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The third game I prepared was Monopoly, a very famous board game in Korea.
It was released a long time ago and gained a lot of popularity, and now it has become a board game that anyone would have played at least once.
Lately, it could be enjoyed as a smartphone app, but I was still more comfortable with the paper board version.
It’s easy to learn because the rules are simple. This is the best game to enjoy with many people.
After briefly explaining the rules to the participants, we decided on our game pieces.
The red horse was Kaneff and Alfred’s team.
The blue horse was Lia and Andras’ Team.
The yellow horse was me and Speranza’s team.
Each team shared the money needed to start and started the game in earnest.
First, Kaneff and Alfred’s team threw the dice.
-ROLL
The sum of the numbers from the two dice was 8.
The red horse arrived in Cairo, Egypt.
“Senior, because we were the first to arrive on this land, we can buy it, right?”
“Yes.”
Alfred asked Kaneff for his opinion.
“What shall we do, Mr. Kaneff?”
“Buy everything!”
“Okay, we’ll buy it!”
Alfred and Kaneff immediately bought Cairo, Egypt.
From then on, the play of the two had been the same. They quickly moved forward and bought every land without the owner.
The building at all those lands was built at the highest price.
As expected, the amount of money they had had proportionally decreased, and the two didn’t care about it.
On the other hand, Lia and Andras’ team was…
“Andras, what shall we do?”
“Well, if we think about the efficiency of the toll that we can get by investing in land purchases and building costs…”
They continued to play by carefully calculating the efficiency of purchasing land and buildings.
Compared to the Kaneff and Alfred’s team, the number of lands they owned was small, but they had a huge cash reserve.
Lastly, Speranza and I…
“Papa, I want to buy this place.”
“Huh? Why?”
“The picture is pretty.”
Speranza wanted to buy places if the drawn flag was pretty.
“Shall we buy it then?”
“Un!”
I played the game with Speranza’s interest in mind, rather than considering the efficiency or the conditions of victory.
Of course, winning the game was important, but it didn’t seem bad to play leisurely like this, it felt like we were traveling around the world.
Thus, the game progressed according to each team’s play style.
As the dice were thrown several times and the game progressed, the vacant places gradually decreased.
As the safe land continued to disappear, throwing dice started to become a burden.
The result of the game began to change by exchanging tolls.
The gap began to widen between the three teams.
The closest team to victory was Kaneff and Alfred’s team.
“Oh! Andras is caught again!”
“Since the hotel is built here. The toll is 900,000 won($630).”
“Ugh…”
The two, who occupied a lot of land by going on a buying rampage, made a lot of profits from the toll.
In particular, Andras and Lia’s team continued to get trapped in other teams’ land due to bad dice luck, and most of their money was donated as tolls.
Fortunately, Speranza and I were lucky with the dice, so we barely paid the toll.
As the faces of Andras and Lia hardened, the faces of Kaneff and Alfred became brighter.
Kaneff enjoyed the ease of looking at the abundant money.
“Maybe because we’ve too much land, the game feels so easy! Let’s see… Haha! Let’s strip Andras and Lia to the point of bankruptcy.”
“There’s still some land left”
Lia replied slightly nervously.
Kaneff teased her with his usual easy-going smile.
“Huh, what’s the plan? How about getting ready to wash the griffins?”
“…… ”
“It’s not over yet. There must be a way to reverse the situation.”
Andras burned his will to turn the tables with eyes that had not given up yet.
Looking at Kaneff, who was already confident of victory and relaxed, I thought quietly to myself.
‘Boss, you shouldn’t keep piling up karma like that… …Monopoly is a board game that has seemingly very easy rules, but anyone who has experienced it firsthand knows that the game is not easy as its rules.’
It was a game in which scary things are hidden, which sometimes could be considered malicious.
The situation that I was worried about started to become reality.
It began with our team’s turn.
-ROLL.
Speranza, who rolled the dice, checked the number and moved the yellow horse.
“We got caught on a deserted island, papa.”
The horse arrived on the deserted island of Cannes.
The player who arrives here cannot move their horse for three turns.
Speranza thought that the deserted island was a penalty, so she made a tearful face.
I comforted Speranza with a smile.
“Oh sweetheart, a deserted island is not bad.”
“But Papa, if we get caught here, we can’t move.”
“It’s all right, it’s all right.”
If you get caught on a deserted island at the beginning of the game, it will be very disadvantageous since you can’t play the game for 3 long turns.
However, when the game enters the mid-to-late stage like this, the situation is completely different.
Staying still for three turns meant staying safe for three turns.
Andras glistened his eyes at the yellow horse standing on the deserted island.
