Following Machina-san’s suggestion, the three of us headed toward the festival stalls, with Alice and me trailing behind an exceptionally high-spirited Machina-san.
The scenery of the fair felt incredibly nostalgic. I’d attended various festivals in Trinia, and there were even some stalls that mimicked this sort of atmosphere. However, something about it was subtly different—the unique vibe created by the lanterns and the glow of the stalls felt like it had a distinct flavor.
"Still, these stalls really do showcase regional differences... Take 'Shark Fishing,' for instance."
"Shark Fishing?"
"Oh? You aren't familiar with it, Kaito-san?"
"I don't think they had that at the fairs I went to back in the day... Or maybe I just missed it. So, what is it? I assume you aren't actually catching real sharks?"
Festival stalls certainly varied by region and specific event. I vaguely remembered seeing Eel Fishing at a fair a long time ago. I never actually tried it because it was pricey, but the memory of such an odd stall stuck with me.
But I’d never heard of Shark Fishing. It wasn't as if you could just catch a shark and keep it as a pet at home, so it couldn't be real...
"Shark Fishing is a type of lottery," Machina-san explained. "You fish up a toy shark, and depending on whether it's a 'hit' or a 'miss,' you win a prize. That’s the gist of it."
"I see... So it's called Shark Fishing because you fish up toys."
I nodded along, though the question of "Why sharks?" still lingered. Nitpicking these things would only lead to an endless rabbit hole, so I decided to drop it. They probably just found a cheap supply of shark toys or had a massive surplus.
"We don't have Shark Fishing nearby, but there is a Katanuki stall over there."
"Katanuki, huh... I've seen it in books and knew the stalls existed, but I've never tried it myself."
"Oh, well, since we're here, let's give it a go!"
Katanuki—or 'mold-cutting'—was something you didn't see much lately, but I knew the basics. You took a piece of Nuki-ame, a thin candy with a pattern stamped into it, and used a pin to painstakingly carve out the shape. If you successfully extracted the pattern without breaking it, you won money or a prize.
I'd heard it was notoriously fragile and difficult. It seemed like a game where manual dexterity was everything.
Alice spoke up then, an expression on her face that suggested she’d just had an idea.
"Well then, since we're all here, why don't the three of us have a contest to see who can do it the most cleanly?"
"...I don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell of beating you in a test of dexterity, but sure. Let's do it."
"It's settled! The three of us will do some Katanuki... and we'll have Paradise-san there, the one tending the stall, grade our work. Highest score wins!"
"?!?!?!"
Machina-san had given me a brief explanation about the gray-eyed clones of Eden-san that she wasn't directly controlling. Since it was confusing, I decided to call them "Paradise-san" to distinguish them from the usual Eden-san.
Anyway, I could have sworn that Paradise-san’s face was momentarily eclipsed by an expression of pure, unadulterated despair. Her face was blank now, though. Was I just seeing things?
I was a little worried, but the contest was afoot. To keep things fair, the three of us each took a candy with the same pattern—a tree—and began.
...Wait, this pattern was way smaller than I’d imagined. Could I really carve this out with a needle? It felt like it was going to snap the second I touched it.
Since this was my first time, I timidly scraped away at the edges, my heart in my throat. If I let my guard down even a little, the candy would crack far more easily than I’d expected. This was incredibly tough—ah, a branch snapped.
I'd failed one section already. This was brutal. Let's see, Alice and Machina-san are—they're already done?!
Moreover, both of them had produced shapes that were virtually perfect. No, this was a disaster. The gap in our base specs was so wide that this wasn't even a contest.
It seemed they were both waiting for me to finish, so I kept working on my Katanuki, fully resigned to taking last place.
In the end, I thought I’d done okay for a beginner, but with two broken branches and cracks in several other spots, it definitely wasn't prize-winning quality.
"...Sorry to keep you waiting."
"My Child, I think you did a wonderful job for your first time."
"Haha, thanks. I'm obviously no match for you two, though..."
"Well then, let's have these graded. Starting with My Child's entry!"
Machina-san followed up with a smile. As long as she wasn't on a rampage, she really was a sweet person. That was the thing—if you took away the rampaging, she was kind and well-meaning. Truly, only if she wasn't rampaging...
As I mused on that, I turned toward Paradise-san, our judge. She looked at my candy and made her declaration.
"One hundred points."
"Huh? No, wait... parts of it are missing."
"One hundred points."
"But there are cracks too—"
"One hundred points!!"
"O-Okay, then."
She barked the score in a forceful tone that brooked no argument. It was bizarre, but Paradise-san’s expression was deadly serious. It didn't seem like one hundred was just the starting point or that there were higher scores possible. What was going on?
"...Kaito-san, please don't bully her too much."
"Eh?"
"Think about it. To that person, Kaito-san is 'the individual their absolute superior dotes on.' Do you really think they’re capable of criticizing you?"
"...A-Ah... I see. I get it now."
Essentially, it was like asking a member of the Gods to grade me while Shiro-san was standing right there. Now that look of utter despair from earlier made perfect sense.
From Paradise-san's perspective, she had been given a task where she had to rank her absolute boss, that boss's best friend, and me—the person her boss adored. It was an impossible situation. Her only choice was to give everyone a perfect score and hope for the best.
Serious-senpai: "I never thought I'd see the day where I'd witness Eden suffering from a stress-induced stomachache..."
???: "Well, since the consciousness inside is different, they're practically different people. Still, Machina's the one who threw her into the deep end with that impossible request."
Serious-senpai: "On a different note, Alice seemed a bit confused by things like Yo-yo Fishing during the Six Kings Festival, didn't she?"
???: "She’d been immersed in Trinia’s stall culture even longer than Kaito-san, so the Japanese versions didn't spring to mind immediately. After all, the last time she went to a proper fair with Machina was hundreds of millions of years ago."