The God of Death and the God of War - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Evil Hegemon Martial God

Chapter 17

A decisive gamble.

A single match with heaven and earth at stake.

Will you take everything?

Or lose it all?

Isn’t a man’s life nothing but a series of such contests?

That’s why Jang-il loved gambling tables.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was a place where winner-takes-all, the very embodiment of decisive gambling, had descended in physical form.

So Jang-il frequented gambling houses almost daily, becoming a somewhat famous gambler in Changsha.

“Tsk. Now I just need to win big.”

…Though it was the infamous reputation of being a sucker gambler on the verge of ruin.

Like any sucker, Jang-il kicked open the front door of the Gambling House today while chanting the same incantation.

May great fortune follow him today!

“Suckers! This master has arrived!”

The same line he delivered while punching his daily attendance.

There should be an appropriate response that follows.

‘Huh?’

The atmosphere inside Paejeon-bang was somehow strange.

Not a single employee who usually flocked to him with flattery hoping for scraps when he arrived.

‘…What’s this?’

All the tables where various types of gambling like sword cards, mahjong, and backgammon took place were completely empty.

Usually the tables were not only packed with customers, but even spectators crowded around.

But today was different.

‘They’re all gathered over there?’

Both customers and staff were all crowded around a single gambling table.

As Jang-il approached the table in question, thunderous cheers erupted.

“Wow!! Look at that!”

“At this rate he’s really going to win again??”

“No way, is this guy really crazy?!”

Spectators gathered like a swarm of clouds.

Wooooah!

And another roar burst forth.

Louder and more boisterous than before.

It even seemed desperate.

Curiosity rising, Jang-il slipped into the crowd like an eel.

“Don’t push! Aah! I said don’t push!”

“Geez, who’s pushing!!”

“You! It’s you! You bastard, I said don’t push!”

“Hehe, sorry.”

Jang-il half-heartedly apologized while stubbornly pushing through the crowd, finally managing to create enough space to poke his head out.

‘…Who’s that guy?’

The mystery man seemed unbothered, gambling while wearing a black hat.

Meaning he was an outsider trying to hide his identity.

‘Gasp! Crazy!’

Seeing the money piled in front of the man, he could understand the current situation.

It was truly a tower of bone tiles.

Gambling houses used exchangeable bone tiles or wooden tiles instead of inconvenient gold coins to substitute for cash, and in front of the man, the highest denomination bone tiles were piled up to form a tower.

‘Is he playing sword cards right now?’

Sword cards was gambling where thin bamboo pieces were painted with pictures and numbers, determining winners based on the sequence or rank of pairs. With easy and intuitive rules, it was one of the most popular forms of gambling at Paejeon-bang.

“Damn it! I’ll take it!”

“I’ll take it too! What will you do!”

Then, two of the three men sitting at the table with the man accepted the challenge.

If they accepted the challenge, now it was the mystery man’s turn to set the stakes.

As soon as the man accepted the challenge.

Swoosh!

“Same amount.”

Saying that, he pushed all his bone tiles to the center.

‘Cr-crazy! All-in?’

All that money?

Jang-il wasn’t the only one thinking that.

“All-in! It’s all-in again!”

“How many times is this now?”

“How many times! That crazy bastard has been going all-in every single time he gambles!”

When gambling, gamblers push in all their remaining money when they’re about to lose everything, which is called ‘all-in.’

In other words, it’s a desperate strategy with no retreat, but according to the spectators, this stranger was betting his entire fortune every time he gambled.

‘He really is a crazy bastard?’

Even for someone who frequented Paejeon-bang constantly, this was the first time he’d seen such a sight.

No wonder people were crowding around.

Because they wanted to know how long this crazy bastard would keep winning.

And as if responding to this, the gamblers at the table simultaneously revealed their cards.

“Wooooooah-!!!”

The spectators burst into frenzied cheers.

“Again! He won again!”

The man in the black hat had won again.

He won again in a match where he went all-in.

“Damn it!!”

“Isn’t this rigged?!”

“How does he win every single bet!!”

The gamblers who took the challenge, in other words the losers, began to rage.

But the man in the black hat reacted as if wondering where dogs were barking.

“Mm, delicious.”

Clatter-!

With that, the man pulled all the bone tiles piled in the center of the table toward himself.

“Going again?”

“Of course! A man has to go!”

“One more round! One more round!”

In this moment when spectators and gamblers alike shouted as one.

The man calmly stood up from his seat and said.

“Mm, I’ll stop here.”

“…Eh?”

“Getting free money tastes good, but it’s so boring I can’t continue.”

“?!”

Just as everyone including Jang-il gaped with their jaws dropped.

Clack!

The man began walking briskly toward the exchange counter, carrying all the bone tiles.

‘Now, it’s time for him to take the bait.’

The man who had swept up all the money in this Paejeon-bang in just half a day, Jeok-un, thought to himself when.

“S-sir! Just a moment, just a moment! Sir!”

“Hm?”

“W-wait, please lend me your ear for a moment. I have a proposal to make.”

A pale-faced employee from Paejeon-bang came rushing over to him.

The employee, dressed lavishly like someone clearly in a high position, approached and began whispering secretly in Jeok-un’s ear.

Jeok-un knew what the man would say, but he pretended not to know.

“Sir, the stakes here are rather small. Wouldn’t you like to play at a bigger table?”

“Hmm. I heard this gambling house has fixed odds, unlike the ones in Heukpaesong.”

