“Keeping your mouth shut won’t solve anything, will it?”
A scrawny man with a sly-looking face swaggered toward her.
He unpleasantly shoved Yoanes’s arm again and again.
“We’re sick of chasing you around too, you know?”
“......”
Yoanes kept her mouth firmly shut and did not move.
The man’s hand grew rougher and rougher.
‘What the hell is this thug?’
I stepped forward.
“Why not use words?”
“Haha, if I could speak politely after getting 5,000 vanus swallowed up, I should become a priest.”
5,000 vanus.
An absurdly large unit had suddenly popped out.
‘In another region, that would be enough to build a castle and still have money left.’
It seemed the talk about her reputation had not come up for nothing.
Before I knew it, the skewer merchant was dealing with other customers.
“If you’re not going to spit out the money this girl’s younger sibling swallowed, then stay out of it!”
Thud!
In the end, the man struck Yoanes’s shoulder.
Yoanes, who had been hunched over and enduring it the whole time, opened her eyes sharply.
“Hoo......”
Yoanes straightened her back and looked down at the man.
The man staggered a couple of steps backward.
“What, are you going to hit me? A Bies Guild member is hitting someone over here!”
“Shut up...... and guide me.”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
Yoanes bared her teeth.
“You’re going to tell me to come to the gambling den anyway.”
A gambling den?
It was a keyword that lodged sharply in my ears.
“You’re thinking straight. You can win 5,000 vanus and pay it back in no time!”
“I said shut up......”
“Seriously, that temper of yours.”
The man grumbled and led the way.
It was just as I was about to walk after him.
“......This is as far as my city guide goes.”
Yoanes raised her palm.
“If you go back, they’ll assign you someone more useful.”
“You’re ditching me and going to the gambling den?”
The gambling den was a point I had kept in mind even before coming to the city.
Places where one could multiply funds all at once were rare.
“Th-that’s what I have to do. It isn’t the sort of place we can go together for fun......”
Of course, it was not a place anyone could call wholesome, even if their mouth were torn open.
‘I was wondering how to bring it up.’
The man leading the way urged her on.
“What are you doing? Are you coming or not?”
“......Keep it a secret from Abellana.”
Yoanes turned around.
Her back soon disappeared deeper into the alley.
“Now then, shall we follow?”
“Wait a moment.”
Someone urgently grabbed my sleeve.
It was the skewer merchant.
“Ah, right. It was 4 vanus apiece, wasn’t it?”
The merchant held out two skewers.
They must have just been grilled, as warm steam was rising from them.
“Forget the money. I’ll say these skewers were spoiled and thrown away.”
Even at a glance, they looked delicious.
In the end, he was saying he would simply give them to me without a transaction.
It was an entirely unexpected development.
I raised one eyebrow.
“What do you want?”
“Help Yoanes.”
I had intended to go to the gambling den anyway, but it felt uncomfortable.
‘Was there a quest like this?’
In WoI, various quests occurred depending on the player’s movement order and choices.
However, no matter how I searched my memory, there was no quest where someone gave me skewers and told me to help a person named Yoanes.
‘Well, to begin with, Bies Guild and Yoanes weren’t in the game at all.’
Weapon of Infinity was a story that unfolded from the viewpoint of the protagonist, John Doe.
Naturally, it could not contain every person living in the same world.
If someone exchanged even a word with the protagonist, they could become a supporting character.
On the other hand, if there was no point of contact, they were no different from a person who did not exist at all.
“Jacqueline is...... Yes, I thought she would cause trouble someday.”
The merchant squeezed his eyes shut.
Mister Bain, was it?
He seemed to know Yoanes well, as well as her younger sibling.
“But Yoanes is not a child who would touch gambling!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I have watched her since she was young, so I know what sort of person she is.”
“......You can’t know everything about a person just because you’ve known them for a long time.”
“Still, you can know part of them.”
