The First Win in Gambling Is the Most Dangerous
Babiyen Astoria.
She was the youngest disciple among the eleven apprentices of the Lord of Red Flames.
The Astoria barony had originally been a merchant family.
And not just any merchant house — one of the wealthiest in the entire empire.
They had even paid a massive sum in taxes to the imperial family in exchange for their baronial title.
But as is always the case in noble society, those who weren’t born into aristocracy were bound to be ostracized.
A family with money but no honor.
That was the contempt the Astoria barony received in aristocratic circles.
So the Astoria family employed every means at their disposal.
In this world, there is nothing money cannot buy.
Honor, too, could ultimately be purchased with coin.
One such method was making Babiyen a disciple of the Lord of Red Flames.
If an outstanding talent emerged from the family, the house’s status would naturally rise along with them.
Babiyen possessed a fair amount of talent, and with an enormous sum of money, she was able to become the youngest disciple.
The Lord of Red Flames had always been obsessed with gold and treasure.
She collected anything that glittered, and her sole goal was to amass a mountain of gold.
So much so that her other title was the Golden Firebird.
She gladly accepted the Astoria family’s proposal.
That was how Babiyen became a disciple of the Lord of Red Flames.
A disciple bought with money.
As a result, Babiyen was always an outsider among the other disciples.
She couldn’t refuse her family’s command, yet she couldn’t grow close to the other apprentices either.
The Lord of Red Flames had only accepted her in exchange for payment; the actual teaching was left to the first disciple.
Babiyen had only seen the Lord of Red Flames’ face a handful of times.
It was a stifling life in many ways.
Babiyen’s only refuge was the Star Cluster Society, where many of her peers gathered.
After all, she was the daughter of a baron.
She held the position of disciple to the Lord of Red Flames.
And she possessed decent looks.
Thanks to these advantages, she was something of a star within the society.
Babiyen found peace there.
At least, until three days ago.
Aranseol, who far surpassed her in beauty.
The eldest son of a marquis family, whose status dwarfed her own.
With their successive appearances, Babiyen’s value plummeted in an instant.
That was why she hated Aranseol.
She might not have status, but at the very least, her appearance had been a source of pride.
Anything related to Aranseol irritated her for no good reason.
Today was no different.
She had planned to use the transmigrator who had come with Aranseol to provoke her.
She never dreamed that it would end up cutting her own flesh instead.
Because of Harua’s outrageous behavior, she had been too embarrassed to do anything but sit quietly in the corner.
While she was hiding, unable to even lift her face after today’s events, every light in the hall suddenly went out.
A sudden development.
The moment the disciples fell into confusion, the glass ceiling shattered and they appeared.
Black Dawn.
A radical terrorist group of transmigrators.
Among them were three particularly infamous and dangerous individuals.
The blind swordsman, Tear Rain.
The skinless freak, Rotten Flesh.
And the black-robed dark mage, Shadow Moon.
All of them had operated within Black Dawn for a long time and were mass murderers responsible for countless deaths.
The instant they appeared, they began slaughtering the newly famous disciples.
No matter how well-known their masters were, these were still greenhorns.
They stood no chance against veterans who had already earned their infamy across numerous battlefields.
The disciples fell one after another, unable to respond to the sudden ambush or the enemies’ overwhelming power.
Babiyen had been far from the center of the hall.
That was why she witnessed the entire scene with her own two eyes.
But she couldn’t even consider stepping forward.
The gap in strength was obvious, and it didn’t seem like there was anything she could do even if she tried.
Still, hesitation stirred within her heart.
Becoming a disciple of the Lord of Red Flames had been her family’s wish, but it had also been her own.
After all, she had loved the stories of heroes from fairy tales she read as a child.
The Black Dawn’s terror and the crisis unfolding before her.
The childhood admiration for heroes deep in her heart created a fierce conflict within her.
Should she join the fight?
Or should she stay quiet like this?
As she wrestled endlessly with that dilemma, an unexpected offer reached her.
“I have a plan to stop those bastards.”
The man who had suddenly appeared — the same man who had humiliated her.
Harua, disciple of Lapiel, daughter of the Grace Magic Tower Master.
His proposal planted a small spark in her wavering heart.
Harua had thoroughly screwed her over.
Even if it left a bad taste in her mouth, it had certainly left the impression that he was no ordinary person.
Moreover, Harua was the one who had saved people from the crashing airship earlier.
Thanks to that incident, Aranseol had shot up to stardom among the disciples.
I want to become like that too.
A flame of desire blazed up inside her.
“……What is it?”
And she would come to regret accepting his proposal so bitterly that tears would flow.
“Black Dawn, you fucking idiots!”
A thunderous voice rang through the hall.
Not only Black Dawn, but every disciple’s eyes snapped toward them.
Babiyen squeezed her eyes shut as the dagger pressed against her throat.
“If you don’t want to see a disciple of the Lord of Red Flames die, get the hell out!”
The one holding the dagger to her throat was Harua, who had made the proposal just moments ago.
He even wore a hood he’d stolen from somewhere, looking every bit the vicious criminal with most of his face covered.
She had thought this would be the path to becoming a dazzling hero.