“For distinguished guests like yourself, we have a special game that we only offer to select few.”

“Oh?”

Jeok-un reacted as if his interest was piqued.

Relief finally appeared on the employee’s face, but…

‘Now, shall I start pulling out the pillars?’

In reality, Jeok-un was merely finishing his practice round and preparing to properly fleece them.

* * *

“What kind of dog shit is this!”

Noh Hwang-gu threw down the report and screamed in rage.

He had no choice but to react this way.

The report contained the profit and loss that had occurred within a single hour.

“One million nyang! One million nyang!!”

One million nyang.

Enough money to build several thousand-room mansions and still have plenty left over.

That fortune had vanished in half a day.

And to some bastard who came from who knows where.

“One million nyang! One million nyaaang! Aaaahhh!”

Unable to contain his fury, Noh Hwang-gu threw and smashed everything within reach.

Since people were included in that, it was only natural that Noh Hwang-gu’s office became a scene of carnage.

“B-Branch Manager! Please c-calm down…!”

The employees did their utmost to appease Noh Hwang-gu.

After all, Noh Hwang-gu, who oversaw the Gambling House Management Division, might bury them alive because of this loss.

“Calm down? Do I look calm to you?”

Noh Hwang-gu’s eyes gleamed with murderous intent.

With his narrow eyes filled with killing intent, plus his upturned nose that knew no bounds and thin lips adding to his wretched appearance, he literally looked like a demon.

Anyone could see he was in the typical state of having his eyes rolled back from losing a fortune.

But this didn’t match the principles of a gambling house.

Originally, wasn’t a gambling house supposed to just take a small commission from the pot and mediate between gamblers?

So logically speaking, there was absolutely no reason for Noh Hwang-gu to be angry.

The money was lost by the gamblers, not by Paejeon-bang.

“How can I stay calm when I’ve lost one million nyang, you bastard!”

That’s right. The money wasn’t lost by gamblers, but by Paejeon-bang.

Paejeon-bang employed what were commonly called sharks to rig the games.

Simply put, they engaged in gambling fraud.

They employed fraudulent gamblers hired by Paejeon-bang to fleece the suckers.

At first, they would lose appropriately to lure in the marks, then once the game was properly set up, they would squeeze out the money.

This was Paejeon-bang’s business method, and it had been going smoothly until now, but…

“All the sharks employed by the house lost? You expect me to believe that?”

Some drifter who appeared out of nowhere had cleaned them all out in less than an hour.

He even bet all the pot money on high stakes, so in just half a day, the enormous sum of one million nyang had been lost.

“You checked the cards that bastard used, right?”

“W-we checked and replaced them several times! We also changed seats!”

“And?”

“…W-we couldn’t catch any trace of cheating techniques.”

They replaced the cards and changed seats.

But they still lost everything?

“The sharks said he was an incredible master…”

“Master my ass! What skill is there in gambling!”

Smack-!

Noh Hwang-gu slapped his subordinate’s cheek and spat out his words.

“That bastard must have been in cahoots with our house’s sharks, you sons of bitches!”

“N-never! We did our best, but his skill was…”

“You bastard!”

The constant talk of skill completely set off Noh Hwang-gu.

“Gack!”

“It’s a rigged! Fraudulent! Game! How can you! Win with! Skill!”

“Gaaack…!”

Noh Hwang-gu beat the fallen subordinate as if to kill him, again and again.

Only after trampling him enough to actually dispose of a corpse did Noh Hwang-gu stop his beating, panting heavily.

“Investigate all the bastards we hired. There’s definitely something there.”

“Y-yes sir!”

“Hmph! How dare they pull this shit knowing who my brother is? I’ll chew them up real good.”

The moment Noh Hwang-gu mentioned his brother, his subordinates’ faces turned deathly pale.

And for good reason.

Noh Hwang-gu’s older brother, Noh Hwang-mun, was one of Sadocheon’s ten proud blades.

He was one of the commanders of the Ten Heavenly Commanders.

If Noh Hwang-mun stepped in, he would surely drag even the innocent into guilt by association and cause a bloodbath.

“Ptui, clean this up first.”

“Yes, yes sir!”

While his subordinates cleaned up the destroyed office, Noh Hwang-gu approached the window.

In the distance, one person was coming with his subordinate.

None other than the culprit who had caused this incident.

‘Hmph! A black hat? What a pretentious bastard trying to look impressive.’

Noh Hwang-gu clenched his teeth tight.

Sharp murderous intent leaked from his eyes.

He commanded his subordinates.

“Prepare Dogwi. Also properly prepare the rigged ‘cards’ and ‘liquor’ we’ve prepared. I’m going to strip several times what we lost to him. No, everything that bastard has.”

“Yes sir!”

As his subordinates quietly disappeared to carry out his orders, Noh Hwang-gu’s anger also subsided somewhat.

There was absolutely no way he could lose.

He had prepared Dogwi, the most skilled among the sharks he had recruited.

And he had prepared the pre-rigged cards and the perfect liquor as well.

He never fought battles he couldn’t win.

This was one of Noh Hwang-gu’s iron rules, and this time too, that iron rule would prevail.

‘The outcome is already decided.’

And naturally, he would be the victor.

“Hehe, I’ll make you regret coming to Changsha for the rest of your life.”

Noh Hwang-gu showed his protruding teeth in an ugly grin.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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