Chapter 140: Trick or… Truck? (2) Normally, the outfits and makeup were the kind that would make you flinch the moment you saw them, but the tourists adapted to the atmosphere quickly.
That was also thanks to what the event staff told them—that on Halloween, it was normal to walk around in creepy costumes and makeup, so don't be startled.
Because of that, some tourists, seeing monster disguises for the first time in their lives, wanted to know what the monsters were. For those tourists, a scholar who normally worked as a travel guide stepped forward.
"The centaur in front of you is cosplaying a monster called a Dullahan. The origins of this monster known as a Dullahan are…"
Based on the explanations he'd heard from Jinseo, the scholar continued explaining what monster each person was dressed as.
Others dressed as different monsters were lined up around the tourists, and among them, Elios had volunteered to take the role of the Dullahan.
To look like something without a head, he wore an outfit stuffed with styrofoam around the shoulders and upper body, making it uncomfortable to move. Still, whenever he met the eyes of children looking up at him with sparkling eyes, a smile naturally rose to his face.
Children visiting with their parents participated enthusiastically in the "trick or treat" game, and watching their children with pleased expressions, some parents also dressed up and became part of the "monsters."
In that sense, the tourists were enjoying Halloween even more passionately than the two festivals held earlier.
"Little things! You're enjoying Halloween, right?"
And the one participating most enthusiastically of all was the dragon Charlotte.
In Charlotte's case, simply returning to her original form—as a dragon—became cosplay all by itself.
Tourists kept marveling at the sight of Charlotte spreading her wings wide and flying around over Falstead Castle and Dwarf Town.
Quite some time had passed since Charlotte awoke from her long sleep, and the story that she did not harm "little things" and freely interacted with them had spread fairly far by now.
"Is that Lady Charlotte, the guardian dragon of the Doren Kingdom?"
"That's right. A truly great being."
"I want to fly in the sky with her!"
"It would be hard for adults, but I hear that if she feels like it, she'll give rides to children like you."
Charlotte kept denying it, but for months now, humans had started calling her the Doren Kingdom's guardian dragon.
As countless humans looked at her not with fear but with reverence and familiarity, Charlotte smiled, then began casting magic she had secretly prepared.
"Alright! Everyone, watch closely! A circus in the sky!"
Fwoooosh.
Dozens of enormous flaming rings flared to life brightly across the sky above Falstead Castle.
When Charlotte shot through the rings at high speed, a red afterimage trailed behind her, painting the dark night sky in dazzling colors.
When the tourists cheered joyfully, Charlotte, even more excited, increased her speed and began repeatedly passing through rings she'd already cleared.
"Oops! I made a little mistake!"
A few flaming rings snagged on Charlotte's long tusks and vanished, but she didn't care and kept dyeing the sky red.
"So this is Korea's festival, Halloween. It's a festival with plenty to watch."
"Dean, it's been a while."
Up until last year, the role of entertaining tourists' eyes with flashy magic had been Painfolt's.
But he had been too busy analyzing traces of his younger sibling found on the Crudian Continent, and interpreting the records Angelica had gathered while traveling across the Doren Kingdom, so he couldn't make time for anything else.
Because of that, he only visited the food truck on the seventh day after the festival began.
"The magic I showed… can't compare to magic manifested by a real dragon."
Painfolt looked up at the sky blanketed in Charlotte's magic and marveled.
"We were worried something had happened since you didn't come even once during the festival."
"I had so much to do that I was holed up in the mage tower the whole time. But seeing everyone completely immersed in the festival made me curious, so I came out to clear my head."
Taking a sip of the fish cake broth Jinseo handed him, Painfolt checked the menu board.
"Jinseo, give me stone-bowl bibimbap and clear mu-guk. My disciples were making such a fuss that they absolutely had to try them."
"Yes, understood."
Stone-bowl bibimbap, now officially registered on the menu, enjoyed the highest popularity throughout the festival.
The only downside was that it didn't come with soup, but that was naturally solved when mu-guk—originally meant to be limited to Chuseok—was also offered during Halloween.
"It's ready. The stone bowl is hot, so be careful. And you have to mix it."
"Like this?"
"Yes. Enjoy."
The Halloween Jinseo knew was, at most, a festival that came from the West.
So to him, seeing Painfolt and tourists who had joined in Halloween costumes eating stone-bowl bibimbap and mu-guk was pure confusion.
At this point, I'm not even sure if this is really Halloween anymore, but everyone's enjoying it, so who cares.
Either way, the food truck's sales kept rising. Halloween was a festival where people wore strange outfits and enjoyed an odd atmosphere anyway, so Jinseo convinced himself it wasn't weird if stone-bowl bibimbap and mu-guk contributed to that "oddness."
"Phew, once I finish boiling what's in the pot now, I'm done."
Meanwhile, Mary—dressed as a hooked-nose witch—wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand while stirring the bubbling cauldron with a ladle.
On the table right beside her sat Nero, wearing a small pointed hat.
In a scene where a witch throws something into a cauldron and boils it, you can't leave out a black cat.
Nero obediently followed Jinseo's instruction that he only had to sit still, and perhaps bored, kept yawning nonstop.
"Mary, that's good! Everyone! The third batch of pumpkin porridge is done!"
Jason took the ladle from Mary, then served pumpkin porridge in small bowls as a free treat for customers.
