“Blasted beginners' luck,” muttered Tommen under his breath, glaring at Ren. Aloud he said, “Stop preening, let's see you do it a second time.”

Vaghn looked on amused, chuckling at Tommen’s outburst. “Ya so eager to lose more coins, Tommen?”

“Shut up, Vaghn! You lost money too!”

“Aye, but d’ya see me whining about it like a wee lass?” the man chuckled as he counted through his remaining coins.

“Don’t worry, Tommy,” drawled Ren, mischievously. “You can —”

“You dare mock me?” the man’s neck veins bulged, and he practically frothed at the mouth. He slammed a flabby fist on the table. “Call me Tommy one more time, I dare you.”

Ren opened his mouth but was interrupted by Ulfrid’s voice. “Brothers, remember no fighting in the Lucksmith’s Parlor,” he nodded towards the wall. “Besides, the next round is about to begin. Buy-in is 120 Bronze.”

An uneasy feeling made Ren turn around only to find Omar staring at him like a hawk. The man’s eyes were narrowed and he had a thoughtful look on his face as he examined him. Ren smiled and waved at the man, before turning to his pile and chipping in the requested buy-in amount.

Once again, he won the hand with the perfect roll. “5, 7, 12 and Green.” he smiled as he waited for Ulfrid to manipulate the hidden die to show a different color.

Omar and Tommen positively growled at him, as he whistled whilst retrieving his 456 bronze coins, leaving the 24 bronze coins for Ulfrid to collect. The dealer was looking over his shoulder, and Ren followed his line of sight to an exquisitely dressed man whispering into the ear of one of the gorgeous women that had kept the drinks coming all game.

The woman wore a sultry slip of a dress, sheer enough to make a lot of the men and women in the room blush whenever she walked past. Her perfume smelled of burnt wood and flowers, and the colorful beads in her dark hair added to her charm. As Ren watched, she made her way towards the table, and their eyes locked for a moment.

She froze for a second, her graceful sway interrupted as the flicker of her eyes gave away the nervousness she felt. Ren watched her eyes dart towards Omar, who was even then glaring at him. Looking at the man’s gritted teeth, a smile tugged at his lips. “Again?” he innocently asked, looking towards the dealer.

“U-hmm,” Ulfrid cleared his throat. “Just so. This round’s buy in is 130 bron–”

“Here’s mine!” Ren giggled, tossing his coins noisily on the table.

He was enjoying irking the gamblers. Even the crowd which had cheered him on earlier, seemed to have turned their backs on him. This time, when his turn came to roll the dice, Ren cupped all three 12-sided dice in his hands and shook them. He noticed the sultry woman had moved behind him and an idea gripped him, that he just had to try.

“Would you blow on it?” he asked.

“W-What?”

“My hands. Please blow on it,” he said to the flustered woman. “Where I come from, it’s good luck. And I need all the luck I can get!” He winked at Omar, and the man scowled back.

“Ok.” She stepped forward and blew, covering him in the scent of alcohol and mint.

With a subtle, deliberate motion, he feigned the beginning of a roll, his fingers poised above the table. However, just as the dice were about to leave his hand, he paused, freezing the moment in suspended anticipation. "You know what, Tommy. How about I make it more interesting, aye?"

“Bleeding stones, Ivar. Just roll. Ya messing up my buzz with ya constant yapping!” Vaghn blurted, tired of his theatrics.

“Of course, Vaghn. Of course,” replied Ren. “But first …”

He tossed the first 12-sided die into the air, then tossed the other when it was mid way up. In a mesmerizing display of dexterity, his fingers moved with a fluid grace, the three dice becoming an extension of his hands. With each toss and catch, the dice spun through the air in perfect harmony, their movement a delicate ballet of precision and control.

Soon, disgruntled mumblings filled the air. Whispers of show-off and pretty boy reached Ren’s ears, but he ignored them, instead listening to the overall mood of the room. There was an imperceptible shift in the air just before a bar-fight broke out and veteran drunks could always discern when it happened. He had been in enough of those to get a feel for mob mentality so he listened, pushing the patience of all present until their discontent almost reached the crescendo.

A few more seconds of delay, and he was certain a rogue bottle would find its way to his head, but Ren stopped his juggling act. With a final flourish, the dice descended from their aerial dance and clattered onto the table. The numbers presented were 2, 4, 10. Silence.

“Oy, that don’t count!” Omar roared and for the first time all night, Tommen agreed with the man.

