06-23 Game
After various troubles the day passed, it became night, then morning once more.
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.
“Aah, it’s so boring.”
“…Agreed.”
“Should we play some kind of 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.
“Alright, let’s see, would this table do?”
The room they were in was Elsa’s. Simply because it was the largest one. Similarly, it had the most varied furniture.
“[Surface Treatment].”,
“Whaat? Start? Goal?”
“This is a game I know called sugoroku. The foundation of it is throwing these dice.”
“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.”
Elsa gave her honest impressions. Jin then said,
“Special rules?”
“Skip a turn, for example, or go back three squares, things like that.”
“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.”
“Four.”
“Come on four, four… Aww, a two.”
They couldn’t relax because of the possibility of landing on the ‘Go back 20 squares’ tile in front of the goal.
Getting the first placed fired up Jin unsuitably much for his age.
“…My loss. Once more.”
The sugoroku meant for killing time turned out to be popular.
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!?”
“Come on, siiix!”
It was rather noisy. But thanks to it, the maids seemed to become less reserved.
They passed time with suguroku until the evening when Reinhardt and Earl Kuzuma returned.
After playing Jin restored the table back to as normal as he could. Laila and the others looked a little regretful as Jin did it.
“Now then, tomorrow will be the golem party at last, however.”
“Of course the dress code is formal. It looks like Jin has his Magi Craftsman’s coat. One’s been prepared for Beana too, so please wear that.”
Earl Kuzuma smiled pleasantly and took out a fine dark red coat from the luggage.
He said, and handed it over to Beana.
Beana held the coat she received close to her chest. The Earl’s expression turned a little happy when he saw it.
“There’s an order for the entry, you know. First are the cabinet ministers, then the nobles working in the castle, invitees, nobles living in the outskirts, and the nobles coming from far away.”
“Finally, the Magi Craftsmen, Jin and Beana. Since only the nobles have to go greet the king and the prince, it’s fine to just watch.”
“Since you’ll be far away from Earl Guarana, likely Beana won’t be found by him.”
After he said that, Beana was relieved. However, Elsa was pouting a little.
“And so, since weapons and such are not allowed on the grounds, there’s also restrictions on Magi Tools. Miss Reiko won’t probably be able to enter.”
Reiko, who had been quiet until now, began to talk.
But,
When chided by Jin, Reiko reluctantly nodded and said,
“…Yes, Father.”
“Uh, then, the arrangement goes such that each noble will one by one bring golems in front of the king and prince, give their name and rank, and briefly present the golems’ operation, but…”
“What do you think I should have Lotte do?”,
But Jin said,
He returned the question to the Earl.
“Uh, hmm, let’s see, could she do a dance, or a sword dance?”,
“She could.”,
“Let’s see…”
“Even so, we’re going to need Rianna-san’s assistance, I suppose.”
Jin said to Rianna who was entirely out of the loop,
He then commanded Reiko to fetch a small Magi Crystal,
“Eek!”
“Wha, wha-, what was that just now!?”
Jin only copied Rianna’s movement patterns, he explained, but hearing that only served to make her more ‘?’ instead.
Since he couldn’t yet get in touch with the golem safeguarded in the warehouse, he decided to leave it for the maintenance period before the unveiling, and with that everyone returned to their rooms for the day.
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