“Straight.”
Syr stopped putting on a performance. There was no need to hide her true nature anymore. Wearing a beautiful and bold smile, she announced her next hand.
“…F-fold…”
“M-me, too…”
Without testing her claims, all of the guests tried to escape.
It did not end there.
“Three of a kind.”
She laid her cards down, revealing her hands.
“Flush.”
Quietly, solemnly, audaciously.
“Full house.”
Syr ran up consecutive wins, and the platinum-colored chips piled up in front of her. In shock, Terry initially suspected Syr was cheating somehow, or Lyu standing behind her was. He swung his head around. The dealer gasped and furiously shook his head, indicating no. The human bodyguard silently shook his head as well.
Strange…she’s too good. The thought echoed in the minds of Terry and his cohorts. Immediately after, as if she had seen through them—
“Ah, that’s no good!”
“!”
After winning due to everyone else folding, Syr pushed her cards back facedown to the dealer. This time they slipped out of her hand and ended faceup, only a high card. Watching in shock, the guests’ faces turned bright red.
You idiots, she’s baiting you!
Terry’s flustered internal scream could not reach his accomplices, though.
The furious guests ignored Syr’s announcement and challenged her next hand. Immediately after, they all lost. Their mouths gaping wide, the guests could not even speak as looks of utter shock marred their faces. They were in a state of complete confusion.
Shortly after that, the first person dropped out.
“Th-that’s…”
The one who retreated was the gentlemanly old animal person who had turned pale from shock. After losing such a massive amount of money, he seemed like a shell of a man. While Terry and the other guests were still stunned, Syr abruptly spoke up as she calmly continued the game.
“Everyone, I’m sure you know, right? Among all the gods and goddesses, there is one goddess who can see the true nature of people’s hearts.”
“Syr and Lyu are still at the casino, meow? Are they okay, meow?”
At the same time their gamble was happening, in The Benevolent Mistress…
While washing all the plates that had built up in the corner of the kitchen, Ahnya spoke up.
“Worrying is just pointless, meow.”
“Yeah, yeah, it would be a bit of a problem if they got mixed up with Ganesha’s guys, though. But that’s where Lyu will take care of things.”
Chloe and Runoa were brushing the concerns off as needless anxiety. The three of them were lined up washing plates as Chloe dejectedly continued,
“Syr’s probably already racking up the winnings with an evil smile on that innocent, harmless-looking face, meow…”
She spoke from firsthand experience with Syr’s skill at poker, while the other two nodded in agreement.
“How many times have I lost and had to take her place washing dishes, meow?”
“Well, you’re hopelessly bad at gambling…but we’ve never had a chance to win against her.”
“It’s more than cheap poker faces and bluffs, meow.”
Chloe stared at the ceiling as bubbles stuck to her cheek. It was always like that. She would always crush them with a bright smile.
Yeah, it was as if she had read everything in their hands.
“It’s as if we were playing against a god who could see through our lies…”
With regard to casinos, it was very frowned upon for gods to play poker because they could see through the lies of their “children.” Trying to bluff your way through was a lost cause from start to finish—it was that hopeless.
Syr’s oddly good instinct was practically at the same level. The catgirls who loved to gamble the most out of all the staff shivered as they recalled it, then sighed.
“Syr is definitely a witch.”
“I’ve heard her eyes can see the smallest of tremors in a heart, laying it entirely bare.”
In the shadowy room lit by magic-stone lamps, her slender fingers traced the outline of the cards she had been dealt.
Syr cast her eyes down as she spoke. Her voice almost seemed to have a magical effect, drawing in the people listening.
“Of course, I don’t have that goddess’s eyes…”
Attracting the guests’ eyes single-handedly, Syr stopped and smiled.
“I enjoy it, though. Watching people, that is. There are so many varieties and tons of things to find out…enough to make your eyes sparkle.”
Those words resembled something a certain young man had told her.
“Sorry, that’s a bad habit of mine,” she said without looking the least bit shy. Her eyes, the same silver-blue as her hair, squinted in a bright smile.
“It’s something like ‘people watching,’ I guess? If you keep doing it long enough…somehow or other you can get to the point where you sort of understand, ‘This person is thinking about that.’ ”
Listening to her explanation, it not only applied to the guests she was playing against, but everyone in the VIP room who doubted what they heard.
“Truth or lies, fury or sorrow, shame or suffering…light or darkness.”
Was this a bluff, or possibly true? The whirlpool of doubt had already changed into inescapable quicksand. One after the other, the players’ expressions shifted. They were sweating as though something had cornered them on the precipice of a sheer cliff. The rich prum went totally pale, unable to keep his hands from trembling.
“Eyes can convey many things.”
Standing behind her, Lyu could barely contain the shock she felt. If what she said was true, then Syr was effectively saying she could to read her opponents’ thoughts by just looking at their expressions, through the eyes. Announcing her hand, she could see if her opponents wavered just by looking. She raised if they did and drew cards or simply folded when they didn’t.
In other words, it was equivalent to knowing her opponents’ cards. This was far removed from the experience and strategy Lyu had built up as an adventurer—it was one-sided clairvoyance.
