Rat Feces

"I don't know about this, Mr. Arno. This seems kind of wrong." Erika said.

"It's fine, it's just a game."

"But isn't what we're doing considered dishonest?"

We were inside Rat Feces, Stercusville's local tavern. I hatched up a scheme to make some quick money. Unfortunately, my self-righteous little apprentice was having some doubts.

"It's just some casual bar gambling. What's wrong with that?" I responded.

Earlier, after we left the guild, now knowing about Erika's luck stat, I got an idea of how I could use that to benefit us. All we had to do was take a trip to the local sketchy tavern…

Rat Feces was exactly how I remembered it nearly a century ago. I had only been there once during my travels, but it was a hard place to forget. I would say it's probably one of the filthiest, most unsanitary taverns in the entire country, possibly on the entire continent. Everything was covered in grime, from the floors and tables to the walls and ceiling, even the staff and clientele.

As one would imagine, a place like this attracts a certain type of crowd. The place was filled with drunk deadbeats and rugged individuals. Not to mention the scantily dressed women hanging about.

Right as we entered through the busted up double doors, I saw exactly what I was looking for... A group of four men were gathered around a table and tossing around a set of dice. There were piles of gold coins, so they were obviously playing for money.

All I had to do was simply have Erika play, so I could place bets on her, knowing that I'm guaranteed to win. Some might call what I was doing "a scam" or "rigging", but technically I wasn’t doing anything to tamper with the game. It wasn’t my fault Erika just so happened to have a supernatural luck ability that basically makes it impossible for her to lose a game of chance.

"What are we even going to wager? All we have is my goblin money." Erika said.

"That should be just fine."

"But I thought you said goblin money was no good to regular people."

"Yes and that is correct. Just hand me your bag. You just worry about the game. I'll handle the betting."

Reluctantly she handed over her pink coin bag. I walked over to the group of rough looking men.

"Good evening gentlemen. Mind if we get in on the next game?"

"Yooz gots moneys, bag boy?"

A robust man with a mangled face spoke. His stomach hung from his shirt. The shape of his body resembled a meat ball.

I held out Erika's coin purse.

"Of course. So what game is this?"

"Dice frow! The rulez iz simple. You frow da dices and guezz da numberz they land on."

I couldn’t say I expected much out of the people here. I never thought I'd say this, but I think Erika's intelligence stat might be even higher than this guy’s.

"Sounds good to me. How about we make this game a bit more interesting. I'm going all in." I said.

Another hefty man in the group gave me a suspicious gaze. He pointed at the bag I held.

"Show what in bag!"

"Of course, no problem."

"But Mr. Arno-!"

Erika tried speaking, I signaled to her to be quiet with my hand. It was obvious why she would be concerned, but unbeknownst to her I had a trick up my sleeve. I loosened up the drawstring of the bag. Inside was a pile of gold and silver coins, a very large sum of money.

The group of four men all looked at each other. All of them suddenly began to dump all their money on the table. Obviously this high stakes wager caught their attention.

"Game on, bag man."

"Oh, I won't be the one playing, she will."

I nudged Erika forward. She looked incredibly uncomfortable with the situation I was forcing her into. To be honest though, I didn't care. If she would just sell her junk, we wouldn't have to do this.

"H-hello misters."

"What numberz you pick female?"

"Um... I guess I'll do all ones."

The group of men gave their guesses and threw the dice... To no surprise at all, all three landed on one.

I raked in my pile of winnings, which was a moderately decent amount. It was enough to at least cover our membership fees.

The robust man with the mangled face turned a reddish color. He had a frustrated look in his eyes.

"*Bleep*"

He threw his chair against the wall. It busted apart into several pieces. He stormed off and proceeded to throw a hissy fit in the corner, as if he were a child.

Another one of the men ball his fist and tried to punch Erika. I instantly reacted and caught it and proceeded to twist his hand and snap his wrist. He fell to the ground. His remaining buddies fled instantly.

No one in the tavern even reacted. Bar fights were probably common, especially with this kind of crowd.

As we left I pat Erika on the head.

"Good work."

"Um... Mr. Arno, are you sure this was alright to do. I feel like we did something wrong. They seemed really upset to lose. What if they really needed this money?"

Erika was way too considerate. People like her get taken advantage of easily in this world.

"I can assure you, we need that money as much, if not more." I said.

"Alright... I guess if you say so. How did you get that money to wager in the first place?"

"I didn't, that was just your bag of wooden coins."

"That can't be right. I saw when you opened the bag and it was full of gold." She said, confused.

"Remember that apple exercise I was having you do earlier? I used that same concept to make the coins in the bag look gold and silver, instead of wooden."

Thanks to that exercise earlier, Erika learned the basics on how to channel mana, meaning she had enough mana now for me to use very basic low level spells.

"I never thought you could use it that way... Anyway, what are we going to do now?" She asked.

"Tomorrow morning we'll head back to the guild to officially join. Then we'll be choosing your very first quest."