After the first round was over, the cards were automatically collected and shuffled through magic. The four players then each drew a new set of cards.
I don’t have a particularly good hand this time, Alicia thought as she checked her cards. The ranks of her cards were all over the place, so not only were there no melds she could form, there were very few other cards she could use to form a meld of three. On the other hand, Isabella was faring much better.
Oh! This is a great chance! Alicia discarded the ten of hearts from her only pair.
“I’ll take that.” Isabella picked up Alicia’s card and formed a meld with two more tens from her hand. She also placed down the jack, queen, and king of hearts. After discarding a card, she was down to one, just like Adek had been in the previous round.
Luck is on our side this time, Alicia thought. They had to take advantage of this windfall. If they missed chances like this, they’d have no hopes of bridging the five-time point gap.
However, after the troll demon drew and discarded a card, it was Adek’s turn again, and he had a surprise for them.
“Heh heh, I’ll go with this,” Adek said. He placed a meld of three aces and a meld of the ten, jack, and queen of diamonds on the table.
Alicia’s eyes went wide. He had two melds of three cards on his first turn, twice in a row?!
“Oh my, how lucky I’ve been,” Adek said.
Isabella observed the game state quietly. Both of them now had one card each. The game had become about who would draw a card that would allow them to go out first.
On their next turn, neither Isabella nor Alicia drew a card that would let her go out. Then came Adek’s turn.
“So sorry, but I drew the card I needed.” Adek placed the king of diamonds he just drew on the existing meld on the table, then discarded his last card to go out.
The last card in Isabella’s hand was the three of clubs. Fortunately, she wouldn’t take much damage.
Adek: 500 Points
Isabella: 81 Points
“It’s punishment time,” Adek said.
The monster acting as Isabella’s chair took a bite out of her chest. She couldn’t help but show a moment of anguish. Just like before, the bitten part soon vanished.
“I know I said this before, but the pain from getting bitten by this monster could kill some grown men on the spot. Enduring it with only a tiny peep is a sign of extraordinary will,” Adek said.
Luck really wasn’t with us there. We’ve only been taking hits, Alicia thought.
“I knew it,” Isabella muttered.
“Knew what, exactly?” Alicia asked.
“Adek the God of Games. You have another Ex-Skill, don’t you? One that makes you luckier or some such,” Isabella said. Alicia started at the revelation.
“Oh?” Adek raised an eyebrow.
“Judging from the enormous quantity of scapegoats you prepared in the underworld, you’re not the type who enjoys a challenge, but the type who enjoys victory. In other words, the type who fights after stacking the odds overwhelmingly in his favor. But you agreed to the rule I proposed about making a direct hit or a rummy lose three times the points, even though it might instantly defeat a player who makes a bad move.”
Adek listened to Isabella’s explanation without making a sound.
“That leads me to conclude you must know you won’t lose under any circumstances. Am I wrong?”
Adek broke his silence with a burst of clapping and laughter. “You are quite intriguing, aren’t you? It’s exactly as you say. My second Ex-Skill is called Holy Chance. It puts good fortune on my side in games, regardless of the odds. To put it in short, it makes me extremely lucky.”
“What?! That ability is simply unfair!” Alicia said.
Luck played a large part in most games, so reliably skewing that luck in his favor gave Adek a major advantage.
“Oh, I forgot to mention—since the time I was born, almost ten thousand years ago, in all the games with lives on the line I’ve played, I’ve never lost once. I’ve used my stockpile of lives as a betting chip every time, but I never needed it.” Adek’s handsome face was as warped as a crazy clown’s. “Please show me, Queen, the face of the calm and composed Isabella as she writhes in terror for her final moments!”
There was now a visible bulge in his nether regions as he carried on raving. “Ah, I can’t wait! How miserably will you cry? How sweet will you sound as you beg for your life? I truly cannot wait to find out. This is my raison d’être. I wish it was already in front of me! But then again, I also want to drink it in as the dread and pain slowly spread across your face. My heart may as well be split in two. What to do, what to do?”
The monstrous shenmo had shown his true colors. He was nothing but a fiend who’d used his whole life to take pleasure in the suffering of others. Alicia and the soldiers shuddered in fear before his malice. However, he didn’t have the same effect on his intended target.
“Calm down, Alicia,” Isabella said, clearheaded to the end. “His luck isn’t absolute. Otherwise, he’d have no need to gather such a large stockpile of lives.”
“That’s...certainly true.” Alicia came to her senses at Isabella’s observation.
“In the first place, if his luck really were invincible, he’d simply go out with a rummy on his first turn every time. His ability does nothing more than tilt luck in his favor. No matter how lucky he may be, there are countless ways for him to lose if he makes a wrong move.”
Isabella was right. In the face of his consecutive victories, Adek’s wicked aura had overwhelmed Alicia. She took a breath. “My sincerest apologies for losing my composure. I didn’t mean to show you such a disgraceful side of myself.”
“That’s been a bad habit of yours since I first met you, Alicia.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Heh, a wrong move, you say? I suppose that is possible,” Adek said with his usual smirk. “I may need to be careful about that.”