The Watching Eyes
Vrooom. Screeeech.
Back home with James, Colt finally asked the question he’d been holding back since they left the casino.
“James. How much do you think you’re going to win?”
“However much Colt wants?”
In truth, even James couldn’t have said exactly how much money he’d bring in that day. The final haul would change drastically depending on the conditions and how the day unfolded.
The plan had changed, too...
Even his clumsy little scheme of becoming a millionaire by winning at poker had already been revised once today, the moment he set foot in the casino.
!!
“How much do you want?”
Only when it came time to name a number did Colt realize how impossible it was to pin down.
“Uh... a million? Two million? Ugh, I don’t know. Too much and we’re in real trouble, but too little and it’d be a shame...”
“That’s why we went to the casino today.”
James had been gauging how much money moved through the place, and from that, estimating the scale of the profits he could pull from it. As he played poker, he was also revising his plan in a big way, adding detail after detail to it.
“In a small game, no matter how much you win, the profit isn’t that great. Poker was the answer in the end.”
“Then can I do poker too?”
“...What are you talking about? You need to play the role of my assistant.”
“What? I’m not playing?”
“No. Colt absolutely cannot take part in the game.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”
There was no way the two of them could beat a casino head-on. Only after they got home did James explain Colt’s role.
“Instead, you need to handle the preparations for that day.”
“For what?”
“We need to hit as many casinos as possible before they can warn each other.”
James laid a sheet of paper on the table. On it were written all the things Colt needed to handle.
Thud.
“Just get everything on that list ready.”
Because this had all been part of James’s plan from the start, Colt’s assigned tasks were laid out in exhausting detail.
“...I have to prepare all this too?”
“Did you think becoming a millionaire was supposed to be easy?”
“Well...”
Colt had thought it would be simple as long as James, the wizard, was with him.
“Get ready. Taking on a casino won’t be easy.”
“Hah...”
“Already losing confidence? If you’re out, say so now. I don’t think I’d have any trouble getting by even if I didn’t rob a casino.”
Before he started adult life, James might have been afraid. But now that he’d lived a few more years, he wasn’t afraid of anything. The mana flooding his body kept filling him with endless courage and confidence.
“Who said I wasn’t going to do it? I said I would!”
What Colt was really curious about wasn’t the list, but the amount James had in mind.
“So how much are you planning to pocket?”
“First let’s settle the split. I get seven, Colt gets three.”
“...I only get thirty percent?”
“Why? Too little?”
Colt had been about to object, but then he remembered how small his role in all this really was.
“No...”
If I just prepare these things...
All he had to do was follow James’s instructions.
“I mean, I just need to get the prep work done properly. ...Thirty percent is probably enough.”
“Tsk. If you agree that quickly, it makes me sound like a bastard.”
From the start, James had only brought up seven-to-three because he’d intended to raise it a little more.
“Fine. Let’s make it six-four. Call?”
“Call, call!”
“I’ll call too. Colt!”
And just like that, the division of money they hadn’t even won yet was settled.
“...By the way, James, just how much are you thinking of?”
“If you heard the number I have in mind, you’d be on edge from now on. You’d probably be so rattled you’d throw open the curtains again while hosting the show.”
“...Call.”
“Call, call. That’s the Colt I know.”
“Tomorrow’s the show. Let’s get the actual work done first.”
“How many dates do we have left?”
“There are four confirmed performances left. In two weeks, there’s nothing on the schedule at all.”
“So it’ll be over pretty soon.”
They went back to their daily lives, but a new routine had been added to the mix: every day, they stopped by the casino. On days with performances and days without them, they showed up to make their faces known.
“Damn it. Lost again.”
Colt had become completely obsessed with the slot machine he’d tried for the first time.
“Keep that up and you’ll get cleaned out. Don’t overdo it.”
“You’re here? Give me some chips.”
“...Honestly.”
James grimaced, but still pulled out the chips he’d just won in poker and handed them over.
Clatter.
“That brings the total to ten thousand dollars?”
“It’s already gotten that high?”
Only the chips James had lent him added up to ten thousand dollars, and the money Colt had set aside separately was even more than that.
“That’s enough. Get up. We’re doing the final check today.”
“Call.”
Soon enough, Colt was on his feet.
“Let’s go.”
He stood without even looking back, as if he had no regrets at all, though he’d just blown through every chip he had.
“Hah. Anyone watching would think he was the protagonist.”
In truth, Colt’s looks alone would have made him a perfectly serviceable leading man in a movie.
