The White Cat That Swore Vengeance Was Just Lazing on the Dragon King’s Lap - Volume 5 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Making Merriment

The children’s “employee training” education was going well. With their honest nature and ambition, they took their studies seriously and were improving at a rapid pace. That being said, they could have just gone to school if studying was the only purpose here. Any free time they had was spent working in order to sustain themselves. That was why this study session was really job training. It was simply necessary for work, and since studying was part of the job, she compensated them modestly for their time. They got to study and got paid for it.

That reminded Ruri of something. She’d heard that in impoverished nations in her world, in order to incentivize working children to go to school, they would set up a school lunch system so they’d come for the goal of eating a hot meal. In that case, if the Nation of the Dragon King introduced something similar, the poorer children would likely attend so they could eat a decent meal. Ruri thought it might be an idea worth pitching to Jade.

But before talking to Jade, who would have the final say, Ruri figured she should probably run it by the nation’s chancellor, Euclase. She went straight to Euclase and discussed taking money out of the budget set aside for Beloveds. Her thought was that if this turned out to be a model case, then it would be easier for the nation to introduce it as common practice. This was the money that Euclase had said to spend as she wished, after all. She didn’t like the idea of spending taxpayer money on herself, but if she used it on volunteers, then it made things much easier. Euclase consented, seeing no problem in her experiment or the use of Beloved funds.

Ruri immediately proposed the introduction of lunch services at a school near the slums, where the poorer children would normally go if they didn’t have to work. Euclase took steps to implement her plan, and Ruri’s experimental school lunch program was approved. Euclase also wasted no time implementing other necessities, such as cooks and facilities for them to utilize. The talented chancellor was the epitome of tactful decision-making.

Considering Euclase was working for her benefit amidst the busy tournament season, Ruri wanted to thank them somehow. Though it was initially her idea, Ruri felt a little regretful that she was completely relying on Euclase. The only thing she did was make the suggestion and pay for it—and the money wasn’t even from her, but from the taxpayers.

In an attempt to do something of merit, Ruri went to the slums and went door to door, telling people that she had created a school lunch program. Once she did, children that struggled for a day’s meal started to funnel into classes, little by little. She knew that not everyone would just suddenly start attending. Nevertheless, the only thing she could do was pray that the number would continue to grow. She hoped they would receive an even better education and find even better jobs. Then again, she doubted it would work out that great, but if it could help change even a handful of their lives, then it was a cause for celebration.

The best thing would be to hire the children from the slums at her hot spring, but Ruri didn’t have room for any more employees. She’d already hired a bigger amount than needed out of pity for them. She wondered if she could call on the businesses in the royal capital to place them with jobs. But coming from a Beloved, she worried it would end up being less of a request and more of a threat. Almost no member of the general public would refuse a Beloved’s wishes. That wouldn’t work to anyone’s benefit; it might just worsen people’s perception of the slums. Also, that was probably more of the government’s territory, not Ruri’s. It seemed unlikely they’d take action in this busy season, though, so she would have to wait a while before proposing a new idea.

Ruri had no power other than her moniker as a Beloved, but she wanted to do whatever she could to help. This nation was already Ruri’s home away from home. Nothing would please her more than to see her knowledge from her world help to better serve this land.

Construction of the hot spring had been coming along smoothly and was nearing completion. What Ruri needed to think about now was what kind of entertainment the facility would offer.

By default, there were attractions in this world. However, theme parks didn’t exist, only street performances, plays, and things of that nature. And in typical port town tradition, they used the ocean for a variety of leisure activities—swimming competitions, fishing competitions, whatever they could manage. To be honest, though, it wasn’t enough for someone born in a place rich with entertainment like Ruri. An amusement facility was something she’d been craving for quite some time.

The question now was what kind she should make. The lack of electricity was a huge factor. Most of the entertainment in Ruri’s world used electricity. Magic existed in its place, but it was a toss-up between things that could be substituted with magic and things that required neither electricity nor magic. Ruri racked her brain in order to come up with something that would fall into the right category.

The first thing that came to mind was a zoo. But that would require zookeepers. Not only that, but since there were already beastmen in this world, no one would be that curious about animals. So she scratched that idea. She didn’t have the technology to make thrill rides, so any kind of attractions you rode were off the table as well.

