TFOA Chapter 19

This was what made festivals great.

Even the same old streets felt exciting with just a sprinkle of flower petals and new ribbons tied to the fences. Niksi hummed to herself as she waved to her peaceful neighbors.

"Come on, come on, Mr. Edgar, pick one."

"This is......"

"It's a fortune! Gilbert and I worked really hard to make them. Though Gilbert only helped with the folding part."

Niksi grinned broadly. At her words, the villagers nearby began gathering around them one by one.

Since the contents were all equally nonsensical, the villagers found them difficult to interpret.

<Grape juice won't stain your fingernails.>

The woman who ran a grape farm was absolutely delighted with her fortune's content. Niksi wandered around the village with a satisfied heart, stirring up excitement everywhere.

That's when she noticed some kind of commotion near Raul's bar. Rather than the usual bustling atmosphere, it had a strange air about it—like people had come to see monkeys at a zoo.

"Excuse me for a moment. I'm going in."

Niksi wasn't one to just ignore her curiosity. She squeezed through the crowd of gathered villagers. There was a painter there.

"A painter? I was just looking for one. Perfect timing."

"You......"

Whether she knew Benjamin's anger was about to explode or not, Niksi came running over to where Benjamin and Gilbert were, rattling her container of fortunes.

"Did you see the kidney beans in the house yard? The handiwork of this great genius chemist!"

Ahem. Niksi shrugged her shoulders and strutted proudly. Gilbert looked anxiously at the lemon in Benjamin's hand. The lemon was on the verge of bursting.

"When did I ever say you could use my yard...... Sigh. Never mind, how exactly are you planning to deal with that thing?"

"If we pick all the beans, it'll wither and die on its own. That bean plant is disposable."

An unusual pairing—the village newcomer and the unwanted outsider. The villagers clustered around them, whispering among themselves.

"How in the world are we supposed to pick all those ridiculously huge beans hanging on that ridiculously massive bean plant?"

Benjamin pointed toward where his house was. The villagers followed his finger with their gaze.

"That's exactly the method I came to tell you about, painter!"

"Sigh...... What is it?"

"What, what is that tree......"

"What is it, what is it?"

There stood Benjamin's house chimney, and towering even higher than the chimney was an absurdly massive stalk. Even after rubbing their eyes and looking again, it was unmistakably kidney beans. Just incredibly, incredibly large and thick kidney beans.

The villagers rubbed their eyes in wide-eyed amazement at what they were witnessing.

"Everyone, everyone!"

In the midst of all this commotion, Niksi suddenly clapped her hands together.

Having already witnessed the beanstalk from 'Jack and the Beanstalk,' the villagers could only stare at her in a dazed stupor, as if spellbound.

"Do you see that enormously huge beanstalk over there? The beans are probably as big as your heads!"

As the villagers each felt their own heads behind them, Benjamin sensed an ominous feeling.

Somehow he felt uneasy. He had planned to quietly—just quietly—threaten that crazy neighbor to deal with the tree and then retreat back into his house. But why was that insane neighbor pointing at his house like a tour guide showing off a tourist attraction?

Surely not, surely not.

"Starting now, we're giving away kidney beans for free in front of the painter's house, so please come visit!"

Damn it. Benjamin held his head in his hands.

Whether she knew of his despair or not, Niksi and the villagers were simply delighted with their 'Strange Beanstalk Viewing Show!' and 'Head-Sized Bean Free Distribution Event!' one-plus-one deal.

"Well then, shall we head over there right now?"

"Whose permission did you..."

Someone tapped the shoulders of the seething Benjamin. It was Gilbert, who couldn't bear to ignore the lemon that was about to burst in his grip.

"The lemon... looks like it's about to burst, Mr. Richter."

At Gilbert's words, Benjamin looked at his right hand. The oval, round lemon had become wrinkled like a dried squid head.

"Actually, that was my snack for today. I was going to make lemon preserve. Oh, of course I don't mind if it has Mr. Richter's touch to it, but it's a shame about all that juice."

Benjamin was greatly surprised. Not so much that he had crushed Gilbert's snack, but...

'Did I put strength into my hand......?'

