Chapter 201
》Hmm, this guy’s hand is much better than yours. Fold.
“Die.”
Thwack!
At the Elder’s words, I threw down my hand without the slightest hesitation.
“Hey. What was that? Why’d you fold so fast?”
“Kekeke, this one’s a cautious type, huh?”
Shwarrr, chwak chwak chwak!
Chips rolled across the table.
The crisp sound of cards being shuffled rang pleasantly in my ears.
》Mmm, your hand is trash again. Oh? But the other guys’ hands are trash too. This one might be worth betting on, eh?
“Alright, call.”
This time, I tossed in a chip.
Reading the other players?
Looking at my hand and calculating the odds?
There was absolutely no need for any of that.
》Heh heh, look at that guy’s face. See that slight twitch? You’ve both got crappy pairs, but yours is one pip higher. He’s getting nervous.
All I had to do was follow the Elder’s instructions.
Was there any easier way to make money through gambling in this world?
“All in!”
Swoosh!
With a sly grin, I shoved all my chips forward.
I already knew the other guy would fold anyway.
Still, early on, I had to establish myself as the kind of person who pushed hard when the moment called for it.
That way, when both sides finally got strong hands, we could really tear into each other.
“Ooooooh!”
“What the fuck, all in?”
“I thought you were the cautious type, but you’ve got fire in you, huh? I’m out.”
“I fold too. What kind of hand are you holding?”
As the men laid down their cards and stared at me—
“Well now. If you’re that curious, you can pay to see.”
A little provocation like this was enough.
And at the same time—
“Aigoo.”
What if I just happened to fumble my cards and reveal them?
“This… crazy bastard?! With a hand like that?”
“You went all in with three-high? What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
“…His bluffing is something else.”
That made the impression stick even more firmly.
That I was the type to bluff.
“Aigoo, my apologies~ Since I won with a trash hand, let me do you a favor and teach you a lesson.”
Swoosh!
As I swept in the slightly piled-up chips, I left only the ante for the next round.
It kept going like that.
For about an hour.
I didn’t lose even once, and whenever things escalated into a heated showdown, I always won by the slimmest margin.
“…”
The men, who had been cheering at first—
“…”
soon had trembling hands, their agitation growing worse and worse.
Their faces, once full of life, had turned deathly pale.
“Does this even make sense?”
“How can he not lose a single round?”
“What is he, some kind of ghost…?”
Before long, every last chip the hustlers had brought with them was gone.
Meanwhile, piles of chips were stacked high all around me.
“He’s not using magic, is he?”
“Right, there are detectors.”
Was this what they called the Magic Path World?
In this gambling den, Magic Detectors were installed all across the ceiling.
They seemed to be devices that detected surges of power or the movement of Energy.
‘Anyway.’
As expected, I’d made a killing.
“Is there really no one else who wants to play?”
I stood up with a grin.
“Fellas. Here’s your meal money.”
Tuk!
With a flick of my hand, a black chip worth 1 Silver Coin flew through the air and landed in front of them with a tuk!
===
“That guy. What is he?”
The Great Thief, owner of the gambling den, furrowed his brow while making his rounds.
“Why is he cashing out so many chips?”
At his question, the madam, chewing gum, shrugged.
“I caught a glimpse of him earlier. He seems to be quite the player.”
“Quite the player?”
“Yes, he barely lost a single round.”
“…Is that so?”
He stared blankly at the back of the man disappearing into the distance.
The Great Thief had spent years rolling around gambling tables.
Was that all?
He now owned this gambling den too.
Even for him,
this was the first time he had ever seen a hustler with a one-hundred-percent win rate.
If such a thing was possible, there were only two explanations.
A cheat or a shark.
“That bastard…”
Daring to pull a trick in my gambling den?
“Hey.”
The Great Thief raised a hand.
Swish!
Several subordinates in black hoods emerged from the shadows.
