Chapter 15: The Harsh Reality of Medieval Sanitation

After finishing his meal, Zeldryn leaned back against the chair. His stomach felt completely full, perhaps because he had not eaten anything since waking up and had suddenly filled himself with more food than his body was prepared for.

Before long, however, another urge appeared, causing his expression to change.

'This is bad,' Zeldryn thought as he held his stomach.

He needed to take a shit.

According to Hera's explanation during the mansion tour that morning, the toilet was located at the far end of the first floor, quite a distance from the dining room. Zeldryn immediately pushed himself out of the chair.

"Kh!"

Pain spread from his legs into his back, but this time he did not have enough time to complain about it.

'Why does it have to happen now?' Zeldryn thought.

He walked as quickly as his injured body allowed. His steps were still slow and uneven, but in his current condition, this already counted as rushing. One hand remained pressed against his stomach while the other occasionally reached for the wall to support his weight.

The real problem was that Zeldryn had never actually visited the toilet. He only knew that it was somewhere at the far end of the first floor, and the mansion's corridors had several turns with nearly identical doors lining the walls.

Zeldryn briefly considered asking one of the servants he passed, but he immediately abandoned the idea.

'If I ask where the toilet is, they'll become even more suspicious,' Zeldryn thought.

The previous Zeldryn had supposedly lived in this mansion since childhood. There was no reasonable way someone who had spent years here would not know where his own toilet was. One careless question could easily start rumors that he had lost his memory.

Zeldryn continued walking while trying to remember the directions Hera had given him. He needed to turn left after the staircase, pass two rooms, then continue until the end of the corridor.

His stomach grew increasingly uncomfortable with every step.

"Damn it, hold on a little longer."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

After nearly opening two incorrect doors, Zeldryn finally reached the last one in the corridor. Relief immediately appeared on his face.

"Finally."

He quickly opened the door and stepped inside, only for every image of a toilet in his mind to shatter the moment he saw the room.

"What the hell is this?"

There was no clean toilet bowl, no running water, and no proper place to wash his hands like the ones he had known in his previous life. Instead, a thick wooden bench stood against one side of the room with a hole cut through its middle. Beneath the opening was a channel leading toward a waste pit below the mansion.

An unpleasant smell lingered in the room despite the small ventilation opening near the ceiling. In one corner sat a bucket filled with water that was not exactly clear, accompanied by a wooden dipper, a rough cloth, several dried leaves, and a small container filled with ash.

There was no flushing system and no network of pipes carrying waste far away from the mansion. Everything relied on a hole, gravity, and servants who would eventually have to clean the waste pit below.

Even for a noble's toilet, the place looked horrifying to someone from the modern world.

Zeldryn stared at the wooden bench in disbelief.

"This is supposed to be a noble's toilet?"

He immediately began wondering what toilets for ordinary people must have looked like. Perhaps they simply dug holes in the ground or dumped their waste into rivers, bushes, drains, or even the streets.

"If nobles have toilets like this, where the hell do commoners take a shit?"

Zeldryn rubbed his face in frustration. He had already expected that a medieval-looking world would not possess modern sanitation, but knowing that in theory and experiencing it firsthand were completely different things.

The smell, the questionable water, the waste pit, and the primitive equipment almost destroyed his urge to relieve himself. Unfortunately, his stomach had no intention of cooperating.

"I don't have a choice."

Zeldryn finally used the toilet.

After completing his business through a mixture of struggle and disgust, he cleaned himself using the available water. Fortunately, there was at least that much. Zeldryn did not want to imagine what it would have been like if the rough cloth or dried leaves had been his only options.

Once he finished, he remained inside for a moment and looked around the room again.

'One day, I'm going to fix the sanitation in this world,' Zeldryn thought.

He imagined a proper toilet with a functioning drainage system, clean running water, a place to wash his hands, and a waste system that was not located directly beneath the building. Even if recreating modern sanitation proved difficult, there had to be something better than this.

'At the very least, I need to build a proper toilet. The waste needs to be disposed of correctly, the water needs to be clean, and this room shouldn't smell like a monster's nest,' Zeldryn thought.

He gave the wooden bench with the hole in its center one final look.

"Damn it. I refuse to use something like this for the rest of my life."

After leaving the toilet, Zeldryn began making his way back toward his room. His body felt even more exhausted than before, and the journey from the dining room to the toilet, followed by the climb back to the second floor, nearly consumed what little strength he still had.

By the time he finally reached his bedroom, the sky outside the window had already begun to change color. The remaining sunlight slowly faded across the horizon as evening gave way to the approaching night.