Roy

I decided it would be best for me to sleep in my bedroom, while Alice slept in my parents’ room. I told her I didn’t mind sleeping next to her, but when it actually came time for that, I chickened out. I told her that I was going to keep an eye on the egg, but really, I was just too nervous. I quickly fell asleep. The day had been filled with one thing after another, so when the time came to sleep, I was too exhausted to put up any resistance. When I woke up, I was feeling refreshed and ready for another day filled with one thing after another.

I was still running on a bit of autopilot, apparently, because I went downstairs, half-expecting to see my mother and father already awake and working on household chores, or even my mom making breakfast, while my dad got ready for work, but the house was empty. I went back upstairs to my parents’ room and, after knocking this time, checked to see if Alice was awake. She was still asleep, which made sense given the shape she was in when she showed up here and the amount of work I put her through. I decided to let her sleep a bit longer. I went back to my room to check on the egg. It didn’t seem any different, but it wasn’t like I knew what to look for.

Downstairs, I started working on a list of everything we would need for the house. Food, clothes, and other daily necessities were obvious, but I was trying to think of something that would prevent us from going into debt again. If I could figure out some source of daily income, that could at least keep us afloat in the hard times. Along with that, we’d need to figure out a way to build up some savings. The four dragon scales and the sword would probably be a good start, but even with the bag of coins from the safe, I wasn’t sure that would pay off the debts. I’d probably need to find a job. I’d had a summer part-time job for a bit in my old world, but I don’t think that I could find a convenience store to work at here. The other thing was, I didn’t want to take a job that would force me to leave Alice at home alone. She seemed like she could handle some things on her own, but I could tell that raising a dragon would be a two-person task. I wanted something that I could do from home, so I had an idea forming in the back of my mind.

“Good morning, Simon.” Alice walked down the stairs as I wrote my plans for the day on a scrap of paper. She was still wearing the nightgown, but she had a bad case of bedhead. She seemed to be looking around for something. “Did you make any food for breakfast?”

“No, I planned on eating something in town today. We have a full day ahead of us, so we should get going soon. Otherwise, it’ll be dark when we get back.”

“Okay, I’ll go get changed. Don’t leave without me!”

“I won’t!” I didn’t ever plan on that, so it felt unnecessary to say it out loud, but if it reassured Alice, that was fine. I went back to working on my list. First, we’d need to go to the debt collectors’. Katka had a centralized debt collection. As far as my memories served, the city bought all the debts of its citizens, then charged interest on those debts. My father had told me that this was done to prevent third parties from using violence to try to collect debts. However, this also meant that the city wasn’t very popular among the poorer people in the town. My father had said that his parents spent too much money trying to defend the poorer people, which led to the family slowly going into debt, ourselves. You could only try and help those around you if you felt secure in your own position. Save yourself before you try saving others. Self-sacrifice sounds noble in stories, but in the real world, it only leads to more people being harmed than otherwise.

We had the scales, my father’s savings, and the sword, so we could hopefully pay off the debts, but if we planned on raising this dragon child, we’d need plenty of money, so my next stop would be to the Merchants’ Guild. I’d plan on registering for a business license. I had an idea for something we could sell, but it wouldn’t be something I could do on my own, so I’d need to make some allies in the guild. Those same allies would come in handy if I ever needed to replace any of the furniture in the house. If I knew anything about dragons, it was that dragons and fire typically came hand in hand.

My last major stop would be to the cathedral. Obviously, we’d buy food and clothes, but I’d wait until the day was almost over to pick those up. The cathedral was home to the local priest. The priest would come to the house at some point to perform a proper funeral, but the most important thing was trying to find out what killed my parents. Priests, like in most RPGs, were used to dealing with injuries, diseases, and anything else that might require holy magic. Whatever it was that killed my parents, I would imagine a priest would be familiar. I also thought about confiding in the priest about my two sets of memories, but unlike with Alice, where I was confident I could trust her, I wasn’t sure about the priest. For all I knew, this type of situation was evil magic. Maybe it was even something that could get me killed. Or maybe the priest would just think I was crazy. I decided not to tell the priest about my memories.

“I’m ready to go!” I turned around to see a very big dandelion walking toward me. Wait a minute, that wasn’t a dandelion, that was Alice. Her hair was still super messy, so it stuck out in all directions like the fluff of a dandelion. The color matched, too. Her white hair was so soft-looking that I thought it would all blow away with the wind.

“Alice, do you want me to brush your hair?” Alice, seemingly having planned this, brought out a brush she was hiding behind her back. I sighed and patted the spot next to me on the couch. She happily sat down and I began to work on fixing her hair. At least my assumption was correct: her hair was incredibly soft. As I brushed her hair, I muttered to myself, “This would be annoying if you weren’t so cute.”

