Ultimate Gacha System: Reborn As A Mob in My Favorite Game

Chapter 137: Losing To Anya...

Klaus let out a low confident chuckle, cracking his knuckles.

Back on Earth, he had spent more than his fair share of late nights sitting around rickety tables playing high-stakes card games with coworkers at his part time job...

He knew how to read faces, he knew how to manage a betting pool, and he knew how to hold a flat deadpan expression when he was sitting on garbage.

"Alright," Klaus said, pulling a pile of small unrefined mana crystals from his supply bag and piling them between his boots. "Deal me in. Let’s see how good the local game really is."

Anya smoothly retrieved the deck from Mirela, her tiny hands shuffling the bone tiles with precision before dealing three five-card hands face-down onto the stone.

Sparky immediately fluttered off Klaus’s shoulder, dropping down to hover an inch above his cards so she could inspect his opening draw.

She took one look at his hand, buzzed her wings in intense disapproval, and pointed a tiny finger at a rank-two Iron tile.

"Play that one," she whispered loudly into his ear. "It looks spiky."

"Shut up, Sparky, you don’t know the rules..." Klaus muttered, fanning his cards out keeping them hidden from Mirela and Anya.

The first round started off with all of them looking at each other.

Mirela played aggressively right out of the gate.

She slapped a rank-eight Blood card down into her line with a triumphant grin, pushing three glowing mana crystals into the central pot.

Her leg moved back and forth across the stone, radiating confidence.

Klaus played defensively, matching her bets while building a quiet run of Frost cards, intentionally hesitating on his turns to make it look like he was struggling with his hand.

He wanted to draw Mirela out, let her build a massive pot, and then sweep the rug out from under her on the final turn.

’Games like these aren’t complicated...’

Anya sat quietly between them.

Her expression was flat and her purple eyes were scanning the cards on the table without showing a single flicker of emotion.

She barely looked at her own hand.

Every time her turn came around, she smoothly discarded a face-down tile into the trench, quietly matching the bets without expanding her visible line.

"You’re falling behind, Anya..." Mirela teased playfully, dropping a rank-nine Blood tile onto her table. "I’ve almost got a full royal run!"

"Showing your cards too early just tells everyone what you’re holding," Anya remarked calmly.

On the final turn, Klaus pushed the remainder of his betting chips into the center, dropping a rank-nine Frost tile to complete a high-scoring run.

He looked over at Mirela with a smug smirk. "Read ’em and weep, Mirela... Thirty-four points on the table."

Mirela groaned, tossing her cards face-down onto the stone. "Ah! I was one card short! You baited me!"

"That’s poker, baby," Klaus grinned, reaching his hand out to scoop up the pile of glowing mana crystals.

Before his fingers touched the pot, Anya calmly laid her remaining three cards face-up onto the obsidian floor.

She hadn’t built a standard line.

Instead, she flipped over the rank-ten Crown card, backed by two identical Iron nine-tiles that she had somehow pulled directly out of the discard pile through a trench loop.

"Crown rule," Anya announced in her steady voice. "The rank-ten card overrides regular runs when paired with matching cards so my total line value is forty-eight points."

Klaus’s hand froze halfway to the chips.

His smug smirk evaporated.

’H-huh...?’

Sparky let out a high-pitched mocking cackle from his shoulder, pointing her tiny finger at his face.

"Ha! You got completely cleaned out by a kid! Look at his face!"

"Beginner’s luck," Klaus grumbled, pulling his hand back as Anya neatly swept the entire mound of glowing crystals over to her side of the mattress with her tiny hand. "Deal again."

The second round went even faster.

This time, Klaus tried to bluff early.

He held trash... a mismatched pile of low-rank Frost and Iron tiled but he pushed half his chips into the center with a cold unbothered stare, trying to bully the table into folding.

Mirela stared at him, biting her lip.

She hesitated, looking at her own cards, before her left ear twitched slightly and she pushed her cards away.

"Fine! I fold! You always get the good draws, Master!"

Klaus internally celebrated, reaching for the pot.

"I call," Anya stated quietly.

She didn’t fold.

She pushed her stack of chips forward, matching Klaus’s bluff, and flipped over a single face-down trench card she had set up on turn one.

It was the Blood Mirror... a rare card that forced both players to swap their current visible scores.

Since Klaus had built a line worth four points to sell his bluff, and Anya had built a line worth twenty-two, the swap instantly handed her the commanding lead right as the deck ran out of cards.

"That’s game," Anya observed calmly, scooping the second pile of crystals into her growing pyramid.

"Are you kidding me?!" Klaus blurted out, staring at the cards. "You set that trench trap up on the very first turn! You didn’t even know I was going to bluff!"

"You always overcompensate when you lose, Father," Anya explained smoothly, shuffling the bone tiles with unnatural speed. "Your breathing got slightly faster when you looked at your opening draw, which meant you didn’t like your numbers."

By the fourth round, Mirela was lying completely flat on her back on the obsidian floor, groaning toward the ceiling as her last remaining mana crystal was harvested by the six-year-old scholar.

"This game is rigged!" Mirela complained loudly, kicking her heels against the stone floor. "You’re reading our minds, Anya! There’s no way you can just naturally draw the exact counter-card every single hand!"

"I’m just counting the remaining deck and watching your faces," Anya replied, stacking her winnings neatly.

She looked down at Mirela.

"Whenever you hold a card above rank seven, Mirela, your left ear perks up, and the tip of your ear twitches against the floorboards twice. You broadcast your hand to the entire room before you even touch your betting chips."

Mirela gasped, clapping both hands over her goat ears and pulling her ears tightly to the side of her head, blushing furiously. "I do not!"

