Unconsciously, time has come to the end of December, and the New Year celebration is just around the corner.

In the bedroom, Tiran curled up by the floor-to-ceiling window, sitting cross-legged on the floor barefoot, with a steaming cup of honey tea on the low table in front of her. She opened a book and held it in her hands, wearing glasses on her nose, calmly gazing at the fluttering snowflakes and the silver-dressed palace outside the window, exuding an intellectual demeanor as she let out a faint sigh.

"It's snowing..."

"If you had a book of poems instead of that coloring book, maybe I would believe you."

Aya sat a few steps away from Tiran, teasing the cat-like Ah-Choo who was lying on her lap, desperately reaching out for the yarn ball.

"Tch, who's trying to fool you." Tiran snorted and took off her glasses, placing them aside.

Aya glanced at the bottom of the bed, where two large bags were stuffed... all the results of Tiran and Coco's second sweep. For the past few days, this person had been holed up in her room, reading books and occasionally emitting eerie laughter, making the trembling Aya fear that this lady might suddenly decide to experiment on her.

"Why can you read this kind of stuff every day? What about studying?"

"Ridiculous, what do you think I stayed up till dawn every day for the first half of the month? As long as I finish all my coursework in advance, even that old bastard can't do anything to me." Tiran sneered, her face full of pride.

I surrender, isn't that enough?

"By the way, you came back alone that day... Where is Coco?"

"Oh, her..." Tiran hesitated a bit.

"What's with that expression? Don't tell me you got bored and decided to tie her up and sell her to slave traders?" Aya stared at her in horror.

"How is that possible!" Tiran refuted loudly, "She was just taken away by a few Elves."

"Elves?"

"Yeah, and not just ordinary Elves. I recognized their clothes, they were the dark guards of the Elven Royal City, I saw them a few years ago when the Elf Kingdom sent delegates." Tiran nodded.

"Could it be that Coco's position in the Elf Kingdom is also extraordinary?" Aya speculated.

"It's not certain, right? How could an ordinary Elf cultivate Elf Magic to the point where they could go head-to-head with me?" Tiran sneered, pursing her lips, "The problem is that those guys seemed to be in a hurry to take Coco away, their reaction always makes me a little uneasy, as if they were running away."

Thinking back carefully, Tiran actually heard several words in the Elven language spoken by the dark guards, and the most frequent ones were "royal capital" and "New Year celebration". Could something big really happen during the New Year celebration?

"...forget it, never mind. Let the old man worry about this kind of thing."

"I feel like someone is calling my name."

Suddenly, the door was silently pushed open, and a head peeked in, startling Tiran, who immediately threw a teacup at it.

"Oh my god! Little Tiran, are you trying to murder me!"

Granzon trembled for a moment and took a half step back, catching the teacup with his hand, at least not spilling the tea inside.

"And what about you? Sneaking in like that, what do you want to do!" Tiran closed the book in her hands, obviously annoyed by the interruption.

"Ah..." The expression on the king's face suddenly became awkward. He walked into the room and sat down, stuttering.

"Hmph, what else can you do when you come to see your beloved daughter at a time like this? Of course, it's to surprise attack and then push her down... cough cough cough! No, of course, it's to bond with my dear daughter."

"Tell me the truth."

"I'm bored, let's play a game together." ...Damn idiot.

This time he wasn't lying, the king was indeed bored. If being a "king" could be considered a profession, this profession generally didn't have "vacation" as a concept. After all, governing a country involved countless matters to attend to every day. And kings, in general, were people with great desires for power, and they wouldn't be willing to let go of their power even for a day.

But King Milanía, the great god of war, was different. Aya had never seen a king who would run away every day and need his own female chamberlain to tie him back to the palace with a rope to handle government affairs.

Granzon would never agree to work without breaks all year round, so every year he would use the excuse of the New Year to hand over the affairs to his ministers or Crown Prince Brad and give himself a few days off.

In previous years, at this time, His Majesty the King would usually choose to relax in the royal gardens in the outskirts, soaking in hot springs and fishing. But this year, due to the crowning ceremony of the heir and the announcement of a new law against the church at the New Year's celebration, to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the situation, Granzon could only reluctantly stay in the palace for vacation.

The problem is that there is nothing fun in the palace at all. In the end, the King was forced to go back to find his wife, the Queen, who rarely shows her face, for some intimate time, only to be kicked out by his shy wife...

"So you, you pervert, came to find me? You are truly a scumbag! I should just kill you right now!" After hearing Granzon's explanation, Tiran silently drew out his sword from who knows where.

"Wait, wait! That's not what I meant! I really just came to play games with you! Normal games!"...

After a while, in the living room of the princess's residence, all the participants in the game gathered around a long table.

There weren't many people, just Tiran, Aya, Mimi, His Majesty the King, Iom and the female chamberlain, Dilua, who was responsible for acting as the judge in the game.

