"Here ya go! Thirty Gamelion skewers, order up! Rei, Set, thanks as always!"
The Abuelo Stall Owner smiled happily and expressed his gratitude to Rei and Set.
Rei listened while storing the majority of the skewers into his Misty Ring.
Leaving one skewer for Set and another for himself, Rei stood beside Set as the creature looked up at him with round eyes full of expectation, demanding to be fed quickly.
Under a cloudless sky—weather that could fittingly be described as a clear winter day—Rei handed the skewer to Set and began walking down the main road.
"Come again, will ya!"
He heard the Abuelo Stall Owner's cheerful voice from behind as he walked.
For the Abuelo Stall Owner, someone like Rei who bought thirty skewers all at once was a customer that could only be called a top patron.
With sales jumping in an instant, it was only natural for the owner to be in a good mood.
"Still... I've been able to spend some pretty leisurely time lately, huh."
"Grru."
Rei murmured pensively as he walked down the main road, eating his skewer.
Since he had hardly made any effort to hide his power, it was somewhat his own fault in a way. But ever since coming to Elgin, Rei had been caught up in all sorts of troubles.
He had been continuously swept into the kind of troubles that an ordinary adventurer might experience once in a lifetime, if that.
But this winter was unusually... truly unusually free of any trouble.
(Recovering Vihera's consciousness, fighting the Silver Lion in the dungeon... but those happened before the snow fell, back in autumn.)
As for disturbances since winter began, the one that came to Rei's mind was the party where they ate Silver Lion meat.
Less than a month had passed since the snow barbecue party ended, but it already felt like a very long time ago.
...Because they had eaten Silver Lion meat to their hearts' content, being unable to feel satisfied with their meals for several days afterward was a memory that Rei couldn't quite decide was good or bad.
"Ah, it's Set-chan! Set-chan, let's play together!"
While walking down the main road, a small child spotted Set and shouted.
At the same time, the other children who had been playing with that child naturally said they wanted to play with Set too, and gathered around Rei and Set.
"Grru?"
Set tilted its head as if asking, Is it okay? Rei nodded.
He didn't particularly have any errands today that required walking down the main road.
He had been taking this stroll to kill the ample free time he had, so letting Set spend some time playing with children was no issue at all.
"Grrrrru!"
With Rei's permission, Set began moving together with the children, crying happily.
Their destination was an open plaza.
A few years ago, shops had stood here too, but the owner had closed their business and left Gilm after their parent fell ill.
After that, various things happened, and the shop was ultimately torn down, leaving a slightly wide vacant lot.
Now snow had accumulated, and numerous mounds of snow existed at the edge of the plaza.
(It faces the main road, so you'd think someone would buy this land and open a shop or something...)
Watching the children who had already started playing in the snow, he thought to himself.
But since no new shop had been built despite that, he figured there must be some reason.
"Rei-niichan, Rei-niichan, you should play with us too!"
One of the children who had been playing with Set spotted Rei and shouted.
Among adventurers, Rei was sometimes feared for various reasons, but that meant nothing to children.
Then again, the fact that Rei's appearance was not the muscular, heavily-built man typical of adventurers, but rather a slender, feminine-faced, small-framed man, probably had something to do with it too.
In any case, having no particular errands, Rei decided that playing with the children once in a while was fine.
...The fact that Set was also gazing at him with round eyes, appealing to him to play together, was probably a big factor too.
"So, what are we going to play?"
"Umm, umm... what are we gonna play?"
The child who had called out to Rei to play together was, for some reason, asking Rei what they should play.
"No, you're the one who invited me. ...Let's see..."
There were four children in total.
Every one of them was looking at Rei with expectant eyes, wondering how they were going to play.
But when asked what they should play, Rei also struggled.
If there were a slope here, they could have played with skis, sleds, or possibly snowboards.
(Come to think of it, in elementary school, we had skiing classes at school.)
From skiing, Rei suddenly recalled his elementary school days.
The elementary school Rei attended had a slope right nearby.
The slope was nearly a hundred meters long, and when winter came, skiing was part of the school curriculum.
And naturally, when there were classes, it meant commuting to school wearing skis...
(Wow, that's nostalgic. ...But I can't do anything like that here.)
Rei felt nostalgic, but since there was no slope to ski or sled on, he couldn't do anything like that here.
Not that they had skis or anything to begin with.
However, the chain of association—skis, slopes—brought a certain idea to Rei's mind.
It was something he had made many times when he lived in Japan.
Since childhood, he had made them more times than he could count.
"Do you guys know what a kamakura is?"
"Kamakura? Never heard of it."
"What's that?"
Naturally, none of the children knew the word that came out of Rei's mouth.
"All right. Then... let's see. First, gather snow in the center of this plaza. Enough to make a mountain, basically."
Fortunately, although it was sunny now, it had snowed fairly heavily last night.
There was a decent amount of snow piled up in the plaza, and even on Gilm's main road, shopkeepers were each gathering the snow accumulated in front of their shops and bringing it to this plaza.
(I see, so it also serves as a snow dump.)
Seeing a man who had brought a cart loaded with snow about to dump it, Rei spoke up.
"Excuse me, could you wait a moment?"
"Hm? What is it?"
The man, apparently in his forties, looked slightly surprised at being addressed by Rei but returned the greeting.
He probably never expected that the famous Rei would speak to him.
"That snow—if you're going to dump it, could you bring it here?"
"Well, I don't mind, but what are you going to do with it?"
"I'm thinking of playing with the children a little."
