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A year in this world is 366 days, with 13 months a year and 7 days a week.

Each of the 13 months have a name, with them being Month of Guardian (January), Month of Fallen Angel (February), Month of White Monkey (March), Month of Giant God (April), Month of Quiet Angel (May), Month of Demon Lord (June), Month of Lion (July), Month of Spider (August), Month of Demon Beast (September), Month of God-Fish (October), Month of Death God (November), Month of Dead Souls (December), and Month of Smithing (Undecimber).

As for the days, they are Moon Eye day (Monday), Wing Tiger day (Tuesday), Qilin day (Wednesday), Dream Eater day (Thursday), Celestial Maiden day (Friday), Mirror day (Saturday), and Prayer day (Sunday), with Prayer day which was Sunday being the day off of the week (actually, what is a day-off? Is it tasty?)

Speaking of which, today marked the second Prayer day of the month of Death God, which meant it was the second week’s Sunday of November. It had been eight months since Syltianna died and Jill was reborn.

During this, summer had passed and autumn harvest had been completed in the western pioneer village, marking an end to the busy weeks the village was undergoing. The harvest this year was not particularly abundant, but it didn’t fall under the yearly average either. Village chief Aroldo, Eren’s father, sounded quite relieved and commented, “We can get through winter with this.”

…One incident that I remember happened during the transition from summer to fall, in which a chalk Greece temple-like structure —I couldn’t tell if it was Ionic, Doric, or Corinthian— was suddenly erected overnight on a meadow about an hour east of the village without anyone noticing. The villagers were quite astonished by it.

Needless to say, this was the newly constructed transporter straight to the imperial capital and its accompanying facilities. We had only seen the transporter under the rubbles before, so this was the first time for us to see it in proper working order.

However, the exterior only serves as a protective shell for the main structure, not much else… Thus confidently explained a very stubborn-looking old dwarf-like craftsman that had a “supervisor” armband on his arm to the onlookers from the village, with him were young dwarves and brawny men who seemed to be his subordinates.

“It’ll be alright this time! After all, it’s no one else but I, the most skilled chief engineer of the Superempire, the Great Inaba, who made this masterpiece of a building! Come dragon’s breath or a giant’s blow, no matter! It is protected superbly!”

As the boss dwarf boasted, Bartholomew the Death Knight —who, for various reasons, had taken the liberty of following me even though his original mission was to guard the teleporter— eyed the outer structure with the eyes of a challenger, the battle-ax in his hand looking like it could even cut an elephant in half.

“Hoh. If so, I sure wish to put it to test myself.”

And then he actually put a crack in the wall, earning a huge eyeful from the boss dwarf… But, well, at least it looked like a good sideshow for the onlookers.

By the way, everyone was creeped out by Bartholomew at first, but Bruno had been sticking with him the entire time. He would come to the entrance of Tenebrae Nemus day after day and yell: “Instructor Skeleton! Train me with the sword again!”

Everyone would often see them in nearby fields, engaging in sword fights together —he eventually dragged Eren and me to exterminate herds of goblins and orcs, saying “gotta test my skill!”— making everyone in the village think that Bartholomew was harmless…beneficial, even, enough for them to just accept him as their own and start calling him “Instructor Skeleton” as well.

Consequently, the teleporter was reconstructed at an unexpectedly early date, remarkably shortening the distance between the Conwallis Imperial Capital and an area as remote as this. However, while it was directly connected to the teleporter of the imperial capital, that didn’t mean one could go directly into the imperial capital using this teleporter. For safety measures, mainly military-related ones, the access to the teleporter was located a day’s distance away from the walls of the imperial capital (this was also according to the “supervisor”).

The next day, officials, engineers, architects, and many others from the imperial capital began to visit the area. After some discussions with the chiefs and mayors of neighboring towns and villages, the central town that was originally built as a post-station town for the villages in the region would be given the name Consul where a pavilion would be built there to welcome the Governor who would administer the affairs of this frontier zone.

Fortunately, the villages had all finished their harvest season, and there was plenty of manpower to go around, so the construction of the pavilion began with a rush. We would be ready to welcome the Governor by the time spring comes.

One day… As the autumn season was deepening and the cold of winter was beginning to set in, my mentor received some guests.

♢♦♢♦♢

With the tea brewed and ready, I knocked on the door while holding the tray and entered the living room together with Vier, my familiar.

“Excuse me.”

When we entered the living room, three people sitting across the red-hot fireplace turned their gazes to face us.

One was, needless to say, Regina with her everlasting sour face as she was sitting in her easy chair, while the other two, our guests, were a man and a woman who were sitting on the sofa.

“I brought the tea.”

As I wondered where in the world she pulled out the furniture from, I set out the black tea and the complimentary cookies (that I made myself) on the suite table that I would dare to vow didn’t exist this morning.

As I did, I glanced over to steal a profile of the guests from the corner of my hood.

One was a familiar face. He was the dragon knight and Regina’s great-grandson, the good-looking man in his prime who seemed to be a prominent noble from the Empire—Mr. Eilmer. He must’ve noticed my gaze since he smiled and winked at me. Sharp as ever, I see.

While the other one was someone I never met before. Dressed in a simple, easy-to-move dress, she was a lady that couldn’t be older than 40 years old, perhaps in her later 30s. She had a well-defined face, but her height, slanted eyes, red hair tied up in a bun, and straight posture gave her the impression of a “Strict Academy Dean” rather than a noblewoman.

From under my hood, I tracked where her appraising —almost wary— gaze was directed and I was sure it fell to my golden-furred Sirius familiar who had gained the habit of jumping onto my back to make herself bigger. For a moment, her eyes widened.

Yeah, that’s the normal reaction alright. It’s Mr. Eilmer who’s weird for not reacting much in the first meeting.

“—I will take my leave, then.”

Well, yours truly is merely a server today, so I’ll do what I need to do and leave the room quickly. However, after I bowed and was about to leave the living room with the tray in my arms, Regina called out to me.

“Stop there, Jill. I need to introduce you. Well, you already knew that overgrown manchild, but that redhead over there is my disciple, Christy, who’s assigned to be the Governor.”

Translator’s Note:

We got 20 new terms to remember right out of the gate, that might have or might have not appeared in Vampire Princess before. I’m not a fan of changing the names of the months and days, since it’s easy to intimidate readers that way. I’ll keep track of them and provide the modern equivalent if they appear in the future.

I don’t even know if they are plot relevant to Vampire Princess. Fallen Angel could very well be a nod to a character with the name Lucifer if there was one. White Monkey could be Hanuman. God-Fish literally reads Kanna. One of these days I’ll be reading Vampire Princess for a better context… one of these days.