She thought of perhaps having a mascot costume like at a theme park, so she had one custom-made at a tailor. Her explanation didn’t translate over very well and the costume turned out a bit homely, but it would do for now. After that, she asked the flower spirits to fill the facility with rare flowers not common to the area, turning the location into a florid paradise so beautiful it could garner fame on its own.

She still had no activities for attractions, though. In terms of old-school amusement, bowling, pinball, and shooting galleries came to mind. Making those seemed entirely doable. She could swap out the guns for bows and arrows. She had a few of those in her pocket space, and people of this world were familiar with them. Then she decided to ask a woodworker to make a non-electric pinball cabinet. She used drawings and gestures to illustrate her point, and after several rounds of prototyping, they finally came up with something satisfactory.

“Okay, could you make me ten more cabinets?” Ruri requested.

“Sure thing. But would you mind if we made a few for ourselves?”

It seemed that the woodworkers liked the new device. They were playing with the cabinet with great interest, shouting out which of them was next to examine it. If this was how they were acting, then it would likely be a hit with customers as well.

“That’s fine. In exchange, I’d like you to make something else,” Ruri said, pulling out a piece of paper and proceeding to draw a picture of a bowling ball and pins. “There are ten of these pins, and there are holes in this ball to fit your fingers in, you see...”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. If that’s all, I think we can make these pretty quick.”

A few days later, after seeing the finished product, she set them up in front of the curious builders. She stood the pins upright, rolled the ball, and knocked them down. Once she performed the extremely simplistic series of actions, the woodworkers showed interest in this invention as well.

“Hey, let me get a try!”

“Me too!”

As Ruri watched the craftsmen gleefully resetting the pins like a flock of happy children, she realized that resetting manually every time would probably get annoying. But when the person next in line was about to go stand the pins back up, another of the workers called for him to stop.

“What are you doing? Use magic instead of doing it by hand,” he said, using wind magic to make the fallen pins stand upright.

Ruri had seen the light. “You’re a genius, mister!” she exclaimed. She had completely forgotten about the existence of magic. It was relatively easy to reset the pins that way. She put in an order for more bowling pins and balls, and the woodworkers agreed to make a few for themselves.

As things proceeded swimmingly, Ruri figured her safest bet for amusement was probably tabletop games—card games, Reversi, The Game of Life, and whatnot. Albeit, there were things similar to cards and chess in this world as well. They were basically games meant for adults, and they were often used for bets.

The adults in this nation did a lot of betting. There was even an official bet set up for who would win the upcoming tournament. The most popular wager of course was Jade, followed by Finn and the others. In that case, if she introduced betting in her amusement facilities, perhaps the people of this world would have an easier time accepting the idea as a whole.

With that thought in mind, Ruri came up with the idea of letting people bet on the outcome of sporting events. Horse and cycling races were the first ideas to come to her, but raising horses was a handful and bicycles didn’t exist for there to even be cycling races. There was sports betting in Ruri’s world as well, and that was the image she was working from. However, she felt that if it turned into gambling, then it was bound to cause conflicts. If they really did like gambling as much as she suspected, they would have a lot of zeal for it. If she made a misstep in the process, it could mean a lot of unnecessary hassle.

She decided to give up on the whole betting angle. Instead, it seemed better if people played a regular sport with no strings attached. She thought about what kind of sport she should make. No matter how silly, if it had a ball, it could be a sport. She needed one with simple rules that anyone could follow without the need for a lot of equipment.

She asked the spirits, who knew of her world, for ideas. “What do you guys think?”

“Soccer!”

“Baseball!”

“Tennis!”

“Hmm...” None of their suggestions struck a chord with Ruri. All of them had pretty difficult rules. Plus, you needed equipment—rackets, mitts, bats.

“Dodgeball, then!”

“Oh, that’s it!”

The rules were easy to understand; if you got hit, you were out. It was easy to teach and easy to learn. All you needed was a single ball. She explained the rules to the children in the slums and let them play, proving that people who didn’t know the rules could play right away.

“Okay, okay. Things are smooth sailing.” That seemed like enough attractions for now. She could just add more later if necessary.