“The protagonist of my life is me, no matter what anyone says.”
“Ohhh. That’s true.”
When they reached the parking lot, James climbed into Colt’s car and they set off.
Vrooom.
“......”
There was someone watching the car as it left.
“Mr. Kent. I’m back.”
The casino’s general manager, Kent, asked the man who approached him the question that had been on his mind.
“Jefferson. Did you check the footage today?”
“I reviewed it at the center, but there were no signs of cheating today either.”
Inside the casino, countless cameras were recording the progress of every game, and James’s poker matches were no exception.
“...Then what the hell is he doing to keep winning?”
James thought he was winning a little while losing a little, in just the right balance, but the casino had been watching his poker games from the start. He did lose sometimes, but only in small pots; whenever the stakes got bigger, he won without fail. His overall win rate wasn’t unusually high, but the sums involved were large enough to throw the average far out of line.
The big losses before getting up looked like he was deliberately throwing the hand. It was almost as if he could read the other man’s cards...
But no matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.
“I checked with the other casinos. They’re seeing the same thing—he’s winning a little at a time at roughly the same rate there, too.”
“......”
James had been performing card magic, and so far, no one had managed to see through his trick.
“...There has to be a trick.”
There could be no other explanation for a win rate like that. They had checked again and again to see whether he might have been in cahoots with the dealer beforehand, but the dealer was clean. Kent had no choice but to conclude that James was cheating.
“James said he’d like to go to the VIP room tomorrow.”
“...Prepare our own pro.”
“But that carries a risk for us...”
Bringing in a professional poker player meant using their own expertise, which in turn meant the casino would be running the game by its own special rules instead of the official ones. If that information ever leaked, the casino’s credibility would hit rock bottom.
“Isn’t that still better than leaving him alone and letting the danger grow? If his winnings get any bigger, we won’t be able to handle it.”
“Other VIPs playing with him could get caught in the crossfire, too.”
“We can compensate them later. Use everything we’ve got if we have to... Strip that bastard’s pockets. Once he’s under enough pressure, he’ll show his hand. Then we can catch him.”
“...Understood, Mr. Kent.”
“Ah! Invite the pro players from the other casinos, too. We’re not the only ones he’s hit.”
!
“This isn’t the time to be picky about methods. The more pros we bring in, the more cornered he’ll be, and the easier it’ll be to make him reveal his hand.”
“I’ll make the arrangements.”
Unwanted supporting actors were beginning to appear in James’s plan.
Vroooom.
James and Colt were cutting across the barren desert of Nevada.
“Isn’t this a little too far?”
“We’re almost there.”
But the distance James had estimated seemed farther than what he’d originally expected. It was definitely not the distance he’d planned for.
“I gave you the distance myself. Did you even read the note properly?”
“The distance is exact. I checked it several times against the map.”
Colt drove off the road and into a small mountain, then pointed into the darkness with one finger.
“That’s exactly fifty miles.”
“Ah. So you’re going back? Well, that figures.”
This place was beyond the fifty-mile mark, but if they turned around, it should still come out about right.
“You really don’t trust people.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“We’re here. Get out.”
“Call.”
The first thing James checked after getting out of the car was the object Colt had prepared for him. It was impressively large.
“That size is perfect.”
“It was hard enough finding a trailer that big, and it wasn’t cheap either.”
It was one of those oversized trailers normally bought for family camping trips. Colt had gone out of his way to find one, even skipping his morning jogs to hunt around for it, and had managed to buy exactly the thing James had asked for on time.
“I need to check the inside.”
“It’s unlocked, so go ahead. It’s secondhand, but it hasn’t been used much, so it’s practically new.”
“Still secondhand, though.”
James climbed into the trailer and looked over the space inside.
“Whew... this is ridiculously roomy.”
The trailer was big enough for several people to live in together. And just as Colt had said, it looked almost brand new.
“Perfect for a trip.”
After tomorrow, he and Colt were going to set out on the road with it.
“Then shall we start the prep work?”
Whoooom.
James spread both hands, pointed them downward, and closed his eyes.
Imprinting the traces of Mana... resonance...
This spell was a high-grade one recorded in the grimoire, so unlike the telekinesis he used every day, it couldn’t be activated so casually. He had to move his hands directly, carefully stirring the Mana himself.
Chain... layering... connection... convergence... standby...
After pouring his Mana into the air for a long while with his palms, James opened his eyes. Then he began inspecting the traces left on the floor. The traces of Mana were visible only to James.
