The Devil's Ante Chapter 7: Chapter 7 - Price Remains

Read chapter 7 of The Devil's Ante by Lerion on NovelPedia.

"Two hunters dead. Price remains." The word "price" didn't scare me as much as it should have. Maybe it was because I had heard it too many times before. Price meant stake, and stake meant there had to be something on the other side. It was a stupid thought to have while staring at my own blood on the floor, but it was the first thought since entering this room that didn't end with me being eaten. "I don't have money." The translator looked at me and then at the book he held in his hands. For a moment I hoped that maybe he would find some goblin law that said something like "if the humie is broke, let him go and maybe give him a sandwich on the way out". He didn't look like he found anything like that. If anything, he looked like he found something much worse. "Then price will be paid in game." For a moment I thought my broken nose had clogged my ears and forced me to hear something beautiful where there should be more death. "What game?" The translator looked at me, then at the throne, then back at me. He didn't look directly at the throne, of course. No one did. Even Vrazzik, the rich cannibal bastard, kept his head low. I still couldn't understand what was so holy about that king of theirs that they didn't dare to even look at his feet. "The Debt Games." I felt something inside of me shift. It was the same feeling I had when I saw a new slot machine in the corner of a room. The same feeling I had when someone shuffled a deck in front of me. The same feeling I had when my granddad let me pull the lever for the first time. A game. There was a game. "The what now?" The translator opened his book and started flipping through the pages. His little fingers moved quickly, but he still took care not to raise his head too much. He found the page he was looking for and cleared his throat. "Debtor without coin may settle through house fortune. Claim holder stakes blood price. Debtor stakes body, labor or freedom. House sets game. Fortune decides." I blinked a few times. "So you mean pure gambling? Boy, count me in! But what 'House' are we talking about?" The translator looked at me as if I was an idiot. "The House." "That doesn't help." "The Golden Maw." At least it wasn't The "Gambagool", but they still couldn't come up with a better name that at least didn't involve gold in some capacity. Still, the name was pretty clear. A casino. It had to be a casino. There was no other way. Sakhia told me there was a casino. I saw a chip in the city. Now they were about to put me through some chance-based games. That was a casino. A fucked-up goblin casino, but still a casino. For the first time since being thrown on the marble, a little part of me got happy. It was a stupid part. A part that had killed me before. But it was still there, alive and kicking. 【KAI】 There she was. 【DO NOT GET EXCITED】 Too late. 【THE DEBT GAMES ARE NOT STANDARD GAMBLING】 "Alea, my dear, nothing in my life has ever been standard and that never stopped me before." 【THAT IS THE PROBLEM】 【THE DEBT GAMES ARE USED TO SETTLE CLAIMS】 Sounds like gambling. 【THE HOUSE CHOOSES THE GAME】 Still gambling. 【THE HOUSE CHOOSES WHAT CAN BE LOST】 Less nice gambling. 【LOSING WILL MOST LIKELY RESULT IN YOU BEING GIVEN TO GRAND COLLECTOR VRAZZIK】 Right. Much less nice. The panel stopped for a second. It was only a second, but I noticed it. Alea usually didn't stop. It felt like her programming, or whatever she was running on, had to calculate the proper output for the first time in our rather short relationship. 【HE WILL EAT YOU KAI】 I looked at Vrazzik's reflection in the marble. He stood wrapped in gold, smiling and most likely thinking already of ways he could prepare my meat and where on his wall my head would look best. "What are my other options?" 【THERE ARE NO OTHER GOOD OPTIONS】 "Escaping?" 【YOU ARE HELD DOWN BY A GOBLIN THAT WEIGHS MORE THAN THREE OF YOU】 "Two and a half, maybe." 【THREE】 Fair. "Fighting?" 【YOU HAVE SEVEN HEALTH POINTS】 "That's not that bad." 【YOU ARE SURROUNDED B