I swallowed the question of why he did not help Yoanes himself.
He must be bound by the rules of the city, credit and whatever else.
“You can know? Truly?”
“......”
Bain’s gaze was shaking here and there.
He looked as though he was very conscious of the eyes around him.
The eyes of a typical small citizen.
They were eyes one could easily see while living.
“......Well, fine. I’ll go to the gambling den too. But I have a condition.”
“What condition?”
I lightly shook the skewer in my hand.
“Give me one more.”
One worked better when one’s stomach was full, did it not?
***
Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.
Wer firmly held the skewer with his forefeet and tore into it.
He did not miss the pathfinding either.
“Mmm, nyam. If we take the alley here and keep walking inward, we will be able to meet those fellows from earlier.”
He could have finished chewing the meat in his mouth before speaking.
I faithfully followed Wer’s guidance.
“Lord Wer, there’s something I’ve been curious about.”
“What is it?”
“Do you perhaps dislike humans?”
“Mmm, mm.”
The guy chewed his meat for a very long time.
“When I look at you, you always avoid them.”
He had openly avoided even Abellana, who had greeted him cheerfully at the guild.
From now on, there would surely be many times when we had to deal with people.
It was not something I could gloss over.
“......It is because I feel embarrassed.”
“You don’t have a shy personality, though.”
“I am saying I feel embarrassed to show this tiny form!”
Wer clenched and unclenched his small forefeet several times.
He had nearly looked ready to cry at first.
It seemed it still bothered him.
To think the reason he always hid was because of his size.
‘That can happen.’
I decided to let it pass lightly after all.
Only the sound of our footsteps echoed in the dull alley behind the noisy city.
After walking for a long while through tangled paths, the building that appeared was fairly large.
“It’s practically an abandoned building......”
A sign scrawled carelessly hung half-fallen, creaking.
The outer wall was filthy with marks where flyers had been pasted and torn away.
I placed my hand on the door, which was almost rotted through.
Creak.
The inside was dark.
Dozens of groups sat around candles.
The light did not reach the distant ceiling.
It barely illuminated the places where people were seated.
Rustle.
At the sound of something being stepped on, I lifted my foot.
“Flower petals?”
They were dried white and crumbled, making it difficult to recognize their shape.
Naturally, I could not know their name either.
“Hmm......”
“Ritak, your complexion is not good.”
“For some reason, I’m thirsty.”
My stomach churned, and I felt dizzy.
Outside was a desert city under hot sunlight.
The gambling den was dark and dry.
“Waaaaah!”
I abruptly raised my head.
It was easy to find Yoanes and the man who resembled a field mouse.
Because the area near them was especially loud.
“A thousand-vanus round? How long has it been since we saw one of those?”
“Insane! Let’s bet on who will win.”
Seriously, none of them were in their right mind.
I moved toward the group.
“How’s it going? Going well?”
“Don’t interfere. Go over......”
Yoanes looked back with a fierce face.
Her eyes, which had been blazing as though sparks would fly, turned round.
“Ri-Ritak? Why did you follow me here?”
“I thought I’d try making some money too.”
Thump.
I settled down beside her and sat.
“You said you can make around 5,000 vanus in no time, didn’t you?”
“Do you think that’s easy?”
“But you’re throwing dice, aren’t you?”
Yoanes’s face quickly flushed red.
Even if she had several mouths, she would have nothing to say.
“So, how’s the situation?”
“......I just won 500 vanus.”
Yoanes’s eyes gleamed while holding the dim lamplight.
It was not a particularly good sign.
Snap, snap.
The dealer sitting across from her flicked his fingers.
With his uniform and swept-back hair, he looked quite neat.
“Enough chatter. Are you throwing or not?”
“Of course I’m throwing.”
“Then let’s double the stake again.”
Clatter, clatter.
Yoanes shook a cylindrical dice cup large enough to fill her palm.
Inside, there came the sound of pebbles rolling.
