Ch.226226. Two-Way Traffic (8)

“Senior, you’ve been spacing out for a while now. Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh. It’s nothing! Ha, hahaha…!”

I’m currently heading to downtown Levrant where the Real Winter Parade’s eve festival is starting—something I had no intention of attending.

Why am I going when it wasn’t in my plans?

Well… why do you think?

Because I tore the black stockings of a certain beloved young lady!

You might wonder why that means I have to participate in the Real Winter Parade.

That requires some explanation, so we need to go back several dozen minutes.

To when Senia was scolding me while waving Renias’s torn black stockings right in my face.

.

.

.

“See this? Huh? You tore it when you were forcibly trying to touch her. That’s why the poor girl got startled and started hiccupping!”

My brain says:

Come on, is a torn stocking really such a big deal?

Stockings aren’t even that durable to begin with. They get damaged easily if they catch on anything sharp. How much could they cost anyway? I could just pay for them.

But no.

That’s not the issue, you idiot brain. The problem is that I tried to touch an innocent girl’s leg so carelessly that her stockings tore!!

Despite my brain’s shameless suggestion to claim innocence, I immediately bowed my head.

I had no choice but to bow. It was my misunderstanding, my mistake, my fault!

“I’m sorry… I really didn’t mean to…”

“Oh? Trying to get away with just an apology?”

Senia cut me off and stepped between Renias and me, just as I had done earlier.

“Not a chance, Junon. How dare you do something like that to a girl?”

“Ugh.”

Truthfully… I know there’s no excuse…!

Even though the innocent girl clearly expressed that she wasn’t in pain, I stubbornly insisted on helping her stretch her cramped leg…!

All I can do is bow my head and hope Renias will forgive me if I show enough remorse.

Hmm. That’s true, but… am I apologizing to the wrong person?

“But Senia, the person I should be apologizing to is Renias, so why are you…?”

“Hmm~ Should I go tell everyone about this right now? That Junon tore Renias’s stockings.”

Hey… Senia.

Isn’t that quite a distortion? Huh?

What happened to you and Charlotte conspiring to create that ice patch that made Renias slip in the first place…?

And what about the good deed of me catching her so she wouldn’t fall? How can you talk like that!

This is fabrication, pure fabrication. It’s not right to make people misunderstand like that!

That’s what I wanted to say, but…

“Ah! No, no! What can I do to make it right? Hahaha!”

Once again, I had to be respectful, rejecting my brain’s rational and level-headed commands.

I want to say what I’m thinking, but how could I?

There’s clear evidence in that torn, tattered stocking.

In the end, there’s no point in explaining that the scene unfolded because of my misunderstanding that Renias was hurt.

Still, if there’s one thing that’s too much…

‘What happened to friendship? You could have picked something more reasonable to let me off the hook, you brat!’

We’re classmates, we train together, and we were even in the same party before—this is really too much!

Sigh.

What’s the point of being secretly upset with Senia? It won’t erase my karma.

I guess my head hurts just thinking about how she’s going to make me do her bidding for a while because of this.

“Hmm~ Well, maybe something simple won’t do?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, does Renias lack money or connections? She has everything she needs, so what could she possibly be missing?”

Excuse me. If you put it that way… I’ll end up in handcuffs and prison, you know?

So I desperately had to come up with something.

“Well… there must be things that can’t be solved with money or connections.”

“Hmm, what could that be~?”

And that’s how… answering Senia’s question determined today’s destination.

My answer was time. Even as I said it, I realized it could have been an extremely dangerous response.

But what could I do? It was all I could think of at that moment.

For someone who had returned to the past like me, nothing seemed more valuable than time.

Senia then went over to Renias, and they had a conversation in voices too quiet for me to hear.

What was the conclusion?

“For the next week, you’ll do whatever Renias wants. Since you mentioned time, that seems like an appropriate measure, don’t you think?”

I think you can guess by now.

Why I’m heading to the Real Winter Parade’s eve festival that I never planned to attend. Why I’m accompanying Renias as her escort.

“Renias wants to enjoy the Real Winter Parade a bit. If you do that, she’ll reduce it from a week to just the festival period. What do you think?”

Oh my, do I have a choice?

If she’s willing to forget about it completely, this is actually quite generous. No, more than generous—it’s incredibly merciful.

Such mercy. Perhaps Renias negotiated with Senia for my convenience?

As I was feeling grateful for Renias’s angelic mercy, a condition was suddenly added.

“Did you know? Renias has hardly ever enjoyed festivals.”

“Ah, well… I did know that. I heard about it during the mana stone incident.”

“Then this will be quick. Junon, Renias might be forgiving, but I’m not. Hehe.”

“…”

Senia, the witness, declared that if Renias didn’t enjoy herself enough, she would expose this incident.

In other words… I need to make sure she has fun without a dull moment. Whether Senia keeps quiet or not depends on how satisfied Renias is.

Back to the present.

After walking for a while, the entrance to the eve festival came into view.

And then.

“Wooow.”

Hearing Renias’s voice rise in delight, my heart began to change a little.

“Senior, senior. What should we see first? There are so many amazing things!”

Renias grabbed my arm and began scanning everything with clear, innocent eyes.

‘She’s excited.’

To show such an expression just from what she’s seeing with her eyes.