“How about rolling, Andras? It’s time for you guys to go bankrupt and end the game.”
As Kaneff said, the blue horse was surrounded by dangerous lands.
“Andras! Five and eight should never come out.”
“…… ”
Unlike Lia, who was nervous, Andras calmly looked at the game board. He was looking at a completely different place, not the dangerous lands.
-ROLL.
The dice were rolled from Andras’ hand.
The number was 6.
The blue horse passed the dangerous land and reached the space travel block.
Andras clenched his fist and made a gesture that he had done it.
“Sihyeon, if we get here, we can go wherever we want, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Phew… That’s a relief.”
Lia sighed loudly as if she was relieved.
Kaneff and Alfred smacked their lips with a look of regret.
“Then where are you going?”
Andras answered my question immediately.
“We’ll go to a deserted island.”
As expected, Andras was aiming for this.
When he said that he would go to a deserted island, Alfred asked me with a puzzled look.
“Can you go to a deserted island?”
“Yes, you can go anywhere when you get to the space travel block.”
“Ugh…”
Kaneff and Alfred frowned when they belatedly noticed Andras’ strategy.
The blue horse could stay safe on a deserted island for the next three turns.
The two did not worry much about the current situation.
They will be safe only for three turns anyway, and the current situation was still advantageous for Kaneff and Alfred.
“Is it our turn?”
Kaneff rolled the dice roughly.
The red horse arrived at the golden key block.
He had to pick one of the golden key cards and carry out the instructions written there.
I picked a golden key card at the top and read it for him.
“Umm… Income tax for the buildings you own…”
“……..?”
“You have to pay income tax based on the number of buildings you own.”
“What? What?”
A pretty bad penalty card came out.
Kaneff and Alfred’s team, in particular, owned the most land and buildings, and they had to spend much more money under the direction of the golden key than expected.
The two people who had the most cash went broke in an instant.
“It’s all right. We still have a lot of land left.”
After the turn of the two teams on the desert island, it was once again Kaneff and Andras’ team’s turn to throw the dice again.
Alfred pointed somewhere in an uneasy voice.
“You have to be careful there, Boss.”
“ …….”
An exceptionally prominent spot among the many lands was lying in front of the red horse.
It was the city that could be seen as the game changer of this game.
It was Seoul.
I bought it early in the game because Speranza liked the shape of the Korean flag.
The distance between the red horse and Seoul was seven blocks.
Except for Kaneff and Alfred, everyone shouted in unison.
“Seven! Seven! Seven!”
“Please, seven, seven!”
“Ah! Shut up!………”
Kaneff’s face was completely devoid of the ease he had before, and was filled with irritation and anxiety.
‘Making even the boss nervous… Is this the power of Seoul?’
The stifling tension settled heavily.
Kaneff, who was swallowing his dry saliva, lightly threw the two dice in his hand.
-ROLL.
-ROLL.
Numerous eyes moved after the two dice.
The dice, which were moving properly, slowly revealed the results.
One had three dots, and the other had… four.
” …Seven?”
Alfred’s mouth was filled with a deflating voice.
And soon, screams of joy and disappointment popped out from all sides at the same time.
“YAYYYYY!!”
“This is ridiculous!!!”
Lia cheered with joy, while Kaneff stared at the dice as if he could not believe it.
Meanwhile, Andras cheekily moved the red horse to Seoul.
Seoul’s toll was 2 million won($1400)!
Until a while ago, Kaneff and Alfred’s team was overflowing with cash, but with the Golden key card and Seoul combo, they lost most of their assets.
The good news was, they could avoid bankruptcy since they had a lot of lands.
And of course, considering their losses, it’s almost bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Speranza who saw the money that suddenly got piled up on our side smiled brightly.
“Papa! We have a lot of money.”
“I know, right? I became rich thanks to my baby girl.”
I knew it was toy money, but I felt proud for no reason.
“It’s our turn now, right?”
Lia, whose expression became brighter, picked up the dice.
After three turns on a deserted island, it was their time to go outside.
-ROLL.
The dots on the dice were 2 and 5.
Ironically, the same number as the dice that Kanef just threw came out.
The place where the blue horse moved was the golden key block.
This time again, I took out the top card of the bundle and checked it.
And as soon as I checked the contents of the card, I froze.
“SIHYEON, what is it?”
“……?”
Lia and Andras looked at me curiously.
On behalf of me, who was frozen, Speranza read the contents written on the card.
“Umm… sightseeing tour? Go to… Seoul.”
“……?!”
“……?!”
As soon as Speranza finished speaking, there was a heavy silence around the table.
And after a while, once again, screams of joy and disappointment popped out at the same time.
As expected… Seoul is the best!