We were outside of the house, walking towards the city of Katka. Alice wanted to hold hands while we walked, to which I obliged, but this meant my hands were full. In one hand, I held four massive dragon scales and a sword. In the other hand, I held my fiancée's hand. Both of these hands were holding something equally important. As we walked, it was only a few minutes to get to the edge of the city. Katka, like most cities, was surrounded by a large wall. There were city guards that stopped anyone who wanted to enter the city. I had regularly gone in and out of the city in my life in this world, so I’d never had any issues trying to enter, but for some reason, I got stopped today.

“Halt. Young master Westwind. I see that you seem to be carrying some strange items.” What? My fiancée's hand isn’t a “strange item”. No, I knew what the guard meant.

“Yes, I had quite an interesting day yesterday. My parents both died under mysterious circumstances, then I had Alice here show up looking for work, then I accidentally proposed to her, then I did so again, but this time on purpose, then we flew up to a cloud town, then we met a dying cloud dragon, and finally we agreed to raise her egg.”

Needless to say, the guard was stunned into silence by all of that. He took a few minutes to reboot his brain before finally laughing awkwardly. “You say the strangest things, young master Westwind. I was actually trying to ask if you wanted a guard to escort you through the town. You seem to be carrying some valuable items, so we could prevent you from dealing with any rough types.”

“Oh, that would be very helpful, thank you.” The guard called over another guard who was on break at the moment. As the two spoke, Alice whispered in my ear, “Young master?”

“Despite my family’s debts, they were generally well-liked by the townsfolk. My father was a count, so technically I’m a count now, but I don’t plan on keeping the title, if I don’t have to. That is, unless you want to be a countess.” Alice was red with embarrassment, partially from me whispering in her ear, partially from what I said about her being a countess.

“Well, young master, we’ve assigned Sir Garret to protect you for the day. Have a good day in the city.”

As we walked off into the city, Sir Garret trailing behind us, I started walking us towards our first stop: a restaurant. I’d eaten at a number of places in this city, but only one stood out among the rest. There was a restaurant called The Hungry Bear which served meat pies. Now that I had memories of my life in Japan, the food in this world seemed a bit plain, but the real draw of a restaurant wasn’t the food, but the conversation. The owner of The Hungry Bear was a bear beastfolk woman named Clare Berry. She was a better storyteller than a chef, but her food was decent. The real reason I wanted to go there was because of a small piece of paper that was folded inside of my pocket.

“Welcome on in!” I could hear the familiar voice of the owner in response to the jingling bell on the door. I led Alice over to a spot by the kitchen, while Sir Garret gave us space. Alice and I sat down, setting our expensive items with Sir Garret, and the owner walked up to us. “Oh, I don’t believe I’ve met this lovely little lady. Kid, would you do the honors of introducing us?”

“This is my fiancee, Alice. Alice, this is the owner of The Hungry Bear, Clare Berry.” Clare Berry was a tall, bulky woman, like most bear beastfolk. She had brown hair tied into a bun that matched her small, round bear ears. Her hair was just starting to turn grey and her face was just starting to wrinkle, but her energy made her seem decades younger than she was.

“Fiancee? Well, congratulations ought to be in order! It’s not much of a gift, but this meal is on the house.”

“I’m Alice, it’s nice to meet you, Miss Berry.”

“No need for all the formalities, little lady. Clare is fine. Gosh, you are quite the catch, though. Simon’s a lucky boy.”

“No, I’m the lucky one. He’s done so much for me and we only met yesterday!”

“Yesterday? Gee, nobles do engagements so different from us regular folks. Though, Simon’s family’s always been a bit different from the rest of that bunch. You’re definitely in good hands, little lady.”

“Oh, by the way, Clare, I had a recipe that I wanted to give you.”

“A recipe? Well this sure is interesting. Sure, why not. Do you want me to make it right now?”

“That would be perfect! If you like the recipe, you can keep it and use it here.” I handed Clare the folded paper from my pocket. She looked over the recipe, not sure what to make of it, but walked off, calling out, “I’m trusting you on this one, kid!”

There were two plates of food, stacked high with steaming-hot food, along with a jar of honey set out in front of us. “Well, kid? Try it already. Does this taste like what you were expecting?” As I stuck a fork into the stack to cut off a bite, I could tell that the texture was right, the color was right, and the smell was right. The only thing left to check was the taste. I slowly brought the fork to my mouth. This was exactly what I remembered. They were fluffy and soft, with a hint of sweetness. I poured a bit of honey over the rest and took another bite. The sweetness of the honey brought out the sweetness of the rest of the dish. This was perfect. I wasn’t sure how it would work out without the ingredients of my old world, but this was amazing.

