I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game [EN]: Chapter 499

Stepping out onto the street, the entire city was already in a festive mood. Originally, the first day of the New Year was just about eating traditional meat stew and going to the temple to pray. But this year, stalls were set up everywhere, and the citizens who had poured out were laughing and chatting happily as they roamed the streets. Among the boisterous crowd, I saw the unsightly, collapsed buildings, and my heart sank. Crossroads was still not completely free from the aftermath of the Gorgon sisters’ invasion. There were many ruined buildings everywhere, and the roads were devastated in places. Thanks to the introduction of magical construction techniques from the Lake Kingdom, the restoration was relatively fast, but it would still take months to fully recover from the damage. And yet, people were laughing on top of these semi-ruins. It seems that the New Year, and the festival… has the effect of uplifting even the most gloomy people. “Alright! What should we go eat first!” Evangeline roared, energetically bumping her fists together in front of her chest. Damian, Junior, and Lucas followed closely behind her. They all looked like little kids, wearing coats, earmuffs, and gloves because of the cold weather. Oh my, they’re so cute. I entered the downtown area with the chattering children. There were many stalls, and among them, there was one shop that was particularly crowded. “Oh, that smells good…! What is it, what is it!” Evangeline, drawn by the savory smell of grilling, swallowed her saliva and dashed towards it. I followed her, and a greeting came from inside the shop. “Oh, Captain! Welcome, and Happy New Year!” The members of the Punishment Unit, including Kuilan, were busily grilling something in the stove inside the stall. All five of them in human mode had taken off their tops because the stove was hot, and they were doing business, and the female customers were swarming around their well-toned, muscular bodies…. ‘These guys are cheating.’ Before I could admire their nationwide muscle show, I was worried that they might catch a cold. Especially Kuilan, aren’t you still a glass cannon in human mode? Are you okay in this cold weather? “Kuilan, Happy New Year to you too, and put some clothes on while you’re working… By the way, what are you selling?” “Hehehehe. This, you mean?” When I asked, Kuilan grinned and used tongs to grab something that looked like bread from the stove and placed it on a plate. It was… a delicious-looking, brown-cooked dumpling, still sizzling with the remaining heat! “Our Maple Wolf tribe’s traditional New Year food! Special hometown dumplings!” “Oh ho.” I was impressed by the plausible appearance. Come to think of it, we had that conversation last year. The Maple Wolf tribe eats these dumplings instead of stew for the New Year. He said he had a recipe from his brother and would treat me to it when he had the chance. And it seems he really prepared it. Dumplings were cooking in several stoves at the same time, emitting a savory and spicy aroma. “Whoa?! That looks so delicious!” Evangeline, drooling, rushed towards the freshly cooked dumpling. “Can I eat it?!” “Of course, Sir Knight. Eat as much as you want! Ah! But as a precaution, you must swallow it in one bite, in one bite! If even a drop of the broth spills, it’s said that all your luck for the year will be gone!” As soon as she got permission, Evangeline happily put the dumpling in her mouth in one go. “Aht, it’s hot!” She immediately screamed. She was hopping around with her face bright red, as if it was very hot, but she managed not to spit it out. Evangeline swallowed the hot dumpling, her shoulders trembling. “My luck… I can’t let it spill…!” “It seems like your foolishness is already spilling out.” Anyway, Evangeline, who had managed to finish it, looked tearful and mumbled. “My palate is all burned… and I have so much to eat today….” Sighing, I gestured to Damian. “Damian. Please.” “Yes. Heal, heal~” As Damian cast a simple healing spell, Evangeline’s tearful face instantly brightened. “Whoa! My palate is completely healed! Wait a minute, if there’s a healing priest, does that mean I can eat as much as I want no matter how burned my palate is?! Evangeline lined up the newly cooked dumplings in front of me. “Senior, you should eat quickly too! They say you have to eat them while they’re hot so your luck doesn’t run away! And if you get burned, you can use the Damian chance!” “No, thanks, I’ll eat it when it cools down….” What a foolish thing to do. Burning your palate, and believing that all your luck for the year will run away just because you spill some broth. Thinking that, I looked to the side and saw Lucas, Damian, and Junior, who had already put the dumplings in their mouths in one bite, suffering with