Luck Is Enough When Gambling(4)

The casino in the entertainment district of the Phara Kingdom, called the best on the continent.

True to its reputation, the casino of the Phara Kingdom drew countless tourists and merchants from various countries, and befitting the scale where all sorts of races gathered, the casino reached after passing through the red-light district and pleasure quarters was enormously spacious.

“Woah…”

“Is, is every casino this spacious?”

“It does look like a place extravagant nobles would come. It’s really glittering.”

A feast of gold. Literally, the interior of the casino was gleaming as if coated in gold.

Moreover, despite it being broad daylight, many people were walking around inside the casino wearing masks.

Although I couldn’t see their faces in detail, even a quick glance was enough to tell that various races were mixed together.

Elves were basic, along with merfolk, dwarves, fairies, and so on.

The sound of them murmuring and exchanging greetings, and the jingling of gold coins echoed throughout the casino.

And amidst this, I couldn’t help but honestly admire the sight of game tables spread out.

Today, I had really only planned to simply show Libby the appearance of the casino and let her gamble a bit before leaving, but perhaps because I was swept up in the atmosphere, I felt a bit elated.

“Oh…”

“Such beautiful ladies.”

“Which noble daughters are they? Just earlier, some unfamiliar noble daughters came too…”

It seemed we drew some attention after entering the casino and removing our presence concealment, but in accordance with casino etiquette, the gazes soon disappeared.

At the same time, their murmurs also faded away, and the casino returned to its usual state, no different from normal.

Seeing the casino’s more gentlemanly appearance than expected, I made a surprised expression following my admiration, but soon thinking that it was good as it was, I turned to look at Libby standing beside me.

“Libby, is there any game you want to try first? Let’s go there first.”

“Um… I…”

Libby trailed off at my question and looked around with sparkling eyes.

Although it wasn’t visible clearly due to the mask, her restless looking around showed how excited she was.

I let out an awkward laugh realizing that her excitement wasn’t due to interest in gambling itself, but because ‘she saw people cheering after winning money and despairing after losing money here and there’, but since we came here thinking about that in the first place, I didn’t particularly point it out.

And when I gave her enough time by crossing my arms to mean take your time choosing, Libby let out several thoughtful hums before carefully raising a finger to point at a table placed near the center of the casino.

“That game, I don’t remember the exact name, but it seems people played that game the most. So can we go there?”

“There… Oh, it’s poker.”

Looking where Libby pointed, I saw a poker table with four out of five seats occupied, surrounded by some spectators.

Certainly, if it’s poker, it’s a popular game and gambling, so it wasn’t strange that Libby had seen it in books.

Therefore, I nodded once to Libby’s request to go to the poker table, and Libby, with flushed cheeks at my permission, trotted ahead a step.

Such an adorable sight. And following behind her, I turned to look at Morgan walking in step beside me.

“Just in case, please take care of the guarding? In such a crowded place, I might miss something.”

“I can’t imagine you missing any problems… Well, alright for now.”

Perhaps thinking I was deceiving her, Morgan stuck out her tongue and made an exaggeratedly disgusted expression at my words, but still nodded faithfully.

With my and Morgan’s focused guarding, even if there were some madmen in broad daylight, they wouldn’t be able to act recklessly.

Therefore, feeling reassured, I followed behind Libby to the poker table and approached beside Libby, who was looking at the table among the spectators, to examine the table together.

Tap tap tap–

The dealer rapidly dealing five cards to each player with quick hand movements.

And the players, after checking their five cards, took turns exchanging cards from their hands.

Five-card draw poker. Libby’s eyes quietly shone at the game proceeding neatly and quietly.

“So this is poker…”

Libby muttered softly. Well, it was understandable since it was her first time seeing gambling.

After all, poker was where as little as ten gold coins or as many as hundreds or thousands moved with just those five cards.

Moreover, it seemed quite a large pot could be at stake this round, so from Libby’s position of exploring material desire, she couldn’t help but focus.

And since it had been a while since I’d seen a poker game, I too watched the ongoing poker game with considerable focus, following Libby.

“…Huh?”

I could have focused on the poker if it weren’t for one girl that caught the edge of my vision.

A girl with flowing long white hair among the players sitting at the table.

She looked like a mature woman like Isolde, but at the same time gave off a girlish innocence, making me tilt my head.

Green eyes visible through the mask, seen from the side.

Needless to say, she had an appearance very similar to someone right by my side, so I turned to look at Morgan standing behind me, with my head still tilted.

“Morgan, did you have a sister by any chance?”

“What kind of foolish thing are you saying?”

“No, there’s someone who looks too much like you.”

Although slightly different, she’s a girl who could be said to be identical to Morgan.

Therefore, to Morgan who made an expression as if I was talking nonsense at my question, I pointed to the girl I had been looking at, and Morgan moved her gaze following my hand.

“Who on earth looks like me…”

And Morgan, who seemed about to say something ridiculous, stopped her words right there when she saw the face of the girl I pointed to.

Morgan froze, truly forgetting even to breathe for a moment.

It seemed that even she felt the girl looked too much like herself.

So I asked Morgan once again while looking at her face.

“She looks alike, right?”

