Casino Wizard

The game was a poker-style Seotda, with a mandatory bet of 2 Gold.

Some elements of Indian Seotda were incorporated, allowing players to reveal or conceal a card.

Skill had some influence, but compared to Hold’em, it was limited.

Dragon Ear played cautiously from the first hand.

“Check.”

“I’ll follow.”

“Same here.”

With only 6 Gold on the table, the first betting round ended.

The second card I received was ◆10.

Since my first card was ◆K, I had a flush. Not the worst hand, but in a two-card game, it wasn’t exactly rare either.

“Not catching a break from the first hand, huh.”

I muttered quietly and played by the book.

I flipped over ◆10 to show the other players, then checked the cards of the other two (Lucy kept her second card hidden, while Dragon Ear had ♣3), calculating equity in my head in real time.

“I’ll raise by 4.”

“I’ll call and double it.”

“I’ll follow.”

“…Same.”

Dragon Ear wasn’t folding—just steadily increasing the stakes.

Since he revealed a card, all blockers were already accounted for.

Easily, at that. Dragon Ear was surely keeping track, too.

‘Not just counting—he’s probably seeing everything with those snake-like eyes of his.’

I decided to assume that Dragon Ear was observing ‘almost everything’ at this very moment.

It wasn’t just his ability to read physical tells.

I’d treat him as if he had photographic memory as well.

Of course, hands were finite—there were limits to what he could do.

But if Lucy or I tried any sleight of hand, he’d likely catch it.

It might seem like an overestimation, but this was the right call.

The first hand’s results were soon revealed.

Lucy had a J-pair. I had a flush. And—

“I’ve got 4 and A.”

Just a top hand for Dragon Ear.

Lucy won. Smiling, she raked in the pot and took the deal.

I felt a bit deflated after rating Dragon Ear so highly…

But instead of lowering my assessment, I raised it.

I caught something.

Whether it was a Draconian trait or just unique to Dragon Ear, his eyeball twitched in an odd lateral rotation, sweeping over Lucy’s hands.

Eyes—perhaps even faster than hands.

“You’ve got good eyes.”

With a rough voice, Dragon Ear complimented my own vision instead.

I had caught his subtle eye movement. And he had caught me catching it.

Regardless, my evaluation remained unchanged.

For Dragon Ear, this game was far too simple.

A typical gambler would focus on expected value and money.

But Dragon Ear was the kind of gambler who sought maximum enjoyment—at any cost.

Even if he didn’t want to, his gambling-wired brain would push him toward it.

****

Dragon Ear was struggling.

The 20th hand. A seat change.

“I’ll call and make it 40.”

“I fold.”

“Same here.”

Not easy. The Magician was also an exceptional gambler.

‘Good eyes. Good mind.’

It felt like playing against a moving wall.

Dragon Ear tried to take control of the game in various ways.

Sometimes, he’d intentionally show strong hands. Other times, he’d go all-in with garbage like 53o.

But such shallow tricks didn’t work against the Magician.

If this were a community-card game, there’d be room for hesitation. But in a two-card format?

The Magician likely calculated everything the moment he received his hand.

Even when losing, he never wavered.

Careful, controlled betting. That was the Magician’s approach.

Perhaps that’s why the spectators were growing slightly restless.

“Uh… it’s kinda lacking excitement, don’t you think?”

“This isn’t how you play Mini Poker. You’ve gotta intimidate people with bold bets, right?”

“You planning to play all day?”

They could keep playing for days if they wanted to.

But Dragon Ear was willing to bet an eye that wouldn’t be the case.

The audience might not have noticed—

But something was already happening at the table.

“Damn. Just not my day.”

The Magician muttered audibly, tilting his head.

But Dragon Ear had seen it.

The slightest twitch of the Magician’s left index finger as he held his water glass.

A motion he had done twice before.

Of course, those two times, he wasn’t holding anything—but the same finger had moved. He might also do it while pretending to fix his hair.

That was undoubtedly a prearranged signal.

A signal to share his first card with his partner-in-crime.

A suspicion surfaced in Dragon Ear’s mind.

‘When the Magician moved his left index finger, his first cards were K and A. The first time, he lost to a diamond flush. The second time, he won with A-2. It’s the signal for when he gets K or A.’

There were other gestures that seemed like signals.

Whenever the Magician received his second card and glanced toward the bar, his hand was merely a top.

Just a little more observation, and he’d have it figured out…

“Draconian guest, you’ve slowed down.”

Lucy sneered, catching the mere one-second delay in his bet.

Ignoring her, Dragon Ear kept processing.

Given time, he’d decipher all of the Magician’s signals—and uncover the entire system.

But there was one problem.

‘Who’s the Magician signaling to?’

Lucy, directly?

Didn’t seem like it.

“I won again. At this rate, we won’t finish before opening tomorrow.”

Lucy was no ordinary gambler either.

She toyed with Dragon Ear, provoking him while executing flawless shuffling techniques—so fluid and fast even he hadn’t seen them before.

But something was off.

She was using a strip-out shuffle, but in some rounds, it looked fake.

At a glance, she seemed to be shuffling. But in reality, she wasn’t.

Dragon Ear couldn’t call it out.

The deck wasn’t pre-stacked. The cards weren’t marked. And she wasn’t making hands either.

Was she taunting him? Or distracting him?

Maybe both.

At least one thing was clear: Lucy wasn’t receiving the Magician’s signals directly.

