The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 7 - Chapter 349

Chapter 349:

We Overslept

I sQuinted my eyes at the sunlight streaming through the window. It seemed awfully high in the sky… Had I overslept?

“After all that, I still feel so—hmmm?”

Even though I’d slept so long, I still felt tired. Well, the last two days had been a lot of fun, but they sure were draining. I hadn’t realized Hatahi’s festival required so much stamina.

“I thought all that dancing would be a breeze…”

Days three and four featured dances to welcome the spring. We sometimes joined the circles of dancers on Main Street and danced our hearts out. Since there was only one dance, it wasn’t all that difficult once you learned it. The real challenge was the music: It quickened and slowed in tempo at times, and it was hard to keep up. Day Four was full of dancing just like Day Three, except the style was different. The music was much faster and lighter, and the dancing was a little more intense. You also joined hands with the people in front of and behind you and spun around, so it was even more fun than Day Three. But the dancing lasted forever! Over the two-day period, we had danced over ten hours in total with breaks in between. Since it was so much fun, we couldn’t ever refuse when we were invited to dance…and by the afternoon of Day Four, our muscles were like putty. Out of energy, we had turned in early last night but to no avail.

“What time is it?” I sat up in bed and yawned. I stretched my arms and back, and boy, did it feel good.

“Morning. It’s eleven,” Druid answered. He was sitting in a chair, playing with the slimes. I looked over and saw that Flame was on top of his head.

“Sorry I overslept. Good morning, everyone.”

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

Mrrrow.

“Te! Ryu, ryuuu.”

“Pefu!”

“Don’t blame yourself—you danced beyond your limits yesterday. But one thing, Ivy…”

“Yes?”

“The festival proper starts tomorrow. Will you be okay, or are you too tired?”

That’s right. It was still Festival Eve, but the Battle of Colors would begin tomorrow.

“I’ll be fine as long as I take it easy today.”

“Okay, that’s good. Well, you won’t need as much energy tomorrow as you did yesterday.”

“Really?”

But won’t we be having a cake fight?

“You don’t do much running around. You just throw cakes at the people you can reach, so it’s a lot easier than the dancing was.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good news.”

I got out of bed, picked out some clothes, and headed for the washroom. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on my clothes. Then I realized that I didn’t know much about what was going to happen at the actual festival.

“Mr. Druid, are there any customary things we need to do tomorrow?”

“We each get thirty cakes. Once you’ve thrown them all, you’re done. It doesn’t matter who you hit, but you try to get them with a color they don’t already have. The Battle of Colors only lasts from one to three in the afternoon.”

So it’s a set time period, then. I have to throw thirty cakes in two hours? I don’t think I’ll need all that time—once I throw them all, I’m done.

“It may sound easy, but it’s actually pretty hard to find the right colors to throw. You also have to deal with other people hitting you at the same time.”

“Ohhh, yeah, I can see that.”

“Well, you don’t have to hit people with colors they don’t already have. But according to tradition, the more colors you get on your clothes, the luckier you’ll be. Everyone gets incredibly caught up in it.”

It was easy to imagine how intense it was. The last couple of days, there’d been that one person who was so dedicated to the dancing that they refused to take any breaks. Come to think of it, I wonder what happened to them?

“Also, since there are so many more people doing it this year, they’re going to decide by lottery who goes on the first day and who goes on the second day.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, there’s about twice as many participants this year as there were the last time I came.”

“Twice as many? Well, there definitely are a lot of people here.”

Everywhere I walked there were people, people, and more people. I’d finally gotten a little used to it, but the size of the crowd was still a bit overwhelming to me.

“Oh, by the way, I already put our names in the lottery,” Druid said.

“Thanks.”

“We’ll be doing it on the first day, which is perfect for us, since we wanted to hear Lord Foronda’s speech anyway.”

“Yeah, I’d love to hear his speech and then smack him with a color cake!”

