Chapter 99

* * *

The Reto game ended, and the tea party was gradually winding down.

Perhaps because people were now tired, no one spoke to me, and I felt at ease in body and mind.

“Artie.”

“Yes?”

“Reto. You knew how to play?”

I nodded slightly.

“How? Your skill wasn’t ordinary.”

“Before Uncle Helmer took me in, I lived in the Pecos district for a while. I learned a bit by watching back then.”

“Pecos……? That’s a slum district.”

“It’s a childhood story.”

I was too young then. I was so hungry, but I wasn’t in any condition to work.

To fill my starving belly, all I could do was endlessly hope someone would give me charity.

Rather than dying like that, I chose to find a way to survive somehow.

I went around the gambling dens in taverns, subtly tipping off gamblers about their opponents’ hands and receiving small…