Just like back then, she probably never had the chance to properly enjoy festivals, so she didn’t even have time to look at big parades like this.

I was planning to do my best anyway. Because I had wronged Renias.

But now I had another reason.

“S-Senior?”

“Don’t let go. With the crowd surging like this, you could get lost in the blink of an eye.”

“Okay.”

When I took her hand, Renias turned around in surprise and nodded shyly.

It’s a festival, so we should play until we’re tired.

Since she’s never properly enjoyed one before, we should have even more fun.

I entered the gate, firmly holding Renias’s hand.

***

Just past the parade entrance, the crowd becomes dense.

From ordinary citizens to people who came from the provinces, patients, and soldiers—there were so many people that you could easily get swept away if you let your guard down for even a moment.

“Oh my, I’m sorry.”

That’s why incidents like this were happening frequently.

“Sorry, Renias.”

“Huh? Sorry for what… Waaah?! S-S-S-Senior?!”

“I don’t think we’ll manage unless I do this.”

I thought I could focus on the Real Winter Parade that I was seeing for the first time.

But with the sudden pull at her waist bringing their bodies close together, Renias’s heart began to pound.

“S-Senior. Um…”

For a moment, she wanted to pull away, thinking that just holding hands would be fine, but…

-‘Listen carefully, Renias. If Junon tries to do something for you, never refuse and just accept it.’

Remembering Senia’s advice, she swallowed her words.

Senia had told her that if she tried to run away out of embarrassment, she wouldn’t be able to get closer to Junon, so even if her face burned, she should never refuse.

“If we separate, we won’t be able to enjoy ourselves properly. So bear with it even if it’s uncomfortable.”

“O-Okay…”

Thanks to this, his hand naturally came to rest on her waist.

Their sides pressed together, and warm body heat began to transfer through their clothes.

The warmth wasn’t just coming from their sides. The hand on her waist was obvious, but anywhere there was contact with Junon—from her arm to her shoulder—felt the same.

Her lips kept twitching strangely at this unexpected fortune, and she was busy hiding it from Junon.

She thought she had done well not to refuse, just as Senia had said.

Meanwhile, Junon looked around here and there, and when he called her name,

“Yes, yes?!”

Renias tensed up, wondering if he had noticed.

Fortunately, there was no way Junon could have noticed.

“Um… I confidently said we’d have fun, but I don’t really know what’s here either. How about we listen to some explanations first? What do you think?”

For him too, the Real Winter Parade was something he had never participated in.

Throughout his past, during times when such big events were happening, either incidents occurred or he devoted his time to training.

“I’d like to hear about it too.”

Renias nodded in relief, and so the two headed toward the parade guide at the entrance who was providing location information.

Since it was their first time seeing the Real Winter Parade, they weren’t sure where to go first.

“Both of you are experiencing the Real Winter Parade for the first time, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think it would be good to hear the story first.”

The guide handed them two pamphlets.

***

“First, miss! What comes to mind when you think of snow?”

“Hmm… that it’s cold?”

“That’s right. Snow is cold. Then, for snow to form, what’s needed?”

“Something even colder, wouldn’t it? Like how water freezes to become ice.”

The guide applauded the exemplary answer and continued the story.

“Correct. For ice to form, there needs to be enough cold to freeze water. Then what needs to get cold for snow to fall?”

“Hmm…”

“Would the gentleman like to answer this question?”

“Ooh…!”

Renias leaned in with interested eyes.

She seemed to be expecting something… ahem.

“It’s okay if you’re wrong. Just share your thoughts.”

Approaching it theoretically, for rain to become snow, water must freeze.

So the temperature needs to drop further, right? That was my answer.

“The air temperature needs to be low enough for snow to form. That could be it.”

When the guide nodded, Renias immediately asked, “Is that the correct answer?”

Finding her cute, the guide made a buzzer sound to indicate it was wrong.

“Senior got it wrong… how is that possible!”

“Renias… I don’t know everything in the world.”

Actually, I knew it was wrong when I said it.

This story is probably related to the origins of the Real Winter Parade.

I could roughly guess it had something to do with snow falling, but to be honest, I couldn’t have gotten the right answer.

And sure enough. It was more like a superstition.

“Long ago, the people of the Empire believed that all the heat in water had to escape for it to freeze. That’s how it could get cold. They believed the same about rivers—that all that heat inside had to escape for them to freeze.”

“Huh? Then for snow… where does the heat escape from? The sky?”

“From the heat of the continent.”

“The continent? Isn’t the ground just cold…?”

“Most of the heat in the Kempriton Continent comes from humans. So they believed that humans had to release their heat for it to get cold enough for snow to fall.”

If humans release all their heat, the Kempriton Continent cools down.

As a result, the sky sends down snow instead of rain, making the Real Winter Parade both a ritual and a festival to make it snow.

That seemed to be the story.

While I personally take such superstitions with a grain of salt…

“Wow, that’s amazing. So that’s why people run around and play! Because it releases heat, right?”

For Renias, it was a fascinating and enjoyable superstition.

In her first and second years, she was too busy training to pay attention to this. After hearing the story that Charlotte had mentioned, she found it quite interesting.

Let me add something too.

“I’ve also heard that if it really snows after all that playing around, your wishes will come true.”

“I was just about to mention that! You’re absolutely right!”

“Huh? Wishes? What’s that about?”