5
And just like that, before anybody knew what was happening, the plan was quickly headed toward actual implementation—
“And now, the first annual Snow Festival has begun! Hey, gang, you wanna go to New York?!”
“Y-yeah…?”
As Subaru took on the role of MC, the group’s responses were sparse. The momentum hung emptily in the air, but this was of little concern to Subaru as he beheld the silvery scene before him. And under his encouragement, the crowd at least seemed to be enjoying the festivities so far.
At present, Roswaal Manor’s front garden has transformed into a winter wonderland. And in it was a crowd of people: more specifically, the citizens of Earlham Village. The off-season chill had brought their ice-season clothing out of storage, but the villagers looked noticeably giddy rather than discontented.
And that was because there wasn’t a soul in existence that was not excited by the word festival.
“Wow, a snow festival… Your creativity never ceases to surprise me, Subaru,” said Puck, emerging from the scarf wrapped around Subaru’s neck. The architect of this winter wonderland thoughtfully stroked his chin fur as he gazed at the festival visitors.
“Hey, when it comes to wasting recourses, don’t underestimate the abilities of a modern man whose ancestors survived the famine. Since we can’t hide from the cold anyway, we might as well turn it into a big party.”
“Well, I never imagined this could become a party,” Puck explained. “You complain about the cold, but you love the snow—humans are so hard to understand.”
“Well, it’s human nature to get excited over things like blizzards and typhoons, even if they are technically natural disasters.”
“Hmm, hmm, fascinating.” Puck hummed, craning his neck in confusion just the same.
A supernatural being such as himself likely had difficulty understanding, but humans were creatures who sometimes craved the unreasonable. They were wary of nature’s savagery, yet at times, they could flip that fear into fun—truly paradoxical creatures.
“Subaru, you haven’t finished your story yet!”
“Oopsie, so I haven’t. Sorry about that!”
A villager summoned Subaru from his conversation with Puck. Incidentally, since Puck’s presence was hidden from them, the conversation likely looked like a lengthy monologue to them. Even so, nobody spoke up about it—a testament to the villagers’ deep understanding with Subaru.
“Okay, I was explaining the rules, wasn’t I? In short, feast thine eyes on the mansion’s front garden! Use the snow and ice here to create art pieces that showcase your creativity and craftsmanship—this art contest is this snow festival’s main purpose! I’ve prepared a luxury prize for the winner, so I hope you’ll all aim for the top!”
“Oooh!”
The words luxury prize caused a fervor among the participants. This festival was hosted by their dominion lord, Roswaal, so it was only natural that they would have high hopes for the prize.
“Okay, you have until the fire goes out! Lights, camera…action!”
“—?”
“Oh, right, that means start! Go, go, go!”
Though it got off to a rocky start, the snow festival began at Subaru’s command. The villagers got to work in teams, but snow-sculpting required intense concentration and dexterity of the fingers. Subaru couldn’t wait to see the collection of epic creations before him.
“Ahh, breathtaking,” Subaru marveled as he watched the villagers diligently work on their snow-sculpting and gave a satisfied leap off the snow platform.
It would take hours for the great works of art to be finished. During that time, Subaru headed toward the other pent-up-mana-expelling experiment that was set up. After all, they had so much ice and snow. He couldn’t let it end with a simple snow festival.
“So are things looking good on this end?” Subaru asked.
A young man in the village youth group turned to look at Subaru. He was cutting ice and had sweat on his brow. “Yes, Subaru, most prosperous indeed! Things are all good on our end.” He was surrounded by other young people, cutting ice and putting the chunks onto a platform in a similar manner.
“By the way, I hope you don’t feel like you got a raw deal cutting ice while everyone else plays in the snow,” Subaru apologized.
“Oh, not at all. We’re just happy to serve the village. And word has it this fire season is going to be hot, so we’re grateful to the marquis for suggesting this.”
The youth group leader, a man with a crew cut, smiled genuinely as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Nodding at him, Subaru heaved a silent sigh of relief that the proposal was happily accepted.