‘…If I can’t spot the middleman, I’ll lose. I’ll slowly bleed out without even realizing I’m drowning.’

Getting chipped away by a formidable opponent… admittedly, that sounded fun.

If this was a carefully crafted trap—

Then struggling to the death before going down would only make the victory sweeter.

But could they really be exchanging signals right in front of him without him noticing?

For a Draconian with exceptional vision to miss human tricks? That made no sense.

There had to be someone else.

‘Is it her?’

Dragon Ear’s gaze flicked, ever so briefly, toward one of the spectators.

Baroness Bonucci.

A socialite with a scandalously alluring figure. And a woman who had once almost crumbled when she tried to use a cheap trick in front of Dragon Ear.

‘I didn’t think she was that bold, but is she really trying to pull another trick on me?’

Right now, Baroness Bonucci was engaged in conversation with another noble.

A little distance away, but directly in Lucy’s line of sight. Even when she occasionally changed positions, she never left Lucy’s field of vision.

She wasn’t an elf or a dragonian, yet she could naturally pick up a magician’s signals from that distance and relay them to Lucy? That didn’t seem like something within her capabilities… No, it was arrogant to judge based on a single encounter.

Dragon Ear’s eyes once again focused on Baroness Bonucci.

‘The fan. I see.’

The fan she held in her right hand.

It was a fan with different colors on each side. With a design like that, it could easily be used for signaling.

Dragon Ear finally grasped the situation.

It seemed that the magician was sending signals, Baroness Bonucci was reading them, and then she was quickly relaying them to Lucy.

It wasn’t likely that Bonucci could execute it flawlessly.

But she could catch and transmit the signals with a certain level of accuracy. This explained why Lucy sometimes made seemingly irrational bets.

‘This is it.’

Dragon Ear felt the game becoming even more interesting.

A magician who appeared solely focused on bankroll protection, Lucy flaunting her sleight of hand to provoke him, and Baroness Bonucci—who, for some unknown reward, seemed to be playing tricks in front of him once again…

How thrilling it would be to expose their deception.

Dragon Ear immersed himself in the task of dismantling the magician’s trap.

Reading hand signals, occasionally spying on Baroness Bonucci out of the corner of his eye.

And observing the archer girl, who sometimes seemed unsure and either folded or made hesitant calls, perhaps missing the signals.

To Dragon Ear, all of this was pure enjoyment.

The mere thought of seizing the perfect moment and making a decisive move sent shivers down his spine.

“Back straight. I win this one.”

Of course, his opponents weren’t easy prey, and Dragon Ear had been losing bit by bit.

Chipping away at his funds, already down 70 gold.

But he could endure.

The thrill of the decisive strike and his overwhelming desire to crush the magician’s carefully laid trap kept him going.

…

An hour passed.

Finally, Dragon Ear spotted the perfect moment.

“Oppa, don’t die this time.”

“I won’t.”

The magician’s left index finger twitched slightly upon receiving the first card (a sign he held a K or an A)…

The magician’s hand was positioned near the back of his head, so it wasn’t directly visible, but the subtle movement of his forearm muscles gave it away.

“Forty.”

“Call.”

Even after receiving the second card, the magician didn’t fold and instead raised the stakes.

Lucy hesitated momentarily, pretending to be unsure, before sighing and calling.

Dragon Ear’s confidence grew.

‘This time, he intends to win outright.’

Dragon Ear decided to make his move.

Betting everything on the magician’s first card being a K or an A, and on the archer girl having an even weaker hand.

“Magician. Freeze.”

At Dragon Ear’s low command, the magician flinched slightly, and the archer girl’s expression stiffened.

The spectators’ eyes turned toward them.

Dragon Ear, electrified by the moment, was about to speak.

“That card.”

“The card?”

But he hesitated.

‘Is this right?’

A sense of unease gripped him.

This was his first time sitting at a gambling table with the magician.

But…

Could the very man who had built a kingdom of gambling really have failed to notice his observations?

There were human limitations, sure, but still.

For the first time since the game began, Dragon Ear hesitated.

A nagging thought that he was headed down the wrong path. And an ominous feeling that if he pushed forward, he might end up falling.

Something told him that making a move here was a mistake.

****

‘Sharp one, isn’t he?’

After telling me to freeze, Dragon Ear stood still for a moment.

As expected, he was exceptional.

Since the game itself was too straightforward, he must have spent his time on another gamble—deciphering my signals.

And he must have started doubting Baroness Bonucci.

I had thrown enough bait, so it wasn’t strange for him to make a move.

But Dragon Ear refrained.

He suspected that we were merely pretending to cheat, leading him into a trap.

‘And that’s true.’

By now, he would have realized that Baroness Bonucci hadn’t actually failed at signaling—she was just a well-placed decoy.

He must have also started considering the possibility that Lucy was naturally matching my pace, not because she knew my hand, but simply because they were so close (and because, honestly, she was a puppet from the start).

He loved gambling, but he wasn’t reckless enough to dive too deep into a gamble within a gamble.

Still, it was fine.

In that fleeting moment when Dragon Ear hesitated for the first time—

“What’s with him all of a sudden? Seriously?”

Lucy, feigning annoyance, subtly tapped the tip of her right shoe against my leg under the table.

A move she sometimes made during games, pretending it was an accident.

But this time, it was a pre-arranged signal.

A right foot tap at just the right moment. It meant to raise the stakes. Since we were on the same side, that was all it took.

The first bluff of the night.