The Twins’ Story I
In the Lylat Kingdom’s capital city of Pilca, there was an aristocrat engaged in the gamble of his life.
The man held the rank of marquis, and his family had run a spice business for three generations. Back when Lylat was colonizing nations in the Far East, his grandfather had greased some palms in a major way in order to be given control of a massive pepper farm. The man built a fortune by threatening the locals with firearms into performing backbreaking manual labor, but ever since Marquis Watteau inherited the business after the Great War, its operations had been going downhill. It all started when the locals went on strike. Watteau had ordered his eldest son to do whatever it took to get them back in line, even if that meant shooting a few of them, but the son had been too afraid of retaliation and had failed to put down the uprising.
For Watteau, that pepper farm was a crucial source of income. Aristocrats had historically made their money by leasing land to farmers, but Lylat had begun importing a lot of its grain from abroad as of late, and their domestic farming industry had suffered for it. Now many aristocrats were terrified of falling into bankruptcy and desperately trying to figure out how to make money.
Now Watteau was in a position where he needed help from soldiers and other aristocrats to end the strike. That was going to cost him a small fortune. The problem was, Watteau’s assets had declined rather sharply over the past few years.
In order to raise the necessary funds, Watteau had gone to an illegal casino run by the notorious Lucidor family.
This is fine. This here, this is a sure bet…
The casino sat in a building right in the heart of the capital. It was the kind of gambling house where the sums at play were more than the average citizen earned in a month. The games they offered were roulette and baccarat. Loud music filled the floor as men with bloodshot eyes vied for one another’s chips.
Watteau sat in front of a roulette wheel with his hands clasped together in prayer.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you called it a night, Marquis?”
“Surely you don’t want to go bankrupt, do you?”
Many of the aristocrats sitting around him smirked as they watched him drive himself to ruin. They were the ones on good terms with the Lucidor family.
Roulette was a simple game where you had to guess which pocket numbered zero to thirty-six a ball would go into. How much you won changed based on how you bet. You could bet on colors, or you could bet on odds or evens. You could also bet on specific numbers. The lower the odds, the bigger the payout.
“Shut up!” Watteau bellowed. “You think I’m going to go home on a loss?!”
Watteau’s bet of choice was on the numbers one through twelve, making his odds of winning about one in three.
However, the heartless ball elected to make its way into the twenty-three pocket instead.
“Oof.” “Today just isn’t your day.”
Cruel laughs rose up from the peanut gallery.
However, it was hard to blame them. Watteau had already made six huge bets and lost each and every one of them. A full fifth of his fortune was gone forever.
Watteau clutched his head in frustration. Sweat gushed from his forehead, and he buried his face in his hands. When he let out an agonized moan, the onlookers jeered at him in amusement.
However, there in the middle of that boisterous gambling hall, Watteau was secretly quivering in delight.
It’s certain, then…
He continued feigning distress so as not to arouse suspicion.
That dealer really can make the ball land wherever he wants!
Over by the roulette board, the blond dealer calmly whistled as he retrieved Watteau’s chips from the table.
Watteau looked at him and thought back to what another man with the same face had told him.
Two days before Watteau’s big gamble, he spoke with a fortune teller.
It was Watteau’s friend who introduced him to the man. According to his friend, the fortune teller could tell someone’s family situation, worries, and even their secret ambitions just by looking at them. The fortune teller would then offer them advice, and if they followed it, everything would start going their way. Some people had multiplied their fortunes multiple times over, and others had been able to reunite with friends they hadn’t seen in years.
The whole thing sounded highly dubious, but when Watteau invited the fortune teller to his mansion, with nothing more than a glance, the young man immediately hit the nail on the head. “You’re having money problems, aren’t you?”
“Anyone could have guessed that,” Watteau found himself stammering, but the fortune teller said, “Even though you haven’t told your own wife?” and was accurate yet again.
“You’re the exact sort of man I’ve been hoping to meet. How would you like to join forces with us?”
After a brief conversation, the fortune teller made him a surprising offer.
“You know the Lucidor family’s casino? My brother works there as a dealer. We made sure to get him in there ahead of time.”
Watteau stared in shock as the man lowered his voice to a whisper.
“You know how dirty the Lucidors’ hands are, don’t you? Someone needs to teach them a lesson.”
Watteau knew exactly what the man was talking about.
Illegal gambling wasn’t the only shady business the Lucidors were involved with. They were human traffickers, monsters who would abduct attractive women and girls from the colonies and sell them off to other aristocrats. They’d even gotten in bed with the Mafia and were operating in the underworld, in addition to their legitimate work as aristocrats.
“You can keep the money you make. Our goal is just to punish the Lucidors. We’ve been looking for someone like you who could bet huge sums of money without turning any heads.”
It was all far too good to be true. “I don’t believe you,” Watteau snapped. “If it turns out you’re lying, then all I’ll be doing is losing a fortune gambling.”
The young man didn’t so much as blink. “I’ll offer myself up as a hostage. You can lock me up, and if anything goes wrong, feel free to kill me on the spot.”
Upon seeing the fortune teller’s dealer brother at work, Watteau was astounded all over again. He’d sent one of his men to investigate ahead of time, but even after witnessing it with his own eyes, he still couldn’t believe it.
That’s ten in a row…
The brothers had told him a series of pockets ahead of time, and the balls were sliding into them like it was nothing.