Risou no Himo Seikatsu Vol 1 Chapter 4

Chapter 04: The Mysterious Soul of Words

The cold, electronic buzzing from his cell phone next to his pillow slowly woke up Zenjirou’s consciousness from its slumber.

Still half-asleep, Zenjirou reached out his right hand routinely, searched for his cell phone and turned off its morning alarm. Then he brought the cell phone close to his face and looked at the time.

5:30 AM

Compared to the time a salary man woke up in modern Japan it was rather early, but in this world it was already considered late.

It was common in this world to raise after the sun came out at four in the morning and sleeping in until late was a sign of luxury.

He had the LED floor lamps to illuminate the night and nothing special to do during the day.

His wife— Because he didn’t want to miss out on Aura.

Zenjirou put the cell phone back to where it was before and turned his body to the left on the bed. There was Aura, exposing an innocent sleeping face while making peaceful sleeping sounds.

After their marriage, Zenjirou and Aura had spent their nights together here in the chamber of the inner palace.

Technically a thin blanket made of something similar to towelling covered them, but the nights in the Carpa Kingdom were so hot that even that thin blanket seemed oppressive.

Still not fully awake, Zenjirou twined his arm around his wife’s back.

Her heartbeat he felt on his chest and the feeling of her skin on his palm made him remember the act that was conducted nearly every night in the last ten days.

He had slept with this woman.

It was inevitable that Aura would wake up from that.

Having woken up, Aura indulged herself in Zenjirou’s arms and docilely stuck her naked body onto his. Then she nuzzled her head against his neck like a spoilt cat and purred.

Squinting from the tickling, but comfortable feeling around his neck, Zenjirou squeezed Aura tighter while such a thought crossed his mind.

Even a pantheress was no match for her. She displayed the aura of a supreme ruler pretty much like a tiger or lion, carnivores at the top of the food chain.

While freely exposing her charming body that was filled out or firm only at the places it was supposed to be, Aura wetted the towel in the pail of water that was prepared next to the bed and wiped her body.

After the act, they technically wiped their bodies before going to bed, but even then they sweated unsavoury with their embracing amidst the sultry night.

Zenjirou, who was rather pale compared to Aura, said that and got off the bed naked, then approached his wife, who was cleaning herself.

His new wife replied with a prankish smile and Zenjirou was about to give in to the temptation for a moment, but he shook his head and answered.

“Too bad. I am afraid I have work lined up, so I do not have the time for that. Forgive me, you have to wait until tonight.”

After wiping her body quickly, Aura soaked the towel in the pail and wrung it out, then she tossed that towel to Zenjirou.

While wiping his body with the caught towel, Zenjirou asked this to Aura as he suddenly remembered.

“Yeah, seems like I will not have the time to get back here for breakfast or lunch. But I might make it in time for dinner if everything goes well. Though you could also come to the palace yourself, Zenjirou, if you wish to dine together with me.”

Zenjirou, at the end of that glance, racked his brain at once.

From her all too imposing behaviour one might forget about it, but Aura’s authority as the Queen in this patriarchic Kingdom was by no means unshakeable.

(I might be overthinking, but better safe than sorry.)

That was Zenjirou’s way of saying “I’ll try not to cause you any trouble as much as possible”.

“I see. Then I will try to finish my work by dinner at all costs. I am sure you will be lonely all by yourself until night, but bear with it. As for manners and common sense, I could teach you about it personally, but I do not really have the time for that… Okay, I will find you a suited teacher.”

“Sorry for all the trouble.”

Before long, Aura finished dressing and they approached each other nearly simultaneous.

“Yes, see you.”
The roles as man and woman were really reversed. While smiling wry in his heart, Zenjirou exchanged a short kiss with Aura and sent off his wife with a smile as she was going to pursue her duties as a Queen.

“Now then, what do I do today?”

Ever since he came here, he had been busy with things like the marriage ceremony or setting up the generator.

In time he might not know what to do with his free time, but at least for today, he had a mountain of things he wanted to do.

