As light dawned on the room, I prepared for a new day. Preparing for what? Preparing for the festival and the tournament.

Before that though, we planned to do something. What was a must when attending a festival? Yes…

I heard a loud knock by the door. “Hey, Terrin! If you don’t wake up, I’m going to kick this door down and I’m going to kick you next! One, two, three—“

“Don’t kick the door down! We’re up!” Why was he up so early? The sunrise literally just happened a couple of minutes ago. Usually, I would be the one waking him up, not the opposite way. He must be excited.

With visible irritation on Risa’s face, we stood up and prepared ourselves. Today, we wore something nice for the festival. Merry prepared her dress while I went out of the room. In the end, Risa wore a flowery knee-length dress while Merry wore a casual blouse, courtesy of William and Feim.

“You both look…good.” I tried to say more complimentary words but my mind decided to the ‘good’ out of all I could say.

“Thank you,” Merry smiled a bit. “You look good as well.”

“Come on!” Risa complained. “You could do better than that!”

“Yes, you’re so cute as if a princess has graced us with her presence.”

“Now, isn’t that better?”

When we came in the living room, we saw the rest of the party dressed for the festival, too.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Feim? I’m sure you’ll have fun!” Fuyuki enthusiastically beamed her smile towards Feim, in hopes of her coming with us.

“I am terribly sorry but there are chores I must complete. Besides, I do not participate in a human festival. Though, I hope you have fun.” Feim bowed apologetically. I could see in her face that she honestly didn’t want to go. It was as if the festival was an annoyance to her.

“If she doesn’t want to come, we can’t force her. You can’t enjoy things when you’re being force into it. Gotta let her come willingly, you know?” Sometimes, what Takana was saying made sense. It felt surreal, though. Takana making sense? You don’t hear that everyday. Was this how he convinced Elird to becoming a Warrior?

“Wow, somebody’s feeling good today,” Risa added.

“Heh, you just don’t notice it but I feel good everyday,”

“How about we bring you something you’d like…?” Kihana shyly suggested. Now that I think about it, these two rarely speak to each other. It made me smile a bit seeing how Kihana’s care for others could break her shyness.

“A present…?” Feim pondered about it. “There was this one time where a delivery man gave me a food, saying he couldn't finish it and didn't want it to be wasted. It was a kind of pastry shaped to a flower." Ahh of course it would be food. As I said before, Good food was equal to good life.

“Well, you can count on us. I know exactly what you are talking about.” Merry said.

Feim nodded. “I hope you all have a safe trip. Well, except for Takana, I hope you fall on a dirt.” She said while smiling coldly to Takana. With that, she started doing her chores.

“Well,” I started. “Let’s enjoy the festival, shall we?”

…Yes, enjoying the festivity of the festival was a must when attending a festival.

I didn’t remember the first time I went in a festival. But I had seen pictures of it. I was very young child, so there was no way I’d remember it.

As we leave the Borin estate, we walked on the way to leave the Nobles Quarter. The moment we left the house, we immediately felt the bustling atmosphere of the festival.

Generally, the Nobles Quarter was off-limits to the public, except for a number of them. You could still see them in any other day, though, they would be in their best clothes. Most of them were there for business but for today, all kinds of people walked the street of the Nobles Quarter. Be it be a beggar or a wealthy merchant, they participated in the festival.

Of course, for us, this was a new experience. It felt nice seeing people walked around, enjoying the festival with their friends and families without any worries. It was also a strange feeling seeing the empty streets filled with a crowd. It made me feel like a child who just wanted to run off the stalls and try everything there was to try.

The security of the city had also been improved. It was only natural to ramped up the security as more of the commoners visit the Nobles Quarter. Often, there were no guards patrolling the streets since nobles had their own security with them and the crime rate in the inner wall was so low, they barely put any security after the gates.

Of course, there were rules and unspoken rules. For example, the nobles shouldn’t be disturbed by the commoners. No littering. No bringing of weapons unless you had permission to. Any rules and policies that were violated could result in a sudden and swift execution, especially if nobles were involved. Powerful men tend to get the things they want, so disassociating with nobles should be a commoners’ number one priority. The social hierarchy was still in place even if it was a time of celebrating the unity of the kingdom.

Though, it wouldn’t be right to show only the negative aspect of nobles. Not all nobles were so prideful and narcissist. One of them was William. He had helped with the construction and decoration of the city, albeit with money only but that was helping the commoners. I’d heard from Feim that the Sangaa and Crista Family were helping also by donating money, clothes and foods to the weary.

We approached the north gate and saw a lot of people entering and going to the Nobles Quarter. Couldn’t blame them though, the Nobles Quarter must have looked like a paradise island that they could only visit for a few days every year. It is a must see attraction during the festival.