Alice could clearly feel the excitement and joy I was feeling, so she started eating hers, as well. “Clare, you did amazing. These are great!”

“Gosh, kid. You gave me the recipe, so I can’t take much of the credit. I’m surprised you came up with such an idea. You know, if you’ve got any more ideas like this, be sure to send ‘em my way.”

“Clare, I’ve got plenty more where this came from. I’ll be sure to give you all of my recipes.”

“Can I have more?” Alice had finished her plate. I was somewhat surprised, but given how excited she was to eat the boring sandwiches yesterday, I was almost more surprised she didn’t steal my plate.

“Sure thing, little lady. I’ll get those for you soon as I can. These do look like a sure hit, but it seems so different from the rest of my menu, so I don’t know if it’ll make a permanent addition.” She was right. Most of the menu at The Hungry Bear was more savory dishes. Meat pies, stews, roasts, those types of dishes. I knew Clare would have the ingredients for this because most of the ingredients were also used for pie crusts, so I knew she’d be able to make it for us.

“It’s fine if you can’t. The recipe was just a gift, but I’m sure that you could add this to the menu as a dessert. The perfect end to a savory meal is a sweet treat.”

“Well, if I do, I’ll be sure to let you know. By the way, what do you call these things?”

“They’re called pancakes.”

After finishing up eating breakfast at The Hungry Bear, Alice and I began making our way across town. Our house was on the south end of the town, by the highway that would lead travelers to any of the major cities in the Kingdom of Arkana, where we lived. On the west end of town, there was a large lake called Lake Oken. On the north end of town, the same highway continued to the border between the kingdom and the Tarion Empire. On the east end of town, there was a large empty plain, but a day’s journey east would lead travelers to the Greengem Forest. All this to say, Katka was a fairly important city. It was often the first city that travelers from the empire would see. This meant that the city was nearly as big as the capital city. This also meant that, despite my family’s debts, we held a prominent title.

So when I came to the city’s governmental offices, I was greeted by people who were shocked to see me and not my parents. The city of Katka was run by the governor, someone who was appointed by my father to run the city, while he ran the county. Running a county wasn’t nearly as difficult as running a kingdom or a duchy, but it still wasn’t the type of work I wanted to do. I’d met the governor a few times, but it was only whenever my father brought me with him for work. The governor was an old human man with a big belly and the loudest laughs I’d ever heard. He almost reminded me of a mall Santa. All you needed to do was give him a big red coat and a red hat and he’d be spot-on.

“Simon, it’s quite a surprise to see you. To what do I owe the occasion?”

“Governor Crayford, it’s good to see you. I have a few different things to get done today.”

“Please, Simon, no need for all this formality.”

“Alright, Uncle Owen.” He was right. Governor Owen Crayford wasn’t actually family, but he was close with my father, so he was sort of like an uncle. I didn’t feel that close to him, but he always insisted on me calling him “Uncle”. “Well, I don’t know how else to say this, but my parents died yesterday.”

“What?! This must be madness! I spoke with them not long ago and they were both the pinnacles of health. Did someone take their lives?”

“I don’t know what killed them. I plan on going to the cathedral to ask the priest, but that wasn’t the main reason why I came here.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“I’m here to pay off my family’s debt.” I took out the bag of coins that had been hanging from my waist. Inside were around 150 gold coins. A single gold coin was roughly a month’s pay for your average worker in Katka. Five gold coins could buy a small house in the city. My family’s house was worth about 100 gold coins. I couldn’t tell exactly how much a gold coin would be worth in Japan, but I guessed it would be somewhere around 10,000 yen.

“149, 150, 151. 151 gold coins. Well, Simon, this is a good start, but the total amount your family owes is about 1000 gold coins.” 1000 gold coins. So that was why my father didn’t simply sell the house. It wouldn’t have mattered. Well, I had some more tricks up my sleeve.

“I also brought four cloud dragon scales.”

“C-cloud dragon scales? Surely you must be joking!” As I had Sir Garret bring over the scales, the governor had an appraiser look at the scales. Magic could be used to identify all kinds of things, but only the best appraisers could tell the quality of an item. Magic was a useful tool, but appraisers had to hone their own skills in addition to magic.

“These are real cloud dragon scales. They are very high quality, as well. I would value these at close to 100 gold coins each.” A single scale could buy my family’s house. The appraiser set the scales back down before asking, “Where did you find these scales?”

“It’s a long story, but there is an abandoned cloud town high in the skies above us. That town was abandoned because a cloud dragon made it its nest.”

