Chapter 139: Trick or… Truck? (1) From the first day, Falstead Castle's autumn festival drew in huge crowds.
However, not a few tourists had planned to stay only three days, so many of them left regretfully, unable to enjoy the remaining seven days of the festival.
Suppressing their regret, they instead spent the trip home chatting with people they met along the way about how the autumn festival had changed.
They said that if you went to Falstead Castle even now to see the rest of the festival, you absolutely wouldn't regret it.
As rumors began spreading that the autumn festival—formerly only three days long—had expanded to ten days, even people who hadn't cared about the festival started flocking to Falstead Castle.
Those who arrived late to enjoy the autumn festival had three main interests.
What kind of bunsik the food truck—which had released new bunsik every time across the two festivals—would put out this time.
What the third festival would be, after the beer party and Chuseok.
And who Hayward, the man rumored to have beaten the dragon Charlotte, really was.
Expecting what kind of fun awaited them this time, the tourists were waiting from early morning in front of Falstead Castle's gates.
"It's open! Let's go in!"
As the gates of Falstead Castle opened, the autumn festival entered its seventh day, welcoming the third festival.
"This is strange. The new festival should start today…"
"Nothing's changed, though?"
The tourists who entered Falstead Castle looked plainly disappointed.
They couldn't see a single bunsik wagon moving along the roads, and the streets were even quieter than usual—there was no way this looked like a festival in progress.
The tourists' doubts—worrying that the festival had ended—were only resolved after they read the flyers handed out by festival staff in clown makeup.
"They say this festival properly starts after the sun goes down. No wonder…"
"Still, it's kind of boring since nothing has changed at all."
"No, there is something we didn't see until yesterday."
One person in a group from a nearby castle pointed beside a shop.
Jack-o'-lanterns, the symbol of Halloween, were placed here and there between buildings.
As the sun set and the sky began to darken, the jack-o'-lanterns set around the streets began to glow, lighting the paths for tourists walking around.
"Waa…"
"Mom! Look at that! The balloons are glowing!"
Seeing the fluorescent balloons hanging from shops, children couldn't contain their excitement and started running around.
The beer party, even from its name, was a festival for adults, and while Chuseok could be enjoyed by everyone, it didn't specifically feel like it was for children.
But starting tonight, the first Halloween on the Francia Continent—its dreamy atmosphere alone hit children's tastes perfectly.
"T-trick or treat?"
"Right, trick or treat! After you say that, you get the candy and snacks the adults give you."
All the children of Falstead Castle, including the orphanage kids, gathered in the central plaza. Surrounded by them, Jinseo was explaining how to enjoy Halloween.
Children dressed as ghosts or witches roaming around and collecting candy and snacks was one of the sights you could never leave out of Halloween.
Jinseo had the children—who would be the core of the third festival—repeat "trick or treat" over and over.
"Alright, you all remember?"
"Yes!"
The children wearing white capes mimicking ghosts, with holes cut for eyes and mouth, nodded at Jinseo's explanation.
"Uncle Jinseo, what does trick or treat mean?"
Jinseo was about to translate it literally, but instead used a common phrase in Korea to make it easy to understand.
"Think of it as: give me candy and I won't eat you."
"Okay, then you walk all the way down this street. Don't forget to shout trick or treat. Got it?"
"Yes! We got it!"
Answering in unison, the children formed groups and began making the rounds of the shops set up near the road.
"Trick or treat!"
"Trick or treat! Give us candy and we won't eat you!"
"Alright, alright—take this."
"Thank you!"
Every shop in Falstead Castle had stocked up on all kinds of snacks they'd received from Jinseo, and the shop owners joined in Halloween, placing candy and cookies one by one into the children's tiny hands.
"Can our kids get candy too?"
"Of course. Any child who shouts trick or treat has the right to take these candies and snacks. Come on, try saying it."
As even the children brought by tourists joined the snack run, cries of "trick or treat!" echoed through the streets, and eventually even adults started copying it.
"Trick or trick!"
"Truck or truck… was it?"
But since it was something they were hearing for the first time in their lives, as it spread by word of mouth, it morphed into strange phrases.
In the end, Jinseo had to write "TRICK OR TREAT!" in huge letters next to the food truck menu board.
"Big bro, everything's ready."
Since it was Halloween season, the food truck pushed candy and snacks as the main products rather than the usual bunsik.
Jinseo set up a temporary stand next to the food truck to sell candy and snacks, and Foltan—who usually managed the Jinseo Club—stepped in to help.
And for the children, he added cotton candy as a new menu item.
"Foltan, you've learned how to operate the cotton candy machine, right?"
"Yes. All the failed attempts before that had to be eaten by Peter, but he said those were tasty too."
"Uncle Jinseo! This is really good!"
Peter, who had come with his father, pinched off the cotton candy stuck on the bridge of his nose and popped it into his mouth.
"Then we'll begin."
As a sweet smell spread around the food truck painted in bright, colorful tones, tourists who had been sightseeing the streets remade with a Halloween theme started heading toward the food truck.
