Going through the storage inside his pocket, he searched for the pocket watch. In the process, he came across Yeorum’s socks. Putting them away he grabbed the pocket watch, took it out and checked the time. It had exactly been 17 minutes after Yeorum had gone inside.
“Where are you.”
– The same place. Third floor, hihi.
“Excited aren’t you. After losing a month’s worth of the dormitory fee in just a few minutes.”
– Eeeinng~ Sorry ♥
“What did you even do and how did you lose all that money already.”
– How did I lose it? Like, the person next to me was going at it like crazy so I thought, f*ck it, life can’t be that hard but… I guess it is a little bit hard…
“Enough, whatever. Just stay there for now. I’ll be there soon.”
After paying for the gifts, Yu Jitae headed to the third floor of the casino. The moment he entered the building, he was met with fancy lights and tourists in party clothes who had come here to enjoy their tour.
A few of them had slightly different gazes. Those people had a different objective than playing.
When he arrived at the third floor, Yeorum found him and ran up to him.
“Welcomee!”
“Yeah. Give me my card.”
“Here!”
Las Vegas Member Credit Card. He checked the remaining cash and saw that there were roughly 8 dollars left inside.
“You really blew off the whole thing.”
“Nn. Do you have no more money or something?”
“I do have it.”
Some time ago, he had sold the byproducts of a dungeon to the Swiss auction. Excluding tax and the commission fee, he got around 40,000 dollars in return. If he wanted to, he could easily earn millions a day but he intentionally only earned the amount of money that would be needed, because that was closer to the general framework of daily lives.
“What, so you do have more money? Give them to me then.”
“And what if I do give it to you.”
“What?”
“Will you lose 10,000 dollars in 2 hours now?”
“Noo?”
Yeorum gave a bright smile in response to his comment.
“Can I try it one last time? I’ll multiply your money tenfold.”
“You don’t want me to come with you?”
“Yeah yeah. I want to try it myself. Since I’m the one that lost it, I need to earn it back.”
The right call would naturally be to ignore her nonsense and go together. However, Yu Jitae pondered for a bit. What would Yeorum need right now, and what would make her the most happy?
He now knew it after living together for 2 years.
Yeorum was an extremely independent dragon. She did not rely on others easily nor did she desire help. She gave her best to complete things on her own.
Yu Jitae respected her independence because it concerned her pride as a red dragon. Even then, a child inevitably needs the help of adults even when playing around like this let alone fighting.
She needed help but he couldn’t give her much help.
In times like this, how should he, the guardian, approach the child?
After a bit of thought, he had an idea. Adding 2,000 dollars into the credit card, he gave it to her.
“Ohhh.”
“Do a bit better this time.”
“Okay. I love… not really, but, respect! I’m heading off then~”
***
[Yu Gyeoul: Wat are you doinng?]
[Me: At cafe]
[Yu Gyeoul: Are you by yourself?]
[Me: Ye]
[Yu Gyeoul: Picture please]
He took a picture of the cafe filled with chandeliers.
[Yu Gyeoul: Twinkle twinkle. They are pretty]
[Me: What are you up to]
[Yu Gyeoul: I’m going to go to a cafe with Kaeul-unni]
[Yu Gyeoul: I also braided my hair]
[Me: Your hair?]
[Me: Let me see]
A photo soon arrived.
Gyeoul’s face inside the picture was as big as a house. Since she didn’t know how to take pictures, she had tucked her chin in and there was a big double chin making her look fat as a result. Only half of her fingers making the V sign was caught by the camera.
[Me: Who tied your hair for you]
[Yu Gyeoul: Kaeul-unni did]
It was usually Bom who did it for her but it seemed that Kaeul had done it today.
[Me: I c]
[Yu Gyeoul: When are you coming back?]
[Me: Maybe the day after tomorrow]
[Yu Gyeoul: Day, after tomorrow…?]
[Me: So in two days]
[Yu Gyeoul: Still so much time left…]
[Yu Gyeoul: Bom-unni said she was feeling lonely]
It hasn’t even been that long yet. Yu Jitae was thinking of what to write when another message was sent by Gyeoul.
[Yu Gyeoul: I want to see you too]
Therefore, Yu Jitae took a selfie of his face and sent it to her.
[Me: Here]
[Yu Gyeoul: Not this]
Like that, he spent the time sending messages to Gyeoul at the cafe. That was when his watch vibrated. Yeorum was calling him and this time, it had been around 3 hours.
