Chapter 12: A life without an Alarm Clock
After we ate lunch, Hegard shouldered a basket and I was riding on it. I guess father and son thinks alike. When Farne wanted to take me outside he also used the basket, but this time around I was in a much taller position and I could look much further ahead.
Today the plan was to go to the center of the village in order to observe the situation. I was not able to see very many adults within the village. It is likely that the most of the manpower were a.s.signed to the fields to work there during this time of the day. I have roughly understood the geography inside of the village.
Whilst walking around, I asked various questions to Hegard.
I started with the economy in Bakkudo village and the economic situation in our household, I also asked many other things after that, like the currency units used, or the market price of various goods. It did not end there, I also asked about the most fundamental questions—- like what other races existed besides the human race, and the types of magic in this world, these were questions that were considerably important to me.
In this world called Orth, Bakkudo village was one of the villages in the Ron belt kingdom, we were in the west edge of the continent. In terms of it being part of the territory of Webdosu, it was also in the west side of his territory. Whilst the lat.i.tude and the longitude are uncertain, and the shape of the continent are also unknown, there was a lot of things that I came to understand.
I heard from Hegard that he was the third son of the Greed Household. Because there was no reason for him to succeed the house, Hegard went out of the house and became an adventurer (!). After that, Hegard came to meet Sharl, who was the fourth daughter of politician who was the third son—- both of them ran away from their houses and by chance met each other and travelled together as adventurers, as they took on requests as a party. Although an adventurer sounds cool when you hear it, to be frank, they are more of a jack of all trades that primarily does two main things, the first is that they hunt demons and monsters where military forces cannot be sent out, and secondly they act as guards for travelling merchants and the like or perform investigations, these are their main forms of income.
For people that want to get rich really quickly, most of them go into dungeons in search of treasures. Dungeons are here and there throughout the world, and they have become places where demons stay in. Because some really strong demons reside in these places, the aim is to eliminate the monsters in order to get a monetary reward, well another aspect is that many adventurers come to try out and challenge the dungeon, and when they die, these items become part of the treasures within.
Nevertheless, in this world there is something called a first cla.s.s adventurer, and this is a position that everyone is said to respect. The top cla.s.s adventurers are usually sent out for missions that the average man cannot do, for example if armies fail to subjugate a really strong demon, the adventurer will be sent out, and there are even cases where they will need to fight dragons (As I expected dragons exist in this world). The one that can request the help of these powerful adventurers are normally (Government agencies, countries, and or powerful/rich aristocrats etc).
Enough of that though, and returning to the topic, the reason why Hegard was finally able to succeed the Greed Family household was because his two older brothers has pa.s.sed away. When speaking of the order of their deaths, the second elder brother died in an accident when he was around Farne’s age, at this time, he was playing around in the river near the center of the village and drowned, the eldest brother was killed in a skirmish battle with the Debasu kingdom which is a neighbouring country which was at war at the time, and this happened approximately five years after Hegard had started travelling. At the same time Hegard’s father (My grandfather) sustained severe injuries in the battle, and he also returned with an epidemic, and as a result, there were many deaths within the Bakkudo village due to sickness.
Anyways, Hegard received the information that his elder brother had pa.s.sed away and that his father had received severe injuries, as a result he hurriedly retired from his work as an adventurer and returned home out of necessity. Although at that time the elder brother had already married, he didn’t bear any children, moreover, the wife of the eldest brother and my grandmother were nursing grandfather who was sick at the time, and they caught the epidemic and soon followed him to their deaths. When I heard about the symptoms of the sickness, it seemed like it was Dysentery. Although Shiemi-obaasan tried really hard to use her magic as a healer, people who had advanced symptoms could not be saved no matter what she did.
Also when Hegard returned with Sharl, they tried to cooperate and provide treatment, but for those who were already really sick, it could not be cured. However, there was also some people that got saved as a result of their efforts, and because of this, many of the villagers showed respect and reverence whenever Sharl and Shiemi-obaasan would show up in the village.
