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Under the clear early-summer sky, a box-shaped, two-horse carriage was traveling on the highway to the south.

Commonly known as a high-speed carriage, it was a magic item that reduced the resistance of the wheels, shaking, and the overall weight of the passenger carriage. For that reason, despite it being a carriage, it could travel at roughly the same speed as a horse galloping freely.

Those who would travel using them tended to be the royalty and titled nobility, great merchants, or first-class adventurers accompanied by dragons.

Inside the carriage, the trio from Golden Helmet, and Kafal’s clone and Lucella were sitting on the three-person seats that faced each other.

Their destination was the royal capital of Setulev – Alhurra.

“Are you nervous?”

Tim, who still wore his mountain-like armor even inside the carriage, asked Lucella who had grown silent.

“I mean… We’re meeting the king after this, so…”
“It’s not like we just decided on it today. Calm down.”
“It’ll be fiiiineee. The king won’t catch and eat you or anything.”

The reason they were going to the royal capital was to discuss the matter of the hunt on Mount Kuguse.

There was still time until the day of the trial that Shurei assigned to Lucella, and it was also that they needed to talk to the royalty if they planned to protect Mount Kuguse.

It was unknown how he did it, but Tim managed to get in touch with the royal palace and secured a meeting with them, so the rest was Lucella’s work. It was natural for her to be nervous.

“Lucella… will… protect.”
“R-Right. It’ll probably turn out alright, so don’t do anything extreme, okay?”

Kafal said with eyes burning with determination with Lucella sitting on her lap.

The carriage grew silent once again.

They were going so fast that the scenery outside the window was flying by, but the inside of the high-speed carriage was surprisingly calm.

If not for the thundering wind and the cries of the trampled road, it would be easy to forget that the carriage was traveling.

“Why don’t we do something to kill time? I’ve brought a bunch of things with me.”

Viola, who could no longer endure the silence, expanded the folded table on the wall and lined up game boards and cards on it.

The Golden Helmet apparently had several magic items that could store items in subspace, but there was still a limit to their capacity so most of the things they had there were things that could be stored and carried compactly.

“Woah, there’s a lot.”
“We travel a lot on carriages, after all. It’s a lot of time to kill.”
“It’s a pretty basic one, but how about Old Maid?”

Lucella took the cards in hand, thinking of starting with something she knew, but Wein shrugged and shook his head.

“Let’s not. Tim’s face just revealed everything. It’s pointless to play a card game with him.”
“Say what?!”
“Now now, let’s just see how it goes. Let’s just enjoy when that happens too.”

Viola shuffled the cards with a smile and dealt them with experienced movements.

Kafal took the cards too and inspected them with curious eyes.

“Hey Mom, do you know about Old Maid?”
“I do. I saw… dragons in human forms… playing it.”
“Oh! So even dragons play cards, huh? Then again, dragons living using human forms would naturally reach for the human amusements too.”

Kafal discarded the pair she formed and smiled apologetically.

“…I don’t think… humans can win. Is that… okay?”
“Bring it on. Humans may not beat dragons using swords, but we can’t go losing even in games too.”
“Wait a moment, why are you suddenly representing humanity so smugly there, Tim?”

Tim’s stern face grew more dignified and the sparks flew in the not-so-wide passenger carriage.

Ten minutes later.

“……How can this be?”
“I mean, it’s instead harder to pull the maid from these two…”

It was an intense battle.

Tim, who unluckily was the first with the old maid (and it was obvious by his expression), would turn slightly happy whenever it was about to be pulled, so the game continued for a while as everyone pulled every card but that one.

However, that balance was broken by Kafal.

When she ultimately pulled the old maid from Tim’s hand, her eyes opened wide and the other three instantly realized which card it was.

Following that, whenever someone was about to pull it away her expression would become slightly happier like with Tim, so it remained in her hand until the end.

As time went on, Lucella, Wein, and Viola’s hands got complete, and only Tim and Kafal remained.

There were three cards left.

And it was Tim’s turn to draw.

“She has shown growth during this fight… The only reason why I could push the old maid on her earlier was that she wasn’t used to reading human expressions…! But if I draw it this time, I dare say there will be no next time for me. In other words, I’m the one who’s backed into a wall here. If I can’t finish this now, it will be my loss!”
“My pride as a dragon…!”
“Isn’t Leader making the most serious face in the past year?”
“That sounded cool for a moment, but it’s just a showdown between the absolute worst players, isn’t it?”

Tim glared at the cards with a stern face like that of a bust sculpture, while Kafal was stiffened so nothing would show up on her face, looking as if she had taken the full course of every bitter medicine this world had to offer.

Tim’s fingers squirmed in the empty space, invisible swords clashing between the first-class adventurer and the dragon.

Expression, breathing, the flow of the atmosphere, and presence.

They were anticipating each other’s moves, hundreds of battles happening in the span of a second.

Their low-level, yet pointlessly advanced and unproductive battle had met an abrupt end.

“It’s this one!”
“Ah!”

Tim’s hand slipped past Kafal’s, which was in hot pursuit, and pulled a card… and it wasn’t the old maid, but the Ace of Hearts that depicted the silhouette of a dragon with spread wings.

“Oh yeaah!”

Discarding his final pair, Tim raised his fist in the air.

Kafal stared at the sole old maid remaining in her hand and dropped her shoulders.

“I lost……”
“L-Let’s practice later! If you do, I’m sure you’ll grow stronger!”
“…This is the first time in my 27 years of life that I heard anyone thinking of training in Old Maid.”

With an expression mixed with exasperation and admiration, Wein stared at Lucella who was consoling Kafal.