Since it felt like a waste to throw away the pumpkin insides carved out while making jack-o'-lanterns, they made pumpkin porridge by mixing in other pumpkins too—and the reaction was unexpectedly good.
"Then I'm going to go get my fortune told!"
Throwing off her hooked-nose makeup, Mary hurried toward the north side of the plaza where the fortune-tellers were gathered.
A fortune-teller was one of the jobs that fit the Halloween mood perfectly.
For fortune-tellers who had gathered hoping to hit it big during the autumn festival, Jinseo handed out tarot cards for Halloween only and taught them how to do readings.
Tarot cards were also a prop that matched Halloween well.
While he was at it, he set up booths and even rented out matching outfits, and among the fortune-tellers, it got praised as being much more accurate than their usual methods.
"Everyone's enjoying themselves."
Having finished the stone-bowl bibimbap and mu-guk, Painfolt took a bite of a NuX bar.
"I'm curious whether your search for your younger sibling is going well."
"I think I'll have to cross over again soon—to a continent with a new race. Chasing my sibling's whereabouts naturally led to that."
"Then may I come with you?"
"Of course. Without your bunsik, it would be quite difficult to build friendships with other races. If anything, I should be the one asking you, but this works out well."
"I hope you find your younger sibling this time."
"No, it'll probably be difficult this time too. But even so, chasing the traces my sibling left behind is better than those past days I wasted with no meaning."
As he looked up at the sky blazing brilliantly with Charlotte's magic, his expression wasn't as dark as it used to be.
While Jinseo was talking with Painfolt, the children who had been shouting "trick or treat" diligently came back to the food truck.
"We made a full loop around Falstead Castle!"
"We got this much candy and snacks!"
The children proudly showed Jinseo their baskets filled to the brim with treats.
"Then do you want to watch a movie while eating what you got?"
"A movie?"
"There's a movie that fits perfectly for a day like today. Just wait a moment."
After seating the children at the tables, Jinseo turned on the large TV and played a movie he had prepared.
It was a film based on a fairy tale about a man who ran a chocolate factory, and a boy who was poor but never let go of his dreams and hope.
He had originally planned to play Alice in Wonderland, but since the original work had unexpectedly tricky parts, he chose a different movie.
"Waa… there are mountains of snacks piled up!"
"Korea is filled with snacks I've never seen in my life. Can we go there?"
Seeing the colorful candy and snacks filling the large TV screen, the children swallowed their saliva.
"To produce that many treats in a place called a factory… just imagining it makes my mouth feel sweet. It's a shame I don't see carrot-flavored chocolate."
Angelica, cosplaying as the protagonist of the movie Jinseo had originally planned to play—"Alice"—focused on the movie while melting pumpkin taffy on her tongue.
"Charlie! Hang in there! You have to win!"
"Charlie! Don't lose!"
The story was about the protagonist Charlie and other children passing tests inside the chocolate factory, going through incidents and growing.
Maybe because the other child actors were so unlikable, the kids cheered for the protagonist Charlie.
"Ah… not me."
Just like during Chuseok, Prince Charles, wearing a dragon robe, flinched every time the children chanted the protagonist's name.
"Your Highness, would you like to try this too? It's hot, so be careful."
Jinseo set down marshmallows skewered on branches and roasted over the bonfire on the table, urging him to try them.
"It's delicious! I've never had a snack this soft and sweet!"
"It's a marshmallow. People often roast it over a fire like this, but it's tasty even plain. When you return, you can take as much as you want."
"Ah… right. I have to go back."
For a moment, Charles was happy in the sweetness of the marshmallow.
Then, realizing he couldn't stay at Falstead Castle forever, he stared blankly at the large TV with a dejected expression.
He's at the age where he should be playing… but he can't because he's a prince.
Looking at Charles's slumped shoulders from behind, Jinseo wore a sympathetic expression.
The other children were still watching the movie with bright laughter, but Charles silently nibbled at his roasted marshmallow.
For Charles, there was only one thing Jinseo could do: provide a stage where he could make more memories before returning.
"Big bro! We're all set!"
"Already?"
"Yes! We can start as soon as the movie ends!"
Hearing that the stage was ready at just the right moment, Jinseo stood up.
Even as midnight approached, the streets of Falstead Castle—thick with Halloween atmosphere—were still packed with tourists.
A line of bunsik wagons slowly rolled down the road cutting across those streets.
Ghost-costumed children climbed on first, onto bunsik wagons that had been modified so people could ride on top, and then the food truck staff in various costumes climbed up and filled the remaining space.
It was a parade to celebrate Halloween.
Jinseo's food truck took the lead, and on top of it stood Charles in his dragon robe.
"This feeling… it's my first time."
Charles, who had been gloomy at the thought of having to return to the capital, now beamed brightly as he looked down at the people in the streets, as if nothing had ever been wrong.
The bunsik wagons—renamed "candy wagons" for Halloween only—drew attention just by passing by, and children's reactions in particular were explosive.
And it wasn't only little children who enjoyed the atmosphere.
"Craid, how is it?"
Hayward, dressed as the protagonist of the movie he watched with Jinseo—Joker—jabbed Craid in the side with his elbow.
"It's fun."
Dressed as the Creature from Frankenstein, Craid stood atop the food truck and silently scattered candy and snacks toward the tourists.
Whip! Whip! Whip!
So that even children who were too far away to reach up and catch them could still get snacks, Craid calculated precisely and kept throwing treats one after another.
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