He had also continued to buy the songs of the bands or singers he liked during his university days at legal download portals, more out of habit than anything, but the only time he listened to them was during commuting between home and work. There were still a lot of songs he hadn’t listened to even once.

When it was time for breakfast, the waiting maids of the inner palace would appear.

After all, this world didn’t even know of gas stoves or water pipes, let alone microwaves. Preponing breakfast meant that the attendants had to scoop water faster and postponing meant that it had to be redone at a later time.

“In the end, I merely married into the family. I don’t want to get on the attendants’ bad side. Let’s see, how much is left of the food I brought with me?”

The five-door refrigerator powered by the hydropower generator thankfully operated without problems so far.

That said, most of these rations were chocolate, dry bread, beef jerky, biscuits and the like. He had packed all these dry foods into his backpack for emergencies and there was no real meaning in putting them into the refrigerator.

“The chocolate are too good to eat. From what Aura told me, they don’t even know of cocoa here. It’s pretty much hopeless to make any. Luckily, they seem to have no shortage of sugar, but it’s crude brown sugar.”

Technically he had the receipts for cakes, cookies or pudding on his computer, downloaded from a homepage with pictures to the explanations, but it was a little doubtful if he could properly make them with the sugar and wheat flour from this world.

If he were to do it, he had no choice but to call for the waiting maid in charge of cooking and teach her the rough method.

His greatest regret was “window glass”.

“Quite the blunder. The interior in Japan’s buildings is naturally enclosed by windows, so it totally slipped my mind…”

On the other hand, closing the shutters in the middle of the noon, cutting of the sunlight and living with just the LED lamps was certainly a bit too unhealthy. Even if he were to do that, he couldn’t hope for the architecture of this world to be as airtight as an average building in modern Japan.

“Well, it’s more likely I’ll screw up the assembling anyway, so I might as well resign myself to never having one to begin with. Hah…”

“Oh well. It’s no use lamenting. I have to live with the inconveniences.”

“Mhm, up to where did I watch this show? I remember Solar Car going to an island where they held bullfights. I think Game of Tag vs. 100 Detectives Part 3 was the last I watched?”

While refreshing himself with the ice fan, Zenjirou enjoyed watching DVDs by himself. Meanwhile, his wife Aura pursued her duties as the Queen in her office.

Since the Carpa Kingdom currently had no prime minister in charge of politics and no admiral in charge of the army, Aura was extremely pressed with work as the Queen.

Aura was going through the bundle of dragonskin parchments (made from skinned hide of raptorial dragons) helter-skelter when Secretary Fabio, standing next to her, called out to her.

Aura raised her eyes from the dragonskin parchment to the monotone voice of the middle-aged man with a slender face.

As there was no precise way to measure time like in modern Japan, this world was rather loose with time. Even so, official business in the palace had an accurate take on time by measuring quarters of an hour, namely fifteens minutes.

“Yes, the next meeting is with the General of the Knights, Sir Puyol Guillén.”

It was the name from one of the two candidates that were deemed to be most suited to be her husband before Zenjirou was summoned.

Now what would that ambitious person have to say after his position as the “Queen’s Husband” within his reach had been snatched away by someone mysterious from a different world at the last minute?

“Your Highness, a soldier with the rank of a general and a civil officers with the rank of a cabinet member have the right to request a direct meeting with the Ruler. Sir Puyol is merely availing himself of his legitimate privilege.”

“I know. Fine, bring him inside.”
After a deep breath to blow away the irritation, she ordered with her usual dignified voice.

“Your Highness Aura, first of all, let me congratulate you again. I wish you all the very best for your marriage.”

“…Yes, you honour me.”

To put in a nutshell, the man called Puyol Guillén was a stereotypical soldier.

Most likely a hundred people out of hundred would choose Puyol when asked who between Zenjirou and Puyol was a suitable Prince Consort for Aura based on appearance.

A skilled soldier, a competent commander and the young hero of the previous war with numerous deeds of arms.

“Your Highness, I believe you know already, but I have a younger sister. She inherited the royal blood, too, albeit as shallow as myself, and has high magical power. Her personality just like her education, will not embarrass her in public.

