The Call of One
"Waaaaaah!"
The cry tore out of Rimer before he even realized he'd made it.
"He won! Raon won!"
He thrust a clenched fist into the air, eyes locked on the three thousand gold coins stacked in front of Raon.
"You bastards! That's our Raon! My disciple did it!"
Rimer slung his arms around spectators he'd never met in his life and started dancing in a circle.
"Raon! Raon! Raon!"
"Raon! Raon! Raon!"
As he kept chanting the name, the rest of the gambling den picked it up and roared it back.
"Huuuh..."
Rimer let out a shaky breath, his face caught halfway between tears and laughter. He didn't just win — he wiped the floor with him!
Rimer had challenged Dokoe more times than he could count and had never beaten him even once. Yet Raon had seen through every last one of Dokoe's tricks and turned around and conned the man right back. The sheer audacity of it left Rimer's jaw hanging.
"If this goes well..."
Rimer licked his lips. I might just get rich again.
A betting pool had opened at the counter only moments ago on who would win between Raon and Dokoe. Rimer had thrown every coin he'd been hiding — plus the gold he'd borrowed from Dorian — onto Raon's victory. And not merely victory: onto Raon winning all three wagers. If things kept going this way, he'd be a wealthy man once more.
"Raon! Win! Show them the power of House Zieghart's Light Wind Squad! I believe in youuuu!"
Rimer bellowed Raon's name until it felt like his throat would split open.
"Hmm..."
Raon clicked his tongue as he looked at Rimer, who looked so wretched even a beggar would have given him a wide berth. I don't know about showing them the Light Wind Squad's power, but you're doing a magnificent job of showing them the Light Wind Squad's patheticness.
If the commander of one of House Zieghart's martial units could stand there looking like a beggar and feel not a shred of shame, then a lost cause was simply a lost cause. Judging by that face, he bet money on me.
Rimer's cheering eyes were overflowing with naked greed. He'd clearly put some hidden stash of coin on Raon's victory.
"I never imagined I'd be caught by my own words."
Dokoe's mouth curled into a long, thin smile. Like any true gambler, he forced his expression into something resembling composure — but the deck in his hand had already been crushed to powder. His guts were clearly turning over hard enough that he could barely stand it.
Raon watched the drifting scraps of card and smiled faintly. Those were getting on my nerves. Nice of him to crumple them himself.
From the moment they'd met, the way Dokoe flicked cards between his fingers had rubbed Raon the wrong way. Seeing the man mash them to pieces of his own accord was deeply satisfying.
"Hmph! Don't you dare get cocky!"
Wrath scrunched up his face, thoroughly displeased.
"It was This King who told you that ogre-like brute's hand, and well you know it!"
Of course I know. That's why I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to buy you ice cream in a way that'll actually make you happy.
Raon nodded at Wrath, who was sulking like a child who'd been left out of the spotlight.
"R-really? Then is there anything more This King can do for you? Speak, and it shall be done!"
Wrath bobbed his round little head as if Raon need only name it.
Raon smiled at him. Generous Wrath, who never held anything back. Four boxes of ice cream to command a Demon King — the cost-to-performance ratio was insanely good. You could search the entire continent and never find a deal like it. We're fine now. The card match looked to be over.
Dokoe was no fool. He'd already figured out that Raon had been using a trick, which meant there would be no more poker.
"To be caught by my own words... this is the first humiliation of my life."
Dokoe grinned as if he were enjoying himself. Irritation was boiling up inside him, yet almost none of it showed on his face. The posture of a born gambler.
"That's enough cards. Time to make a decision."
"A decision?"
"That's right. The decision by which I acknowledge you."
"Wasn't it already over?"
Raon tilted his head. There was so little gold left on Dokoe's side of the table that he'd assumed the match was finished.
"Of course not."
Dokoe clapped his hands. The crowd parted, and dealers stepped forward to dump gold coins across the table — a heap roughly equal to the three thousand Raon had already won.
"Three thousand gold. We'll settle our wager with this."
"Not cards, I take it?"
"Of course not. I've no intention of walking into a swindler's trap when I don't even know what trick you're using."
"It's not a swindler's trap. It's justice."
"Kh..."
Because those had been his own words, Dokoe's face crumpled for a brief instant, as if he'd bitten into something rotten.
"The method is simple."
Dokoe picked up the gray cup in front of him, dumped the liquor inside onto the floor, and slammed the empty vessel down on the table.
"I'll put three dice in this cup."
