Ryan stepped down into the lake's water. It was fairly still as it was a clear and windless day, so the ripples created by his body felt almost overly exaggerated, like he was forcefully trying to disturb the surface.

  "Come on, you two, I don't know what happened, but just take it easy! Spirit week is only once a year!" Yanna exclaimed, "Just enjoy the day!"

  Turning his head over to the elf standing next to him, Ryan locked eyes with Silvia. They were both in a bad mood, but Yanna was absolutely right. Being all mopey over things they couldn't do anything about right now wouldn't help anyone.

  Silvia sighed, "I guess we should just talk to them later? Maybe I can get my dad to understand things a bit better."

  "... Yeah alright, I'll talk to my mom and explain some things to her as well," Ryan responded, hoping that was all, but the elf's stare made it very obvious that it wasn't all, "Okay, fine, I'll talk to Runar too. Happy?"

  "Yup," Silvia replied with a smile, turning back toward her sister, "Now, let's get-"

  Before Silvia could finish her sentence, Yanna had already struck the water, splashing the pair without them even realizing.

  "... You made a massive mistake, Redhorn," Silvia grumbled, closing her eyes for a moment, as Yanna just laughed in response.

  "Did I? And what're you gonna do about it?" crossing her arms, Yanna almost built herself up to tower above the two in front of her even more than before, "I'm bigger and stronger than you, so what do you think you two will be able to achieve?"

  Looking at the two sisters, Ryan scoffed inwardly. Those two were able to switch to playing around like this far too easily. Silvia moved the wet hair out of her face, grinning broadly, "You may have the benefit of strength, but we have numbers! Ryan, get out-"

  "Nope," Ryan responded immediately, shooting Silvia down already. It was fine to play along, but he knew that Silvia was about to ask for something he couldn't do.

  "Wh-What? But you're the card up our sleeve," the elf whispered, glancing back at Yanna sometimes, "If we don't have the spirits, we can't fight against someone as strong as Yanna."

  "Gregor and Maximus are made of metal, so they might rust. I know I can fix them up again but I don't want to put them through that. And Gaia has too much dirt on her body that could be washed away, not even mentioning the plants. The state of her body does affect her garden as well, so I don't know what will happen if she's submerged like that," Ryan explained, and Silvia groaned loudly.

  "Then what are we supposed to do? Can we take her on all on our own?" Silvia wondered, and a solemn smile formed on Ryan's face.

  "Even if we don't think we can, we just have to try. Even if we're not physical Awakened, it's still two versus one..."

  "I-I'm a production type, I can't do battle!"

  "And I'm a summoner, I'm useless without my summons, but that doesn't mean we can't give it a shot!" Ryan retorted, turning back toward Yanna, "Give it your-"

  This time, Ryan was interrupted as Yanna once again struck the water and splashed a wave at them. Spitting out the bit of water that got into his mouth, Ryan stared at the minotaur as she laughed, "What, fey got your tongue?"

  "Hey, leave my girlfriend out of it!" Silvia said, pointing at her older sister before striking at the water herself. It was smaller than what Yanna had produced, but the minotaur was still quickly splashed. Silvia and Ryan looked at each other, briefly nodding as they locked eyes, as the battle truly began.

  Stepping out of the water, Ryan's feet pressed down onto the mixed sand and gravel. They were rather pokey at times, but it wasn't that bad, so Ryan just continued on. Silvia, who was trying to follow behind him, was struggling a lot more.

  "Urgh, why is this hurt more than it did getting in?" Silvia grumbled, and Ryan turned around to his friend.

  "Stop being a wuss," he scoffed, continuing to walk over to the blankets where the others were sitting. Ryan squatted down next to Liam, since he left his backpack with him, and quickly grabbed a protein bar from his bag. He knew that the plan was to have a barbeque later on, but with how hungry he was these days, he would be fine to eat however much was served to him.

  Ryan looked over at the game that Liam was still playing. He was still at the same place he was when Ryan went into the water earlier, "You sure you don't need any help?" he asked.

  Liam looked up at him and grumbled slightly, "I... may be a in a bit of a pickle here."

  With a smile, Ryan sat down next to the kid and held out his hand. Liam handed him the game console, "I actually played a lot of this when it first came out. There's a bit of a trick to it," he explained, quickly moving the player character around. The part that Liam was stuck at was a boss monster toward the middle of the game. Ryan remembered getting stuck at this same spot when he first played it. He ended up having to look up what he had to do, and it turned out that there was a trick to beating it, "Okay, basically, when the boss stomps its foot down, you can see these small cracks form on the ground for a moment. That's the hint. You get similar cracks when you throw a bomb down on the ground."

  "Huh? So what, do you need to blow the monster up?" Liam asked, "I've been trying to do that the whole time though..."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Actually, that's not what you need to do at all," Ryan explained, "You can beat the boss like that, just whittling down at its health and all, but if you do that it's going to take forever. Instead, you need to make the bomb explode somewhere and then while the ground is still cracked, lure the boss over there and have it stomp down in that spot."

  Liam's eyes widened as he watched Ryan do exactly that. The bomb exploded, and in a large circle around it, cracks spread through the stone brick floor. The massive boss monster quickly approached as Ryan lured it into stomping, and he then quickly rolled out of the way. As the boss monster stomped down, the floor cracked, and a fountain of water spouted out.

  "Ah!" Liam let out, as he now understood what he needed to do. With the enemy covered in water, he would be able to use one of the hero's abilities to get rid of the monster's armour. Ryan glanced over toward him.

  "Want to do the rest?" Ryan asked, and Liam quickly nodded. Quickly pausing the game, Ryan handed it back over, and Liam took a deep breath. He unpaused, and quickly proceeded with the rest of the fight. It took him a little bit to properly get the timing right to repeatedly make the monster destroy the floor, but he got the hang of it soon enough. And with that, before long, Liam was able to finally beat the boss that he's been trying to beat for a while now.