their faces bright red… Are you all idiots? While my party members were suffering from the hot dumplings, I picked up a plate and sat down on a chair in front of the stall. I was going to eat it when it cooled down a bit. At that moment, I heard whispering voices from the next table. “Hmm, that guy is the Beast King….” “He certainly has excellent latissimus dorsi muscles.” “The muscles aren’t bad. But, where is the red fur that Yoon mentioned…?” “If he had fur, he wouldn’t be a bad son-in-law….” When I turned to look, I saw warriors from the Northern Kingdom with pale skin and clothes made of white fur. They were looking at Kuilan and whispering such things. Why are they rating his muscles? And why are they looking for fur…? The representative of this suspicious furry-loving group, the Northern Princess, Yoon, was sitting not far away. And she was desperately blowing on the hot dumpling to cool it down. ‘It looks like it’s already cooled down.’ I waved to Yoon and greeted her. “Yoon, Happy New Year.” “Oh my, Prince Ash!” Yoon put down her dumpling and bowed to me. “I hope you have a year as warm as spring snow.” I guess that’s the Northern New Year’s greeting. By the way, spring snow is warm? I still don’t understand the Northern way of thinking. I moved to her side and whispered to her, looking at Kuilan. “Just in case, I’m asking, is Kuilan still putting up a wall?” “That’s right, sigh….” Yoon sighed deeply. “To think I’d only be rejected like this… My pride is already in tatters. Sigh. Should I just kidnap him?” “Don’t say scary things so easily!” “Huh? It’s quite common in the North. Kidnapping a son-in-law. It’s a tradition that has been passed down for a long time, you know? If you see a good man, you just snatch him up like you’re hunting….” “That’s why I’m telling you not to say scary things!” The Punishment Unit is my precious sub-party! If you kidnap him for your marriage, that’s going to be a problem! “What should I do to make that man look at me properly… Please help me, Your Highness. Is there any good way?” Yoon complained to me, but how would I know? I don’t even know about my own love life, how would I know about someone else’s? Still, seeing Yoon, who had been rejected for months and was now dejected, I felt a little sorry for her, so I nodded. “…I’ll ask him casually later. What he thinks of you.” “Oh, really?! Are you helping me?” “Well, yes… to some extent.” Yoon’s face brightened when I agreed, and she giggled and put her dumpling in her mouth, “Aht, it’s hot!” She immediately spat it back onto the plate, saying it was hot. ‘…Can’t Northern people eat hot things?’ I thought as I swallowed my dumpling, which had cooled down a bit, in one bite. By the way, Princess Yoon, didn’t you just lose all your luck for the year? *** Besides Kuilan’s dumpling stall. Because various forces from all over the world were slowly entering Crossroads, there were many food stalls that I had never heard of before. Elven nut tea houses, dwarven iron plate steaks, mermaid raw salmon sashimi, etc. There were some pretty good stalls, but. Most of the rest were subtly weird, so I only tasted a little or didn’t eat at all. Pickled herring is too much for me…. “It’s surprisingly edible?!” “Ughhh!” Evangeline, Lucas, and the knight duo bravely challenged the pickled herring and shouted like that. I get it, so walk away for a while. You smell like pickled herring. As I walked through the downtown area, passing by the stalls, I saw a particularly well-built stall. It was the Winter Silver Merchant Guild’s stall. In the previous festivals, Winter Silver Merchant Guild’s stores were scattered throughout the downtown area, but this time, it was only here. “Ah, Your Highness!” Serenade, who happened to be here, greeted me. “You’ve arrived?” “Yes. Happy New Year, Serenade.” “Hehe. I hope Your Highness receives it in abundance as well.” I looked at the stall, which was well-built but smaller than in previous years, and asked. “You must have worked hard to prepare for the festival. You’ve reduced the scale a bit this year?” “Yes. Unlike the autumn festival, it’s just a simple one-day event, and since many places are still under restoration, I thought it wouldn’t be good to make it too crowded… So, our guild’s stall has reduced its scale.” Certainly, I remember that during the last autumn festival, there were simple games to play and stamps to collect here and there. But even now, it’s small and has its own charm. “Instead, we have brought in specialties unique to the Imperial Capital, which are hard to find or see in the borderlands, at a low price. Please enjoy them.” As she said, the Winter Silver Merchant Guild’s stall was selling various dishes and goods, all of which were hard to find in Crossroads on a regular basis. Among them, there was one thing that caught our attention. “What is that?” Damian