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I had heard the name Lavi several times before. Several people had called me that upon seeing me for the first time. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but after having it happen several times, I naturally grew curious.

I had asked Ryder casually, thinking it was the right moment to bring it up, but I never expected it to bring out such a pained expression on his face.

This led me to believe that this matter was not something I could just casually poke my nose about. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care, but if my assumption was correct, my efforts to find out would only make Mama Sonia and Papa Howard sad. If that was the case, it was better that I didn’t force it.

I decided that from this point forward, I’d stay quiet about it and let things unfold on their own. If the time came when I naturally learned the truth, so be it. And if that time didn’t come, then that was fine as well. All as long as those two didn’t have to suffer.

From that moment on, I vowed not to take any action about this.

The day after the sparring session, the graduation ceremony took place successfully, and we started our summer vacation.

Following my experience at the training area, I asked Mama Sonia if she had any training clothes I could use. To which she handed me a pair of loose-fitting pants and a V-neck shirt.

Every morning after summer vacation began, I ran around the village wearing those clothes. Running served as the foundation for controlling my body. I tried to control my strength while focusing on pushing off the ground firmly with my feet.

Later, since my route passed by the edge of the forest, I made sure to check for any signs or disturbances in the forest every morning.

Whenever I returned from my run, Sir Howard was always in the yard, practicing with his sword. With steady and quiet breathing, he carefully reviewed each sequence of moves, sometimes moving slowly and others quickly.

Since I had never formally learned how to use a sword, I decided to take this opportunity to ask him for guidance.

“You’re far more skilled with the sword than me, Susie. There’s nothing I can teach you.”
“But… I… never… learn… use… sword… Just… let… body… control!”
“Then all the more reason not to. Our goal is swordsmanship that is honest and free from excess on the part of the individual, the sword, or even the world. You’re already at that stage, Susie, so me teaching you my incomplete swordsmanship would only disturb what you already have¹.” Sir Howard said, refusing to teach me.

Still, that didn’t mean observing his training was not allowed! Every morning, after returning from my run and taking a shower, I would sit quietly and watch Papa Howard train.

Sir Howard’s swordsmanship was both powerful and graceful.

Each time he swung his sword or stepped forward, every muscle in his body tightened and surged with energy. Beads of sweat flew off with each movement, and the heat rising from his body seemed to wrap around him like steam before dissolving into the air, creating an almost mirage-like effect. The powerful swings of his sword caught the morning sunlight, leaving flashes of light in their wake and forming shimmering streaks around Sir Howard.

Howard’s swordsmanship was extremely cool and beautiful. I grew to cherish the quiet moments I spent watching him train. An important duty of mine was handing Papa Howard a towel when he finished his workout.

Whenever I handed him the towel, he accepted it with such genuine joy, and seeing him like that always made me happy.

While still keeping those feelings of joy, Sir Howard would go off to take his morning shower, and I would head to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. This was how a typical morning unfolded in the Cloud family.

After breakfast, it was time to clean the mansion and do the laundry.

Sweeping, wiping, and polishing were the usual tasks, but until now, Miss Elrose had handled the second floor while Miss Sonia took care of the first. They’d done this so that Mama Sonia’s legs wouldn’t get too tired from going up and down the stairs.

Now that I was here, I was entrusted with cleaning both floors, especially around the stairs.

After all, I was young and energetic and could move around quickly! But if I moved too fast and missed a spot while sweeping or mopping, I would inevitably be caught by Miss Elrose’s thorough checks.

The same went for the laundry! Of course, there were no washing machines, so everything had to be hand washed. If I used too much force, I risked damaging the fabric. But if I didn’t apply enough pressure, the stains wouldn’t come out, and I’d have to start all over again. Miss Elrose was as strict as her image suggested—a true spartan!

After breakfast, I spent about two hours each day helping with housework under her firm supervision. I could definitely sense my ‘girl power’ growing with each passing day.

Since the start of summer vacation, I have been going to the Temple almost daily after finishing the household chores. At the Temple, I mainly learned about the customs and social etiquette of this country—areas where I was most lacking.

There, I often found myself with Mia and Bibi. They both came to the Temple to study magic.

