Dream Life Chapter 4.2: “An Omen”

　The next day, I decided to focus on acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to live in this world.

　First, there is language.

　As far as I know, the language they use here is very close to English. The alphabet is almost the same as the one used in English. The pronunciation of proper nouns, such as place names, is unique, so perhaps the language is similar to that of Scotland or Wales in the United Kingdom.

　As for the language, the daily conversation became no problem right away.

　It was easy to learn the letters of the alphabet because they are the same. Numbers are a variant of Arabic numerals, so I could use them with no problem, only a little discomfort.

　The problem was learning the words.

　There was no dictionary in the house. Maybe dictionaries are so valuable that they are only found in places like royal palaces or capital city libraries, but the lack of dictionaries was a big obstacle for me.

　I was very uncomfortable with the lack of a dictionary because I had to ask someone for every word I didn’t understand.

　You might think it would be easy to just ask, but a little kid like me has no reason to look up difficult words. It was extremely tedious because every time I asked, I had to explain why each time.

　After about three months, I learned to read and write to some extent and begged for books.

　At first, they gave me simple thin books with simple stories, but within a month I was bored with those books.

　My family had an office for my father, the lord, and an office for my grandfather, the former lord, where the books were kept, but as a child, I was not allowed to enter the office.

　Even so, I managed to ask my father to let me borrow some books on history, geography, and other subjects.

　I was finally able to understand what the world was like.

　Of course, I had learned about common sense from my mother and my maids, Molly and the others.

　A year is twelve months, a month is thirty days, and a day is twenty-four hours. The year begins on the winter solstice, which, incidentally, I “woke up” at the beginning of June.

　I learned, in conjunction with my geography studies, that I am in a small village called Rathmore, with a population of about 500, which is the entire territory of the Lockhart family.

　The village of Rathmore is in the northeastern frontier region of the country called the Empire of Caelum.

　The village is located at about 40 degrees north latitude, because the difference in the hours of sunlight between summer and winter is not as extreme as in Northern Europe, and is about the same as that of Hokkaido at the very least.

　In spite of this, the summers are hot and the winters are cold. The map shows a basin, which, combined with the continental climate, may be the reason for such a climate even at this latitude.

　This area was like an outpost between a federation of free cities called the City-State Union, a country of mercenaries called Fortis, and a kingdom called Caum. When the City-State Union and Fortis were established, they were too remote to be included in their own country, so the land remained as Caelum territory.

　The reason why they did not incorporate it is that it is a land overrun with evil creatures called monsters, and it is said that the obligation to protect the people was deemed to be out of proportion with the tax revenue.

　The Caelum Empire originally did not adopt a policy of actively protecting frontier villages. Therefore, the land was almost a free border area, but it was often given as a nominal fiefdom as a reward to nobles and knights, one of whom was our grandfather, Govan Lockhart.

　One of them was our grandfather, Govan Lockhart, a commoner who had been knighted for his service in the war eighteen years before, but due to some trouble, he had come to live in the village of Rathmore, his own fiefdom, fifteen years before.

　Neither my father nor my mother would tell me the details of this area, and when I asked Walt and others who had served him for a long time, they remained tight-lipped and wouldn’t tell me.

　I only knew that it was not something for a three-year-old boy to talk about, and I did not ask any further questions.

　To summarize, the village of Rathmore is located in the northeastern free border region of the Caelum Empire, and to the south is the Kingdom of Caum, where the dwarves live. To the north is Pericritor, the land of adventurers, one of the city-state confederations, and to the west is Fortis, the land of mercenaries.

　And this village of Rathmore is about 5 km off the main road, the Ars Highway.

　This “five kilometers” is a tricky matter, as this distance completely removes the village from the trade route. Travelers on the path would go back and forth between the north and south without stopping at Rathmore Village.

　There were many other geographical facts that were also informative.

　The other thing I learned was the existence of guilds. The main guilds include commercial, mercenary, adventurer, mage, blacksmith, etc.

　Although I did not know the details, guilds are mutual aid organizations, and they have branches in relatively large cities.

　To become a merchant or a craftsman, you need to join one of these guilds, and I heard that the screening process is quite difficult, but as I am of the knight household, it is not really relevant to me, so I did not look into it in detail.

