Chapter 105: Welcome to Dwarf Town (5) "Uh… have you ever been to the continent we live on?"
"Did you forget that I can't go to other continents? In the old days, whether human, dwarf, or elf, everyone lived on the same continent, so it was common to see things made by dwarves. When I wake up, a lot always changes, but this part hasn't changed."
Sitting in her chair, Charlotte crossed her legs and folded her arms.
They had been comrades who roamed the continent with her and built a name together, but they could not escape a mortal fate.
Lost in memories, Charlotte saw their final faces flickering before her eyes.
Even after that, she sometimes went on adventures with the second- and third-generation descendants of adventurers she had met in taverns.
All while lying that she was the descendant of someone who had traveled with their parents or grandparents.
But as time passed, Charlotte stopped pretending to be human and chose a life purely as a dragon.
Because it hurt to watch, up close, the fleeting lives of the wretches who always left first.
Now, with even more time having passed, it didn't hurt her heart anymore… but the hollow feeling in one corner of it remained, even after repeating centuries of sleeping and waking.
"Sorry. I made the mood pretty gloomy because of me, didn't I?"
As a different kind of silence settled in, Charlotte grew shy and stood up.
"Let's go somewhere else. This time, I want somewhere that feels more lively."
"Oh, then there's a perfect place!"
Geshtain pointed northwest and led the way.
People followed behind, curious about what building would be next, while the orphanage children, who knew nothing, clung to both of Charlotte's hands in bunches and trailed after her.
"Here it is. Just looking at it doesn't make you feel refreshed?"
Where Geshtain guided them was a broad grassy field that made your chest feel wide open.
"It's a soccer field named the Dwarf Field. Many Falstead Castle citizens already use it, but the Dwarf Field we built this time is different."
At Geshtain's gesture, the dwarves simultaneously unveiled installations near the field that had been covered with black cloth.
Tiered spectator stands and various convenience facilities appeared before everyone's eyes.
"Like on Jinseo's continent, we designed it so you can enjoy watching soccer by installing spectator stands. It can hold roughly about 1,000 people total, counting both home and away spectators."
"Words I don't know keep coming up. Anyway, that soccer thing—is it fun?"
"Of course! Along with Jinseo's street food, it's one of the joys I discovered after coming to the Francia Continent!"
"Every time I come to restock cola, you're always kicking a ball, so I was curious what was so fun about it. Alright, since it came up, will you show me a soccer match?"
"R-Right now?"
"If it's troublesome, you can do it later."
Charlotte spoke as if she didn't care either way, but for the listeners, it was completely different.
Once an absolute being asked, even if it was troublesome, it instantly became something that had to be done right now.
"No! We were planning to hold a soccer tournament anyway, so we'll just move it up!"
Geshtain hurriedly gathered the dwarves and began discussing how to put together a team.
But of course, one team alone wasn't enough to play a match, so he asked the knights who were traveling with Charlotte as her escort to join in.
Craid was recruited as the referee, and while everyone bustled around preparing for the match, the players grabbed their uniforms and sneakers and rushed into the locker rooms.
"Kids! Let's watch soccer!"
Charlotte brought the orphans and took seats in the center of the stands.
"You're not watching?"
Those who interpreted her words as "You must watch" began sitting down in orderly fashion in the two sections of the stands.
Jinseo drove the food truck over and parked it beside the stands.
Since spectators watching sports always look for food, he hurriedly started preparing street food and snacks that were easy to carry and eat.
While Jinseo and Jason worked hard in the kitchen, taking out and prepping ingredients, Charlotte approached him.
"Lady Charlotte, you'll have to wait a bit longer for the street food."
"I didn't come to eat right now. I have another reason. Those kids—they still fear me, right?"
"Those kids... Ah, do you mean Nero and Owl?"
"It bothered me that every time I come, they get terrified and hide."
Charlotte pulled out two small necklaces from the pocket of her dolphin shorts and set them on the counter seat.
"Put one around each of their necks. Then even if I'm around, they won't be afraid and can show themselves."
"So something like this exists?"
"On the way here, I stopped by my lair to see if there was anything usable, and this turned up. When I was young, I used to travel with a spirit caller. But as you know, I'm a dragon, so the spirits often ran away. That's why I made these."
"Thank you very much. The children have been wanting to see Nero and Owl too, so this is perfect."
"I guess I forgot because I'm old. I should've brought them earlier."
Charlotte leaned her back against the food truck's driver-side door and opened a can of cola.
As she refreshed herself with sweet carbonation, Geshtain came running up in a hurry.
"Lady Charlotte! All match preparations are complete! Please do the opening kick!"
"Opening kick? What's that?"
Boom!
The moment Charlotte's right foot struck the soccer ball placed exactly on the center mark, a thunderous blast rang out and the ground shook.
The ball shot up high in a diagonal arc, left the field, and kept flying far beyond Dwarf Town.
A lingering trace of mana drew a long line in the air behind it, and when the ball flew so high it completely vanished from everyone's sight...
Only then did Nero, assigned as the ball boy, realize it was impossible to chase it and come back.
In faithfully following Geshtain's request to kick it with full force without bursting it, Charlotte left an impression so intense on both players and spectators that Craid's opening kick back on the Ashred Continent looked like nothing.
The soccer match that began like that was a showdown between the dwarf team and the Falstead knight order team.
The two teams had played dozens of matches even before Dwarf Town was built, and they showed evenly matched skill.
Unlike the modern soccer Jinseo usually watched, the match was rough, but thanks to Craid's strict officiating and the offside detection device made by the dwarves, it proceeded smoothly with zero disputes over calls.