We’re going to the north gate because that was where we planned to meet up with Elird and Fiss. Since the north district was somewhat a decent and clean place, Elird and Fiss lived there. They know the every nook and cranny of the north and other districts, so it felt nice to have a guide with us.

“Hey, Fiss and Elird!” Takana shouted so loud we attracted the eyes of the people.

“Don’t be so loud,” I said.

“Don’t you worry, it’s the festival! People like it when things are loud.” I mean, I guessed he was right. We were in a festival, after all.

Fiss and Elird went to us with their beautiful clothes. If we didn’t know them, I was confident I’d be mistaking them for a couple. I mean, waiting at the fountain with clothes like that? Heck, I might have even mistaken them for a married couple.

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“Don’t you two look cute!” Fuyuki complimented with a beaming smile. I believed she was going for a hug there but stopped since she didn’t want to ruin their clothes.

Elird scratched his cheeks while looking away shyly. “Thank you very much. Fiss picked these clothes for me.”

“Men have no sense of fashion in these parts. So it’s up to us women to help and teach them.” Fiss explained.

“Men like us don’t need any fashion, isn’t that right, Elird?” Takana put his arm over Elird’s shoulder, causing it to wrinkle a little bit.

With those careless actions, Takana received a smack on the head by Fuyuki. “You damn monkey! Now look at what you did.”

“It’s all right, Fuyuki. I’m sure Takana would treat me with some snacks for what he did.” Elird tried to contain his anger with a threatening smile but was he bad at it.

Seeing most of us angry, Takana sighed and accepted his defeat. “Fine, my bad. Well, I’ll treat you with some booze and an advice with woman later. How does that sound?”

“No, thank you. I’d rather have desserts than booze. I don’t want to be drunk later for my fight. And you? Giving an advice about women? Please, Takana, save the jokes for later.”

This almost made Takana to pounce on Elird when our angel, Kihana, quietly spoke. “I didn’t know Takana’s like that…” though it was barely hearable, Takana stop from what he was doing.

Takana quickly apologized to Kihana. “No, no, I was just trying to be cool, you see. I don’t really know much about women…” as Takana said that, we all had a good laugh. It was nice seeing Takana like that, all panicky.

“Is that so… Well, I’m glad to know that…” Kihana lowered her head, so I didn’t see what kind of expression she was having. Takana, on the other hand, visibly blushed. I didn’t even know if that was a genuine blush, maybe he wasn’t breathing because of what Kihana said.

All of us smiled looking at the two awkward people but even that wasn’t enough to entertain Risa.

“Let’s get going already!” Risa complained.

With the complains of the child, we started to walk.

If I were to compare the inner and outer wall, I’d say the outer wall was more festival-esque. Though, there were only few differences between them.

I could smell every foods from every food stall. It smelled so good that I had to sometimes not inhale the delicious scents as I didn’t want to get hungry yet.

We made it to the market. As expected, it was bustling of people. During festivals, a lot of things were discounted, so people took this opportunity to get the things they wanted. As for us, there might be things we wanted such as weapons, clothes and supplies.

We looked around the stalls. The girls looked around for clothes with the exception of Kihana, who was looking for some stuff. For us boys, we looked around for weapons and armors.

After a while of looking, we didn’t find any valuable weapons and armors. Most of them looked second-hand while the brand new weapons were too expensive, even at the discounted amount, with no defining features.

Though we didn’t have any luck on our side, the girls had fun shopping for clothes. We often didn’t use our casual clothes when going outside since we often didn’t had the chance to but having more wouldn’t hurt, right?

Later, we tried one of the game stalls. In one of the stalls, there was a shooting gallery. But instead of a toy gun, we used bow with blunt arrows. Compared to the shooting gallery back on Earth, this one was a bit harder. Not only did you have to know how to use a bow, the distance to the shooting targets was quite far.

“Fuyuki,” Takana’s face lit up and grinned just like someone who wanted to create some trouble. “I bet you can’t hit that and get the prize.” Takana pointed at the target.

“Ho, ho, ho, is that a challenge?” it seemed like Fuyuki had taken the bait completely. Now Fuyuki swam in deep waters, with Takana roaming around waiting to completely submerge her.

“Yeah, wanna bet on it?”

“You’re on!” Fuyuki confidently accepted the challenge with an energetic grin. Sadly, Takana got this in the bag. Shooting projectiles wasn’t Fuyuki’s strongest suit. It all happened so fast that none of us managed to stop it. “So, what’s the punishment?”

“Hmmm…” Takana pondered about it as he touched his chin. “You’re going to treat me all the food I want tonight.”

Now that was some heavy punishment. It would be an understatement to say Takana eat and drink a lot. No matter how many times he drank alcohol, he only seemed to get drunk after the tenth bottle.

Fuyuki, though, didn’t show any sign of backing down. She knew herself that losing this challenge would hurt her wallet badly. I couldn’t comprehend what was going on Fuyuki’s mind.

