"What do you want to gamble?
Limited Rock-Paper-Scissors (a variant of rock-paper-scissors)
Emperor Card (an identity guessing game)
Three Dice Count (sequence prediction)
Russian Roulette
Or perhaps the most common—rolling dice to see who gets a higher number?"
Yumeko rattled off several gambling games, including probability-deception types, card-based psychological warfare types, and pure luck types.
Hayashi, without hesitation, ruled out psychological games and deceptive calculation games. He wasn't even an ordinary gambler; gambling with these games with Yumeko would be courting death.
Although with his infinite save-load ability, a guaranteed victory was set, it was always better to "die" fewer times.
So…
His choices were narrowed down to Russian roulette or rolling dice for a higher number.
"Let's keep it simple, rolling dice for a higher number."
Hayashi thought, with infinite dice rolls, he would surely win.
But he quickly realized... he had made the wrong choice.
Because after hearing his choice, the excited expression on Yumeko's face instantly faded, replaced by calm.
To Yuki and Asuna, Yumeko had clearly entered a serious state.
But Hayashi knew Yumeko's true nature: beneath her beautiful facade lay an extreme craving for gambling.
She reveled in the thrill of risk, pursuing excitement to the point of madness, then revealing a cold and twisted expression.
Such a person detested guaranteed wins... therefore, she believed that with rolling dice for a higher number... she would surely win?
It made sense—for such a fanatic, rolling the desired number was as easy as flipping a hand.
It seemed she could roll a six every time, so rolling dice was indeed courting death. With this thought, Hayashi decisively changed his mind:
"Wait!"
Hayashi's tone suddenly shifted, and he continued:
"Let's gamble on Russian Roulette instead! The rule is—load five bullets, I shoot myself, and one shot decides the winner. How about it?"
Yumeko had no objection to Hayashi's change of mind.
An exaggerated expression once again consumed her beautiful face, unable to contain her excitement.
At the same time, a revolver capable of holding only six bullets was placed before Hayashi, along with five gleaming yellow bullets.
"Hayashi! You're insane!"
Compared to Yumeko, who reveled in the unknown outcome, Yuki, observing from the side, couldn't help but sharply warn him.
"When gambling with 'it,' you should choose a game with a higher win rate! Why choose one that lowers your own win rate?!
Five bullets?! A five-sixths death rate, a one-sixth survival rate! Madman!
Look how happily she's smiling!"
Facing Yuki's agitation, Hayashi merely shook his head calmly:
"You're wrong. Only this way do I have a chance of winning."
His tone shifted, and then he added with a hint of teasing:
"Yuki-chan, I'm still waiting to see your dance."
As he spoke, Hayashi's hands didn't stop, deftly loading the five bullets into the revolver.
After all, in his opinion, only this kind of gamble—targeting himself, purely based on luck, and deciding life or death in one round—could possibly win against Yumeko.
Furthermore, Yumeko's happiness wasn't, as Yuki thought, because of her high win rate, but rather because she was excited by the genuine possibility of losing.
Ignoring Yuki's confusion and Asuna's gaze, which was both fearful and curious, Hayashi suddenly spun the cylinder! The chamber whirled—
Without waiting for the cylinder to stop, he directly disengaged the safety and pulled the trigger!
"Bang!"
The gunshot exploded!
Clearly, Hayashi was not a lucky person and failed to hit that one-sixth chance of survival.
Under Asuna's horrified gaze, her pupils constricted.
Under Yuki's twitching eyelids.
—Hayashi's head exploded with a boom!
"What a pity!"
Yumeko sighed softly, her exaggerated expression fading, replaced by a look of regret.
But her slender waist suddenly swayed and elongated like a snake, coiling around Hayashi's headless corpse like a beautiful serpent. Her jaw split open like a python's, expanding more than threefold, easily swallowing Hayashi's headless remains whole!
Having done all this, Yumeko reverted to her gentle, beautiful, slightly seductive noble young lady demeanor.
She took out a silk handkerchief and elegantly wiped the corners of her rosy lips, her crimson eyes filled with pure and soft emotion, looking at Yuki and Asuna with a curious yet expectant gaze.
"Do you... want to gamble too?"
"No need!" Yuki refused with a dry laugh.
"No!" Asuna suppressed her terror, covering her mouth to stifle a scream, her denial escaping resolutely through her fingers.
"Not gambling, huh? What a shame." Yumeko looked regretful, lightly stroking her abdomen, which was distended as if she were nine months pregnant.
That action made Yuki and Asuna stumble back furiously!
'This... is terrifying!'
Asuna and Yuki simultaneously roared in their hearts.
At the same time, Yuki was roaring even more in her heart:
'And Hayashi! He acted so confident, I thought he really found a way out, holding a sure-win method! But he died so cleanly... he's messing with me!!!'
...Just as Yuki was frantically complaining in her mind about Hayashi overacting, turning into a clown, and losing his life.
—The Anchor of Time activated.
Everything began to rewind.
"Tsk!"