On the one hand it seemed unbelievable, but she also remembered times that Syr’s eyes had apparently seen right through to her heart. Without even asking about what was going on, she sometimes came bearing a smile and a solution while Lyu was still struggling to figure out what to do.
“Th-that’s…?!”
Terry’s cheeks spasmed as he finally lost his cool. She was toying with the one who called himself the king of the gambling paradise and the wealthy elite who had amassed vast riches. A single girl had overwhelmed them. Terry met Syr’s gaze. Looking into her eyes, his throat quivered.
What are those metallic-blue eyes seeing?
Why are they twinkling?
What the hell is she hiding behind those eyes?
Hah—what, Countess? What young newlywed? You’re a damn witch!!
Terry clenched his right hand, coming to the same conclusion as a certain pair of catgirls. Other than Terry, the guests were running low on chips. At this point, the added rule of “anyone who folds must pay twice the ante” was cutting into their lifespans. It had created a situation where they could not wait for a good hand to bring them back from the brink, forcing them to sometimes bluff with weak hands. And Syr always pushed with perfect timing—as if she had foreknowledge that her hands were superior—mercilessly collecting their chips with a cheerful smile.
The first two hands. Those had badly wounded them. That loss had left a decisive mark on them. From the very beginning, they had lost their opportunity to win. One after the other, the guests dropped out, dumbfounded. The game’s pace sped up as it entered the final phase. The bodyguards and girls held their breath as the watched.
It was all a strategy.
It was a
ll unfolding in the palm of this girl’s hand.
At this rate, I’m going to lose…!
Terry himself had won some of his victories by mere chance, but it was fair to say those times were minimal. But now his own stack of chips had been halved. Countless times, he had been unable to control himself and crushed the cards with his dwarf strength, forcing the dealer to take out a new deck of cards for the next hand.
“!”
At that time, Terry’s eyes opened in shock. The first card dealt to him was a chalice symbolizing divine blessing. The next four were four kings. Four of a kind.
The goddess of victory is smiling for me in the end!
Terry rejoiced. With a hand to get his revenge for the first round, it was as if heaven was telling him to win.
Whether you can really see my hand or not doesn’t matter now!
All in. He intended to change the flow of the match in one blow here. He glared at Syr with bloodshot eyes. Entrusting himself to the flow of the gamble, he waited for his opponent to step up to the guillotine.
“…Card, please.”
In front of the man’s glaring, for the first time Syr stopped smiling. She quietly asked to exchange a card. There was a soft rustle as a card was dealt from the deck. Anna gasped even as Terry sneered, tightening the grip on his chips. Eyes from every corner of the VIP room focused on the girl sitting in front of Lyu as she picked up the card.
She placed it into her hand, and the next moment…
“Ha…ha-ha-ha-ahh-ha-ha…”
Seemingly without thinking, she laughed.
“Even though all I did…was think about how nice it would be to borrow some luck.” Some heat entered Syr’s voice as she closed her eyes, looking like a young girl in love.
Fixing her smile, she opened her eyes and looked at Terry across from her.
Her gaze instantly overpowered him. He heard himself saying, “It’s just a bluff—.” Believing in his own hand, he pushed everything into the pot. Both players put in a huge amount of chips.
“It seems that I was blessed by a lucky rabbit today,” Syr said, just as they were on the verge of showing their cards.
And then she revealed her hand.
“Royal flush.”
Bam! The old animal person stumbled out of his chair and collapsed to the floor. At the impact, Terry’s stack of chips collapsed in a cascade. As the platinum chips clinked against each other, the girls covered their mouth with both hands, sweat broke out on the brow of the VIPs, and Anna stood completely still. Everyone in the room stared in shock.
With the inclusion of the wild card, it was the strongest hand of the night.
Terry was so stunned it seemed as though his eyes might leap out of his head as he swung wildly to turn around.
“Faust?!”
In response to the dwarf’s roar, the human bodyguard plaintively shook his head.
With his guard telling him that there was no trick, he gritted his teeth as hard as he possibly could.
“Hee-hee, thank you Mr. Rabbit.”
Syr picked up the wild card from her hand, a joker riding a rabbit. The girl lovingly looked into the rabbit’s round eyes and, as if remembering the warmth before her separation from the boy, Syr put her hand to her cheek.
“…?!”
The game’s winner sat with a mountain of chips in front of her and an elf guard at her back. Having lost all his chips, Terry froze. He had misjudged them. He had no choice but to accept that. At first, he had assumed that the count was a knight who had come to save Anna by himself. But he was wrong. That knight had a guaranteed trump card up his sleeve.
The girl in front of him was that trump card—the knight’s queen.
“Hey, Lyu? This means…”
“Yes, Syr—”
The girl spread her vibrant purple fan clumsily, using both hands.
“—this is your victory.”
As Lyu’s proclamation echoed, Syr held the fan in front of her mouth, smiling with her blue-silver eyes in front of the shocked wealthy patrons.
5
The VIP room was enveloped in silence.
