Chapter 381: Disputed Verdicts
“You’ve got to be kidding me!! That doesn’t count! It’s void! Refund our money!”
“He was dead! He HAD to be! How the hell does that count as surviving!? This has never happened before!”
“Why is this happening!? You told me he was done for! I already spent my whole payout!”
“Shut up! Stop shrieking at me! I don’t get it either, all right!? This whole thing’s unprecedented! If I don’t get my money back, heads are gonna roll!”
Tsutomu had blacked out in the Guild and was being carried back to his Clan House. Meanwhile, chaos erupted in the Pedestal Market, on a scale the city had never seen before.
The cause: Gambling! Specifically, betting whether or not Tsutomu would die.
In Boss battles where escape was impossible, and the outcome hinged solely on the challengers’ survival or death, betting on such things was the most common form of gambling. And with no one having witnessed Tsutomu’s actual death before, he was an especially popular betting subject. The bizarre turn of events and outcome on the ninetieth layer had further inflamed the crowd’s interest, bringing the odds to a razor-thin balance and stoking the fires of anticipation.
But once the Corroded Elder Dragon had unleashed its merciless fury, even turning Tsutomu’s allies undead, his odds had taken a nosedive. And when he fled the arena, the consensus was clear that it was over, that he would be dead by the end of it. Those who had bet on this outcome were already celebrating.
After all, even if he managed to hide, the black mass would descend after twenty-four hours and forcibly remove him. That, to the betting houses, was the end of the story; they had even prepared to make a show of the payout time, displaying mountains of coins as practically decoration for their booths. Some gamblers had even splurged their expected winnings the night before.