6-2 Perfect Weather For A Field Trip

Before I knew it, the little ones’ gear had gotten pretty well stocked.

Using paid and free mail-order sewing patterns from the internet, I had shops in the Royal Capital make all sorts of clothes.

The shop I’d commissioned got interested and asked if they could sell them to the general public too, so I happily gave permission.

The kids in this world might get a bit more stylish.

They were already making synthetic fabrics, and I forced out all sorts of weaving methods by recreating them with my image-creation skill after looking them up online.

I had quite a few failures, but I managed to make things I was satisfied with.

Unfortunately, reproducing sewing machines here was extremely difficult.

Especially since it wasn’t a machine I used day-to-day, the image just wouldn’t come easily.

The treadle sewing machine we had at home had been a treasured toy back when I was in early elementary school—I used to spin it around and play.

We used treadle machines in home economics class too.

School equipment was basically old, so they probably didn’t become electrified until later, when sewing machines got cheap enough to be sold like bargain-bin items.

Back in the day, people saved up monthly at sewing machine dealerships to buy one.

I remember there being something like a passbook for it.

Some of the kids got interested in clothing design and were diligently sketching in their notebooks.

The drawings were pretty cute.

When they noticed me watching, they’d shove me away with their beast-eared heads, all “Don’t look! Go away!”—and chase me off adorably.

Some kids got interested in stuffed toys and knitting too.

At this rate, we might end up with a team that could handle everything from design to cutting to sewing.

While all that was going on, I also set up a proper cooking school in Adros, and even tried making something like a vocational training center.

Since this was a town where most residents came from the poor district, students gathered immediately.

Whenever something came up we didn’t understand, that’s when Japan’s online help forums came in.

While I was at it, I started a blog too, and made pages linking to an unlimited-capacity photo gallery service and roundups of images from a video site.

On the video site, I uploaded all sorts of records: scenes from intense battles, dungeon footage, the sights of various towns, the adorable beast-eared kids, the food court under construction, what the Adventurers’ Guild looked like, and moments of grand magic detonating.

Rank-up exams, the royal palace, and members of the royal family were up there too.

Since nobody thought it was real, I got tons of comments like, “The CG is amazing. I’m moved.”

“Oh yeah? Yeah? I’m a genius!”

And I’d toss back casual replies like that.

I even started threads on message boards and made internet people melt down with photos of cute beast-eared kids.

Cats were the most popular, foxes came next, and third place was probably wolves.

Personally, I couldn’t give up on bear cubs.

Sometimes I’d slip in ultra-gory monster images too, like, “Oops!” just to mess with them.

I even tried pitching footage of cars racing through all kinds of scenes to the automaker that made those cars.

The most spectacular was the scene of them tearing across the glass plains of the magic training grounds.

I also sent clips where a bunch of beast-eared little ones had piled onto the car’s roof.

Unfortunately, none of that footage got bought.

It wasn’t even a hot-selling model in its home market—it was practically about to be discontinued.

The video site was moderately popular, and after taxes were taken out of the ad revenue, it looked like it could cover things like maintaining my apartment in Japan and paying for the kids’ clothing patterns.

And it seemed Mari-san—the “main” Mari, Takeshi Funabashi’s younger sister—was enjoying it too.

I also processed various parts for cars and bicycles, and used my image-creation skill to make tricycles and kids’ bicycles.

I told them not to ride outside the grounds when they played, but watching them still made me nervous.

This world didn’t have anything like traffic laws, and since this was the castoff city of Adros, people’s awareness of that kind of thing was even lower.

When I first came to the Royal Capital, seeing a child get hit by a noble’s carriage had been shocking.

No matter how low people said the old Mikawa license-plate region’s civic standards were, they weren’t that low.

And they called themselves nobles—what a joke.

Well, it was a world with completely different values.

I even thought, “Then don’t make tricycles and kids’ bikes,” but… seeing how happy the kids were made it hard.

As for playground equipment, I had all the classics: swings, slides, and seesaws.

I skipped the spinning rides this time—they were a bit scary.

I made a tire-climbing obstacle setup, and that was hugely popular with the little ones.

I also prepared a wide playground so we could hold sports days.

This Beast-Eared Preschool was on the edge of town, so getting land wasn’t much of an issue.

The magistrate even told me to use it however I liked, as long as it was for something like that.

His office handled all the needed procedures too.

He seemed unable to contain his excitement about the development of the town he governed.

After all, we’d wiped out every last villain who might try to interfere over vested interests—together.

I also brought arts and crafts into the curriculum.

I got clay and made oil-based modeling clay using castor oil.

I had loved that stuff as a kid.

It reeked like crazy, but it was unforgettable.

Maybe they made it smell weird so kids wouldn’t try to put it in their mouths.

If something plastic and moldable smelled delicious, there would absolutely be kids who ate it.

I tried making paper clay too.

And a colored version.

I had them do paper cutouts with drawing paper, as well as origami and paper-cut art.

I let them play with paper airplanes using tons of templates I downloaded online.

I made the elementary-school math learning tools in larger sizes.

