After stocking up on more honey products than necessary, we continued travelling west. The road to Suva town was supposedly an 80-kilometer long trip on open fields, so we should be able to get there in about 4 or so hours, and the risk of encountering bandits or getting lost was next to zero as long as we followed the river. Assuming our carriage doesn't break down, we can arrive at a little bit past one o'clock and have a late lunch there before departing again in the afternoon.

Because of the vast area of flat prairies around Suva, the town's most distinctive feature was the countless cattle ranches it had. Unlike regular cattle, however, the ones here were some strange breed that were at least twice the size of what I was accustomed to seeing. I couldn't help but notice how they looked like extremely docile versions of "demonic bulls" that occasionally threatened towns back in Kitrod. In any case, all the ranches were fenced off, so we had to travel around them, thus delaying our arrival by a little bit. While the fences themselves were probably there to make sure the cattle from one ranch don't wander off to another one, I wondered if they were actually useful in any way. After all, these fences were just flimsy wooden posts that were only at my chest level, yet the cows and bulls here had legs that were as long as I was tall.

"What's up with those cows?"

Looking at the direction in which Amber pointed, I saw two cows with their hind legs folded and front legs standing. One was licking the fence continuously, while the other was making a walking motion with its front legs, but couldn't actually move anywhere because the hind legs were on the ground and there was too much body weight to pull.

"Um… Maybe they're just bored. Not much they can do when they're constrained by these fences."

"I agree. If I was locked in a bird cage, I'd go crazy at some point."

While these stood out for acting differently than all the other cows, I didn't know enough about livestock to determine whether this was considered normal or not. On our way to town, we spotted several other cows doing strange things while sitting or lying down, all of which made the girls giggle a bit because they "looked stupid," or so the girls said.

Four and a half hours passed since our departure from Dasota town, and we finally reached Suva town without any abnormal incidents happening.

The town's population was around 5000 or so, with all residents being minotaurs, satyrs, or other bovine-like races. It probably made sense that there were bovine-like residents to take care of the cattle here, since they would probably best understand how to raise them. I did wonder about one thing, though: would minotaurs and satyrs, which were races with bull-like and goat-like features respectively, consuming beef and and goat meat be considered some form of cannibalism?

Seeing how the town's primary trade was in the sale of fresh meats and dairy products, however, I reckon the townsfolk never had that sort of troubling thought.

The main street in this town was extremely wide, measuring around 16 meters across. Such a width was sufficient for letting up to seven large carriages like the one we were riding on run side by side without problems. I thought that this was an intentional design to make this town of relatively low population appear larger than it actually was, but the houses were not irregularly spaced out like in Dasota, so it was probably not the case.

We stopped at an inn whose lower floor was used as a diner. The local specialty was barbecued meat that was grilled at the table, which could be enjoyed with some accompanying vegetables. As usual, I had no idea what was written on the menu, so I let Amber order all the food.

"Are you all here for the big event?"

The innkeeper's daughter, who doubled as the waitress, asked as she brought out our drinks.

"Big event?"

"You didn't know?"

"Know what?"

"Today's the first day of the annual cattle festival!"

"What?"

Since we came to this place for a late lunch, all other patrons had already received their food or had left, leaving the waitress with relatively little work to do. Thus, the waitress idly chatted and explained to us about the cattle festival while we waited for our food to be ready. As the name suggested, this was an annual celebration lasting about three days, when the townsfolk would take part in activities honoring another year of success in their cattle related trade. For this first day of the event, ranchers all over town were going to parade their finest livestock in the wide streets in the early afternoon, and those same animals would be entered in a cattle beauty pageant later in the day.

Other events scheduled for the festival included a cattle race, bullfighting, a milking competition, and so on. During this time, all meat and dairy products were heavily discounted since the people wanted to promote their own ranches and livestock quality. I couldn't have asked for a better time to come to this town - I could now stock up on some food rations, other than the massive load of honey products that we got from Dasota town, at a very low cost. Heck, I could probably strike some deals and get rid of all this honey I was already not fond of by trading it away for some dried meats.

What I couldn't help but wonder, however, was whether this festival was even necessary in the first place. Tourism was a luxury most people couldn't afford, especially when the towns and cities in this territory are so abnormally far apart, so most visitors in this town were travelling merchants. Apart from the heavily discounted goods, the festival activities themselves were probably not very interesting to those merchants. Maybe the townsfolk were just hosting it to have an excuse to slack off and goof around for a few days every year.

I thought about heading straight for Mitana city after lunch, since it was supposedly a five or so hour ride that would get us there by dinner time, but the rest of the group wanted to stay and watch the festival events in the afternoon, so I gave in to their request. After giving Amber some spending money, I let her and the other two explore the town on their own, while I went to the marketplace.

