I survived five days after becoming Dara. And ‘surviving’ was the precise term in case someone got mad at me for my choice of words.
After waking up unusually early in need of a bathroom, I tried searching Dara's memories for the right place. Just to be presented with the information that everyone used a little cabin on the riverbank to relieve themselves—the very river from which I got my drinking water.
I couldn't help but pity anyone who may live downstream.
Since Dara was supposed to be quarantined from the village, I at least kept some dignity by using my own little potty, different from the other villagers—or so I assumed. But there was Uncle, watching me do it to make sure I wouldn't get pee everywhere. The embarrassment was so overwhelming that I started to wonder if the fact that Dara was constipated all the time was a blessing in disguise.
Changing clothes proved to be another struggle. Apparently, Dara wasn't able to do it on his own, so Uncle was the one who did it for me. Then I realized the state of my clothes and started wondering why I even insisted on getting changed in the first place. Uncle truly needed a wife to fix his disgusting way of life.
After discovering the blasphemous treatment of the water, I'd let it boil for much longer. Afraid of the possibly infinite amount of vermin that called it their home. And every time I'd drink it, I'd have a mini panic attack.
In just five days of grappling with my new reality, my recently discovered faith, my young heart, and my sense of shame had already been trampled into oblivion.
And the knowledge I had requested of God—whatever. The knowledge I had requested of god didn't seem to be any closer to me. Essentially, I had been scammed. Of all the infinity of people lying around in all the worlds, god had chosen me to play a prank.
Maybe I wasn't the only one. Who knows? They might be sending people who believe they are receiving some super overpowered blessings left and right through the multiverse, just to crack up, laughing at the faces of the individuals as they realize they've received nothing.
So, in summary, my soul left the modern world to start living as a dying child on the outskirts of an agricultural village in the Middle Ages. And that's the end of it.
No matter how much you look at it, this second chance in life is just an excuse to make me suffer. What is this, purgatory?!
I always dreaded the moment that I'd draw the short end of the stick and unlock the bad ending of life, a.k.a. becoming a functional salaried worker in society. But this was even worse, I had to work just to get drinkable water with a body that had the constitution of a sunfish1References to the game "Survive! Mola Mola!" in which an ocean sunfish (Mola Mola) is the protagonist. Players have to guide the sunfish to avoid its death. This proves to be a hard task, considering that practically anything can kill it, from choking on a prawn, sardine bone, or jellyfish-that-turned-out-to-be-a-plastic-bag to ‘sudden death’.
.
When it got bad enough, I started entertaining the idea of running away, considering that I didn't have any genuine attachments to this place. However, I quickly scratched that idea when I recalled how exhausted I felt just from going to the river right outside the house to prepare my water.
So, I was stuck in this place until my death or until the day this body gets healthy, whichever comes first. Thus, the only thing left for me to do was swallow my tears and work hard to improve my life until my hands bled.
“Things needed for life improvement…” The two biggest problems in my life at the moment were the terrible food and the lack of hygiene. Without some soap, no matter how much ash, herbs, or sand I used under Uncle's guidance, my head would keep on itching. And even if I washed myself in the river I'd still stink. So that was two birds with one stone.
“…Maybe there are bed bugs?” The mere thought of the little demons clawing through my skin was enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.
My brain cells were frying as I utilized every one of my memories to sketch out a map of the essential ingredients needed to make soap—like a certain anime I saw when I was living like a less sad person. The tip of the stick I was using as a pseudo pen to write in the dirt in front of the house was moving like crazy.
Haven't written this much since high school… I had heard people talk about how much writing was required in college, but back then, I couldn't care less, so my notebook remained mostly blank.
Considering these facts, my academic prowess might seem dubious, but trust me, despite appearances, I was quite knowledgeable about the well-known aspects of chemistry. Therefore, my step-by-step tutorial for making soap was flawless—
“Wait... How do you even get sodium hydroxide?”
—at least, to make an industrial one.
“Let's get back to the basics,” if you discarded every luxurious thing from the soap-making ingredients, all you needed was: “Some fat, anything alkaline, and water?”
Well, I did recall reading about people from ancient times making soap out of ash, so that covered something alkaline. Water went without saying, and the remaining ingredient could be found in any beef or pork. But that's where the rubber meets the road. In these five days, plus every year in Dara's life, I didn't recall seeing meat even once.
“Maybe he could just ask for milk from someone else?” I muttered, lifting my eyes to gaze at the cow feeding itself on a patch of grass not too far from me. I knew Uncle used its milk, either to drink raw or to make an unappetizing and unfinished-looking cheese.
“Wonder if I'd be able to take the fat out of it…” The cow gave me a troubled look and started walking away for some reason.
Choosing to leave the cow as a last resort, I was once again lost in thoughts, seeking the best solution for my current predicament. However, upon a brief consideration, it became evident that this was the least troublesome problem to date. When faced with a lack of food, the market was the obvious next destination.
Naturally, I had no clue about the price of meat or if the village even had a market. I also had no money and was banished from the village. All in all, I was stuck—or I'd be if I had any intention of playing by their absurd rules.
Taking inspiration from my nature in my past life, I had been concealing myself every time I left the house these past few days. Always evading the interest of anyone who might be seeking the miller's services. It was a relatively simple task—I'd occasionally lock eyes with a visitor through the window, and they would always regard me with scorn. While Dara might have been hurt by such treatment, for me, it always had been just par for the course. As far as the villagers were concerned, Dara was still having fun tap dancing between the line of life and death.
Actually, I probably still was navigating that line. The stupid coughing always did its best to interrupt my sleep, and the fatigue occasionally was so overwhelming that I found myself questioning if my legs truly had the weight they were supposed to.