“Simon, if what you say is true, then do we need to fear an attack from a cloud dragon?”

“No, the cloud dragon was dying when we found it. In exchange for agreeing to protect the cloud dragon’s egg until it hatches, the cloud dragon gave us these scales.”

“CLOUD DRAGON EGG?! Wait… we?” I just realized that I’d forgotten something very important.

“Oh, I forgot. This is Alice, my fiancée. She’s an angel.” The normally-boisterous governor was dealing with one thing after another. As he rubbed his temples, it almost looked like steam was rising from his head as he tried to make sense of everything I’d said.

“Let me get this straight, Simon. Your parents are dead, you are engaged to an angel, and you are protecting a cloud dragon egg?”

“That’s about right.”

“Well, you seem like a capable young man. I’m sure you can take care of your responsibilities.” That seemed about right. The governor was always the carefree type. “If each of these scales is worth 100 gold coins, that means you still need to pay the remaining 449 gold coins of the debt.”

“Well, the cloud dragon gave us one other thing.” I motioned to Sir Garret to bring over the sword. “This was the sword that killed the dragon.” It was a longsword that you’d see in your typical fantasy RPG. It had a golden hilt that had many gems embedded into it and a dark steel blade. It looked like the type of weapon that had many stories told about it.

There was a sound of glass shattering. The appraiser had dropped the cup she was drinking from when she saw the sword. She quickly touched the blade and her eyes glowed with magic. As the glow faded, she stumbled backwards, falling down. “That’s the Holy Hero’s Sword, Ataraxia!”

The governor shot to his feet, looking at the weapon with a mix of awe and fear. Even I was shocked. The only person in the room who looked confused was Alice. She could obviously feel the shock, awe, fear, and confusion that filled the room, but she couldn’t tell why. I leaned over to her and whispered, “The empire to the north chooses a hero that they give the holy sword to. The hero is supposed to fight against the greatest evil of their time, but the holy sword and the hero have been missing for years now. Because of that, the empire’s been under threat of invasion by the Lich Queen’s army to their west. If the sword is here, then it begs the question, where’s the hero?”

I wish I could say the rest of the meeting with the governor went smoothly, but it didn’t. I was able to get my family’s debt paid off because of the reward the empire had put out for information about the hero, but it meant that I’d need to have a meeting with a representative of the empire. The governor agreed to me having the meeting at my house, rather than the governor’s office, so that meant I wouldn’t need to take a trip into town for that.

Unfortunately, things only got more troublesome from there. The governor wouldn’t let me give up the title of count, no matter how much I begged. He eventually agreed to give me an assistant who would deal with most of the paperwork, but I’d need to pay this assistant. That brought me to my next big issue: money. I’d paid off the debts. Amazing! Now I didn’t have any money. All that was left was five gold coins. That amount would barely be enough to pay for all of the daily essentials that we’d need, especially if we had to take care of a baby dragon.

This brought us to our next stop, the Merchants’ Guild. I did have a plan for making some money, but it wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t get a business set up. The Merchants’ Guild building was close by to the governor’s office, so we stopped by there immediately after. Since we didn’t have any other valuables with us, Sir Garret went back to his post at the city gates. I’d never been to the Merchants’ Guild before, but I’d heard of it because my father often had to do business with merchants that came from other counties and even the empire. As Alice and I walked in, we could see all different kinds of merchants. Traveling merchants, stall owners, store owners, and even the few merchants who owned multiple stores. All of them gave off intimidating auras. Thankfully, we were quickly motioned over by a receptionist before we could get talked into buying something we couldn’t afford.

“How can we help you today?” The receptionist gave off no intimidating aura, but I could almost tell off instinct that she would easily be just as frightening as any of the merchants here.

“We’re here to apply for a business license.”

“And what type of business will this be? Will you be selling goods or services?”

“Goods.” I’d had an idea since I felt the memories of both my lives combine. I had memories of a world with technology, but I also had memories of a world with magic. What if I could combine those two concepts?

“And what will be the name of this business?”

Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. Did I really need to come up with a name right now? Whatever, the name didn’t matter much. I decided to just pick whatever came to my head first. I thought about everything that had happened to me over the past two days. I thought about Alice. I thought about us meeting for the first time. I thought about us living together in that big house. I thought about this morning. I thought about the thing that stood out in my memories more than anything: the way that Alice’s hair looked after waking up.

“Dandelion House.” The name wasn’t great or anything, but it reminded me of the thing I was doing this for. I was doing this so I could live a happy life with Alice in my family’s house. If I could wake up every day and see Alice’s fluffy, dandelion-like bedhead, I’d be happy.

“Congratulations on starting your business. We anticipate great things from you.”

