The Sports Day Executive Committee was disbanded, and in its place, the Festival Executive Committee was formed.
The roster remained unchanged: it was just me and the Civil Official Girls.
"Lifting up decorations and parading through the streets? Is there no particular destination?"
"Pelting each other with tomatoes? Wasting food is a bit... I'm sure the Village Head agrees, right?"
"Being chased by cows? I don't quite see the logic in that..."
"Chasing after food as it rolls down a hill? Er..."
I quickly realized that explaining festivals with words alone wasn't going to cut it.
Well, it made sense.
Festivals are the ultimate "you had to be there" events. To an outsider, they just look like people doing bizarre things. If that weren't the case, they wouldn't turn them into television programs.
Besides, the examples I’d described were of the "bizarre tradition" variety. What we actually needed was something more conventional—like a Bon Dance, which was standard practice back in my previous world.
...No, that was just based on my own common sense. We should probably stick to a festival the Civil Official Girls were familiar with.
"Festivals... we have celebrations for the New Year and others for the harvest," one of them suggested.
"And what do you do during those?" I asked.
"Well..."
And there it was. I had fallen into the same trap. Even when they explained their festivals to me, I didn't understand them. I could grasp the parts about eating and drinking, but the actual ceremonial actions were incomprehensible.
If their ideas were the global standard, I would have happily delegated everything to the girls, but even they couldn't agree.
"In my hometown, the Pyoppyo emerge from the center of town and raid the houses of the wealthy," one said.
"The Pyoppyo just dig holes," another countered. "It’s the Muumuu that do the raiding."
"Wait, aren't Muumuu food? How do they raid anything?"
"Via night attacks."
Apparently, festivals differed significantly—sometimes drastically—from region to region. I suppose that's just the nature of the beast.
The more pressing issue, however, was our lack of unity.
"Can we integrate these ideas?" I asked.
"It would be difficult," they admitted.
The outlook for the Festival Executive Committee was grim. I decided to call for a temporary recess.
Singing was a common pastime in the village. Whether it was after meals, during work, or in between tasks, the atmosphere was always quite lively. Moreover, everyone was good—frustratingly good. Since I lacked even a shred of confidence in my own singing voice, I was almost jealous of their talent.
However, while the village had plenty of songs, it had very few instruments. Instruments were luxuries reserved for those with plenty of spare time and wealth. The only functional instrument we had was the signal bell; we had nothing intended purely for musical enjoyment.
I had known this for a while, but as I thought about the background music for our upcoming Sports Day and festival, the realization hit me anew. And so, I set out to craft some instruments.
First, I tried a flute.
...It didn't emit a single note. I guess just drilling holes into a tube isn't enough. Come to think of it, how many holes was a flute supposed to have, anyway?
Next, I tried a harp.
...How many strings did a harp need?
Then, a xylophone.
...It made a dull, clunking sound. I had been aiming for something more melodic, a resonant "ping." I wondered if the sound changed based on the type of wood or the length of the slats.
Going all out, I tried a guitar.
...Actually, trying to craft an instrument I’d never even touched was probably a fool's errand. When I finished the basic frame, one of the Civil Official Girls identified it as a lute. I remembered lutes being guitar-like instruments from fantasy stories, so I suppose it had become one of those instead. Either way, it didn't produce a clean sound.
Sound was the priority. Thinking that anything would do as long as it made a noise, I tried making a drum.
I took a decent-sized log and hollowed it out. I tried stretching cloth over the ends, but that didn't work well, so I switched to leather. Zabuton provided some high-quality skins from the collection she kept tucked away in the trees. Perhaps because of the quality of the materials, it actually produced a wonderful sound.
Finally, an instrument that worked.
All right. This was the right direction. I gripped my Universal Farming Tool and faced the wood with single-minded devotion.
Somehow, I ended up making a wooden fish. It was frustrating, but it produced the most resonant, pleasing sound of anything I'd made so far.
I had reached the limits of my talent. It was time to ask the villagers for help.
As for who knew about instruments... I didn't even have to ask. While I had been struggling, the High Elves, Mountain Elves, and Civil Official Girls had been hovering nearby the whole time. I set back to work, incorporating their feedback. To be more precise, I labored under their direct supervision.
We made flutes of all shapes and sizes, though they preferred transverse flutes over the vertical kind. We made harps, lutes, things that looked like guitars, things like shamisens, and others like kotos. The names changed depending on the shape and the number of strings, so I couldn't keep track of them all. We also made xylophones, glockenspiels, drums, and maracas.
I stopped worrying about the details and simply prepared the materials as instructed. The others assembled them and tuned the scales.
It was eye-opening to see how different types of drums could be made just by stretching skins over ordinary jars or barrels. It seemed obvious once they pointed it out, but the idea had never occurred to me. And to think that despite making a xylophone, I hadn't even considered making a glockenspiel out of iron...
It was a bit galling. In my frustration, I tried making a tambourine, some castanets, and a triangle-like instrument. Unfortunately, it seemed versions of those already existed in this world, but no one complained about having new ones.
Apparently, piano-like instruments existed as well, but the internal mechanics were far too complex, so I gave up on making one. I figured I would just ask Michael-san to procure one for me later. I couldn't play it, but I was sure someone in the village could.
Setting that aside for the future, we eventually had a full array of instruments. Once they were finished, the next step was the performance.
The High Elves, Mountain Elves, and Civil Official Girls were excellent players. The High Elves took to the wind instruments, the Mountain Elves handled percussion, and the Civil Official Girls focused on the strings. It was a perfect division of talent. They were also quite capable of teaching those who had never touched an instrument before.
I considered distributing the instruments to everyone, but we decided it was better if I managed them as communal village property, lending them out as needed. It was a "loan" in name only, as I didn't plan on being strict about collecting them.
The villagers took to the instruments with enthusiasm. With proper guidance, music began to echo through the village constantly. It was a wonderful change.
...At least, it was for the first three days.
"I wonder if we should really be letting the music play all through the night?" I eventually mused.
We established a rule: playing instruments was limited to designated times. Generally, it was banned after the sun went down. I didn't make it a total ban, as music was still allowed during dinner and banquets, but I wanted everyone to enjoy things in moderation.
Fortunately, Alfred and Tiselle's room was protected by soundproofing magic, so it stayed quiet for them. That was part of the reason it had taken me so long to notice the noise problem in the first place.