Village Festival – Part 03
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Translator: Kell
I left the governess at the clinic and went to the church, where the priest, who already knew about the situation, greeted me sullenly. He urged me to follow him to his room.
“I suppose we’ll have to cancel the festival,” the priest said, sliding a sheet of paper across the table.
It was a poster that the governess had posted around the neighboring villages and towns announcing the festival. A messy writing in blood was plastered over it, as if to express their spite.
Witch-Hunting Event Soon!
It was clearly a threat to our planned festival. It could mean attacking people who tried to participate in the festival, or blending in with the visitors and attacking the villagers. Either way, only extremists would scribble the words “witch hunt” in blood on a poster meant to announce a festival.
Something was definitely going to happen. In fact, something already did happen.
People threw rocks at the governess, who went to check on the posters. They told her to get lost, accusing her of being a witch and chased her out of town. Patrolmen didn’t reprimand them.
“If we go through with the festival,” the priest continued, “the people who attacked Madam—or their friends—will attack people on their way to our village. We don’t have enough manpower for lookouts, and we can’t afford to send guards to every visitor.”
“Yup.”
“We can ask for assistance from the Knights of Magic or Wenias… Either way, we have options to go through with it, but one wrong move, and this village’s reputation will plummet to the ground.”
“True.”
“Lily checked with her rat friends, and apparently all the posters in the neighboring villages have been vandalized as well. I’ve asked the villagers to retrieve them all.” His chair creaked. He tapped his thumbs over his knees irritably. “But the children…”
“Yeah?”
“They practice their dancing every day together with Lily. Lily’s acting like their guardian, but they think of her as a child of their own age.”
“Yeah, I saw rats dancing to the dog whistle. I was looking forward to seeing the kids dance with them.”
“The ladies were excited to show you their cooking skills as well. They planned to give you snacks since you’d probably be busy during the festival.”
I chuckled. I had no idea they crafted such a plan.
“The men are planning to give gifts to their wives and loved ones. They come to me, of all people, to ask what would make a woman happy.”
“And what did you say?”
“Women are happy with anything as long as you put your heart into it,” he said in an especially soft tone.
I laughed my head off for a while. When I stopped, silence fell on the room.
I stood up. “I’ll go tell the villagers the festival’s canceled.”
“I’ll go with you. If we tell them that the decision came from the Church, they will have no choice but to agree.”
“Gonna play the villain?”
“If necessary. I’m an adjudicator. I’m used to it.”
“Former adjudicator.”
We left the church through the back door with heavy steps. As we made our way to the workshop, we found villagers waiting for us in the middle of the road.
I went to the Church, which I rarely do, after the governess was attacked. They already knew why.
“You guessed right,” I said. “We’re canceling the—”
“Please wait!” the governess suddenly appeared, interrupting me.
Her wounds were completely healed, her body and clothes neat, but her face was still pale. Realizing what she was going to say, I shook my head.
She was probably going to say something like she couldn’t stand the festival being canceled because of her. But that was beside the point.
“It’s not your fault, Madam,” I said. “We should be glad that we realized the mistake before we held the festival. It was too soon—”
“Let’s just hold it for ourselves,” she interrupted once more.
“…What?”
“We already discussed it. We don’t need to invite people from outside. We will hold a festival for ourselves.” She took a step forward. “Isn’t that what festivals are supposed to be about? You’re right. It was too soon. I got way ahead of myself. We should hold a festival with just the villagers. Eventually, it’ll be known far and wide, and outsiders will come visit our village. That should’ve been our vision. I’m so stupid for creating posters right off the bat.”
The priest and I exchanged glances. He wore a look that said, “She makes a great point.” I had the same expression as him.
A festival for the village. A festival for ourselves. A celebration to commemorate the first year of the village.
“Now that it’s come to this, I’ll admit it,” the governess continued. “I wanted Zero to see if I had the aptitude to become a Mage.” She turned red all the way to her ears, and her voice trembled with embarrassment. “But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So I thought that if we made it part of the festival, I could have Zero check me too.”
But the people behind her were all smiling.
“I want to be examined too,” one said.
“I actually planned to get checked,” another admitted.
I felt a tug at my pants. I looked down to see Lily there standing with the kids.
“Umm… Mom and dad are coming, so…”
“O-Oh, right.”
“Can you pick them up?”
We couldn’t protect a large number of people, but escorting someone we knew would be easy.
“I’ll ask my friends to keep an eye out for bad guys,” Lily said. “If anything happens, I’ll tell you right away. We all practiced a lot… and made many mistakes, but we finally learned to dance. I wanted everyone in the village to see it.”
I eyed the villagers one by one, then looked up at the sky. “What’ll happen if I still cancel it?”
“There will be a village meeting.” Zero stepped out from the crowd. “And you will no longer be the head of the village. I say we do it. A festival for us only. It would take a whole day just to check the magical aptitude of all the villagers. I do not think I have the energy to examine outsiders as well.”
“You heard her, priest. What do you say?”
“I have one condition.” He raised a finger. There was tension in the air. “We push back the festival by a day. Some people might still plan to ruin the event anyway, but this should fool them. We make them think that we succumbed to outside pressure and gave up on holding a festival. We make them feel good. Once they’ve become arrogant, when their guard has been lowered, and when they start spreading word about their heroic deed…” The grip on his staff tightened. “That’ll be the perfect time to harvest their sins. Ah, I might need a bigger scythe.”
No one except me, Zero, Lily, and Bear, knew the meaning behind his grin. The anger emanating from his whole being was so intense that the rats around Lily scurried away in fright. Lily pulled away from the priest and clung to my leg.
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