“Oh. Not bad. My magic really is something else.”
It was the sort of self-praise Colt would have instantly frowned at, but in truth the magic circle James had drawn was no small feat.
“That takes care of the Teleportation magic circle.”
Teleportation was a practical kind of magic that connected and fixed coordinates on both ends before moving matter between them, but it was a high-level spell that only a top-grade magician could normally perform.
If I’d advanced to the upper ranks, I wouldn’t have had to draw this stuff...
James was still only a mid-grade magician, so a magic circle was essential for Teleportation. It helped that he used short-range Teleportation often in his card magic, so it didn’t feel all that difficult. The spell he used to move cards around during performances was nothing more than short-range Teleportation.
“Colt!”
James came back outside and asked Colt a question.
“My car? Is it ready yet? It’ll be here by tomorrow morning, right?”
He had left the purchase of the vehicle he’d be driving in James’s hands as well.
“I bought it. It’s behind the trailer. How else do you think I moved this massive thing?”
“Ah. Right.”
When James hurried around to the back of the trailer, sure enough, there was the used heavy-duty pickup truck Colt had bought.
“A truck really is the way to go.”
He needed a powerful pickup just to tow a trailer that size, and James had even specified exactly which model he wanted.
“My Super Duty!”
“Hah. You like it?”
“I love it. The F-450 6.2 Super Duty I wanted! It’s fantastic!”
The pickup truck released by Ford was something men dreamed about. Its huge frame had a force to it that naturally overwhelmed anyone who looked at it.
My dad wanted a pickup truck too, instead of that plain old wagon...
James’s adoptive father had saved up to buy one, but a fatal gun accident took his life before he could make the dream come true, leaving behind nothing more than a modest wish unfulfilled.
Dad. I avenged you and made your dream come true for you.
What had once been his father’s dream was now his as well.
“A man’s vehicle is a pickup truck.”
Colt was just as sincere about it.
“Hah. If you were buying one for me, why didn’t you get one for yourself too?”
“I’m going to buy a newer model later.”
He wasn’t saying he wouldn’t buy one at all; he just meant that he’d soon have a lot of money, and when that happened, he’d trade up for something even better.
“That’s a good idea too.”
“So, you’re done checking?”
These two things were everything James had asked Colt to handle. That was why he could be satisfied even with James’s offer of forty percent. There was no risk on his end, only spending money.
“Yeah. Colt’s part is done. Leave the rest to me.”
Tomorrow’s poker play depended entirely on James’s hands.
“We still have to prepare for the trip too?”
Once they finished everything tomorrow, they were planning to head out on the road. If they had a huge sum of money in their hands, there was no reason to keep draining themselves with performances.
“We can figure that out with money somehow.”
“Heh. You think so?”
“Still, I’ve already packed some clothes to take with us. Make sure you get them ready tomorrow.”
“I’ll pack your clothes too and put them in the trailer while I’m at it.”
“Whoa there. The trailer is off-limits.”
“?”
To Colt’s puzzled look, James explained the reason.
“Did you think I had you prepare the trailer for no reason? I’ve set a spell on it, so if you don’t want to get dragged into it, leave it alone. If my magic gets disturbed, tomorrow’s plan fails before it even starts.”
“...Call. I’ll put it in my car trunk.”
“I like that Colt listens well.”
“What? I brought a hick like you this far, and now you’re treating me like a child?”
“Ha! When did Colt ever raise me? I did stay at Colt’s place, but I paid rent on time, didn’t I?”
“Hey. Who do you think introduced you to all those magicians so you could learn card magic?”
“How long did I study? Weeks? No, how many hours was it again? And how many magicians did Colt even introduce me to—three?”
“......”
James had learned the card magicians’ techniques the moment he saw them, and later, instead of relying on Colt’s introductions, he’d been able to pick up their tricks simply by going from venue to venue. Colt’s help hadn’t amounted to much.
“Anyway, you’re only sharp because your brain works so well...”
“Tell me how much everything cost. I’ll settle the account properly.”
“Forty thousand for the trailer, seventy thousand for your Super Duty.”
“You bought them at a good price. So if I subtract the ten thousand dollars I borrowed from you, then I only need to give you exactly one hundred thousand dollars, right?”
James was calculating the ten thousand dollars he’d borrowed from the casino with perfect accuracy. But Colt had no intention of taking that money back.
“Forget it. If my forty percent ends up feeling like too much, then I’ll just give you the car and the trailer as a gift.”
“......”