Lost Out in the Cold (文永の役)

Every year on New Year’s Eve, a theatrical festival called “Battle of Bun’ei / Hakata Bay” is held in a remote mountain village. And every year, the village mayor told the provincial governor about the successful event. And every year, the government provides a subsidy from the budget to hold it. And everything was great until one day they called from Tokyo and said that rich tourists from Saudi Arabia would be visiting them…

New Year’s Eve in a remote village in the North

The heroine at work, listening to cheerful music (in headphones – Left Out in the Cold by Sparks), gets a pedicure. The accountant runs in and starts shouting, “Where is the mayor? We have a problem! They are calling him from Tokyo! And it’s urgent!”

The main character doesn’t react to him at first, and then calmly says: “But he went fishing.”

The accountant, cursing, runs to find the head, who currently is sitting, calmly sitting and drinking beer on the shore (with his mistress).

Having found the head, the accountant says that a group of rich tourists from Saudi Arabia will fly to their “village holiday” by helicopter – they want to see an exotic holiday in a remote province.

The head is shocked and runs to the municipality – they need to urgently organize a holiday.

Then the problems begin: there are no costumes and weapons, the residents do not want to swim in a cold lake in the middle of winter, there is no money for all this organization.

The head promises the residents that he will provide free food, alcohol to warm up, tents with heating after swimming, and even a concert of musicians from the provincial capital.

After that, he leaves for the city, to the local theater to negotiate costumes and look for musicians. In addition, he goes to the local military, so that they let him use their tents with heating. But everyone he turns to for help demands a bribe for such help… And the municipality’s money is stealing in cryptocurrency.

Therefore, the head agrees to pay for all this in cash. At the same time, he instructs his uncle-accountant to organize the sale of crypto. But the uncle is old, does not understand computers at all and instructs the secretary to do all this – she is young and from the capital, which means she is smart.

In addition, since she speaks English, they decided that the secretary would meet and go with the Arab guests.

As a result, they somehow manage to organize the holiday (for now on credit, since cash still needs to be withdrawn).

The tourists arrive, but the weather on the day of the holiday is terrible – strong wind and snow. Local residents are very reluctant to want to climb into a cold lake in such weather, let alone even play out a battle with the Japanese.

The head offers everyone a drink “for courage” and in the end the residents (already drunk) “take up arms”.

The frozen tourists watch this from the sidelines, do not understand anything and pay much more attention to the beautiful Korean woman than to some drunken costumed “warriors”.

Note: The monkeys are watching everything that is happening with incomprehension – what kind of nonsense are people wasting their lives on?

Meanwhile, the locals have already drunk so much that the head’s mistress undresses herself and rushes to swim first. The rest of them get into the water after her. The musicians, seeing how everyone joyfully jumps into the icy water, also drink and climb into the lake. They don’t care about the Arab tourists anymore – they have their own “holiday”.

And there are no tourists anymore… They are frozen, they are not interested in all this (Muslims do not drink), and they flew away.

In the morning, the musicians wake up in military tents. Not finding anything to cure their hangover, they go to the home of the head of the municipality, so that he will give them money at least for a drink. The mayor, with a severe hangover, goes to work in the office for cash. Neither the secretary nor the accountant is at work. Only the cleaning lady. To the question “Where is everyone?” she answers: “The accountant is so drunk that he has not even woken up yet, and the secretary flew away with the Arabs”…

The head is shocked, enters the office and discovers that there are no cold crypto wallets in the safe. There is no cash either. And even the municipality’s account has been robbed.

Police office in Tokyo

The police chief comes to work in the morning and wonders why all his subordinates are laughing. They tell him about the “fake holiday” and how the secretary cleverly robbed the head of the village.

They show him photos and videos of drunken residents from the holiday, frozen tourists, and in one of them he recognizes the “secretary” – she has long been wanted for fraud – robbed a well-known crypto exchange.

Somewhere in the South

The same cheerful music, the same young beauty, but already in the VIP carriage of a high-speed train she does a pedicure for herself…