POV David

I checked my timepiece once again, but that didn’t change what I was seeing from it. It was 5 minutes past eight, and I was now officially late. Hopefully, I'm not the last one and they haven't played too many hands.

I opened the door to find a nicely furnished room with a circular table in the middle and six people sitting around it. "Look who decided to show up, it’s David," Roger announced to everyone, and I found myself being looked upon by six people who were arguably some of the most influential people in the United Freeholds.

"Too bad he made it so fast. I was hoping to get some more coins without having to worry about the number wizard," commented Oakard, one of the three generals of our army and the one who led the defense of the Swamp Dungeon Outpost. "You just don’t like it that this game isn’t just luck, and while I haven’t played it enough, the percentages for winning are quite clear," I answered while sitting down and pouring myself a glass of whiskey.

I received the dealer coin, so I shuffled the card deck in a way to make sure that everything was random. "Can you stop wasting so much time? If you shuffle it so much, the cards will be worn out before we can play," I heard Roger say, he always seemed to find a way to end my enjoyment.

He was the one who introduced us to this game; it was quite popular in Verdia, called Texas Hold'em. I made two passes so everyone had two cards, and after the big and small blinds put in their coins, it was time to start playing the game.

I didn’t have good cards this time—2 of hearts, 9 of clubs—so I folded as soon as the action got back to me. "So, how goes the preparation for the Winter Solstice?" Roger asked Betsy. She was in charge of the workforce and job distribution, and the person currently ahead of the Winter Solstice celebration team. "Everything is going well; that's how it's going," she answered, but from her tone of voice, she didn't seem to like that it was going so well.

After I discarded one card from the deck and put three communal cards into the center of the table, I knew that I should study how others reacted to what was being shown. But currently we weren’t playing this game to win; it was more to just talk with each other and spend some time winding down from our jobs.

Betsy folded and then started to speak again. "There's just too little to do in the winter, and it's getting harder and harder to find jobs for people. Maybe we should find a few more mining locations, as they seem to be good places to channel workers into so they can work during the winter."

"Exploration missions are being completed faster than expected, and we already have quite a few viable locations to set up new outposts for different kinds of resources," I answered while adding a new card beside the other communal cards.

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"I would've expected your calculations to be more precise," Rodger asked. "My calculations weren't wrong; I just don't know why Rich is doing so many of them and so fast." Everyone scoffed at my words. "What?" I asked them.

"There's really no point in asking why Rich does something; you just have to hope that it doesn't turn into you having to drill with your troops for months," Oakard said while looking at his cards, extremely unhappy. The next moment, he folded.

We all laughed a bit at that, and I could understand his sentiment. We all had those kinds of Rich stories. Eventually, Phil joined as well, and now there were eight of us. The game continued, but unfortunately, I had a string of bad cards, depleting my coin stack quite a bit.

We continued to casually talk about what bothered us and just joked around while playing this game. But soon it was past midnight, and I had to say goodbye to everyone, as it was time to get some sleep before tomorrow's work starts again. I just need to remember to talk to Rich when he next comes back and tell him he needs to slow down or stop his explorations and give others a chance to get better at exploration as well.

POV ????

I snap out of my meditation to look at the nine people in front of me, waiting for me to address them. "I’ve just received word: we cannot go with the original plan. We have an enemy that we need to defeat before I can reach the third rank."

My people looked at me with confusion, and I could understand their sentiment. Nothing should be able to trouble us, but it seems that even luck and fate have their limits. "This person cannot be allowed to reach rank 3, but it seems that we still have some time. However, we must keep everything a secret; if we move too openly, we might be discovered too soon."

Everyone nodded along, like they always did, but they knew that I knew everything, and their devotion to me was absolute. "Who is this person that we need to be so wary of?" asked my right-hand man.

"Apparently, he lives quite near here, which is why we need to be so careful. The only thing that I know about him is that his name is Rich Dirt, and we cannot let him reach rank 3; otherwise, we might actually fail. So go out and find everything you know about this person. I want to know how we can destroy him so we can make sure that this world can weather any disaster with us here to defend it."

They immediately bowed as deeply as they could and left my seat of power. I had a clear vision of this person who is going to be my rival. My victory over him should be assured, but there are weird things around this person that make the future uncertain.

One thing that is, however, guaranteed is that if I don’t kill him before he reaches rank 3, I won’t be able to win, which is frustrating as I don’t understand how he could even be a threat to me. His face is already annoying me, and I can’t wait until I can make him suffer.

POV ????

I could feel one of my servants gathering his courage to speak to me, and I wondered what was going on. This continued for quite a while, and I was actually falling behind on my scheduled paperwork. He usually isn't this timid.

Time continued to tick by, and I was starting to get annoyed. I think my annoyance leaked out a bit because my servant made the choice; whatever he was scared of telling me, he was more scared of my getting angry about his weakness.

He greeted me and bowed down as he should, but I could still see him shaking as he handed me papers. I looked at the writing on the paper, and just from my loss of control, my servant almost fainted. It was an official report of someone trying to make sapient creatures from monsters.

Why are there idiots in this world, and why is it my time to sit on the judge's chair? "Who are the other six that are currently scheduled to sit in the chairs?" My servant rattled off six names, and it lifted my mood a bit. Currently, there was no one whom I despised.

Now, more about this report. It's reported to be going on in the northeast on the Green Continent. The report was made by some queen accusing the Nation of United Freeholds—an interesting name—of cooperating and helping goblins to evolve.

"Ha ha ha, now that's a laugh. I'm almost not even mad about all the time I'm about to waste. This will be so much more interesting than I originally thought. Servant, bring me three more inkwells. I need to work a bit faster so I can enjoy this show to the fullest."