Gilbert smiled awkwardly as he opened Benjamin's palm. And instead of the brutally mangled lemon, he placed a potato starch balloon he had prepared for throwing and playing.

"If you're going to burst something anyway, this one's much softer."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Benjamin clenched his fist. The balloon with ugly eyes, nose, and mouth drawn in ink pen became crumpled.

'Not as much as before, but there's definitely strength coming into my hand.'

"Um... If you don't like the noise, how about going home after Niksi and all the villagers leave? You can stay at my house until then."

Gilbert suggested. Regardless, Benjamin kept dazedly squeezing and releasing the starch balloon. The balloon that crumpled in his hand, then expanded again, then became distorted again, looked just like Niksi's future.

After doing this several times, Benjamin's hand suddenly began trembling, and he let out a deep sigh.

"No. Let's follow that girl."

Niksi's words had great impact. Not only was her voice loud, but it was also crystal clear.

Most of the villagers had quietly gathered in front of the painter's house to see the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' without Jack.

There really was a giant kidney bean plant growing there. A tremendously large beanstalk with beans as big as calves.

When an unexpected bean distribution event was held in front of the painter's house, most of the villagers gathered there. The festival's final event, the raspberry wine tasting, ended up being hastily moved to the front of the painter's house.

"You can take as many beans as you like."

Niksi announced. The villagers were amazed that the face-sized beans actually tasted like normal beans, but they didn't dare take many beans for fear they might explode in their stomachs. They just took one or two beans per household in moderation.

Victoria, who was boiling one bean in an entire pot, spoke up.

"Niksi. If I plant this, will an enormous beanstalk grow in front of my house too?"

"No. I only experimented on the plant, so the seed beans are exactly the same as regular kidney beans."

"That's disappointing. I thought I might get a chance to carve on a beanstalk chair. When would I ever get to carve on such a big beanstalk!"

"Just say the word! For you, Betty, I could make hundreds of these beanstalks."

At Niksi's words, Betty laughed charmingly.

The raspberry wine and boiled kidney beans went surprisingly well together. The raspberry wine's characteristic sweet taste masked the beany flavor of the boiled kidney beans, while the fluffy texture of the kidney beans tempered the quickly cloying taste of the raspberries.

The villagers forgot that the place where they were sitting was the yard of the German soldier's house they had been wary of just moments before, and enjoyed the fading day.

Gilbert, who had appeared at some point with a beer mug, sat down next to Niksi.

"Amazing, Niksi. You said you were a researcher when you lived in the city? Did you invent these kidney beans back then too?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, that's right. I researched this with a senior from school six years ago."

"Six years? You succeeded with it now?"

"Well, yeah."

Niksi answered listlessly while gazing up at the beanstalk.

Gilbert felt puzzled by her response. Unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, the experiment was clearly a huge success, yet she looked as if it was no big deal.

'Is there something she's dissatisfied with? Or do all city people act like this is nothing?'

"The experiment succeeded, but you don't look happy about it."

"Yeah. I was thinking about why I couldn't do something this easy back then."

No matter how much of a genius she was, succeeding in an experiment in this rural countryside village with poor reference materials and inadequate experimental equipment was practically impossible.

But who was she? If she were just a genius, she couldn't have done it, but she was the great genius chemist Niksi.

Niksi had succeeded in the experiment in less than a week. But something felt off.

'Why couldn't I succeed in such an easy experiment before?' Such puzzlement. Niksi quietly fell into old thoughts.

"This is easy? What kind of research were you doing......"

"Originally, I was trying to research 'human body part regeneration' through genetic manipulation. But at some point I was doing 'research for securing human food supply.' But I can't remember why I was doing this research."

"I wouldn't know if you told me, Niksi."

In the first place, why would I try to do something this easy?

'Body part regeneration' and 'crop enlargement' both had genetic manipulation as their foundation, but if you asked which of the two looked more difficult, it was obviously the former.

The difficulty of creating humans and creating plants couldn't be the same.

She had definitely been researching the more difficult-looking body part regeneration.

'Why did I change my mind? I wouldn't have decided to do such trivial research that could be invented in just a week.'

No matter how hard she tried to remember, nothing came back. Eventually Niksi gave up trying to recall.