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True to the name “Kingdom of Water” that it was known as, Setulev had many rivers throughout its territory. The water factors were naturally strong on its lands.

For that reason, even if it wasn’t a big country in pure size, it still took people a long time to travel across it.

It was convenient when moving things through the rivers, but that made it hard for fast horses and carriages to travel in a straight line.

That day, the group stopped at an inn town that overlooked a river.

They already had their evening meal, but it was still a languid period of time where it was too soon to sleep.

Lucella was immersed in playing Old Maid with Kafal.

“Could it be this?”

Being full of confidence, Kafal pulled out the old maid that depicted a devil from Lucella’s hand.

“Too bad! That’s a bust!”
“Whaa? You looked so happy just now I was XXXX it would be this one!”
“That was acting. Sorry.”
“…The happy and sad faces you make are cute so I forgive you.”

As she said before, Lucella was helping Kafal practice the game.

However, Kafal fell for even the slightest of tricks, while when it was Lucella’s turn to draw, she couldn’t maintain the poker face.

Presumably, Kafal couldn’t use these little communication tricks just yet since she had only just obtained a human-form clone.

Lucella was amused by that at first, but gradually, she started to wonder whether this would put her at a disadvantage during the negotiations.

They were about to meet the king after this, but she suddenly got worried now.

“So humans deceive each other even in games.”

Kafal hugged Lucella while looking a little disappointed.

“I guess… you could say that.”
“I wonder why humans do that. Dragons treasure the agreements and never XXXXX them.”

It sounded like the statement of a sore loser, but Kafal seemed to be lamenting the fact quite seriously.

In reality, the spirituality of the dragons had many obscure parts, but there have been examples in the legends and tales of them forming contracts with humans. And Lucella had never heard of a case where the dragon had broken one such agreement, though she lacked knowledge in this field.

She thought that was the nature of the dragons, but Lucella wondered whether it was simply a difference between humans and dragons as species.

“…Dragons are strong. Humans are weak. Dragons have… little gain… big loss… to lie. Humans are different.”
“You’re right… Perhaps I was thinking in dragon XXXX. Maybe it’s not that humans are ***, but because it’s more XXXXXXXXX to live that way.”

Lucella obtained power that surpassed the common sense of humans. And after reaching that level, she understood some things by feeling.

Most likely, dragons had few merits in deceiving other dragons. They were individually strong and lived for a very long time, so any makeshift lie would leave them with more losses than gains. As such, they respected their contracts.

Perhaps as Kafal said, humans weren’t deceiving each other out of foolishness, but as a structural flaw of the human race as a whole.

“Even Dragons… though they don’t deceive each other, it’s not like they never XXXXXX mistakes, after all.”

The way Kafal hugged her was full of sadness for some reason.

Perhaps she was talking about losing her egg. Or perhaps her decision to leave her group.

“I also get… deceived many times… and sometimes deceive others too.”

Lucella said so, feeling like comforting her would be a bit wrong now.

“I see… But as long as I’m with you, I won’t let you do that.”
“I’ll never deceive you… Mom.”
“Haha… thank you.”
“Other than… in games.”
“Hey!”

Kafal flopped onto the bed while still hugging Lucella.

Since their wallet was full they decided to go for a slightly luxurious room. For that reason, the bed was quite pleasantly bouncy.

“I wonder what kind of person Setulev’s king is.”
“I hope… a good person.”
“Yeah…”

The Golden Helmet members seemed to have quite good faith in the royal palace.

Lucella judged that they had a good reason for their trust, but since she had never met them directly, she was still vigilant.

She wished that their relationship wouldn’t become one where they would need to deceive and be deceived by each other.