Cramped, dark, and messy.
On the right side of Igura was a large cardboard box, which contained more than twenty boxes of tissues, probably bought during a big discount. On top of the large cardboard box, there was a box-shaped heater and various unused furniture. On his left side, there was a closed door.
This was the storage room, where he had been staying for the past five days.
He felt a clear hunger in his stomach, indicating that it was already 6 p.m. Amy should be coming back soon to feed him.
As he recalled the past few days, Igura couldn’t help but sigh. Although he had achieved his goal and managed to escape unscathed from the Falconer’s relentless pursuit in the hunting hall, the way he achieved his goal was somewhat unusual – he had been treated like a dog by Amy.
He really was a dog. Igura tugged at the collar around his neck, feeling a sense of irony.
He had finally managed to remove the collar with the microchip in the back of his neck for the sake of freedom, but now he willingly wore a real collar for the sake of freedom.
As for why Amy Lexus, the Falconer hunter, was willing to protect him, it traced back to three years ago, when Igura had a part-time job at a mud café.
Although male individuals with Veela bloodlines often had part-time jobs at mud cafés, just like how an ogre with a regular job would still paint oil paintings after work, Igura rarely did so – mainly because being a mud worker didn’t pay well enough, and it was more satisfying to cheat for money.
When Igura was willing to have a part-time job at the mud café, it could only mean one thing: this mud café could provide convenience for his fraudulent business.
That shop was called “Gambling Apocalypse.” It operated as both a mud café and a tea café. Just by looking at the name, one might think it was a casino, and indeed it was. After entering the shop, customers had to spend money to buy initial chips and participate in various gambling activities.
But what made it different from other casinos was that it gambled with time.
Customers could freely choose their favorite dealer to gamble against. Both sides had 60 minutes worth of chips. If a customer won all of the dealer’s 60 minutes, it meant that they could control the dealer for 60 minutes, and the dealer had to comply with various requests. Conversely, if the dealer won the customer’s 60 minutes, the dealer could control the customer for 60 minutes, and the customer had to comply with the dealer’s requests.
Yes, regardless of winning or losing, the dealer would have intimate relations with the customer, after all, the customer’s chips were bought with real money. It wouldn’t be right to let the customer go home feeling confused and disrespected. A shop that didn’t respect customer needs would definitely go out of business.
In simple terms, it was a mud café/tea café with gambling as its selling point. But its business performance was much better than other themed shops in the same industry – it had been proven that gambling was always the mechanism that could most stimulate human impulses. Customers who won felt mentally and physically refreshed, while customers who lost would be ignited with a desire for victory after being played with by the dealer (the dealer wouldn’t be polite). They would continue to challenge and there were many repeat customers.
The reason why Igura took a part-time job at this shop was naturally for this “control of time.” He specifically targeted wealthy women, actively seduced them to challenge him, and then successfully won their 60 minutes.
Once inside the room, Igura could use the “control of time” as a reason to make the wealthy women swear to him, such as “be good to me for a lifetime” or “give me the most precious things.”
The wealthy women thought it was a special fetish of the dealer and would readily agree. Then, Igura’s contract artisan would anchor their promises, and they had to abide by the promises they casually made. They couldn’t even report it to the police because it wouldn’t be “being good to Igura for a lifetime” anymore.
Not only did Igura deceive these customers into losing all their wealth, but he also refused to mate with them. It could be said that he had no professional ethics.
In addition to wealthy women, there were occasionally wealthy men who actively approached him. Igura naturally accepted all of them and even made them swear things like “never have ** with anyone other than me in the future,” completely curing their human weakness of being deceived by beauty.
In this way, deceiving wealth without deceiving love, Igura greatly promoted the redistribution of social wealth through this part-time job, and his efficiency even surpassed his main job at one point. But the adjective “smooth sailing” never appeared in the life of a fraudster. One night, Igura met Amy.
In order to gain control, Igura, who had a high winning rate, quickly won the title of “Gambling King” in that shop. Therefore, there were gamblers who were not interested in Igura’s body but simply wanted to challenge him and learn gambling skills. Amy was one of them.
When Amy entered the shop, she didn’t hide her Moon Shadow Clan features. Originally, Igura didn’t want to provoke this privileged class, but Amy specifically requested him, and others were unwilling to compete with the Moon Shadow Clan. Therefore, Igura had no choice but to succumb to her dominance and serve her.
Amy’s gambling skills were good, but in addition to gambling skills, Igura, as a fraudster, understood human nature. That was the secret to his hundred victories. After Igura easily defeated Amy, he had already made up his mind not to harm her and just fulfill his part-time job at the mud café, treating it as being bitten by a dog.However, Amy refused to admit defeat and insisted on continuing to gamble, even repurchasing chips. Multiple purchases of chips were allowed to encourage customer spending. If a customer bought n times the chips, the dealer had to provide n times the service time, regardless of winning or losing.
Before the second round of gambling, Igura inexplicably asked Amy, “If I win, can I make a wish that lasts for 120 minutes?”
“No problem.”
The contract was established.
Unlike ordinary contracts, Igura proposed a limit on the number of times (one) and a time limit (120 minutes). The more restrictions specified in the contract, the stronger the contract effect. After all, Amy was a member of the Moonshadow clan, and Igura’s ‘tyrannical contracts’ that purely exploited others could potentially fail.
But when Amy lost for 300 minutes, things started to get tricky. She seemed to have received an urgent message and left the Casino Apocalypse directly. Igura quickly found out that Amy was a Bloodthirsty Hunter.
He immediately realized that he held a valuable wish in his hands.
After that, Amy often came to gamble with Igura in his shop, changing various gambling tools and methods. Occasionally, Amy won rounds, but generally, Igura crushed Amy. The time limit of this wish, after multiple accumulations, had accumulated to 9000 minutes.
Just as Igura was thinking about how to maximize the benefits of this wish, the Falconer’s hunting hall arrested him in the Casino Apocalypse.
So that’s why Amy kept gambling with him, and why Amy never proposed to enter the ‘gambling settlement phase’.
High-end Bloodthirsty Hunters often appear as prey in front of fraudsters.
Because it was a sudden arrest, Igura didn’t have time to modify his memory. When the memory master searched him, oh ho, it turned out that he had committed so many fraud cases. Enjoy your time in the Broken Lake.
Although he was arrested, his contract with Amy was still valid. The Virtual Realm was the longest witness.
So after escaping from prison, Igura directly knocked on Amy’s door and began his revenge on her in her pajamas: “I command you to help me escape from the Blood Moon Kingdom.”
Although it was just one wish, it could be broken down into three:
Provide Igura with a safe place to stay and food;
Not to disclose Igura’s information;
Help Igura gather information.
Amy did all of these.
So Igura stayed in this cramped storeroom, waiting for Amy to come home and feed him every day. He couldn’t say that Amy violated the contract – at most, she just satisfied his requirements in the most humiliating way.
Click.
It was the sound of a key opening the door. Amy was home.