Hearing Rei's words, the man didn't ask for further details. He simply pulled his cart from the plaza entrance toward the center where Rei and the others were.
The sound of the cart's wheels crunching through the snow echoed around them, indicating that it was loaded with a substantial amount of snow.
Once he reached the center of the plaza, the man asked with his eyes if this spot was fine. Seeing Rei nod, he tilted the cart and deposited the snow there.
What was so amusing about that sight was unclear, but the children cheered and ran around excitedly.
"Is this good?"
"Yeah, thanks."
"No, no, something like this doesn't warrant thanks."
For the man, that was probably genuinely true.
The only difference was that the place to dump the snow became slightly farther away, and the only extra effort required was the labor of pulling the cart to the center of the plaza.
Even that wasn't a long distance—it was moving it to a spot that took less than a minute to reach—so his casual response was only natural.
After seeing the man off, Rei turned back to the children around him and spoke again.
"All right, listen up. Once you bring snow here like this, pile it up into a mountain. But make sure to pack it firmly so it doesn't collapse right away."
"Okay! Got it!"
One child said that, and they all scattered in every direction.
Then, carrying armfuls of snow, they brought it to Rei and added it to the initial snow mountain.
Naturally, Rei and Set weren't just watching silently.
They diligently brought snow and added it to the growing mountain.
The snow that Rei and Set brought was, naturally, from places farther away.
That was because they understood that just carrying snow was already tiring enough for the children.
...This was probably where all the experience from shoveling snow back in Japan came in handy.
It was just the simple act of carrying snow, but the children did it joyfully.
For the children, this alone was probably plenty of fun.
Naturally, such activity caught the eyes of those walking along the main road, and several more children joined in.
Also, among non-children, there were those who stopped, curious to see what Rei was up to again, watching with interest.
After about twenty minutes had passed, the gathered snow had reached nearly one meter in height.
(Well, it's a bit small, but since it's not like I or Set need to fit inside, it should be fine. For children, it's no problem.)
If he had decided to gather more, he could have made it bigger, but considering the children's stamina, he judged this size was sufficient.
"All right, now let's pack the surroundings a bit more, just to be safe. But don't press too hard and collapse the mountain, okay."
"Got it!"
Saying that, one of the children swung hard at the snow mountain... and the next moment, their wrist sank into the pile of snow.
"...That's a bad example, so be careful."
"Yees!"
The children all responded in unison, patting and packing the snow mountain with their gloved hands.
Since the number of children had grown, Rei and Set simply watched from the outside.
Once he confirmed that the mountain was reasonably solid, he next took a shovel out of his Misty Ring.
As long as civil engineering work existed in Elgin, shovels naturally existed too.
Rei had heard somewhere before that among them were even civil engineering professionals who owned shovels made with mithril.
Of course, the one Rei had was just an ordinary shovel.
(Should I have used it when packing the snow mountain? ...But I don't have that many shovels.)
He immediately dismissed the idea that came to him and plunged the shovel into the snow mountain once again.
Probably because it had been firmly packed, the shovel didn't have the light feel characteristic of fresh snow. Instead, a heavy, crunching sensation returned through his hands.
He swiftly dug onward, and once the space was large enough for about two children to fit in, he spoke.
"The rest is up to you guys. Get inside and hollow it out with your hands."
"Ehh, won't you lend us your shovel, Rei-niichan?"
"...Physically, that's not going to work for various reasons. Oh, if you have a shovel, it might be fine to bring one. I don't mind if you hollow it out by hand. Figure that part out among yourselves. Once it's big enough for all of you to fit inside, the kamakura is complete."
"Kamakura?"
The one who tilted her head and asked was a girl of about five.
"Yeah. Simply put, it's a house made of snow. It's also called a Snow House. In cold regions, there's apparently even a festival where people spend the night inside one."
"Ehh, no way! It's made of snow, snow!"
"Yeah, yeah, it'd definitely be cold!"
Some of the children complained like that, but...
"Eh? No way! It's warm?!"
Perhaps giving in to curiosity, the child who entered the kamakura first shouted in surprise.
Hearing that, the other children wore expressions of disbelief... but still, if their friend said so, one of them ventured inside.
"Whoa, you're right! What? Why?!"
"It's because the cold wind from outside is blocked. And if it's cold, inside the kamakura you could..."
Rei stopped mid-thought.
He didn't have anything like a Shichirin in his Misty Ring, and besides, he worried that an open fire might be too intense and melt the snow.
"What's wrong, Rei-niichan?"
"No, it's nothing. Anyway, since it blocks the wind, it's much warmer inside the kamakura compared to outside. Now that you know, keep digging. But don't dig too much and punch through to the other side, okay."
"Got it! I'll dig first!"
"Hey wait, let me do it too!"
"Me too!"
"Me too!"
The children made a racket as they hollowed out the inside of the snow mountain.
It was just the simple task of digging snow, but it must have been plenty of fun. The children's cheers echoed all around.
After a while... eventually, a fine kamakura had taken shape.
"Wow, it's really warm!"
Hearing that voice coming from inside, Rei took several Orc skewers out of his Misty Ring.
"Here, eat these."
"Eh? Oh, skewers!"
"Hey, no fair! Me too, me too, give me a skewer!"
Making a fuss, the children received the skewers and ate them with relish.
(Normally, if you grilled some rice cakes over a Shichirin, it would be even more kamakura-like, but...)
Thinking to himself, Rei nodded with satisfaction at the kamakura he hadn't seen in such a long time.