“That should be easy. I doubt many people will go throw color cakes at Lord Foronda.”

“Because he’s a nobleman?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Grrr.

Agh! My stomach growled.

“It’s okay, we did skip breakfast. Wanna go have lunch? It’s about time.”

“Sure. Oh, look! Sol’s looking outside again.”

“Huh? Oh, you’re right.”

I was about to tell everyone we were going to lunch when I noticed Sol staring out the window. The sight always made me feel uneasy.

“Where do you think Sol’s… Never mind. Okay, kids, we’re gonna go out to lunch. We’ll be back soon.”

Y’know, we really should get back to the dump soon for some potions and magic items. There’re just too many people, though.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking that we should go to the dump.”

“Yeah, we filled up our magic bags as much as we could, but I’m getting a little anxious.”

“Me, too.”

Since we knew there would be far too many people around to visit the dump, we had stocked our magic bags with enough potions and magic items to last the slimes a week. But since there were even more people than we’d been planning on, we weren’t going to be able to make another trip until much later than we’d thought. Sora and Flame could make do, but Sol might run out of food. We really wanted to get to the dump before that happened.

“It sure is dicey,” Druid mused. “There really are people everywhere you look.”

“True.”

Wait a minute, why are we going to the dining hall for lunch? I thought this inn didn’t serve lunch?

“Mr. Druid, aren’t we cooking our own lunch today?”

“Remember how we shared some gyuu-don with Chikar that one time?”

That’s right, we did do that. He happened to see us eating rice one day and was shocked by the sight, but when he saw the ­gyuu-don topping, he asked if we could share some with him. He was so eager that we went ahead and gave him some to taste.

“Remember how you taught him how to cook it after that?”

“Sure, it’s easy enough to make that I just told him how.”

“Yeah, well, he cooked some. And he found me this morning and asked if we could come taste it.”

Wow, I’m impressed. Gyuu-don may have been easy to make, but there was a trick to steaming rice properly.

Sensing our auras, Chikar popped his head into the dining hall to greet us. “Good morning! Thanks for indulging me; it’ll be ready in a jiff, so just have a seat.”

“Good morning, sir.”

After we greeted him, he scurried back into the kitchen. A little while later, an aroma wafted into the dining hall that kicked my appetite into gear.

“Oh, no…this smell really hits hard when you’re hungry.” My stomach just wouldn’t stop growling.

“Sorry for the wait… It was pretty hard to steam that ryce,” said Chikar as he came back in. “I put in a little too much water and it got all soggy.”

“Maybe you put in more than a little too much water?”

“Ha ha ha! Yes, I actually put in twice the amount you told me. I got quite the shock when I took the lid off the pot, let me tell you. It was like soup.”

“You know, that’s actually pretty tasty in its own way if you add some extra salt and mix in ponzu or shoyu.”

“Oh, really? Well, I tried some and it was pretty bland. Not much to look at, either, if you know what I mean. So I threw it out.”

Oh, no! What a waste.

“But it’s a great food for people who are sick with a fever, since it’s easy to digest.”

“Ohhh, I didn’t know that. Is there any other way you can save it? Maybe by putting stuff on top of it?”

“I think that would work well. It would be good with meat that you’ve seasoned pretty heavily.”

“Okay, next time I mess up a pot of ryce, I’ll give it a try.”

So he’s resigned himself to failure… That doesn’t feel quite right to me, but I guess he can’t help it since he’s not used to cooking it.

“Here you go. I think you’ll find it tastes a lot like your dish.”

“Thank you, sir,” we both said, taking a bite of gyuu-don. It was delicious…but a little heavy on the seasoning. The more I ate of it, the less tolerable it was. Druid and I gave Chikar some notes.

“Thank you, Mr. Druid and Miss Ivy. I’ll keep that in mind and cook it again for supper tonight.”

It seemed that rice was taking over the whole land little by little. Well, that was a very good thing indeed.