Dream Life Chapter 21.1: “Zack’s One Whole Day”

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　September 25th.

　As usual, he wakes up before dawn.

　Being a child’s body, I often have difficulty waking up from sleep due to strong sleepiness, but thanks to my daily habit, I manage to wake up.

　Fighting sleepiness, I change into the clothes that Molly, the maid, has prepared for me in the dark room. Thanks to my enhanced eyesight, I can see things even in near-total darkness, which is quite convenient.

　After changing, I do some light exercises in the room.

　I slowly stretch my body in typical stretching techniques. As one would expect from a four-year-old, my body is flexible, and I am able to put my chest on the floor while spreading my legs 180 degrees.

　I want to maintain this flexibility, so I do the exercises every day. Thanks to these exercises, my joint’s range of motion is quite large, although I wouldn’t call myself a gymnast.

　As I finish flexing my body, the darkness slowly fades away.

　As usual, I grab a small wooden sword for myself and head out to the garden.

　Outside, the Aquila Mountains to the east catch the rising sunlight on their backs, and their distinctive jagged ridges become increasingly clear. The colors of the four hills to the south also slowly become more vivid as the morning mist clears.

　By this time, my grandfather has finished warming up outside, and I stand beside him, greeting him.

“Good morning, Grandfather. It looks like it’s going to be another beautiful day.” (Zack)

“Good morning, Zack. Well, it seems like it is going to be another hot day today.” (Govan)

　While they are enjoying their morning conversation, Rod, my big brother, appears.

“Good morning, Grandfather, good morning, Zack. You’re always early.” (Rod)

　My grandfather and I return the greeting, and the three of us take up our swords.

　My grandfather begins to swing his sword, and my brother and I silently begin to swing ours.

　I have not learned many forms yet, so I swing the few I have memorized with all my heart.

　My brother seems to choose his favorite form depending on his mood, and today he is swinging with a form that focuses on thrusting.

　My grandfather exhaled sharply as if there was an enemy right in front of him, and yet he was showing a beautiful form that looked like a sword dance.

　As the sky becomes completely light, Mel and her brother Sim, the other siblings, Dan and Sharon come up the hill.

　Then, after greeting Grandfather, they begin to swing the same way.

　Only Sharon watches us while doing the exercises I taught her beside us.

　We continue to swing our swords until my grandfather finishes his exercises.

　It takes about 30 minutes, even in the cool of the morning, but by the time we are done, we are breathless and sweating.

　Afterward, one by one, we do our swings in front of my grandfather, and any irregularities are corrected.

　After the morning drill, Mel and the others head back to the house and we head for the well out back.

　By that time, Walt is pumping water from the well and the tub is filled with cold water. I soak my face in the water and my head feels refreshed.

　I soak a hand towel in the cold water and wipe my body, and I feel my body cool down. This feeling is irresistible to me.

　In my former world, I used to exercise when I was a student, but after I joined the company, I rarely did anything that resembled exercise. I had not exercised for more than 20 years as far as I was concerned, except for going to the gym when I got a free ticket.

　I had not exercised as far as I was concerned for more than 20 years. It was just that, but it felt good.

　After I finished wiping myself off, I headed straight for the cafeteria. By that time, the aroma of baked bread for breakfast was wafting around the well, inviting my appetite.

　In the dining room, Molly and her daughter Tricia were preparing breakfast, and my father and mother were already sitting at the table.

　When we show up, my father, mother, and Liddy greet us with smiles. We return the same greeting and go to the dining table.

　The breakfast menu is almost the same, but at my request, warmed milk, butter, cheese, and hard cheese, lightly melted in the residual heat of the oven, are added.

　I suggested that my growing brother and I might need some calcium.

　Until then, we had only had butter and cheese with dinner, but I thought it would be good to get a little more calcium.

　To be clear, I don’t know anything about nutrition. But I just thought it was “milk” for kids.

　It was still hard bread and soup without any ingredients, but just by adding dairy products to it, it became a very breakfast-like dish. In a little while, I would like to try my hand at making ham and bacon.

　In this village, meat and fish are not smoked, and the only meat available was fresh, often from wild animals other than livestock, or salted.

　After breakfast and washing my face, I relax a bit.

　I can relax for an hour or so, as my father heads off to work on the village administration and my grandfather to do the paperwork for the neighborhood watch. I often take advantage of this time to read a book or chat with Liddy.