"Goal! It's a goal! A goal!"
"No! It didn't go in!"
Even so, ambiguous situations were bound to happen.
The attacking knight order team claimed a goal… while the defending dwarf team claimed no goal, after the ball hit the goal frame made of adatyum and dropped near the goal line.
It happened in a blind spot outside Craid's line of sight, so even with his excellent dynamic vision, it was hard to judge.
"This is… unclear."
Tweet! Tweet!
Craid drew a rectangle with both hands, then ran toward the food truck.
"Jinseo, I'm asking you."
"Yes. Owl, show that scene one more time, like earlier."
Perched on the pole, Owl closed his eyes and slowly displayed the sequence on a TV screen, from just before the goal to after.
Thanks to Owl's CCTV ability, video review became possible, and Craid was able to make a definite call.
"Seeing it like this, it's clearly a goal."
"That's how it looks to me as well."
Tweet! Tweet!
When Craid returned to the field, pointed at the goal, and blew his whistle, the knight order team erupted, hugging each other, while the dwarves sighed and shook their heads.
"So this is how wretches play these days."
Charlotte watched the match rather flatly, chewing on shortXri.
Of course, the other spectators relaxed and enjoyed the match while sipping dwarf-made beer with half-and-half muma-ni as their side dish.
After that, the two teams traded more goals and the match became fierce, and the first soccer match at Dwarf Field ended in a 3–3 draw.
"Right there… right there! Oh come on, why didn't you kick it a step earlier!"
But after the adults' match ended and the children's soccer match began...
Charlotte cheered for the orphanage children with an excited face.
Since so many children wanted to play, each team had twenty players instead of eleven.
Compared to the adult match before, the children's skills were naturally clumsy and full of mistakes, but every child on the field kicked the ball and ran around, happy.
"Pass instead of shooting! Pass!"
"Now! Shoot!"
The parents of the children playing cheered enthusiastically, and the dwarves, along with Charlotte, cheered for the orphanage children.
With the cheers behind them, the children ran even harder across the field, and as a result they kept tangling together, falling, and getting back up again.
But not a single child was hurt.
On the Francia Continent, magic was prohibited during matches, but for this match only, protective magic was allowed.
So the children could run freely on the field.
Tweet! Tweet!
"Jason! You saw that, right? Did you see? Peter scored a goal!"
"Peter! You're the best!"
Foltan hugged Jason, unable to contain his joy.
After that, whenever a goal went in or a great play happened, the parents cheering in the stands swung between joy and sorrow.
With far more goals traded than in the adult match, the children's game ended, and the parents hugged their sweat-soaked children, praising them for doing well.
The orphanage children shrank for a moment at that sight, but when Charlotte and the dwarves came over, they smiled brightly as if nothing happened and ran across the field again.
"About soccer… I didn't know watching it would be this fun, not just playing it."
"Seriously. I'm too old to run out there myself, but watching is fine."
"If I lived in Falstead Castle, I'd come watch every time there was a match, but being far away makes it hard..."
If you can't play soccer yourself, watching on TV is good too, but nothing beats the fun of watching at the stadium.
In a world without TV, the guests who discovered the joy of live viewing weren't satisfied with just two matches.
People kept asking when the next match would be, and Geshtain, having expected this, handed out flyers listing upcoming match schedules through a temporary booth set up beside the food truck.
"Yes, this is it! Kraken fritters made by you personally—this is real kraken fritters!"
After the soccer matches ended, the fishermen from Orte Harbor who came with Charlotte gathered around the food truck, savoring kraken fritters.
Along with the knights, the dwarves, and Charlotte.
In fact, one reason the fishermen refused to mind the long distance and attended the completion ceremony was to eat kraken fritters Jinseo made "personally."
"If you make it by the recipe, it should taste almost the same, shouldn't it?"
As Jinseo spoke while taking well-fried kraken fritters out of the fryer, the fishermen all shook their heads at once, denying it.
"We fried it hard following the recipe you taught us, but that taste won't come out!"
"The customers say there's no difference, but we can clearly tell! Kraken fritters that passed through your hands are obviously different from what we make, I'm telling you!"
Watching the fishermen, who even restrained their beer just to eat one more piece of kraken fritters, Jinseo smiled.
The reason for their intense reaction was simple.
A specific job's preferred food only takes effect if it's cooked or sold by the food truck.
But aside from that, any cook is happy when customers crave food they made, for any reason.
And even more so when customers want it badly enough to ride a dragon to get it.
"Oh, right! Dwarves, as a gift for this completion ceremony or whatever, I caught a kraken, so take it with you later. There are other assorted things too, so take them together. The amount the kids who came with me ate can be covered with that, right?"
"Of course!"
"Good!"
At Geshtain's hearty reply, Charlotte lifted her beer mug.
"One shot! One shot!"
At the dwarves' chant, Charlotte drained the mug in one go, then held it upside down to prove she didn't leave a single drop.
"Alright, next is you lot!"
Snap!
When Charlotte snapped her fingers, the lids of unopened beer barrels popped up, and the beer inside split into multiple streams that shot out in all directions.
With her magic, the fishermen's empty mugs were instantly filled with beer.
The fishermen, who had been mindlessly devouring only kraken fritters, hurriedly lifted their mugs and started drinking before the beer could spill.
While the noisy after-party carried on, there was one person alone in the corner of the stands.
"..."
Fedora sat with her hands clasped on her lap, blankly staring up at the sky.
"Is it because the headmaster didn't come?"
Jinseo sat beside Fedora, holding cup tteokbokki and CoolXse.
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