　I was also interested in adventurers.

　I did not understand the difference between adventurers and mercenaries, but I heard that adventurers mainly earn a bounty by defeating monsters, while mercenaries mainly earn money by escorting people. Of course, there are also mercenaries who specialize in large-scale monster-slaying and so-called “soldiers” who have long-term contracts with the government.

　The Magicians’ Guild is pretty isolated and I had little information about it, but I was told that it has its headquarters in the academic city of Doctus, one of the city-state federations and that if you enter the Academy of Magic there, you will be qualified to join the guild.

　I wanted to know more about the Magicians’ Guild so that I could make use of my magical talents, but the village of Rathmore itself had very few magicians, and there were only three healers who could use Recovery Magic.

　I did not know much about magic, but I was able to gain some knowledge about God from various stories.

　In this world, there is a creator god, Creator God, and three main gods: Caelum, the god of heaven, Mons, the god of earth, and Whyta, the god of man. In addition, there are the eight attribute gods: Ignis, god of fire; Lucidus, god of light; Wentus, god of wind; Arbor, god of wood; Fons, god of water; Noctis, god of darkness; Remus, god of earth; and Ferrum, god of gold.

　These attribute deities are strongly associated with magic and are said to be more revered than the three main deities.

　I think there were twelve of them in my dream, but I don’t know who I talked to.

　Incidentally, there was no temple of a specific god in the village of Rathmore, but only one temple dedicated to the Twelve. The priest here seems to be a priest of the earth god Remus since the village is close to the kingdom of Caum, but he is usually in Bogwood, a town on the border of Caum, and is not a resident in the village.

　It is said to be like a countryside shrine, where the priest comes to perform rituals during festivals.

　Weights and measures are also close to the units of the original world and are based on the Metric System using something similar to the decimal system—the names of the unit of measurement slightly differ, but the description and the measurement of units are almost the same. –so there was almost no confusion.

　I was also able to obtain some information about the Lockhart family members.

　I learned that there are five retainers in the family.

　First, the head retainer, Walt, or Walt Vassell, who has been my grandfather’s subordinate since before he rose to the rank of knight.

　He is a master spearman, but he is extremely quiet, and I have never heard his voice except in his greetings and training sessions.

　Walt’s son Enos also serves as a squire, but he is not good at martial arts and is always yelled at by Grandfather or Walt during training. Enos is said to be a childhood friend of Father’s, and they sometimes have a drink together.

　Mel’s father, Hector Marlon, is a bowman.

　He is a jovial man and is well-liked by the members of the patrol team made up of villagers. I met Hector’s wife, Polly, Mel’s mother, in this village. He seems to be a lucky man who has a lovely wife who is also younger than him.

　Nicholas Garland, the most knowledgeable member of the Lockhart family, is a typical swordsman who uses a one-handed sword and shield.

　This man is also in training, but he uses fierce swordsmanship that doesn’t fit his quiet demeanor.

　Nicholas’ daughter Jean, who is a maid, is engaged to Walt’s son Enos.

　Sharon’s father, Guy Jakes, is also a squire, an adventurer, not a soldier.

　He was with my grandfather when they were defeating monsters, and he decided to become a squire because he was inspired by my grandfather.

　He knows a lot about monsters and can also use a sword and bow, so he is in charge of guarding the area around the village with the hunters and is not often in the house.

　The Vassell, Marlon, Garland, and Jakes families become vassals in the service of the Lockhart family.

　I’ve had a year to learn or memorize these things.

　Then, to move on to a new phase of my life, I decided to tell my family my secret.

　I had a lot of trouble with this.

　I believe I had a good relationship with my father, mother, and vassals. I am not sure about my grandfather, as he is difficult to approach, but I believe that at least my father and mother would accept me.

　But these tales of witchcraft can be a different matter than trust. It is common to hear that family ties are shattered when a person falls into a new religion.

　Still, I am willing to confide in them.

　I am going to tell them because it is an unavoidable obstacle for me to make the most of my knowledge and talents.

　Worst case scenario, I don’t care if I’m disposed of as being possessed by a devil.

　Since God sent me here, I know the chances of that happening are low, but still, it’s not zero.

　May 25, is my birthday.

　I decided to tell my grandfather, my father, and my mother about it.