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Mika, Karua, and I left the castle and went into the city.

Just the three of us… is what I’d like to say, but Karua was this country’s princess, I was the hero, and Mika was also a big shot¹. Since it’d be a big issue if anything happened to one of us, we were followed by knights in plain clothes several meters behind us, so they wouldn’t get in our way.

Of course, we changed our facial structure and appearance in various ways with items I had created. The biggest changes were the following: I had orange hair in place of red, Mika’s yellow-green hair was now blue, which she wore in braids, and Karua’s blonde hair had become silver, worn in a ponytail. Still, people who were somewhat closely acquainted with us, would likely recognize us.

“There are so many stalls!” Karua exclaimed.
“That’s true… where should we go~?” I asked them.
“I think anywhere would be fine, but…” Mika pondered.

In the middle of that, my eyes were drawn to a shop selling skewers.

“Let’s eat something, then!” I proposed. “Like those chicken skewers² there!”
“That’s fine, right? You come too, Karua!”
“Y-Yes!”

We rushed towards the shop and stopped our feet in front of it. There was a middle-aged³ man, who was in somewhat good shape, grilling skewers.

“Mister!”
“Hey! Oh, such adorable young ladies, what do you want to eat?”

There was salt and sauce on the menu. The sauce was probably something like a dip⁴.

“In that case… three skewers with salt!” I ordered.
“Three salted skewers, alright?”

The man handed over three skewers, one for each of us.

“You know, they’re 11 bells per skewer, but I’ll give you girls a freebie! I’m fine with 10 bells each.”
“Wow! Thank you so much!”

We paid the man three large coppers and left the storefront.

“Here, Karua.”
“T-Thank you very much…”

I gave Karua a skewer, but she just gazed at it intently, without eating it.”

“Is something wrong?”
“No, it is my first time, eating something at a festival, so… In any case, I never left the castle during festivities.
“I see, so you’re happy to experience the festival, whether the food is delicious or not, right?”
“Y-Yes…”

Karua hesitantly put the skewer into her mouth. After a single piece of meat had disappeared from the skewer, she looked at it intently again while she chewed.

“How is it?”
“I see… it feels different from meals… A special feeling, or rather… it is just as you said, Alim.”
“Right!”

Meanwhile, Mika suddenly tapped my shoulder lightly.

“What’s wrong, Mika?
“…my part…”
“Oh, sorry.”

I tried to give Mika her skewer, but she didn’t accept it and instead opened her mouth silently.

“…You don’t want it?”
“Can’t you see? I’m saying ‘ah~’.”
“Huh… but Karua is watching…”
“Heh-heh-heh, please do not mind me.”
“Look, even she says so.”

Seriously?

Thus, I held Mika’s skewer partway into her mouth. She ate it just like that.

“Mh, thanks. I’ll eat the rest myself, then.”
“Oh, I see.”

Mika took the skewer from my hand.
Still, someone was tapping my shoulder again. Or rather, that someone was Karua.

“What’s up?”
“Erm… could I ask a favor of you, too?” she asked, as she tried to hand me her skewer.

Does Karua also want me to do that?

“Do you want me to feed you?”
“Yes, since Mika looked quite happy, I also wanted to try it… Can I not?”
“No… it’s fine.”

I took the skewer from her and held it out for her to eat, same as I had done for Mika. Karua took a piece of meat into her mouth and continued chewing it silently. Still, she didn’t give off the feeling, as if she understood it.

“Hm~, the taste does not change, does it?
“Well, I guess that’s true.”
“I do not understand it very well,” she mused, took back her skewer from me and started eating it.

I didn’t ask anyone to feed me, I simply ate mine normally.

From start to finish while we were eating, it felt like the people around us looked on with smiles.

After we finished eating the skewers, we toured the food-stalls again.

The next thing we ate were fruits, that were circulated all over Anazumu, wholly enveloped in candy, similar to a candied apple.
You find those ones pretty much everywhere you go, don’t you?

Then, there was a sandwich stall. Not surprisingly, they’d apparently opened the store this year.⁵ It was of the format, that you could chose any ingredients from the menu you wanted, which they would then sandwich between two slices of bread.

