Making a Board Game (2)

I've made her a lot of promises.

Most of them are bald-faced lies, but there are a few I could actually keep, depending on how hard I work at it.

Don't get jerked around by promises I can't keep. Just give her what I can give her right now.

The fairy-tale book I've been scribbling at, little by little, every night — that's one of those things. I analyzed what went wrong with last time's Omniscient Donkey Perspective, and now I'm writing the upcoming new work, I Became the Demon King a Donkey Is Obsessed With. It will surely become a treasure that soothes those long nights she spends wide awake.

And then there's the Blue Marble we're making right now.

It pained me to see her disappointed by that empty Blue Marble box earlier, but I'll think of that as one step back before the joy I'm about to put in her hands.

This is a Demon King who could lose herself all night over a single game of word-chain. How happy is a finished Blue Marble going to make her? I can already picture her throwing the dice with a bright smile.

The first thing we needed to make was the dice.

Hmm...

A cube... something light enough to hold and throw. What did I have?

She was in charge of the play money, scissors in hand, cutting paper into rectangles. Whether it was the crushing sense of duty that had her so wound up, she was advancing the blades at a rate of one millimeter per second.

Snip.

She swallowed.

Snip.

"...You don't have to be that tense."

The Demon King's round, wide eyes were locked on the tip of the scissors, tight as a drawn bowstring. Anyone watching would have thought she was defusing a time bomb strapped all over her body.

"...Who's tense?"

She swallowed again.

Snip.

"Hahh..."

You.

Ah.

A decent die had just occurred to me. Originally I'd planned to cube up the carrots she so despised and use those, but there might be something that fit even better.

I walked over and rummaged through the long-haired guy's food pouch that I'd left half-tidied earlier.

...Of course.

For a guy who packed this much stuff, it was only natural he'd have a few sugar cubes on him — the snack of choice among adventurers. Three unused ones, plus one leftover he'd started gnawing on.

I quickly pulled out a marker and started dotting the fresh cubes. Once I was done, they looked pretty convincingly like dice. The grainy texture even had an addictively nice grip. The only issue was a faintly sticky sweetness left on my fingers, but that would be solved once the Demon King hardened them with magic.

They were small and easy to lose, so I turned all three sugar cubes into dice, including the one I'd just finished.

"Put some buffs on these."

I said it to her while she was still in ultra-focus mode making the bills. If anyone snuck up behind her right now — at the peak of her life's concentration — and went boo, a Hyper Elbow would come flying instantly. Whoever got hit would probably sail all the way to the sun.

"Hm? What kind?"

"The ones you always stack on the Paper Crane."

A low hum filled the air as the Demon King laid a few buffs on them. Brilliant light soaked into the dice.

Done. With this, we'd created the ultimate sugar cubes — no, dice — that wouldn't break even if you unloaded a sniper rifle on them. I picked one up and shook it; the granules no longer sprinkled off like before.

"Th-this is it! This is what little kids used to throw around and play with!"

The Demon King got excited looking at the finished dice. Given how low her threshold for entertainment was, I wouldn't have been surprised if she spent the whole day happily rolling these around without even needing the board game.

"Next we need to make the Golden Key cards."

"G-Golden Key?!"

At a word that reeked of adventure, a golden gleam flashed in her eyes.

"When you land on a Golden Key space, you flip over one of the face-down Golden Key cards and use it. The card names and the effects are all different."

"What kind of effects?"

"I'll tell you later. First, there's something you need to do while I make the board."

"Leave it to me! I won't let you down. This time I'll take care of it with my own two hands."

She delivered a line that sounded exactly like a mid-boss who'd gotten wrecked by the protagonist, chewed out by the final boss, and granted one last chance.

"Watch closely."

"Gulp... okay."

I drew a key on the back of a piece of paper I'd cut to size, using a yellow crayon.

Her crayons were all less than half left, every one of them worn down to a blunt stub. To think I'd doodled on her face with something this precious...

Precious as they were, I drew carefully, barely applying any pressure, just grazing the paper.

"W-wooooow..."

The moment I drew a golden key on the back of the card paper, she held it in her hands and marveled.

"It's so cool."

"Think you can draw this?"

"...Umm..."

She made an uncertain face. For someone who drew chocolate cake like a typhoon, this might be a bit much.

...Now what.

That said, I couldn't leave the game board to her. The board needed the capitals of various countries written on it. Plus, the board had a bunch of pictures too.

"I-I'll try."

The Demon King took the yellow crayon in her hand. And she started moving it across a blank card.

At one millimeter per second.

I pasted several sheets of paper together and made a game board almost the same size as the original.

Just like the original Blue Marble, I was about to write Beijing in the first space — and my hand stopped dead.

There was no way she'd know the capitals of countries on Earth. Of course, not knowing wouldn't affect the game at all. But if there was even one place she recognized, wouldn't that make her happy?

I wanted her — who lived all alone at the very top of the Tower — to be able to wander freely, even if only inside a game board.

Huh? Toto Village? I know that. I know this place!

Even a clumsily drawn Toto Village in this tiny square — she'd like that, wouldn't she.

"Hey."

