Ch.144Family Request – 5

“What did you do? Say it again.”

“Well, that…”

Andrei, the boss of Kingdom of Heaven, put down the magical tool in his hand and asked again. The subordinate who came to report was cowering and sweating profusely.

“A rich guy came in, so we tried to fleece him like usual by pretending to lose moderately at first, but…”

“But what?”

As Andrei pressed for the rest of the story, the subordinate’s face showed even deeper confusion and worry. He seemed at a loss for what to do, then squeezed his eyes shut and shouted:

“We, we lost everything instead! All of us who went after him!”

Now all that remained was to wait for the anger and reprimand to burst forth. With that thought, he tightly closed his eyes and waited for the next words, but Andrei didn’t show the reaction the subordinate had expected.

He merely fell into thought for a moment before speaking.

“Our guys all got cleaned out? So he’s never lost until now?”

“That’s not it. With regular customers, he wins and loses repeatedly, maintaining about a 50-50 win rate. But when our guys try to work him over again, he shows no mercy. It doesn’t matter if we plant our people as dealers or customers. Once we even filled all the dealer and customer positions with our people except for him and still lost.”

“You’re saying you lost even with our own dealer… What about the mana detector?”

“Nothing was detected.”

“Hmm, I see. If the detector had reacted, this report wouldn’t have come to me in the first place. Pointless question.”

Andrei tapped the desk thoughtfully, then gestured.

“Seems like he came with a clear purpose. Stop trying to work him and just let him play with the customers. People like him are like natural disasters. If we leave him alone, he’ll play by himself and leave on his own. If he comes back again, make up any excuse to put him on the blacklist and don’t let him in.”

“Yes! Understood!”

“Wait. We should at least know who he is before we send him away. Did you find anything out?”

The subordinate, who had been bowing more respectfully than usual thinking he was off the hook, hurriedly bent his waist again.

“I checked before coming up here. His name is Mira Crate, the youngest son of the Crate family. No doubt about it.”

“Mira Crate? That changes things. I thought this was a natural disaster, but it’s not? Hey, tell the boys to stall for time until I finish preparations. Whether it’s gambling or whatever, make sure he absolutely can’t escape. Well, he probably has no intention of leaving anyway.”

The subordinate’s eyes showed confusion.

“Why is that?”

“This Mira Crate guy, he showed no intention of going easy on our people, right? He beat our guys and took their money even in games that were rigged for him to lose.”

“That’s right.”

“But you said his win rate with regular customers is about 50-50? Why would someone who can so thoroughly distinguish between our people and customers be so determined to only win against us? It’s obvious he’d be suspected. If he wanted to avoid suspicion, he should alternate between winning and losing at a reasonable rate. In my opinion, if he’d kept it at about 70-30, our guys would have just thought, ‘Oh, another beginner’s luck, let’s try to hook this sucker,’ and lost interest.”

The reason this report had reached Andrei in the first place was because all the employees who had gone after Mira Crate had been completely, without exception, destroyed. Knowing this, the subordinate quietly nodded.

“Being able to precisely identify our people but maintaining a 50-50 rate with customers while only winning against our guys means he definitely has another motive. It has to be. That’s why I said to stop working him and just let him go if he came with the intention of cleaning us out. But if it’s Mira Crate, that changes the story again.”

Andrei’s face twisted maliciously.

“The men who went to see that woman, they haven’t returned yet, right?”

“No. She’s not taking our calls either.”

“It’s obvious. That bitch Io has sided with the Crate family. When the news reached the family’s ears, they couldn’t dispute the loan contract itself, so they sent his brother to resolve it another way. I hear he’s quite skilled.”

In fact, if the rumors were true, “quite skilled” would be an understatement. But Andrei was the type to believe that rumors, as they often are, were heavily exaggerated.

It was a rumor that defied common sense, after all.

“Why else would Mira Crate come all the way here and act like this? He’s threatening me to come out, that’s all. That bitch Io must have spilled everything about who ordered the carriage destroyed and what the original orders were. By barging in so openly, he knows I absolutely won’t back down.”

The men he sent were either all dead or imprisoned somewhere. Either way, it didn’t matter much to Andrei.

“If it were just one or two coincidences, I might have doubted, but all the circumstances line up perfectly. There’s no other explanation. The men sent to Io happen to be delayed in returning, Mira Crate happens to visit, and he happens to completely destroy only our people? Rather than betting on that probability, I’d sooner bet on the world ending right now.”

“As expected of you, boss!”

“If you understand, then get things ready. If he wants to meet me so badly, I should oblige.”

Andrei rose with a pleased smile.

“And while we’re at it, I’ll show him just how cruel the outside world can be.”

“May I have a moment of your time.”

“No, you may not. Wait.”

“Yes. I’ll ask again when you’re finished.”

The man who looked like a manager bowed respectfully and stepped back two paces. I looked down again at the seven teacups placed before me.

I never expected this world would have shell games too, much less that I’d be playing one in such an elegant building, but since they initiated this scam gambling, I had no intention of backing down.

Perhaps because I had been so blatantly cleaning out Andrei’s subordinates, they proposed a shell game with seven teacups. The stakes were, of course, overwhelmingly higher than when playing with three cups.

If I guessed correctly, I’d win seven times my bet, and if I also guessed the number on the die inside, I’d get an additional six times, for a total of forty-two times my stake.