But it was expensive. First, the fee for the bread base was 30 bells. Then around 20 bells to put in a quarter cut of fruit soaked in bee honey, plus 15 bells. You paid 45 bells for something that was roughly 10 bells of value.

Still, quite a few people bought them. We also bought some. It was just an ordinary fruit sandwich, you know.

After we ate the sandwiches, we tried going to a nearby stall, where you could throw knifes.

“Knife throwing… you throw them and get prices depending on the numbers you hit. Do you want to give it a go?”
“Yes! Would it be alright, if I gave it a try?”
“You want to, Karua? Let’s do it, then.”

With that being said, Karua challenged the knife throwing stall. You could throw five times for 50 bells. Mika and I didn’t plan to participate, so we paid the man at the stall for just one person.

“I’ll do my best!”
“Yes! You can do it~!” Mika cheered her on.

The first throw. Surprisingly, Karua hit the target market with “14” on her first try.

“Wow! I hit it!”
“Awesome, Karua!”

Karua received a price from the stall-owner. In Japanese terms, it’d be what you called a large bag of candies.

Incidentally, Karua was apparently level 1. Tuhl had told me so the other day.
At any rate, in this world, apparently everyone stayed at level 1⁶, as long as they didn’t have a job that required them to fight, like adventurers.

Karua’s second and third throw missed, and her fourth… hit the number one. Even though it being, as the number itself suggested, in a spot that was hard to hit…

The stall-owner pulled out a handbell from seemingly out of nowhere and rang it.

“Incredible! The young lady hit the jackpot!”

The people around us also voiced their admiration. It made Karua feel embarrassed.

What she received from the stall-owner was a cute plushie which looked like a large Ododo Bird⁷. Even so, it was about as big as we were. Karua put the plushy into her own magic bag. By the way, her fifth throw missed.

Next to the knife-throwing stall was a lottery booth. Karua was curious about that one, too.

“Alim, Mika! I would like to try this one!”
“Alright!”
“Just now, you were amazing, Karua. You know, maybe you’ll get something again.”

Mika’s words turned out to be true. Karua, who’d challenged the lottery once for 10 bells, magnificently drew the first prize in a single shot. Obviously, this left Mika and me open-mouthed.
She has amazing luck, after all. Though Karuna still has better luck than her daughter.

The first prize at that booth was a magic bag. Certainly, it looked like it could store quite a lot more than a normal bag, but we didn’t need it. Karua took it for the time being, but I didn’t think she’d get much use out of it.

Afterwards, we went around tons of stalls, until it was 6 o’clock in the evening. We had a lot of fun and, right after returning to the castle, I cooked a meal again. We ate while we watched the magically created fireworks, which were the highlight of the festival.

Today was quite a fun day. Karua also looked as if she had truly enjoyed it. It was great.

After everything had finished, we stayed at the castle for the night, same as yesterday. As always, Mika clung to my arm.

TL notes:
A cute chapter focused on Karua. It’s nice to see her have fun with friends and get out of the castle for a change.

1. I think that’s what it’s supposed to mean, though the expression また然り in the original didn’t make much sense.
2. It’s 焼き鳥 (yakitori, chicken pieces [or sometimes beef or pork offal] grilled on a skewer) in the original.
3. All the stall-owners are called おじさん (“uncle”, “mister”, “old man”) in the original.
4. He differentiates between ソース and タレ here. The way I understand it, the former is more like sauces in western cooking, while the latter is more like soy dipping sauce.
5. Grape learned for Alim about sandwiches in chapter 57. I guess that’s a stall run by the Medial folks.
6. Ok, this makes sense for commoners, but nobles would likely want to level their children up at least somewhat, so they’re safer from stuff like assassinations.
   The rules for forming parties at the adventurer’s guild seem somewhat arbitrary and unless there’s an actual level limitation on those party forming orbs, I can’t see nobles not getting those for themselves and powerleveling their kids.
7. The original is オドド鳥. They were mentioned by name in chapter 28 and Alim likely killed one of them in chapter 12, calling it a flightless bird that looks like a Dodo.