“…..”

That was the very reason. Because he was so obvious ambitious, he was extremely unsuited to be the Prince Consort, no matter how capable he was as a soldier.

Anyway, suggesting a concubine to a wife, who had only just wed, was outrageously ruthless.

“Mhm, that sounds intriguing. What is your sister’s say on that matter?”

Puyol tilted his head puzzled on Aura’s question. Practically, he was not mistaken.

Instead, Aura was the one against common sense, since she had lived so far by upkeeping a stereotypical turn of mind as the Queen.

Aura realized that she had steered the topic in the wrong direction and strived to adjust it while keeping a composed smile.

Puyol squinted his sharp eyes on Aura’s clear refusal.

The question of the subject, doubting the Queen’s words, could very well be seen as disrespectful, whereat Aura threw out her chest more than necessary.

“Never. Excuse me. However, as one of the nobility, it is my honest desire to ‘personally’ greet my new lord Zenjirou-sama.

“…Fine. I will definitely forward it to my husband, ‘word for word’.”

At the end, Puyol saluted like a knight by bringing his right fist to his left shoulder and left the Queen’s office.

Once she had confirmed that the ambitious general was no longer in range, Aura sighed deeply.

Contrary to her words, the Queen spit them out annoyed. Secretary Fabio, standing there like a carved stature so far, replied with a flat voice.

The secretary didn’t mince matters like always, whereat Aura grimaced and objected.

“Yes, I am aware of that. Because he is wise, virtuous for now and extremely cooperative to you outwardly. However, if even your relationship with him remains hidden in the inner palace, the nobility haunting the palace will not know about it.”

“In that case, I guess we will have my husband appear in the palace to some degree and have him assure that our relationship is going well directly from his own mouth.

It made her feel a bit mean to push unexpected troubles onto her Prince Consort, who showered her so honestly with love.

But the secretary was oblivious to the Queen’s melancholy and continued to speak without moving a muscle on his inexpressive face that looked like an iron mask.

“Well, yes…”

No matter how passionately Zenjirou and Aura loved each other, there was a limit to how much children a single pair could make. Not to mention, Aura had severe duties as the Queen. She couldn’t afford to back out often to give birth.

Aura asked her secretary like that on a spontaneous suggestion.

Secretary Fabio shrugged his shoulders a bit upon Aura’s question, then

lowered his head with that.

“I do not mind. To begin with, hypocritical courtesy is the signature feature of nobility. Even if it angers me, there will be no punishment, so speak your mind.”

“To come right to the point, I object making General Puyo’s little sister a concubine for Zenjirou-sama.”

Aura leaned forward interested upon the secretary’s unexpected straight-to-the-point words.

After all, all of them will be siblings with Zenjirou-sama as their father, but different mothers.”

Aura nodded consenting. That was indeed true. Although a lot of children would inherit the royal blood, it would make marriages arrangements extremely difficult in the generation after them as all of them were half-siblings with the same father.

A child would be born with disabilities when the blood-relation was too close. They must have figured out that fact from previous cases.

And at the same time, you should welcome a suitable daughter of nobility, a magician with rich magical power, as Zenjirou-sama’s concubine to establish a branch family with thin royal blood. Then no one would have anything to complain. Zenjirou-sama’s blood is strong enough that we can hope for the child with such a woman to inherit the ’Space-Time Magic’.

Aura showed Secretary Fabio a tense smile for his indifferent presentation.

The slender-faced secretary didn’t even show an reaction to her cynicism.

“I know. The one to make a final decision after looking at all the facts will be me.

For a while, Aura was lost in thought with her hand on her chin, then suddenly raised her eyes and asked the secretary.

“At least one month and at best one and a half, I would say. If it is any longer, we cannot avoid rumours saying ’Her Highness put the words into his mouth’, no matter what Zenjirou-sama might say then.”

“One month… Well, guess so. Okay, got it. Fortunately, my husband already expressed the desire to learn about this world’s manner and common sense. Let us find him a private tutor.”

