Tail Cutting
While sneaking off with a cookie stolen from the giant, you got caught by the tail.
Yikes! It gave you quite a fright, but luckily you managed to lop off a piece of your own body and escape.
Lighter now, and carried along by the momentum, you advance 2 spaces.
Hunter
You’ve got a hunting wager going with a friend, but you’re short on kills.
At this rate you’ll lose the money. What ever shall you do? Ah!
Having taken out the competition with a single shot, you hum a little tune and advance 3 spaces.
Caterpillar Party
Wriggle, wriggle, nice and plump. Squirm squirm squirm. The night of the caterpillars’ frenzy has begun.
Wow, so much tasty food! We’resohappywecouldallthrowourselvesoutofthetreetogether!
Why not! Advance 10 spaces!
Why is every single one of these like this? Is this really a game children should be playing?
If it had been an ordinary board game, I’d have written the designer off as having strange taste and left it at that. Right now, though, I didn’t have the peace of mind to shrug anything off.
Because the instant a card was played, whatever was written on it happened for real.
‘The puppy draws the cards. In exchange, you take the penalty with me.’
Holding a hand like this, where on earth did he get the confidence to say that?
Unlike me, skimming the text with a wavering gaze, the actual owner of the cards carried on explaining in the most unbothered voice imaginable.
“If you were peeking, you’ve probably got the gist, but a demonstration couldn’t hurt, could it? There, watch which card that one draws.”
The servant Ignis had singled out squeezed his eyes shut like a man resigned to his fate and drew a card.
Birthday Cake
A cheerful song drifts over from somewhere. Happy birthday to you~.
Everyone prepared this cake just for you, and eating it puts you in a wonderful mood.
A year older now, you advance 1 space.
The moment the card was revealed, there was a faint clatter and a mouthwatering slice of cake appeared on an empty stretch of the table. A bright red strawberry and a single candle sat atop the white cream. A textbook strawberry cake.
That familiar melody, “Happy birthday to you~,” drifted faintly out of thin air.
“There, we made it just for you. Go on, try some.”
Propping his chin on one hand with an expression of pure anticipation, Ignis issued the order under the guise of an invitation.
Gulp. The servant swallowed dryly, then reluctantly picked up a fork and cut off a tiny piece of cake. But his hand stalled several times, right before it reached his mouth.
He was worried there might be some strange substance baked into it.
“Scared? There’s no poison in it, so don’t fret.”
Ignis urged him on in a gentle voice, as though he’d read the man’s thoughts.
At the sound of fingers tapping the table again like the ticking of a clock hand, the pressure got to him, and the servant took a bite of the cake as if he could no longer refuse.
And a few seconds later...
“...It’s so sweet.”
The servant’s eyes went soft and unfocused, and a rapturous smile spread across his lips.
“Ahh... I’m so happy.”
A clear flush rising in his face, he dropped to the ground as if his strength had drained away and wolfed down the rest of the cake. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d balked at so much as tasting it a moment ago.
The fork was already lying abandoned on the floor. Having swallowed every last crumb with his bare hands, he licked the leftover flecks off the plate with his tongue.
And that wasn’t enough for him either. He gazed at the empty plate with foolish longing, then went so far as to rub his cheek against its surface, swaying limply.
Ignis watched the spectacle in silence for a while, then turned his eyes to me without a care in the world.
“See, it happened exactly the way the card said. That’s all there is to it. You draw a card, you do what’s written on it. Simple game.”
...There are so many things I want to point out that I don’t know where to start. Forget whether there’s poison in it or not, something else is definitely in there.
For a second, a certain hallucinogenic white powder flashed through my mind, but I made myself shake the thought off. Ignis had already picked out his next victim.
“You’re next.”
The next man up stole a glance at his colleague, who was sprawled on the floor licking a plate like a dog, then reached out a hand with a face gone white as chalk.
Penalty Card
Shipwrecked
Log, day one. Sailing out, you ran headlong into a colossal wave.