– Hello?
“Yeah. Did you earn some money?”
– Uhh. So the thing is,
Yeorum hesitated before opening her mouth.
– Would you like to know, sir…?
Oh no.
He called Yeorum over to the cafe. After arriving at the cafe, she ordered a long black before giving excuses with an awkward smile.
“No. I really didn’t do anything fuc*ing wrong. This time, I was about to earn some money…!”
“What game did you play.”
“It’s called Texas Holdem. There are several cards at the front, and I have to make a combo with my cards.”
“I know what it is. And.”
“Yeah, so at the start I was really careful alright? But whenever the person next to me lost his money to me, he continued raising his bet and increasing the pool size. What is that if not a challenge to me? Right?”
“And you couldn’t avoid the challenges, is that what you’re saying?”
“Nn!”
“…”
“Ssex!”
“Why did you roll your tongue.”
“Because we’re in America.”
Saying that, she giggled. Fortunately, she appeared to be still in the mindset of simply having fun and she was enjoying herself despite losing money. She had gambled in the literal meaning of the word and had been completely defeated in mind games.
If he continued giving her money two or three times from here, she would start getting frustrated every time she lost.
It was about time.
“Do you want to try one more time?”
“Really? Can I?”
“But, this time you have to come with me.”
“Why? I want to try it by myself though… I can do better this time.”
“No. Because I’m going to give you 10,000 dollars this time.”
“Huh? For real?”
The unit itself was different.
When she was getting allowances, she only got ten or twenty dollars but after losing a thousand dollars, there was now ten thousand dollars at stake. Even Yeorum, who was ignorant of currencies, knew that it was a large sum of money.
“That’s quite a lot of capital.”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“So I also have to be more careful, don’t I.”
“Hmm… but still. Can’t you wait until I mess up one more time?”
“You won’t win.”
“Huh? No? For sure I can.”
“Do you want to bet?”
“Good. If I restore all the previous money, then you have to serve me as the master, like a slave.”
Yeorum said, thinking of what she had read at a certain shoujo manga. As always, her analogies were very vulgar.
“What if you lose.”
“Then I’ll treat you like a master for a day.”
“Got it.”
He didn’t need a red dragon slave.
But this way, he could help the child protect her pride as the adult and at the same time had an opportunity to teach her something new.
Walking out of the cafe, they headed once again to the tables. Under the brilliant lights was a carpet of intriguing patterns that strangely urged people to spend more money. There was a whole crowd of people and although it was overall fairly quiet despite that, there were occasional laments and sighs here and there.
Among them, Yu Jitae and Yeorum walked towards the Texas Holdem table. Inside the credit card were 10,000 dollars. Swinging the card, Yeorum asked.
“Do I start straight up?”
“Explain to me before you start on what you’re thinking of doing.”
“What do you mean? It’s simple. Go get cards and bet money. If someone picks a fight, I’ll take it on. Well… I might lose though.”
At that rate, she was bound to lose more money but Yeorum wasn’t a fool either. Perhaps feeling a slight doubt with her own strategy, she slowly opened her mouth.
“You know what. Don’t tell me too much but maybe just give me one advice.”
“There’s something on the line so why would I.”
“C’mon just tell me. Anything will do. Do you want to lose 10,000 dollars?”
“10,000 dollars for a dragon slave is not bad.”
“Far out… Alright. Go away then.”
But it wasn’t like he could really let her lose all that money because she might get emotional after losing again. It would be an anger sprouting from greed and was a shortcut to gambling addiction.
Yu Jitae walked up to the back of Yeorum who had started walking away, and grabbed her two shoulders. “Huh? What’s up?” she asked as her body came to a stop. Lowering his body, he aligned his line of sight with the child’s and fortunately found a good target.
“I’ll explain it to you once.”
“Huh? Oh okay.”
“Look. Over there.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Yeorum obediently listened to him teach.
In a table of 5, 3 of them had folded. It was a table where one man and one woman were continuing with the game.
“Who do you think will win out of the two.”
“Hmm, the lucky one?”
“Right. If it was a holdem of humans, you might be right. But you’re a dragon. Look closely.”
“Hmm…”
Yeorum looked at them with a frown.
“What am I even meant to be looking at…”
“As for techniques, there’s nothing you can see so far. Same as luck. And you can’t look at their cards either.”
“Nn.”
“In order to have the advantage in a situation like that, you must make good use of what you have. You have good eyes don’t you.”