I took all this time to get a good grasp of the geography in the village, at the same time I was talking with my father about these things until the evening.
After this we returned home, and we eat supper.
Farne seemed to be practicing the sword all afternoon. Although he was only seven years of age, he’s already pretty diligent. What surprised me even more was that Mill also joined in as she tried to do some practice swings.
Well it would seem that Hegard ordered them to do so, but I suppose it’s also largely because I told Hegard that I met grandfather and that it was his orders to train ourselves to the very limits with magic and then to train in the sword during the afternoon. We were supposed to begin this type of training as soon as possible and at worst, we would need to continue this for 10 years. Usually it would be normal to start sword training at the age of 7. Well, the reason for this is probably because if you started too early, you wouldn’t have the muscles to support the proper training and it would just be inefficient.
Although I felt really badly towards Mill because I didn’t put into consideration her age in all of this, it’s not like I can just come out clean and tell them that I was lying about all this, so the best I can do is prostrate myself to her in my own mind. Well in the end, it’s not like they were going to force her to do things which she wouldn’t be able to do, right? After all she is a girl.
Before I went to bed, I would use appraisal as per usual and consume the rest of my MP.
Ah, it would have been much better if I practiced using magic instead of appraisal……..
The next morning we also started training magic right after we finished our breakfast.
Just like yesterday, it was a training that required us to feel the flow of magic and pa.s.s it through our arms.
When I used appraisal, whilst Farne’s MP stayed the same, Mill’s MP increased.
Farne was going to be 8 years old in another 10 months. Therefore, if he completely expended all his MP he should be able to reach an increase of about 150 points, right? And from the age of 8 to the age of 9 he would probably be able to increase by another 120-130 points. And then from the age of 9 to the age of 10, he can increase it further by around 60-70 points. All in all he would be able to gain a total of around 330 points. If I am not mistaken, in this world, there is n.o.body with such a high amount of MP.
In Mill’s case, she would be able to gain even more than Farne. In my estimation, she would be able to obtain around 850 points. Although it would be a pain to actually expend such a huge amount of mana each day, in a sense it would probably be good for her as she would probably be able to marry into a good family as a result of such a profound MP.
In any case, the problem in regards to MP has been solved for now.
Next is the learning of magical spells.
However, I don’t think we will have much problems with this matter as well.
To be honest with you here, I think that even more so than myself, my elder siblings have a talent for magic. Whilst they had only been studying magic for a period of 1 day, they can already pa.s.s magic quite easily, keeping the flow active for at least several seconds. Before they knew it, they would use all their MP and go to bed. It didn’t even take them 1 minute to end everything? For me, it took quite a bit of time before getting used to it. Just taking the time to imagine the magic pa.s.sing through my body would take 10 seconds. Well honestly, this is already pretty short.
After successfully casting it about 3 times, I also pretended to be sleepy again just like yesterday, after which Sharl would carry me to bed and I would practice by myself. Well as expected since I could practice over and over, I started to get pretty good at it. Incidentally, I also tried casting water magic and wind magic. After trying it out for several times continuously, I was getting quite good at casting them as well. This rotation is truly like a bicycle…
At noon we would wake from our naps and eat lunch, and I would then go with Hegard riding on his back on the basket.
Today our schedule is to go and see the fields.
First of all, we would go to the side of the houses. Right now it has pa.s.sed the middle of March, and it was the time when we needed to make ridges to sow the seed of the wheat. Seemingly, the tools they used were a plow and a hoe.
I didn’t see them using any animals like an oxen or a horse, in order to farm at a larger scale. Well I asked Hegard the reason for this, and he told me that for peasants and commoners alike, horses were not something cheap enough for them to afford. When I proposed that we should implement domestic animals to help with the farming process, it would seem that certainly there is some areas with under the Marquis Webudosu’s territory that has domestic animals to help them farm. However, Bakkudo was a village where the land had little cultivation, in any case I understood one of the reasons why they didn’t use the manure of the animals and why they didn’t have much domestic animals.
