9-7 Aiming For The Summer Festival

Today, everyone had gathered at the Beast-Ear Garden, and we had all been bustling around together.

Eri’s whole family had been there, along with staff from the commercial guild, the magistrate, and even the head clerk and seamstresses from my go-to Western dress shop in the Royal Capital.

Because of that, the girls in our sewing group had been in a total uproar.

Sorry about that—today hadn’t been a sewing lesson, though.

We had made a variety of summer kimono and had everyone try them on.

While checking the internet, we had all fumbled through dressing them together.

The moment the seamstresses saw the sewing machines the Beast-Ear Garden kids had been operating, their eyes had changed completely.

“Th-this kind of world-changing invention has never seen the light of day, and it has been buried in some corner of Adros like this?!”

The seamstresses had immediately started trying the sewing machines.

Aoi, Mari, Lisa-san, and a former-adventurer staff member who could now use a sewing machine had kindly taught them.

Adventurers, surprisingly, often had a lot of dexterous people.

The clumsy ones had long since become monster feed—no, no.

A-and there had even been wonderful adventurers who had climbed all the way to the world’s top SS-rank despite being unbelievably clumsy.

The seamstresses had already been swept up in a whirlpool of enthusiasm.

For now, I had decided to lend them sewing machines.

Because I wanted them to properly make clothing for our affiliated side.

As for me, I had been having a meeting about the summer festival together with the commercial guild staff.

While wearing summer kimono, sipping tea in a tatami room with a veranda.

The food stalls had already been approved in all sorts of ways, and we had also started ring toss and water-balloon yo-yos.

We had already made rubber bands and rubber balloons.

For the water-balloon yo-yos, we had even finished making a magical tool like an air pump that used wind magic instead of gas cylinders.

Without that, the yo-yo stall attendant would have ended up in a miserable situation.

I had done that once, back in the day.

I hadn’t known it was that brutal—the kind of “short straw” stall everyone hated.

Because it had been a company stall, we hadn’t had anything nice like cylinders.

Make sure you actually borrowed that sort of thing properly, okay?

Even though there had still been plenty of choices for stalls, I had gone and picked that one myself at the meeting.

Everyone had complained about it a lot.

Because the water-balloon yo-yos had looked fun.

I had actually liked that one a lot.

It was an item you could keep playing with even after you won it, and the splashing sound had been the best.

And there had been lots of really nice balloon designs, too.

Food stalls had felt like a hassle, anyway.

Well, if you put someone like me in charge, that’s what you get.

Now, that story had become nothing more than a good memory.

There was one thing you absolutely couldn’t skip at a festival.

There had also been archery shooting-gallery games using bows.

I had made the suction cups for the tips, too.

I had used that kind of thing a lot at home, so recreating it had been easy.

But there had been no goldfish-scooping—the stall that should have been the main attraction.

Of course, if we had it, the kids would have loved it, but the important part was that there simply weren’t any goldfish, so it was a nonstarter.

I had made the tools, though.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been any suitable, pretty fish that could work as a substitute.

Something like “crucian carp scooping” would have looked too plain to be exciting.

And wild fish didn’t seem like they would stay calm until they got scooped up.

Let’s imagine it.

A totally unglamorous scene where noble princes and princesses were scooping up crucian carp and gobies with goldfish-scooping tools.

Yeah, for our event, that was a bit much.

Eels or loaches might have been funny in a different way, but it would have felt completely wrong.

At that point, it would have turned into more of a “grab them with your hands” game anyway.

Goldfish were selectively bred, so they didn’t exist in nature in the first place.

Apparently, Japanese goldfish were the prettiest.

If I remembered right, there had been large-scale goldfish farming even in the western area of Nagoya.

Even for me, making koi and goldfish was difficult.

I couldn’t exactly process and manufacture living creatures inside the item box.

Creating creatures like that from nothing but an idea would have been harsh even for a biologist.

I had to go find some substitute that would work.

At this point, even “monster goldfish” would have been fine if they existed.

For now, the goldfish-scooping idea had been left under continued review.

For food, we could do grilled corn.

Of course, it would have been soy-sauce flavored.