These young men, who were carving blocks of ice while the others played in the snow, had volunteered to cut ice to stock the ice houses for fire season. Whether to preserve food or simply to keep the heat out of the home, ice was an essential item to have when the weather was hot. In a world without any air conditioning, ice houses were quite important. Subaru had learned this in passing during his trips to the village.
“Yeah, but it’s still hard labor. I really ought to be helping you…”
“Oh, no, no, Subaru, you’ve already helped us more than enough. If we ask for any more of your help, it will surely be bad karma. Besides, you’ve given us quite a lot of entertainment already.”
“Really? Was there some performance I didn’t know about?” Subaru titled his head, unable to determine what the man was referencing. Then he followed the youth group leader’s gaze and found Ram and Rem restlessly running around the front garden. They were both giving instructions as appointed members of the snow festival governing board, and their ice season uniforms were refreshingly cute.
“Just bearing witness to that is a deeply moving experience. Don’t you agree, Subaru?”
“Yeah…you may be right. Well, if that’s all the payment you need, then I’m glad we could help.”
The other youths nodded deeply in agreement with their leader. If that truly was their consensus, then Subaru was happy for them. A firm handshake with their leader confirmed it.
Reassured by the spirit of the young men, Subaru returned to the snow festival. As you’d expect, Subaru didn’t know all that much about snow, but after a while of making the rounds and offering a moderate bit of advice here and there—
“Ooh, it’s Subaru!” “There’s Subaru!” “Know him and fear him, the White Terror!”
“Good to see you guys aren’t letting the cold dampen your spirits!”
Subaru was greeted by a group of kids bursting with energy and excited. With steam rising from their sweaty bodies, they ran in circles, screaming:
“Wa-ha-ha, snowww!” “Ja-ha-ha, snowww!” “Bwa-ha-ha, snowww!”
Over the snow, they skated, slid, and tumbled into the winter wonderland. As Subaru watched these snow minions, he couldn’t laugh at them. They reminded him of his own childhood. He just nodded in deep understanding and said, “But in time, you will all realize—that the snow was playing in you all along…”
Spotting the shallowness behind Subaru’s airs, a girl marched up to Subaru and said, “Ah, Subaruuu? You look bored. Come here! Look what I made out of snow!”
It was Petra, the beautiful girl whose future excited Subaru the most. In her hand was a little bunny made of snow.
“Ooh, a snow bunny! Didn’t know that was a thing in your culture, too!”
“Hee-hee, isn’t she cute? Did I do good?”
“Yeah, it’s great! There, there, now, let’s make her even more stunning. Check it out.”
As Petra looked on in confusion, Subaru gathered some leaves and pebbles nearby. He attached them onto the bunny Petra made until its ears and eyes had transformed before her very eyes. Petra’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.
“Ooh, awesome! Subaru, you’re so awesome! Now it’s a bunny…It’s a real bunny!”
“Heh-heh. I know, right? And seeing you so happy really gets my blood pumping! Okay, let’s give her yet another power-up! Let’s add a tail and wings, some missiles, mecha-fusion functions, and a cockpit and a caterpillar—”
“Whoa, slow down…”
Ignoring Petra’s pleas, Subaru brutalized the snow bunny. Minutes later, all traces of its former self were gone, and the bunny had transformed into a killing machine: Multipurpose Special Aviation Assault Weapon YUKI USAGI.
And it need not be said that the purehearted girl’s former joy was nowhere to be seen anymore.
“Hmm, a woman’s heart is fickle as autumn’s sky…guess the saying was right. Peh! Peh! Peh!”
Spitting out the snowball that had hit him square in the face, Subaru watched Petra grow smaller and smaller in the distance. The snow bunny that had tickled his boyish sensibilities was apparently not to her liking.
“Maybe Petra prefers realistic robots over super-robots,” Subaru mused.
“Ummm, I get the feeling she doesn’t like either,” Emilia said.
“No, no, it’s too soon to reach a verdict. Next time, I’ll hit her with a realistic robot and see what she thinks.”
