I stretched and looked at the weather outside. It was raining; yesterday it was already bad, but now it was a whole flood.
'I wonder, did the rain continue throughout the night? Or did it stop and reemerge at some point?'
―With a useless thought like that, I started my usual morning routine.
*CRACK*
I couldn't help but jolt in surprise at the thunder. I furrowed my brows; the sudden sound completely messed up my concentration, so I couldn't help but be a bit angry.
'I never liked lightning.'
The worry of being hit by one was constantly on my mind when there was a storm, and as a person who doesn't want to worry, that was most certainly a development I hated.
Still, it was one of those worries I could do nothing about ― except for maybe staying indoors ― so I just shook my head and focused on my expressions once again.
The thunder never stopped though, and my concentration kept being broken. At this point, I could feel myself becoming slightly annoyed.
'Alright, bring it on, weather.'
My eyes turned blank and my perception narrowed. Anything that didn't help me persue my goal was erased from my mind: hearing, smell, taste, vision, emotions. I only left my sense of touch to help guide my expressions, everything else unnecessary and dampened to the extreme.
Nor the sudden flashes of lightning nor its loud sounds could affect me anymore.
―This was my most efficient state. A level of focus so intense that, if I didn't pay enough attention, I might even forget to breathe.
As you could probably guess, this wasn't a good state to be in. Not only was I bottling up my emotions, but I was also rejecting any kind of external stimuli, leaving me extremely vulnerable.
As such, unlike what you might think, this wasn't really a good state to be in during a fight, where you had to constantly be on your toes.
This state was best used to think and nothing more.
So after what felt like an appropriate amount time, I went back to my normal state.
I sighed and allowed myself to relax. Of course, as soon as I did, I was almost blinded and deafened by a lightning strike that flashed only twenty meters away from my location.
'...They have something to make sure the house doesn't get hit by lightning, right?'
I looked around my wooden room, everything in it perfectly flammable.
'...right?'
***
I calmly ate my lunch while looking at the weather outside.
"It just keeps getting worse, huh?"
I nodded at Jagon's remark. The weather today has been unrelenting.
In fact, it was so bad, that Angelica was banned from doing anything today, in fear of her being distracted by lightning and starting a fire.
'I want to say that that's a bit too intense of a reaction, but...'
*CRACK*
The weather was truly bad. The wind was blowing at speeds so fast that they would knock a normal person off their feet. The rain was so thick and intense that a bucket filled only after a second of being outside. And don't even get me started on the lightning.
*CRACK*
Luckily, they actually had countermeasures against lightning in this world.
There was a certain monster appropriately called 'Lightning Catcher' in this world. From what Jagon and Angelica told me, I could roughly guess that it looked like a black unicorn.
The Lightning Catcher had a horn that attracted lightning. Normally it absorbed the power of the lightning that hit it and used it against opponents, but once cut off, the horn was nothing more than a glorified lightning rod.
And that's why―
*CRACK*
―Even when that happened, I wasn't too worried about the house burning down. It was still pretty scary though, as the horn was positioned not too far from Jagon's house, so I usually jolted whenever lightning struck. Jolting was miles better than worrying though, so I didn't care.
I calmly finished lunch and stood up. I walked to the window in the kitchen and stared into it.
Normally, you would see Zelen from the window, but now you could see nothing but rain. I wasn't sure whether to feel pleased or scared.
I tilted my head and studied the rain. Suddenly, a memory from way back then resurfaced in my mind. A memory of my cat―
My eyes became empty. They were now dull and lifeless, tired and uncaring. They were dead.
I quickly realized the situation, forced the memory out of my head and focused on the present. My eyes quickly regained their former liveliness.
I turned away from the window and went back to my room with an impassive expression.
I continued working on my expressions.
***
Step after step after step. With each one, I could understand and feel my mana better. I was becoming familiar with it.
It felt kinda weird, which was no surprise. I was analyzing a substance that was foreign to my body, and unlocking a whole new sense in the process.
I could now feel how I was taking in the mana from the surroundings, and I could also feel how some of my mana was constantly leaking out. Not being used, but leaking.
Mana was leaving my body for the sole reason that I didn't have enough space for it.
'I see. It's not as though I am incapable of absorbing more mana when I am at full capacity, it's just that it gets shoved out.'
Why does this matter? Well, if I could somehow forcefully keep the mana inside of me, I would be able to temporarily increase my mana capacity.