“Track that guy. Find out who he is and where he came from. Don’t touch him carelessly.”
Once money entered the gambling den, it never left again.
That was the Great Thief’s way of running things.
===
A day passed.
Then two more.
The gambling continued.
I rented a place nearby and went back to the gambling den every night.
》Heh heh, you rascal.
The Elder grinned.
》Looks like the moment you’ve been waiting for has finally come.
‘Really?’
》Yes, the ones sitting across from you now are all working together. My, my, they’re even passing cards at angles you can’t see. They’re being awfully blatant about targeting you.
‘I see.’
I chuckled inwardly too.
To be honest, I had expected this from the moment they started tailing me with those shadows.
That something like this would happen sooner or later.
‘Only natural.’
After all, the Gold Coins I’d won from this gambling den were enough to fill a small room.
“Hey, friend. I hear you’ve been pretty hot lately.”
“Show us some of that skill too.”
Shwarrr!
Tak, tak, tak!
A bald man flashed a grin, showing off his yellowed teeth.
I smiled brightly back at him, then rose from my seat.
“Huh? Why are you getting up?”
“Just because. Gambling suddenly got boring.”
“…What?”
The smiling man’s expression went blank.
Of course he was confused.
The fish he’d carefully baited was suddenly trying to walk away for the dumbest reason imaginable.
“Now that I think about it, spending my youth cooped up in a stuffy back room like this… feels like a waste of life, don’t you think?”
“No, you were having fun just a second ago, and now suddenly?”
“Enlightenment often arrives without warning.”
“Huh? Hey, hey! Wait a second!”
The bald man’s eyes darted around in panic.
It couldn’t be helped.
If I walked out like this, the owner of this place would thresh him like grain.
But that wasn’t my problem.
Chwareureuk!
After cashing in all the chips I’d exchanged, I leisurely strolled outside.
“Lul-lu.”
A dark alley.
I walked along humming, fingers interlaced as I stretched.
I didn’t head back to the lodging I had originally rented.
And just as I was about to enter an even more secluded alley—
Swoosh, swoosh!
Roughly a dozen men in black masks revealed themselves from every side.
At the sight, the Elder clapped as if to say, I knew it.
》Hohoho, whether it’s your world, our world, or this place, they’re all the same. This is happening exactly as you said it would.
‘In our world, we call this a cliché.’
Cliché.
A word for a worn-out, predictable, seen-it-all-before kind of situation.
Predictable-looking guys stepped forward and spoke in predictable voices.
“Hey, stop right there!”
At the man’s command, I stopped.
Then the one who looked the most skilled among them stepped forward.
‘That’s him.’
The one who had been stepping through shadows all smugly along the castle wall.
“Hey.”
The man lowered his voice.
“I don’t know what trick you used to bleed our gambling den dry, but do you know what that means?”
Chwareureuk!
The man in the black hood spun a dagger elegantly in his hand.
“If you’re going to play games, you should at least be prepared to lose a wrist.”
“Well, my wrists are precious to me.”
When I tilted my head, the man laughed in disbelief.
“Well, would you look at that. Still acting relaxed? Are you too stupid to understand the situation?”
“What do you mean, I don’t understand the situation?”
Tuk!
I set the backpack I’d been carrying down on the ground.
Then I rolled my wrists and ankles loose.
“Isn’t this the situation where you spent the last two days digging into my background, found absolutely nothing, and finally decided to come see me in person?”
“…How did you know that!?”
Even if they had investigated me, there was nothing for them to find.
I had literally just dropped in from another world.
“Rather, let me make you a counteroffer.”
Crack, c-crack!
The joints in my neck loosened with a satisfying sound.
“I’ll give you about half the Gold Coins I won from the gambling den, so make me an identity.”
“An identity…?”
“Yes. An identity that will let me enter the Magic Tower.”
I got straight to the point.
The reason I had targeted this gambling den in the first place.
The reason I had followed this criminal.