If I made them at the standard size, little kids would swallow them.

For materials, I used wood.

The abacus was pretty tough.

That material—more like that texture—was hard to replicate.

It was precision woodwork.

But I reproduced it anyway.

I’d gone to an abacus school as a kid, so my mental image was perfect.

I’d fiddled with the thing endlessly, after all.

Even now, the shadow of an abacus lived in my mind.

It was a strange world where the commercial guild had a sign featuring a cat holding an abacus as its trademark, yet abacuses themselves didn’t exist for some reason.

Maybe even the predecessors had found it too difficult to make, since even I struggled with a proper one.

At this point, I was completely engrossed in running the preschool.

Another month passed, and before I knew it, five months had gone by in my otherworld life.

Then a messenger came from the commercial guild to say the food-stall village was ready.

I practically sprinted to see it.

Starting with a noodle-soup stall, then thick wheat noodles, fried noodles and savory pancakes, octopus dumplings, fried chicken pieces and fried chicken, and then tama-sen—where I had Eri struggle and struggle until she recreated that faintly pink rice-cracker base.

Eggs were a luxury food in this world, but I made tama-sen anyway.

When I tried to make it myself, the egg always fell apart and turned into a mess.

Eri nailed it perfectly on the first try, though.

Cotton candy and churros, juice stands, hot dogs and sandwiches, and shish kebab.

Burgers, cream-filled fish-shaped cakes and small cast cakes, cupcakes and pancakes for the little ones, and the classic crêpes—using fruits that existed only in this world.

All together, fifteen stalls lined up in a row.

Since we’d scheduled the food court’s grand opening as the children’s field trip, the kids were all overjoyed.

“Tomorrow will be clear.”

I understood that with the power of certainty.

What a ridiculous waste of the Seventh Sense.

Though I’d been doing things like that since I was in Japan, so it wasn’t exactly new.

Weather forecasting was “his” specialty.

I used to call him “Ikoma-kun the Weather Guy.”

It was simply an ability for everyday use.

I’d used it mostly for work, honestly.

And it really had been helpful.

Well, even if it was a field trip, we were going to use teleportation magic to get there anyway.

This world didn’t have buses.

I had the money, so I could have arranged carriages.

But we had this many preschoolers.

As the responsible chaperone for our very first field trip, teleportation magic was the only option.

These kids were absolutely going to run out of battery halfway there!

They looked like they’d be pretty fidgety too.

At that age, it couldn’t be helped.

The food court still had empty space, so I set that as the teleport destination.

Still, it was better if the weather was nice.

Eleven o’clock on the day.

Everyone had been insanely excited since morning.

They wore little drawstring backpack pouches with cute embroidery and appliqués, and shoes or sandals made from Earth materials recreated from internet references and my own items.

Some even wore adorable kids’ boots.

I properly held the one-year-old little tyrant in my arms.

Lately, we’d finally gotten close enough for that.

The kid didn’t seem to understand what was happening today, but did seem to understand that something fun was coming.

You could see the excitement faintly in their ears and tail.

Thirty children, ten staff, plus me, Mari, and Antonio—and since this was a “dungeon city” topic, I also invited Bel-kun as a guest.

Since it had been a while, I invited Guildmaster Armon too, but he seemed busy and told me, “Next time.”

The magistrate of Adros naturally came to observe.

And the commercial guild members too.

The children greeted them energetically.

Everyone looked like they were itching to charge the stalls already.

They kept glancing my way, too.

“Alright, everyone. Go on—charge!”

I gave the signal to begin the assault.

I did the same thing whenever we started daily activities and games at the preschool.

A roaring swarm of children surged at the stalls!

But the very first one to lunge was Erin.

Team Ed—whom I still had handling security for the Beast-Eared Preschool.

Ed strode over and smack—whacked Erin on the head with a paper fan he’d made from Japanese newspaper.

Recently, this was Ed’s favorite item—the one I’d made for him.

Apparently it was the perfect tool for shutting Erin down.

With fifteen stalls, even the little gremlin brigade couldn’t decide where to look first.

“That dessert looks yummyyyy.”

“No, no—first we eat a real meal and fill up!”

The adults of the town watched with warm smiles as the former street children—who’d been hungry since they were old enough to remember—wandered back and forth in front of the food stalls, unable to choose.

Surely, this town would get better and better.

Not just me—everyone seemed to be watching with that kind of near-certain feeling.

Bel-kun looked happy too.

He was the gentle type, and it seemed he’d always worried about the people of Adros, who’d been abandoned.

After all, his job had been in charge of that.

And he himself had been treated terribly in his family home.

If you hadn’t been oppressed yourself, you probably couldn’t understand how people like them felt.

The reason I was doing something like an orphanage now, in the end, came down to that.

Together with the little one, I started by going on the cupcakes first.

They were the little one’s absolute favorite.

We went around stall after stall, and while cuddling the little one—full and sleepy—I looked around at everyone.

This other world was overflowing with smiles.

Adults and children alike, all equally.

I was happy too.

I’d been thrown into this other world all alone, and maybe this was the happiest time I’d had so far.