14-2 The Events Begin

The entrance march ended, and the first event began.

First was the footrace.

This too apparently was not very familiar in this world.

The little ones lined up at the starting line five at a time.

Since they were kindergarten children, of course it was not a crouching start.

The starting signal was a gunpowder-type starter pistol, just like on Earth.

Since it makes a loud noise, at first everyone panicked with a sort of “Pigyaaah!” reaction, but well, people get used to it quickly enough.

Beastfolk have excellent hearing, and all of their senses are sensitive in general.

Erin, doing the live announcing, asked Aoi-chan, who was doing the commentary.

“Hellooo. This is your announcer, Erin. Aoi-san, what exactly is this footrace?”

“Yes. In Japan, the homeland of the first king Yamato-san, they do it like this, with several people running in heats to decide the rankings in the preliminaries, and then they hold a final to determine the winner. But since these are beastfolk children in particular, there are racial traits involved too, so there is an interesting unpredictability where it is not decided just by age or body size.”

“That sounds exciting. Ah, Headmaster, do you have anything to add?”

“They are full of spirit, which is very commendable!”

“Ah, and they are off now. Fast, fast. Contestant Touya, with a splendid run that shows none of his usual laid-back little dismantler self, is leaving them all in the dust.”

I showed them various Earth-style running methods and the like, but they all seemed far more interested in the videos of Earth food…

So little Mr. demolition boy Touya won, huh.

There was a fast wolf beastfolk in the same heat too.

Camila lost, and she looked unbelievably frustrated.

Her beast ears and tail rocking back as she arched herself were quite a sight.

Using that visual technology from before, footage of the heat that had just run was being projected onto a screen in midair.

I even prepared footage from different angles, like a horse-racing broadcast.

“Next, in the following heat…”

The little brats are getting pretty serious about this.

Maybe getting cheers gives them strength.

They probably never had that sort of thing in their lives before.

I had divided them into the White Team and the Red Team for now.

Touya is the captain of the White Team, and Camila is the captain of the Red Team.

Since Camila lost to Touya in the footrace just now, she seems a little fired up.

Fal and the little cat kid were running hard too.

But little by little, everyone was getting distracted by the smell of food, and the smaller kids especially tended that way.

This is where the focused ones win.

Little Remi, the youngest of them all, was waving around a tiny first-prize flag.

Unable to resist the temptation of food, Fal retired and buried her snout in sweets in her Fals form.

Sacred Elion-sama…

The one who won the final footrace was Touya.

It was the victory of the diligence of that little fox, who had thoroughly studied Earth-style running methods.

As the championship prize, I presented him with the latest tool set.

It is a special one made from the latest designs produced by that sewing-machine-shop old man.

Since it has torque-assist magic enchanted onto it, even a child can use it fairly easily.

I told him not to use it for mischief, but who knows how that will go.

The audience was thoroughly enjoying themselves already.

They bought food from the stalls and watched while eating it, so it looked almost like people watching sumo or something.

They are all events that would not normally be held in this world.

Some of the kids are even slyly getting snacks from the spectators.

The second event was the ball toss.

It was made small for kindergarten children, but everyone is fairly strong, so they can easily reach it.

The ones holding the baskets are shield-role adventurers.

Since they keep getting hit by some pretty fierce stray shots and continue taking full-force body slams from children coming to pick up balls, I mainly chose sturdy, tough people with big builds for this part.

The outcome was unexpectedly decided by commanding ability.

On the White Team, Touya was showing leadership and calling out constantly, so the balls steadily piled up.

In contrast, on the Red Team, Camila was too worked up, so everyone’s movements were wonderfully all over the place.

“Ohhh, contestant Touya. As expected of someone who usually serves as the leader of the kindergarten. He is directing things calmly and coolly. Meanwhile, contestant Camila of the Red Team— This is not looking very good. If you get too heated during the hunt, the prey will escape too.”

The whistle blew, and time was up.

Camila put on a splendid loser’s howl.

