Chapter 297 Volume V - Chapter 15: A Beautiful Day
After a protracted war, the wealthy Cevilian Family has been helping the rulers of a kingdom on the brink of collapse.
But... The king of the old kingdom died by poison. The person who poisoned him was a member of the Cevilian Family. She was one of the most trusted people.
With the king dead, instead of the royal family of the old kingdom uniting to put a new king on the throne... they scattered. Left with a kingdom on the brink of collapse. However, Cevilian Family stood their ground.
And strangely... they won. In battle after battle, with the courage of the people who supported them and the sacrifices made, they somehow built a new kingdom from the ashes.
This kingdom was the Cevilian Kingdom, which had been standing for one hundred and fifty years.
The play performed in the theater summed it all up. Immediately following it was another play about another event that happened in the early days of the new kingdom.
I watched both plays without blinking an eye, but we left without watching anymore and went out after the second play. We had a long day ahead of us, after all, and it would have been a waste to spend it all watching plays.
So... time flew by so fast that I didn't even understand what was happening.
After the theater, we were wandering around one of the streets of the mini-town with a few snacks in our hands when we came across a few of the events that Julian had mentioned earlier. There was an archery event, an eating contest as he had mentioned, an arm-wrestling event, and much more.
First, we watched how the events were organized and after almost ten minutes, Julian walked over to the arm wrestling with a big smile on his face and a lot of excitement. He said he was going to compete, put his name down, and waited for his turn.
There was not a trace of nervousness or any other emotion on his face.
"You seem confident?"
He turned to me with twinkling eyes, his smile turning into a grin as he pointed to the staff member who was writing down names.
"Of course I'm confident! You can try to shake that confidence if you want."
I looked at the staff member and then at Julian. I didn't normally like this kind of thing, but... for some reason, a smile appeared on my face.
"Fine."
The smile on Julian's face suddenly dropped.
*******
Apparently Julian thought that when he asked me to participate in the event, I would politely decline... Because every time it was my turn and I beat someone easily, which wasn't too difficult since my opponents were my peers, his expression became even more depressed.
Maybe his purpose in participating in the event was different... I don't know, but it was definitely fun to watch his reactions.
We made it to the semi-finals without any trouble. When it came down to the last four of our peers, the two remaining competitors looked pretty good. The one I was up against, for example, was really... built. He had muscles everywhere and he was almost two meters tall. His eyebrows and facial features gave the impression that he was angry all the time. And the fact that he didn't say anything only gave more ideas about him.
When we faced each other and grasped each other's wrists... I felt something different.
Is this man... sweating?
"Go!"
He applied force to my wrist so abruptly that if it had been someone else, he would definitely have lost. He didn't give the other person time to understand what was happening. But there was no 'normal' person, there was me.
It was forbidden to use mana. For people of the same rank, the muscular strength he possessed could certainly have pushed him to the top. But my body itself was stronger than it should have been. I felt the difference between us the moment our wrists touched.
Two grades lower than me? Or three...? I can't be sure.
I started to see the sweat on his forehead that I could feel on my opponent's wrist a few seconds ago. His eyes were squinting, looking only at his hand and not at my face. Because... he could only move my hand a few centimeters and even if he tried harder, he couldn't manage to do more.
Anyway...
It only took a few seconds for the man in front of me to lose when I squeezed my hand and put particular force on my wrist. The look of surprise on his face as I got up from the table was definitely worth seeing, but it also made me a little bit sad...
He looked utterly defeated.
*******
The arm-wrestling competition ended for us when I beat Julian in the final. He seemed really upset that he didn't get the commemorative medal I got as a gift, but it didn't take him long to forget that.
We participated in a few more events. For example, Lucia and Sue joined the archery event after us. Lucia had an average result and Sue was behind her. But the person who came first in their group was someone we didn't know from another academy.
So... time continued to pass. I couldn't help but smile involuntarily as I drifted around the mini-town, learning stories about the Founding Period, encountering strange things and... really having fun.
And... it wasn't just me, even Sue, who hadn't looked like herself for a long time, was smiling, she seemed to be having fun too.
This was especially evident when a grin appeared on her face as we passed by the entertainment center.
"Let's play table hockey."
