Ending Maker Chapter 52
Ending Maker Chapter 52
Chapter 15 - Intersection #2
Gale Bayel.
27 years old.
The eldest son of Count Bayel. The next Count Bayel.
A master swordsman who had made a name for himself since childhood, as befitting the heir of Count Bayel, one of the Ten Great Swordsmen.
At an age when the eldest sons of other count households would already have two or three children, there were several reasons he was still single—though most of those reasons were, in truth, mere formalities.
For Gale lived alone without marrying for one reason only.
Adelia Chase.
24 years old.
Count Chase's eldest daughter and second child among his one son and two daughters.
A genius mage who joined the Saelun Kingdom's Royal Guard Magic Corps at nineteen and rose to the position of commander in five years—at the young age of twenty-four.
"It has been a while, Lady Adelia."
"It has been a while, Lord Gale."
Since this was not a march to the battlefield, he had omitted his armor, but apart from the coat draped over him, Gale was practically in full knight's uniform.
And Adelia.
As befitting Cordelia's older sister, she was a peerless beauty with rich golden hair inherited from her mother.
She wore the formal uniform bearing the emblem of the Royal Guard Magic Corps: a form-fitting black combat outfit richly embroidered with gold thread.
"Though the reason we've met like this is not exactly pleasant...... still, it's good to see you in good health."
"Likewise."
Adelia answered Gale's usual good-natured smile somewhat coldly, then gave another huff before speaking.
"You've probably already heard the gist of it, but I'll say it again. The plan is simple. First, we ride day and night until we reach Count Hraesvelgr's territory—specifically, the northern border region."
"And then we use tracking magic?"
Gale asked as he mounted his horse, and Adelia nodded.
"Cordelia should still have the ring Father gave her, so we can track that."
"What is the tracking range?"
"It's fairly wide, but even then it only covers about the size of a small territory. Somewhere as vast as Count Hraesvelgr's territory will have to be searched section by section."
"Still, that's reassuring. As expected of Lady Adelia."
"Hmph. It's not really something worth praising, you know?"
Adelia huffed again, gathered her hair into a single tie, and adjusted her grip on the reins.
"Anyway, let's depart. I'll take the lead."
"I'm more familiar with the local geography, so I'll take the lead. Everyone! We'll be off!"
Despite Adelia's sharp attitude, Gale answered with a soft smile, called out a farewell to those seeing them off, and urged his horse ahead first.
"Hyah!"
As Gale's horsemanship was exceptional, his figure riding ahead was quite dashing—though apparently not to Adelia.
She stared at Gale pulling ahead with a displeased face, then turned back with a huff.
"I'll be going."
Having spoken coldly, she spurred her horse and followed after Gale. No, judging by the momentum, it seemed less like accompaniment and more like a race.
And the people left behind.
Among them, Maia and Dahlia naturally looked at each other and exchanged awkward smiles at the same time.
"It'll be...... fine, right?"
"Probably......?"
Gale Bayel and Adelia Chase.
With an inexplicable sense of foreboding, Maia and Dahlia watched the two riders disappear into the distance.
* * *
Someone once said.
"Do you know what a gambling den and a high-end buffet have in common? The fact that in the end, the house wins."
That was exactly right.
No matter how much you ate at a high-end buffet trying to get your money's worth, all you got for your trouble was an upset stomach. Likewise, no matter how hard you tried at a gambling den, the customer was ultimately bound to lose money.
"Of course, that's the average. It just means that overall, the casino makes money—but there are definitely a few who win, whether modestly or enormously."
Because otherwise, no one would ever go to a gambling den.
"So you're saying you're one of those few?"
"One of the few who always wins. I've been banned from three casinos in Las Vegas, after all."
They had stopped by a nearby inn to change clothes before heading to the casino.
At Yuder's words, Cordelia, who had been arranging the hem of her splendid red dress, blinked.
"Banned list?"
"Yeah, it's a kind of blacklist. Once you're on it, you can't even enter."
Yuder spoke with a hint of pride. Cordelia stopped adjusting her hem, stroked her chin, then clenched a fist.
"I knew it! I knew you were a cheater! A card shark! I was right, wasn't I? Huh?"
"No way. I've never cheated. I just got denied entry because I was too good at gambling."
"F**k, what are you, some god of gambling? How do you keep winning without cheating?"
"Hearing 'f**k' again after so long is kind of nostalgic."
"Don't change the subject."
"Well, first turn around."
"Are you done getting dressed?"
"Yeah, and you're all dressed too."
"You—ugh. I told you not to turn around early!"
"I just turned around now. Come here. I'll tighten the laces on your back."
"Dahlia used to do that for me."
"Dahlia's not here right now."
Since Yuder was right, Cordelia went over to him and showed her back, and Yuder tightened the dress laces one by one as he continued speaking.
"Do you know what card counting is?"