Loading the last bullet into the chamber, Hayashi pouted.
It seemed his luck was bad, but fortunately, the pain of a revolver headshot... was fleeting.
It was much easier than when he tested his ability by slitting his throat with a kitchen knife...
'Anchoring fate with time, it just depends on how many tries it takes! Again.'
Hayashi thought with a relaxed expression.
But for Yuki, Asuna, and Yumeko, the time rewind was imperceptible.
They returned to their states of anticipation, anxiety, or excited expressions, intensely watching Hayashi's actions, completely unaware that Hayashi had already died once.
Then, he spun the cylinder.
—"Bang!"
The gunshot rang out again!
Subsequently.
Only Hayashi knew the cycle: three, four, five, six... his face grew darker and darker.
Until the ninth time—
"Click—"
An empty chamber!
Hayashi, with a dark face, unenthusiastically put down the revolver.
'Although each shot is a one-sixth probability... am I really this unlucky?!'
'Tsk—! But so what if I'm unlucky? What can fate, that bitch, do to me? I play with time.' Hayashi thought, annoyed.
Asuna beside him had no idea of his current displeasure.
"You won!" Asuna rejoiced at Hayashi's victory.
Although she wasn't familiar with Hayashi, as a fellow newcomer, she was genuinely happy and felt even more admiration.
'He actually won against a [Curse] with a one-sixth probability! Was it courage? Wisdom? Or did he discover a weakness?'
Asuna didn't understand, but she knew Hayashi had won.
"He actually... won? That can't be right!"
Yuki stared at the gun in Hayashi's hand in disbelief, her eyes wide, trying to uncover his "trick."
However, no matter how she scrutinized it, she couldn't find any clues.
Although she also hoped Hayashi could win, gambling with [Curse]s wasn't that easy to win!
Finally, her gaze turned to Yumeko—she couldn't see how Hayashi cheated.
But this gambling-god-level [Curse] who controlled a [Curse] Domain was different! If Yumeko saw through his trick, Hayashi would still lose!
This was also why Yuki had reminded Hayashi to choose a gamble with a higher win rate earlier.
Moreover, even though Hayashi "won," he looked displeased, as if he had lost, even showing an expression of doubting life, which made Yuki very suspicious.
She had a feeling that his trick had been seen through by Yumeko.
'Even if the gun didn't fire, if his cheating is discovered, he'll lose!'
Yuki thought so.
But Yumeko's next words astonished her.
"You won!"
After saying that, Yumeko transformed into black mist and drilled into the revolver in Hayashi's hand.
"This... you... actually won?" Witnessing this scene, Yuki felt it was absurd and unreal.
A [Curse] with a [Curse] Domain was subdued just like that, even though it honored the bet... but... Hayashi won too smoothly, too easily!
'You really did gamble with your life; you didn't cheat!' Yuki stared at Hayashi with her beautiful eyes wide, as if looking at a madman.
Anyway, she wouldn't dare to gamble her life with a gambling-god-level [Curse] as boldly as Hayashi.
And most importantly, why did Hayashi, after winning, look so displeased, as if he had lost?
She couldn't understand, only feeling that her usually clever mind wasn't enough.
'Wait... since Hayashi won, don't I have to dance for him?
Tsk~ Annoying... but a bet is a bet.'
Regardless of Yuki's current thoughts, Hayashi had no immediate plans to make her fulfill the bet.
After all, simply dancing a single dance would be such a waste; he needed to choose the right moment, didn't he? When their relationship became closer later on~~
Selectively forgetting that his luck was terrible, Hayashi finally happily tallied his gains.
The Saotome he had previously contained, perhaps because she was a [Curse] Slave, his golden finger, the [Anomaly Containment Facility], didn't even deem her worthy, not even providing a cell, but Yumeko was different.
The moment he won the gamble, his golden finger was finally activated!
In a place invisible to Yuki and the others, the black mist that had drilled into the revolver was directly pulled into an independent cell within the Containment Facility.
At the same time, Yumeko's basic information flooded into Hayashi's mind:
Name: Yumeko.
Race: [Curse] [Rule-type [Curse], cannot be killed.]
Ability: Mad Gambling, able to wager anything on the gambling table.
This ability seemed simple but was terrifyingly powerful—love, kinship, lifespan... anything that exists could be used as a stake!
After containing Yumeko, Hayashi also gained the authority of "Mad Gambling."
At the same time, his innate talent also seemed to have absorbed certain rule concepts from the authority of 'Mad Gambling' and received an upgrade:
[Anchor of Time LV1]: Can anchor a moment from the river of time, returning to that moment after death.
And now the talent change:
[Anchor of Time LV2]:
Can anchor two coordinates from the river of time (one save point added) and can choose to return to any coordinate after death. When shifting the timeline, extremely close individuals may gain fragmented memories as if dreaming.
This change made Hayashi ecstatic.
His innate talent seemed to greatly favor this type of rule-based [Curse], being able to improve through it!
Hayashi became even more eager for the [Curse]s behind the dungeon.