“Mine would be…” She cheekily smiled. It was a kind of smile that she knew if she won the whole thing would be worth the risk. “Yes, you have to be kind to William for a day!”

I furrowed my brows, taken aback by the easy punishment. Surely, she’s kidding, right? That’s so easy —

I turned around and saw Takana’s reaction. He looked troubled as he bit his lip. Wait, seriously? Was it so hard for him to treat William like a proper person that he pondered whether to continue what was essentially a guaranteed victory for him? Damn, his hate for him ran deep.

“So?”

Takana slapped his cheeks with both of his hands. He then confidently grinned. “Yeah, bring it on! You’re never gonna hit that, anyway.”

“Heh…We’ll see about that.” Clearly, Fuyuki was hiding her cards. She went to the merchant and paid to try the shooting gallery.

After Fuyuki paid, the merchant handed her a bow and an arrow but Fuyuki rejected it. Instead, she stood in front of the stall and calmly chanted “Sal, mo, rak,” a single Ice Shard appeared. This caused various reactions from the party, even catching the eyes of the pedestrians but she nevertheless continued. She aimed her staff forward and the Ice Shard accelerated to hit a box, which was the unmoving target.

“I won! I won!” Fuyuki jumped in delight. I immediately glanced at Takana, who was evidently mad as he accusingly pointed at Fuyuki.

Hey! That’s cheating!”

“What do you mean? The challenge is all about hitting the target, right?” Fuyuki innocently smiled.

Oh, so that’s why she’s confident that she can win. Technically, she was right. They weren’t abiding to the merchant’s rules and were abiding to their challenge. Since Takana didn’t specify what to do, Fuyuki ran amok with her own ideas. Heck, she could have thrown a rock and still win if she hit the box. I wouldn’t be proud of beating Takana since he was an idiot but I guess a win was a win.

“Wha—“Takana tried to speak but he stopped midway, probably realizing she was indeed right.

“Hey, that’s cheating! You’re supposed to use the bow! No prizes for you!” the merchant angrily said and we leave.

As Takana continued to be dejected, we enjoyed the other game stalls. I won a card game where I’d have to choose the proper card within five cards. A game of pure luck. I won a stuff toy and gave it to Risa, whom, surprisingly, accepted it. Fiss went back to the shooting gallery and won it, this time fair and square and she received a pin with an emblem of the kingdom.

After having fun around the game stalls, we decided to eat. Fiss recommended a restaurant while Takana, back to his feet because of food, wanted to go to a tavern. Since we would be watching Elird after eating, we all agreed to eat at the restaurant while promising Takana we’d go to the tavern after the tournament.

The restaurant wasn’t some fancy place but instead, a quiet place in a corner of an unknown street. We entered, not knowing what to expect, when someone happily greeted us.

“Welcome to the —“The waitress sounded polite and formal but it changed when she saw Fiss and Elird. “Oh, Elird and Fiss. How are you today? You guys didn’t escape again, did you?”

Fiss frantically shook her hands. “We’re not! We’re here with our friends. We brought them here because this is the best place to eat, after all!”

Suddenly, a bulky man excitedly came out of the back room. “Oh, how glad it makes me hear you say that! Come on in, I won’t be disappointing you with my skills!” The bulky man looked as if he belonged to a battlefield instead of a kitchen.

We sat down on a long table and waited for our food. There weren’t many customers in the restaurant; only two old couples and a single man drinking something. Although the restaurant looked a bit deserted, I was quite happy to see it like that because it made the place calm and relaxing.

“Are you heading directly to the arena?” I asked Elird.

“No,” Elird shook his head. “My belongings are at the house, so I still have to get them.”

“Now, I don’t want to see any disappointing fight, okay? I don’t care whether you win or lose. Just remember to give it your all.” Takana looked to Elird as if issuing an order to him.

“Don’t worry. I plan on giving all I can.” Elird smiled.

“What do you know? Takana you can speak like a normal person!” Fuyuki said.

“I give credit where its due. That was a good advice.” Merry complimented him.

“Don’t you all get emotional on me,” Takana had a boorish looked on his face. “I’m going to spend my time there. I don’t have control over other matches but I at least don’t want Elird’s matches to be boring because I’ll be there.”

“Huh,” Risa scoffed. “So in the end, it’s all about you?”

“Of course! Why the hell should I care about his match?”

Almost all of us facepalmed and looked at Takana in disappointment. Thankfully, the food came in. Now we could remove the bad aftertaste with delicious foods.

We ate to the fullest, thanking Fiss and Elird for bringing us to this hidden gem of a restaurant. After eating, we rested a bit. They all talked all about small kinds of things.

As I gazed upon the smiles, laughs and banters of my party, I couldn’t help but feel a warm feeling in my heart. Days like this should be remembered and treasured. Because what is life, if not for the happy small moments?