After solidifying another snowball-facing by Petra in his future, Subaru began to make his rounds to observe the snow sculptures that were gradually coming to completion. Being everyone’s first snow sculptures, many of them were crude, but each and every sculpture was a testament to everyone’s cooperation. It wasn’t easy to pick a winner.
“Isn’t it a shame, though, that everyone went with realism? Maybe it’s because they don’t have the concept of mascot characters here, but there’s lots of castles and animals…ooh! Now this one’s really lifelike!”
“Oh, thank you very much, Subaru. I’m quite proud of my Urugarum!”
“It’s so cold you thought I could take the heat?! What a sick joke!”
Only a few days ago, the mansion and village were plunged in an unprecedented crisis involving the Urugarum demon beasts…and this was a snow sculpture of one of them. The terror and stress now fresh in his memory, the goose bumps on Subaru’s skin were from more than just the icy air.
“I commend your efforts because I love edgy stuff. But you weren’t considerate enough of the emotional trauma of your judges. Therefore, I give it seven out of ten! I look forward to seeing your next creation!”
As Subaru appraised the snow Urugarum, the man who created it smiled cynically and said, “Tough crowd.”
Observing the exchange, Puck tickled Subaru’s neck with his tail.
“Pfah, what?”
“About the scoring system—who’s overseeing it besides you?”
“Me, Rozchi, and the village chief is our secret judge. If all the judges are known, people will try to bribe us under the table. We firmly oppose such unscrupulous judging practices when it comes to an artistic competition.”
“But would people really go to such lengths to get the prize?”
“Of course they would. It’s a present from me, and there’s only one of its kind in this world.”
What the prize lacked in monetary value, it more than made up for in rarity. Upon learning that the grand prize would come from Subaru himself, Puck’s mouth gaped in surprise. “Dang, Subaru, considering this isn’t even your problem, you sure are generous.”
“Well, the ones in trouble are Emilia—and you, right? So of course I’m gonna help.”
It was of little hardship to Subaru, who was enjoying the festival. So there was no need to hesitate when it came to this easy level of helping out. In the final analysis, Subaru was much more in their debt than they were in his.
“Hmmm…from where I’m standing, Subaru, this quirk of yours is very…you know.”
“No, I don’t know, there was way too much innuendo. You’ll have to be more specific…”
As Puck snickered, Subaru suddenly stopped in his tracks. Seeing this, the girl sculpting in his path happily clapped her hands.
“Ooh, Subaru! Come look at this! It’s a sisterly sculpture by myself and my sister!”
“Rem and Big Sis…so you participated instead of helping out? I’m surprised.”
Her face aglow, Rem gestured to the work of art beside her. On the other side of the snow sculpture stood Ram, dressed in an additional layer. She crossed her arms and snorted at the sight of Subaru.
“Ah, Barusu. So nice of you to be lured into the light by our artistry.”
“I’m not quite sure how I feel about the moth-to-a-flame vibes of that sentence, but yeah, I came to see it. What happened to get you out to compete in this cold-as-balls festival, Ram? I thought you didn’t even want to help out.”
“Master Roswaal gave me permission to compete. Unless you’re suggesting that I should have stayed holed up in bed alone while Rem and everyone else had fun in the snow?”
“Needlessly aggressive, but you’re saying you hate being left out, right?”
As Subaru cringed over Ram’s passive-aggressiveness, Rem quietly stepped before her big sister. Then she clasped hands with her red-nosed sister and said, “No, Subaru, I begged Sister to join me. She said playing in the show was too childish for her, but I just had to play with her…”
“Don’t you feel ashamed, Big Sis, forcing your little sister to make excuses for you?”
“No, Rem’s tangible love gives me a sense of superiority. Feel free to be bitter.”
It’s hard to make a comeback when your opponent doubles down. So Subaru gave up on dismantling Ram’s sophistry and turned his attention back on the snow sculpture the twins had constructed. The entire sculpture was draped in a white cloth, and it was about as tall as the average person. Knowing how skilled Rem was with her hands, he imagined it would be quite the work of art.
