible with a handbarrow.

When he had moved out of his apartment, he had rented a storage room and put everything he wanted to bring with him to the other world there, disposing of all the rest.

And when he contacts the moving service and has his stuff at hand before he transferred, it saved him a last minute rush.

“I still have a few days to spare anyway. If I think of anything useful, I can just buy it at the do-it-yourself store in the nearby town with my car. But I need to consult my remaining funds about it…”

Actually Zenjirou had planned to help his uncle on the fields until he departed, but it would only be for half a day, either in the morning or the afternoon.

“Okay, better make the call then. Let’s see… Wait, there aren’t any radio masts here? Uwah, then I won’t be able to use my cell unless I go all the way to the highway.”
Having settled on his future actions, Zenjirou got into his hybrid car, whose grey paint was sullied by mud and dust, to make a call to the moving service and the manager of the storage room.

The time to prepare went by in an instant.

The shabby hut with the zinc roof stood isolated on the mountain draped with morning dew.

To sum it up in one word, he looked “ridiculous”.

That alone made him look pretty suspicious already, yet he also held a box cutter in his right hand like a sword and upheld the tip of his small finger on his left hand.

“Any moment now? Nah, not yet. …Maybe it was all just a dream? No, no, that can’t be. I DO have the ring and the carpet. …But I guess something unexpected could’ve happened and they abandoned the idea of re-summoning me?”

All preparations for crossing over to the other world were already done.

To his only blood-relatives, the family of his uncle, he told the lie “I’m going overseas for a job transfer”.

His bank and post accounts remained, so his last pay check would be added to it on the 10th next month, but Zenjirou himself wouldn’t be able to use that money. He shouldn’t be able to. If he were to, it would be troubling.

To be honest, if he wasn’t summoned now, his life was pretty much ruined.

Zenjirou muttered this as he was under impression that his sight turned dark, but that wasn’t possible. The amount of blood he had lost so far wasn’t even a tenth of a blood sample in the hospital.

While it was already summer, the temperature was rather low in the mountain, given that it was still morning.

Zenjirou was befallen by a shiver, not knowing if it was from the cold or his nervousness.

In an attempt to distract himself form the shiver, he checked the all important “micro hydropower generator” by pointing at each part.

Zenjirou wanted to be praised by someone especially for the effort of carrying the 75kg generator part into the hut all by himself.

The technicians had stabilized the rectangle generator part with stakes on the levelled mountainous ground. By the time he had pulled out these stakes one by one while looking out for not letting the part collapse, and slipped the handbarrow underneath it, the T-shirt and boxers under his blue tracksuit were soaking wet.

Excluding the five-door refrigerator, it was the biggest item amongst his luggage.

In the corner of the carpet were bottles of brandy, whiskey, wine and sake lined up.

That reminded him that the other world only had low percentage plum liquor, so he had bought a domestic still in a hurry, but he hadn’t tested yet if he could properly make distilled liquor with it.

Either way, he had bought low-malt beer and a suited local whiskey by the boxful, which should last for a while.

“This looks good enough… Well, even if it doesn’t, I don’t have any better clothes.”

At first he considered getting a white suit like the bridegroom wore during the reception, but its ridiculous price put an end to his idea at once. It clearly crossed the limit of warrantable expenses for clothes that would be worn only once.

And as he was checking out his attire, he noticed that the belt from the backpack on his back wrinkled his suit.

His backpack was filled with a change of clothes, sturdy tramping boots, several rechargeable AA batteries and a solar charger for them. Furthermore, there was dry bread, chocolate chip biscuits, bars of chocolate, water pet bottles, a dozen lighters and tool knifes, a dynamo LED lantern and a heat insulating blanket. In short, the contents were kind of an “emergency pack”.

Of course, the most important item, the ring for Aura, was safely tucked into the inside pocket of his suit together with its box.

However, his right hand was still occupied with the box cutter and the little finger of his left hand was bleeding even now.

“Guh…!?”

He immediately threw the box cutter away and put both his hands down on the carpet. Then he heard a “clank” noise from his right and in the next moment, the appealing voice of a female, which he hadn’t heard for a month, came from above his head.

“I welcome you, my future husband. I am glad the second summoning went well. Now I can finally say this with all sincerity:
Welcome to this world, to my country. I am glad to see you, my lifelong partner.”

“Aura-san…”

Zenjirou had perfectly transferred along with the carpet and forgetting to stand up, he looked up at the Queen, who spread her arms welcoming, while he still was on his knees like a fool.

Chapter end