Victor said, “I'm planning to go in and play a few rounds. Do you want to join? Since you're so bored, even if you don't want to play, how about you watch me?”
Freya thought about it and didn't reject the idea. She really had nothing better to do anyway. “Wait for me a moment,” she said. “I'll buy some food and take it back to the room first, then I'll join you.”
Victor actually waited for her at the entrance of the casino, only walking in with her once she returned.
As soon as they stepped inside, a wave of mocking voices drifted over.
“Yo, isn't this the Never-Win Coward Victor? Here to lose money again today?”
“How about playing big this time? If you win just once, you might make it all back.”
“Forget it, don't waste your breath. If he actually dared to play big, how would he have gotten the nickname 'Coward' in the first place?”
Victor completely ignored the jeers and walked straight to a square table. He pulled out a chair and sat down with a thud.
In this casino, there was no process for exchanging chips. You just found an empty seat, pulled out your cash, and started playing. However, there was still an unwritten rule: the minimum bet per round was no less than a hundred Ducats. Otherwise... well, nothing serious would happen, you'd just be looked down upon by others, exactly like what was happening now.
Victor fumbled around in his pockets and pulled out a few crumpled bills. He picked out a ten-Ducat note first, slapped it onto the table, and said, “Deal!”
This immediately drew harsh laughter from the crowd around them.
“Another ten-Ducat ante?”
“With stakes that small, who'd even play?”
“Hey, don't say that. Even a mosquito's leg is meat. Free money is free money, I'm in!”
Soon, the table Victor sat at was filled with six people. Quite a few of them were smoking, and they kept tossing out one insult after another. The environment was as dreadful as it could get.
Victor couldn't help but glance back at Freya beside him. Seeing her brow slightly furrowed and a clear look of disgust on her face, he whispered, “The atmosphere in casinos is always like this. That's why I didn't recommend you come in the first place.”
Freya initially wanted to retort that all the mockery was because of him, but on second thought, she realized the casino environment wouldn't be much better even without Victor. Thus, she instead said, “Yet you still invited me in afterward.”
Victor replied, “Wasn't that because you said you were too bored? Besides, bringing you here to see what a casino is like and showing you its true colors might actually help keep you away from gambling.”
Of course, Victor's ultimate reason for inviting Freya was actually "curiosity." To this day, he still couldn't figure out why his ability had failed.
Soon, the game began. The dealer dealt two cards to everyone, including Victor, and then placed five cards in the middle of the table—three face up and two face down.
The rules of the game were very simple: players used their own hand in combination with the community cards on the table to form the best hand possible, and then compared them. The player with the strongest hand won.
After watching for a while, Freya suddenly realized that this game was exactly like the Texas Hold'em from her previous life.
At this moment, Victor hadn't even looked at his hole cards yet. He merely glanced at the community cards in the center of the table and whispered to Freya, “Let me tell you, when it comes to gambling, there's a very high chance that someone is cheating. You might think this game is decided by luck, but it's not. Who wins and who loses is already determined right at the start of the game. For example, this time...”
As he spoke, Victor stealthily peeked at his hole cards, and then froze.
Victor possessed the ability to store luck. Many people would probably think he used this ability to make money in casinos, but quite the contrary, he indeed used this ability just now, but not to bring himself good luck. Instead, he was storing all of his luck for the foreseeable future.
In other words, he was currently in an extremely unlucky state, meaning he was guaranteed to lose this gamble. This was actually the reason why he had the nicknames "Never-Win" and "Coward."
Placing very small bets in a gamble, using his ability to store luck, and losing the money—the entire process could be understood as "spending small change to buy luck." Saving this luck for later could very well save his life. No matter how he looked at it, it was an absolute steal!
As for the mockery from others? Victor didn't care in the slightest.
Right now, Victor could clearly feel that his ability had activated as usual. The luck he was accumulating was indeed increasing, which meant his hand in this round should have been incredibly weak.
