The next day, Eddie was comfortable around Ketron again, as if the awkwardness had never happened. It meant he was back to his usual self.
Ketron still didn’t react much, so Eddie tentatively concluded that it was just his own fussiness and delusion.
He figured it was just one of the tricks of the night.
“Wow…”
Eddie looked out the inn window and felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Maybe it was because the inn was in the middle of the street, but he could see through the window that the streets of Sandern were packed with people on the morning of the tournament.
It was a huge procession of people, reminiscent of the crowds on Hero’s parade day, the day he first met Ketron.
The Colosseum, only the far end of which was visible, looked exactly like the arena in Rome. It was a stark realization that people were filling a Colosseum that was actually in use, not a tourist attraction or a cultural heritage weathered by time, and that a Swordsman’s tournament was being held there. His heart pounded.
Eddie felt the excitement and anticipation that had left him filling his body again.
The fantasy world was the best.
Eddie smiled brightly, thinking for the first time in a while that this possession was enjoyable.
“Ket! Let’s go out quickly!”
Eddie urged him with an excited face, and Ketron, who had already finished preparing to go out, nodded.
Huh?
Rarely, Ketron was carrying the Holy Sword on his back.
Eddie thought about asking why, but he chose to keep his mouth shut. Wasn’t it strange to ask a Swordsman why he was carrying a sword?
He certainly looked like someone participating in the tournament.
But Ketron hadn’t applied, the application period was over, and he was only supposed to watch the tournament with him. It probably didn’t matter.
Eddie cheerfully shook off the thought he’d had for a moment.
When Eddie and Ketron went down to the first floor, they saw people who hadn’t left for the Colosseum yet chatting in small groups.
Some of them stopped talking when they saw Eddie and Ketron, then put their heads together and whispered.
“So, those are the guys?”
“Yeah, there’s only those two with shiny silver hair and a big black head of hair. Yesterday, Peter went in to wash up and then…!”
“Well, they’re a good-looking couple, but doing such shameless things in a public place!”
Ketron, who was keenly aware of the ‘shiny silver hair’ in the whispers, immediately turned his gaze to the men, but he had to turn his head again at the sensation of a hand naturally taking his.
Of course, there was only one person who would do that to Ketron.
Eddie didn’t seem to be consciously holding Ketron’s hand, but he was holding Ketron’s hand and fiddling with something square and flat that he couldn’t identify with his other hand.
Then, when he met Ketron’s eyes, his eyes widened, and then his pretty lavender eyes curved.
“Huh? Why?”
Even as he opened his mouth, his soft, fluffy hand was still holding Ketron’s hand tightly. As if it were natural.
Ketron looked down at their clasped hands and then casually raised his head.
“No. It’s nothing.”
Instead, he said this and squeezed Eddie’s hand.
The men who had been whispering looked at them and said, “That’s right, that’s right,” and “That’s right, that’s for sure,” but Ketron couldn’t hear them anymore.
That kind of thing didn’t matter.
Eddie shook the hot pack vigorously.
When he was young, hot packs that hardened and generated heat when you pressed them were popular, but these days, they didn’t have those, and instead, they had pouches full of sand-like grains that generated heat when you shook them.
Eddie felt the hot pack he was shaking get a little warmer and gently tickled the inside of Ketron’s palm.
Ketron, who flinched and trembled, looked at him, and Eddie held out the hot pack.
“Hand.”
Eddie placed the hot pack on Ketron’s hand, which he held out like a well-behaved puppy.
Then he took out his own hot pack and started shaking it vigorously.
“What is it?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s a hot pack, like a portable hand warmer.”
He had taken it out when he brought the dinner from the convenience store last night.
The convenience store was the same as the one in the basement of Eddie’s inn. The only difference was that it was located on the second floor instead of the basement, and other people clearly passed by it as if they couldn’t see the entrance at all, even though there were bright lights shining on it.
Presumably, even if he told them the location of the invisible entrance, they wouldn’t be able to enter, except for Eddie. He still didn’t know what the principle was.
Eddie had realized one thing during this trip.
The convenience store was Eddie-bound, like Gerold’s existence. Not inn-bound.
The convenience store only existed where Eddie existed, not fixed at Eddie’s inn.
Whatever the case, Eddie came to the convenient conclusion that he didn’t have to worry about starving to death thanks to this convenient possessor’s benefit, and he happily filled his Hyperspace pouch to the brim.
Including this hot pack.
Ketron looked at the warm hot pack with a strange look, and then, seeing that Eddie had one for himself, he rolled it around comfortably in his hand.
They left the inn early in the morning, but they barely managed to reach the Colosseum around the time the tournament was about to begin.
It was clearly not a long distance, as they could see it from the inn window, but the crowd was so huge.
The fact that no tickets were required for the tournament, which the Emperor had personally sponsored for the people of the Empire, also contributed to the large crowd.
Originally, tourists had flocked in from foreign countries at the news that Hero was participating.
Presumably, those tourists were booing at the news that Hero wasn’t participating, but they still came to the Colosseum to watch the tournament, which was their original purpose.
As a result, the crowd was so large that it would have been impossible for Eddie to enter the Colosseum alone.
If Ketron hadn’t naturally cut through the crowd and led Eddie in, as if performing a miracle of Moses, Eddie would have stared at the Colosseum with a tired face and turned back without even thinking about entering.
“Ah, I’m tired.”
The planning of the trip, booking the inn, and securing a seat in the Colosseum all felt like they were happening in a rush, but everything was succeeding without fail.
Nevertheless, a rush was tiring.
Besides, what should he say, the Colosseum was so big that the people on the stage looked like matchboxes. It was probably because the seat he had secured was like a third-class seat at a concert in modern terms.
But if he had tried to get into the first-class seats, he would have had to camp out in front of them for days, or sit in the private seats like the Nobles.
Both were impossible, so Eddie gave up neatly without any regrets.
Still, something was making his heart beat fast.
Although he had come to see the tournament because of Sebastian’s remarks, Eddie was finding this trip, or rather, this non-trip, quite fun.
He regretted being cooped up in the inn the whole time, because this world was so much more wonderful than he had imagined.
It was too brilliant to simply define it as ‘the world in the novel’.
He had a dream of traveling through this mysterious world like an adventurer if he ever had the chance.
And for some reason, Ketron was naturally by Eddie’s side in that dream.
“What’s wrong?”
“Uhhh, nothing.”
Eddie felt a strange sense of affection and stroked Ketron’s head once, then turned his gaze to the bulletin board that had been catching his eye since earlier.
[List of Participants]
Eddie sipped the sports drink he had brought and looked at the bulletin board, which served as a billboard in modern terms.
Although there were no LEDs in this world, there was Sorcery instead. High-ranking Sorcerers were rare, but because it was a tournament ordered by the Emperor himself, Sorcerers were using Sorcery to display the letters on the bulletin board.
Eddie looked at the list of fancy names, wondering if there were any familiar names, when someone approached him.
“Would you like a flower!”
It was a young lady holding a large flower basket.
Eddie stared at her, wondering if she was selling them, and the young lady said with a bright smile.
“They’re free! Please scatter them down when the winner is announced!”
The Emperor must like flowers. Eddie thought. He had scattered flowers all over the streets of the capital during the parade, making them look like they were dyed with flowers. Of course, he had also given out silver coins at the time.
“Thank you.”
Eddie, who still didn’t know the impact of his face, smiled brightly at the young lady, and the young lady, whose eyes widened for a moment, blushed and gave him another flower before leaving.