TNZKMA 112

１１２

 

I make a simple dinner using leftover ingredients from yesterday and what I bought at the market today.

Cooking becomes so easy when you’re alone. Even making worm oil is a pain when there’s no one around. I wish we had instant food here too. Oh, there’s the foodstalls for that.

 

Kyui and I had boiled pumpkin. We bought a huge pumpkin yesterday. We’ve finally managed to eat it all in three sittings: last night, this morning, and now.

Kyui doesn’t eat it with rice, so it’s a little bland. I was too lazy to buy rice either, so we just ate the pumpkin. Actually, if I eat rice, I can’t finish the pumpkin. Seriously, this pumpkin is huge. It rivals our turnips.

 

I bought some rice when I went shopping today. I’m planning to cook it when Saine gets back.

But before that, I think I should practice. The grannies taught me how to cook rice, but I’m not sure if I can do it well. If it burns, Saine won’t have anything to eat, and I’d hate for my reputation to drop.

I guess I should practice after all. So, let’s make some rice balls.

 

After eating, I washed the dishes. I also heated the bath. There are only nine days left until Saine comes back. I hope he comes back soon.

 

As I soak in the hot water and stretch my body, I suddenly realize something.

The Ceremony lasts for seven days, which means Dole’s Ceremony will end before Saine returns. I’ll go see Olphynn tomorrow.

If Olphynn is part of the Ceremony, it’s likely to be Dole’s. If I meet Olphynn, he’ll probably be able to tell me where the Ceremony is taking place.

 

Ugh, I’m so cold-hearted. Dole is my friend, so I should be more concerned about the Ceremony. I know I can’t be of any help, but I can at least pray for his success, and maybe I can follow up if it doesn’t work out.

But then again, I guess he wouldn’t like it if several male Reincarnators lined up saying things like, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fun once you get used to it.

Anyway, I’ve decided to go and see Olphynn first thing tomorrow morning.

 

I eat breakfast and head out of the house. It’s quite a distance to the plaza, right in the middle of the Eastern Section where Olphynn lives. If I went in a straight line it wouldn’t be that far, but I have to walk along the road so it takes time. I sprint, turn suddenly, run hard, turn erratically, and at this point I get tired and start walking again.

The town is laid out in a grid pattern, but the closer I get to the plaza the more roads are blocked off. Suddenly, a wall appears on the road. There is nothing on the other side of the wall. The road just starts again.

 

The central square is in the very middle of town, and four major roads start from here, but it seems that there are walls in about three places on this main road as well.

This wall, which you could say is growing on the road, is quite thick. Thicker than the screens of a house. Well, that’s probably why it’s standing on its own. The wall is also tall. About three stories high. It stands there, rock-solid.

 

The walls make it impossible for anyone to keep walking straight down the main road. There are no doors to get through, and certainly no holes in the walls.

So everyone has to turn off at some point and take a side street, where they turn and turn until they get past the wall and back on the main road. The same structure is used on the smaller main roads that lead off from the squares in the middle of each town.

 

Every time I go to see Olphynn, I see this strange wall.

When I asked Saine what the wall’s purpose was, he told me it was to keep monsters away. In other words, it’s to stop monsters and disasters from coming from outside the town from crossing the main road and attacking the Priests straight.

 

I see, I’m impressed. If roads were wide and straight, for example, enemy soldiers would be able to run through them in a flash if war broke out. You have to protect important areas with walls and moats, otherwise there would be a lot of opposing soldiers.

He was a bit surprised when I said that. Ehem, I puffed up my chest.

When I was a kid, lots of us used to get together and play war games. Of course we’d set up traps to defend our base. We’d make pitfalls or tie up grass to trip people up.

 

It takes a little over an hour to walk from my house to the Daryss’ house, but I hardly ever see anyone there. The people here gather at the market, farms, or ranches, and not many people walk along the residential streets.

But as I get closer to the square, the number of people gradually increases. There’s no market in the square in the East Section, just a fountain, but there are still people walking around.

 

Facing this square are the mansions of the Daryss family with their black crest, whose territory lies in the eastern section, the Dorius family with their red crest, the Seiga family with their blue crest, and the Kanryuu family with their white crest. There are four large mansions standing proudly.

Next to the mansions, about half the height of the mansions, are the ceremonial buildings that each family owns. They apparently had several others, but recently Ceremonies have been held in just these four buildings.

 

Standing next to the fountain, I looked around the square. All the Ceremony buildings looked the same. There was no smoke coming from the fireplaces, and no Saine of people. I wonder where the Dole’s Ceremony is taking place.

Officials were walking busily through the square. You can tell the officials of this world at a glance. They all wear the same clothes. People here generally wear ochre, or a dull yellow or brown, clothing in simple colors like a shirt and pants.

 

Priests wear colorful costumes. A long, flowy jacket and long pants that look like a kimono worn loosely…or is it a skirt? I’m not sure, but they are flowy clothes that must require a lot of fabric.

Higher ranking priests apparently wear white clothing, but I have never seen one like that yet.

 

Officials wear black clothing. The style is somewhere between that of an ordinary person and a priest. They wear a knee-length jacket and normal trousers. They have a thick belt around their waist, and they usually carry something. It’s a thin, box-like bag. They apparently keep pens, ink, paper, and stamps in it.

