(Iris POV)
The little dragon won the first round of our game.
I was expecting to feel annoyance or even just disappointment but surprisingly I did not get a feeling like that aside from just acceptance.
That was most certainly weird.
If I had felt nothing from it, then it would not be surprising either but this was definitely the feeling of accepting the outcome instead of merely dismissing it.
The little dragon did not gloat over her victory but instead, pulled out a cookie from thin air and broke it into half, offering one half of it to me.
The two of us then enjoyed nibbling on the cookies on a bench out on the main street, watching the other 'children' play with their own split body of Master.
It was truly an odd feeling.
I have felt indifference before when I had to deal with existences who are not Master. I have felt bliss before when Master pampered me. I have experienced the feeling of annoyance when my time with Master was interrupted by other existences. I have also felt rage and anger when my plans were disrupted too.
But this is the first time where I felt… Contentment? And without Master, no less.
The little dragon turned to me, "Mama happy?"
Mmm… Saying that I was happy might be pushing it a little. Contentment was the right word after all.
"I am content. At least for now."
"Ehehe~ Mama happy!"
I decided not to bother correcting her but instead, I asked, "So what is the next game?"
She tilted her head, "Umm… I dunno? What does Mama want to play?"
Is she letting me pick the challenge next? But I do not know what games do small beings usually play? The only other game I knew of right now was that game of tag. Should I just choose that?
"The next game is already chosen!" Someone shouted.
I looked ahead to see the 'child' who had stopped me from reaching the throne room earlier appear in front of us.
"The two of you will be playing this!" She continued, pointing to a ball with black and white spots on its surface.
"Ball!" The little dragon cried out, rushing forward to reach her hands towards it.
The 'child' passed the ball to the little dragon without complaint before turning to me, "I have already assembled the teams for both of you to compete with. Not to worry, I made sure both sides are equally skilled in this game! The game will continue until the time is up and the side with the most goals wins!"
Omniscience already explained the rules of the game to me so I already knew that type of game it was.
I stood up from the bench, "Very well. Where shall the game be held?"
"Come with me!"
The 'child' led us to the outskirts of the city where a field with two goals had been set up, the little dragon hugging the ball the entire way.
I realised that the play area was smaller to account for the fact that we were also smaller in size. Master must have been the one to create this for us to play.
The two teams were already clearly separated from the clothes they were wearing, one side had red shirts on while the other had blue shirts.
The 'child' that led us here seemed to be occupying the position of a referee and she gave me a blue shirt while the little dragon received the red one.
"Alright! Both of you are the captains! So lead your team to victory! Feel free to come up with a plan with your team and we'll start in ten minutes!"
"Yay!! Ball~" The little dragon cheered before running to her teammates with the ball still in her hands.
I manipulated reality to switch my current dress with the blue shirt and went to my 'team'.
The fact that we were given the position of 'captain' must mean that this game also relies on our ability to lead a group of existences to achieve a common goal.
It would be simple if I was allowed to just exert my own control over them and make them move like puppets, but omniscience immediately told me that Master would definitely disapprove of that and it was not a 'cute' thing to do.
Without much choice, I had to do this the hard way.
I was expecting these 'children' to be uncooperative but surprisingly, I realised a good number of them were looking at me in awe when I approached them.
"It's the cool sister who was untouchable in tag!"
"Cool sister!"
"Cool sister is our captain!"
"We can win!"
Ara? I see now. These are the children who were playing tag with us earlier so they already knew about me.
But still, 'cool sister'? I suppose it's not really that big of a deal anyway as long as they can help me win this game.
At least none of them knew about my real identity considering I had placed an effect to cause others to overlook any out of place actions I might do. The 'child' from earlier and this little dragon was able to ignore it simply because they have met me in person before and they recognised the actions as 'not out of place' but as expected of me instead.
Doing a quick check with Omniscience, I realised that no one here has any experience with playing this game, including the players on the other team as well.
That 'child' was not lying when she said both teams were equally skilled.
This works in my favour since I should be able to direct them better using my knowledge of the game I gained through Omniscience.
Yes, the rules did state that I couldn't use those to influence the game directly, but they never said anything about using it indirectly to help me.
Which means while I can't use Omniscience to know what my opponent will do, I can use Omniscience to find out what I can do to win.
With that, I assigned a position to each 'child' according to what they were most suitable in, myself occupying a striker position, naturally.
Since everyone was playing this for the first time, I did not try to put them into specific positions on the field but just gave them a general role to fulfil, something that they understood easily.
The little dragon seemed to have the same idea as I did so we should be the deciding factor of this game.
Seeing that the preparation time was up, the 'child' acting as the referee brought us to the centre of the field and tossed a coin, ending up with my team doing the kick-off.
Now… I've already lost the previous game so I'm not going to let her win this one. Prepare to hand over this win to me~