When you came to, you were on a deserted island.
You lose 2 turns.
“Ah...”
The moment he read the words printed across the top of the card, a strangled groan slipped out of him.
“I-I drew the wrong one. Please, just give me one more chan—”
The servant tried to get the words out with lips trembling violently, but he never finished, because a fierce surge of water erupted from beneath his chair.
Splash!
The wave swallowed the servant, chair and all. It happened so fast that nobody had time to react, let alone stop it.
In the space where the servant had been, a single waterlogged shoe lay tipped on its side, looking terribly forlorn.
“Good God, Emil!”
The people the wave had spared shot to their feet, the colour draining from their faces.
They shouted and searched frantically under the table and all through the garden, but the servant was nowhere to be found.
“H-he’s gone. Just like that...”
Someone mumbled it in a dazed voice, and the answer that came back was far too easygoing for the situation.
“He isn’t gone. He’s just on a deserted island.”
Every eye in the garden swung to Ignis at once.
The one who had conjured the wave didn’t appear to feel even the faintest flicker of guilt over what he’d just done.
“Don’t take it so seriously. It’s a game. He’ll be back once two turns have gone round, just like the card says.”
He’d been smiling in a lazy sort of way even as the water surged up, but the moment people stopped concentrating on the game and began getting out of their seats one by one, the smile cut off dead.
“It’s nothing at all, so quit making a fuss and sit back down, all of you.”
That one short sentence, and the brief commotion settled as if it had never happened.
The ones who’d gone white in the face and were still catching their breath ended up glancing around and sinking back into their chairs.
A person had vanished right in front of everyone, and the empty seat was still damp with cold water, and yet not a single soul brought it up. As though nothing had happened at all.
My stomach turned. It felt like I’d been invited to some bizarre tea party out of a storybook. A place where the abnormal becomes the normal felt strange and dangerous.
“And now it’s finally the puppy’s turn. I can’t wait to see what card comes out.”
With the situation tidied away, the smile came back to Ignis’s face.
Watching him beam like that when his own hand was nothing but garbage cards, I suddenly found myself remembering the things he got up to in the original story.
A life with no interest whatsoever in living by common sense, faithful only to instinct, doing exactly as he pleased... Drink, extravagance, women, every kind of deviance. So long as there was a thrill in it and pleasure to be had, he was never fussy about the method or the target.
The Ignis of the original was what you’d call a libertine.
He loathed anything that ran to a pattern, and since he chased nothing but intense stimulation, ordinary things almost never satisfied him.
He was especially fond of behaviour that carried risk, and he got a rush out of the moment of victory under the worst possible odds.
Which is to say, a gambler’s situation with every escape route sealed off. Exactly like this one.
I thought he went off the rails once he was grown, but the signs were already there when he was a kid.
It seemed I’d need to go back and reassess the person I was trying to win over.
I swallowed a sigh and carefully drew a single card. I gripped hard to keep from shaking, but the fingertips pinching the card’s edge trembled faintly all the same.
Please, anything but another weird one. Please...
Then, ever so carefully, I flipped the face-down card over.
The instant I read the text, a breath of relief slipped out of me without my meaning it to. I’d been dreading a penalty card, so this was a mercy.
Ignis looked at the card I’d drawn too and nodded, as if it wasn’t bad.
“Good card. Nice draw.”
On the surface it was praise, but there was a thin trace of disappointment soaked into his voice somehow.
Hey... we’re on the same team, you know. There’s nothing for you to be disappointed about.
Pretending to be delighted by his compliment, I flicked a card out onto the table, quick and neat, face up so everyone could see it clearly.
“Well, the effect’s a little dull, but I suppose a pair of glittery wings would suit you just fine...”
Ignis, who’d been getting the spell ready to cast on me, glanced idly at the picture on the card I’d played, and his eyes went wide.
Because what I’d played wasn’t the freshly drawn ‘Fairies’ Banquet’ at all. It was the ‘Caterpillar Party’ card that had been sitting in my hand the whole time.