Yet the reality was completely the opposite. He couldn't help but widen his eyes as he looked at the cards in his hand, then at the community cards on the table. It was actually a 【Straight Flush】! In Texas Hold'em, this was the second-strongest hand, right below a 【Royal Flush (the ultimate winning hand)】!
Victor looked at Freya beside him in utter shock. Without a doubt, the problem could only lie with this young girl. At this moment, Freya also saw the cards in Victor's hand. She raised an eyebrow. “Such a strong hand? So when you said 'who wins and who loses is determined right at the start,' did you mean you're cheating?”
“My goodness, did you personally perform a cheating demonstration just to keep me away from gambling?”
Freya wasn't stupid. Although Victor had invited her in, two out of every three sentences he spoke were badmouthing gambling. This guy was actually a surprisingly good person?
Or rather, a bad guy who wasn't all that bad.
Victor's mouth hung slightly open, his expression remaining blank. He didn't speak. He had indeed intended to show Freya the downsides of gambling, but what was happening right now was completely different from what he had imagined. He had originally wanted to perform a demonstration of losing all afternoon, so how did he end up holding such a hand right at the start?
Just then, the other players grew impatient and shouted at Victor, “Hey! What are you two whispering and dawdling about? Are you going to raise or what?”
Only then did Victor snap out of it. “Raise! Of course I'm raising, and I'm raising by a lot!”
Victor stood up directly, stepping onto his chair with a smug expression. Looking down at everyone present, he declared, “With a hand like this, I'm definitely going big. Just watch me! I raise... thirty Ducats!”
“Pfft—!”
“Hahaha!”
“Are you trying to fucking kill me with laughter so you can inherit my estate?”
In the face of Victor's clownish antics, the others naturally called his bet while laughing hysterically.
Here, another basic rule of Texas Hold'em must be mentioned. There are five cards in the center of the table, but only three are revealed initially, while the other two are face down, and no one knows what they are.
The game proceeds through multiple betting rounds. Only those who bet or call will remain in the hand to see the face-down cards revealed. In other words, even if a player's starting hand is very weak, what if it combines perfectly with the remaining face-down cards to form a powerful hand? This was precisely where the "gambling" aspect of the game lay.
Thus, a situation like Victor's, where he started with an incredibly strong hand right off the bat, was exceptionally rare and phenomenally lucky.
As mentioned before, calling keeps you in the game, while folding means giving up, forfeiting all previous bets to the pot. Since the game had just started and the ante was only ten Ducats, if Victor suddenly threw down a thousand Ducats, anyone with a brain would know his hand was massive and fold immediately.
Therefore, in a situation where he was practically guaranteed to win, what Victor needed to do was "prevent others from realizing his hand was strong," encouraging them to call and bet as much as possible so he could win more.
In the next round, Victor raised fifty Ducats, and in the round after that, he raised another hundred.
When the showdown came, his hand was unsurprisingly the strongest. He swept the board, making a clean nine hundred Ducats in one go.
Seeing this, Freya couldn't help but click her tongue. Admittedly, this was exactly why gambling was so addictive. Victor had bet a total of one hundred and eighty Ducats, and the end result was that he spent absolutely nothing while making a net profit of nine hundred.
This could easily foster a mindset where, after winning this round, he could afford to lose at least five more rounds, and as long as he won once every five rounds, he'd still be in the green!
But was that really the case? One had to realize that a single hand of Texas Hold'em was very short. It could take three to four minutes if fast, and ten minutes was more than enough if slow. Over the course of an afternoon, there was plenty of time to play dozens of hands.
Jokes aside, there were indeed people who could play dozens of rounds without winning even once. Even if they only lost dozens or a hundred Ducats each time, it would accumulate, and they could easily lose ten thousand Ducats in a single afternoon. And this was just an example based on Victor's table, where the stakes were relatively low.
If they played with high stakes, it would be truly terrifying. Losing an entire house in one afternoon was no exaggeration.
Seeing this, the others stared at Victor in disbelief:
“What's up with you, kid? How is your hand so strong?”
“Holy crap, are you serious? I actually lost with this?”
“No way, did your luck actually turn around? Again, again!”
