Waya. A regional word from Hokkaido, my home province, that means a state of utter chaos. It was pretty surreal to hear a dragon speak the Hokkaido dialect, but not as surreal as the things taking place in this country. White rice in a medieval fantasy world? Where to start...?
“You want me to change things back to how they were...?”
“You can’t,” Tiamat replied with a swift declaration. With a look, I pried her for an explanation.
“Once lives have been enhanced, no one will accept the inconveniences of their former lives. You’re familiar with that, Eiji.”
“...You got me there.”
It’s true. I had lived my whole life with modern technology. I couldn’t go back to live in the caves. I want to drink cold beer; I want to take clean baths; I want to live in a comfortable house. I want to easily gain information through my electronic devices, and I want to be able to get food or snacks whenever I want. The same sentiment must hold true for society as a whole. This becomes apparent during power outages, for example. They illuminate how much modern civilization depends on electricity, and how modern-day humans can’t live without it.
After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, electricity in Japan was scarce. It was only natural, since the production of nuclear power, which was a major contributor, had been practically halted. More natural ways of producing electricity had been spotlighted in the media, but those weren’t enough to make up for the loss of nuclear. Despite our predicament, how many Japanese people spent their lives consciously preserving energy? I surely was not one of them. Just as Tiamat pointed out, I couldn’t stand to lower my quality of life.
As my occupation called for it, I’d listened to some concerned citizens from time to time. One such time happened when I was still being called a rookie. I believe they had come in to ask questions about their taxes. Saying their business wasn’t doing well, so they couldn’t pay their taxes, or something like that. After the bubble popped, the Japanese economy had been in a steady decline with no indication of that changing.
After listening for a while, assuming that this must be a common concern, they said something that stunned me. Apparently, no matter how much they tried, this couple could not live off of anything less than about 400,000 yen a month. The thought crossed my mind to give them a head-butt over the counter. At the time, my first salary out of college was about 160,000 yen a month. After insurance, taxes, etc., I was left 140,000 yen or so each month. How could they need nearly three times the amount of my salary to survive a month? They ate as much as they wanted, played as much as they wanted, and claimed that they were being frugal. To top it all off: “Must be nice to work for the government. You live off of our taxes,” they said. Dammit. Just remembering it makes my blood boil.
“Come back down, Eiji. Where are you floating off to?”
“My bad. I just remembered something infuriating.”
“I thought it was supposed to be something funny. A new use for colloquialism, I see,” Tiamat said, kind of distant from me, as I was unleashing my anger against the innocent ground of the Azur Kingdom.
“So it’s difficult to downgrade your life. I get the point.”
“Mm-hm.”
At the end of the day, you can’t sleep in your baby crib once you’ve grown out of it. It seemed impossible to force the people of this world, who had tasted modern-day technology, back to their old ways.
“Unless we blow it all up, or something.”
“Same goes for Earth. If all technology were to return to dust, people would be forced to be cavemen again.”
“It would be easier here than on Earth. The knowledge of technology is still hoarded by the select few.”
“That’s a weird comparison. It’s not something I can accomplish, anyway.”
It would be difficult to rob the world of knowledge that had already been made public. If information was being kept close to the chest of a select few, killing those few would be an option. Except that was impossible. A feeble bureaucrat like myself had no combat skills to do so. Even if I did, I didn’t want to kill anyone.
“Hm. I know. That’s why I don’t know what your next step is yet, Eiji.”
“Thought so...”
Things weren’t so easy. The god on-site apparently wanted it fixed. How could I fix it? I didn’t even know what state the world had to be in to be deemed fixed.
“First, we need to find out what problems are occurring here,” Tiamat said, with a big yawn.
It’s only natural, but there was a security check when entering the city.
“Young man. From where have you hailed?” a soldier asked, holding a spear. He must have been one of the guards. I would call him a burly man with a shapely mustache, but he was shorter than me. Just about 175cm, I figured. I didn’t know the details, though, as I didn’t have any special abilities that allowed me to accurately assess one’s height, weight, or bust size. In any case... ‘young man?’ After the age of thirty, it’s not often that one is called young. In fact, I was on the cusp of ‘middle age.’ Perhaps in nine years...
“We are travelers. We came from...”
“The Dragon Realm. I am Tiamat. This is Eiji.”
“Ah. A Hermit in the flesh. Forgive me.”
“Mm.”
Tiamat returned a light bow. I interpreted the quick look she gave me to mean ‘leave it to me.’
“Ordinarily, we remain detached from the lower realm, but the Azur’s flourishment has piqued our interest. I humbly request permission to enter,” she declared with eloquence, boasting an impressive attitude. Her dragon body added to the intimidation factor, too.
“In that case, you are most welcome here. Please fill out these columns here, Master Hermit.”
The soldier, pleased by the compliment of his nation, showed us to what looked like voting booths. He gave us each a piece of paper and a pen.
Hold on a minute. What time period on Earth did this world equate to? While the paper was primitive, this kind of paper didn’t become common in Japan until the Meiji period, or after 1868. As for the pen, this type that contains its own ink wasn’t invented until the 1800s. It just seemed like... things were thrown together sloppily just to eliminate some inconveniences in life.
That was my thought process as I faced the piece of paper. I was tasked with filling them out, as Tiamat’s hands / paws / talons weren’t suited for a pen. I filled them out one by one; it seemed I had no issue reading and writing the language of this world.
“Oh. How old are you, Tia?”
“No idea. I never had a custom to keep track of my age, either.”
“Really... Oops...”
It’s possible that Tiamat was created at the moment of my inter-world travel, but I couldn’t put down ‘age: 0.’ Could I turn these in partially blank?
“No problem, sir. These are formalities.”
I gave the soldier a pleading look, and he returned a big nod of approval. Although I couldn’t help but think that they should probably maintain a front, especially if these were formalities, I was not about to go poke a wasp’s nest.
With a fake smile, I handed over the papers with good portions of them left blank.
“Oh, you are 31, Master Eiji! I would have guessed that Hermits age differently than us!”
He was surprised, for some reason. Is there a problem with the fact that I’m thirty, huh? Is there?
“I can’t believe you are a whole ten years older than I am!”
Oh, okay... “Wait, ten!?”
I couldn’t help but yelp. This soldier was 21? There’s no way he’s anywhere below his mid-forties. That was when a certain possibility crossed my mind.