The next order of business was meal prep. Enjoying the hot spring and the attractions would probably work up an appetite. But rather than a hearty meal you had to sit down for, a light meal you could eat while walking would be much better. She needed food like what would be sold at a food stall—something easy enough for her child staff to make on their own with a high turnover rate. What she came up with was...

“Hmm, corn dogs would be easy to eat. Also, there’s ikayaki, yakitori, and, oh! Can’t forget takoyaki!”

She figured she would need a griddle first, so she went to the ironworks and asked them to make a griddle with a bunch of round holes. With that, they could make the doughy, octopus-filled balls. The ironworker who took her order was baffled by her need for such a strange griddle, but it was an essential tool for making takoyaki.

Next, Ruri went to the commercial district to look for ingredients. She found sausage, chicken, and seafood. But for some reason, she couldn’t find the ingredient she wanted most—octopus! They had squid, but octopus was nowhere to be found.

She went to a store that handled seafood and asked, “Do you have any octopus?”

“What’s an octopus?” they replied.

“An octopus is an octopus. You know, eight legs with suction pads on the bottom?” Ruri explained.

The only response she got was the shopkeeper’s blank stare. She went to another store and got the same answer.

She vented her frustration to Ewan, who was with her, asking, “What’s the deal, Ewan? Why is there no octopus?!”

“Don’t ask me. The hell is an ‘octopus’?” he asked in reply.

It was an idea beyond comprehension. She never would have imagined that octopuses didn’t exist in this world even though they had squids.

“What should I do? Substitute it with squid? No, takoyaki needs that plump and chewy texture of octopus.”

As she agonized over what to do, a voice called out to her from behind. When she turned around, she saw Quartz, who was not supposed to be here.

“Master Quartz, what are you doing here?”

“I heard you were up to something interesting, so I came to check it out myself. But when you weren’t over at the spring, I asked around and heard you were here. Since your hair stands out so much, it was easy to find you.” So Quartz said, but his own head of platinum blond hair was just as easy to spot from a distance.

Seeing Quartz jogged Ruri’s memory. Quartz supposedly had been bouncing from nation to nation ever since he’d left the Nation of the Dragon King. If he saw that many nations in his travels, he just might know of octopuses.

“Master Quartz, do you know what an octopus is?”

“Octopus? No, afraid I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a wriggly sea creature, similar to a squid, but with a lot of legs with suction cups on the underside. It has white meat that’s chewy and plump and very delicious,” she explained.

Quartz pondered her description for a moment. Just when Ruri was about to give up on octopus altogether, Quartz seemed to remember something.

“Would you be referring to a kraken, by any chance?” he asked.

“Kraken?” Ruri replied.

“It’s a monster that dwells in the sea. It has many legs like a squid that are lined with suction cups. Yeah, if it resembles a squid, but actually isn’t, it must be a kraken.”

“Is it delicious? Can you catch it in the Nation of the Dragon King?”

“I’ve had it and it tastes great. Though, I’m not too sure if you can catch them. I mean, they’re so humongous that any normal person would go down with their ship if they ever tried. I think it would be hard to catch one unless you are a dragonkin in dragon form. Also, krakens crop up very rarely out at sea.”

“Aww, you’re kidding...” Ruri slumped in disappointment.

Just then, something came to Ewan’s mind. “I heard the navy boys say that a kraken has been showing up in the seas around the capital lately.”

“Really?!” Ruri asked, excitedly.

“Yeah, according to one of them, suspicious ships have been spotted near the capital as of late, and every time the navy tries to capture them, a kraken shows up and blocks their way. And that’s the reason why they’ve let every single suspicious ship slip away. I think he said something about going on a full-scale Kraken hunt soon.”

“Okay, then count me in too!” Ruri exclaimed, pumping her fist to the sky.

Ewan slapped her across the head with his hand. “You freakin’ dummy. No way we’d let you do something so dangerous! Not when there’s suspicious ships out and about. You need to be more self-aware of being a Beloved!”

“Okay, but then I won’t be able to get any octopus. And I want myself some takoyaki!”

Ewan just shook his head. “I’ll tell the guys in the navy to bring the damn thing back for you, then. There, be satisfied with that.”

Reluctant as Ruri was, she had no choice but to agree—despite her curiosity to see the hunt as it happened.