Chapter 2:
Glasses are a Sign of Intellectualism
“WHAT DO YOU WANT to eat?” asked Filia.
“I’m fine with anything,” I replied.
“Okay. I’m not really hungry for anything, to be honest, so why don’t we just browse?”
I went with Filia over to the city’s main street to grab some grub. The streets of Jeepupp weren’t all that different from those of Mussen Morgeth, or at least, they didn’t look different. But the variety and quality of food here were both way higher in Jeepupp, thanks to its thriving agricultural industry.
We marched through the shopping district in search of ingredients for dinner. It was late in the afternoon, so the shopping district was just packed full of energy. The ratio of men to women was about three to four—no, about twenty-nine to forty. After sensing every presence
in the shopping district, I detected an accurate headcount ratio. Every second is a gift, and you can’t waste it by not training!
“Looking rather intense, Yuri.”
“It was twenty-nine to forty, Filia.”
“I see. Marvelous.”
Totally dismissed!
Anyway, it was now time to look for ingredients in earnest. I found one potential option right away.
“Hey, how about this? A pigorscow?”
A pigorscow was a monster with the snout of a pig, the body of a cow, and the “neigh!” of a horse.
One pigorscow really covered your bases. Depending on which part you ate, it could taste like pork, beef, or even chicken. Weirdly enough, not a single slice of pigorscow tasted like horse. Anyway, it was a monster known mostly for being delicious. It was a bit pricey, but that didn’t really matter for us. We hardly ever spent money on anything besides food, so we were loaded.
“That sounds good,” said Filia with a nod. “Shall we have hamburgers today?”
“Fine by me! So that’s our main dish—let’s look at some sides.”
Off we went to continue our shopping.
From there, we headed home, but things went a little different that day. We were taking a different route, mostly because of the four slips of paper that Filia was lightly flapping in her hand. “They have lottery drawings here, hmm?”
After we’d finished shopping, we’d drawn a lottery ticket, and since the ticket was valid for today only, we headed in the opposite direction of the inn, right to the lottery drawing.
“This is kind of fun, isn’t it?” Filia beamed. “We didn’t have anything like this in the village. It’s rather exciting!” She flapped the lottery tickets delightedly.
“So are you going to draw them all?”
“Huh? Is that really okay?” Her eyes lit up, and so—of course—all the guys walking past us started giving her puppy-dog looks. Argh. Yeah, Filia was cute and all, but they really needed to face forward when they were walking.
“Hm…” Filia was making some kind of humming sound. Her soft hand on her chin, she let out another anxious hum, as if she were deep in thought. What on earth was going on with her? Just as I was about to ask, Filia looked up at me excitedly. “Okay, we’ll each do half. It’ll be more fun that way!” she said with a wide smile.
That took me by surprise. Wow, was she really a good person after all? I took two of the lottery slips from her. “You know, you really are nice sometimes.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Nice? Oh, I think maybe you’re misunderstanding something. I just can’t wait to see you draw a losing roll, Yuri, you know?”
Nope, never mind! What a jerk! The smile on Filia’s face had transformed from pure innocence into purest darkness—into utterly wicked black-hearted monstrosity! What a fool I was, thinking that she was a good person.
“Well, whatever. I’m going to draw the top prize!” I declared.
“You got awful motivated all of a sudden.”
“If I’m gonna do something, I do it with all I’ve got. That’s only natural.” No way was I gonna draw a loss! Never!
After a few minutes of walking, we saw a red-and-white tent. A few people were queued up in front of it, and the person at the far end in the tent was spinning a lottery wheel, which made a clacking sound as it turned.
“It looks like this is where they’re holding the lottery drawing,” said Filia.
“Let’s hurry and get in line.”
We queued up at the back of the line and waited for our turn to draw, and it wasn’t long at all before we were up. I was the first one of us to go. I glanced over at the products on display at the back of the tent. You got first prize if the light yellow-colored ball came up, which won you a gift certificate usable anywhere in Jeepupp.
To be blunt, we didn’t really need it. We already had plenty of money, after all. But it was the top prize, so I still had to shoot for it.
“Hm…” I had two chances, and I was gonna use one of those chances to win the first prize! I took a deep breath, then turned the brown lottery wheel in front of me. The wooden wheel made a rattling sound as it spun around, and…
It spat out a brown ball from the front.
“All right, brown gets you a participation prize! Here’s your shoelace, sir!” The young woman operating the lottery game handed me a thin string, the same color as the brown ball. Since it was the participation prize, I guess that counted as a loss. To be honest, I didn’t even need any shoelaces at the moment.
