Casino Wizard

The Saintess hesitated to engage in the game.

“Ah.”

Saintess Theodora’s gaze wandered around the room.

Her characteristic indifferent, haughty eyes, as if looking down on others, scanned her surroundings.

As time passed, her eyes began to reflect both astonishment and shame.

By now, she must be scrambling to figure this out. She’s probably wondering what kind of mess this is.

“Sisters.”

“…….”

“Sister Ilaria? We come from the same convent, right? We met at the Gaia’s Will nuns’ meeting last year? We had tea and played chess together, remember? The atmosphere was quite pleasant… could you tell me what’s going on here?”

“…….”

“Sister Ilaria?”

At first, she directed her questions to the nuns.

When that didn’t work, she trembled her lips into a smile and began pleading with the priests.

I decided to let her continue for now.

I thought it might be entertaining to let her struggle to regain her sense of reality.

“Damia Priest? Filippo Priest?”

“Saintess, ma’am.”

“Yes, I’m the Saintess. What on earth is going on here?”

“…….”

“Anyone, please, answer me. You all know we are less than 100 steps away from the Cardinal’s quarters, right?”

The Saintess tightly gripped the hem of her robes, trying to maintain composure as she questioned her fellow priests and nuns rationally.

But no one answered.

‘How can they answer what they don’t know?’

The priests and nuns were merely following orders from the higher-ups.

The bishop who issued the command, and the cardinal who was above him, didn’t have the full details either.

They might have guessed that conflicts within the party of heroes had escalated and that everyone was laying traps against each other, but that was the extent of their knowledge.

Pressuring these people wouldn’t do anything except make the Saint look pathetic.

“Theodora.”

I slowly approached the Saintess.

It would be fine to watch her performance, but I had a plan to execute, and now was the best time to use the imbalance of information.

“Theodora. Stop bothering your sisters.”

“You…!”

“None of them know anything. And they shouldn’t. It seems that the Cardinal wants it that way. He wants to ensure that whatever happens here stays within these walls.”

“What do you mean?”

The Saintess murmured, her voice barely audible.

Instead of answering, I pointed toward the middle-aged Hero.

The middle-aged hero, standing with his shoulders straight, exuded a confident demeanor.

It didn’t explain much on its own.

But it was enough to trigger the imagination of someone who prided themselves on being clever.

By now, the Saintess was likely coming up with different scenarios in her head.

Perhaps Bishop Batallia was conspiring with the hero to have me killed, or maybe the entire archdiocese was bought off by Haidin’s money, or perhaps I had been caught between enemies rather than allies, or the cardinal had been weighing between the hero and me, and chose the hero… something like that.

The Saintess wasn’t the only one caught in doubts.

‘They must be just as confused.’

The clergy who had been summoned early in the morning to serve as human backdrops.

They weren’t just here for security.

In reality, they were tools to pressure the Saintess.

By seeing her isolated from her brothers and sisters, and watching as her fellow clergy refused to help, the Saintess would soon realize her dwindling position.

She was no longer the beloved Saintess favored by the goddess Gaia.

She was a kite with its string cut.

“No.”

Of course, the Saintess refused to accept it.

“No, no,” she muttered in a voice devoid of conviction.

For a moment, the Saintess hesitated and turned toward the passage blocked by the nuns.

The nuns, who had formed a scrum, stiffened in unison.

If I let her go now?

She would break through the half-hearted blockade of the nuns and leave. There was no way they would physically stop the revered Saint.

Of course, I wasn’t planning to let her go so easily.

“Theodora.”

“…Hyden. It was a pleasure to talk. We’ll meet next time. Sir Jerome, Lady Lucy, and Hero… we’ll meet next time too?”

“You have to play the game.”

I wasn’t just thinking of stopping her with words.

I immediately reached out.

“You’ll just say you won, okay? Hmm?”

The Saintess, staring in disbelief at my hand gripping her tightly.

Her pure body was a precious artifact. It was rare to even touch her, let alone hold her so roughly like this.

As I pulled her closer, she finally reacted.

“What are you doing?!”

Ignoring her protests, I swung my arm toward her cheek.

Smack!

I gave her a light slap.

“Ah!”

The Saintess glared at me with wide eyes, so I struck her again.

Smack!

She staggered, almost losing her balance, but somehow managed to stay on her feet.

I raised my arm once more, and she hurriedly put her hand up to protect her cheek.

Not caring, I swung my left arm, this time harder. Another slap.

“Ugh…!”

The Saintess, cupping her cheeks with both hands, staggered backward, unable to regain her balance.

She seemed dazed by the sudden blows.

It wasn’t because she was powerless. She wasn’t lacking in divine magic or battle spells.

She just didn’t expect this, and her mind couldn’t handle the shock of the situation.

I wasn’t giving her any time to think.

I kept hitting her.

Smack!

At some point, I switched from slapping her cheeks to hitting her around the side of her head.

I ignored the tense faces of my companions and the pale nuns who were nervously watching. I just kept hitting her, showing through my actions and expression that this was a simple venting of anger, not a serious attempt to injure her.

“Stop…!”

“…….”

“How dare you… Ugh! No, no more!”

