Chapter 135
#Chapter 135 The Beggar Gritz (Gritz) (11) - The Oak Barrel, the Priestess, and the Festival
There is such a thing as inviolable common sense in this world.
A water bottle can hold water. A kimchi crock can hold kimchi. A grain chest can hold people.
But people must not be put in oak barrels.
That is common sense.
As a person of common sense, Grace tried to resist this unreasonable treatment with all her might.
“No, no, that’s impossible! How can a person get inside an oak barrel!?”
“So, from the way you see it, I don’t look like a person, do I?”
“……”
Argument blocked.
When Grace turned an aggrieved look on him as if to say, “If you say that, what does that make me?” Gritz responded with a rather gloomy chuckle.
“Heh heh heh, relax. I’m not so inconsiderate as to throw an advanced course at a complete beginner right away. You’re supposed to learn to ride a bicycle with training wheels at first, after all.”
“What’s a bicycle?”
“They have those in other countries. More precisely, some countries do and some don’t. Maybe it’s because this continent is so enormous, or maybe it’s those transcendents, but the level of civilization—or rather, its direction—keeps wavering all over the place.”
“I understand perfectly well that Mr. Gritz has no intention of explaining this properly.”
Grace had secretly been hoping for something like a date in disguise—and, if things went well, a chance to see Gritz’s true form—but now there was no other option.
For the sake of appreciating the effort he had put into preparing this, she might as well give it a try.
With that in mind, Grace climbed into the oak barrel Gritz had brought and thought:
‘It’s surprisingly spacious inside. …No, wait, it’s way too spacious.’
From the outside, it looked small enough to make her worry she would have to cram herself in, but once inside, the oak barrel was far roomier than she had expected.
Assuming the oak barrel was a tunnel, there was enough room to pass through comfortably with only a slight bend at the waist, let alone on all fours.
More than anything, the oak barrel was not simply empty.
“A chair?”
At the center of the oak barrel, Grace saw a chair jutting out as though it were one with the wall, and question marks appeared in her mind.
No, why on earth was there a chair inside an oak barrel?
At first, she thought the darkness had made her see it wrong, but the sensation of the chair beneath her hand was no illusion.
“What are you doing? Sit down already.”
Though Gritz urged her on, Grace still had no idea what was going on, but she sat in the chair for the time being.
The chair felt reasonably comfortable, whatever kind of leather it was made from.
And the moment she sat down, it suddenly seemed as though a flash of light had burst before her eyes, and Grace’s field of vision opened wide.
“Huh? Wha?”
For a moment, Grace thought the side of the oak barrel had been torn away.
As though the wall blocking her view had vanished, leaving the entire front exposed.
But that was not the case.
When Grace reached toward the area that looked wide open, her hand touched something smooth and wall-like.
“Glass? But from the outside, it was just an oak barrel.”
True to her nature, which could not rest until she had checked anything that made her curious, Grace climbed out of the oak barrel and examined its exterior.
But whether she looked at it or felt it with her hands, all she could sense was the appearance and texture of an ordinary oak barrel.
The oak barrel was not large enough to be fitted with a chair where a person could sit comfortably, nor was its side made of transparent glass.
“H-how does this work?”
“I told you. It’s for beginners. If you’re done checking, get back inside.”
“That doesn’t sound like an answer.”
“If I seriously explained the principle, we’d have to stay up all night for about a week. Would that be all right?”
Grace quickly dove back into the oak barrel.
Sometimes there were things more important than curiosity.
As she had already experienced once, sitting in the chair caused the dim scene, where she could barely make out the outlines of objects, to brighten again.
“Fasten your belt. See the strap on your right shoulder? Hook the clasp attached to it into the ring at your left hip.”
Instead of asking what he meant, Grace chose simply to follow his instructions.
She figured it would be faster to do everything she was told first and judge afterward than to question every single action.
Once she connected the hooks on the straps as instructed, Grace’s body was held firmly in the chair.
It was not tight enough to make breathing difficult, but it did make moving freely somewhat uncomfortable.
“What next?”
“Just sit there. I’ll show you something fun.”
There was no need to ask what the fun thing was.
Clunk!
With a noisy sound, the opening of the oak barrel Grace had entered swung shut.
And beyond the oak barrel, she saw two long ropes connected to Gritz’s oak barrel, stretching taut.
How should she describe them? They were like the straps connecting a horse to a carriage…
‘…Wait. A horse and a carriage?’
Grace’s brain and intuition began ringing fierce alarm bells.
“No, wait—”
“Then we’re off!”
Before Grace could finish speaking, Gritz’s oak barrel began rolling forward.
And, naturally, the oak barrel connected to it was dragged along as well.
“Aaaahhhhh…aaahhh…ack?”
Grace had screamed almost instinctively, but the force behind the scream rapidly faded.
Gritz’s oak barrel was rolling.
Grace’s oak barrel was rolling too.
But Grace herself, inside it, was not rolling.
The chair she was sitting in and the footrest beneath it remained firmly in place.
She did feel the inertia pulling her body to one side whenever they changed direction, but thanks to the chair’s snug structure and the securing straps, it was not unbearable.
No, it was more than merely bearable.