"No."
"......It's literally counting cards. You memorize all the revealed cards and infer what the unrevealed cards might be. And based on that, you calculate the probability for each situation and make the optimal choice."
"It sounds hard just hearing about it. Does doing that let you win no matter what?"
"No, even then, your win rate only slightly exceeds 50%. Modern casinos have developed all sorts of techniques to nullify card counting, so it doesn't work well anymore. All done."
When Yuder finished tying all the dress laces, Cordelia spun around, looked herself over this way and that, then picked up the tie that was to go around Yuder's neck.
"Then why did you get blacklisted? You really did cheat, didn't you? Don't move. Stay still."
"Card counting was just the basics. I had a few other techniques too. And fundamentally, you're playing against a dealer, right? Unlike machines, people leak all kinds of information even when they're sitting still."
And in truth, Yuder's specialty had been poker games like Texas Hold'em.
"So hey, were you a professional poker player?"
"Who knows?"
At Yuder's glib answer, Cordelia pouted and deliberately cinched his tie too tight.
"Ghk! Hey!"
"Hmph, I'll retie it."
Dexterous as ever, Cordelia quickly retied it neatly.
"I don't know about anything else, but you seem to be the best at this."
"I'm good at plenty of other things too, you know?"
She huffed, but the compliment still pleased her enough that the corners of her mouth curled upward.
"Anyway, so you're confident?"
"I'm confident. This isn't a modern casino with all sorts of countermeasures in place."
"Your smile is evil."
"You'll come to love this smile soon, miss."
"Yeah, right."
In any case, seeing him so full of confidence put Cordelia's mind at ease to some extent.
"Anyway, shall we go win some money now?"
"Yes, Daddy. I'm counting on you."
"Daddy will make our princess rich today."
"Oh, yay."
"Let's stop here."
"Yeah."
The two stopped the joke at just the right point, looked at each other, took a deep breath, and left the inn side by side.
And two hours later.
"Blackjack."
The dealer facing Yuder went pale, and Yuder, wearing a soft smile, looked over the coins piled high in front of him.
'It's about time for them to come.'
He had spent an hour observing and another hour winning hand after hand, so it was about time for the house to intervene.
'As expected, here they come.'
From a distance, a large man in a fine suit was striding toward him.
He would surely dress up 'take what you've won and get lost' in polite language.
'Well, shall I back off soon?'
Even cashing in only the chips he had already won would come to roughly one and a half times Red Wind's price.
'Good, let's stop here.'
Having made up his mind, Yuder turned his head toward the large man and smiled softly.
But the large man did not even glance at Yuder's smile. He kept walking and stopped somewhere Yuder had never expected.
'What?'
Yuder blinked involuntarily, then rose from his seat and looked toward where the large man had stopped.
It was the roulette area, and now that he looked, nearly half the casino's patrons seemed to have gathered there, with only slight exaggeration.
"I'd like to exchange these, please. This is a tip."
Yuder handed the dealer a chip, rose from his seat, and headed toward the roulette table.
And that was the moment.
"Aah!"
"Ooooh!"
"She got it again!"
"Insane!"
Cheers and exclamations erupted like thunder. The crowd was so loud that he wondered how he had failed to notice it until now.
And at the center of all that fervor was a beautiful girl in a red dress with long brown hair hanging down.
"Cordelia?"
Yuder spoke her real name without thinking, and Cordelia, who had been squealing with delight, turned to Yuder with a radiant face and threw her arms around him.
"I won again! I hit the jackpot!"
What was this? What in the world had she won?
And what was this situation?
Yuder gently pushed Cordelia away for the moment, looked at the roulette table, and then saw the mountain of coins piled in front of Cordelia.
Even at a glance, it looked twice—no, three times—as much as what Yuder himself had won.
"Uh...... little sister?"
Under their cover identities, the two were siblings, after all.
At Yuder's words, Cordelia came to her senses and squared her shoulders as she spoke.
"Big bro, big bro! I totally hit the jackpot!"
From what was happening, Yuder could tell that Cordelia had struck it big at roulette.
But how in the world?
"Wow, she's incredible. She made that much betting only on red or black, not even on numbers."
A man watching right beside them spoke joyfully as if it were his own achievement, and other nearby onlookers added a word each.
"I've personally seen ten straight wins."
"I've seen twelve straight."
"It was exactly 17 in a row!"
"17 in a row?!"
The last one was Yuder.
Cordelia was perfectly satisfied by Yuder's utterly shocked, dumbfounded expression.
"That's right! 17 in a row!"
Guessing whether the space where the roulette stopped was red or black.
The probability was 1/2.
That was the lowest payout, only 1x, but seventeen wins in a row changed the story.
'If the payout is 1x, it effectively doubles, so 2 to the 17th power.......'
131,072 times.