“We’re very proud of this sculpture,” Ram said. “It is a culmination of our strengths, skills, and sisterly love.”
“That’s right. I combined my feeble abilities with Sister’s leadership, and this is the best we could have produced.”
“That’s a strange way of saying, I did all the work while my big sister watched! …Anyway, what’s your sculpture’s title?”
“It’s titled The Amazing Subaroswaal!”
“The name is already a red flag!”
Ignoring Subaru’s quip, Rem removed the cloth from the sculpture—to reveal a masterpiece of a lone man, sculpted with extreme care. It was finely detailed, each and every little part of him tidily refined. As a snow sculpture, it easily had the potential to eclipse all the other submissions. It had only one flaw—the subject of the sculpture was undefined.
“There was a clash of opinions—my sister wanted to sculpt Master Roswaal, and I wanted to sculpt you,” Rem explained.
“And after weighing the pros and cons, that’s what we settled on,” Ram clarified.
“It’s like an anti-compromise!”
As the sisters told Subaru the backstory of their sculpture, he struggled to come up with a score for it. It was beautiful that the sisters had produced it together, but the sculpture had turned out downright blasphemous.
The joint piece, The Amazing Subaroswaal, appeared to be a statue of Roswaal, with traces of Subaru mixed into it. It was an indefinable creation that maddened the mind of whoever saw it.
“Oooh, what’s this I seeee? What are you all doing out… Oh my, what is this…”
Roswaal, who had been making his rounds scoring the sculptures, came over to see what Subaru, Ram, and Rem were looking at. But when he beheld Subaroswaal in all its glory, Roswaal’s face did something it seldom did—it went rigid. His confident smile faded off his lips, and his eyes swam, desperate to find a comment he could give.
“Oh! Master Roswaal…so sorry you’ve caught us unprepared,” Ram said. “But please, take a good look.”
“Sister and I made this together. I know we’re family, but please give us your honest criticism.”
Seeing both judges in place, Ram and Rem eagerly awaited feedback. Ram wore her usual overly confident posture, but unless Roswaal was mistaken, even humble Rem seemed confident.
They both seemed to expect high marks for their snow sculpture. However—
“All right—sorry, but that’s a five.”
“Out of five…?” Ram prompted.
“Out of ten, idiot! Just callin’ it like I see it! After seeing that abomination, I pray for the marquis’s future reputation!”
“Don’t be so silly…!” Ram shot Roswaal an astonished look, but the latter merely shook his head and raised a hand. Only four fingers were raised. His score was even lower than Subaru’s.
Incidentally, each score was out of ten, and since there were three judges, the possible total was thirty points.
“It’s not badly made, you seeeee. But it just—how do I say this diplomatically—gives me the creeps.”
“But I know there was nothing wrong with our concept… I guess Barusu’s features ruined it.”
“Now that can’t be true!” Rem protested. “We fused what we each consider to be the ideal figure—no way could that not work out! I’m sure this sculpture is just ahead of its time.”
Upon hearing Roswaal’s curt review, Ram and Rem lashed out in protest. However, given the substance of their arguments, Subaru saw another indescribable sculpture in their future.
Subaru offered a good faith argument: “Maybe we’re the only people who think it’s weird because we were the subject—”
“Oh! Found you, Subaru! Beatrice and I submitted sculptures in secret. Would you like to look at our—agh! Wh-what is this? This snow sculpture looks really weird!”
“—Yeah, nooo. What an absurd idea,” Subaru pivoted.
When Emilia happened upon The Amazing Subaroswaal, she rejected it on the spot.
In other words, for the good of humanity, that sculpture will forever be ahead of its time.
Nevertheless, the first annual snow festival plodded along—and Petra was crowned the winner. The winning sculpture received twenty-eight points and was titled Multipurpose Special Aviation Assault Weapon YUKI USAGI.
Truly, it was a victory for a very cunning, very badass girl.
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