“Pffffft…!” Filia cackled behind me. She was really having a ball with this. Ugh, couldn’t she shut up? Why couldn’t she—no, wait! I had to concentrate! Messing with my nerves was all just part of her plan. I couldn’t be fooled. Don’t be fooled, Yuri!
I calmed myself and grabbed the handle of the lottery wheel once more. This was my last chance. I was going to win first prize, no matter what. “Come on, light yellow! Come on, light yellow!”
“Light yellow? I don’t know about light, but it’s going to be something. Speaking of which, I’d rather have a strong, deep connection in a relationship over something light.”
“You already told me that earlier! Come on, light yellow!” I turned the lottery wheel, it spun along with merry little clacks, aaaaaand…
Out popped a brown ball. Dang. I’d drawn another loser.
“Oh…hm?” No, wait a minute. It was brown-ish, sure, but this color of this ball was subtly different from the one before. It was a smidge darker than light brown. Could this one be a winner?! Even if it wasn’t first prize, what if it was second or third—
“Dark brown gets you a participation prize. Here you go! A shoelace!” said the young woman cheerfully, placing another shoelace in my hands. It was slightly darker in color than the shoelace from before.
“Um…does there really need to be a color variant?” I asked.
“We prepared multiple colors for our customers’ enjoyment!” said the woman, smiling brightly. Well, she said it so cheerfully, so I couldn’t really fault her over the issue. We live in a society, after all…even if I had won the participation prize twice in a row.
“That’s really unfortunate, isn’t it, Yuri? Eh he he!” Filia lightly smacked me on the shoulder, unable to hold back her laughter.
“Grr…” But what could I even say? The results spoke for themselves.
“All right, Yuri, please watch carefully: the transcendentally beautiful lottery elf Filia shall demonstrate what playing the lottery is supposed to be like.”
“I thought you said that you’ve never done this before?” Also, what the heck was a lottery elf?
Filia just wagged a finger at me. “Tsk tsk tsk! I don’t need to have experience to win. I am, after all, a woman beloved by the heavens.” Without hesitation, she began to turn the wheel.
Clack, clack, clack, and…
“Ah…”
The ball was brown. Yep, it was brown no matter how long you squinted at it. “Looks like you and I are the same, huh?”
“Pl-please wait! It’s a fairly different color, though! Look, isn’t it a little lighter?!”
Well, it was a bit lighter than the brown balls I’d gotten.
“I-I’m sure that the light yellow just got dirty!” said Filia desperately. “Which means that I won first place. Which means, obviously, that—”
“Light brown gets you a participation prize. Here you go! A shoelace!” said the young woman, heartlessly cutting Filia off.
Trembling, Filia took the shoelace. “Are all the brown balls losers or something?!”
“Yep! All the brown balls are losers!”
“No way…” Filia hung her head, but it wasn’t like anything was going to change. She had one more shot, one more opportunity.
“Pull a loser…pull a loser…”
“Yuri? What are you whispering about? You want me to draw a loser?”
“That’ll make us members of the same club. The League of Losers.”
“I would never join a league with a name like that!” Filia grabbed the handle of the lottery wheel. “Please! Come on, light yellow!”
Then she spun the lottery wheel. The lottery wheel clacked along as it spun, and out popped one ball.
“Ah!” It was… a light yellow. “Yay! I did it, Yuri!”
“Hey, that’s amazing, Filia!”
Without thinking, we joined hands and rejoiced. The woman in charge of the lottery game smiled at us and announced, “The lemon-colored ball is the sixth-place prize. Here you go! Some lens-less glasses!”
Filia blinked. “Huh?”
Apparently, the ball was lemon-colored, not light yellow. So Filia had won a pair of glasses without lenses, and that was that.
“It’s too bad you didn’t get first prize, but it’s something,” I said to Filia, trying to compliment her on our way back to the inn. She’d gotten closer to winning than me, after all.
Filia was holding the black glasses in her hand…the…black glasses? Wait a minute, why were the frames black instead of lemon-colored?
“I suppose that I might actually have a use for this,” said Filia, “so I’m glad things worked out this way.”
“That so?”
Filia didn’t seem particularly disappointed at all that she hadn’t won first prize. I supposed the glasses might’ve been a better prize after all, considering that they could be used as a fashion accessory.
“I’ll try them on right away after we get back to the inn. I’ll let you try them too, Yuri.”
“Really? Thanks.”
“Although I’m certain they won’t suit you at all. Tee hee!”
“You always gotta fit in a little barb at the end, huh?”
Once we got back to the inn, we put down our prizes, sat down on our respective beds, and chatted away.
Filia seemed to be in good spirits. “In the end, I only won the sixth-place prize. But you only got two shoelaces, so I guess this makes me the beautiful lottery champion!” Filia sang.