Harvest Festival

Harvest Festival (収穫祭) is a traditional festival held in Carne Village.

Background
Traditionally, this celebration is held once every year to lift supposedly an evil curse on the land. At the festival, an altar is placed in the middle of the village. Meanwhile, the villagers dress in festive and splendid costumes and at twilight dance around the altar to express gratitude to the host. According to a certain homunculus, the festival is quite similar to the Bon Festival which also celebrates the harvest and memorializes the spirits of the dead.

Purpose of Event
According to a local folklore from the village chieftain, the Harvest Festival at Carne Village was originally hosted to placate and entertain the evil spirits sleeping in the land. It was said that if these spirits ever got angry they would cause a poor harvest. In the past, there have been years of when the Harvest Festival was stopped, due to bad weather or lack of motivation. In each of those instances, since the Harvest Festival stopped being hosted, there was a rush of unsuccessful harvests which caused the festival to be reinstated. Strangely after the Harvest Festival resumed the following years showed that crop yields had increased.

Aftermath
In the main timeline, it is presumed that the Harvest Festival is celebrated as usual and was briefly mentioned by Enri Emmot. However in the Mass for the Dead continuity, after the villagers from Carne Village were attacked by Chaos Beasts coming from the Crack in the Great Forest of Tob, they all evacuated from the area to E-Rantel. The village now abandoned the Harvest Festival could not commence. Since its abandonment, a number of strange occurrences has began to plague the denizens of the forest. After Hamsuke had encountered a strange shadow in the dark, it was reported to the de-facto ruler of the forest, Momonga. The shadow was believed to be a ghost and an investigation was conducted to learn exactly what was going on. Aura Bella Fiora leading the investigation, eventually found that the ghost was not really an astral being but some sort of demon beast.

The protagonist leading a team in E-Rantel eventually learned about the festival from the Swords of Darkness, who heard it from the evacuated villagers. The festival and its connection in appeasing in "evil spirits", which Momonga believed to be the demon beast, he ordered his subjects to host recommence the Harvest Festival in the abandoned human village to hopefully lure the mysterious entity there so it could be captured.

The festival was conducted in the abandoned village by members of the Pleiades and several Skeletons. They recreated the festival, cleaning the village to make it look more hospitable, placing food and decorations around the village square. Unlike the original inhabitants' festival, the one planned by Nazarick was more similar to a Japanese festival like the Bon Festival using Japanese lanterns and yukatas.

It was briefly interrupted when the large concentration of undead caused an influx of negative energy in the area to naturally spawn undead. After the undead interlopers were dealt with the festivities were once again interrupted by the main target after Lupusregina Beta successful detected through its [Perfect Unknowable]. What they found was a giant nailed fox and it took the combined might of the maids, Aura, Mare, Hamsuke, and a Death Knight to subdue the beast. After which it transformed into a young little girl with nine tails.

The entity in question turned out not to be an "evil spirit" at all but a lonely giant fox named Kyuko who had been traveling the world. The fox monster had been searching for others like it, and came to the Tob Forest believing that the rumored Wise King of the Forest was a kindred spirit. Her instances of approaching Hamsuke while in beast form were attempts to communicate but caused Hamsuke to flee in terror thinking she was a monster. After Kyuko witnessed several members of Nazarick berating Hamsuke, she assumed they were bullying the Wise King. As for the attack on the village, the fox saw the undead appear and thought the Pleiades were raising them intentionally. After all the misunderstandings were cleared up, Hamsuke feeling sympathy for Kyuko begged Aura to not punish her, knowing the lonesomeness Kyuko felt of being one of her kind. The others in the capture party also felt pity for the girl and decided to forgive and forget. At Hamsuke's invitation, Kyuko was formally welcomed as Aura's subordinate and the remaining time for Harvest Festival resumed to allow the group to enjoy themselves and have fun.

Strangely once the festival ended, rumors began to circulate among the survivors of Carne Village. It seems that the village that should have been devastated was found to be cleaned and the undead in the area nonexistent. Some attributed this to be the work of former villagers returning to the village. Though a few whisper that the area now has a new guardian that protects it from evil spirits. And there have even been eye witness accounts who have seen this guardian, describing the guardian to be little girl wearing a fox mask.

A year later, E-Rantel began to make plans to host its own Harvest Festival to celebrate the bountiful harvest from the new section of the city. Though rather than appeasing the spirits of the dead, it instead was to show the peoples' appreciation to the gods. Though due to the influence of the Sorcerer Kingdom, the event was adapted into a Halloween Festival and dubbed the Greetings and Victory Festival.

After the Calamity of Cracks, another Harvest Festival was called for by Mayor Panasolei Gruze Day Rettenmaier, Guildmaster Pluton Ainzach and Emperor Jircniv Rune Farlord El-Nix in order to lift the spirits of the people in the aftermath of tragedy. Only this time they wanted to use the previous model of the Greetings and Victory Festival.