Evil-like Duke Household

Inside a room in the Ractos household...

The ones in the room are: the previous head of the house, Diebold=Ractos, and the present head, Grid=ractos.

Along with Duke Grid's wife, Liliane, and the Earl Nizzet couple.

Because the marriage interview between Jake=Ractos and Annesa=Nizzet ended with a success, the room is now engulfed in a calm, happy atmosphere ... or so what was supposed to happen. But right now, the room is engulfed in tension and a strained atmosphere.

A big table is placed in the middle of Grid and Diebold, as they sat facing each other. Spectating them is the Nizzet couple who looked at them with a mixed expression of surprise and fear.

[ Gh , gununu ... ]

Diebold, who is being sung as the hero of the war, the one who's feared, and the one who's peerles and undefeatable, is currently focusing his gaze at the table and groans.

The thing that's put on the top of the table is the table game called [ Balder ], which is a one of a kind of tabletop game that's similiar to chess. Though it said that it's similiar to chess, the degree of difficulty is highly incomparable to just chess.

Facing each other on the top of the board with a 21 x 21 tile, moving each other's 113 pieces with each respective movement, they tried to defeat the opponent's encampment.

That's the way of playing ... no, battling, in Balder.

Why Balder, the boardgame that's sung as the hardest boardgame, ever existed is because of the vastness of it's field, the variety of the piece, and the number of the pieces created such a high degree of complexity. While it is said that this is just a mere board game, in truth this game is created mainly to assist sorcerers for practicing their minds.

In the sorcerer country in the west, Rizetta kingdom, they held a huge tournament and the title of the winner can act as somekind of status.

Well, based on those, the two people that're enggaged in Balder right now, Diebold and Grid's, conditions are ...

[ Surely , father is already convinced that you can win this game the moment you brought up this game . Though this game is a tabletop game, this game is used for training sorcerers. No matter what the rule is and no matter how fair the game is, father's experience who's even called as the Sorcery King surely is in a different level than me ... The level of how many we can read the opponent movement is different. ]

[ ghh ... ]

In the contrast to Diebold who is groaning with hard face, Grid looks calm.

[ In the past, when I still trying to learn magic, trying to help father .. Well, in the end, I didn't have any aptitude in magic and I can't even cast one spell, but I still experienced some training for sorcerers. Of course, this Balder too ... ]

Saying so, Grid stopped talking, then he took a sip of the syochu that he's put on the side of the table.

Grid then sighed out to make the sake's heat come out from his mouth.

[ Actually, I didn't really like this game ]

Crossing his hands and putting his elbow on the desk, Grid peeked at Diebold's face with sharp eyes.

[ Father, I am really good at calculating. ]

Hearing that, Diebold realized something. His face started to tremble and give out a surprised expression.

[ Father, I've never been defeated, even once, in this game. ]

[ My son, don't say, you ... ! This one ... already ?]

Right in front of Diebold who can't properly weave his words because of the surprise, Grid laughed with a low voice that sounds like it came out from the depths of the hell. (ED: It would be nice if that prince is here...)

[ Father. You still have another 9703 steps that you can play ...

from that, 824 of those is the the longest play that I need to decide my win. ]

[ It's ... it's my ... loss ... ]

Diebold hanged his head feebly.

Perhaps because he's drunk with victory, Grid suddenly became talkative and continued his words.

[ In the games that has no luck factor to win, I cannot loose ... Then, Count Raul ... do you also want to play next ? ]

Raul=Nizzet already realized it, from the middle of Grid and Diebold's playing.

[ No ... It's impossible for me ... I forfeit! ]

[ fufu , fuhaha ... fuhahahahaha ! ! ]

Grid's scary laughter resounded throughout the room.

[ All the sorcerers that I know always said the same thing. But, that's right ... with this ... !

Grid exaggerately opened his hands wide.

As if the whole continent, the whole world already belongs to him, his face are warped with joy, his body trembled because of the feeling of omnipotentness.

[ The right for naming the first child, belongs to me ! ! ! ]

(ED: Prince where are you? You need to see this...)