Although the efficiency is sure to improve drastically, they have not used domestic animals, it would seem that animals are only used on territory that is under the direct control of Marquis Webdosu, the reason for this was many, there was an economic reason, a cultural reason and also a spatial reason, In the Ron Belt kingdom there was a story that spread around. This story was about the king founder of the Ron Belt kingdom and it was the story of how this person was the main leading figure in founding the country.
At one stage in a great war of the Ron Belt kingdom, the founder was in a dangerous situation, however his loyal steed sacrificed its body and risked its life to protect its master. In the middle of escaping it was able to outrun two oxcarts by pure sheer will and physical stamina, and finally when they got to safety, the horse broke down in exhaustion and died. The founder of the Ron Belt kingdom was touched by this act from his loyal steed and since then, the kingdom does not treat oxen’s and horses roughly, I hear that he even enacted a law that prohibited making the animals to labour and or farming. Obviously this was a bad law, and after realizing it, the founder withdrew such a law a little while later.
However, because it became a sort of habit and anecdote, the country hasn’t popularized the use of animals for farming. When I asked out of curiosity about how long ago this was, apparently, the founder was alive approximately 500 years ago. When I thought that these people were crazy, for not using the horses for a period of 500 years, after the death of the founders, I wanted to know in more detail, and apparently this wasn’t the only reason for it. To begin with, it would seem that the overall number of horses and cattle are actually really scarce and this is the main reason for not using them. In any case, even within Bakkudo village, there was only 3 domesticated animals. This was pretty much the same across all of the other villages.
To begin with, a horse’s originally came from the east, continent of Oraddo, and in the west provinces there didn’t seem to be any wild horses lying around, similarly for cow’s and cattle, they seem to be from another continent as well. Therefore, the price became exceedingly high, due to the scarcity of the product, and normally only n.o.ble families or perhaps travelling merchants were able to afford horses and such. This is where I have a question. So after all this, why hasn’t there been any attempts to breed and raise them? Horses and Cattle are easily breed able and they should be able to fall pregnant every year.
After asking Hegard this question, my doubts were cancelled. I hear that in this world, it is a taboo to help domestic animals give birth, this is one of their belief systems. Because of this religious belief, most of the animals that are able to give birth actually die soon after because no help is given to them. And even the half that do manage to survive the birth, if there isn’t even milk given from the parents they would certainly die, because there is no other milk source from other animal parents. Not only this, there was also plenty of stillborns and this was the main cause of why the number of animals remained really low.
As a secondary factor, because large-scale domestic animals, such as horses, donkeys, and cows are extremely expensive, they become a target for theft and robbery, and they would also die during the wars and or battles, and because they taste really good, it is not unusual for demons and monsters to hunt them for food either. Taking all of this into account, even if by some chance, a villager acc.u.mulated enough wealth to purchase a horse or cow, the fact that there is so much danger involved and if by some freak accident, the horse or cow got killed or stolen, then they would be in a huge loss. Therefore, not many people had the courage to buy them.
At this point in time, I also asked my father about the religious system in this world. At the very least, within the Ron Belt Kingdom, there wasn’t really any major religious sects like the ones in present day earth. There doesn’t seem to be a word called “religion” either in this world. The closest thing to a religion would be Shintoism. In this world, it is believed that every single thing that exists has a G.o.d attached to it. And most people believe in the fact that there is G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses.
I already expected most of the things about religion, but what I did not expect was the fact that there is no other religions that exist outside of this one. The other day, when the priest came into my home to perform the naming ceremony, whilst it may be impolite for me to say this but, he really resembled a Shinto priest. It wasn’t a profession that held extreme respect, instead it felt more like one of those odd jobs, and my cla.s.smates in the previous world had said this at one stage “Oh family home is also a Shinto shrine”. Because there isn’t any political influence/authority from the religion, people are obviously not being forced to follow the religion. However, they are actually indispensable existences for particular events, and when they do perform those events, respect is given to them. Such is their existence. Therefore, I don’t really have to worry about religion being a troublesome thing.