I haven’t actually seen them, so this is just my information.

 

There is a fountain in the very middle of the square, which is the starting point and where the road begins.

This is the main road in the eastern section, or a minor main road in the town as a whole. Facing the square, the priest’s mansion is located between the roads. It is L-shaped so as not to make the square too narrow.

And on the right side facing the square, each ceremonial building is built. In other words, if the vertical bar of the L is the mansion, then the ceremonial building is at the end of the lower bar. As the ceremonial building is smaller than the mansion, the mansion isn’t just part of the bar, it also takes up a little bit of the lower bar.

 

The Priests’ mansions is surrounded by a square, a small main road, and the rest of the area are normal roads.

My house is attached to another house, but the Priests’ mansions aren’t attached to anything. The mansions and ceremonial buildings are built in an area surrounded by roads.

 

Across the main road from the priests’ mansions is the government office. They manage family registers, supervise and guide the guild, repair roads, and repair the walls along the roads.

There may be other work as well, but I don’t really know what it is.

 

The government office is two stories high. The priest’s mansion and the ceremonial building are three stories high. But every floor of the priest’s mansion is incredibly tall.

The guest room of the Daryss family, where I lived for a while, also had an incredibly high ceiling. In Sainee’s house, I could reach the ceiling if Saine was to carry me on his back. But in the Daryss family’s guest room, even if I stretched out my hand as far as I could, I wouldn’t be able to touch it with my fingertips. It’s that tall.

 

The ceremonial building is also three stories high, but the ceiling doesn’t seem to be that high. Even just looking at it from the outside, you can see that the start of the second floor of the ceremonial building is not aligned with the mansion next door.

The priest’s mansion also has a high roof. My house would probably fit completely between the third floor ceiling and the top of the roof.

The roof of the ceremonial building is also of normal height. So although the mansion and the ceremonial building are both three stories high, they are different heights, with the top of the roof of the building coming between the second and third floors.

In contrast, the government office seemed to be of normal height. So there is a considerable difference in height between the two-story government office and the three-story priest’s mansion. Standing in the square, I could really see how small the government office is.

 

Officials don’t live in the government offices. Those who pass an exam to become officials have to move close to the office, otherwise they can’t live in the neighborhood. But next to the office live slightly wealthy families. Most of them seem to be peddlers.

Peddling is a dangerous business. That’s why you can make a lot of money. Peddler’s usually have slaves. Not servants, slaves.

I’d heard the word slave before, but I was shocked to learn that they actually lived nearby. Apparently slaves are people who can’t repay their debts or who commit a crime.

 

Slaves have tattoos on their hands. They have the owner’s family crest on them, and they use it to claim ownership.

Saine ordered me to stay away from people with marks on their hands. I don’t know what crimes they’ve committed, and he said that it’s usually because their minds are twisted. Apparently they’ve been oppressed in such a way that they have to become twisted.

 

I kind of don’t like it. Even if he has a tattoo on his hand, if someone says hello to me, I think I’d say hello back.

Me being like this is probably easy and dangerous. I won’t do anything that Saine tells me not to do but, I don’t want to ignore someone who wants to talk to me. I understand how that will make them feel. (TN: Someone keep an eye on him OMG! This line sounds like a prelude to him being kidnapped or something… not spoiler cause idk either.)

 

On the other side of the government office are the homes of the rich, and on the other side of that are the homes of the slightly wealthy, and then finally the homes of ordinary people. Even then, there are a long line of houses for families, so if an official is single, his house would be further away.

For example, if he lived in the Eastern-East Section, it would be hard just to go to work every day. He probably wouldn’t be commuting to the guild, like Saine, where he could arrive at any time.

 

I looked closely at the Daryss family and nodded. I patted Kyui gently over my clothes.

Saine said it was okay, and Olphynn was the only one that was the most sensitive. Saine seems to have spoken to Olphynn so it’s fine, I console myself.

 

My heart pounded as I stood outside the Daryss mansion. I rang the doorbell and waited for the door to open.

A familiar servant saw me and opened the door without a word. I bowed deeply and entered, then sat down on my usual sofa. My heart began to pound as I watched the servant disappear without a word.

 

The fact that the servant let me in means that Olphynn is at home. And that means he has enough work to meet I if you wait. That means that the Dole’s Ceremony is not a Black Crest.

 

Oh no, what should I do? It’s not a white crest, is it… But the white crest just has a low success rate, it’s not a 100% failure rate.

Hmm, but… white would be troublesome… Dole knows about the white crest, you know. If he went into the Ceremony room and saw a white crest on the floor, he’d probably come out punching all the priests present. If he did that, he might not be able to receive it a second time.

 

Thinking that far, I suddenly realizes something.

That’s right, Dole knows about the white crest. He heard about it from Olphynn in the forest before. And the fact that he’s still undergoing the Ceremony means that it’s not white, at the very least. Good.

It might just be the Red Crest which has the most success rate. It’s not the White, nor the Black. Which means, it’s red, it must be. I’m so glad~, he’ll surely get a girl!

 

TN: Daryss family (Olphynn’s family) has the Black Crest.