Scarlet Castle had been bustling these past few days. Just as the civil servants in the Administration Office had reported, after missing several traditional festivals in a row, the locals were extremely enthusiastic about the surprise boxing championship. It wasn't just the People's Army soldiers guarding Scarlet Castle who had chosen representatives to compete; even the newly established collective farms had plenty of tough brawlers eager to sign up.
Murphy had spent the past couple of days touring his territory, and everywhere he went, he saw locals practicing after work wherever they could find a spot.
Many women even brought their half-grown children along to watch the bouts and cheer. It gave Murphy a deeper understanding of the "national character" of the Transians, and once again made him realize that the misunderstandings people elsewhere had about Transia weren't entirely baseless.
After all, even well-traveled Murphy knew this place really did have a fierce local culture that bred ill-tempered savages. He could tell just by seeing the old men who guarded the Administration Office swinging their arms and throwing punches at each other at dusk.
Murphy had never expected this "national fitness movement," meant to get the little players to do something useful while helping the damn game devs patch up their oversights, to take off like this in such a short time.
It seemed that if he wanted to improve the Transians' sense of happiness, he shouldn't bother with highbrow pursuits like theater and poetry, which supposedly cultivated the soul. The sensible thing was to hold more popular events like the boxing championship.
The lively, festive atmosphere continued until the young Countess Sharon arrived at Scarlet Castle with a group of mountain warriors as burly as little giants. Then it reached its true peak.
When they heard that the mountain