"You absolutely do," Klaus laughed, though he looked down at his own dwindling pile of crystals with a grimace. "What about me? I don’t have ears or a tail."

Anya turned her purple eyes toward him.

"Your face is fine, Father but whenever you need a specific suit to complete a run, your right index finger taps the hilt of your sword next to your knee and your eyes narrow slightly whenever you try to push a high-value bluff."

"She’s hustling us," Klaus told Mirela, tossing his remaining cards face-down onto the floor in defeat. "We’re getting completely cleaned out by a card-counting shark..."

"I’m just playing the odds," Anya murmured, though the satisfied curve of her lips showed she was quietly enjoying the dominance she had established over the table.

Even Sparky got involved in the complaints, hovering directly in front of Anya’s face and buzzing her plasma wings angrily.

"You cheated!" the tiny fairy shrieked, pointing her little fist at the girl. "Nobody draws three nine-tiles in a row without hiding one up their sleeve! Check her sleeves, meatbag!"

"Right, what she said!"

Anya simply held her bare arms out, displaying the loose empty cuffs of her blue dress with a deadpan blink that made the tiny elemental scream in frustration and fly back to hide in Klaus’s silver hair.

They played for another forty-five minutes.

It was a complete rout.

Anya won every single round without exception, draining Klaus and Mirela of every single mana crystal they had brought to the table.

Every time Klaus thought he had engineered a clever play, Anya dropped a trench card that completely flipped the board upside down.

Every time Mirela tried to play aggressively, Anya blocked her with a high-tier defense line that left the maid groaning into her hands.

Despite the constant losing and the dramatic groans echoing off the obsidian pillars, Klaus found himself genuinely enjoying it.

The dark legacy of the Endless Tower, the memory of Ilyana chained to the altar, the centuries of blood soaked into the stones and the psychological torture of his own regrets felt miles away.

Sitting on the cold floor with Mirela pouting about her ears and Anya quietly stacking bone cards felt grounded. It felt real.

Eventually, the artificial light emanating from the white runes on the surrounding pillars began to visibly soften, dropping from a bright glow down to a dim twilight that cast long shadows across the room.

It was getting late into the night.

"Alright," Klaus declared, clapping his hands together and pushing himself up off the floor. "The casino is officially bankrupt, and the house took everything we own. Pack up the cards, Anya... If we’re getting this carriage rebuilt and hitching up a monster bear at first light, we need to actually get some sleep."

"Got it," Anya said. She waved her small hand over her pyramid of won mana crystals and the scattered deck of bone cards.

With a faint hiss of air, the cards and crystals dissolved back into glowing violet mist, flowing seamlessly back into her palm.

Mirela stood up from the floor, stretching her back until her spine gave a series of small pops.

She walked over to the supply crates, securing the leather straps on the saddlebags and moving their canteens away from the edge of the fire so they wouldn’t tip over during the night.

The layout of their sleeping area was straightforward.

They had dragged the large fur mattress from Lord Varhem’s ruined personal wagon inside earlier that evening, positioning it directly next to the campfire alcove where the heat reflected nicely off the stone wall, keeping the cold drafts blowing in from the open entrance at bay.

Klaus walked over to the mattress, unstrapping his heavy weapon belt and resting his broadsword against the wall within easy reach of his right hand.

For some reason, it refused to fade away as the Soul Broadsword was now a soul weapon.

He sat down on the edge of the furs, unlacing his heavy combat boots and kicking them off onto the stone.

Klaus glanced over his shoulder toward the right side of the bedding.

"There’s plenty of room on these furs for three people if we stack the blankets. Mirela, take the middle so you don’t get the draft from the doorway. Anya, grab that extra wool pack and bunk down on the inside against the pillar."

Mirela walked over, taking the extra fur blankets from the crate and laying them out neatly across the center of the mattress.

Anya, however, didn’t walk toward the bedding.

The six-year-old stepped toward the far side of the supply crates.

She picked up a single, thick folded woolen blanket and a small canvas pillow, tucking them under her arm.

Instead of turning toward the warm alcove where Klaus and Mirela were preparing to sleep, she turned her back to the fire and began walking straight across the shadow-filled hall, heading directly toward the dark archway at the base of the colossal spiral staircase.

Klaus paused with one hand on his boot, frowning across the room.

"Hey," Klaus called out, his voice carrying through the quiet tower. "Where are you going, kid?.. The heat from the embers doesn’t reach over there by the stairs. You’re going to freeze on bare stone. Bring that blanket over here and get on the mattress."

Anya stopped walking.

She stood roughly fifteen yards away, near the base of the dark staircase well outside the circle of campfire light.

She slowly turned around to face them, holding the folded blanket against her chest. Her pale face held an expression of deadpan seriousness.

"I’ll sleep over here by the stairwell," Anya informed them politely, her tone completely stable. "The stone wall blocks the draft from the doorway well enough."

"Why over there?" Klaus asked, standing up from the edge of the mattress. "There aren’t any monsters down here. Stop being weird and get over here by the fire."

Anya didn’t move toward the fire.

Instead, her purple eyes shifted from Klaus’s face over to Mirela, who was standing beside the mattress arranging the sleeping furs then, her gaze shifted back to Klaus.

She took three small steps back toward the edge of the firelight.

She didn’t raise her voice. Instead, she leaned forward slightly on her tiptoes, cupping her small pale hand around her mouth in an exaggerated gesture, leaning toward Klaus as if sharing critical intel.

Despite the cupped hand, her voice remained entirely audible, clearly across the quiet hall.

"Please try to keep the noise down while you’re creating a new sibling with Mirela tonight, Father..." Anya whispered.