blinked his round eyes. “Clouds? Are they selling clouds?” What Damian was pointing at was… a cotton candy machine. It was a machine similar in shape to the ones on Earth, which rotated a large cylinder with magical power, melting sugar into threads and then intertwining them. The person making the cotton candy was a woman with dark blue hair wearing a maid outfit, and her eyes were coldly dead despite her flamboyant hand movements and body gestures. It was Serenade’s bodyguard, Elise…. I approached her and awkwardly waved my hand. “Um… Hello, Elise. Happy New Year.” “…Greetings, Your Highness. Happy New Year to you.” “You’re… making cotton candy?” “It’s just that there’s a shortage of manpower, so I was assigned here.” Elise muttered gloomily, glanced at Serenade standing not far away, and then looked back at me. “…Would you like some? It’s delicious.” I ordered five. Elise, with a stiff face that contrasted with her skillful hands, gathered the cloud-like sugar threads to make cotton candy and handed them out to each of us. “Yay~ It’s been a while since I’ve had this!” “When I was a child, I used to eat it sometimes when festivals were held in the Imperial Capital. It’s a memory.” Evangeline and Lucas seemed to have had it before since they had lived in the Imperial Capital, “It’s sweet…?! It’s melting…?!” Junior was startled by the taste he was experiencing for the first time and jumped up, “Wow! The cloud came out all fluffy like our Podong!” Damian didn’t even touch it and just admired the cotton candy, constantly marveling. Your hamster Podong is still doing well, I see. I also tore off small pieces of the cotton candy and melted them in my mouth. It’s sweet and sticky. This primitive and violent feast of sweetness… It’s been a while. While the five of us were slowly eating the cotton candy, “Ah, Your Highness?!” “Happy New Year!” “Happy New Year!” My colleagues who had just entered the Winter Silver Merchant Guild’s stall greeted me. Zenith, Thorkel, and the newly joined black mage Chain, the blind swordsman Nobody. And finally, Lily. The first two were people who worked at the temple, and the last three were patients who were hospitalized. They must have come out for a breath of fresh air. I waved to them as they came towards me, pushing Lily’s wheelchair. “Happy New Year, everyone! Happy New Year to Sid too.” In Lily’s arms was Sid, wrapped in a cloth. Only his face was sticking out. The child, who was out at a festival for the first time since he was born, had his eyes wide open as if everything was new. What is it about him that makes him so cute? ‘But, is it okay to go out in the winter with a newborn like this?’ Well, it’s a fantasy world, so maybe it’s okay. Besides, he’s staying at the temple, so there’s no need to worry about his health. Priestess Zenith is also accompanying them. I put aside my unnecessary worries and pointed to the cotton candy machine and asked. “Would you all like to have some cotton candy?” I decided to buy them. Elise skillfully made new cotton candy. “Here.” Elise, without being told, handed the freshly made cotton candy to Lily as if it was natural. Is it just my imagination? It looks several times bigger than ours. Lily smiled and accepted the cotton candy. “Thank you.” “Thank you.” Elise’s face, which had been dead, was unusually flushed. I wondered what she was so happy about, and sure enough, it was Sid in Lily’s arms. “Cute….” Elise muttered gloomily. Can you please raise your voice tone a little? It’s a bit scary when you say it in that tone. Lily took a small piece of the cotton candy and carefully put it in Sid’s mouth. ‘Is it hygienic?! Is it okay for a baby to eat sugar?!’ For a moment, all sorts of worries flashed through my mind, but no, it’s a fantasy world! Romance! And there are two priests right next to us! This much is okay! Unfazed by my modern-Earthling worries, Sid’s eyes widened even more after taking a bite of the cotton candy. His face seemed to say, ‘Is there such a taste in the world?!’ His face was so funny that everyone in the group burst out laughing. “How is it, little one?” Even though he couldn’t see the face, he seemed to have understood the situation from the atmosphere. The blind swordsman Nobody was heard muttering softly. “That’s the taste of life.” “….” Standing next to him, Thorkel, who had received his share of cotton candy, carefully tilted his helmet and put the cotton candy in his mouth. “…Indeed.” After carefully tasting the cotton candy with his scarred jaw, Thorkel smiled faintly. “Life, sometimes, has this kind of taste.” Zenith and Chain also put their cotton candy in their mouths and looked at Sid with their respective smiles. The child babbled something and continued to munch on the cotton candy that his mother was tearing off for him. It was a perfect moment for the first day of the New Year.