Half an hour later, outside the palace gate…

「Your highness!…」「Your highness!…」

Straf and Cycelia walk past the guards at the gate, who immediately stand at attention when they notice her. She returns a polite nod with a small smile, and the two continue onward towards the Main Street. The early afternoon streets are busy, filled with citizens going about their daily business, or workers out on the streets carrying materials to workshops.

「…Do you mind, Straf? I don't want to get lost in the crowd.」

Cycelia asks with a smile as she wraps her arm around Straf's. He glances at her, then simply returns a shrug of his shoulders.

The crowd thickens as people stop for a few moments to look at something off to the side. Straf and Cycelia approach closer, and she looks at the object of everyone's attention with curious eyes.

「…We're lonely without you! In fact, why don't you come visit right meow, meowster!? At Strafdrakes, we'll serve aaall your needs!…」

A cat-eared, skimpily-dressed maid strikes a pose as her voice takes on a suggestive tone. Some people move on, and Cycelia gets a good look as the crowd clears a little.

「…Another beastman? Who is that?」

Cycelia glances at Straf, then returns her emerald eyes to the cat-eared maid. The maid winks at the audience.

「…With great coffee and great company! Strafdrakes! A great coffee company… Meow!」

A tray and a steaming cup of coffee materializes out of nowhere. An unbelievably cheerful smile appears on her unnaturally beautiful, youthful face. With a meow, she playfully scratches the air like a cat, almost luring the viewer to ask something about Strafdrakes, if only to get a chance to talk. With his hand casually in his pocket, a confident man approaches the maid's side.

「Aren't you a little cold in that outfit? Why don't we go to my place and warm you- Huh?」

The man smirks as he tries to place his hand on her frilled shoulder, but his confident expression is quickly replaced by confusion when his hand simply phases through her.

「Eh? What happened?…」

Cycelia tilts her head. The entire crowd becomes puzzled, in fact. The woman doesn't react to the man's attempt, or even the man himself. The tray with the coffee disappears, fizzling away.

「…Master! Why haven't you visited yet?… Did we make you upset?…」

The maid calls out, seemingly to someone in the crowd, and her face gains a sad, sulky pout as she idly twirls her foot on her toes with her hands behind her back.

「…We'll do better next time, promise! Please visit!… We're lonely without you!… In fact, why don't you come visit right meow, meowster!? At Strafdrakes, we'll serve aaall your needs!…」

The cat maid strikes a pose again, the exact same pose as before. Cycelia tilts her head further, slowly realizing that something is wrong as the maid repeats herself.

「Ah.」

Cycelia blinks with her brows raised when notices a small box on the ground, fixed to it by a metal frame.

「Finally noticed, huh?」

Turning his eyes away from the advertisement, Straf smirks at Cycelia with a smug tone. He turns and takes a step away, gently tugging Cycelia along with him on his arm.

「…That was the box from the new year's party, wasn't it?」

Cycelia asks while looking over her shoulder, departing from the fluctuating crowd that grows and shrinks seemingly at random as people come to watch the advertisement.

「Mnh… Kind of. It's not the box, but it's a box. It's one of the many. Honestly, they're a pain in the ass to make, and mostly because of the gem encoding.」

Straf thinks for a second, before shrugging his shoulders. They take a turn towards the Main Street.

「Gem encoding?…」

She furrows her brows at Straf.

「How do you represent someone as mana, Lia?」

Straf asks, glancing down at her while they weave through the dense crowd on the street.

「…I don't know?」

Cycelia gives it a moment of thought, then gives up with a shrug of her shoulders.

「Well, I'll give you a spoiler… It's not simple, and the guys who can do that charge good money… So I'll have to finally learn how to charge gems myself and tell them to get fucked.」

An amused huff escapes Straf's nose, and he replies with his lips in a little smirk.

…Rooooooooaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!!…

「Eh?…」

Cycelia's chestnut head perks up at the sound of a roar in the distance. A handful of people ignore it, while some become alarmed.

Fffffwoooooop!… Ffffwoppff!…

「…Did you hear that, Straf? Maybe Deathwind is flying about-」

Cycelia asks, glancing at Straf's face as he appears greatly amused for some reason. Her emerald eyes turn upward to the gray, cloudy sky above.

「Dragon!」「How did it get here!?」「Eh!?」

The people on the streets start screaming in terror. Cycelia's eyes snap wide open when a golden dragon flies in from behind her over her head, and soars down the street.

「Straf! There's going to be a massacre, even if it's a small dragon!… Straf! This isn't funny! Stop smirking and do something!」

Roaar!

Cycelia shakes Straf by his arm while the golden dragon flaps its wings and shoots upward into the sky. His mouth wobbles, Straf is barely holding back laughter.