Everyone in the salon stopped moving, all glancing in the same direction in terror. The mountain of chips constructed on the mahogany tabletop. The curtain had closed on the game: an overwhelming victory for one girl. An unimaginable result that would leave anyone shocked, especially the Grand Casino’s owner, Terry.
While calmly maintaining the pretense of the count and countess, Lyu and Syr looked over at him.
“Mr. Cervantes, as you promised…will you listen to my husband’s request?”
As Syr smiled, Terry clenched his fists tightly. He had promised to fulfill the victor’s request before the gamble had started. In front of all the VIPs, not accepting the request would just be a disgrace. Glancing at Anna Kreiz, the flaxen-haired girl at his side, he responded, biting his lip in humiliation.
“Very well…I’ll discharge the girl for a little while. Since she just came from a foreign country, I’m sure she is tired.”
Terry returned Anna, for whom Lyu had been searching. He seethed as he watched Anna fearfully walk past him, still completely bewildered. In reality, he was letting her go. He had just bought her and hadn’t even had the chance to enjoy her yet.
“Are you satisfied, Lord Maximilian?” He spat his words as he stared at the elf who stepped in front of Anna as Syr stood up.
This damn greenhorn…just you watch. You’ll regret embarrassing me like this.
While Terry was just barely managing to contain his hatred, Lyu responded.
“No, not yet.”
At those words, Terry felt his eyes twitch again in rage.
“…What’s that? You aren’t satisfied with just Anna?”
Thinking back, he realized that Lyu had never actually said “Return Anna” as her request. However, asking for more at this point amounted to little more than spite.
Ignoring Terry’s expectations, the eye-patch-wearing elf looked straight at him.
“Oh dear, you are quite greedy for an elf, Lord Maximilian. Just how many of my lovers would you have me divorce?”
Ignoring the sarcasm dripping in his words, Lyu responded:
“All of them.”
At that, the VIP room instantly fell silent.
“The ones you paid those men to steal. You will free all of these women.”
Lyu’s pronouncement broke the silence. The women in the room immediately turned around, eyes filled with surprise. Even Syr seemed shocked. Gazing in wonder, her expression gradually changed back to a smile, her shoulders starting to shake as she suppressed a giggle.
“My dear husband certainly is greedy. Hee-hee.”
The blue-and-silver-haired girl giggled, her mood somewhere between happiness and hilarity.
“…Y-you…!”
Stunned, Terry’s face turned a purplish red, his anger breaking through the shock. Slowly rising to his feet, the dwarf’s stony face was menacing with no further attempts to hide his true nature.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, greenhorn…”
His threatening voice was unsuited to the VIP room.
As rage tinged his eyes, Anna, the girls, and the VIPs cowered.
“Maybe you’re misunderstanding something? Who do you think you are? All you did is win one game!”
“…”
“Do you really think you’ll survive if you make an enemy of me?! If you think the Guild will protect you, you’ve made a big mistake! I can just go back to Santorio Vega if—”
“Wrong.”
Lyu quietly interrupted his threats.
“You aren’t a citizen of Santorio Vega. Your name isn’t Terry Cervantes, either.”
The dwarf froze.
“Your name is Ted.”
At that declaration, the man’s face changed drastically.
“In the past, you were the bookie for an establishment that repeatedly ran illegal gambling d
ens in Orario…Even though the goddess you contracted with was exiled from Orario and returned to the heavens, that Status is still engraved on your back.”
Lyu took a small vial containing a scarlet liquid and fragment of crystal. Status Thief was an item that revealed the Status engraved by a god onto their faction. When used, the identity of a person’s patron deity and their real name would appear on their back as proof. Lyu held out the vial to back up her assertion.
A strange mood took over the VIP room. As if the room had frozen over, no one moved a muscle. Left in the lurch, the guests, girls, and even the waiters looked on in confusion as the elf and dwarf stared at each other.
“…Ho…ho-ho. That a pretty wild accusation you’re making there.”
Finally, the owner opened his mouth. He was striking a calm pose, but there was a hint of unease in his voice that had not been present before. At the same time, his glare was overflowing with bloodlust.
“I have no intention of wasting my time with pointless delusions…More importantly, I can’t allow people who go around impugning me or the reputation of this establishment with nonsense stories to leave alive.”
Terry raised his hand, and the men who had been loitering moved at his signal. Starting with a murmur, a large commotion roiled around the room. Black-suited men surrounded Syr and Lyu. The hired guards followed his orders obediently, driving away the flustered old animal person, the rich prum, and the other participants away from the table with a sharp glance.
He intended to eliminate the Status Thief item—along with the one who had made the allegations about his identity.
“Once…yes, just once before I kill you, tell me who you really are, you bastard,” Terry demanded, smothering his agitation.
As Anna cowered, Lyu held out her hand to Syr.
“You don’t remember me?”
She took the stole from out of Syr’s arms. Using the long, narrow cloth, she wrapped it like a turban. Other than her uncovered right eye, her entire face was covered. A puzzled look appeared on Terry’s face—then as he stared into the one uncovered eye, he gasped. He started sweating heavily.
“I-it can’t be—”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Familia Chronicle: Episode Lyu Page 8