There was also sauce flavor, though.

But since we didn’t have any squid, we had to give up on grilled squid for now.

A pathetic summer festival with neither grilled squid nor goldfish-scooping, huh.

Also, candy-cutout games might have been a bit difficult.

That was a pretty delicate thing, so even I would have found it hard to make.

To begin with, I had never actually done it.

I couldn’t picture it at all.

The ingredients had been something like pressed sugar sweets, right?

Maybe not.

I had never even looked it up because I hadn’t been interested.

As for that, due to technical issues at the manufacturing stage, we had put it under continued review.

That had been extremely rare for me.

Everyone else had been surprised, too.

Me—not being able to make something so ordinary.

Even though I would go ahead and make absurdly difficult things like Besmagil and sewing machines.

I also wanted masks and balloons.

As a prototype, I had tried making masks out of plastic without holding back.

I was planning to use designs from this world, but what should I do?

Since we were already using balloons for the yo-yos, I had tried to work out a helium cylinder and a filling device.

Helium existed naturally in the air, even if only in trace amounts.

Then I could just copy it.

In Japan, apparently they relied almost entirely on imports.

When I prototyped balloons, a few had slipped free and flown off, and the cat-folk in particular had desperately chased after them.

Hmm.

And with all that, everyone had moved forward toward the summer festival as one.

At the commercial guild, they had poured all their effort into enriching the food stalls.

But without other stalls, it would have felt lonely.

“A festival like that would disappoint the founding king, Takeshi Funabashi, if he were seeing it!”

When I declared that, Logos—the commercial guildmaster of the Adros commercial guild who revered the founding king—had gotten insanely fired up and started shouting encouragement.

With that kind of momentum, the frenzy for the summer festival had swept over all of Adros.

I had teleported to the royal palace and tried informing His Majesty the King about holding the summer festival.

“We will hold a festival in the style once enjoyed by someone bearing the Funabashi surname. If the founding king saw it, it would be a festival so nostalgic he would have dropped to his knees and sobbed. But we have one problem. The Empire’s people aren’t attacking at all, so we can’t hold the festival calmly. We don’t want to get hit by sabotage from the Empire, so… couldn’t we just invite the Empire’s crown prince or something to the summer festival?”

Even His Majesty the King had looked taken aback by that.

“Why do you want to do that?”

“Because having a hostage would be nice, right? I’ll protect him with everything I’ve got, so it’ll be fine~”

“That is simply impossible. We are on the eve of war with the Empire. Even if we invited him, there is no way their crown prince would come. And we cannot allow even the slightest chance of something happening. In any case, anything that gives the Empire a pretext to start the war is strictly forbidden!”

Tch—so even the name of the Albatross Kingdom’s progenitor, Takeshi Funabashi, hadn’t been enough to hook this Funabashi-obsessed king.

“Fine, then I’ll at least wipe out the enemy S-rank.”

Saying that, I had left the audience chamber.

And yet, while saying all that, I had immediately returned to the Beast-Ear Garden and started continuing the festival preparations.

Every time I made something and showed it off, the children’s adorable ears had wiggled back and forth.

It had been so fun I couldn’t stand it.

Whatever.

If the Empire’s people attacked, I’d kill them.

That was all.

Normally, I was the kind of person who rarely killed enemies proactively.

Even in Japan, I had never done anything like that.

I had been just an ordinary citizen who followed the law.

Even if I was from Mikawa—the “head-hunter tribe”—this wasn’t the Sengoku period.

What was nasty about Mikawa people was that, while acting unbelievably quiet and harmless in everyday life, if the restraints they kept forced down snapped loose after coming to another world, they would start rampaging without hesitation (a “head-hunting story”).

Those circumstances were such that even the local police back home had “thick trust” in us to the point of holding their heads in despair.

And on top of that, my hometown in Japan had been so rough that the police notice—“This is one of the country’s worst cities for public safety, so we will hold a crime-prevention workshop”—had come around via the neighborhood circular bulletin board (nonfiction).

It must have been in high demand, because the second session had used a bigger venue and doubled the headcount.