I ended up trading most of the free honey products we got for about 10 kilograms of dried and cured meats. The ranchers seemed to be fond of these items, since their cattle found it delicious.

Additionally, I purchased about 2 or 3 kilograms of milk candy and other confectionery items, since they looked delicious. They did have a very fresh taste because the milk was produced locally when I sampled them, so I couldn't help myself.

There weren't any entertainment facilities since this was a small countryside town, so I killed time by wandering around the market and eating the snacks sold there. The town hall's bells eventually rang, signaling the start of the first festival event.

The extremely wide main street was now filled with townsfolk who formed two long lines on each side. If I had to estimate, then probably half of the town was now gathered here to see the cattle walking through. It was hard to spot Amber and Hanung among this crowd since they were physically smaller than the townsfolk, but I couldn't seem to find Casath either. Oh well, it would probably be easier to look for them when the crowd disperses later.

I didn't take up much space since the residents were at least twice as large, so they didn't mind when I squeezed through to the front.

"Here come the ranchers!"

As soon as one person in the crowd shouted that out, everyone started looking towards where the main street began. The ranchers began showing up, each with a few cattle being led behind them by ropes. All of the animals, be it cows, goats, or sheep, were all larger than me, and each of them appeared to have been groomed so well that it was hard to tell them apart from the ideal drawings found in children's books. The townsfolk were pointing all over the place and talking about the animals that walked by, adding in remarks about what was good or bad about their appearances, or how to get their own livestock to look as good as the ones they were seeing.

"See how calm that cow looks? I heard that the cattle on that ranch get massaged every day."

"That rancher's goats give almost twice as much milk as anyone else's! I wish I had one of those…"

"That guy has the largest ranch in town, so all his bulls and oxen get to roam around freely. Look at how energetic his cattle are!"

…I still have no idea how people could get this excited about livestock. Their sizes aside, I can't even tell how they were different from regular animals of their kind.

* * * * *

"Here you go, sir!"

"Thanks."

The ranchers and their livestock moved too slowly, and I didn't understand their appeal in the first place, so I decided to go to the closest pub I could find and grab a drink while waiting for the parade to finish. The waitress at this place recommended their special drink, which was a refreshing cold barley beer, so I asked for one mug of it. I probably should have just ordered a glass, since the large mug they brought out was designed with the relatively large residents of this town in mind as the primary consumers, and thus was as large as a pitcher. At least I don't have to worry about feeling thirsty when there is about 4 liters of beer right in front of me.

This giant mug was too heavy for me to lift with one hand, and I didn't want to make myself look stupid by cradling it with both hands, so I cast a minor strength boosting buff on myself. The mug was made from very thick glass, after all, so it weighed almost 9 kilograms.

I thought about how inconvenient it was for me to have to cast a spell that would tire myself out later just to enjoy a drink, but then changed my mind. I probably wouldn't be able to finish most of that beer without working a sweat, and it was better to not disappoint the pub owner and waitress after being recommended this specialty.

"Our profits are going to plummet later on…"

"Hey, keep it quiet! What if someone hears us?"

"I always talk a lot louder than this, and most people still have trouble hearing me."

"Well I guess that's true, the people in this town do seem to have bad hearing…"

I always thought bovines had good hearing, but maybe it was the exact opposite for the townsfolk. Two people were talking in what was assumed to be a voice low enough to not be heard, but I could still hear them clearly. They were sitting in the table right next to mine, which was probably why I could hear them better than the other people in this pub.

"Anyways, that strange disease has been spreading lately."

"What? Wasn't it limited to just the ranches on the edge of town?"

"It was, until rancher Nuno found one of his cows acting weird yesterday."

"Rancher Nuno? Doesn't he live just five kilometers away?"

"That's why I'm bothered…"

This town itself was a nearly circular shape with a radius of about 20 kilometers from the town center where everyone lived, and where I was currently, which means the disease these two were talking about managed to spread 15 kilometers.

"Are you sure it got sick?"

"It was standing in a weird way and doing nothing for hours."

I wonder of those weird cows we saw and assumed were just bored when coming to this town were diseased in some way.

"Sounds like it might really be sick…"

"Nobody's tried eating them yet since they're worried they might get some weird disease too. If it spreads further, though, then our town's milk and meat output will drop a lot."

"Maybe we should stock up on that in case the supply goes down? We could make a good profit once the price rises."

"Sounds like a good idea, but I don't have the money for that."

"Me neither…"

The two then each took a large sip of their beers, then idly chatted about other topics.