While we were at the Merchants’ Guild, we decided to have the food and clothes ordered and sent to the house. We ordered those from a general store because I planned on selling my inventions through that same general store. It would be best to start up that relationship early. The general store was run by an old dwarf couple named Sarah and Elias. I met them after the receptionist recommended them and the two agreed to meet me at my house at some point in the future to discuss our partnership.

After that business was done, we only had one stop left in our day. The cathedral was at the far end of the city, but it was along the main road, so it was a simple walk, even if it was a long distance. After a half an hour, we arrived at the cathedral. The cathedral was tall, but not as tall as the magic tower in the center of town. Instead, it made up for that fact by having impressive stained glass windows that painted the inside of the building in all kinds of colored lights. The cathedral was dedicated to the religion of the empire, given we were a town right on the border, so it wasn’t as busy as a cathedral in the empire itself. That said, it still had a few worshippers inside. I wasn’t familiar with the religion of the empire, but I did know that the religion worshipped saints, holy beings that were said to be reincarnations of the god of their religion. These saints were blessed with holy magic so powerful that legends were told of the saints. Each saint was given a title based on their magic. I thought I remembered hearing that the current saint was the Saint of Prophecy. This saint sounded very important, but I’d probably never meet them.

Eventually, the priest finished with his business and we met with him in a side room. The cathedral had side rooms for confessions, medical treatment, and various other private matters. The priest of this cathedral was a surprisingly young man named Father Paul. Rumors had it that he never aged. As far as my memories served, I’d never seen him age in my lifetime here. As he sat down and removed his priestly robe and large priest hat, I could see why he looked so young. His ears had a slight point to them. He had elf blood in him.

“So, what did you come here to speak about, young man?” It felt strange to hear someone who barely looked older than me call me a “young man”.

“I wanted to ask you a question. My parents died yesterday under mysterious circumstances. I walked into their bedroom where they were dying, unable to breathe. I started to feel the same problems. It felt like my lungs were getting heavy and I was having trouble breathing. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. My parents didn’t survive, but I did.” I didn’t mention the fact that I had my memories of my two lives combined at that moment.

“Quite mysterious, indeed. There is a curse known as The Hero’s Burden. It is named as such because the first victims of the curse were the family of the original hero of the Tarion Empire. It affects every member of the victim’s bloodline until only one survives. Whoever is able to remain breathing for the longest amount of time survives, but it is unknown whether the curse remains in that victim’s bloodline. The original Hero of Tarion had no blood heirs, so it is a mystery. I am unsure why you would be affected by the Hero’s Burden, but I would caution you to be wary of the potential that this curse remains within you.”

I was stunned into silence. The Hero’s Burden? Because I survived, my mother and father died? I have a curse in my blood? Why me? Why did it happen all of a sudden? Did it happen because I gained the memories of this other world? If that was the case, then I didn’t want them. I'd still have my parents. Alice still would have showed up that day looking for work. I’d still have fallen in love with her. I’d still have wanted to be with her forever. But what about the other me? The one in Japan? He’d still have died. I’d still have been hit by that truck. His parents, my mom and dad, they’d still have watched me bleed out in the street. Would that be fair to the other me? I’d survive with my parents here, while I’d die with my parents crying for me over there? I wanted to tell myself that it wasn’t worth it to give up the life of the person I was in Japan to have a better life here, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be the selfless person who could give up a portion of my happiness for the happiness of someone else, but I couldn’t. In the end, I understood the meaning of the curse’s name. The curse made the lungs heavy until only one person could carry that weight, but it also forced the person who survived to carry the burden of being the one who survived. I couldn’t give up the fact that I lost my parents in exchange for losing my memories of Japan. If I did, I wouldn’t be the so-called Hero that the curse chose me to be. But even then, I didn’t want to be a hero. Even if I was chosen by this curse, I wasn’t a brave hero who could go around the world defeating evil creatures and fighting the armies of the Lich Queen.

Alice put her hand on mine and that made me realize I wasn’t alone. I may have a burden, but I didn’t need to carry it alone. I had other things to do. I didn’t want to be a hero, so I’ll be selfish this one time. I wanted to go home, eat tasty food with Alice, fly around with Alice, and make clothes for Alice. If the world wanted me to be a hero, then the world would need to look for someone else.

“Oh, how scandalous! An unrelated man and woman making physical contact?!” That seemed to break me out of my daze. The priest had his hands covering his face like he was scandalized by what we were doing, but he also seemed to be staring at us through his fingers, waiting to see what we’d do next. Alice touching my hand isn’t scandalous! Even if she wasn’t my fiancée, it shouldn’t be scandalous for a man and a woman to hold hands. But Alice seemed to be embarrassed by the weirdo priest, so she quickly took back her hand.

