Igola and Amy

Cramped, dark, and cluttered. To Igola's right was a large cardboard box containing over twenty boxes of facial tissues, probably bought during a major sale. Piled on top of the box was a box heater and all sorts of household goods that were temporarily of no use. To his left was a tightly shut door. This was a utility room, and the place where he had stayed for the past five days. The distinct pang of hunger in his belly indicated it was already 6:00 p.m. Amy should be back soon to feed him. Recalling his life over the past few days, Igola couldn't help but sigh. Although he had achieved his goal and remained safe and sound despite the Sin Hunting Hall's dragnet search that combed mountains and dredged seas, the way he achieved it was rather peculiar—over the past few days, Amy had been keeping him like a dog. A literal dog. Igola tugged at the collar around his neck, feeling a bizarre sense of irony. For the sake of freedom, he had gone through immense trouble to remove the chip collar from the nape of his neck, yet now, for the sake of freedom, he had voluntarily put on a real collar. As for why Amy Lexus, a hunter of the Sin Hunting Hall, was willing to shelter him, that dated back three years to the tale of Igola working part-time at a mud cafe. Although males with Veela blood often took part-time jobs at mud cafes—just as an ogre with a formal job might paint oil paintings after work—Igola rarely did so. Mainly, earning money as a mud worker was too slow, nowhere near as thrilling as swindling it. When Igola was willing to work part-time at a mud cafe, it could mean only one thing: the venue offered convenience to his swindling enterprise. "Apocalypse of Gambling and Lust" was precisely such an establishment. It operated simultaneously as a mud cafe and a tea cafe. Looking at the name alone, one might assume it was a casino, and in fact it was indeed a casino; upon entering, customers had to spend money to purchase initial chips to take part in various gambling games. However, where it differed from other casinos was that what they gambled for was dominance time. Customers could freely choose a dealer they liked to gamble against, and the chips available to each side were sixty minutes. If a customer won all sixty minutes from the dealer, it meant they could dominate the dealer for sixty minutes, with the dealer obliging the customer's various requests. Conversely, if the dealer won the customer's sixty minutes, the dealer could dominate the customer for sixty minutes, and the customer had to cater to the dealer's demands instead. Indeed, whether winning or losing, the dealer would mess around with the customer. After all, the customer's chips were bought with cold, hard cash; they couldn't just send the customer home baffled. Any shop that disrespected customer demand would surely go out of business. Simply put, it was a mud cafe/tea cafe whose selling point was gambling against the house, yet its business performance was far superior to other themed shops in the same industry. Facts proved that gambling was always the mechanism best suited to stoking human impulse. Customers who won were physically and mentally delighted, while customers who lost, after being toyed with by the dealer (and the dealers showed no mercy), would also have their competitive drive stoked, redoubling their efforts to keep challenging. Returning customers were exceptionally numerous. The reason Igola worked part-time at this establishment was naturally for this "dominance time." He specifically targeted wealthy women, taking the initiative to sidle up and entice them into challenging him, then smoothly winning their sixty minutes. Once inside the back room, Igola would use "dominance time" as a pretext to have the wealthy women swear oaths to him, such as "treat me well for all your life" or "give me your most precious possession," and the like. Assuming it was just the dealer's unique roleplay kink, the wealthy women would agree readily, only to have their oaths anchored by Igola's Contract sorcery spirit. Even an offhand vow had to be upheld, and they couldn't even report it to the authorities, because doing so would not be "treating Igola well for all their lives." Not only were these customers swindled out of their fortunes, but Igola would also refuse to mate with them. One could say he lacked professional ethics entirely. Besides wealthy women, wealthy men would occasionally approach him of their own accord. Igola naturally accepted them all with a smile, even making them swear oaths like "never feel desire for anyone other than me in the future," thoroughly curing them of the human weakness of being swindled by beauty. Swindling money without trading his body in return, Igola greatly advanced the redistribution of social wealth through this part-time job, his efficiency even surpassing his primary profession for a time. But the words "smooth sailing" had never appeared in a swindler's life. One night, Igola met Amy. In order to secure dominance, Igola, with his shockingly high win rate, soon earned the title of "Gambling Champion" in that shop. Consequently, there were also gamblers who did not lust after Igola's body and purely wanted to test their gambling skills against him. Amy was one of them. When Amy entered the shop, she made no effort to conceal the traits of her Moon Shadow clan. Igola originally had no desire to provoke members of this privileged class, but Amy explicitly requested him by name, and no one else was willing to compete against a Moon Shadow, so Igola was forced to yield to coercive authority and serve the customer. Amy's gambling skills were quite decent, but besides gambling skills, Igola, as a swindler, also had keen insight into human nature—which was his true secret to never losing. When Igola defeated Amy without any suspense, he had already resolved not to pull any tricks on her, intending to simply fulfill his part-time duties at the mud cafe normally and treat the experience like getting bitten by a dog. Yet Amy refused to accept defeat and insisted on gambling further, even buying more chips. Purchasing chips multiple times was permitted; to encourage customer spending, if a customer bought n times the chips, the dealer had to provide n times the service duration regardless of whether they won or lost. Before starting the second round, possessed by some inexplicable impulse, Igola asked Amy, "If I win, I can make a request of you that lasts for a hundred and twenty minutes, you know." "No problem." The Contract was established. Unlike an ordinary contract, Igola had added a limit on occurrences (one) and a time limit (120 minutes). The more restrictions explicitly stated in a contract, the stronger its binding effect would be. After all, the other party was of the Moon Shadow clan; Igola's predatory contracts designed purely to fleece marks were capable of failing against them. However, after Amy had lost three hundred minutes, matters began to turn delicate. At that moment, she seemed to have received an urgent message and left the Apocalypse of Gambling and Lust straight away. Shortly afterward, Igola quickly discovered that Amy was a Bloodmad Hunter. He immediately realized that he was holding a wish of immense, exploitable value. After that, Amy frequently visited the shop to gamble with Igola, switching through various gambling gear and formats. Occasionally, there were rounds where Amy won, but on the whole, Igola crushed her. Through multiple stackings, the time limit on this wish accumulated to 9,000 minutes. Just as Igola was pondering how to maximize the profit from this wish, the Sin Hunting Hall cornered and captured him inside the Apocalypse of Gambling and Lust. So that was it. No wonder Amy kept coming to gamble with him; no wonder Amy had never asked to enter the "gambling settlement phase." High-end Bloodmad Hunters often presented themselves before swindlers in the guise of prey. Because it was a surprise arrest, Igola had no time whatsoever to alter his memories. Once scanned by a memory master—oho, turns out you've committed so many frauds! Off to Shattered Lake to enjoy your days. Even though he had been arrested, his contract with Amy remained in force; the Void Realm was the most enduring witness. Thus, after breaking out of prison, Igola went straight to knock on Amy's door and exacted his vengeance upon her as she stood in her pajamas: "I command you to assist my escape from the Blood Moon Country." Though it was just one wish, it could be broken down into three: Provide Igola with safe shelter and food; Do not leak any news about Igola; Help Igola gather intelligence. Amy had fulfilled every one of them. So Igola remained in this cramped utility room, waiting every day for Amy to come home and feed him, and he could not even say Amy had violated the contract—at most, she was satisfying his demands in the most humiliating manner possible. Click. The sound of a key turning in the lock. Amy had returned home.