Rising from the Slum City of Reincarnation in Another World ~ Gathering, Hunting, and Living a Slow Life by Eating

Chapter 121 Halloween and roasted leaves

October 31st is almost here.

For some reason, there is a festival in this world that corresponds to Halloween, though I’m not quite sure about it. We recently had the Harvest Festival, I believe, but it’s still unclear. Well, it must be a tradition that originated from somewhere in the northern regions.

In villages and towns, people are growing pumpkins that turn orange in the corners of their fields. They bring them here and carve out eyes and mouths.

“It’s Halloween, so we have pumpkins.”

“Wow, Halloween!”

“Do you remember?”

“Yeah.”

It seems Minya remembers it too. I’m not sure if it’s the Halloween of the Elven territory or if it’s something that came along before reaching our place.

Using the mithril knife inherited from my mother, I start working on the pumpkins. Mithril is incredibly easy to cut with, making it very useful for occasions like this.

“We’ve got a face now.”

“Yeah.”

Minya and everyone widen their eyes and peer closely at my handiwork. Their round eyes look adorable.

“Hey, Ed, won’t ghosts come out?”

“Huh? Well, there might be times when they do.”

“Eek! I-I see…”

Suddenly, they turn pale. Even Ciel, who is standing behind, looks the same. I remember them saying something about being scared of ghosts when we were in the basement before.

“Well, even if real ghosts get mixed in with the artificial ones, as long as they’re friendly spirits enjoying the festival, they can’t be that bad, right?”

“That might be true.”

“Relax, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine.”

“Y-yeah.”

I’ve never fought against the Wraith or Spirit types before. They say the corrupted spirits are extremely powerful. But we have Minya’s purification abilities, so I think we’ll be okay.

Not only us, but everyone else also prepared for Halloween.

Even when we went to the town, which used to look like a refugee camp, they managed to decorate with pumpkins sourced from somewhere. Pumpkin decorations were placed all around the town. It’s heartwarming to see this newfound sense of abundance, especially for our lord’s family.

“Everyone, look, there are pumpkins.”

“Yeah, they are taking this seriously.”

Now, the real show starts in the evening.

Everyone will be dressing up in costumes and parading through the town.

Children will be visiting houses and saying the local version of “Trick or Treat.” Maybe this custom was spread by transmigrators from long ago, or it could be a mere coincidence that similar cultures existed. After all, the people in this world, like everywhere else, love festivities.

As for our costumes, we thought about it, but we don’t have a lot of budget or access to materials like clothing stores, so it’s quite challenging.

We might end up going for a safe choice, like maid outfits, and people might tease us, saying it’s not much of a costume, but that’s alright.

They are cute, and in this world, maid outfits are luxurious items found only in affluent households, so it’s quite festive here.

Ah, in this world, there are people who cover themselves in green stuff, almost like boiled grass juice, wrap tattered clothes around their waists, and pretend to be “Goblins.” Another popular choice is to use wolf fangs, which are sold cheaply as accessories, attach them to their teeth, put on a slightly pale makeup with purple lipstick, and become “Vampires,” I suppose.

Those who put extra effort might even attach bat wings to their backs.

I haven’t seen much of this in the slums, but it seems to be a thing in the city of Trieste.

And so, many people walk around in costumes. Some are dressed up, and some are just in casual clothes, making it hard to tell.

The city is decorated with pumpkins, and people parade through the streets. It looks quite festive, doesn’t it?

There’s one more thing we do for Halloween. Instead of pumpkins, we use sweet potatoes.

In this world, even crop breeding has made some progress, and the yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes are quite sweet.

During the season when the leaves turn red and fall to the ground, we sweep them up and collect a massive amount of fallen leaves.

Then, we wrap the sweet potatoes, which were grown in abundance using semi-neglected farming methods, in big leaves.

Afterward, we toss them into the bonfires made of fallen leaves.

“Look at the fire, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Smoke from the bonfires was already rising all around.

It seemed like there was even more smoke than on a smoke signal day.

Even at the Lord’s Manor Hotel, the maids were diligently gathering fallen leaves and burning them. They kept adding the plentiful sweet potatoes they had collected one after another.

“Sweet potatoes♪ Sweet potatoes♪ So much fuuun~”

Minya chanted with a rhythm. Yeah, I get how she feels.

With the bonfire right in front of us, the delicious, tender sweet potatoes would be ready to eat soon.

“There they are!”

I stuck a wooden branch into the fire and took the sweet potatoes out. Wearing gloves, I peeled them and distributed them to everyone.

“Wow, they look delicious.”

“Thank you, let’s eat!”

The fairies, dressed in maid outfits, wearing fangs, and purple lipstick, were eagerly waiting for their share.

It’s warm and sweet.

Chomp chomp chomp. It’s so delicious.

“Huff, huff, huff.”

The insides were still hot. While huffing and puffing, we all eagerly devoured the sweet potatoes. They might not be dripping with honey, but in a world where sugar was precious, these were definitely on the sweeter side.

Delicious. They were incredibly delicious.

“So sweeet!”

“So yummy!”

“Delicious, nyam nyam~”

Everyone enjoyed their hot treats, huffing and savoring each bite.

In no time, we finished our feast. It was so delicious, I’m glad we did this.

Since it was a vast open area and a half-hearted farming method, it didn’t require much effort. This was a hit. We must definitely do this again next year.

With satisfied bellies, the children joined the evening procession, thoroughly enjoying the Halloween festivities.