Of course, if I got either wrong, both would be considered failures, so the risk was also overwhelmingly high.

It looked interesting enough to accept, but not only was the dealer skilled with his hands, the teacups themselves seemed to be magical tools that could change the position of the die at will, making it impossible to win through normal means.

“It’s this one. The die shows 4.”

“No way, it can’t possibly be hereㅡ huh?!”

That is, through normal means.

The man confidently lifted the teacup, then gasped in shock when he saw the die showing 4 on top, just as I had said. Fiery cheers erupted from around us.

Of course they would. The die he had just placed and shuffled was now in his sleeve. Seeing him fidgeting with his sleeve to check if the die was still there made it obvious.

“Can’t possibly be?”

“I, I, I misspoke. You’re correct. Congratulations.”

At my mockery, the man gritted his teeth and offered congratulations without a trace of sincerity. He knows I manipulated the game somehow. Of course he does—the die is literally in his sleeve.

But he’s holding back because the moment he claims fraud, he knows it will backfire. How could I have cheated when he did everything from placing the die to shuffling and revealing the cups? It’s absurd.

As soon as the teacup covered the die, I severed the mana connection, making the die disappear. Yet the mana detector, which had been set to exclude me from detection, didn’t sound.

“Now that we’re done, tell me. What is it?”

I asked with obvious annoyance, which made the man’s manner even more respectful.

“Mr. Andrei wishes to meet you.”

‘That was quicker than expected.’

I had noticed that people had been obviously avoiding me at first, then suddenly started coming after me more aggressively at some point—was that Andrei’s doing? This means I’ve achieved my objective, but I pretended not to know and asked:

“Why me?”

“As is well known, Mr. Andrei is a gambling enthusiast before being the owner of Kingdom of Heaven. He was intrigued by your skills. He said instead of squabbling with those small fry, you should play bigger games with him. You might get what you want by meeting Mr. Andrei. What do you say?”

‘So he figured it out.’

The last sentence confirmed it. He realized that my cleaning out his subordinates was to meet him. If so, he must have guessed roughly why I came here, and I was curious how he would play it.

“Fine. Let’s do that.”

I had no reason not to meet him. As I rose from my seat, the porter I had hired on the spot hurriedly gathered up 42 chips symbolizing platinum coins. One platinum coin had turned into 42.

I took out one chip and tossed it to the man who was still dazedly arranging the teacups.

“A tip. Take it.”

“Th-thank you…”

He received it with a dumbfounded expression.

After telling the hired porter to guard my winnings well if he wanted to be paid properly, I followed the manager down the innermost corridor. People lined up on both sides, following us.

“This way.”

The manager stopped in front of a door that looked soundproofed to perfection, and if that wasn’t enough, had a sound barrier spell cast on it. His intentions for bringing me here were obvious.

Entering, I saw a man sitting whose face matched almost exactly what I had been told.

Despite his bushy beard, he had quite a handsome face, and perhaps because he was neatly dressed in a suit, his first impression wasn’t bad. He seemed to be a finger or two taller than me.

If I were to describe him in romance fantasy novel terms, he’d be the “wild stallion” type of man. Though I’m not sure if such expressions are actually used.

“So you’re Mira Crate. I’m Andrei.”

Andrei said, picking up a glass. A woman in revealing clothes who was sticking close to him poured him a drink.

“Why start with introductions when we both know why we’re here? You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

“That’s right. I know that Io Brante has sided with your family, and that you came here about the carriage incident.”

“Good, saves me the trouble of explaining. Just to check, you didn’t gather all these people here with good intentions, did you?”

The room was filled with his subordinates openly wearing swords. I could also see someone preparing to use magic if necessary. Andrei took a drink and laughed lightly.

“You think I’d gather them without reason?”

I tried to open the door with magic. It wouldn’t open, probably locked from outside. It was fortunate these people were as bad as I thought.

“Good. If they had been here with good intentions, I’d have felt awkward after knocking them down.”

I gradually drew in mana, careful not to let them notice.

“Your boss will probably never return once he’s taken away, so that leaves the owner’s position vacant. Anyone here want to become the owner instead of him?”

“Here! Me!”

The woman clinging to Andrei’s side raised her hand high. Judging by their expressions, they were clearly joking. Smirks spread across the subordinates’ faces.

—KWAAANG!

Suddenly, the entire room shook as blood and flesh splattered.

Andrei’s arms and legs were completely severed by blades of mana, and the storm that swept through the room slammed his subordinates into the walls hard enough to crack them. Their bodies slid down to the floor a moment later.

“…”

The smile disappeared from the face of the woman, the only one who survived unscathed. Unable to properly assess the situation, she kept wiping the red blood that soaked her clothes and skin with her palm.

I approached Andrei, who was gasping with only his head and torso remaining, used healing magic on him, and picked him up by the back of his neck. I plan to take him like this and reattach his limbs later, to avoid the hassle of him resisting.

As I walked past the woman, I paused briefly and said:

“I made you the owner like you wanted, so do well.”

She wanted it, so I gave it to her. She’ll do fine, I hope.

“I didn’t expect you’d capture him alive like this.”

“I brought a healing mage too, just in case. One limb each probably won’t be enough. Use him as much as you want, then send him back.”

“You really are the best brother. Right now, I might even give you a kiss for free.”

“Before I confiscate and burn all your erotic novels, why don’t you finish cleaning up over there as promised?”