Originally, they wanted to invite more people, but the servants in the palace avoided the idea of "playing games with the princess," and the Cross Knight Order, which should have been able to find a few warriors, had sent all their members, except for Iom and a few knights who couldn't leave their posts, to deal with the giant creature that attacked the capital a few days ago. So they could only settle with this for now.

As for the few people who were invited to play the game, they didn't have no objections at all... like Mimi.

But when Granzon whispered something to Dilua's ear, her eyes immediately gleamed with an intimidating aura, and she burst out in an astonishing manner.

"So... the name of the game is 'Kill the King'? What kind of game is this?!" Dilua, as the judge, was familiarizing herself with the rules, but her expression changed immediately when she saw the label on the card box.

Who came up with this game?! Aren't they afraid of getting into trouble with such a name?!

"Huh? 'Kill the King'? I think I've heard of it before. It seems to be a pretty famous board game."

"Yeah, so I've always wanted to play it." Granzon raised a finger with anticipation on his face. "Also, whoever wins the game can become the king and demand anything from other players as their command."

"Hey, hey, aren't you already the king? Why do you care about this?" Aya asked.

"Don't you know I'm a king?!" Granzon's face immediately looked troubled. "Other kings are usually having fun and indulging in pleasures, occasionally even playing power politics. They can do whatever they want. But why do I have to be stuck in the study room signing documents every day? Why does being a king feel like being a regular worker?!"

"Your Majesty, it seems like you have some grievances against me," Dilua, the female chamberlain, said with a dark smile.

The King stepped back, shrank his neck, and looked intimidated.

...

Although it was a bit scary when she got serious, as the referee, Dilua took her responsibility seriously. The corresponding identity cards and card decks were randomly distributed to each player, and a smokeless war began.

Aya awkwardly opened the cards in his hand into an imperfect fan shape and scanned them. As a dragon that had been hiding in the deep mountains for countless years, he had never encountered this kind of game before. He had just barely memorized the rules and was now in a panic.

The game design was relatively simple. The background was a rebellion plot by a lord in a certain royal palace, with an assassin trying to assassinate the king. The battle unfolded accordingly. The players could be assigned the roles of king, knight, lord, or assassin, each with their own corresponding equipment and skill cards. The victory conditions were either the death of the king from the king x knight side or the total annihilation of the lord x assassin side.

"I actually drew the king... I'm so lucky." Aya sighed to himself. There were five players, so normally, there would be one king, one assassin, one lord, and two knights.

From a data perspective, the king had a full five points of health, which meant they could withstand five regular attacks—of course, they would be defeated on the fifth attack. It seemed like they were the most resistant among all the roles.

But the problem was, this skill was so useless. It had zero combat power and only provided healing and support amplification, and it could only be used on units other than the king himself. In other words, randomly using the skill in the current situation, where the roles of other players were unclear, not only exposed their identity as the king, but also had the possibility of giving the enemy a boost.

Dilua confirmed the deck and specified the playing order, saying, "Lord Eom, please go ahead."

Eom remained calm, looking confident -- though he always had that expression. He drew a card from his deck, which had a shield pattern on it, and pushed it forward, saying, "Guard the king."

Huh?

【Guard】 is a knight-exclusive ability that can put a shield on any character to absorb one point of damage. This means that Eom has revealed his knight character.

But... how did he confirm that the Granzon he's guarding is on his side?

"As the Cross Knight, it is my duty to protect the king. Whether in the game or in reality," Eom said with a serious expression.

...Well, as long as you're happy.

"Hehe, then I won't hold back," Tiran grinned mischievously, flexing his fingers.

Aya immediately felt something amiss.

"Activate the skill, 【Ambush】, targeting Aya," Tiran drew two cards, one of which was a basic card that each character had, the equipment card 【Longsword】, which dealt one point of damage, and the other was the assassin's skill card, 【Ambush】, which can double the damage of an equipment card when triggered and has a chance to trigger a second attack, giving an opportunity for a second card to be played.

"Huh? Hey hey, this doesn't follow the routine! You can't just randomly attack right off the bat!" Aya widened her eyes.

Then she watched helplessly as Tiran rolled the dice and got a six, fulfilling the condition for triggering a second attack of three points or more.

"Upgrade the deck."

"You are trying to kill me!"

Each character has the right to exchange three cards from their hand for an opportunity to upgrade the deck once, and if they fail to roll three points or more, the sacrifice of three cards would be wasted.

But Tiran rolled another six.

"Second attack, activate the enhanced skill, 【Triple Combo】, targeting Aya."

Tiran calmly discarded his 【Triple Combo】 and three 【Short Crossbows】, forcefully reducing Aya's remaining three points of health.

"The king is dead. The Assassins win."

Dilua also frowned, thinking, what the hell, this is too ridiculous!