But I also felt that the local spirit (the “barbaric” part) had greatly contributed to the region’s manufacturing industry (the best in Japan), so locals had forcibly insisted, “The merits and demerits balance out, so it’s a net zero.”

In the last A-rank exam, it couldn’t be helped—we had been getting attacked nonstop in enemy territory.

Because my partner Antonio had been targeted.

Even the first time, the village had been attacked, and I had been directly assaulted and nearly killed.

Well, that had just been me counterattacking in the heat of the moment.

But this time, I absolutely couldn’t leave the attackers alive.

Because then I wouldn’t be able to protect the precious children.

Still, since I had to focus purely on defense, that was going to be rough.

Instead, if enemies came, I would absolutely destroy them.

After that, it was nothing but going all-out toward the summer festival.

Two weeks had passed since returning from the Empire, and in Japan it had been about to reach July.

Only a little over a month remained until the summer festival.

During that month, we had devoted ourselves to preparations no matter what.

And then, at last, we had managed to welcome the Adros Summer Festival safely.

In Japan, it was August 3rd today.

But not a single one of the Empire’s people had come.

The cameras we had set up hadn’t reported anything abnormal.

Sometimes I went to check on the Empire, but those guys were still acting the same as ever.

What was up with that?

Before long, I had half-forgotten to even go check.

I had even forgotten that I had set up the cameras.

I had to remember to collect them later.

In any case, we had prepared summer kimono in all sorts of colors.

For the little cats, Aoi had made adorable summer kimono featuring a popular cat character from Japan.

We had greatly increased the variety of sandals, and we had also prepared lots of summery shoes.

I had also tried making hand fans, festival coats, portable shrines, wind chimes, bamboo blinds, and lanterns.

I felt like it had really brought out a festival atmosphere.

Aoi had been overjoyed.

It had felt like, “It’s just like a Japanese festival!”

Everyone had enjoyed their first otherworld summer festival.

But I hadn’t drunk even beer or any other alcohol.

I had provided it at the festival, though.

They would definitely come.

There was no way that utterly evil Empire wouldn’t attack according to plan.

Our soldiers were in a combat-ready posture.

But during the three-day festival, nobody had attacked.

What on earth was going on?

But that answer had come via a phone call from Antonio.

“Hey. Have you heard the rumor about the Empire? They say the crown prince was assassinated.”

What was that?

I hadn’t heard a thing.

“No, that’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

I casually checked his marker.

He was clearly still alive and well.

Those things automatically dropped off when the target died, after all.

“When I check the marker now, the crown prince is alive.”

“I-is that so. But on the streets, everyone’s saying he’s dead. This is going to cause a real mess again.”

After hearing that, I took a quick look at the marker’s position on the MAP, and it had indeed been inside the palace in the Imperial Capital of Bern.

Curious, I went to take a peek, and two heavily armed soldiers had been standing at the entrance to that location.

Was he imprisoned?

It felt like an atmosphere where it would have been hard to barge further inside.

So I teleported to the second prince’s place.

Luckily, I had been in that room before.

“Fwahahahaha. Doran, you bastard—serves you right.

I finally kicked you down. Now all that’s left is to stew you or roast you. Fuh-fuh-fuh, hah-hah!”

Oh my, there had been someone there echoing a victorious cackle.

Well, for me, this one was more workable in a sense than the crown prince.

None of his plans ever succeeded, anyway.

Then I teleported to the emperor.

But he looked like he was bedridden, so I tried appraising him.

Aha—Sharion-chan, what an adorable little stunt you had pulled.

Ah, lately you’d kept failing (because of me), and it sounded like you hadn’t been very competent to begin with.

Even when your big brother was buried under mountains of work, you were fooling around with women in broad daylight.

I should have forced myself to listen in on pillow talk after all.

This guy sounded like the type to brag and chatter about everything to his women.

This was a coup, wasn’t it.

I mean, he was the second prince.

If he didn’t do something like this, he never had a chance from the start.

Was the mastermind that Flash-God Nielsen type?

If so, then from here an S-rank was going to start moving.

Looks like the enemy wasn’t going to come at us honestly.

Good grief.