kscans

Chapter 186 - Scenes from Childhood 2. The Spinning Top

The day after giving Eto the menko, Yuri spotted him and was about to call out, but the boy seemed to have no energy. Puzzled by his dejected and downcast demeanor, Yuri questioned him.

"...Huh? They took your menko away?"

"Yes..."

Apparently, Eto had excitedly returned with the menko from Yuri, explained the rules to his senior apprentices, and they had all started playing together. That part was fine, but they became so absorbed that they were late for their cooking preparations. Mand brought down thunder and his fists on all of them. Incidentally, his senior apprentices were of middle school and high school age.

The menko were confiscated, with a scolding of, "Don't you be getting obsessed with things like this!" They were nearly torn up, but Eto desperately explained that they were a gift from Yuri, which at least spared them from being destroyed.

"So they were confiscated..."

"Yes. And then, after work last night, I went to apologize to the master and ask for them back..."

But when Eto peeked into Mand's room, he witnessed something else.

"...The master, and the master's master, and even Helman-san were all together..."

...It seemed they were engaged in a heated battle. The atmosphere was apparently not one where he could ask for the menko back.

"Ah..."

Even Yuri was at a loss for words. It was not good to get so caught up in a game that you were late for work, but Eto was still a child of elementary school age. Or perhaps in this world, once you started working, age no longer mattered? No, the problem was likely that Eto's senior apprentices, who were of middle and high school age, also became engrossed in menko and neglected their work. Eto was being blamed for causing it. Still... while confiscating the menko might be understandable... was it not a bit much for the very people who confiscated them to be obsessed with the game themselves? Hearing that it was not just Mand, but Adon and Helman too... they were all accomplices.

Wondering what to do, Yuri decided to start by consoling the disheartened Eto.



"...Yuri-sama, what is this?"

"It's a spinning top. Haven't you seen one before?"

"Huh? This is a spinning top?"

What Yuri had taken out of his magic bag, or rather, from his Storage, was a spinning top. It was a wooden top of the type known as a "throwing top," which you spin by wrapping a string around it and pulling.

This top was actually born from the stone mill and wine rack Yuri had made. That alone probably makes no sense, so to explain, one of the catalysts was building the wine rack from reinforced particle board.

While pondering other uses for the particle board, Yuri's gaze fell upon the stone mill he had fashioned earlier for making tofu. He thought he could probably make a handle for the mill, and the shape of the mill reminded him of a potter's wheel. Thinking there was no time like the present, he built a potter's wheel right then and there, completely unrelated to the particle board. And this was despite having not the slightest plan to make anything with it.

In any case, since he had gone to the trouble of making it, he decided to try his hand at woodturning using some scrap wood. Using a spear plane he had bought in Laurenzen, he turned several wooden bowls and, while he was at it, made a few spinning tops as well. Of course, he did all this hoping to acquire the Woodworking skill, but the fact that he shed a tear when the skill never unlocked is a secret between us.

At any rate, he gave one of the tops he made to Eto... but as it turned out, "throwing tops" were unknown in this country.

"That's right... wait, is the kind of top you know different, Eto?"

"The tops I know are smaller, and you spin them like this, by twisting them with your fingers. The kind you make from Dag or Shika nuts."

"Ah... so the 'twisting top' kind."

It seemed the common spinning top in this country was the "twisting top." Realizing this, Yuri took out a string and showed Eto how to wrap it around the top.

"Watch carefully. You wrap the string like this, hook the end of it on your finger like this... and... hya!"

"Whoa! That's amazing!"

"There's more! The real fun of spinning tops starts now!"

No sooner had he said it than Yuri took out another top, quickly wound the string around it, and threw it towards the one already spinning.

"Wooooah!"

"You slam the tops into each other like this, and the one that gets knocked away loses."

"That's incredible! Yuri-sama, please let me try!"

"Sure, go ahead. But try not to get this one taken away for playing too much, okay?"

"Yes, sir!"

Eto replied energetically, but...

"Yuri-kun, what is that, and to whom are you giving it?"

Gi gi gi... The sound seemed to hang in the air as the two turned around. Their eyes met the sight of Adon and the others, their own eyes shining with brilliant intensity.

...A moment of silence.