On the secretary’s inquiry, Aura smiled profound.

A female tutor with high magical power. With just that, it only sounded like Aura gave her authorisation for a concubine. However, she added premonitory.

Beldam was referring to the wife of the archmage Espaldion: Pascuala. She was an old woman in her 70s. If anyone still recommended a young, unmarried woman as a tutor after hearing that she was a “candidate for the private tutor”, then they were either too stupid to understand Aura’s intention or were so ambitious that they prioritized their own gain over the Queen’s request.

“Your Highness, you will lose your subjects’ sympathy, if you bluntly put them to the test too often. Please be more careful.”

Actually, Aura was a bit reluctant about it as she was enjoying the unique newly-wed lifestyle so far. It was only natural that she got a bit sullen.

“Good grief, it would not hurt anyone to let me enjoy my newly-wed life for a bit without disturbances.”
Aura shrugged her shoulders in annoyance.

Evening on the same day. After finishing their dinner together, Aura and Zenjirou were cuddling relaxed on the couch.

“Haha, yeah. Though I’m too used to it and don’t appreciate it as much anymore.”

During the day, Aura had worked hard as the Queen, but after the sun set, she had relatively free time on her hands. Of course nighttime didn’t equal free time as she had to attend social gatherings like a dance once or twice per week, too, but her finishing time was rather “early” when comparing it to Zenjirou’s salary man days, where he worked overtime until midnight like it was a given.

Still, even though it was an relaxed evening for them, they couldn’t avoid to touch upon political matters as the Queen and her Prince Consort.

As he had heard the circumstances from Aura, Zenjirou confirmed it with his wife, who wore a pious expression without any surprise.

“It’s fine. I understand that you’re busy. Ah, but that tutor will be understanding, right? I fear I might say something inappropriate.”

One would expect the person chosen to be the tutor for the Queen’s Prince Consort to be someone of a certain standing. If Zenjirou conducted himself improperly, unfavourable criticism might spread about him in the palace.

“No, you should be fine if you act like usually. I will give you a crash course in manners and common sense until your tutor is hired.”

“Ahaha, go easy on me.”

“Ah, yes?”

Zenjirou raised his voice out of reflex, to which the a waiting maid reported with a clearly comprehensible voice from beyond the door.

Standing up from the couch, he took the LED lantern from the shelf.

Usually it required four d-cells, but he used a battery spacer to power it with rechargeable AA cells and normal AA cells instead.

Nevertheless, this LED lantern with its twenty-eight miniature LED light bulbs lightened up the bathroom to a degree, where it was still dim, but passable for his senses.

“Okay, good. I don’t need to recharge yet.”

“Well then, let us go, Zenjirou.”

“Ehm, do you mean, well… taking a bath together…?”

Zenjirou became nervous from his wife’s bold temptation, whereas Aura smiled bewitching.

“No, never. Not against such a charming offer.”
With a lecherous face, he headed towards the bath with light steps as if walking on clouds while closely linking arms with her.

After their intimate bath together, Aura and Zenjirou cooled down their heated bodies with the ice fan while each holding a glass with their respective favourite alcohol.

Both were cooled nicely from the refrigerator and pleasantly refreshed their dried throats after the bath.

Aura, dressed in a light nightgown, narrowed her eyes to slits from the cold breeze of the fan through the ice and the cold white wine in the wineglass, raising a voice of admiration.

Normally, that was a luxury not even the nobility would ever get to experience.

“Not good. If I do not keep a strong will, I will end up staying in the inner palace, too.”

Zenjirou countered Aura’s joke like that.

Aura said so, not necessarily joking around, and declared to prolong her stays in the inner palace from now on.

Zenjirou assured his wife with a smile.

The nights aside, temperatures of over thirty-seven degree centigrade could be recorded already in the noon. When the temperature surpassed the body temperature, the fan alone would no longer be cooling as it just blew hot air around.

An air condition would be a highlight now.

“It pains me to bring this up when I told you before that you do not have to do anything, but let us begin with the lecture. We will start with the general response for royalty.”