She called out from where she'd been sitting a little apart for our division of labor, and I turned around.

"Is this how you draw it... huh? Why are you smiling?"

"...Me? Was I smiling?"

"Yeah. You were. Ah! Don't tell me! You weren't making it so only you have an advantage, were you?! You're getting it if you were."

As she said that, she immediately formed a flicking hand and aimed it at me. She said I'd get in trouble, then pulled out something worse than a pistol. I shouted at the top of my lungs before the Flying Finger Flick could come flying.

"That's not it! Put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your hand down!"

"Let's make it fair, okay? Us? You know how I feel about that."

Said the Demon King who, in Iron Fist, was the only one mixing illusion techniques into her moves. Get lost. Yeah — the first space should definitely be Beijing.

Once I'd finished the game board and the property deeds, I carved the carrots nicely and made miniatures of the buildings to place on the board.

I'd made them reasonably convincing, so I showed them off expecting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a delighted look from the Demon King — and this ungrateful brat went, "Kyaaah! There's a bunch of identical carrot houses!" and tried to drop a Meteor Drive on them. Carrot City nearly became a sea of fire. For a moment I imagined grabbing her horn and stuffing a carrot model into her mouth, but I held back, for the sake of everything we'd been through.

"Put a buff on them."

"Okay."

A low hum.

"Hey."

"Hm?"

"What buff is that?"

"...Th-that's... um... ah! I-it's Melon Melon's Blessing."

Truly, a naming sense that could only be hers.

"It's a curse, isn't it. The exploding kind?"

She said nothing.

"Should we just stop making Blue Marble?"

"I'm sorry! I'll put ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a real one on! Please forgive me."

The terrorist who'd improvised the shoddiest blessing name imaginable hastily applied a proper buff to the eco-friendly building models. With that, everything except the Golden Key cards was complete.

The key drawings she'd been so painstakingly careful with were a disaster. I'm not exaggerating — I thought they were satellites. I jumped in to help, and together we drew golden keys on the backs of all the gold cards.

There was actually a problem with this. Since the cards were hand-drawn, if we played with them long enough, we might start remembering the effects. Couldn't be helped. Still, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart at a glance.

Now it was time to write the card effects.

"Golden Key cards come in fortune cards and misfortune cards. What's something good that's happened to you recently?"

"Taking pictures with you on our trip!"

The answer that popped out of the Demon King in one second left me feeling gloomy.

"...Besides that."

"Umm... you saying you'd make me clothes?"

"...Something else."

"You letting me sleep next to you?"

"...Isn't there anything else?"

"You saying you'd write me a fairy-tale book?"

"That one."

I quickly scribbled the contents onto a card with a pen.

"Here, read this."

"Okay. Let's see..."

"What's this? My Omniscient Donkey Perspective is not a thing for sale. I'm not selling it."

...This from the person who called it a hideous monster and sealed it away in a dark warehouse.

"This is just an example. This is how, if you draw a fortune card among the Golden Key cards, you can get money."

"Ah, okay! But 2,000 gold... is it okay to receive this much money?"

"Who cares... it's a game. Let's play at being rich, at least here."

"...But still... with this much, how many dinosaur plushies is that..."

The Demon King turned her head, her gaze landing on the dinosaur plushies stuffed in the sack.

...What a hopelessly penny-pinching Demon King.

"We also need to make misfortune cards where you can lose money... what's something bad that's happened to you recently?"

She went quiet.

"...Why are you..."

Ah.

"Ah, never mind. I'll just write these myself."

Baek Dongha, you fucking idiot. You should've thought before you opened your mouth.

Wanting to cheer up the Demon King, a little gloom having seeped into her, I hurriedly wrote something I knew she'd like and showed it to her.

"Here, misfortune cards are like this."

"...Okay, let's see..."

"...Heheh, so you finally admit it!"

It wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to write for an illusionist who wasn't even a fighter, but I had no choice. Thankfully, I'd salvaged the slip of the tongue.

"Got it now? You can't put 2,000 gold on every card. Write different amounts of gold depending on how important the situation is."

"Okay. Got it."

"There are fifty cards total, so let's split them half and half. Here's twenty-five."

The Demon King, looking triumphant, seemed to have ideas boiling over in her head — she immediately dropped onto her stomach on the floor and started writing on the cards.

Hmm...

I set down a blank card and thought.

Might as well write things she'd like.

...

...I really hope the Demon King draws this one.

Every time I wrote a card, I could picture her hopping up and down with joy after drawing it. The words flowed as if I'd oiled the pen.

"Huh? You?"

"...Huh?"

"You're smiling again!? You're not writing something weird, are you?"

"...Did I smile again just now? ...It's nothing weird."

Oops. Before I knew it, I'd stacked up nothing but fortune cards. Now I should write some misfortune cards too...

...I don't want to write them.

What more misfortune was there left to hand her...

Still, it was a game. There had to be misfortune cards. Let's keep them as light as possible.

I scribbled.

Isn't this too cruel?

Taking away the ketchup bottle she clutched every morning. That was a bit much. Even the game ratings board would reject this on violence grounds. Let's rewrite it.

Hmm...

Why was there so little worth writing...