The grin on Lucia's face suddenly faded. Julian was frozen in place. As for me... I just let out a quiet laugh.
"T- table hockey...?"
"Yeah, I want to blow off some steam."
She usually didn't ask for anything, she just went with us wherever we went. But now, when she wanted to do something in particular, no one had anything to say.
Lucia and Julian didn't want to play because they knew what their fate was. But I wanted to try my luck again, the taste of defeat from the first day of summer vacation still fresh in my mouth.
So we faced each other, and then we started the game.
*******
I'm much stronger than Sue. both in speed and strength and reflexes. There's supposed to be a real gap between us... she's not even supposed to be able to see my movements.
It has to be like that...
As the disk slid across the table, bouncing in three different places, I tried to calculate where it would end up, and I succeeded. I somehow managed to meet the disk and send it back to Sue, and I did it at such an angle that the disk accelerated so much. It should have been impossible for a normal person to even see.
But somehow Sue managed to see it... or guessed it... or took a chance. I don't know which is the right option, or if what she did was something else entirely, but when the disk bounced almost four times into the 'goal' I was trying to protect, I could do nothing but stare blankly ahead.
Immediately after that, two rapid chimes echoed in my ears, the sound that told me the game was over... It was also the sound that told me I had lost.
I looked at the holographic screen floating above the table. It said "7-2".
"Okay... I give up."
Sue stretched slightly with a smile on her face, then looked out at the crowd around us, who were watching the match between the two of us with their mouths agape.
"Anyone else want to play?"
And those... were the last words she spoke before her name was added to the list of unwritten legends.
*******
After half an hour of non-stop playing, even Sue herself was tired. Hardly anyone wanted to play with her anymore, she had literally trampled almost everyone underfoot.
And... she seemed content. She seemed more herself, even, her eyes seemed more open than before. And the lack of self-confidence she had caused Lucia and Julian at table hockey was replaced by relief. So no one made a sound and we continued walking around the town.
It was almost an hour before sunset. There was still a lot to do at the festival, but... we were tired. Going from place to place and 'having fun' was really tiring when done for a long time.
So... all we did was walk slowly. We wanted to check out the part of town we hadn't been to and then go to the five-story food building and eat.
"It's been six hours, huh..."
After Julian's words, I couldn't help but sigh.
Six hours... it feels like only minutes to me... Time has really flown by.
"Six hours worth every minute, at least."
Following Lucia's words, Sue nodded her head in agreement.
"Exactly."
I smiled again as I thought about what we had done for six hours.
Festivals... they were really fun. I came here to relax but I got so much more out of it, so... as Lucia said, it was definitely worth it. So much so that I even started to wonder about next year's festival.
After all, when that time came, Aiden would be with us, maybe Celine too. Who knows, maybe even Alice would have mingled with us somehow.
I couldn't help but pause involuntarily.
Really... Alice had also come to the festival. I was so engrossed and focused on having fun that I forgot that she was here too. The fact that I didn't see her even once helped me forget her presence.
Anyway, I decided not to think about her. If she wants to get close to us, she'll come to us.
"Oh..."
Julian paused, curious, and I snapped out of my thoughts, my eyes quickly turning in the direction he was looking. And then... a huge lake stretching out of the town immediately caught my attention.
"Interesting... looks like they've renovated the lake."
Julian made his way toward the lake and our group automatically headed in that direction. Lucia and Sue were also curiously looking at the lake.
So, we arrived in front of the lake. Even though we couldn't get any closer to it because of the railings, we were definitely close enough to understand its fascination.
The water of the lake was extremely clear. I could see every stone, moss, and fish at the bottom. The lake had decorations too. Some special stones and things that looked like paintings had been left in it to make it look more beautiful. On top of that, the trees around it, even the strange trees that sometimes rose up from the bottom of the lake, gave it a very different look.
"This place used to be very dirty... it even looked like a swamp. Now... it looks completely different."
From a place that looked like a swamp to a huge lake of this sort of scenery, huh...
As I stood watching the lake, I focused on the fish in it. The noise coming from inside the town, the laughter of the people, the sky I could see in the reflection, and more... It drew me in so much that I just stood there for a moment.
Today was a really beautiful day, a day I will never forget. And with every passing second, it was becoming more and more.
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