  As the monster went down, he practically shook with excitement, "Finally!" he exclaimed, looking over at Ryan, "Look, I did it!"

  "You sure did. Congrats, bud," Ryan said with a smile, pushing himself off the blanket as he noticed the others looking in their direction. With how loud Liam's excitement was, that really wasn't a surprise either. He had been sitting here silently the whole time, doing his own thing. It was probably the first time that Silvia and Yanna's parents actually heard Liam say something. And especially to Dimos, that seemed to be a pretty confusing sight. After all, what this vampire boy was doing right now was exactly what any kid his age would do. If it weren't for his vampiric fangs, it would be almost impossible to figure out he was anything but a regular kid.

  [Jester's Excitement has risen slightly]

  Looking at the message that popped up in front of his eyes, Ryan was left utterly confused. What exactly happened that made Jester excited this time? According to the, albeit completely one-sided, conversation Ryan had with him, Jester's excitement would rise whenever Ryan felt some strong emotions. Anything that made his heart race would be enough. And sure, he felt pretty happy that Liam was so excited, but-

  "Oh by the gods," Ryan groaned loudly, "Is that it? Did I misunderstand? It's not just when I get excited, but when others around me are excited as well?"

  With an annoyed expression, realizing that he had wasted a lot of time with this, Ryan got up and walked over to Silvia.

  "You grew up here, do you know where the most people will gather for the show tonight?" he asked, and Silvia quickly thought about it.

  "Uhm... I think there's a lot of people anywhere, to be honest. But if it's the busiest, then... Well, if it's the same as usual, that would be on top of the lake later."

  Ryan raised a brow, "On top of the lake? What do you mean?"

  "Did you not see any videos or pictures about it? As part of the show, people can walk onto the lake through some kind of magic. And honestly, most people do, it's always so cool and fun. It's also the best place to see the rest of the show!"

  A smile formed on Ryan's face. If that was the case, then the answer to what he was wondering was simple. He just had to go join everyone on top of the lake later. Hopefully, the 'excitement' from everyone around him could be enough to finally wake Jester up, and if not, he might have to figure out something else. Maybe he could go to a real amusement park, and not just the abandoned kind that turned into a dungeon over the years. Either way, he wouldn't need to put himself in danger to try and awaken Jester, which was something he felt a little apprehensive toward.

  "Alright... Thanks. So, until then..." Ryan held out his hand, finally letting the spirits out of their domains, at least the two of them that were interested to. Gregor stayed in the domain and just kept drinking while tinkering with something. Last night, he had apparently finished properly analysing some of the guns that Runar had given to him and was now trying to turn what he learned into a new blueprint, though Ryan had no idea what that was actually all about.

  However, Maximus and Gaia seemed more than happy to join! Though, Ryan made sure to summon Maximus on the blanket. While Gaia would be fine here on the sand, Ryan didn't want anything to get stuck in the folds of the knight's armour, or maybe even inside of his body. It would probably be left behind when Maximus entered his domain again, but Ryan didn't really want to risk anything.

  Over the next few hours, the group spent the rest of the day celebrating Goria's day. They ate food together, hung out, played around with water guns or balloons, and just enjoyed the holiday together. But it didn't take all too long until it was time for the true event, that so many people had gathered by the lake for. The formerly so clear sky was now covered in thick, dark clouds. Rain droplets were starting to drop from those clouds. On every other day, this would be something to ruin the fun, but today, this was part of what everyone was here for.

  Goria was the great spirit of water. Rain was one of their domains. Though he wasn't sure if it was because of some wide-range magic that was cast all over the place, or because Goria themself tried to join the celebrations, Ryan couldn't remember a single time in his life where it didn't rain during the third day of spirit week. Some years it was nothing more than a shower, and other years it was the strongest storm of the summer, but rain was always a part of this day.

  Of course, everyone came prepared for this as well. Those that were more prone to getting sick from the rain would wear jackets and carry around umbrellas, and almost everyone carried a towel or two with them as well as some method of warming up. In Ryan's case, there wasn't much of a need for him to keep warm. He never really got sick after staying out in the rain, plus, today was a rather pleasant day so even the rain wasn't all too cold. And even if he did end up a bit cold later, the group had some heating stones with them.

  As the rain properly started up, it seemed to be time for the show to begin alongside it. Looking at the lake, from under the surface, light seemed to shine out, more than there already was. Particularly now that it was getting a little darker, the light from the town at the bottom of the lake was becoming visible. Since the water was kept clean with magic to ensure that everyone living in the lake and the larger river itself could be safe and healthy, during the night, especially when some kind of festival or celebration was happening, you could see the hustle and bustle from the town shine through.

  And now, glowing bubbles were floating up from the bottom of the lake. Rays of colourful light shone out from inside. Apparently, the show in the actual submerged town was supposed to be at another level of beautiful, but that was an extremely limited space, so most people opted to stay outside. Ryan didn't love being stuck in a place with a crowd, so there was no way he would go down there. Though, he could probably hold out for a while in the place he was about to go.

  Ryan watched as the bubbles reached the surface of the water, forming a layer of foam on top as the burst into hundreds of smaller ones. The foam let off a soft, ethereal glow, and each bubble lit up momentarily as one of the raindrops hit it. Watching from a distance, Ryan saw people walk onto the water, specifically the parts where the seafoam had gathered. The places they stepped on lit up softly as well, and as more and more people joined, the whole lake seemed to let off a soft shine.

  Ryan watched as Silvia and Yanna made their way toward the water as well, and took a deep breath, following after them.

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