My First Look at 'Our' House

As I glanced around the first room, the kitchen, I couldn’t help but notice once more the lack of technology. It was ingrained in my mind that technology was necessary for life, so this new style shocked me every time it came to mind.

My eyes fell upon an ornament shaped like a kettle, but instead of a wire or a flame to heat the water, the panel below seemed to hold nothing more than a pile of crystals, the same as the lights outside. I could only assume these to be more cosmite crystals, whatever that meant.

I couldn’t tell from the outside, but the house was stripped down to the bare essentials, only having a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and a bedroom. In fact, the more I thought about it, I realised that almost every house I had passed had been similarly small. Whilst passing through the town, I had only seen one building that had a second floor, which was at the head of the town.

“They mustn’t spend much money on housing in this place.”

This was my instinctual thought, not even considering that ‘money’ as a concept could just be born of the world I came from. But, this thought didn’t cross my mind at this time, so I continued to gather information.

“Are you any good at cooking?” I asked casually, whilst tilting my head towards various aspects of the room which I found fascinating.

Small talk was something I usually grew weary of, however it felt appropriate in this circumstance.

“You should know by now that I can only cook the basics. You or Hideo cook most of the time… I don’t suppose you remember how to cook?”

She stared at me longingly, one of the first times her eyes displayed sincerity towards me. I swallowed, unsure of what to think about this surprising dedication to ‘my’ cooking.

I don’t think I had ever cooked a meal in my life. Why would I? I could always get food delivered, or enjoy a pleasant meal at a cafe. Cooking it myself would only waste my time to reduce the quality.

“No, sorry I’ve got no idea.”

Aile sighed and placed her hands on her hip, switching her expression to a mix of indignation and pity.

“Well, Hideo is working, so he’ll be out tonight. I guess I’ll have to cook for you then.”

“Oh thank you for that.”

Aile’s hair swayed as she rotated herself towards the kitchen and shuffled towards the kettle I previously noticed. She hovered her arms over crystals, and they began to light up red, indicating that they were hot enough to boil the water.

“Alright, I’ll start cooking dinner then, you can show yourself around the rest of the house.”

A rational response would be to inquire about cosmite crystals further. But instead, being a creature of habit, my attention was drawn towards the strange timing behind her cooking.

“Dinner already? It’s gotta be only 3 o’clock.”

She froze for a second, before shooting me a confused look whilst continuing her cooking.

“Well, I don’t know what a ‘clock’ is, but I don’t understand why this is a strange eating time. I’d say the time is about 80% right now. In a couple of hours, the sun will go down and the magic running through the cosmite crystals will be insufficient for cooking.”

I felt bad for having to ask so many questions, but I didn’t understand a word she just said. ‘80%’? I had never heard of a percentage as a time, but I could only approach one conclusion.

“They measure time as a percentage here? I can only assume that it’s the percentage of a rotation of the sun. That is, the time is 80% because we are 80% of the way through the time in which the sun would be up.”

Even with this deduction, I still couldn’t determine why that would reduce our cooking ability.

“Huh, how does that work?”

With an exasperated sigh, she proceeded to explain what appeared to me common knowledge for citizens of this world.

“For cooking, we require fire magic to be passed through the cosmite crystals. Fire magic is empowered by the sun and reduced when the moon is out, so we need to make sure we’ve fully eaten before then.”

I found it fortunate to have learnt early on that the weather affects magic so drastically, I could have run into some trouble later on.

“So you can only use fire magic then?”

“No, these are specialised cosmite crystals, designed to create an output of fire with any input of magic. This is one specifically used for cooking, so it will always create a flame. Most cosmite crystals won’t have any output, that’s up to your own control of magic.”

So I now had to remember that any given crystal might not give the output I want if it is already specialised. The best part, is that there appears to be no way to distinguish between specialised and regular cosmite crystals.

“I see and the weather also determines the output…” I whispered to myself, hoping that hearing these facts out loud would help me formulate a better understanding.

“Also, we don’t want to be looking for ingredients at night time,” Aile added pensively.

“Huh? Why’s that?” I asked whilst slipping my hands into my pocket and stepping towards the rooms unknown to me.

“It isn’t safe, people like you wander the town, watching for disobedience.”

Once again, she subtly attacked me for something I didn’t do.

“People like me?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it over dinner, just look around the house, like I said.”

I had already began exploring on my own, but I still took the opportunity to give her a hard time, to reciprocate the times she had unnecessarily done the same to me.

“Isn’t the host supposed to show the guest around the house?”

“I’m offering to cook for you and you’re trying to complain that I’m not helping you?”

“It’s not that, it just feels weird going through your house without you showing me around.”

I began to hear the steam of the water drown out our conversation, imploring Aile to raise her voice.

“Well, from my perspective it feels weird showing you around. This is your house too!”

“Yeah I suppose so. By the way, what’re you cooking?” I yelled behind me as I passed into the bedroom.

“Minced crise” she shouted back to me.

“Oh great, another thing I don’t know.”

Eating foreign foods would be a worry, but if this was a typical food around here, then I could only assume it would be safe for me to eat as well. It was probably just a plant or animal native to this area or world that didn’t exist on Earth.

The sound of Aile cooking fell to mere background noise as I continued to observe the place in which I was likely to stay for at least a few days. The bedroom was quite similar to one of Earth, simply three beds in each corner of the room besides the door, as well as two windows placed on adjacent walls, with the blinds concealing the world outside.

A crystal fell between a holder next to each bed, clearly being used as a lamp of sorts. It could just be a more controlled and convenient light, but to me, the existence of this lamp implied to me that books were likely commonplace in this world as well. However, I had not happened upon any yet.

The living room was nothing more than two sofas on either side of a glass table. There wasn’t even a radio or a television! I sighed, noting that there probably wasn’t much in the way of indoor entertainment in this world.

“Alright, dinner’s ready, Benjiro,” Aile hollered from the next room over.

“Already? It’s only been like 5 minutes.”

I stepped back towards the door frame, noticing that the sound of boiling had also ceased.

“Is that strange, the fire cosmite crystals are designed to be tempered for an efficient and optimal cooking experience.”

“Oh, of course.”

Somehow she still understood the term ‘minutes’. It seemed that most terms were similar to the world I came from, however the overall way of expressing the time was different. Thankfully, that was much more convenient for me, I only had to remember the broader terms and could reuse the old phrases from my previous experience.

She passed by me and placed three glass plates on the glass table in the living room. Two plates were empty and placed on either side of the table, whilst the plate in the middle held the supposed ‘dinner’. A pile of minced meat, with various herbs and vegetables, which I couldn’t recognise, mixed in.

She sat down on the opposite side of the table and began dividing the portions of this meal, with a tempered elegance, despite the simplicity of the dish.

I watched her silently, the steam slightly obscuring my vision of this scene which transfixed me for some reason. Aile scooped a portion of meat towards her mouth, blew on it and placed it in her mouth with a satisfied ‘chomp’. She swallowed the food and then dropped her face into the more serious tone which would accompany the conversation that followed.

“Alright, I’ll tell you about the King’s private battalion, which has been stationed in Hikari town to maintain order. I can’t believe I have to explain this, but you are a highly ranked member amongst this squad.”