「…Don't worry, my beautiful lady! I will fend the dragon off and keep you safe!…」

Down the street, a man suddenly declares with a suppressed smirk as he draws his sword and grabs onto a terrified woman covering her face with her hands. A handful of men watching from the sides with their fists on their hips grin at the sight. The dragon flickers faintly in the sky.

「Eh?…」

As she furrows her brows at the dragon, Cycelia stops shaking Straf.

「Pft… Khhhehehe… Ahhh… Noticed that too, huh?」

Straf cackles quietly for a brief moment, then lets out a sigh as the dragon plummets down and perches itself on one of the mansion's overhang roofs over the entrance doors.

「…Have at thee, beast! You can kill me, but you'll never touch my lady!…」

The man with the sword grins at the group of men watching him as he showily swings his sword in the air at the golden dragon. The woman in his arm clings onto him, clutching tight onto his jacket and burying her face in his chest. The men at the side of the street chuckle, shaking their heads.

「…This is an ad too?」

「…Ministry of Fortune! Try your luck where fates are shaped!…」

Cycelia asks, and Straf's voice replies from the overhang. Golden, sparkling letters float in the air in front of it while the perched dragon spreads its wings.

「Yup. How'd you like that? As you can see, it's not perfect… I could fix that flickering issue if I wanted to, with a few tricks…」

Grinning, Straf nods, then looks at Cycelia. He returns his eyes to the advertisement, and the dragon fizzles away into nothing.

「…But honestly, it's good enough, isn't it?」

Straf asks, pointing at the man sheathing his sword down the street.

「…Thank youuuuu! I was so scaaaared! Huuuuuu!…」「There, there, my lady…」

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The woman, relieved that her hero vanquished the dragon, hugs into him while sobbing. He pats her head, returning her hug while grinning at the band of now greatly amused men. He notices Straf is looking, and shoots him a knowing wink. Straf nods his head towards the Ministry of Fortune, and drags Cycelia in by his arm, while the hysterical woman and the swordsman depart somewhere together.

Straf and Cycelia enter a shiny, luxurious mansion. It's packed to the brim with people sitting around all types of tables. Long, round, semi-circular, concave and semi-circular… Simply put, there is something for everyone. A few sharply dressed waiters and waitresses are walking around with ice buckets filled with alcohol bottles, asking the customers if they wouldn't like to buy one. Some do. Cycelia unwraps her arm from Straf's.

「Straf, what is this place?…」

Cycelia asks as she looks around. The entire mansion is dripping with opulent wealth. Nearly everything is gold-plated or gilded, and excessively so. Minimalism and good taste have both gotten blackout drunk and left for home, while kitsch apparently has a strong head, and is the soul of this party. In the background, at a stage in the corner, a band plays a merry, catchy tune. Elsewhere, someone throws his arms up with a joyful, glee-filled scream. A few sour-faced customers glare at Straf and Cycelia as they pass by to leave.

「'Tsa casino, Lia. All work and no play makes me fucking pissed off…」

Straf casually replies as he hands a sharply-dressed man his fancy coat. Cycelia tilts her head, blinking at the sight as the man takes it behind a long desk, and hangs it up on a rack.

「Eh? You won't put it into your whirly thing?…」

She asks, pointing her finger at the many racks with coats and jackets behind the porter's desk.

「Huh? No, of course not. Not here. They're getting paid for something, Lia… Come.」

Casually placing his hands in his pockets, Straf gestures his head for Cycelia to follow. She shakes off the shock of the casino's opulence, and jogs up to Straf's side.

Straf walks up to a bespectacled woman standing behind a long desk, and nonchalantly leans onto it with his elbow.

「Hey. Give me ten thousand.」

He demands, nodding up at her. Her head perks up a little at his words.

「…That'll be a thousand drakes, sir.」

She replies, blinking at him for a few seconds, only to realize that Straf is serious. Cycelia glances at the two with her brows gently furrowed.

Thudthudthud!

「Come the fuck ooon! I'm the owner here! It should be on the house! Give me that for free!」

After a quick roll of his eyes, Straf slaps his hand noisily on the woman's desk. She stares at him with a discomforted grimace, visibly pondering what to do.

「…Sir, I can't just hand out almost a quarter of our worth for free-」

「I'm! The! Ow-ner!」

Thudthudthudthud!

After a moment of thought, the woman protests, but Straf simply slaps his hand on the desk again while leaning in towards her.

Closing her eyes, the woman lets out a large and slightly frustrated sigh.

「…Very well. Please wait a moment.」

She nods her head and briefly glances at Cycelia, before turning around and approaching a man sitting behind a small, barred pass in the wall.

She speaks something to the man, and he leans into the small opening, staring at her in shock with his brows raised. She nods, and the man's head slowly perks up. He stands up from his stool, and retreats to the back of his room. After a moment, he returns to the pass, sits back down, and lays out a few tokens for the woman to take. She takes them, then returns to Straf and Cycelia.