“Young lady, you should know better than to hold a man’s hand like that.” Okay, back off weirdo priest, you don’t get to tell her what to do and what not to do.

“Don’t you know? That’s how babies are made!” Oh. This weirdo priest is an idiot. Has he never taken a sex ed class? Well, now that I think about it, Simon Westwind never took one either, so it would make sense that no one in this world has, either. Wait, if people in this world genuinely believe that… I looked over at Alice. Sure enough, her face was entirely red.

It took the entire walk back home to explain to Alice that holding hands wasn’t how babies were made. I tried to keep it as family-friendly as possible, but she kept asking questions which I kept trying to avoid the answers to. It felt a bit awkward trying to explain that kind of thing in public. Eventually, we made it home. It had been another long day, but we weren’t done quite yet. The food and clothes that I’d ordered had all been delivered here, so we needed to bring them all inside and put them away. I’d decided to order 20 kilos of flour, 20 kilos of dried meat, 10 kilos of sugar, 5 kilos of salt, 100 eggs, 5 kilos of cheese, 10 liters of cooking oil, and a liter of milk. We’d still need to buy fresh meat, fish, and produce whenever we planned to make something with those. However, I had an idea that might make things easier for everyone in this world. But, I didn’t have the time or resources to take care of that quite yet.

The clothes were mostly for Alice, but I bought a couple sets of formal clothes for me. Alice had her sundresses and her nightgown, but I wanted her to have a few other options for more formal settings. She looked very pretty in her sundress, but it might cause some complaints if I had some important guests and she was wearing a sundress, but I was wearing my father’s formal suit. Alice’s new clothes didn’t have low backs like the sundresses, but instead had slits in the back for her wings to insert into. I didn’t know if that would be uncomfortable, but I didn’t expect us to have important guests too often. Still, these other dresses looked like the kind of outfit I often saw my mother wear whenever my father and her needed to visit the capital, so I imagined they’d work for any situation that might arise out of nowhere.

The sun had already set by the time we got done. We’d grabbed food on the way out of the city, so I didn’t need to make anything tonight, but decided to start working on something for tomorrow’s breakfast. I took some of the flour, sugar, salt, egg, and milk and mixed them in a bowl. The recipe was pretty simple, but it was the cooking that took most of the work. Once I mixed the dough in a bowl, I just needed to let them rise overnight. Once morning came around, it would be time to shape the dough and fry it in oil. Once they were cooked, I’d toss them in some sugar. I didn’t have any icing sugar to make a glaze and I didn’t have any chocolate, so I couldn’t make the most popular flavors, but they were still the same sweet treat that I had memories of in Japan: donuts.

The days started flying by once we didn’t have as many things to do every day. Breakfast was typically either donuts, pancakes, eggs, or fruits we bought in town. After breakfast, we’d check on the egg. We weren’t exactly sure what to look for, so we just checked to make sure it was staying warm in the big nest of blankets and made sure it didn’t have any cracks. After that, I’d deal with any paperwork that I needed to take care of as part of my duties as the Count of Westwind. The last thing we did in the morning was check on our food supplies. If we were running low on any of the necessities, we’d order more from Sara and Elias at the general store. We also worked on keeping the gardens in the front yard healthy and growing. There were tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, cabbage, and all kinds of vegetables there, but the gardens were small, so we couldn’t rely on them for every meal. The fruit trees would still need a few years to grow to full size, so we just made sure to water them. After that, we’d decide what we wanted to eat for dinner that day. If it needed anything like fresh meat, fish or produce, we’d make sure to buy that before the day was over.

Once the morning chores ended, I started working on my business. My brilliant idea that combined the technology of Japan and the magic of Katka was magic appliances. It made perfect sense. People already used magic crystals to summon water for baths, food, and cleaning, so I thought that it would be perfect to use other types of magic crystals for other chores. My first product would be an oven. I was honestly surprised that a magic crystal oven didn’t already exist. Most ovens still used firewood or charcoal to heat them, but the fire was often started by a magic crystal. This made some sense. Magic crystals were the gems that could be found inside of monsters. The more dangerous the monster, the larger the crystal. Additionally, most monsters had an elemental affinity. This was how you got fire crystals to start fires and water crystals to create water. Since Katka was next to a lake, it made sense that water crystals were easy to get. If an adventurer went to the plains near the Greengem Forest, they could easily find wind crystals, plant crystals, and earth crystals. However, finding ice or fire crystals was difficult. In the hottest days of summer, there was a monster known as a Sun Tiger that contained fire crystals, but it could only be found for a week every year. During the winter, if there was ever a blizzard, White Wolves would be out on the hunt, so ice crystals could be found then.

