The Girl Who Looted Tomorrow

Victor said, “I’m about to go in and play for a bit. Want to come with me? Since you’re so bored anyway, if you don’t want to play, how about just watching me?”

Freya thought about it and did not refuse. Mainly, she really had nothing to do right now.

“Then wait here for a moment. I’ll buy food and bring it back first, then come over.”

And Victor really did wait at the entrance of the casino. He stayed there until Freya returned, then walked inside with her.

The moment they entered, a burst of mocking laughter came from inside.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Victor, the coward who loses every bet. Here to lose money again today?”

“Want to play bigger this time? Who knows, maybe one win will make everything back.”

“Don’t bother convincing him. If he dared to play big, how would he have gotten the nickname coward?”

Victor completely ignored the jeering. He walked straight to a square table, pulled out a chair, and sat down heavily.

This casino did not have a process for exchanging chips. One simply found an empty seat, took out money, and played directly. However, there was still an unwritten rule. A single bet should not be lower than one hundred crowns.

Otherwise... nothing would actually happen. One would simply be looked down on by everyone else.

Just like now.

Victor rummaged through his pockets and pulled out several wrinkled banknotes. From them, he picked out a ten-crown note and slapped it onto the table.

“Deal.”

Immediately, sharp laughter rose from the people around him.

“Another ten-crown ante?”

“That tiny? Who’s going to play?”

“Hey, don’t say that. Even a mosquito’s leg is still meat. Free money is free money. I’m in.”

Soon, the table Victor sat at filled with six people. A few were smoking, and the ridicule kept coming sentence after sentence. The environment could only be described as awful.

Victor could not help glancing back at Freya beside him. Seeing her delicate brows slightly furrowed and obvious dislike on her face, he lowered his voice and said, “This is what casinos are like. That’s why I didn’t recommend you come in at first.”

Freya originally wanted to say, Aren’t all these insults because of you?

But after thinking about it, even without Victor, the casino probably would not be much better. So she instead said, “Then why did you invite me in afterward?”

“Wasn’t that because you said you were bored?” Victor said. “Besides, letting you see what a casino is really like might help you stay away from gambling.”

Of course, the real reason Victor had invited Freya was curiosity.

Even now, he still had not figured out why his ability had failed.

The game began quickly. The dealer dealt two cards to each person, including Victor, then placed five cards in the center of the table. Three were face up, and two were face down.

The rules were simple. Players used the cards in their hands and the cards on the table to form specific hands, then compared them. The strongest hand won.

After watching for a while, Freya suddenly realized that this was basically Texas hold ’em from her previous life.

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At this moment, Victor had not even looked at his hole cards. He only glanced at the community cards in the center of the table, then quietly said to Freya, “And let me tell you, cheating is very likely to happen during gambling. You may think this game is decided by luck, but it isn’t. Sometimes, who wins and who loses has already been decided before the game even starts. For example, this round...”

As he spoke, Victor secretly checked his hole cards.

Then he froze.

Victor had the ability to store luck. Many people might assume he would use that ability to make money in casinos, but it was actually the opposite.

He had indeed used his ability just now. However, it was not to bring himself good luck, but to store away all the good luck he would have had over the next period of time.

In other words, he was currently in an extremely unlucky state. He was guaranteed to lose this gamble in front of him.

This was also why he had the nicknames “loses every bet” and “coward.”

In gambling, he only placed tiny bets, then used his ability to store luck and deliberately lost money. The whole process could be understood as spending a little money to buy luck.

That stored luck might save his life later. No matter how one thought about it, that was a huge profit.

As for other people mocking him?

Victor did not care at all.

Right now, Victor could clearly feel that his ability had activated normally. The luck he had stored was indeed increasing. That meant his hand in this game should be extremely, extremely weak.

But reality was the exact opposite.

He could not help widening his eyes as he looked at the cards in his hand, then at the community cards on the table.

It was a [straight flush].

And in Texas hold ’em, that was the second strongest hand after a [royal flush], the unbeatable hand.

Victor looked at Freya beside him with shock all over his face.

Without a doubt, the problem could only be this girl.

At this moment, Freya also saw the cards in Victor’s hand. She raised an eyebrow.

“Such a strong hand? So when you said that wins and losses are decided from the start, did you mean you cheated?”

“Wow. To help me stay away from gambling, you personally performed how to cheat for me?”

Freya was not stupid. Although Victor had invited her in, two out of every three sentences he said were about how bad gambling was.

Was this guy unexpectedly a good person?

Or rather, a bad person who was not quite that bad.

Victor’s mouth hung slightly open. He still wore a blank expression and said nothing.

He had indeed intended to show Freya the harm of gambling, but what was happening now was completely different from what he had imagined. He had originally planned to demonstrate losing for an entire afternoon.

So why had he drawn a hand like this right at the start?

At this point, the other players began looking impatient. One of them shouted at Victor, “Hey! What are you two mumbling about over there? Are you raising or not?”

Victor finally snapped back to his senses.

“Raise! Of course I’m raising. And I’m raising a lot!”

Victor stood up, planted one foot on his chair, and put on an extremely smug expression. Looking down at everyone present, he declared, “With a hand like this, of course I’m going big. Watch closely. I raise... thirty crowns!”

“Pfft!”

“Hahahaha!”

“Are you trying to make me laugh to death so you can inherit my fortune?”

Facing Victor’s clownish declaration, the others laughed while naturally calling the bet.

Here, one had to mention another basic rule of Texas hold ’em.

There were five cards in the center of the table. At first, only three were face up, while the other two were face down. No one knew what they were.

The game proceeded through multiple betting rounds. Only those who bet or called would remain in the game and see the face-down cards revealed.

In other words, even if one’s hand looked weak at the start, what if combining it with the next two revealed cards suddenly made the hand much stronger?

That was exactly where the most “gambling” part of this game lay.

So Victor starting with an extremely strong hand was absolutely rare. Extremely, extremely lucky.

As mentioned above, calling allowed one to stay in the game. Not calling naturally counted as giving up, or folding. The money already bet would be handed over.

Right now, the game had only just started, and everyone’s ante was only ten crowns. If Victor immediately slammed down a thousand crowns, anyone would know his hand was huge and run away.

So in a nearly guaranteed-win situation like this, what Victor needed to do was avoid letting the others realize how strong his hand was. He had to make them call and bet as much as possible so he could win more.

In the next round, Victor raised fifty crowns.

In the round after that, he raised another hundred.

By the final showdown, his hand was, unsurprisingly, the strongest. He swept the whole table and earned nine hundred crowns in a single game.

Seeing this, Freya could not help clicking her tongue.

She had to admit, this was exactly the part of gambling that made people addicted.

Victor had bet a total of one hundred and eighty crowns. In the end, not only did he lose none of it, he made a net profit of nine hundred.

That easily gave people a certain thought. Since he had won this hand, he could afford to lose at least five more hands. As long as he won once every five hands, he would still profit.

But was reality really like that?

One had to remember that a round of Texas hold ’em was very short. If it was fast, three or four minutes might be enough. Even if it was slow, ten minutes was absolutely enough.

In one afternoon, playing dozens of rounds would be more than easy.