But no matter how she looked at it, this was the furthest thing from heroism.
She had joined because he said he had a plan, but she never expected this.
This was, without a doubt…
Just a hostage situation…….
The hostage situation carried out with Babiyen as the victim.
He had asked her to play along without any prior explanation.
And surprisingly, Babiyen had complied without much resistance.
The proof was how she now stood with both hands raised high, screaming at the top of her lungs.
She cries like a red pig.
I quite like the sound of her voice.
The gazes of Black Dawn turned toward me.
In truth, I had no idea whether the Lord of Red Flames had actually joined hands with Black Dawn.
The reason I was doing this was simple.
If I failed, I would have to stab this dagger into my own throat.
If I succeeded, I could tie Black Dawn down.
At first glance, the risk of failure seemed enormous, but for me it was no risk, high return.
Because I would come back to life anyway.
Of course, I didn’t want the former outcome either.
If I wasn’t careful, my resurrection magic might be exposed.
But I couldn’t just sit back and watch this disaster unfold.
A promise with Aranseol?
A sense of justice to protect people?
The will to change the world?
Fuck that.
I didn’t have any of that shit.
As I said before, I was satisfied as long as the people I knew didn’t die.
I knew all too well how unpleasant it was when someone you knew died.
So whether these primitive otherworlders were annihilated or not didn’t concern me in the slightest.
The only reason I was standing here right now was one thing.
Black Dawn, these sons of bitches, were completely ruining the perception of transmigrators.
Look at a decent transmigrator like me.
No matter how kindly I treat these primitive otherworlders, they discriminate against me simply because I’m a transmigrator.
I hate otherworlders.
And I also hate these transmigrator bastards who cause me harm with their pointless bullshit.
Because of these terrorist fucks, I still have nightmares about having my limbs ripped off by that cultist.
“Open your eyes and look carefully! Before I shove this dagger into this bitch’s neck! The Lord of Red Flames would love to see her disciple with a blade in her throat, wouldn’t she?!”
“T-this isn’t for real, right? You’re not serious, are you? No way! This… this can’t be happening!”
Babiyen’s acting is excellent.
I can overlook the fact that she once sent me flying into a table.
The gazes of Black Dawn remained fixed on me.
They clearly hadn’t expected this situation; even the disciples wore dazed expressions.
The battle had come to a temporary halt.
Exchanges of glances occurred among Black Dawn.
According to Babiyen, the three dangerous ones here were Tear Rain, Rotten Flesh, and Shadow Moon.
I had carefully observed how they fought.
Tear Rain was a blind swordsman, but his movements saw far more than eyes ever could.
He definitely possessed some kind of detection-type ability.
Rotten Flesh had all his skin peeled off, but he wielded blood-related powers.
The blood weapons he formed — swords, spears, arrows, and more — could emerge from anywhere on his body.
Shadow Moon’s ability was exactly as I had seen earlier.
He engulfed the surroundings in darkness, and the moment his blade cut someone, it robbed them of their sight and senses entirely.
It was his doing that had subdued the disciples.
He wielded two curved blades.
The one I needed to watch most carefully right now was Shadow Moon.
His movements.
So I had been watching him more closely than any of the others.
Black Dawn did not move.
An unexpected sudden development.
I could sense them struggling to decide how to respond.
The moment I saw that, a spark ignited in my mind.
As expected, my guess that the Lord of Red Flames had betrayed them was correct.
If they had deemed Babiyen worthless, they would have charged at the disciples immediately.
The gamble had succeeded.
Now the question was how to use the time this gamble had bought us.
“S-save me. I was wrong, I made a mistake.”
Babiyen was practically sobbing now.
In that moment, the members of Black Dawn quietly gathered in one spot.
They were trying to secretly conceal Shadow Moon’s presence.
“Hey, I told you to stay put over there.”
I immediately pressed the dagger deeper against Babiyen’s throat and shouted.
A thin line of blood trickled down her skin.
Black Dawn had no choice but to freeze.
“Just so you know, I’m a No-Name too. No matter what tricks you pull, I can definitely plant this dagger.”
After all, you don’t know what kind of ability I have.
So I lied as much as I wanted.
The standoff with Black Dawn continued.
The disciples also quietly regrouped as they sensed the situation growing increasingly serious.
If we could keep buying time like this…
Aranseol should have joined up with Sohan by now.
They would take that whining bastard and attempt to escape.
At that moment, I saw Shadow Moon flinch.
A sudden reaction.
It was certain.
Someone had begun their escape.
Good.
Now time was completely on our side.
Just as I was certain of victory—
Click.
“Goodness, what are you all doing? At this rate I won’t be getting paid.”
A seductive voice echoed through the hall.
Then, from the darkness at the end of the corridor, a woman with flowing crimson hair appeared.
Thick eyeliner accentuated her blazing red eyes.
Her hand was already pointed directly at us.
“I’ll be charging extra.”
The instinctive sense of crisis I felt throughout my entire body.
It was the same primal scream of warning I had felt during the Cosmic incident.
Shit. What terrible fucking luck.
The Lord of Red Flames.
The Golden Firebird.
She had been here from the very beginning.
Whoosh—
And then my vision ignited.