It kind of reminded me of my old life, where feeling tired was, fundamentally, my default mode—I was pretty used to it. If I were to draw a comparison, I'd say it's like how swimming makes people feel really tired. Whenever I stepped out of the house, when someone I barely knew started small talk, during interactions with attendants, or even when I tried to sleep, the strength of the waves would tire me. Living is like that. Sometimes while those around you seem to float just fine, it takes everything you've got just to barely not drown.
Truth be told, I wasn't even doing a good job at the end there… But I digress.
“Today I've got to find fat,” it was such a dumb necessity at this point in time that it made me let out a wry laugh. “Maybe it's time for me to use my secret technique...”
“Uncle, I need meat!”
“Huh?”
It was the afternoon of the same day, and having exhausted all viable options, I resorted to the one and only grown-up in my life. Yeah. Grown-ups sure are dependable when you're a brat.
“Meat! I want meat!”
"Mhm, I bet ya do…”
“Preferably that one with the weird name that you can get from around the kidney of the sheep,” I wasn't one hundred percent sure, but I remembered listening somewhere that that was the place where the fat for pudding came from2Suet: The name of the fancy fat from the kidney area of animals. Great for making puddings, pies, and keeping birds plump. Some would say it's the nicest section of animal fat. :). So it probably had a lot of it—maybe.
My hopes were getting dangerously high without apparent reason.
“And what in tarnation do ya mean by that?”
“Eh—?” And then I was on the ground again. What did he mean by that? Can he not understand what a kidney is? Wow, science in the Middle Ages was rough.
“It doesn't need to be from the kidney specifically, it can be whatever meat cut has the bigger amount of fat.”
“…I reckon ya might've lost me there.”
“It doesn't even need to be from a sheep!”
“What kinda funny words are ya stringin' together now?”
“Wha—?”
“This the lingo ya young'uns are tossin' around these days?”
Does he not know what a sheep is? What kind of agricultural village is that? From where do you think your clothes come from, old man?!
“You know? That animal from where you take the wool!”
He looked at me with a dubious expression that I was seeing for the third time in this conversation. And then, it hit me. Of course he wouldn't understand jack of what I was saying, the most important parts weren't coming out in his language at all.
“The heck?! Is the auto translator broken or something?!”
Frankly, I must confess that I hadn't given much thought to the point that I could talk just fine in the language of an entirely different world. I just assumed God had made the necessary alterations for me or something.
I mean, for a different world, this place sure did look just like Earth. There were no two suns or moons, the cow didn't talk, there were no colorful hairs (the ones I had seen did range from blonde to black, though compared to the ones described in the light novels, it was pretty normal-looking), and I hadn't seen any magic floating around. Hence it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the language were to be the same.
It's not something to be proud of, but yesterday I spent some time trying out different poses to test for magical power. Surprise, surprise—I was as useless as ever. In fact, with my smaller, weaker body and slower brain, I was even more inept than before. Go me!
No matter what kind of poses or magical words I tested, nothing came out. Luckily, I had already abandoned my feeble sense of pride. So when Uncle gave me this weird look upon seeing me shout “Fireball!” with my hand extended toward the wall, I just smiled at him as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Most parallel worlds stories had a pretty game-like appearance, with status windows, level-ups, warning messages floating around, and all that random stuff. It made the world look less real, which, if I'm being honest, would make it easier to adapt. Just think for a second; if the people around me were just a bunch of programs, I wouldn't have to worry about their opinion of me or feel bad about any selfish actions that I took. But, in those stories, as soon as the protagonist needed some emotional support, they'd suddenly think of the ‘codes’ as very real people. It's a very self-centered narrative, but it did work to make them feel better about themselves.
Having said that, since no status window appeared when I asked for it, there was no way for me to check for some language skill, and that's why it never crossed my mind.
“You know? When you put the meat on a pan in the fire it lets out that good-smelling liquid,” having realized that my knowledge of the language came solely from the minimal amount of Dara's experiences, I tried to patch together an explanation with severely dumbed-down words.
“You talkin' 'bout the fat?”
“Yeah!” I made a mental note of that word. “I want about, um… 300 grams of that.”
“I didn't quite catch that last bit…”
Makes sense. Even I knew there was no way that these people would know what a gram is.
“Anyhow, there's no way I can rustle up some meat for ya.”
“…”
No need to fret; I've learned my lesson. I wouldn't let it get me down. This body hadn't eaten meat once in six years. Naturally, it must be a rare product. Maybe they didn't eat cows because they're holy? Come to think of it, I haven’t heard of what kind of gods these people believe in.
In the Middle Ages on Earth, religion was supposedly quite a big thing. With the whole ‘burning witches’ business going on, it was quite refreshing to see that people here weren't as devoted. It made me feel a little bit safer. If I was going to revive my past life technology in these parts, it was nice to know that I wouldn't get decapitated for it.
That is if I could do it…
“Don't ya know? The butcherin' season only kicks in come winter.”
“Huh?” Perhaps it's because they can freeze it in winter? Well, at least they have meat, I guess.
“So I have to wait until winter to make my soap?”
“And what in tarnation is that, pray tell?”
“…” Recalling Dara's memories, this place exhibited very distinct seasons—the leaves would change color in the autumn, fall off in the winter, and grow back in the spring. Considering this was harvest season, the heat, and the dimming color on every tree, this was probably the end of summer and the start of autumn. This meant we were at least three months away from winter.
“Ugh!” I groaned, rubbing my itching head.
Waiting that long to wash my hair was out of the question. Glancing at the other village houses scattered at a distance from the mill, I defaulted back to my less-than-conventional plan.