I used every last coin I could scrape together. By selling all of my parents’ old clothing that Alice or I weren’t using, I got 10 gold coins. By selling some more recipes to Clare, I got another 4 gold coins. Finally, I got an investment of 20 gold coins from Sara and Elias. Using this money, I bought every fire crystal I could. My idea was this: fire crystals contained a lot of fire magic, but if it kept releasing it, the crystal would eventually run out. If, instead, I put in a magical command, basically like a computer program, I could make the crystal release only a small amount of that magic for a long time. By adding a knob to control the heat, you could control the temperature. By using a ton of crystals, you could make each one only release the smallest amount of heat, but still get enough to get even heating and enough heating to cook food.

My first attempt was a total failure. I’m glad I did the test outside because the crystals released too much heat and caught the oven on fire. The second attempt was better, but only because I didn’t cause any property damage. That time, I didn’t use enough crystals in the oven, so it only dehydrated the food. That was a different appliance than I was going for. The third attempt got a perfect temperature, but the magical command didn’t maintain itself for multiple uses. On the final attempt, I finally got everything to work out perfectly. Magical commands were typically something that advanced magic users used to make a spell or magic item produce the same results every time. I had a bit of experience with coding, so I could understand the basics of magical commands. They basically worked like if-then-else commands. The trick to making a magical command work every single time was to make a magic item that controlled the magical command. For this, I already had something that I had in mind: the knob. Once the person using the oven set the temperature, they would press in the knob to activate the magical command. This would make the fire crystals release the appropriate amount of heat for that temperature. Then, once the oven got turned off by releasing the knob, the magic item inside the knob would recreate the magical command. All this to say: I made an oven!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best product. A regular oven only needed firewood to heat itself. Sure, the cost of firewood added up, but this oven cost 15 gold coins. After the cost of the crystals needed to make the oven work, plus the cost of the oven itself, in order for Sara and Elias to make a profit, I only got 10 gold coins. Clare bought that oven, so it wasn’t an abject failure. Clare said that the cost of firewood affected her more than the average family, so it made more sense for her to buy one than anyone else. After a generous investment from Sara and Elias, who agreed to buy the schematics for the oven, I had 20 gold coins to make my next invention a success.

Thankfully, my second time trying to make this work was much better. If most families already have an oven, they won’t buy a more expensive oven, even if it does work better. Instead, I made something that no family had: a refrigerator. The process was basically the same as making an oven, but with ice crystals instead of fire crystals. It took every coin I had left, but I made a refrigerator!

This sold much better. Of course, I couldn’t mass-produce refrigerators, so I couldn’t sell that many, but I sold the schematics to Sara and Elias again. This time, they bought the schematics for a 50-50 split of the profits. A refrigerator also cost 15 gold, but because it was something new that most families didn’t already have, plus it was something that made immediate sense for a family to buy, it made perfect sense for families to try and save up for a refrigerator. 15 gold was still a bit out of most families’ price range, but some of the more well-off families bought one. To be specific, Sara and Elias, Clare, and Governor Crayford bought the three I ended up selling. Once more ice crystals could be gathered in winter, more refrigerators could be made for the time summer rolled back around.

Each refrigerator cost 5 gold to make, 1 gold for the machinery and 4 gold for the crystals, same as the oven. This meant that each refrigerator turned a 10 gold profit. 5 gold went to Sara and Elias for each one, which meant that I had 15 gold worth of profits. I had one final idea that would surely turn a much bigger profit than the other two inventions. My biggest problem when it came to selling the products was the cost. Most families couldn’t afford to spend 15 gold on an appliance, especially when some of those families were living in houses that were a third of that cost. I needed to lower the cost of making the appliances in order to make them more affordable, so more people could buy them.

My biggest cost in production was the magic crystals. Ice crystals and fire crystals were rare in this region, so I needed to find a product that used something more common. Water crystals were common, given that the town was next to a lake, so I decided to try and make a washing machine. Unlike with an oven or refrigerator, where you could simply let the temperature return to normal over time, water would take too long to evaporate, so I needed to find a way to automatically drain the water.

I talked to some researchers at the magic tower, who told me that water crystals don’t create water out of nothing, but instead summon nearby water. If you were in a desert, water crystals wouldn’t work as easily. My first thought was to try and summon water to the washing machine, then have other crystals elsewhere that would summon the dirty water. Not even factoring the installation that would need to happen, I also learned that water crystals only summon clean water. If there was dirty water nearby, the water crystal would only summon the water and not the dirt and grime with it. This meant that the clothes would just get dirty again after the water was summoned out of the washing machine.