“Yeah? Better than a human at least.”
“Sync yourself to me.”
“Okay.”
His hands were on her shoulders. Yu Jitae accepted the feeble mana of the dragon seep in. The synchronisation was done with an extremely small amount of mana, so tiny that the bracelet could not sense it.
“Focus and look at them.”
Yu Jitae spoke from her shoulders and she focused. Yu Jitae’s gaze looked at both the man and the woman. Firstly he looked into their eyes, and he glanced at their faces before finally scanning through their bodies.
“…?”
Yu Jitae’s eyes looking at a human were as if he was staring at a block of timber. Yeorum felt slight goosebumps so she rubbed her arms.
Without caring about that, he opened his mouth.
“Focus.”
“Ah, un.”
He opened his mouth when her eyes were again back on the people.
“How is it. Can you see it now?”
Yeorum could finally understand a little bit of what he was trying to tell her.
Yu Jitae’s gaze was focused on extremely tiny details. For example, his eyes focused on the slight twitch of the man’s eyes when he received a card.
It wasn’t international nor was it a twitch visible to human eyes. It might even be a slight movement revealed by the electric senses given off by the man’s brain.
Even a dragon like herself could not see it without consciously focusing on it.
Straight after that, the man’s expression turned into an afraid look. This time, it was at a level that normal humans could also sense it as long as they were attentive.
“It looks like something’s f*cked.”
“Does it? But there’s a lot on the line.”
“Nn. Is he gonna fold? It’s a shame but he’s fu*ked right?”
“No.”
After glancing at the man’s eyes and the expression, the next thing that entered Yu Jitae’s sight was the man’s posture.
His posture and attitude. His shoulders and his expression were greatly shrunk from visible fear. However, his legs were slightly open while his knees were bouncing up and down. He looked quite excited.
“Hoh. He’s not folding and he’s going at it. Did he get a good hand?”
“Let’s see.”
After the final bet, it was the final showdown and the cards were revealed. The man had a flush, which was a fairly high hand.
“Oh no…!”
The opponent gave a frown. She had gotten confident from the slight look of fear on the man’s expression, not realising that it was a trap.
“Hoh… Now I get it. He had a good hand but still acted scared right? That was very natural.”
“That’s about right. Holdem is a fight. You have to bait them into biting at your weak points but there is almost no human in the world that can completely hide their expressions and thoughts. There are some but very few.”
“Hmm…”
“There was greed in the man’s eyes, and his expression revealed his intention to deceive his opponent. However, his inner thoughts were revealed by his gesture and attitude and it’s hard to hide those.”
With a vacant look on her face, she looked back at Yu Jitae and nodded.
“Greed from the eyes, intention from the expression and inner thoughts from the attitude and posture… right?”
“You get it?”
“Nn. Huu. It suddenly makes me kinda nervous.”
“Be prudent. Don’t be caught up in the atmosphere.”
“Not like it’s my money anyway.”
“Oi.”
Yeorum chuckled.
“I’ll be back. Just wait and see.”
She then joined the table.
*
In the end, gambling was about luck and it was impossible to win every time. Even if one was good at mind games, it was hard to go over 55% win rate.
“Hoh. The pretty lady is back. Were you that worried about my pocket?”
“Of course. I’ll give you more money so open it up.”
But with that said, 55% win rate was extremely massive. The more rounds they went through, the 5% more chance to win slowly revealed its destructiveness.
Besides, after successfully inferring the enemy’s mind once, the gambler will gain information about the other player. Their gestures, feet, expression, gaze, habits. They would gain data on such things and their understanding of the opponent will therefore increase.
And naturally, the win rate would go up even more.
“Raise. 30.”
“Call and raise. 50.”
“Raise. 70.”
There were more and more chips at stake, but Yeorum was not nervous.
“Call.”
“Hoh? You’re not folding here? Did you get a good hand or something, red lady?”
“No? I have two pairs.”
Five hours after the start, around 2 am in the morning, Yeorum leaned on the chair and heartily laughed.
She had restored the 3,000 dollars that she had lost,
“But I thought you would only have a pair.”
“God damn it…”
By five-fold.
“…”
With a bright smile on her face, she looked at Yu Jitae. However, he couldn’t watch the situation unfold with a relaxed gaze and after thinking about it, he realised that it was because there was something they had betted for.
“I’ll give you back your money first. Wait until I’m done with the game.”
After changing the chips back to money, Yeorum gave him the card with a wink.
“Jitae.”