Aura replied with a complacent smile to Zenjirou’s surprise.

Saying so, she peered into his eyes as he sat next to her.

“Uwah, my long awaited quality time with you gets wasted with studying!”

On his frank and forthright remark, Aura showed a bashful expression for a moment. However, before Zenjirou shifted his gaze from the ceiling back to her, she recovered her usual composed expression and answered.

“Well, can’t be helped then. If anything, I wish I could use the daytime when you‘re gone for studying… Mh? Wait a sec.”

“It should be here. It was so small that I incidentally put it onto the carpet…”

“Good, found it. This is it.”

“Zenjirou, what is that?”

“This is a ‘digicam‘. A digital camera to be exact. Originally it’s a device to take photos— a still image, but it can also record moving images with sound.”

However, Aura tilted her head, not knowing what was going on.

Upon Aura’s reply, Zenjirou mused about how to explain it for a bit, but couldn’t think of anything accurate. It was unexpectedly difficult to explain a device of this level with words to someone who didn’t know anything about it.

“Rikort? Taip?”

“Well, I’ll show you how it works. Aura, can you begin with your explanation about manners and common sense?”

“Muh…”

“…I am still a bit confused, but okay. I will start with explaining the basic response.

Basically, you start with approaching the lower ranking ones. Typically, they are…”

He had bought the camera one year after he started working, so he was accustomed to it by now, but at the beginning, he had only filmed something a couple of times out of curiosity.

Casually giving it a try, since he had nothing to lose, Zenjirou continued to tape his wife explaining the basics of etiquette with the camera.

When Aura stopped her explanation for the moment, Zenjirou too stopped the recording.

Telling her so in advance, he moved to the desk with the computer, still holding the camera.

“Mhm, I am not sure what is going on, but this is a tool from your world, too?”

“Yeah, it is. Ehm, let’s see if it works before copying it to the hard-disk.”

Several seconds after he used the mouse to click the desired file, the computer display showed a fascinating beauty with red hair and light brown skin, standing in the middle of a familiar room while speaking and gesturing with her hands.

“…..!?”

After all, he had received an even greater shock than Aura, who saw a video for the first time in her life.

“Usualmente, la realeza rara vez se opone a alguien de estatus social superior al suyo en público. Así que primero quiero que aprendas a lidiar con gente de estatus menor o igual.
Básicamente, comienzas acercándote a los de menor rango. Típicamente, ellos son…”

“…What the?”
The words spoken by Aura on the screen only sounded like an incomprehensible, foreign language to him.

He couldn’t understand the speech from the recorded Aura.

“In other words, this tool can pick up the sound, but not the ‘soul of words’? In fact, I do not feel any magical power from it.”

Unable to comprehend it, Zenjirou gave Aura a dumb look as she naturally threw a term at him that he had never heard before, and repeated the word he had heard for the first time like a parrot.

“Wait, Zenjirou. Let us do this in order. First off, what are you so shocked about?”

“Well, usually I can hear your words just fine, but I can’t understand them at all on the camera… Wait, now that I think about it, it’s weird that I could communicate with Japanese just fine, even though I’m in a different world.”

“Okay, that is it. That is the fundamental point, where our views differ, Zenjirou. Could it be, you cannot communicate with someone that uses a different language in your world?”

“Yeah, I thought that was normal, but seeing that you ask me that means it’s different in this world?”

In this world, this is such a common part of general knowledge that people are not even conscious of it, so I never even felt the need to explain it until now, but you seem to require an explanation.

After she said this, Aura pushed Zenjirou towards the couch in the middle of the living room to explain the most common knowledge of this world: the “soul of words”.

Back on the couch, Zenjirou simplified Aura’s lengthy explanation in his head and put it into words to confirm it with her.

“Indeed. Hence it is basically impossible for “communication problems’ to occur in this world.”

“Ehm, if you have something so convenient, why even bother to learn the language? I mean, wouldn’t the meaning come across by just randomly saying ‘Ah’ or ‘Uh’?”