Victor continued to use his ability to lower his luck and started another round. Yet, the result was exactly the same as before. In the very first deal, he formed 【Four of a Kind】—which was like a bomb in Fight the Landlord. While slightly weaker than his previous Straight Flush, it was still the third-strongest hand in the entire game.
In the third and fourth rounds, he got Four of a Kind twice more. Just from these few rounds, Victor had won around four thousand Ducats.
At the same time, however, the skin of the other players began to flush red at a visible rate. They breathed heavily, and the looks they directed at him grew increasingly hostile. Getting such monstrous hands every single time made it hard not to suspect foul play.
“Hey, you didn't cheat, did you, kid?”
“Can't afford to play fair, huh?”
Watching this, Freya couldn't help but marvel silently in her heart. These people are just like chameleons, and they change colors so fast.
One of these red-faced men stood up as he spoke, aggressively marching toward Victor. Meanwhile, Freya was standing right next to Victor, directly in the guy's path.
It wouldn't be surprising for people who had lost their minds to do anything. Seeing this, Victor hesitated no longer and unleashed his other ability: 【Bestow Misfortune】.
Suddenly, the aggressive man's foot slipped. He fell backward, his forehead slamming directly into the edge of the table.
With a dull thud, he lay flat on the ground, completely motionless, knocked out cold on the spot.
Victor immediately stood up, gesturing to Freya as he headed for the exit. “Let's go, let's go! This is no place to linger!”
Once they left the casino and returned to the spacious deck, the two finally stopped. Freya said to Victor, “So is this also part of what you wanted to show me? Even if you cheat and keep winning, the outcome isn't necessarily good. It can easily draw the hatred of other gamblers and invite disaster.”
Pausing, Freya sighed in admiration. “But I have to say, your cheating technique is truly amazing. I was staring at you from behind the whole time and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary at all.”
Hearing this, Victor reached up to wipe away the cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead at some point. He muttered to himself, My dear young ancestor, of course you couldn't tell, because I fucking didn't cheat at all!
Knowing that he hadn't cheated and had been constantly storing luck, yet still managed to win consecutively, Victor suddenly felt cold sweat drenching his back. What was going on?
With the successful activation of his ability to Bestow Misfortune just now, he finally understood. It wasn't that his ability had failed, but rather that his ability simply had no effect on Freya!
This young girl's luck seemed to be a constant, and it could even affect the people around her!
For instance, Victor's luck storage ability was still active right now, yet absolutely nothing bad was happening. In fact, his accumulated luck was still piling up rapidly. This was simply too absurd!
Looking at the seemingly ordinary girl before him in black stockings and a short skirt—who was highly likely some hidden powerhouse—Victor began to organize his words, pondering how he should cozy up to this big shot.
Just then, a ship staff member carrying a box walked by. Freya took two steps to the side to make way for him. At that exact moment, a bird dropping suddenly landed on Victor's head.
Victor felt a sudden chill on his forehead. Reaching up to touch it, he saw the white, runny mess and immediately thought, Oh no.
Immediately after, in the very next second, a fish leapt out of the sea beside them. Flapping its body wildly in mid-air, it flew toward Victor's face at extreme speed and slapped him hard across the cheek.
“Slap!”
The impact was by no means light. Victor instantly felt dizzy from the slap. But that was not the end. From the other side of the deck, fish after fish began leaping out of the water, jumping a full dozen meters high. Tracing perfect arcs in the air, they crossed almost the entire width of the deck and slammed heavily into Victor's lower back.
Victor now felt as if he were being pelted by shot puts thrown with full force. He was already close to the railing, and this consecutive barrage of hits sent him flying right over.
The entire sequence of events took less than five seconds. From Freya's perspective, she had simply stepped aside, heard some strange noises, and when she turned around, Victor was gone.
She tilted her head slightly. “Huh? Where did he go?”
“Flap, flap.”
Hearing the noise, Freya looked over. Seeing three or four large fish, each a full meter long, flopping wildly on the deck, her expression grew even more bewildered. “Ah? Where did these fish come from?”
Rate on N.U.