He held out a hand, and the dealer to his right dropped three white dice into the cup.
Rattle-rattle-rattle!
Dokoe shook the cup like a bartender, then slammed it down. When he lifted it, three different faces — three, five, and six — stared up at the ceiling.
"A dice game where you guess the numbers inside the cup. Simple, intuitive — it's my favorite wager of all."
It was a game spread across the entire continent, and one of the ones they'd played in Camelun's underground gambling den.
"We'll keep going until someone gets it right."
Dokoe shoved his three thousand gold coins into the center of the table as if to say they were taking this all the way. Dice, is it.
Three dice meant the totals ran from three to eighteen. Calling it on the first try was nearly impossible — but there would be no second chance. This would end on the first round, without question.
Wrath.
"There is nothing."
Wrath looked the cup and the dice over thoroughly, then drifted back to Raon's wrist.
"Both the cup and the dice are perfectly ordinary things."
He shook his head as if to say there was nothing to find. So he means to settle this with skill.
He couldn't cheat, and he didn't know Raon's method, so he intended to end it with his own technique.
"Ohhhh!"
"It always comes down to dice in the end!"
"Simple, and it still makes your blood run dry."
"This should be good. Wonder if the Frost-Flower Sword Hero's gambling holds up with dice too."
"Is he going to take it?"
"He will. If he doesn't, it won't count as the Three Pledges."
The crowd sent expectant looks their way, certain Raon would accept.
"Very well. Then I have a proposal of my own."
Raon nodded and looked at Dokoe across the mountain of gold.
"A proposal?"
"You chose the game, so you call the number first. And the right to open the cup goes to me. Can you agree to that?"
Those two conditions were among the few ways to shut down an opponent's tricks.
"Oh! I like it."
"He's got to take that too."
"Right. The Frost-Flower Sword Hero already agreed to the dice game. A demand like that is only fair."
"True. Dokoe's the one shaking the dice."
This time the spectators sided with Raon, nodding that Dokoe had no choice but to accept.
"Fine. On the condition that you take off every artifact you're wearing."
"Done."
Raon nodded and passed every piece of equipment and every artifact he had to Dorian. Then he shoved his newly won three thousand gold coins forward, and the entire table became a rolling sea of gold. Dry swallows sounded from every direction.
"Then I'll mix them."
Dokoe scattered the three dice separately across the table, then shook the cup and scooped them in one by one. The sound of dice corners striking the cup rang out like an orchestra in full swell — then cut off the instant Dokoe's hand went still.
"As you said. You speak first."
He took his hand completely off the cup, as if to say it was Raon's turn.
"Understood."
Raon let out a thin breath and leaned back in his chair.
"Now it is This King's turn once more."
Wrath drew himself up as if ready to soar like a hawk, radiating a leave it to me air.
No. This time it's my turn.
"What? How do you propose to see through that, you brat!"
Wrath demanded to know whether there was even time to listen for differences in sound the way they had before.
Instead, I've got something I obtained from you.
"Obtained? What are you talking ab—"
Ah.
Wrath's mouth fell open.
"C-could it be..."
That's right. The Demonic Eye of Wrath.
Raon looked at Wrath, who was cursing him with his eyes, and drew up the wrath that had settled deep in his soul. I can manage a little X-ray vision of my own.
Poker ran long enough that he couldn't sustain the Demonic Eye of Wrath — but this dice game would be over in a single round. That was more than enough. And besides...
If his guess was right, the dice inside that cup were not in an ordinary state. He needed to see them with his own eyes.
"Hm?"
Dokoe frowned as if he'd sensed something strange, but he couldn't pin the feeling down and only tilted his head. As expected — he can't perceive it.
He seemed to register nothing more than a vague impression of anger. Relieved, Raon poured wrath into his eyes. Enduring a pressure that felt as if his eyeballs would burst, he fixed his gaze on the cup.
A low hum filled his vision.
The interior of the iron cup opened wide, and what lay inside was laid bare. Hah. Raon let out a breath. He put some real thought into this.
The three dice inside the cup were stacked like a tower, and only the face of the topmost die — a one — looked up at the sky. But the tower's position was extremely unstable. The uppermost die was touching the wall of the cup, so that opening it straight up would send it tumbling and collapse the whole stack.
He dug a double trap, in case I could read the faces of the dice.
Stacking them into a tower to produce a one — a number that shouldn't be possible — was the first trap. And even if Raon predicted the one, collapsing the dice when the cup was opened to create a new total was the second. Dokoe would have adjusted the angles so that he knew exactly what number the fallen dice would show. Truly remarkable sleight of hand. Not that it means anything.