“Now! Odd or even. The odds are 50 percent!”
Yoanes stared at the cylinder as if she would bore a hole through it.
As though doing so would let her see inside.
But of course, she could not.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“......Even.”
Click.
The cylinder opened.
The dice inside revealed itself.
The number on the top face was 5.
“You were wrong this time.”
The dealer chuckled.
Yoanes clenched her fist tight.
“We can do the small calculations later, but you won the 500-vanus round earlier, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“You lost the 1,000-vanus round, so you have lost 500 so far.”
No money changed hands immediately.
Only imaginary money, mere calculations, moved back and forth.
Yoanes muttered blankly.
“Th-the next round is 2,000 vanus, so I just have to win that round......”
“And if you win the one after that, you can wipe away the debt your younger sibling incurred and get back up, hm?”
“Yes. If I just win two more times......”
She had not looked like a cheerful person to begin with.
But right now, her condition was clearly strange.
Clap!
I clapped once in front of Yoanes’s eyes.
She turned to look at me as though startled back to her senses.
The desire that had gleamed in her eyes until just now faded a little.
“Let’s step outside for a moment. We need to talk.”
“O-okay.”
Yoanes rose from her seat as if she had been burned.
Then the dealer sitting opposite her, who had been tempting her on, shot to his feet.
“What’s with this meddler all of a sudden?”
“We’re going to get some air. Is that not allowed?”
“In the middle of a round......!”
“If it’s not allowed, I don’t mind ending it here.”
His eyes moved quickly.
It seemed he had finished calculating in that brief moment.
“......You can take a break, of course.”
From the gambling den’s perspective, they likely wanted to profit more after all.
“Ah, how disappointing.”
The onlookers lightly clicked their tongues and scattered.
Leaving everyone behind, we exited the building, which was dark enough to feel stuffy.
“Whew.”
The back alley was not exactly a pleasant sight either.
But once we left the gambling den, much cooler air filled my lungs.
Yoanes also kept taking deep breaths in and letting them out.
“Do you know you were acting strange just now?”
“If I win, I can end the whole situation......”
“You’re also calculating how much debt you’ll owe if you lose, right?”
“......”
A sigh escaped on its own.
Of course, I had a guess.
‘Is it Avarita’s influence?’
The second calamity, Avarita.
The calamity that governed greed.
Perhaps the omen was already gnawing away at the city.
“That gambling from earlier. Can you keep challenging it?”
“D-depending on your credit, there’s a limit to the stake.”
A system where, whether you won or lost, you bet double the next time.
From the gambling den’s perspective, if they won only once, the next part was easy.
Because people who rushed in to recover their losses were already feverish enough to swallow whole.
“How high can you raise it?”
“With my credit rating, 4,000 vanus is the limit.”
“If you win, it ends. If you lose, it ends too.”
Though the meaning of “end” was different.
Yoanes spent quite some time steadying her breath.
The shadows beneath her already dull eyes had grown one layer deeper in that time.
‘Has she finally realized the weight of the stake?’
The greed clouding her eyes had vanished cleanly.
“I-I should pull out here. If it’s 500, I can somehow manage it.”
Yoanes looked like a fairly skilled adventurer.
If she earned hard, perhaps she could repay it within a year.
“Then are you back to being my city guide now?”
“If you’re all right with that......”
She still trailed off, hesitating.
I clapped once more.
“Then there’s somewhere I want to go.”
“Wh-where should we go? This time, I’ll guide you properly.”
It was a place I could go to well enough even without guidance, but the more spectators, the better.
I raised the corners of my mouth and grinned.
“Yeah. The gambling den.”
Yoanes blankly opened her mouth.
“A-after criticizing me like that until just now......!”
“I’m different.”
Had I not been preparing for this very moment since I was outside the city?
I took out the pouch I had received from Neras.
“Medicine Crafting.”
I will clean them out exactly as much as they have lived by swindling others.