“Are you sure?” Ren leaned forward, inspecting the displayed numbers and then looking at the matching numbers on the dealers target pattern. “Hmm, they look identical.”

The man stood, his hands wrapping around the hilt of his longsword. “I said… That. Dont. Count!” he ground through gritted teeth.

Ren scoffed and looked towards the dealer. Ulfrid looked positively distraught. He looked around at the crowd, then at Omar, before turning his gaze to Ren. Picking up his drink, he took a long swill before clearing his throat. “T-That throw was illegal,” for the first time, his voice had lost the fake charisma that he usually spoke with.

“Exactly!” Tommen added. “You tossed the dice too high, getting an unfair advantage.”

“Just so,” Ulfrid intoned more confidently. “Please re-roll immediately or forfeit your turn.”

Ren turned to look at the last gambler at the table who’d remained quiet ever since. “Don’ look at me!” Vaghn held up his hands. “They say ya gotta roll, so ya gotta roll.”

Shrugging, Ren picked up all three of his 12-sided die and rolled them again, this time without any theatrics. The air in the room stilled as all who could see held their breaths as the dice settled on their numbers—2…..4…..10.

“My guess is blue!” Ren’s voice broke the stunned silence of the room.

Ulfrid revealed a different color, of course, but Ren paid him no attention. He reached in and pulled back his 95% share of the pot—494 glittering bronze coins. “Again?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“...”

“..Ah. We’ll be taking a short break,” Ulfrid rose as he spoke, looking warily at Ren before shaking his head and walking towards the back of the room. The murmurings and greed among the crowd was palpable at this point, so Ren decided to call it a day. He had invested 300 bronze to soften the table’s perception of him, but he had made it back and gained an additional 818 bronze as profit. Leaving with the equivalent of 8 silvers richer than he came in was a very fruitful distraction if he was to say so himself.

“U-um, I can change that to silver for you,” a timid voice called from behind him. He looked over and saw the woman with the sultry red dress fiddling with her hands.

“No thanks.” He turned back around and secured the coins into the loot bag on his waist.

“It’s no trouble!” she sounded frightened that he would leave. “It’s on the house! It’s one of the premium services provided to the favored guests of the Lucksmith’s Parlor.”

“Good to know.”

“As well as anything else you need,” she leaned into him, rubbing up on his arm as he stood to leave. Standing on her tip-toes, she still had a long way to go to reach his ears, so she whispered as best she could. “Anything.”

Ren stopped to really look at her, smirking. He turned back to the table of befuddled gamblers and bowed. Omar positively seethed as he got up and stormed towards the bar. Turning back to the woman trying to seduce him he responded curtly. “Not interested.”

If before she looked frightened he would leave, now she was terrified. Tears welled up in her eyes as she frantically held on to him. “Please! Please. I—” her hands shook a little as she desperately whispered. “I-I can help you with anything you need.”

Ren was ready to shove her away when he tilted his head in thought. “Anything?”

“Anything!”

“Good. Follow me outside, we can’t do this here.”

Obediently, the woman held onto the cloak he still had wrapped around his shoulders, as he shoved through the crowd towards the exit. His hand on his knife’s handle, coupled with the devilish grin he wore throughout, were the only reasons they weren’t accosted before leaving the gambling house. He guessed the no fighting rule might have played a small part as well, but now that they were outside, he was a bit disappointed that no one had been boneheaded enough to try.

“We can stop over there,” the woman said, guiding him towards an alley.

“Oh?” Ren smiled, letting the woman pull him forward. “Lead on, Aylona.”

She froze.

Her skin immediately prickled with goose pimples, the hairs on her hands standing erect. “W-What did you call me?” she shivered as she asked, eyes as wide as newborn fawn.

“That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“B-but … I-I never told you that.” She stammered.

Ren pulled out [Sunslicer] and discreetly placed the golden knife in the small of her back. “You better keep moving, unless you want to pick up your guts from the streets.” Aylona gulped loudly and immediately moved to comply.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked as they drew closer to the alley. “That makes sense. We were both in Priest Keta’s Free Temple Class barely two days ago. Should I be expecting Omar in that alley?”

“Please sir, I just do as I am told,” she wailed.

“Shh, shh,” he soothed her, both digging the edge of his knife deeper into her back, and gently stroking her hair. “What’s done is done. Just answer me, how many people is Omar going to have with him?”

“I don’t know. I swear!” she whimpered. “Please, I had no choice.”