In the end, it was all for one thing—
to enter the Magic Tower.
“If we can settle this peacefully and on good terms, that would be cleaner and more convenient for me too.”
“Ha? Look at this guy. What a funny bastard.”
However, the man in the black mask clearly saw things differently.
“Just because you can bluff a little at cards, you think that’ll work in real life too?”
“…”
“Whether this ends peacefully or not is entirely up to me.”
Ssssss!
The man began drawing out his Energy.
This was a difference in perspective.
A situation where both sides believed they were the one in control.
“You’ll regret it.”
“Let’s see how long that composure of yours lasts.”
The man in the black mask gave a nod.
At that signal, the dozen or so men waiting behind him drew their weapons and lowered their stances.
“Hoo.”
I let out a sigh.
Right.
When there was a perfectly good method like violence, trying to take the longer route had been my mistake.
===
Fwoosh!
The Godslayer-grade weapon transformed into a sturdy cudgel.
》Hoh, using a cudgel first.
‘There’s no need to draw a sword or spear against trash like this.’
Swordsmanship.
Or cudgel work.
In the end, they were both just techniques for beating people with a long stick.
“Die!”
Whooosh!
Someone slipped in close and slashed with a dagger.
I bent backward and let it pass by leisurely, then—
Pow!
I swung the cudgel straight up into the man’s lower jaw.
Crack!
“Keoheok?!”
With the sound of bone shattering, his body flew into the air.
Whiririk!
I spun at once and drove my foot into his stomach.
Kwaaang!
The man flew backward and slammed into the wall.
“One.”
The moment I reset my stance, two more charged in.
One from the left, one from the right.
Swish!
I took a step back and made them crash into each other, then—
Pow! Pow!
I lightly smacked the backs of both their heads with the cudgel.
“Gak!”
“Kek!”
Neither of them even managed a proper scream before passing out.
“Two, three~”
Was the level of this world just low?
Or was it only these guys?
Against opponents like this, I didn’t even need to bring out my Skeletons.
》Kekeke. Delilah didn’t she tell you?
The Elder laughed, having read my thoughts.
》A World Ranking Board only appears in strong worlds—chosen worlds, in other words. This place is probably just one of the ordinary ones. A world with only one or two real monsters at most.
The Elder and I could both feel it.
In this world, there was no World Ranking Board.
That unique energy the board gave off should have blanketed the whole world, but there was nothing like that here.
‘Come to think of it…’
Now that I thought about it, our Earth was actually pretty strong.
The Demon King, Jack Smith.
The Heavenly Demon, Hase Ra.
Oxford’s Sage, Sophia Silverstone.
It was a place where monsters like them were gathered.
“Th-this bastard! He’s no ordinary guy! All of you, attack him at once!”
The man in the black mask shouted.
“What, were you idiots taking turns until now?”
He said it like they’d been fighting fair.
I shot toward him like lightning.
Swiiiiiish!
Pow! Pow-pow-pow!
As I ran, every subordinate I passed whether it was the back of the head, the stomach, the legs, or the waist—
I swung at whatever I saw.
“Eu, eu-aaargh!”
“Gack! It hurts, I said it hurts!”
The men who took even a single hit clutched the spot and burst into fat tears.
Hurts, doesn’t it?
Of course it hurts.
》You rascal. When did you learn something like this? You’re picking out nothing but those deceptively painful spots.
‘…I learned it all from you, Elder.’
I knew exactly how much it hurt.
How agonizing it was.
The one who gets beaten learns best how to beat others.
I applied everything I’d learned from the Elder’s massages directly to these bastards.
And—
“Keuk.”
“Kkeueok, keuk.”
In the deserted alley, roughly a dozen men were sprawled all over the ground, groaning in pain.
“…This is insane?”
The man in the black mask muttered in a daze.
See, bastard?
I told you you’d regret it.
Grinning, I casually lifted my cudgel.