Even if she had started with the cheapest chip, worth a single copper coin, multiplying it by roughly 130,000 could only turn it into a terrifying sum. No wonder a mountain of chips had piled up in front of Cordelia.
But thinking about it the other way, the probability of winning 17 times in a row was likewise 1 in 2 to the 17th power.
In other words, 1 in 130,000.
"H-how?"
Since awakening his past life in Pleiades—no, across both his current life and past life—he had never been as shocked as this.
Cordelia smiled brightly again at Yuder, who looked as if he had witnessed the mysteries of the universe, and spoke triumphantly.
"By feel."
"By feel?"
"By feel."
Somehow it felt like red would come out this time.
This time, black.
This time, black again.
This time, it feels like red?
"Are you actually a beast......."
"I can hear you, you know?"
But perhaps because she was in such a good mood, Cordelia did not smack Yuder's back this time. She did not bite him either.
"Ah, anyway! Let's stop here."
"Why? The more money, the better."
"Let's stop. Now is perfect."
At Yuder's words, Cordelia pouted, and the surrounding onlookers began to jeer.
But Yuder paid them no mind.
"Let's call it here and go."
At Yuder's firm tone, Cordelia considered it for a moment, then nodded.
"Fine, let's go."
"Aww!"
"How about one more round, miss?"
"Just one more!"
The onlookers shouted enthusiastically, and the large man who appeared to be from the casino also tried to make some kind of move.
Now that he looked, it seemed the man had come not to stop the game, but to somehow keep it going.
'Because she'll lose eventually.'
17 wins in a row was a miracle by anyone's reckoning.
"Sorry, my brother is strict. Hehe."
Cordelia answered the onlookers with a cute smile, cashed in her chips, and left the casino with Yuder.
Yuder had been tense, worried that the casino might refuse to cash them out or stop them from leaving. But perhaps because their winnings were not enough to bankrupt the place, they got away with nothing more than an emphatic request to return tomorrow and an invitation to the auction house.
'So they want us to spend some money, huh.'
The slave auction house, the regular auction house, and the casino all belonged to Viscount Bern, known as the king of Lankebust.
'Anyway, this isn't bad. With an auction house invitation, participating in the auction will look natural too.'
As Yuder, relieved, let his shoulders relax, Cordelia looked up at the sky with a lively face and said.
"It's a beautiful night."
Of course it was.
They had earned a staggering amount in just two hours, even by the standards of two people from the twelve houses.
"Wow, we're rich now. Casinos are fun places. Truly places overflowing with dreams and hope."
"Hey, it's funny for me to say this now, but casinos are dens of vice, okay? You should go planning to spend money and have fun. If you go expecting to make money, most people end up ruining themselves and their families."
"Aw, but it was a nice place, why."
"No gambling, absolutely no gambling. Gamblers are out. Got it? I'm calling off the engagement! Engagement off!"
Somehow, the two had completely reversed their positions from before entering the casino.
And Cordelia showed a reaction similar to Yuder's from two hours ago.
"Come on, don't you trust me?"
"Please."
"Fine, fine. Anyway, I'm excited. Red Wind is mine now."
Cordelia had grumbled about not liking the idea of buying Red Wind with money, but now she had completely changed her mind.
Yuder grabbed Cordelia's wrist tightly again and said.
"Just to be safe, you have to think of today as a truly miraculously lucky day. Got it? Huh?"
"Nooo, I don't wanna. Cordelia wants to do it ag— Fine, fine. I'll stop. I know too. Days like this don't come often."
"Hah... just don't do anything that gets us disowned."
"Yes, Daddy."
Cordelia answered sweetly and took the lead, while Yuder stayed close behind, wary of any would-be robbers.
Cordelia smiled softly at him as if he were worrying over nothing, then gathered her long hair into a single tie and spoke.
"By the way, Yuder, when are we going to the auction house?"
"It happens to be opening tomorrow, so we won't have to wait long."
"Do you think there'll be any other good lots besides Red Wind? We're rich now."
In the original story, neither Yuder nor Cordelia had a proper chance to participate in the auction house.
Cordelia had spent the entire early scenario being chased by the Devil's Hand, and by the time Yuder's scenario began in earnest, the barbarian invasion had thrown the whole north into chaos.
'Not to mention Red Wind, who had been held at the auction house.'
More importantly, this was the auction house a full month before Red Wind's scenario began.
In short, it was an unknown place for both Yuder and Cordelia.
"I'm suddenly looking forward to it."
"Right? Doesn't it make you wonder what might be there? It's like entering a new town and checking out the weapon shop, isn't it?"
What might be there?
Maybe they could find some amazing item.
"I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Meeting Red Wind, and going to the auction house."
"Yeah."
Maybe there would be something they truly needed.
And the next evening.
"But then it actually happened."
"How lucky."
The former was Cordelia, and the latter was Yuder.
An unexpected encounter was waiting for the two of them.