Choice - 8

Choice - 8

The guards had dismissive smiles on their faces as they observed my game, not bothering to hide their mocking smirks as I acted like I was putting my full attention on the game.

I had all the confidence in winning the first pile, not because I bothered to put a complicated strategy in place or actually tried to cheat. No card shark would ever actually let the mark lose during the first hand, not even the incompetent, amateur ones I was currently playing with.

Still, I watched them, looking for signs of cheating not because I cared particularly much about the borrowed money I had, but because I wanted to develop a sense of how things worked in this new world I found myself in. It was for the better if I could avoid shanking before I got too ambitious when gambling.

I failed to detect any sign of cheating before the first pile was concluded after I raised another ten denicas. "You're so lucky," one of them laughed as slapped his thigh. "Look at that, almost forty denicas, a great win."

It would have been if twenty-five of them hadn't already belonged to me in the first place, but my smile suggested that I was not aware of that fact. "Winning is fun," I said cheerfully.

After a few more hands, and fifteen minutes later, the amount of money I had started to fluctuate, rising up to a hundred and fifty before dropping to twenty-five. Currently, I was around sixty, giving all the signs of a gambler taking that loss personally, willing to do everything to recover it.

With several smirks targeting me in the process.

However, even as I put on a show, most of my attention was still on observing them. The first thing I noticed, none of them actually used that mental weight on me to trigger bad decisions... It might be that they were preferring not to use it, but based on Falael's and their commander's ubiquitous usage, I doubted that they were holding themselves back.

Much more likely, lacked the ability altogether.

Then, one of them glanced around before pulling out a flask from inside his armor, much to the angry glares of the others. "Commander might be here any moment now," one said.

"Come on, he won't be. He has to go through everything upstairs to make sure everything is working well with the enchantments. More than enough time for the smell to go away," he answered as he opened the flask.

The sharpest smell of alcohol I ever had the displeasure of drinking hit my nose, hard. The soldier chuckled. "Someone already received his Perception."

I shrugged, not commenting on his assumption as he took a large swig before he passed the flask to the one next to him, then next until it reached me.

"Come on, great hero, try it," said the one who passed the flask to me, the mischievous nature of the suggestion obvious.

"I'm not really good with alcohol" I started, only to be interrupted.

"Come on, don't say that the great hero can't handle a bit of alcohol," another interrupted, his tone even meaner.

I looked confused for a moment before hesitantly reaching the bottle, and making a show of taking a big swig ... and a burning sensation filled my mouth, with a taste sharper than even the most inept moonshine I had ever tasted.

I paused, already happy with the information that was spilling out of them although I had no idea what a dungeon was. but decided to prod more.

"And what about other ways to awaken stats? Is there any way to do it without those treasures?" I said, but timed that question with a radical move, with all the recklessness of a new player.

"Well, there are natural awakenings, but they might be useless, as well. You need to work years to get familiar with the concept to awaken just one stat, and still, it's useless without free points to assign," he muttered. "Unless you dare to awaken Charisma without noble blood, then " he continued, only to be interrupted by a crack as his friend elbowed him on the ribs, their armor creating that explosive sound.

I kept my attention on the game as they held their breaths, watching me tense, showing that what they had just spilled was a dangerous piece of information.

"Sorry, did something happen?" I said several seconds later, raising my eyes, pushing an even more exaggerated slurring to my words. "I was ... focused on the game."

"Nothing important," another soldier said while the one responsible for the spill let out a relaxed sigh. "Let's continue."

We continued playing, but they became much more careful while talking about anything related to the classes. Charisma was clearly a topic to avoid, and, considering what I had been experiencing since I had been summoned, I was willing to bet that Charisma was about that weird sense of pressure I had been subjected to repeatedly since my appearance.

"So, you were talking about classes and their stats? How does it work?" I said, pulling the discussion in a safer direction.

"That depends. Serf classes only get a bit of Vitality and nothing more, while worker classes usually get between one and two, all pre-assigned. Warrior classes usually get three, but there are exceptions," he explained, his relaxed tone, along with the lack of reaction from the others, showed that it was common knowledge.

They were quick to spill that to further distract me from their earlier blunder.

I wanted to ask about the skills, but before I could do so, one of the soldiers stiffened. "The captain is coming back," he said.

I didn't hear anything, which was not surprising. After everything, it was not a stretch to believe one of the soldiers had a supernatural hearing.

"Maybe I should call it a day," I said before they could even ask me to, as I pushed the fifteen denicas I had managed to keep to the side. "Why don't you pass it to your captain and tell him that I'll pay the rest soon," I said, making a show of stumbling as I climbed the stairs hurriedly.

"Good idea," one of the soldiers said, clearly not really interested in explaining why they were getting their 'great hero' drunk while gambling.

It also worked to my benefit, as those soldiers represented a treasure trove for me. I didn't want their captain to see just how loose their lips had gotten in the process.

I retreated through the stairs to the main corridor still occasionally stumbling in case the guard who had heard the approach of their captain could hear

My mind was already considering how to leverage that particular nugget of information the best.