Yep, that has quite an impact.

“Hang in there, little wolf. There is still the next one.”

Cheers properly came even for the losing side.

The children of the White Team were given honey sweets as prizes.

The third event was rolling the giant ball.

The red and white giant balls were ones this old man whipped up in a flash, but I made them bumpy so they would look handmade.

In things like this, this old man is pointlessly meticulous.

The balls themselves are pretty huge, but they were made light, so it is fine.

“Now then, it is time for the giant ball roll. Aoi-san, which side do you think will win?”

“Let’s see. I think the White Team, with its calm commander, has the advantage, but the real charm of this event is that the outcome is not decided by that alone~”

At first the White Team had the advantage, but an accident happened in the middle.

One of the White Team’s little cat-eared girls got stuck to the ball and rolled right along with it.

“Oooh, and there it is, just as expected. Well, accidents are common in this event.”

Aoi-chan looks like she is having fun too.

Well, since it was made very light so it would roll off in all kinds of directions, there was not much real damage.

“Nigyaaah!”

Every time a scream went up, this old man’s Heal flew over.

“Nigyaaah!”

There it is again.

In the end she rolled over five times.

She had gotten stuck to the surface of the ball in an upside-down position, but how exactly was she even clinging to it like that?

If she were a real cat, I guess her claws might catch on it.

While the rescue was going on, the Red Team reached the goal, and Camila made an adorable victory pose.

Since this is not a circuit, no yellow flags are waved here.

For this side, I handed out cookies filled with custard cream as prizes.

The fourth event was the spoon race.

They were carrying ping-pong balls made for table tennis, but since the balls are so light, if they run too fast they cannot even overcome air resistance and get blown away, so these otherworldly people, unused to such an event, kept dropping out one after another.

A ping-pong ball will go flying with even the slightest loss of balance, after all.

“This event is a little difficult. That is why the prizes are luxurious.”

“That is right, and guests are participating in this race too.”

All of the princes and princesses joined in.

The duke’s daughter and the maids were participating too.

They must have been itching to join the events.

They all looked very happy.

There is one person flailing around all by herself.

Of course, her ball immediately flew off in completely the wrong direction.

Old Man Ruba participated too, but the ping-pong ball rolled away on his very first step.

An anguished cry of “Even I, in my younger days—” echoed through the air.

Yeah, I understand that feeling very well.

Just between us, that is exactly what happened to me the first time I tried it too.

The ping-pong ball, light as if it were a lump of air, instantly fell victim to the air resistance and inertia of running.

I had never once done this on Earth either.

My elementary and middle schools did not use it, and I had not seen it even at the athletic meets of the association run through a relative’s job.

I could predict the result before doing it, though.

The last ones left were, incredibly, Remi and Fal!

It was an unexpected result, but the two of them were given luxurious Belgian chocolate.

Both of them popped it into their mouths without a moment’s hesitation.

And they looked unbelievably happy.

That stuff is really expensive, you know.

At least savor it a bit more while eating.

Well, the important thing is that they look happy.

The fifth event was the bread-eating race.

All the little ones went wild with joy when they learned this event was part of the program.

I had placed it at the very end of the morning session too, at the time when they would be hungriest.

They all charged at the bread at speeds even more impressive than in the footrace.

The bread was, of course, sweet bean buns.

I took a survey on the kinds of bread, so maybe next year I can respond to requests.

Well, I thought this might happen, but there is one kid taking all of them by himself.

The other children got angry and started chasing after him.

A wild flurry of beast ears completely unrelated to the race unfolded, and the spectators looked delighted.

“Oooh, and this too is a common sight. You could even call it one of the hallmarks of a sports festival~”

This heat had to be rerun.

Of course, the child who took everyone’s buns was disqualified from the start.

Both the little ones and the spectators look happy.

The one enjoying it the most, though, is Headmaster.

And with that, the morning session came to an end.

Now it was time for the lunch break everyone had been waiting for.