“…I can’t deny it. But let me tell you for certain, I don’t have a sister.”

“Really?”

“…Could you stop making that face? It’s really not. It’s probably just a human girl who by some extremely rare chance looks very similar to me, a demon.”

Morgan concluded firmly.

As her fist was trembling to the point where blood might flow if I teased her more, and there was conviction in her voice, I had no choice but to nod in acceptance.

Since she denied it so strongly, it seemed that unfortunately, she really was just a girl who looked like Morgan.

And just as I finished thinking, there was a commotion around. It seemed the winner of the game that had been proceeding with raising and calling bets until now had been determined.

“This time, that white-haired young lady won.”

“Indeed, they keep going back and forth winning alternately, so I can’t stop watching.”

“I wonder if the black-haired young lady will win again next time?”

Looking around the table, the one who received all the accumulated gold coins was none other than the white-haired girl I had suspected of being Morgan’s sister until just now.

And from the surrounding voices, it seemed that the white-haired girl and the black-haired girl sitting next to her had been alternately grasping victory.

Two people who looked about the same age fighting in a fierce battle.

Finding it quite an interesting story, I let out a nasal sound, and at the same time, seeing the dealer preparing for the next game, I asked Libby standing in front of me.

“Libby, don’t you want to try the game? If it’s now, you can go in and sit in the empty seat.”

“Ah, no. I don’t want to play the game myself, so it’s alright, Mother.”

Libby answered without a moment’s hesitation to my question. Feeling her sincere intention of not wanting to participate in the game, I nodded.

“Then I’ll play.”

It would be rude not to use money we brought to spend.

I approached the table, parting through the spectators while fondling the thick pouch of gold coins hanging at my waist.

“I’ll be back. Watch from here.”

“Hmm… Good luck.”

“Mother, do your best!”

I waved my hand at the voices I heard as I sat down in the empty seat at the table.

The seat I sat in was the center seat of the table. It was next to the black-haired girl sitting next to the white-haired girl at the far left end.

To show my intention to participate in the game, I took out gold coins from the pouch and piled them on the table, and the dealer looked at me and slightly lowered then raised his chin.

A sign of accepting my participation. At the same time, I smiled slightly while watching the dealer’s hands start to shuffle the cards.

And then I was about to lean back comfortably, but suddenly the table shook.

Clatter–!

At the suddenly shaken table, I naturally turned to look at the culprit.

“Huh?”

“Ah, sorry… No, I’m, I’m sorry. My leg got a cramp…”

The culprit I saw when I turned my head was none other than the black-haired girl sitting next to me.

When I let out a questioning sound, the girl apologized in an awkward tone while grabbing her knee that seemed to have bumped into the table.

It wasn’t really something to apologize for, so there was no need to apologize, but it would be embarrassing if I didn’t accept it, so I just nodded my head to accept her apology.

She looked quite in pain, holding her leg that had bumped while sweating, as if she really had a cramp. Well, be more careful.

But as if there was no time to worry about others, the dealer started dealing out the fully shuffled cards.

I grabbed the cards flying towards me one by one and quickly checked them.

“Hmm.”

♥3, ♣10, ♣9, ◆3, ◆A.

At the garbage hand of one pair, I let out a humming sound and frowned slightly inwardly.

They say the first hand is the last hand, and this was a very bad omen from the start.

But I couldn’t give up, so to change cards, I set aside three cards I wanted to change in advance.

And then I turned to look at the white-haired girl at the far left who was changing cards first.

“I’ll have to change them all.”

The white-haired girl also seemed to have a bad hand, as she put down all five cards and picked up the deck to draw new cards.

The girl naturally flipped her hair back and stood up to get the deck. At that sight, I recalled her voice I had just heard.

Although I had just heard it for the first time, the white-haired girl spoke in a quite masculine tone.

I don’t know if it was to avoid being looked down on in the casino or for some other reason, but she was a strange-looking girl.

It was natural to feel favorable towards her since she was beautiful and looked similar to Morgan. I unconsciously smiled slightly while looking at the girl.

Only.

“I’ll change all five cards.”

If I hadn’t seen what she was doing while drawing new cards, the smile would have been maintained.

The girl put down the original five cards she was holding and drew five new cards from the deck.

However, at the sight of her covering the top part of the deck and pulling out cards from the middle of the deck with hand movements so fast they wouldn’t be visible to ordinary people’s eyes, I unconsciously clenched my fist holding the gold coins.

‘Look at this bitch?’

With a crunch, the gold coins in my clenched fist turned into gold-mixed iron powder and fell to the floor.

For some reason, she had been winning continuously, but it seems she was using tricks. And at a speed incomparable to ordinary people at that.

Glancing at Morgan mixed in among the spectators, I saw she had noticed too, as she was slightly furrowing her brows.

In front of her stood Libby, looking at me with an innocent expression, unaware of anything.

And having clearly witnessed that white-haired girl use tricks, I had not the slightest intention of handing over money as is.

“This should be fun.”

I muttered softly while brushing off the remaining gold coin powder from my hand.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a trick for a trick.

After this round, that girl will absolutely never take money again.

But why is the one next to me shaking so much?