　When my grandfather finishes his paperwork, the morning drill begins.

　The village patrol men are coming up the hill, and when they see us, they bow their heads and greet us.

　About ten men from the neighborhood watch line up in the square west of the mansion. Walt checks each man’s equipment, and if any of them are not up to snuff, he gets right in their faces and yells at them like a demon sergeant in the U.S. Army.

　At first, I was very surprised to see another side of Walt, who is usually silent and kind to us.

　When he and my grandfather start training together, they look like a drill instructor and his sergeant from a movie. With all due respect to both of them, I remembered and chuckled inside.

　The younger group of me, Mel, and Dan were at the far end of the square, just swinging our swords.

　Dan’s spirits seem to have grown even stronger since Mel’s swordsmanship skills were raised to level two a few days ago.

　Next to us, my brother and Sim are also swinging their swords, occasionally receiving a few curses from our grandfather.

　We take a break after 30 minutes, but my brothers and I go straight into a mock battle.

　Most of the time it’s my grandfather or Walt, sometimes Mel’s father, Hector, or Sharon’s father, Guy.

　I think both my brother and Sim are moving pretty well for eight years old, but my grandfather and Walt were not being hit at all, even though they were dealing with the patrol men on one hand while looking at him.

　After the break, we start swinging again.

　The forms were just repetitions of what my grandfather had instructed us to do and to be honest, they were very boring. It would be more interesting to train in a more practical way, but I can’t go against my grandfather’s teaching policy.

　Besides, my brother has already trained under this policy for three years, so it would be wrong for me to be the only one to complain.

　Our training takes about an hour, but my brothers and the men of the village patrol continue to train.

　We rest in the shade of a tree, wiping off sweat, and when we are exhausted, we begin to play.

　We play with rope climbers, tree climbers, a wooden cloud ladder Walt made for us, and a balance beam.

　I think tree climbing is dangerous for a little kid like me. In fact, I was brought to the healer after being injured many times.

　When the healer cast a spell on me for the first time, I thought to myself,

　If it’s just a broken bone, I can fix it right away. As long as I don’t hit my head or injure my internal organs, I can do something pretty serious.

　Yes, for minor injuries, magic is more effective and superior to modern medicine. So I came to believe that it was okay to do a bit of strenuous training.

　In addition to playing with these tools, since I can now do forward and backward rolls, we practice side rolls and backflips, play catch with a ball made of rolled-up cloth, and other games that I can think of that would be good for training. These games are so popular with the other three that it is sometimes harder for me to keep them company.

　I was afraid that the quiet Sharon would get bored, not to mention the active Mel, but despite her quiet appearance, she is quite athletic. I think she might be able to practice swordsmanship there, but I guess she is not suited for it because of her personality.

　Today I have business to attend to at Bertram the Dwarf’s workshop, so Nicholas will give me a ride home on his horse and I will return at lunchtime.

　At Bertram’s, we will check on the progress of the distiller, and as soon as we have cleared up any questions from him, we will return to the mansion.

　The distance is about a kilometer, so it won’t take too long to get there by horseback.

　I don’t know how it is in other houses, but at least in the Lockhart household, we have a proper lunch.

　The menu is not so different from that of the morning, but sometimes includes freshly boiled vegetables and river fish or meat brought in by the vigilantes.

　Then comes nap time.

　As a child, I have found that my body is in desperate need of food and sleep.

　I eat a fair amount of food, but my body still asks for snacking. I tell my mother and Molly about this and ask them to prepare calorie-dense snacks such as baked goods like cookies or crunchy rusks made with leftover bread from lunch and drizzled with honey…

　Both my mother and Molly objected to the snacking at first, but when I preached that an exercising child needs calories, they were easily debunked. They seemed to think it was a good thing for a kid’s body with my previous life knowledge.

　Honestly, I don’t know if snacking on high-calorie foods is a good thing. But I do know that it is necessary because the body demands it.

　Of course, I don’t think I have to worry about obesity because I am supposed to be doing strenuous exercise.

　I am always absurdly sleepy after lunch. The sleepiness is worse than the boring meetings I had after lunch when I was an office worker. I usually sleep for about two hours and wake up around 2:30 pm.

　I’m always sleepy after lunch. More than an uncluttered meeting after lunch in the office worker era, terrible sleep attacks. I sleep for about two hours and wake up at about 2:30 pm.

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