Chapter 1: The First Day of the White Month, Asuta's Day (First Half)

1

Despite all the problems at hand, my day started off quite peacefully.

Each day, we kept on striving to carry out our grand objective of bringing prosperity to the forest's edge. And no matter what sort of plots we might find ourselves wrapped up in, I had no intention of ever putting that goal second.

Meanwhile, my business had stabilized quite a bit as of late, so the same was true of my general lifestyle. Perhaps my life balancing out was helped by the fact that the climate around Genos, the forest's edge included, seemed to be nice and consistent.

It had already been 70 days now since I had come to live at this settlement, but I hadn't sensed any significant changes in the temperature or the length of each day. It was similar to Japan in early summer, and as for when the sun rose and set... Well, I still hadn't seen a clock yet in this world, so I had to guess at it, but I'd say we were talking around 6am for sunrise and 7pm for sunset.

In the Fa house we started dinner around when the sun went down, and about two hours after that we lay down for bed. Before falling asleep I would generally talk with Ai Fa, only having the faint light of the animal fat candle to illuminate us, and in no time at all, I would drift off.

If my intuition was on point then we went to bed around 9pm, which sounded healthy enough to me. However, there wasn't exactly any guarantee that a day was 24 hours here in this world. There weren't any clocks around, and so it wasn't clear how many hours I was sleeping for.

However, even if I didn't have any precise numbers to work with, it was abundantly clear that we were living healthily. We worked hard during the day, stuffed our bellies full of giba cooking, slept soundly, and then woke up completely rested and full of energy for another day's work. Living such well-regulated and fulfilling days came easier than you'd think.

And so, we headed into the first day of the white month.

As always, we started it sprawled out in the middle of the room, and the first to awaken was of course Ai Fa.

"Ah... Good morning, Ai Fa," I said while rubbing my sleepy eyes and sitting up.

"Right," Ai Fa nodded back. She was sitting cross-legged right in the middle of the room, skillfully doing up her blonde hair. I really loved this time of day, when the pale morning light came streaming in through the latticed windows. Just seeing Ai Fa seated there like always filled me with enough motivation to last me through the whole day.

"You should hurry up and get dressed already, too. We need to fill up the water jug today."

"Ah, that's right."

After giving a hearty stretch, I started off by heading into the storage room to change my clothing. Generally, while we were staying at home I would wash my clothes at the same time that I cleaned up after the previous night's dinner.

The storage room was packed with all kinds of assorted goods like a cracked sliding door, firewood that was drying out, and a saw leaning up against the wall. And it was there that I stripped down naked and put on fresh pants, a waistcloth, and a vest. However, I only had the one t-shirt, so I had to carefully wash it each morning and keep on using it.

My white chef's uniform was hanging there on the far wall. It went without saying of course, but that was what I had on when I had been sent here to this world. And as far as I knew, my cleanly washed socks and underwear were still jammed into the pockets.

Ever since Ai Fa gifted me with clothing from the forest's edge, I hadn't slipped my arms through those sleeves even once. This climate just wasn't well suited to a long-sleeved chef's uniform, plus the custom here at the forest's edge was that wearing an outfit with these swirling patterns was proof that you were brethren.

But this fabric came from Sym to start with. Shumiral wore clothing with similar patterns on it under his cloak too, so I guess it wouldn't make for all that big of a difference even if he really does marry into the forest's edge, I thought, reminiscing about the leader of the merchant group from the east known as the Silver Vase, who I had said farewell to just yesterday. Regardless of how things ended up between him and Vina Ruu, it would be half a year from now till he returned to Genos.

I guess around now, he had to be getting dressed to return to his travels. Was the same true of Pops's construction group from the south, too?

As those thoughts ran through my mind, there was a knock from outside the door.

"Hey, did you fall asleep in there? If you keep on dawdling, I'm leaving you behind."

"Ah, I'm coming out now!"

I used my waistcloth to wrap up the t-shirt and pants I had removed, then dangled that from my hips and exited the storage room.

First up was transporting the water jug and the pot stuffed with tableware. I tilted the empty water jug over and rolled it towards the door, while Ai Fa carried over the pot.

"Good morning, Gilulu," I said, spying our totos friend already tied up to a tree.

Lately Ai Fa had been letting Gilulu out after waking up and then getting dressed. I suspected that she was secretly getting her fill of his fluffy plumage as she did so, but unfortunately, I was slower to rise so I hadn't been able to take in such a sight as of yet.

At any rate, I placed the water jug and pot atop the large pulling board, grabbed hold of the attached vines, and took off for the washing place.

Borrowing Gilulu's assistance would certainly make the task a lot easier, but it would be bad for appearances to have the Fa clan be the only ones taking such a lazy route. And besides, it also served as strength training to try to do something about how weak I was. The route to and from the post town had already gotten much less intense, so if I didn't at least keep doing this much, I'd end up right back where I started, weakened by modern conveniences.

At any rate, I just kept on dragging the pulling board, with Ai Fa supporting the stuff atop so it didn't fall, as always.

The washing place was located less than ten minutes away from the Fa house, and it was one of the branches that came off of the Lanto River. A cold, clear stream steadily running through the rugged, rocky ground, leaving a little pool carved out by the power of water.

There were already four women there at the washing place, from the nearby Fou and Ran. Those were the only two clans who lived close enough to share this washing place. Apparently the Gaaz, Ratsu, and Beim lived further south, while the Sudra and Deen were more to the north.

As we approached, one of the women stood and said "Ah..." She was young, and I didn't really recognize her.

Lately women from the nearby clans had been frequently visiting the Fa house to request cooking lessons, but not all of them did so.

Hmm... But I get the feeling I've seen her somewhere once before... I thought, cocking my head.

Meanwhile, Ai Fa gave her a silent nod from beside me.

However, the woman just sort of wrung her hands and weakly cast her gaze downwards. Meanwhile, the other three women all smiled our way.

"Ah, it's Asuta and Ai Fa! We're wrapping up here, so you can have this spot."

"Thank you," I replied as I dragged up my load.

With that, that uneasy-looking woman moved aside so fast it was like she was about to flee from the scene.

Ai Fa, however, remained completely silent and expressionless.

Somehow, I got the feeling that there was something between the two of them.

"Hey Asuta, we'd like to come by for cooking lessons today. Would that be alright?" an older Ran woman asked.

I replied "Yeah," with a nod. "Li Sudra's set to come by today too, so that works out just fine."

"Glad to hear it. Um, you see, we were actually thinking about trying out that hamburger steak thing in our clan, too. Do you think we're not ready for it yet, though...?"

"Of course you are. What matters most is to just keep practicing every day. Even I burned patties back when I was first learning how to make them, and it was just a complete mess."

"Really? I can't even imagine it," the Ran woman said with a grin.

I couldn't help but feel that I was seeing these women smile a whole lot more lately. Of course being released from the Suun clan's control likely had a big effect there, but I felt like the new prosperity that had been brought to their lives was having an even bigger impact in terms of brightening them up. And I suspected that applied to both the physical fortune they earned by selling meat to the Fa clan, as well as the joy brought to them by eating delicious food. Though I'm sure I was letting my own desires influence my thinking there. Still, it was a fact that they looked happier, and they also seemed to have a strong desire to strengthen their cooking skills further.

"Yesterday the bloodletting didn't go all that well. Apparently the giba was really running wild, so they had to bring it down by stabbing it over and over."

"Well, the men all made it back safely, so that's what's most important. Anyway, we did like you told us to, Asuta, and washed...