The next day, Zenjirou awoke in a guest room in the palace. His bleary eyes were filled with the sight of a luxurious canopy over the bed.
He started at the unfamiliar view, but his memories from the prior night soon came rushing back, reminding him of where he’d gone to bed, and he relaxed.
“Oh, right... This is another world, yeah,” he mumbled to himself.
Zenjirou climbed down from the bed, which seemed bigger than his entire apartment back home, and stepped onto the carpeted floor. He donned a pair of slippers that were waiting for him and walked across the wide room before realizing he’d been scratching at his side.
“Argh, the bugs have gotten me everywhere. I kinda jumped in and agreed to the marriage yesterday, but maybe that was a bit hasty...” he muttered, a bit after the fact.
A single day had made him well aware of how uncomfortable this world could be compared to modern Japan. However well seasoned the food had been yesterday, the water and booze with it had been strangely lukewarm.
Zenjirou didn’t have a refined enough palate to distinguish standard and low-malt beers but proclaimed like any proud Japanese that “ice-cold low-malt is justice.” So the lukewarm wines served with dinner the night before were unbearably bad, regardless of how they tasted.
Speaking of warmth, the actual temperature was a problem as well. His impressions from Aura the day before led him to believe that the Capua Kingdom was a rather warm place, even compared to Kanto in Japan. It was extremely rare to see people walking the streets in long sleeves, even during the coolest time of the year. During the warmer seasons, temperatures rose well above normal body temperature, so people would pack themselves into small rooms and “enjoy the coolness” of each other’s bodies.
Actually, he thought as his face twisted slightly, I remember hearing some similar things about summers in India.
Thermometers didn’t exist here, so he wasn’t sure of the exact numbers, but it sounded like he could expect winters with lows of 20°C, and summers with highs of over 40°C.
Furthermore, this world obviously had no air conditioning. Zenjirou had only ever experienced summers with that luxury available, so the heat would probably be a formidable hurdle. It had actually stopped him from sleeping well at night. They weren’t even at the height of summer yet, but it had still taken him more than an hour of tossing and turning in the king size bed to drift off.
Of course, the heat wasn’t the only reason for his poor rest. The other issue interfering with a good night’s sleep had been the bugs. This world seemed to have no such thing as glass window panes, and the windows were covered with wooden shutters instead. These shutters were left open during the day to let light in, and the bugs essentially had free rein to enter. The canopy seemed to act as something of a mosquito net, but it wasn’t perfect and couldn’t keep them all out, so when he woke up that morning, he found himself all but eaten alive.
What got to Zenjirou more than all of those problems put together, however, was the inconvenience of the night itself. He’d honestly never thought that a night without electricity would be such an ordeal. The dining room he had eaten in with Aura had been fairly well lit by many candles in a chandelier, but when he walked along the corridors later on, all he’d had to rely on was the oil lamp the maid guiding him had been carrying.
Even in his room, the only source of light had been a single oil lamp on the desk.
“I knew people used to go to sleep early in the old days, but now I get it. I mean, you can’t do anything but sleep at night like this.”
He got himself changed as the litany of complaints continued to pour from his lips. He’d refused the customary dressing aid provided in palaces and estates the night before. His current outfit was a pair of loose pants that fastened with a string at his waist, and a baggy, knee-length top that was almost like a nightgown. Apparently, these were what royals and nobles alike used for nightclothes, but having tried them, Zenjirou would take a T-shirt and boxers any day of the week. These items were less comfortable to sleep in, and considering he didn’t rest as well here to begin with, he’d gotten tangled in the nightgown with all his tossing and turning.
Yes, this was the royal palace, and even if it wasn’t official yet, Zenjirou would be the prince consort. The food, clothing, and accommodations would all be of the highest quality, but they couldn’t even satisfy someone who had grown up as an ordinary commoner in modern Japan.
The gulf between eras, and indeed cultures, was vast.
Once he had changed out of his borrowed pajamas into his own familiar clothing, Zenjirou sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the maid to come and fetch him.
“Thinking about it, Japan’s pretty blessed. Most houses have a fridge and air conditioning. They don’t even have electricity here. It’d still be nice not working, though. And the queen is super pretty.”
The attraction for Zenjirou, even after the warm booze, uncomfortable room, and dark night, was the beguiling Aura Capua, who he was now, albeit informally, engaged to. She had joined him at dinner wearing an evening dress with a daring slit. Her charming smile and sensuous body had once more mesmerized her fiancée from another world.
Zenjirou had been charmed by her audacious figure and directed his gaze, though with enough moderation to not seem unnatural (or so he believed) at the valley of her voluptuous breasts and towards the slit where her thighs were visible.
Even considering it now, that ass, along with those breasts and thighs, seemed plenty enough reason to abandon his modern life back home.
“Actually, my bike came with me when I arrived. So I should be able to bring some other things back with me in a month, right? Okay! I’ll write up a list of necessities for this marriage once I get back home!” Zenjirou said, clapping his hands together. At the same time, there was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” he called.
“Excuse me, but breakfast is ready,” came a familiar young woman’s voice from the other side.
“Right, I’m on my way!” he answered loudly.
Zenjirou stood and jogged over to the room’s entrance.