Volume 6 - Chapter 23 – Game (1/2)

06-23 Game

After various troubles the day passed, it became night, then morning once more.

Today was the birthday of the third prince of Egelia, Ernest Relm Andrew.

Throughout the morning, the nobles outside the castle not participating in the golem party had gathered by the castle entrance, and together with the bodyguards and soldiers it was noisy.

Jin and the others, that is, Jin, Reiko, Elsa, and Beana were gazing at the situation from afar.

Earl Kuzuma and Reinhardt weren’t here because of the formalities associated with attending the birthday party.

“Aah, it’s so boring.”

Beana complained.

“…Agreed.”

Elsa was of the same opinion. Jin was also bored, so,

“Should we play some kind of a game?”

“A game?”

Jin thought about it for a bit. What would be a game that was easy to prepare, fun for everyone, and requiring no practice or skills.

Suddenly, sugoroku came to his mind.

“Alright, let’s see, would this table do?”

“What are you planning?”

The room they were in was Elsa’s. Simply because it was the largest one. Similarly, it had the most varied furniture.

In there, Jin decided on a 60-centimeter wide square teee table (a table for tea), then,

“[Surface Treatment].”,

He made the surface a smooth white. He then drew squares on a grid on it with ink.

“Whaat? Start? Goal?”

Beana came over and peeked at it. After drawing the basic squares Jin began to explain.

“This is a game I know called sugoroku. The foundation of it is throwing these dice.”

He rolled the dice he had quickly made with Craft Magic to show them.

“It’s a game where you roll the dice and move forward the resulting number of squares, and the first one to reach the goal is the winner.”

“…Looks simple.”

Elsa gave her honest impressions. Jin then said,

“Yes, seems simple right? But this is where it gets interesting. Some of these squares have special rules to them.”

“Special rules?”

Jin began to explain it,

“Skip a turn, for example, or go back three squares, things like that.”

“I see. So it’s a matter of luck.”

“Well, I suppose. Alright, let’s first have a go at it like this.”

And so, the sugoroku board with one out of ten special squares was completed. Jin also quickly made pieces and colored them, and now with each hacing their own piece the game could start.

“Forward three squares, okay.”

“I got it! Six forwar- oh no! ‘Skip a turn’!?”

“Four.”

The first game went on with everyone having fun, and very soon someone would reach the goal.

“Come on four, four… Aww, a two.”

“I need it to be a five… Oh.”

They couldn’t relax because of the possibility of landing on the ‘Go back 20 squares’ tile in front of the goal.

“Woohoo!”

Getting the first placed fired up Jin unsuitably much for his age.

“Aww, I’ve been defeated, huh. Alright, come on two, come on…I did it! I got second!”

“…My loss. Once more.”

The sugoroku meant for killing time turned out to be popular.

The Royal Secret Maids watching from the back, Laila, Lisa, and Kate also looked like they wanted to give it a try, so the girls were also asked to participate.

At first they gave a firm refusal since they were on duty, but Jin persuaded them by reasoning that it’s a maid’s duty to not let the guests be bored, and the girls seemed to agree and eventually participated in the game.

“Eek! Back ten squares!?”

“Aww, skip a tuuuurn!”

“Come on, siiix!”

It was rather noisy. But thanks to it, the maids seemed to become less reserved.