Fun Journey

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*August 10, Year 774*

A huge pitch-black carriage is driving on the road leading to the capital of Crocus. This carriage is colored black with gold ornaments all over it, and the wheels are shockingly made of gold too.

The gold ornaments were designed in different patterns, but the pattern that appeared the most is definitely ravens with rubies inlaid on their eyes, it gave the carriage a gloomy but majestic style, and if an experienced craftsman were here, they would be shocked.

That's because this whole carriage is shockingly made out of Golden Bamboo!

That means that this carriage would be able to withstand attacks from most mages in B-rank and below, with only mages above A-rank able even to cause damage to the carriage.

So, one can just imagine the shocking background of the ones inside the carriage, and that's not all, the horses that pulled the carriage were so strong that they were able to pull the huge carriage at a fast speed.

These majestic horses are gray in color and had fiery eyes, they had eight slender, muscular legs that they used to pull the massive carriage behind them.

One strange thing is that these horses do not seem to pant, or even breathe like tireless machines as they pulled the carriage behind them.

Inside the carriage, John and his party were currently sitting on their couches, slouching even, this was because they have just eaten food and are currently digesting it.

"This carriage of yours is really superb, John. I can't even feel the bumps while riding it." Ur said with a smile as she looked outside the window.

"Hahahaha, of course, don't look at it like anyone just made it, it was made by yours truly, and anything that comes out of yours truly's hand will always be top-notch products." John said with his nose pointed to the sky.

Ur just laughed at his antics and then began to silently stare at the night sky out, meanwhile, Lyon walked over to me and asked.

"John, can you take out that thing, what do you call it? It's something that has chess in it, anyway, it's that board thingy we played yesterday."

"It's mage auto chess dumbass." Gray who was sitting on a couch, stood up and said to Lyon in a mocking manner.

"I know it's mage auto chess Gray, and why are you even stripping here? Don't you have any shame?" Lyon covered up his embarrassment for forgetting the name of the game and counterattacked by pointing out that Gray is in his briefs.

"What?! I could have sworn I have my clothes on a minute earlier." Gray cried out in surprise as he looked down to see that he was indeed in his briefs.

"Put on your clothes back, Gray." Ur said as she turned to look inside, she quickly covered Ultear's eyes, but it was already too late as the damage was already done, Gray nodded as he quickly found his clothes and wore them.

John smiled helplessly as he brought out the table for playing mage auto chess, Cana also wanted to play so she got up and walked over, Ur and Ultear also got up as they wanted to watch the game.

"Today will be the day you will be defeated, John! I've been strategizing in the past few days on strategies to defeat you!" Lyon said with standard chunibyo words.

"As if you'll ever beat me, it would be better for you to go to sleep to have a better chance of realizing your dreams than staying awake." John said as he inserted his figure and key, and turned his key to activate his side.

"You were just lucky last time to be able to get two 3 stars to complete the grandfather and grandson synergies. You won't be as lucky this time." Lyon responded as he also inserted his figure and turned his key.

Gray and Cana just smiled as they also inserted their figures and turned their keys, it was worth mentioning that they also have their own figures for the game now, something John made long ago.

*After the match*

"It's not fair, how could you put yourself as a mage inside and made it as strong as Makarov and the others?" Lyon shouted as he pointed at the figure of John on the board with black ravens around him.

"It's only fair for the create to make themselves characters in the game and make it strong right?" John said with a smile like he was stating the obvious.

"No, I don't accept this, let's start again, I'm sure I'll beat you this time." Lyon said in a tone that say 'we won't stop playing until I win'.

And so they went on to play a few more games with John winning most of the time, and sometimes Gray and Cana won, but Lyon never won because he was too impatient with the handling of his mages.

It wasn't long before the others became tired, so John put away the table and laid on his bed, and others did so too, with the exception of Lyon yelling that it's not over until he wins, but one look from Ur shut him up and he obediently slept on the bed.

*August 12, Year 774*

*Morning*

Two days have passed since that day, and he can finally see the huge walls of Crocus on the horizon, he estimates it would be noon by the time they arrived, so they come to the decision to eat lunch once they arrived.

Fast forward to Noon, John handed the entrance fee to Crocus as they drove their carriage to a nearby inn amidst the cries of surprise by the folks living in Crocus due to the horses pulling the carriage.

John went generous with it and rented out the entire inn as he stored the whole carriage along with the horses inside my space, then they went into the inn he rented out named [ The Mystic Inn].

They ordered a full table of dishes and sat on one of the tables to wait for the dishes to be delivered, John heave a sigh of annoyance at the smug look on Lyon's face as he kept looking at him.

"Winning once doesn't mean your that great at playing the game Lyon, even Ultear is better than you yet you dared to smile that much?" John mocked mercilessly wiping Lyon's smug smile on his face. The others also laughed at hearing that.

Lyon then felt a hand pet him on his head, he looked up to see Ur with a comforting smile as she said. "It's okay, you just have to believe in yourself, you will gradually become better over time, at most better than my daughter."

Lyon would have been moved if not for the latter half of the sentence causing him to slump on the table once more, this continued on for a while until the food was delivered to them.

"You can accompany them first Cana, let's go shopping tomorrow after I'm done with my matters." John said to Cana after they were done eating, as he gestured to Ur and the others.

Seeing Cana nod, John bid farewell to them as he followed the address on the glowing screen in front of him, after making sure he was in the right direction, he put away the screen and started walking to the end of the street.

After walking for a few hundred meters, he arrived in front of a simple shop that sells different specialties from different places all over Fiore, the store was named [ Merlin's Grocery Store].

John walked in and took a look at the place, he kept looking but he didn't see the familiar figure from his first quest, he then walked up to the one manning the store, a young man in his twenties.

"Is Mr. Merlin here by any chance?" John asked, the young's man face became surprised hearing that he is looking for Merlin, so he stood up and asked back. "Who are you and why are you looking for my father?"

"Give this to him and tell him, a friend from a far is here to see him." John said as he handed a small piece of paper with Merlin's signature on it.