'Wonder if that's a technique that already exists. Probably it is. I mean, I can't possibly be the first person to figure this out.'
I didn't let that thought bother me and just continued walking and sensing my mana. It would only be useful once I actually learned how to control it after all.
A small fleeting smile graced my face.
I was making progress.
***
*CRACK*
I bolted out of bed.
With a dazed mind, I looked around me, trying to understand what the hell woke me up.
After about a minute, my mind sobered up.
'Damn lightning.'
The bad weather was still going. It wasn't getting any worse, but that was probably only because it couldn't get any worse.
The worst part? I couldn't know whether it was morning or night. Should I go to sleep or not? ―That was the question I had on my mind.
I gritted my teeth in anger.
"When will this weather let up? For pancakes' sake..."
I sighed to calm down and rubbed my eyes. Whether it was morning or not, I was pretty sure going back to sleep would be impossible for me. I barely managed to go to dreamland last night, I doubted I could repeat that feat.
I started stretching my body when Jagon boldly entered my room. Even though I only had my boxers on, he didn't care at all.
"Damn, I was hoping to wake you up with a good morning."
He clicked his tongue in distaste.
"Right, I still haven't payed you back for that time you shouted at me while I was still half-asleep. Thanks for reminding me."
I smiled back at him and started putting on my clothes. In the meantime, my thoughts drifted to my relationship with Jagon.
We had a pretty weird relationship, all things considered. Nomally, you would only exchange insults and the like with your best friend, but our bold (and somewhat uncaring) personalities made this stupidly easy. No need to be best friends, hell, no need to be close at all. We just naturally hit off each other.
'Yeah, we are weird like that.'
Before I could even finish putting my clothes on, Jagon clicked his tongue in distaste again, this time he was looking at the window and not at me though.
"Seems like we aren't gonna be able to go hunting today. What a shame."
"Don't you go hunting once every week? Why do you want to go hunting only after four days passed?"
I didn't know why, but this village went hunting once every week. From my perspective, that was way too many outings. I mean, the meat we gathered last time would be able to feed the whole village for a month, but they keep hunting every week. There was probably a good reason for it, I just didn't know about it yet.
"Well, we usually go hunting every Monday, but remember when I said I gave you one extra day?"
"Ah."
He nodded at my exclamation.
"That's right, we ended up hunting on Tuesday instead of Monday. Which is why this time there were only three days of rest inbetween."
I hummed in approval as I started putting on my shirt, but then I froze.
'...No wait, that still doesn't make sense.'
Even if he gave my one extra day, there still should've been five days of rest. Why were there only three? The math wasn't mathing.
My eyes widened in realization.
'No way.'
I quickly finished putting on my shirt and tried to sound as unsuspicious as I could.
"Yeah, because a week has five days and I made you lose one of them."
He nodded.
"That's right."
I looked calm right now, but on the inside, I was screaming.
'WHY, FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THE PANCAKES IN THE WORLD, DOES A WEEK ONLY HAVE FIVE DAYS?!?!'
Everything before this was normal. Time was counted the same way, and all common sense was the same.
But this was a reality check for me.
'Right, this is a different world after all.'
I was lucky there was the idea of a week at all. For all I knew, a world could just rely on 'Tomorrow' and 'The day after tomorrow' for all its dates. That would've been miles worse.
'Wait, if a week is five days... then what about months? What about a year?'
I had to find out before I could get into any misunderstandings.
I called out to Jagon who was already leaving my room.
"Hey, how many days in a month are there? And how many months in a year?"
He looked back at me, confused, but still answered.
"I don't know why you're asking that, but a month has six weeks, so exactly thirty days. And a year has twelve months."
"Right, exactly as I remember it."
Not even close to how I remember it, but I had to avoid suspicion where I could, so I could justify lying here.
'So every month has the same about of days, and every year is the same... it's kind of nice actually. Everything is round and easy to count.'
There were no weird months that gained a day every couple of years, there was no difference in length between any month or year.
It was just... better. In every single way.
'There's just one problem... what about the weekend?'
Were Thursday and Friday the weekend now? Were they considered rest days?
But having almost half of the days beeing free didn't sound too good for productivity. So... what then? When did people rest in this world?
I wanted to ask Jagon that, but he already left my room before I noticed it.
"Oh well, I'll just ask later. Because I will 100% definitely not forget about it."