‘…This is fun?’
Dopamine surged wildly through Grace’s mind at the oak-barrel attraction that had leaped across the ages.
She could not control its direction and was simply dragged along wherever Gritz led it, but that was precisely why she could enjoy the sense of speed and the rapidly changing scenery without having to divide her attention by worrying about driving.
The oak barrel initially raced through the Carnelian estate, but upon finding a large window, it flung itself straight outside.
“Keep your mouth shut. You’ll bite your tongue.”
Ascending, then falling.
Thud!
The impact when they hit the ground was quite a shock, but not so great that it hurt her or placed undue strain on her body.
Perhaps because the course had changed from the smooth corridors of a building to the rough outdoors, the oak barrel itself began rattling, adding even more speed and excitement to the ride.
Grace excitedly raised her voice.
“Be honest! You’re not really a beggar, are you? What beggar travels around in something like this!?”
Given the distance between the two oak barrels and the chaotic situation, it was a question that should have been difficult to hear clearly, but Gritz answered as though it were only natural.
Rather than sounding like a voice carried over from far away, it seemed to come through some sort of opening inside the oak barrel, as though a voice were leaking out from there.
“Tsk tsk. Don’t think the one you’re riding in is the same as mine. How can you compare a beginner’s model with a professional’s?”
“Then why didn’t you let me ride in yours!?”
“It’s too cramped even for me to get in alone, you idiot.”
“But if you can fit in a cramped space with a beautiful girl like me, isn’t that a good deal?”
“You must be getting used to it if you’re starting to make pointless chatter. I’m increasing the speed.”
No sooner had Gritz finished speaking than the oak barrel’s rotation speed doubled in an instant.
A tree that had looked like a distant speck rushed close in the blink of an eye, then vanished into the distance as another speck the very next moment.
They had only just set out, or so it seemed, yet the cityscape was already coming into view, and Grace grew flustered.
“S-shouldn’t you slow down a little? What if we crash into someone!?”
The streets were already more crowded than usual because of the festival.
If they barged into such a place in these high-speed spinning oak barrels, an unthinkable catastrophe would surely follow.
Gritz’s response to her concern came not in words, but in action.
The moment they entered the outskirts of the city, Grace clearly saw a staff jut out beside Gritz’s oak barrel.
She also saw the entire oak barrel leap high into the air as soon as the staff slammed against the ground.
Along with the illusion that time had slowed for a moment, the two oak barrels landed on the roof of a building.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been strange if the landing had not made a tremendous noise or damaged the roof, but by some inexplicable trick, the impact was as light as a feather.
After that, it was no longer a time for rolling, but a time for jumping.
In other words, instead of rolling across the rooftops, they bounced their round bodies from place to place.
Grace’s eyes sparkled at the bustling festival scenery visible below.
It would normally have been perfectly reasonable for her to feel motion-sick in such a situation, but since this was Grace’s first experience of its kind, she did not know that.
Nor did she notice that a soft glow had begun leaking from around her body.
Even though two enormous oak barrels were moving across the rooftops, the people below failed to notice them.
Few people looked up in the first place, and Gritz’s movements were simply too uncanny and elusive.
Thanks to that, Grace could devote herself entirely to sightseeing and enjoy the boisterous festival atmosphere to her heart’s content.
That alone would have satisfied her, but Gritz seemed to have other ideas.
“Hmm. Food is the lifeblood of any festival.”
“Huh? No, this is enough for me. What if we show ourselves just to buy something and ruin the mood?”
“I have a way. Just watch.”
From a rooftop, Gritz briefly detached the rope connecting the two oak barrels, then jumped alone into the plaza.
People were startled when an oak barrel came plummeting from the sky, but when it began waving its staff and performing tricks, they apparently decided this too was part of the festival and began laughing and watching.
Grace watched the scene intently from the rooftop, and it was clear that there was something about Gritz’s tricks that drew people’s attention.
Most of his body was hidden inside the oak barrel, so people could not even see his expression, let alone hear his voice, yet he expressed a wide range of emotions with nothing but the deft movements of his arm and staff.
He deployed every trick imaginable, from pretending to walk using only the staff, to scaling walls, to juggling stones; when he performed the trick of spinning in circles while standing on his head, the crowd even burst into cheers.
The people, caught up in the excitement, tossed coins and the like toward the oak barrel. Gritz sucked some of the coins inside, but delivered the rest directly to several food stalls before pointing at the food with his staff.
The owners readily handed over the food, unable to mistake his meaning, and after taking it, Gritz disappeared into the air.
A few people tried somehow to figure out where Gritz had gone, but tracking this insane oak barrel, which could run along walls using nothing but a staff, was nearly impossible.
Even Grace, who had been looking down from above, briefly lost track of Gritz, so how could anyone else have fared better?
Knock, knock.
With the sound of knocking on wood, the lid of Grace’s oak barrel opened for a moment, and several snacks were delivered straight through the gap.
As an added bonus, a mini-table rose beside the chair, where the food could be placed as though that were its obvious purpose.
Grace gave up trying to understand this bizarre contraption.
Anyway, it was fun and comfortable, so what was there to complain about?
Street food was truly delicious.