CH 76

I went to the carpenter and stonemason to study under them so I can build my forest villa. Unfortunately, the information I gleaned was about remodeling and reconstruction, and some useless stuff that I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t on the level of the house that I wanted to build.

One of the lessons that struck me was about the reason for elevating the house entrance – filth and muck litter the roadside, so the entrance must be raised to prevent dirty flood water from coming in. Like, what the… man, you should just clean the horse dung and whatnot, for crying out loud! You can use it for compost or fuel or whatever, right? And exterminate those fleas and lice, for goodness sake!!

Ugh, that was a mess. How should I put this? There’s a gap between the civilization levels of the poor and the wealthy. Take the bed for example. Affluent families use quilted down blankets, and the townhouses have bedspreads made from pelts and felt made from wool. Dinosso’s family makes their bed by spreading some straw before covering it with a cloth. Other farming families slept in the barn, crawling underneath the straw to keep them warm. That’s how huge the discrepancy is. And if we consider that gap, then it’s only natural to think that there is also a limit to how far a love between two people of different status can go. No matter how good-natured a person is, his or her way of thinking and doing things differ. Moreso in this world, where people had to work hard just to survive — their decisions often focused on the immediate future, which is understandable, given that they don’t even know if they’ll still be alive by the following year.

Well, even if I’m aware about how difficult living in this world is, I have no intention of standing up and doing some kind of meritorious deed in the name of saving the world. I’m no saint after all, it’s not my personality. But then, even if I can’t be a public servant, I still want my friends and acquaintances to lead a hygienic life.

And speaking of friends…

「 Stop it! What are you doing! Don’t take it off! 」

Argh! ー yep, that’s Dinosso. Actually, I decided to clean up Dinosso’s house on a whim, even though his family doesn’t really have anything to do with this urge. Their house is clean compared to the other farming families, after all. Well, to tell you the truth, I actually came to this farming village in the past, hoping that I’d learn something from the other farming families while helping out, but I couldn’t stand the environment, so I settled for Dinosso’s house.

「 I’m going to do the laundry, so can you please change your clothes? 」

I said while handing the clothes for each of them along with pairs of shoes.

「 You! What do you think you’re doing so early in the morning! And why is it only me you’re targeting! 」

The kids were lively as they energetically helped me while I stripped Dinosso, and he ended up stark naked for the meantime. This is a lesson for me regarding how unruly kids can be — they don’t know when enough is enough..

「 Oh my, what wonderful clothes these are. The kids will tend to the animals as they graze, and this guy and I will work on the field after this. Are you sure it’s okay? These clothes will be dirtied, after all. 」

Madam is already aware of why I’m here, because I explained it all after greeting her, and she also gave the greenlight to me.

「 I’m giving them to all of you, so please attend to Dinosso’s whole body bath for now. 」

「 I’ll make him change into these clothes after he takes a bath beside the well. 」

‘Don’t you dare ignore me!’ — Dinosso was yelling at the top of his lungs while being dragged along towards the well, still buck naked. I then turned around to start my cleaning duty. Dinosso, the wife has the final say in the home, don’t you know that.

Alright, time for me to clean, and this is how I do it.

I started by cramming everything that can be stored into my 【 Storage】 then, blocking the chimney and gaps in the house. Afterward, I burned some medicinal herbs to fumigate the entire house. I took the laundry out and washed them while the entire house was filled with smoke, and I also took out all the unnecessary stuff — bodies of dead insects, trash — that I chucked into the 【 Storage 】earlier and threw them all away.

I did another round of rummaging for garbage and various dead things inside the house and tossed them all into 【 Storage 】 before throwing them away outside. Afterward, I brought the lunch to the field and we all had a picnic together. The kids clung to me, much to Dinosso’s envy, as they talked about peaceful, trivial things, like the weather this year and the things they sowed.

The smell of the smoke from the medicinal herbs had already dissipated a lot, but there was still some lingering odor when I returned to the house after our lunch, so I started to scrub and clean the entire area. It didn’t take too much time because the rooms were quite empty. I return the cleaning tools after I’m done, before fetching some fresh straw to make the bed. My work here is done; all that is left is to wait for the laundry to dry.

Dinosso and the rest of his family came back just as I was repairing the louver windows.

「 We’re home~ 」

「 We’re back. 」

「 Here we are.」

「 Welcome back.」

The twins and Tina would usually hug and cling to me at this point, but because I was still holding the tools, they just satisfied themselves by circling around me while grinning ear to ear. This scene looked like a funny ritual of some sort.

「 Oh my goodness, it’s really clean now. 」

「 Oy, are you some clean freak genius…? 」

The two adults were dumbstrucked at the situation of the house.

「 Just did my best. 」

「 Yeah, hey, just leave that window to me, I’ll do it tomorrow. Come here and have some tea. 」

Dinosso pulled me and seated me on a chair after pushing the window that I was still in the middle of repairing back to its place.

「 Heyo, kids, go skin the quail. 」

「 Please do the chicken eggs, too. 」

「 Okay! 」

The three lively kids jumped to their feet and rushed out after being instructed by their mom and dad.

Madam brewed some tea while Dinosso and I played a card game. The pattern was different, but it was still playing cards. I felt a bit embarrassed sitting here while the kids watched the quail roast over the hearth as they helped their mom.

They removed the quail from the fire after it was cooked well, because Madam would make it into her specialty dish, a stew with an alcohol called pot liquor as its sauce, and she would add a lot of leeks, too. By the way, that pot liquor is made by stopping the fermentation process while there is still sugar remaining, so it’s a sweet variety of liquor. According to Dinosso, the quail tastes heavenly, but the leeks that had soaked in the sauce were to die for. The season for leeks is over, huh ~ — Dinosso said with deep emotions while wearing a profound expression on his face.

Dinosso’s family is my ideal family. Well, it might be impossible for me to have such, though. I still want to explore a lot of places and wander about, and there were plenty of times when I just wanted to seclude myself.

「By the way, Jean, do you love cleaning this much?」

「 No? 」

Actually, I hate it.

「 Then why? 」

「 There’s a place so dirty I can’t stand it, but there’s nothing I can do about that, so in a fit of pique, I went to a place where I can clean. 」

「Jean loves being clean, after all. Here, it’s done ~. Please carry this! 」

Dinosso was staring at me dubiously when his wife called out to us from behind him. The kids brought the plates with a clatter.

…Whoa! Great, this world’s recipe for quail and leek pot liquor stew — gotcha!

———

T/N: How should I put this… Jean is slowly turning into the ideal househusband, me likey lol XD