Chapter 54.4 – Looking Up at the Clear Autumn Sky, the Clouds are High

The next event is the three-legged race.

Two slaves will form a team and one of their legs will be tied together. They have to run together to reach the goal. It was a surprisingly difficult event.

『On your marks! Three, two, one…..』

Beeeeep! The girls started running at the same time the whistle sounded.

However, all of them fell down at the first step.

「What the heck are you doing!」

「Be serious!」

「Shut up! You do it!」

「Idiot! Get up!」

Yells flew from the audience and the ground was already in a frenzy.

It was interesting to watch the teams as they tried different strategies: some got up and tried to run again, some crawled forward, and some did not use their tied legs and crawled on all fours.

In the end, a close battle continued until near the finish line with the white team winning by getting to the finish line.

A few more running competitions followed and I watched the girls run around, drinking and frolicking.

The current competition now is the riddle-solving event.

The runners will run, get a paper, and bring it back to their camp.

Then, the intelligent members of each camp will solve the riddle and come here to the broadcasting booth to tell us the answer.

「I think it is….a kennel!」

『Kennel, wrong!』

「Eh! That can’t be!」

Hearing that she’s wrong, voices of condemnation at the red team’s camp.

「It’s wrong!」

「Idiot! You have to learn to let go! Come back!」

「Back! Back!」

The fishkin runner ran back to Chicken, who was being carried over by Mince who was waving the red flag. On the other hand, the white group went to the broadcasting booth.

「Ehto ehto….a burnt castle!」

『Burnt castle, wrong!』

「Eh? Why!?」

The white team calls out “Come back!”.

I could feel that Isuka, the tiger catkin who’s in charge of this festival, is cringing behind me for preparing such a difficult problem.

I guess it was my mistake for thinking that the adventurers are smart enough to answer it….

In the end, the rally continued many times and it was the most time-consuming competition so far.

I still think it would have been better to have a separate runner and answerer….

Well, it was a lot of fun so that’s something to consider.

-0-

After the competition, it’s time for lunch break.

Lunch break is not really a break.

It was also a time for the girls of races not suited for the competitions and a time for a performance by a group of volunteers.

「Pyuuuu…..」

And Vongo’s screech echoed through the sky and a flying formation performance of birdkins began.

The audience applauded the sparkling ladies who were wearing sunlight-reflecting costumes.

The girls entertained the audience by changing formations at key points and using smoke bombs on the backs to create multicolored clouds.

After flying for around an hour, they seemed to come back after scattering something over the audience at a low altitude.

What’s that?

『Eh, according to the documents, the things that the squad has scattered are homemade sweets.』

What sweets?

I looked up at the sky and saw Vongo was the only one left circling.

As she swooped down, she dropped one package on top of me as well and returned to her companions.

I open the package and see that it contains what looks like sataandagi.

I picked one up and tried it and it tasted faintly of honey.

Yeah, simple and delicious.

-0-

The afternoon session resumed with an exchange of cheers between the red and white teams and a marching performance by the band.

For lunch, I had a large bowl of kake udon with a lot of fried food on top from an udon stand that had a long line.

This is apparently very popular in the city.

I love this kind of food so I’m glad it’s popular in the city.

-0-

『The next event is stick-pulling! The teams will fight over fifteen sticks placed on the ground and the team that gets more sticks than the opponent will win!』

「Good!」

「Let’s do it!」

「Follow the plan!」

「What’s the plan?….immediately get the sticks?」

「Kill them all!」

「Uraaaa!」

『Don’t kill! Direct assault is against the rules!』