「…Here they are. One hundred black tokens. I hope that's satisfactory?」

The woman places large stacks of black, circular tokens on her desk, and slides them over towards Straf.

「Coins?…」

Cycelia remarks as she takes one of the black chips into her dainty fingers to take a closer look.

「Chips, Lia. It's to detach people from the fact they're playing with money. It hits different when you lose a lot of little colorful disks…」

Straf scoops the black chips up, and throws them into his [Portable Storage]. He nods his head towards the center of the casino, where the majority of the customers are.

Dingdingdingding!…

A ringing noise comes from elsewhere in the casino. A rank of people are sitting on stools in front of tall boxes with levers on their sides.

「What is that, Straf?」

Cycelia asks as she points at the noisy, colorful boxes.

「Hm? Ah, that…」

Taken by very minor surprise, Straf looks at Cycelia, then towards where she's pointing. He nods, grimacing a little while he thinks.

「…Those are slot machines. We're not going to play those. They're rigged so that you only get a tenth of your money back, since that's still legal…」

He explains with a quick shrug of his shoulders, glancing at her again.

「Huh? Rigged? Play?」

Cycelia tilts her head, blinking at Straf's face with confused emerald eyes.

「Yeah. You're not supposed to win on slots. You win, only to make you keep playing and lose more…」

With an amused scoff, Staf nods, and glances over to the slot machines again. An irate man slaps one of the machines, hops out of his stool, and angrily stomps away.

「…It took a surprising amount of work to get the machines to finally stop playing favorites with me and let me lose.」

He adds with a grin on his face while approaching one of the tables with Cycelia.

「Huh!? So you play games for money here, and you can't even win!?」

Cycelia's jaw drops as her eyes dart back to the one-armed bandits robbing their victims.

「Of course you can win, Lia… In poker and blackjack. We're going to do blackjack for now.」

Straf replies as he sits down at a table with two stools vacant. He pats the one next to him, and Cycelia joins the table.

Clack.

「Here, I won't need this many. You can have the rest.」

The chips clatter on the table as Straf pulls them out of his [Portable Storage], and slides the stacks over to Cycelia. He plucks one black chip off the top.

「Huh? What do I do with them?」

Cluelessly staring down at the large stack of black chips in front of her, Cycelia asks.

「You bet them, Lia. You win, you win more. You lose… Well, you can guess.」

Straf quickly explains as he leans onto the table with is elbow. There is a round currently ongoing, and Cycelia's head is swiveling left and right towards other players.

「…How do I play?」

She tilts her head, blinking her emerald eyes at him.

「You're supposed to get your hand's total to 21. You draw cards, and then you decide whether or not you want to draw another one. If the dealer gets closer than you, you lose…」

Straf replies, and shrugs his shoulders as he places his cheek on his hand, waiting for the round to end with with mouth aslant. The dealer draws a card.

「Shit.」「Fuck.」「Ahhh…」

The two men at the sides curse under their breaths, while the woman beside Cycelia simply lets out a disappointed sigh.

「…Also, there are special cards like ace, queen, king, and joker… But don't worry about those too much. If the dealer tries to cheat, I'll break the fucking table.」

Straf loudly declares in a nonchalant tone. The woman standing on the other side of the table looks at him with a lightly unnerved grimace.

「…Dealer wins. Next round. Please place your bets.」

The dealer declares, and with a gentle nod of her head, points her hand to the betting area for Cycelia. Cycelia's head quickly swivels around for clues.

「Straf… How much should I bet?」

She asks in a hushed tone, leaning in slightly.

「Just bet however much you feel like, Lia… Also, you don't need to whisper. It's not a team or a versus game. You're only playing against the dealer.」

With a dismissive shrug of his hand, Straf drops his sole black chip onto the betting area. The other players look at it with surprised expressions on their faces, before looking at the stack of them in front of Cycelia. Their brows rise, and their eyes bulge out in shock. Cycelia tentatively matches Straf, placing one chip in her bet zone. After a little deliberation, the other woman places her bet too. The dealer begins placing cards. The man beside Straf stands with his hand.

「Hit…」

Taptap.

With a bored look on his face and a tone fitting it, Straf taps his fingers on the table's green felt. The dealer places another card in Straf's hand.

Taptaptap.

「…Hit…」

Straf repeats, and the dealer brings out another card, bringing Straf's total to 20. He pauses and grimaces for a few moments, while the dealer waits patiently.

「…Hit.」

Taptap.

Straf brings his bored, disinterested gaze up to the dealer's eyes. She furrows her brows in surprise, but obliges.

「Ah?」

The dealer's head perks up when she realizes she just placed an ace in Straf's hand. He lets out an amused huff.

「…The house always wins.」

Straf shrugs his hands with a smug grin on his face, and waves his hand for the dealer to move onto Cycelia…