After the daily work that Elaina has done to the farm and after taking care of the Hencluckles that ended early due to the help of Julia, the two of them have a free afternoon as a result. Elaina is going to the Town Hall to ask Marigold about the bazaar so they can't go to the forest and start to forage there for goods.
"Are you sure you want to stay here, Julia? We might as well go together so that we can have dinner later at the Pub."
"No worries, Sis. I have to practice my magic spells right now. I have learned that my magic spells are still inadequate from delving further into the dungeon. Seeing how I was getting exhausted the last time we entered the dungeon, I realized that I needed to get stronger for the future. I can't always keep on relying on you to cover my back, Sis. Especially now that you are pregnant. At least, I needed to become strong enough that even without your help, I can somewhat deal with anything that comes our way."
Elaina can understand Julia's frustrations. After their last dungeon trip where they managed to tame an additional two Hencluckle, right in the middle of the monster wave attack that was summoned by the last Hencluckle that they tamed, Julia run out of mana so quickly that if not for Elaina salvaging and fighting the monsters, Julia would have been so screwed as a result.
"If that is the case, then I will not force you. However, you should rest if you feel exhausted alright? Don't push yourself too hard. It's not your fault and it's not a big deal, to be honest."
"Don't worry about it, Sis."
Elaina nodded and patted Julia's head before Elaina went inside the house to prepare and change her dirty clothes. It's time for her to meet Marigold.
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The town has been bustling lately. Many people are passing and carrying multiple things from cart to cart, and some are even physically carrying sacks here and there toward the city. Seeing this made Elaina a bit excited about the upcoming celebration. After all, back when she was still the Empress, joining the festivities was very hard because Alfred would clamor about her not bringing any bodyguards even though she could go out just fine on normal days. As a result, Elaina usually has less fun when it comes to festivities back then. She is limited in what she can do and what she can enjoy due to how the bodyguards are sometimes annoying and she can't openly do things in public.
Now, Elaina is a regular civilian and she no longer holds status in this new kingdom, so she now holds the new freedom that she has longed for how long. As she continues to walk while observing the people, she doesn't realize that she has arrived in front of the Town Hall.
She was surprised at first but she immediately calmed herself down to not embarrass herself for being so absentminded before she entered the Town Hall.
The Town Hall is the same as ever, except that there are more people here than usual and the people inside are quite as busy as ever. Luckily, it seems Marigold is not as busy as she was. She is just currently mulling over the papers on her table but she seemed to be fine and dandy. As Elaina approached, Marigold immediately noticed her and she smiled at her presence.
"Elaina! Good day to you! It's rare for you to be here though. Let me guess, you are somehow in here to inquire about the upcoming festival?" Marigold tried guessing.
"Eh? You knew?"
"Ha, years of experience, girl. With how long I am a town mayor, I have memorized all of the stuff I have done for the past couple of years to the nitty gritty. You can say that my job has been so ingrained into my brain that it has become something to be part of me."
"Well, if that is the case, I won't be going back and forth on this one. I wanted to ask for information about the upcoming festival and how to properly join the bazaar as one of the participants," Elaina immediately talked about her reason on why she was in the town hall.
"Oh! You are planning to join the Bazaar competition for the farmers? That is great! With the quality of your crops, you would be sure to gain traction with the people who will be in the bazaar and to also imprint your name on the other farmers as well! But are you sure about this? Your farm might be quite capable but I am sure your farm is not as big as most farm is that you can easily pull off this one."
"No worries. I have some ways to deal with that and I am not going to participate just trying to win. It's a good way to get used to these kinds of events and joining one might be good publicity to the populace about my products. I wanted to see how well I can go with just the amount of resources my farm can produce until the upcoming festival," Elaina explained.
"Well, if you are not afraid to lose and you are just here to join and have some fun with an addition of publicity then this event will draw customers to your farm's products a lot faster than just letting the guild sell it to the market. So you wanted to know more about what this event entails?"
"I also wanted to register," Elaina added.
"Yep, as well as registration. Okay. Since you already know most of the basic stuff of the festival due to the flier that was sent to your farm, I won't be explaining more than that aside from things that are not in there. As you can see, farmers around the town and other towns will be competing so it's not only you who will be there but also the other farmers. Which makes this competition a lot harder to win. With so many farmers to compete with, based on what I saw in the past couple of festivals, the way to win is not by quantity, but by quality. Of course, having the quantity as well will also help the people looking for or purchasing your goods but it is not the defining factor for this competition," Marigold explained as she handed Elaina a form which she should fill.
"Since your farm boasts the quality, you are already quite high in the list of potential winners of the bazaar since most of the farmers that I see only have the quantity instead of the quality. They know they won't win but they bring their vegetables anyway since they can profit there even with the quality of their goods. That's how big this scale is so don't underestimate this matter. As for the next factor I see, it should be a variety of goods. Different farms have different specialties so both crops and animal produce are graded individually. So if you want to use both types of farm goods, just don't do it unless you can win both. They are graded separately as this will be a bazaar competition that will rank both crops and animal products, they are not graded together."
Elaina immediately sighed in relief at that. After all, she already planned to not add the Hencluckle eggs to the lineup of what she was going to put in the bazaar which would make this a headache. But knowing the system about it makes her understand it more.
"Now, this goes without saying but having multiple varieties of crops helps a lot. One crop is fine but having multiple will help immensely as that is one of the things that will stand out to the judges. Having plenty of selections for the customer is one of the good things the judges will rate. You already have some varieties of crops that you grow but in my opinion, they are rather small so this will be hard. But if you have been growing a few crops already and are in good quality then you have a higher chance of winning. That's it," Marigold explained.
"Oh? Not that complicated?" Elaina was surprised. She thought that there was more to it than what she had expected but it seemed she had overestimated her calculations.
"Yes. Not too complicated, yes? But this information is not something that will guarantee you win. You will have to make sure that your goods are much better than the goods your competition has to win. Other than that, you will have to wait and see what will happen next as the result will only be swayed by the judges themselves."
Elaina finally understood everything. She fills up the form and hands it to Marigold.
"Alright. With that said and done, I will be submitting this form to the city hall tomorrow alongside the other participants who come from our town. It will be a tough competition but I hope you will have fun at this upcoming festival."
"I will keep that in mind," Elaina nodded and smiled.
After saying goodbye to Marigold, Elaina decided to return to the farm. With her registration done and with the necessary information she got, Elaina is more pumped up than ever. It's time for the preparation to go underway.