I think I saw Mia and Bibi almost every day during the summer vacation. In the mornings, we were usually at the Temple, and in the afternoons, when we were free, we often spent time together. However, the one I spent the majority of time together with was Mia. Come to think of it, there wasn’t a single day when we didn’t see each other. I was especially grateful that Ms. Daisy was at the Temple, because thanks to her, I managed to learn how to read and write.

With the help of those, I expanded my knowledge about the country in many ways.
One of the first things I learned was about the dates and times. We were currently in the 2418th year of the Celestial Calendar and the 4th Blue Month².

The year had 365 days, and the months alternated between 30 and 31 days. Each month the color would alternate, with one being a Blue Month and the other a Red Month³. This alternation happened 6 times in total.

In short, a year has 12 months. A week consisted of seven days. A day was divided into 24 hours. It was almost the same as in modern Japan.

In case you’re wondering why there were blue and red months… Well, it was because two moons orbited this planet—a blue moon and a red moon. These two moons orbited each other, similar to a binary star system⁴.

As a result, their positions alternated every month, with either the blue or red moon appearing in the foreground. The red moon was slightly smaller than the blue moon, so even when the red moon was in front, the blue moon’s outline remained partially visible behind it. It was said that due to this size difference, the Blue Months had one extra day.

I was told that just the other day, the two moons had overlapped, with the red moon in the foreground, and a total lunar eclipse had occurred. In other words, the sun, this planet, and the two moons had aligned perfectly in a straight line—a rare celestial event that apparently only happened once every hundred years or so. It honestly felt like such a waste. I was really bummed out that I hadn’t witnessed such a rare event.

As for the currency in this country, the smallest unit was the c (Cupur). There were copper coins divided into 1c, 5c, 10c, and 25c coins. Silver coins came in denominations of 50c, 100c, 250c, and 500c coins.

Once the value reached 1000 Cupur, a higher unit called an a (Awl) was used, with 1a being the equivalent of one gold coin. The Awl Gold Coins came in three types: 1a, 5a, and 50a.

In addition, there were also Aurora Bills, which came in two types: 10a Aurora Bills and 100a Aurora Bills.

The coins varied in size and thickness depending on their value, making it easy to distinguish them by touch. For example, the 50 Awl gold coin was quite large—so large that I couldn’t even fully hold it in my hand!

Although the Cupur was said to be the smallest unit of currency in the country, there was an iron coin called a Stan that was below the Cupur copper coin. The conversion rate was 100 Stan for 1 Cupur, and it was apparently used mainly as pocket money for children.

While the currency from the Cupur Copper Coin and upward was issued by the national government, the iron coins were produced by local governments, meaning they could only be used within their respective regions.

1. Robinxen: Ah, truly a story written by someone who must have never ever practised swordsmanship.
2. TL/N: The Celestial Calendar here is a name that I came up with based on the raw term 辰星歴 (Shinsei Reki). There is also a Maya calendar known as the Tzolk’in Calendar, which in Japanese can also be referred to as 神聖暦 (Shinsei Reki). Although both calendars have the same reading, the first kanji used is different, which leads me to believe that the Celestial Calendar used by the author is a fictional calendar simply used for this series. What leads me to believe this is that the calendar in this novel and the Tzolk’in calendar work on a different day-year cycle, which is revealed in the next few sentences.
3. Robinxen: Reminds me of how the Final Fantasy calendar works with Astral and Umbral swapping.
4. Robinxen: My instinctual reaction was to make a three body problem reference but really that doesn’t apply here. The three body problem actually has a pretty strict set of base requirements for it for applicable, and the real world rarely ever meets those. For starters an orbital structure like this would also involve the star which adds another body to the situation, the other is that the moons evidently orbit themselves, that means it is a two body structure, serving as part of a two body structure, which is part of a bigger two body structure. The moons orbit each other, that central orbit point then orbits the planet, and the planet orbits the sun. This is assuming that the two moons have a astronomically equal orbit (by that I mean close enough on our timescale it’s virtually perfect, but on the scale of the universe it’ll break down pretty quickly, kind of like how we say the Moon is orbiting the Earth when actually it’s running away veeeeeeeeery slowly). This note was meant to be me making a musing reference to a fun scifi thing and suddenly I turned it into an actual lecture, I will stop now.

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