In the end, I decided on a three-chamber system. The inner chamber had holes that would let water flow between the two chambers, but didn’t let the clothes escape. The inner chamber would spin to make sure the clothes got cleaned. Then, the outer chamber had a drain that could let the dirty water flow into a third chamber. The water in the third chamber could then be summoned to the lake through a water filtration system I set up with permission from Governor Crayford. Aside from the dirt and grime that was left behind in the third chamber, everything was clean. The third chamber could easily be removed to clean it, so it was perfect.

Or at least I thought it was. Unlike my previous two inventions where the hard part was making the crystals work the way I wanted, the washing machine had more moving parts to it, so it cost more in the development phase. I spent 14 of my 15 gold on building a prototype. Once the prototype was done, Sara and Elias bought the schematics for the same deal as my other two inventions, but until sales started coming in, money would be tight. Each washing machine only cost 2 gold to make, 1 gold for the machinery and 1 gold for the crystals, so Sara and Elias sold the washing machines for 4 gold. This would leave each of us with a 1 gold profit. If even one person bought a washing machine per month, I would have enough money for Alice and me to survive off of. Until those appliances started selling, I’d be left hoping that we’d have enough to eat each day.

While I was working on my inventions, Alice would often do a bit of cleaning around the house. It was a big house, so keeping it clean was difficult. Whenever I hit a roadblock in development, I’d try and help her out. It was always right for everyone in the family to pitch in with chores. Once she finished her daily cleaning, she’d go into town to pick up any fresh ingredients we’d need for the dinner we agreed on. By the time she got back, I was typically done with my work for the day and it was evening. I started working on dinner while Alice checked on the egg once more and took her bath. On this specific day, I was making spaghetti and meatballs. I was in the middle of thinking that it was a lot harder than I thought to make pasta from scratch when I heard a thud from upstairs.

I quickly ran upstairs to try and find the source of the noise, but I could immediately tell where it came from. I saw Alice on the floor outside of my bedroom, having been knocked to the ground by what looked like an albino lizard. There was a meter-long, white-scaled lizard with tiny wings that had landed on Alice’s face. I looked inside the room to check and, sure enough, the egg had cracked open. This was a baby dragon. After being told that dragon hatchlings were difficult to take care of by Yroka, the cloud dragon, I was foolishly starting to think that she might’ve been wrong.

Over the next three hours, Alice and I chased the baby dragon all over the house. Thankfully, the front door stayed closed the entire time and the baby dragon wasn’t strong enough to break any windows. We simply wanted to give the baby a bath to get all the egg fluids and pieces of shell off of it, but any time we could catch it, the minute we got close to the bath, it ran away. Finally, after those three hours, the baby was tired and fell asleep. We got the baby a bath, swaddled it in a blanket, and brought it to the kitchen where we tried to finally eat dinner. The pasta had overcooked, the meatballs and sauce were cold, and we didn’t care. After three hours of chasing a newly-hatched dragon, anything would taste good.

“Yroka said that dragons could transform into a human form, but this one hasn’t yet.” Alice mentioned this with a nervous look on her face.

“I’m sure that the little one is fine. It’s probably something that’ll take time. My question is about what we should name the baby.” Alice and I stared at the swaddled dragon baby. Neither of us could tell if it was a boy or a girl, so we couldn’t pick a name just yet.

“I do think we should pick a name that’s similar to Yroka. How about Kora if it's a girl?”

“That sounds like what Yroka would want.” I couldn’t think of a good name for it if it was a boy, so Alice and I quietly finished our dinner. I was too tired to clean the dishes, so I silently added a dishwasher to my list of inventions to make. Alice and I brought the baby up to my bedroom. The broken, empty shell was still in the nest of blankets, but I decided to put the baby on my bed. I moved the shell to a corner of the room and sat down in the now-empty nest.

“Alice, you can go get some sleep. If the baby wakes up, I’ll be here to help take care of it.” As I silently sat in the nest, trying not to fall asleep, I felt someone sit next to me. Alice was sitting there, resting her head on my shoulder. I wanted to tell her she should sleep in a bed, but I was glad for the company. I felt calm when she was beside me. I knew that everything would be alright. I could take a short nap. With the two of us here, nothing would go wrong.

I was awoken by the sounds of a crying baby. Alice and I had both fallen asleep in this nest of blankets. I looked around the room and saw it was already morning. I gently slid Alice off of my shoulder, stood up, and went over to the bed. The baby dragon was gone. In its place was a small, stinky, human baby boy.

“What’s that noise?” Alice was starting to wake up. Groggily, she stood up and looked around.

“I decided on a name for when it’s a boy. His name is going to be Roy.”