Chapter 116 – Dice Gambling (1/2)

CHAPTER 116 – DICE GAMBLING

Paktos.

A merchant city within the Mercouri Territory.

It is a very diverse town with many people and money gathers.

Iris and I went there.

Iris is wearing adventurer clothes hiding the fact that she is Princess Iris.

I clad myself with a cloak with the two Demon Swords dangling on my sides.

「This is where the fake notes came from huh」

「It is, according to Delfina」

「However, that woman has only found out that it is coming from Paktos, but how will we search for it?」

「I have something in mind」

「Really?」

Iris took attention.

I have a favorite pattern in these kinds of situations.

Money laundering of the fake notes, or a place where people who do not have money suddenly comes out with tons of money.

That isーー.

☆

I shook the hand of the lookout with a few coins as bribe and entered the building.

We entered underground once, passed through a winding underpass, and went up.

And then, we arrived at a different room.

It is fairly wide, but there were so many people making the room’s atmosphere worse instead.

It had smoke several times of that of a mahjong parlor and several times darker. It was that kind of room.

「This is the gambling den huh」

Iris asked while covering her nose and mouth.

As a princess, she probably had never experienced such a bad environment.

「Looks like it」

There were several crowds inside the room and each of them are doing their own gambling.

They were doing the same thing in all groups, they are dice-gambling.

「This kinds of things surpasses worlds and are common huh」

「Did you say something?」

「No, it’s nothing」

I just feel a little impressed.

「Rather than that, is there a clue here?」

「Yeah. Gambles are the best way to circulate money without going through the form of goods. In this kind of place, tons of money moves and even so, it would be difficult to track. Gambling itself is being regulated by Mercouri right?」

「Yeah, we have issued twelve bans in the past three years」

「And the result?」

「……there was nothing much」

Iris said frustratingly.

Well, of course. A situation where they need to release bans so frequently, it just shows that there was no effect.

It is probably frustrating as the Princess Iris of the Twin Flowers who is engaged domestic affairs.

「Don’t be discouraged. I’ll also take care of this sometime in the future. Let’s focus in our current case first. A place where the Kingdom’s influence is hard to reach. Isn’t it a place that is the best for moving money from unknown sources?」

「I see, that’s true」

Iris nodded in understanding.

「Well then, let’s wait for the clue to come while gambling」

「Is it not faster to just ask them?」

「They’ll get cautious if we do that」

I said that and joined one of the groups.

I forced my way into the front line.

There is the dicer man in the middle and have two bodyguard-seeming guys on his sides.

The dicer took a glance towards me.

「Are you doing?」

「Yeah, what’s the rule?」

「You can tell just by looking」

After the dicer said that, he skillfully scooped up the two dices with a pot woven with wood bark, and shook it in the air.

And “Don!”, he slams it overturned onto the ground, and the dices sounded “GaraGara” again and finally stopped.

After that, the gamblers started to bet odd and even one next to the other.

What they’re using are the newly issued Mercouri notes.

The pot was opened.