"Mom! That! That—buy it for me!"
"Didn't you already get a lot of candy earlier?"
"But the colors are different! The taste will be different too!"
Seeing flashy, brightly colored lollipops that hadn't existed before, along with all kinds of individually wrapped bite-sized snacks, children's eyes sparkled as they crowded toward the food truck.
Most kids already had their hands full of free candy and snacks, but for children, sweet snacks were always better the more you had.
They tugged their parents' hands, trying to stop them from leaving the food truck, just to buy one more snack.
And the bead ice cream that debuted together with the cotton candy was popular not only with children, but with adults as well.
"Cardinal, welcome."
Jinseo greeted Fedora, who had come with the clergy, and handed her a Chupa Chups.
"About the outfit you recommended, Jinseo… it's unusual, but somehow it feels familiar."
Fedora, cosplaying as an angel with a pair of wings and a ring floating above her head, unwrapped the Chupa Chups and put it in her mouth.
Unlike the hanbok introduced during the last Chuseok, the unusual outfits commonly seen at Halloween could potentially feel off-putting.
So the so-called "important people" stepped up personally and joined in the Halloween cosplay.
"Then we'll go look around Dwarf Town. May His blessing be with us throughout the festival…"
Fedora, who packed only a whole bunch of strawberry-flavored Chupa Chups, turned her steps with the other clergy toward the western castle gate.
"Uh… so you're saying we don't need to prepare special clothes?"
"Big bro said the mages don't really need to wear anything different. He said your everyday outfits are already excellent cosplay."
"I-is that so?"
"But he said if you add this, it becomes a more perfect Halloween outfit."
Jason handed each mage—who had crowded in to buy bead ice cream—a straw broom.
"He said you have to stick the broom between your legs and float around like vwooom to truly enjoy Halloween. For mages only."
Hearing Jason's explanation, the mages cast levitation magic, floated the straw brooms above the ground, and climbed onto them.
"This is surprisingly tricky. But maintaining balance while keeping levitation magic active is training in itself, isn't it? You have to keep controlling the mana flow steadily…"
"If we moved while staying like this, it would be an even better training method. But is there a reason we must ride brooms like this?"
"They say all Korean mages do it like this."
"Ah, I see!"
Hearing the all-purpose answer—"This is how they do it in Korea"—the mages immediately accepted it.
"Ah! And Mary, could I ask you a favor?"
"Huh? Me?"
"First, put this on…"
Jason handed Mary, a food truck regular, a hooked-nose prop for makeup and gestured for her to wear it.
"Put that on, and stir the cauldron with this big ladle. They say it's perfect if you do it dressed as a witch."
"I-is that so?"
"In exchange, everything from the food truck is free for the whole day. I'll set aside the new bead ice cream separately."
"Then gladly!"
Mary began cheerfully stirring the pumpkin porridge boiling in the cauldron over the bonfire set up beside the food truck.
Without caring at all about the tourists staring at her in fascination.
"It's a relief that everyone seems to be enjoying Halloween."
"Stella, welcome. You did cosplay too."
"Just like you told me, Jinseo, I tried Korea's traditional ghost cosplay—does it suit me?"
Sitting at the counter seats, Stella exchanged a glance with Aston, who was working hard in the kitchen.
"You look exactly like the virgin ghost I know. Especially the eye makeup—you did it properly, true to the source."
Pointing at her eyes, Jinseo spoke as he wore his hair loose and donned a white mourning robe to set the Halloween mood.
"Huh? I didn't do any eye makeup."
"Ah… yes."
Seeing her dark circles that still hadn't disappeared, Jinseo was left speechless. He exchanged looks with Aston and gave a bitter smile.
"Phew… it's finally really over."
Freed at last from festival prep, Stella closed her eyes as she enjoyed the aroma of the teabag black tea Jinseo had brewed for her.
Aside from the food truck trio and the bunsik street cooks, the one who had suffered the most throughout the festival was Stella, who had worked herself to the bone making outfits.
Especially for Halloween, she had to make costumes far more varied than hanbok, so she was drained of stamina.
At first, she sewed happily at the thought of hand-making all kinds of outfits that were hard to wear in everyday life, but only later realized that meant the workload had increased just as much—and suffered for it.
So she had to give up making additional Halloween costumes originally planned as rental outfits for customers.
In response, Jinseo suggested another idea that would let people participate in Halloween without needing cosplay.
"Alright, great. Next child! What should I draw for you?"
"A ghost! Draw it on my left cheek!"
"Okay, hold still."
The painters who had drawn portraits of tourists wearing hanbok during the Chuseok festival now painted faces instead—using cosplay makeup in various colors instead of brushes and paint.
Many children lined up to receive the makeup service, offered to customers who bought bunsik above a certain amount.
The painters all found Jinseo's suggestion—asking them to "draw" on people's faces rather than on canvas—odd, but once they started, it became explosively popular beyond everyone's expectations.
Most applicants were children, and parents, seeing their children's painted faces, ended up getting painted too.
The next biggest group of applicants was couples—men and women who had come together.
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