Idle Life

It's been a week since I've arrived at the west. And to be honest, the trip didn't take long at all. We just traveled to the Caodi Realm and used their shrine to go to Alhun, the capital of the west. You might think going to the other side of the world would take a while, but you couldn't be more wrong! Ancestral shrines make our life so easy!

Unlike the other Planes, the east doesn't have an ancestral shrine in their capital city. It's because the high commander is paranoid and can't forget the other world. Still, the easts major cities all have ancestral shrines; it's the same story for the other Planes.

Each realm with an ancestral shrine on it becomes a somewhat blessed land for urbanization and industrialization. Since the ancestral shrines are great for merchants, it's obvious that the main users of ancestral shrines would be merchants. It's also the reason for most large cities being trade cities.

And while it's been a week, I haven't done anything at all. Well, let me correct myself. I haven't done anything important, yet.

You may think, 'yet, he says! Something big must be going on!' but you're wrong. There's nothing going on. Even though I am currently a fully-fledged and licensed diplomat, I also have a senior advisor/diplomat.

You might wonder why my father told me not to mess this up, while putting so much pressure on me, when a real pro would come in to handle everything, but the thing was, the seniors diplomat was 'hired' by me. My father didn't object because he couldn't — I was given full control over the entire expedition.

And at the rate things were going, I'd be home by the 7th of last month. You might be wondering why I'm not home, if that's the case, but the matter lies at the fault of our imperial calendar system.

When we refer to times and days at the next year, we say the day like how we'd normal say it. We don't identify the 'year'. Only the 'day' and 'month'. So by 7th of last month, I'd mean the 7th of the previous month, next year. Pretty confusing, huh?

Anyways, I'll be getting out of this Sahara in around 11 months time. And did I forget to mention? The west is a desert — like a real wild west. Even the fashion here is different. Very light clothing that look kind of like nightwear, or the kind of dresses poor noble ladies wear to balls, except the cloth was thin. In the day, the it's burning hot, but in the night, it's freezing cold.

The place I stayed in was a very expensive inn. The costs were apparently so high, it was a once-a-year special treat for the natives; even then,only for a day or two, on low-season.

And then here I am, 'foreign rich prince overlord #handsome #blackhair #lovelife' staying here for almost an entire year.

Sometimes, I feel the need to help the senior diplomat, but the dude's being payed to work. So what if he collapses, one day? (he hasn't, yet). It has nothing to do with me. He can go on leave. I don't overwork my slaves. Only healthy slaves working slaves. Dead slaves are liabilities and debts to the family and potential reimbursement for their company.

Honestly, killing people these days is hard. I mean, sure, the only real loss is financial, but still! It's way too expensive to legally kill someone, ugh. Life really is too hard.

For the past few days, I wasn't doing anything at all. I was just laying in boredom, because I had other people to do everything for me, whether it was attending social gatherings in the west, or diplomatic meetings or even the simple things like ordering food, there was always someone else to do it.

This independent life is the epitome of irony. When you leave home, you're supposed to be independent. But right now, even calling me independent as a joke is something humans with brains would not do. My state was just that bad.

I sometimes thought about miscellaneous things like astrology and the recent paper published on humans and water. Apparently, humans are 90% water, and blood is water, turned red by the rusty iron inside it. At first, I thought it was a load of bs, but after reading the paper, it seems pretty fortified and based on fact.

The rusty iron part causes doubt, but it's a fact that there's iron in our blood — even a little lick proves it. But the conclusion of rust causing that is the problem. Can we live with rust inside us?

There's air inside us, so the iron can rust, and as the paper said, blood is water, so all the conditions for rusting is there in our bodies. But if that were to be the case, newborns should have clear blood, right?

Well, the paper said that the baby's blood would rust long before birth, but even a fetus, seven months due, had red blood. It later became one of the mysteries of blood.

Some people say it is the original water, and other people say our flesh corrupts the water, and turns it red. Still, I believe in the paper. It seemed very promising, you know?

After passing time, the senior diplomat reported the day's happenings to me in a brief ten minute session. It was the only time in my day, where I actually get to know what the situation of the west is. I know the high commander won't send me out here to become chummy with the west. He probably wants this to serve as— oh, wait, nevermind. The north and south are already allies. The west is his only option, haha. And here I thought he wanted me to ruin our relationship with the west and form an alliance with one of the other Planes.

But if he decides not to form even a single alliance, we might be doomed in the case of a civil war... but still, it won't be odd for imperialist nobles to support us, since we've supported the imperial family for generations.