I slapped her, then punched her on the crown of her head, then hit her on the back of the head.

When she bent down, protecting her head, I kicked her in the shins.

“Ughh…!”

She screamed in agony and collapsed. She seemed like she wanted to argue, but her guard was down, and she tried to growl at me.

Smack!

Ignoring her, I hit her one more time.

This time, she dropped her head low in defeat.

It wasn’t to kill her or deal any fatal blow—it was a beating meant to break her spirit.

Naturally, it was calculated violence.

…

Seeing the Saintess squirming in pain, I suddenly recalled something from the past.

I wasn’t the type to enjoy using violence when I worked.

Quite the opposite.

I usually finished things with tricks or financial entanglements, and even if I needed to create an oppressive atmosphere, direct physical violence was rare. It was the same in this world, but I avoided it even more in my past life.

But even then, I had handled things in a similar way once.

The other person was a former public servant from the Department of High-Level Official Ethics (the inspection team that investigates senior officials).

He had used his connections from his government days to start a business as a poker kingpin. He was the one who monopolized all the customers in the region by driving all the other operators out.

In truth, as soon as he started his business, he had become a kite with its string cut.

I had to expose him after I gathered the evidence, but even when I shared it with the industry, no one believed it. The police even turned him away, calling him a bigshot.

So I had to show them firsthand.

Just like I was showing the Saintess now.

But mere humiliation wasn’t enough.

The key was to show that this was a person whose flaws were so glaring, they couldn’t even resist.

As the Saintess lifted her head again, she shouted, “What do you think you’re doing, you monster…!”

“Theodora, I’m only hitting you because I can. Considering your crimes, I should have brought you to the church tribunal. You might even be the first Saint to be excommunicated.”

“Crimes?”

The Saint, her face now bright red from the slaps, opened her eyes wide.

“Lucy. The dice.”

“Yes, brother.”

The saint, expressionless as she watched the beatings, stepped forward and handed me three dice.

Real dice. I threw them at her right away.

She stared blankly at the dice I dropped on the floor.

“Let’s start, Theodora.”

“What is this? Are you mocking me?”

“You said that gambling with dice has become popular in the Holy Kingdom because of me. At first, I thought you were talking nonsense, but that was a lie you made up to accuse me. You think I sent people to the church to deliberately spread gambling?”

“That’s a lie! I never said such a thing…!”

“I’ve already looked into it.”

I slapped her again. This time on her ear.

Smack!

She hurriedly raised her hands, but fortunately, I was faster.

“Ahh!”

“I’ll let this one go with just a slap.”

“…….”

“Considering all the evil deeds you committed in the past, this is nothing.”

The Saintess’s pupils shook violently.

“You falsely accused the hero of raping civilians, intentionally triggered Jerome’s blood phobia, and spread rumors about Lucy, calling her a debauched woman… You did that hundreds of times. Back then, I thought you just hated us.”

“Hyden. That’s something we should talk about privately.”

“I never imagined you were trying to break up the party with malicious intent. If it weren’t for the hero’s revelation, I would have never known.”

Malicious intent, disruption, revelation.

Many of the clergy murmured, and the Saintess’s eyes widened in shock.

She probably wanted to argue or deny it with a shameless face.

But the Saintess was already beaten and lying down. There was no way she could respond calmly.

I seized the opportunity to fuel the misunderstanding further.

“But despite your interference, the Demon King eventually died. It was a blessing that you weren’t the saint of another hero party.”

“Stop it, Hyden. Please.”

“Trying to uncover the truth now will only hurt the saints and the church. I’ll keep it quiet and blame our incompetence for falling into your traps.”

I paused for effect before pointing to the dice.

“Theodora. Do you want to end this quietly?”

“I… I didn’t do anything, I swear! Sisters?”

“Find your sisters later. Here’s what we’ll do: You were jealous of my business and spread rumors about me bringing gambling to the church. In the end, my companions and I confronted you and you apologized. That’s the story we’ll stick to.”

“…….”

“After that, we can say we casually rolled some dice to reconcile and parted ways. The rest of the punishment will be left to the church.”

Rolling the dice is the only condition, and then this will be over.

It might look like I’m showing mercy… but once she accepts, Theodora would essentially be admitting to a crime she didn’t commit.

A crime that doesn’t exist, though there are certainly real wrongdoings that are hard to prove.

“I can’t… this isn’t…”

The Saintess turned her pleading eyes toward the priests again.

Her gaze fell on Sister Ilaria, whom she seemed close to, hoping for help.

None of the clergy met her eyes.

They had stayed silent even when she was beaten. There was no reason for them to step in now. They were already halfway complicit.

The Saintess hesitated for a few more minutes, wiping the blood from her nose with her sleeve.

But no reinforcements came to her aid. Instead, the female archer silently struck her on the back of the head.

“Yaaah!”

Another beating, another dismissal.

In the end, the Saintess, looking foolish, reached for the dice.

“Good choice. I’ll explain the rules as we go.”

The game the Saintess would play was a modified version of ” Chinchiro (チンチロ),” a simple game that could be played with three dice.

The party members would take turns playing with her so she wouldn’t feel lonely.