Raon smiled faintly. Through the Demonic Eye of Wrath he had seen through every trick, which made the whole snare meaningless to him. He'd been right to look inside himself.
"Do you still need more time?"
"I'll go with one."
Raon gave a slight nod and called it.
"One? Why would you call one? The minimum is three."
"Right? Why's he suddenly doing something insane?"
"If the dice stacked into a tower, it could be one!"
"That works? That's impossible!"
"If you know Dokoe's skill with dice, it's more than possible."
"Is that man an ordinary gambler to you?"
The spectators swallowed dryly, dying to know how this would turn out.
"Hrm."
Dokoe scratched his chin as he looked at the cup. No change in his expression even after the answer had been spoken — a heart of steel, as expected. He closed his eyes, opened them, and nodded.
"Then I'll take twelve."
He finished his calculation and raised both hands, a gesture meaning he would use no trick of any kind.
"Then I'll open it."
Raon brought his hand over the cup. Not a single breath could be heard. He could feel every gaze in the gambling den following his fingers.
A faint scrape.
He lifted the cup with a slight tilt to the left. He felt the die that had been touching the right wall slide inward.
"Urgh!"
Dokoe's startled groan rang out as the iron cave opened and the faces of the dice were revealed. The three dice stood as a square tower, blinking a single pip at the sky.
"Woooooooah!"
"It's one! He actually hit one!"
"He's insane! He's completely insane!"
"Now that's gambling!"
"Khhh! He's walking off with six thousand gold on a one!"
"Every coin Dokoe's piled up in this place just got sucked dry!"
The spectators erupted as if they themselves had won. They were drunk on the sight of the underdog Raon toppling Dokoe, the absolute monarch of gambling.
Tap.
Raon gave the dice a casual nudge, producing the number that would have come up if he'd opened the cup the ordinary way. The first and second dice tumbled to the table and made twelve. Dokoe really had calculated everything. That's a good look on him.
In contrast to the glittering gold, Dokoe's face was crumpled as if he'd been chewing dung. He looked like a man who had never imagined both of his tricks would be seen through.
"Huuu..."
Dokoe's face grew steadily redder. The gambling was over, and it seemed he no longer intended to hold anything in.
"How in the world did you know."
"I thought about it. Why you would propose this particular wager. What you were aiming for."
Raon scooped up a handful of the gold that filled the table and went on.
"You'd taken a humiliation from me, so you'd want to return it. You'd have prepared a backup just in case. So I figured the dice would show a one — a number no one would ordinarily think of — and that as a countermeasure, you'd have one of them touching the wall of the cup."
He'd known all of it thanks to the Demonic Eye of Wrath, but fitting the explanation together after the fact was easy. Dokoe's complexion went steadily paler.
"Whoaaa..."
"A battle of wits just happened in there?"
"They're both insane, no question. How does anyone even think like that?"
"Good heavens."
The gamblers who'd heard Raon's explanation looked as if their souls had half left their bodies.
"Y-you predicted that?"
Dokoe bit down hard on his lip.
"Yes. I trusted your skill as a gambler."
Raon nodded calmly.
"From start to finish, I was in the palm of your hand."
"I got lucky."
"KRAAAAAAAH!"
Dokoe threw his head back and roared. The bellow that burst from that massive frame shook the entire gambling den.
"Huuu..."
He let out a long breath and lowered his head. His face looked almost refreshed.
"You're the first person who's ever cleaned me out of my money and my composure this thoroughly."
He nodded, then spread a huge hand toward the sea of gold piled on the table.
"Take it. You've earned it."
Dokoe rose from his seat as if to say he acknowledged the result.
"Thank you."
Raon nodded and let his gaze sweep down the mountain of gold. Six thousand gold coins... Even living in luxury, it was a sum you'd struggle to spend in a lifetime. It looked like he wouldn't have to worry about money for a long time. The Annex first, then. Time to expand it.
Having decided where the money would go, Raon looked to the side.
"Dorian."
"Y-yes? Ah — yes!"
Dorian, who had been standing there too stunned to close his mouth, hurried over and dumped the gold from the table into his Belly Pouch.
"I-I'll help too!"
Rimer darted in and scooped up coins. Half of them went into Dorian's pouch and half into Rimer's own trousers, but they could be recovered later. Raon let it go for now.
"The first contest of the Three Pledges goes to the Frost-Flower Sword Hero<|eos|>