For today, we stayed around the fields until the very last moment, before returning for supper. Although I had thought that we may need to work on the securing the river that flows to the center of the village, there seemed to be no records of Bakkudo village ever being flooded, therefore I decided that there was no urgent need to create a dam.
As soon as I finished supper, I started to practice my appraisal as per usual…..Or not, I mean I practiced using magic and this is when I realized something interesting.
■My previous schedule
・I get up in the morning（MP+1）
・Have breakfast
・Use appraisal
・Go to sleep
・Wake up during the afternoon（MP+1）
・Eat lunch
・Use Appraisal
・Sleep
・Wake up in the evening（MP+1）
・Eat dinner
・Use Appraisal
・Go to sleep
I realized that I was gaining 3 MP each day.
However today, this is what happened.
■My daily activities today
・Wake up in the morning（MP+1）
・Eat Breakfast
・Magic training
・Sleep
・Wake in the afternoon（MP+1）
・Have Lunch
・Climb on Hegard’s back
・Eat supper
・Use Appraisal
・Go to sleep
And now I was gaining 2 MP each day.
Although I was hoping to be able to continue gaining 3 MP per day, the problem lies during my time that I have to spend with Hegard whilst touring the village. At this juncture, there is no way I could use up my MP and go to sleep, just in time for supper. In that case, my only option is to wake in the middle of the night in order to accomplish this goal.
Whilst it is the norm to sleep until the break of dawn before waking up, to be honest because it grows so dark at night, and people have to sleep early, we actually get plenty of sleep. In winter, we go to bed at around 6 pm, because it gets really dark, and we get up at 5:30 am in the morning. This is almost 12 hours of sleep. Even in summer, we go to bed around 7 pm, and wake up at around 4:30 am in the morning. Even this is approximately 9 and a half hours of sleep to be honest even though in Summer the amount of sunshine is actually more (they still go to bed quite early) and even in Summer they sleep for quite a long period of time. In any case, more people wake up early during the Summer because it’s really refreshing to wake up early in the morning, and work efficiency goes up as well). If I can wake up at around 12 am at midnight, I should be able to just expend all my MP immediately. If I can expend all my MP to 0 there will be no trouble whatsoever in falling back asleep.
The biggest problem is, how in the world was I going to wake up at exactly 12 am? Although there is something called a biological clock within our bodies that we can make use of, since my previous life, I haven’t been good at using it. This is actually quite troublesome…. Although I can just put off the problem and sleep on it, later on, this MP deficit will begin to pile up and I will regret it… If at all possible I want to find a solution to this problem quickly. Although I wanted to do something about it, for now, nothing clever came to mind. Even so, it’s not like I’m just going to ignore this problem.
Darn it! This sucks. I can only think of three possible solutions right now.
Wake up using my Will power.Invent a subst.i.tute alarm clock.Use magic to somehow do it.Option 1 doesn’t really seem realistic, although I could try to do it, it definitely won’t be a consistent thing.
Option 2 is only good if I can make the alarm work only for me. Therefore it cannot be an alarm clock, that woke everyone in the household using sound. I guess I am forced to use a sort of water clock?
Option 3 is good but I have no idea how to do that kind of thing. The only thing I can do is ask Sharl about it, and perhaps she may be able to teach me how.
After thinking this far, I realized another thing I was missing. If I remember correctly, why is it that I can always wake up in the morning just before the day starts? The fact is my room has no gla.s.s window pane, so even though the sun has risen, there is no way for me to know this. Even if Myun was the one to wake me up, how is it that she is always able to wake up on time? Well if I asked Myun this question I should be able to solve this mystery tomorrow.
Well for tonight, I will bet it on option 1, oh well I’m going to use appraisal to expend my MP now.
Opps….I forgot to practice magic again.