“Hmm, we’ll see about that,” he said as they walked into the darkened alley.

The alley was thin and long. The floor ran with sewage water and questionable organic wastes. Rat-like vermin scurried around their feet as they walked further in, and the tall heights of the buildings that formed the alley hid the sun’s light, casting shifting shadows around the pair. Twenty paces later, two shadows followed them into the alley and Ren grinned in satisfaction. Finally! But just the two?

Ren had Aylona lead them further in, and just as he was looking around for the rest of the ambushers, four men stepped around the garbage piles they had been hiding behind. Two of the men, he recognized from the Lucksmith’s Parlor—half ear, and the lithe man with the patchy beard. Ren stopped and shoved Aylona away from him, and the woman took the opportunity to run back towards the mouth of the alley, only to be stopped by Omar and another unknown man.

Well, not completely unknown. He was the buffoon that chased Ren through the Temple’s laundry fields.

“Aww, all this for little old me?” Ren drawled in a sing-song voice. “You really didn’t have to make my day any better. I already took your money, remember?”

“Mouth off all ya want,” Omar laughed, showing his yellowed teeth. “Very soon, ya’ll be screaming, begging for death as I gut you slowly.”

“Promise?”

“What?” Omar frowned, annoyed that the imbecile wasn’t making this fun for him. “Are ya touched in the head?” Looking around at his men, he sneered. “Get him!”

The men lunged at him with mismatched weapons from nail-studded bats to gleaming daggers. The man with half an ear wielded the same baton he had used earlier in the gambling house, and from the way he held the weapon, Ren could tell he was more accustomed to street brawls than massacres. Unfortunate, because that was exactly what Ren had planned for the lot of them.

Taking a deep breath of the rancid air, Ren savored the moment, before letting a trickle of essence flow from his Cultivators core into his body. He shot forward with such ease that he overshot his original destination. As a result, the man he had been aiming to test a light punch against was now scattered everywhere. He had run right through the man and both Ren and the man’s previous companions were now bathed in his blood and viscera.

Momentum was the only reason the five other thugs, Omar included, did not have a chance to stop and reevaluate. This suited Ren just fine, because now more than ever he needed to end this quickly. Especially with Aylona’s ear piercing scream. One would think she was being flayed, but a quick look showed her covered in blood and desperately shoving the dead man’s severed arm which had landed across her shoulders.

Ok, maybe using Essence against opponents of this level was overkill.

He had realized that his body had been slightly improved by having a Cultivator’s core and Meridians, but seeing how much stronger he was against these Tier 2 Essence cultivators really made him feel all warm and fuzzy.

He dodged a wicked swing of a baton and sent an elbow into the face of the stalker-thug, crushing the man’s skull and getting a new coat of blood on his elbow. He caught Omar’s widened eyes, and the man flinched as Ren smiled at him, even as he held one of his thugs by the hair and dragged [Sunslicer] across his throat.

Half-ear struck him on the back of the head with his baton, and then again on his raised forearm as he turned to address the threat. Ren sent a lightning-quick jab into the man’s exposed throat, disorienting him for a split second. Using that time, Ren spun, dashed forward and buried his golden knife into the heart of the last bat wielding thug.

All that was left was Half-ear wheezing on the ground and Omar who was dashing for all he could, to escape the alley. Smirking, Ren pulled out a dagger, and timing his throw, sent enough essence into his hands and sent it flying. The dagger hit the man behind his right knee, but the force of the throw sent it completely through the joint, tearing it off and leaving Omar crying in pain.

Ren turned to Aylona who had begun inching towards a broken bottle, and she froze. Tutting, he shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Leaving her to make her decision, he jogged over to Omar, sent a heavy backhanded slap into the man’s face to shut his yell’s of pain, and then stuffed his mouth with a torn piece of his clothing. With the alley a bit quieter, he dragged the half-conscious man back towards Aylona and Half-ear.

“M–” he coughed, spit flying everywhere. “M-Me..Mercy!”

“Oho!” Ren chuckled. “Now you want to beg? Too late.”

Ren grabbed the man by the chin, squeezing his mouth open and shoved the baton between his lips. With a vicious whack from his palm, he slammed the baton hurtling through the man’s mouth, into his throat and breaking the connection between his spinal cord and his skull. He left him twitching on the floor and made his way to Omar who had awoken and was shuffling backwards in fright.

“And now, you have my full attention Omar.”