The Winter of Missgancia is harsh.
With a climate similar to Northern Europe, the winters here are very cold, with temperatures regularly dropping below freezing.
There’s also a fair amount of snowfall, enough to require shoveling.
In this world, winter is the season of death.
Even nobles can freeze to death depending on the structure of their mansion and the quality of their fireplaces. As for the commoners, need I even say? In the slums, frozen corpses are found in alleys every year. Even in the peaceful and prosperous city of Midford.
In theatrical performances, it’s common nationwide to have someone dressed as the Grim Reaper appear on stage to signify the arrival of winter, marking it as the season of “death.”
And that winter has come to Missgancia…
“…Snow, huh?”
The first snow, I guess.
I was in the living room of the mansion, sitting in the kotatsu, kneading a mandarin orange on the table.
…Knead, knead the mandarin.
I wonder why we knead them? I think I heard from someone that it makes them sweeter, but that was a long time ago.
Only the burning desire to knead remains.
“Andrews-sama, here, ahh…”
“Mm, thanks.”
And on my lap, as always, is the Mazoku Girl.
Tris peels the mandarin and pops it into my mouth.
The mandarins from the ‘Garden’ are sweet, with a pleasant tartness that isn’t overpowering, making them delicious.
Now, about winter.
I said it’s the season of death, but there’s another problem besides that.
That is…
“Dru-san!”
…It’s boring.
Most of the shops are closed. Of course, it takes a large fireplace and a lot of firewood to heat a large room, which means they don’t have the money to keep their shops open.
When that happens, all you can do is shiver and sleep until winter passes…
So, the kind of girlfriends who usually work in the city come to the mansion…
Today, it was Annemarie who came.
She’s the daughter of the confectionery shop.
She has long, dull black hair and… well… her boobs are seriously huge. No, really huge. At least 100cm. It’s the best.
“Annemarie, come in quickly, it must be cold outside?”
“Yes… ehehe.”
She’s about seventeen years old? The marrying age in this world.
I invited her inside, let her shake off the snow… and handed her a towel.
“Wow… this is so fluffy and feels so good…”
Annemarie wiped her face with the towel.
Wiping her face means she’s not wearing makeup… That’s the best thing about being a “commoner.”
Ah, by the way, Rosalinde puts on a full face of makeup when she meets me. Though she’s beautiful without it. Kaede also wears rouge. She said something like “still cherry-blossom colored even in death,” so it’s probably just a samurai’s etiquette, a sign of “resolve.”
I’ve taught Annemarie various beauty methods that commoners can do. So, for a commoner, her hair and skin are beautiful. She also grooms her eyebrows and shaves unwanted hair.
Plus, her boobs are seriously big, and her butt is big too, so she’s considered a beauty around here.
She’s not flashy, but she has a homely, attainable beauty, you know?
“Okay, okay, come inside! It’s cold here.”
“Eh? It’s already warm from the entrance…”
Anyway, I brought her into the heavily heated room.
“…It’s like summer here.”
“Take off your coat, it’s hot, right?… Tris, make some tea.”
“Yes, Andrews-sama.”
Annemarie took off her coat, wiped off the moisture…
“Ufufu… chu♡”
She pressed her huge boobs against me and kissed me.
“Oh, what’s wrong? Are you being a baby?”
“Because I haven’t seen you in a while♡ Please spoil me a lot during the winter, Andrews-san♡”
I had her sit on the sofa nearby.
Kotatsu? People in this country don’t have a culture of sitting on the floor…
And basically, there aren’t many floors to sit on. The taverns in the Striders Guild are the same, the ground is basically dirt or straw.
The Blue Comet’s Clanhouse had a proper wooden floor, but they’re seriously rich.
Real rich people like nobles lay rugs on stone floors.
Us? We have flooring with underfloor heating and tatami mats…
“Andrews-san, I worked hard this year. Please praise me a lot♡”
“Good job, good job…”
I praised her.
In reality, the townspeople are working hard.
I’ve been hanging out with high-ranking Striders who are earning a lot, so my sense of things has become skewed…
In this world, you have to work from morning to night without rest just to live a normal life by this world’s standards.
There are no labor standards laws. The serfs in the farming villages work from morning to night, literally.
They wake up at four in the morning, eat vegetable potage and black bread, and work until the sun goes down… around six or seven in the evening? On rainy days, they do piecework at home. They only get a few days off a year.
They rarely eat meat or sweets, and their entertainment is limited to bullying and sex.
Of course, their average lifespan is less than forty years, and they die in droves from childbirth and influenza.
I wouldn’t say the townspeople are as bad as the serfs, but they’re also working hard while completely ignoring labor standards laws.
It’s my duty to pat them on the head…
For a while, I listened to Annemarie, asking, “What’s wrong? Want to talk about it?”…