“No, it does not work like that. The soul of words is only inherent in ‘exact utterances that everyone perceives as the same’. For example, if a newborn utters ‘Ah’ with the meaning of ‘breasts’ for breastfeeding, the soul of words will not work as only the baby perceives it as such. At least a few thousand of people would need to perceive the ‘Ah’ as ‘breasts’ for it to work.”

“Yes. The soul of words is only inherent in the ‘exact utterance with a common perception’ itself. Your own will does not affect it.”

Aura nodded and gave her own theory to Zenjirou’s valid doubt.

Aura’s explanation was easy to understand. Zenjirou nodded firmly while still voicing another doubt for confirmation.

For example, even if an American said “apple”, it would automatically sound like “ringo” to a Japanese. With a mechanism like that, it was close to impossible for a Japanese to learn English afterwards.

“Indeed. For that reason, only a small number of magicians know multiple languages, because a skilled magician can deliberately stop the flow of magical power. Like this:”

“Te amo, mi querido.“

“One has to be taught by a magician from another country that can control their magical power likes this. On the other hand, when you can control the magical power yourself and cut it off, the soul of words will no longer work either, because it requires both parties, the speaker and the listener, to be endowed with magical power to invoke it.

If Aura was telling the truth, then either the whole Earth was one of these special places that blocked magical power or Earthlings were a race without any magical power.

It was rather wondrous that they lived in peace for so long and even left offspring behind.

Aura laughed a bit to Zenjirou’s plausible suspicion and answered.

“Ah, right. Reminds me, I don’t have seen any writings of this world yet. Hey, can you write something for me?”

“Oh, that is some rather white and thin parchment. And this quill has a strange form as well. Where is the ink?”

At first, Aura was a bit bewildered from her first contact with the writing implements of modern Japan, but a ball pen wasn’t as difficult to handle as a dip pen anyway. She got familiar with it in no time and said impressed.

“The paper aside, I bought a dozen of these ball pens, so you can have one or two if you want. I have other colours beside black, too, like red or blue.”

“Why, thank you. I will gladly take them.

Before long, Aura had written thirty different symbols that he had never seen before, onto the copy paper and showed it to Zenjirou.

“Mh, what? Sorry, please repeat that.”

Luckily enough, short syllables without a meaning weren’t affected by the “soul of words” and Aura listened to Zenjirou’s unaltered pronunciation.

Linguistically speaking, there was no clear distinction between vowels and consonants, but the way it made up a sound by linking up various letters was exactly the same. However, there were a lot of small differences like no distinction between R and L (there was no letter for L) and various letters for M.

As for another obvious difference, there was no distinction between upper and lower case. It made it a bit inconvenient for small nuances, but the few letters might make it at least easier for learning it from scratch.

But I guess it would be more useful to learn numbers first? Aura, while we’re at it, can you write down the ‘numerals’ of this world, too?”

However, Aura’s reaction was far beyond his expectation.

Saying so, Aura carefully started to write on a new copy paper.

“…..”

Just like writing 1 as “one”, 2 as “two” and 3 as “three” in the English alphabet.

For a moment Zenjirou feared as much, but thinking about, it wasn’t all that unbelievable.

They also used early simultaneous equations like the Tsurukamezan or applied the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the depth of water from the length the afloat part of an aquatic plant could be pulled to the side. When looking into the documents of merchants or supply caretakers of the feudal lords during the warring state period in Japan, one would apparently find examples of unexpected detailed calculations.

However, having Arabic numerals or not obvious affected the “lower class’” ability to calculate.

“Numerals? You mean special characters for the numbers? Now that is intriguing. What is the advantage of having something like that?”

“Yeah, first off, it’s easy to learn. With the decimal numbers, you only have to remember ten characters, the zero included, and you can write any number, be it ever so big. And when you remember the four symbols +, -, ×, ÷, too, anyone can do the four basic arithmetic operations in two or three years…”

At some point, Zenjirou had forgotten the restraint of “ not contributing any noticeable influence as much as possible“ he had set for himself before coming to this world and passionately explained numerals.

Chapter end