Blackjack

I shuffled the cards in my hands seven times – they say that's the perfect number to ensure absolute randomness. Then, I placed the deck face down on the stone, in between Baku and I.

Drawing four cards, I placed two before myself with one flipped up, an ace of hearts, and the other face down. The two remaining cards were placed before Baku, but his two cards were both face up – an eight of clubs and an eight of diamonds.

"So what'll it be, Baku? Feeling particularly lucky today?" I grinned.

"Odds say I stand. . ." The little black ball of fur muttered to himself, "but the Lord's ace is too unpredictable. . . he could absolutely draw twice."

"Hit me!" Baku decided.

And I placed a three of clubs before him.

"Yes!" He clenched his paws in triumph.

"Nineteen –" I commented, "that's gonna be hard to beat."

Then I flipped over my face down card.

"King of hearts!" Baku's ears immediately folded.

"How unfortunate!" I grinned wildly at Baku's defeated demeanor and began laughing in glee.

Summoning this single deck of playing cards has been the best decision I've easily made in years. At first, Baku was hesitant to play any of my games. Of course, I had already taught him how to play them all – that's what we talked about while I was exercising.

Again, another thing people say is that your best running pace is one in which you can hold a conversation – so that's what I did day in and day out while training my stamina and endurance; I talked about cards.

A deck of cards has a special place in my heart. It was my way of making money on the streets, doing whatever I could to help Ma' with the expenses. Unfortunately, shitty little magic tricks on street corners evolved into sleight of hand and then pick pocketing and then stealing from people way above my pay grade. . . I'm ranting again aren't I?

But that's all in the past! In another life, thankfully, so for now I'm hoping to keep this deck of cards as just that, a deck of playing cards. And to be honest, once I got Baku to play just one game, I got him hooked.

We've been playing blackjack for hours, at least, and he doesn't seem to notice.

[Sutton Adams Offers Sacrifice]

[Sacrifice of 1 Lost Soul]

[1 Lost Soul Transferred]

[Would You Like To Respond?]

Then, a familiar notification fired off within my mind. Immediately, I stood up off the stone ground of my Domain and began pacing back and forth in both glee and consideration.

Who is Sutton Adams?

It's a name I'm unfamiliar with, but Baku explicitly mentioned that in order to sacrifice something to me, my specific Circle is required and Olive should be the only person who knows my Circle.

Then an acquaintance of Olive? But why not just send it herself?

[Lily Atwool Offers Sacrifice]

[Sacrifice of 1 Lesser Soul]

[1 Lesser Soul Transferred]

Moments later, another notification bombarded my attention, but this one was different! Not only did the second notification give me a Lesser Soul instead of a Lost Soul, the Lesser Soul option didn't allow me to respond.

Wait. Lesser Souls?

—————————||—————————

Host: Cain

Species: Corrupted Human

Class: Lesser Evil

Rank: Fledgling

Souls Harvested: 64/100

Lost Souls Collected: 1

|Domain| |Shop| |Empower|

Strength: E

Endurance: E

Agility: E

Dexterity: F+

Intelligence: D

Spirit: D

Vigor: D

Abilities: |Spirit Sight|

Items: |Reapers Cloak|

—————————————

Lesser Souls were something I obtained through killing the Goblins, presumably my Systems version of experience points. How did Lily transfer one to me? And again, why Lily?

Don't get me wrong, I suppose I'm glad that Lily is alright – I don't know how much time has passed for them since it's possible my Domain and that jungle operates on different time scales – but I'm not contracted with any of these people!

Is that it? My eyes widened in realization.

Is Olive testing to see whether other people can offer me sacrifices? Then what's the difference between Lily and Suttons? Lily is Awakened and. . . Suttons probably isn't?

So anyone can offer me sacrifices, but I already knew that! They just need the Circle!

I returned to Suttons notification and opened up the message tab. Since I have absolutely no clue who this Sutton guy is, I have no idea what to say to him. Wanting to get it over with quickly though, I clicked on the text box and began rambling.

". . . but anyway, I don't need anyone slaving away for my sake, thanks for the souls though."

Then I sent the message. And just when the screen was about to vanish, my eyes wandered to the bottom of the hovering Status, then widened from seeing the |Reaper| voice selection still applied.

On the bright side, now I can ask two people what it sounds like? I shook my head disappointingly.

But more importantly, what should I waste this new Lost Soul on?

I grinned devilishly. Perhaps a set of chips so we can start betting for real?!

***

Olive's cohort stood around two kneeling figures surrounded by the blood and gore of hundreds of Blue Devils. Still in the ancient hall, they decided to immediately retreat back to camp after discovering the snow world.

The conditions on the other side of the doors are far too treacherous for even the most greedy of men, Admiral Adams, to even consider exploring. Although lacking a thermostat, the Admiral is sure the temperature is deep into the negatives.

As a fleet Admiral who occupied the Arctic Zone, he was incredibly familiar with frost and the cold weather beyond the doors could not be survived without the appropriate attire.

Especially in the metal age jungle bullshit they're currently going through, well heated and snug clothes are a level of technology the adventurers currently lack. And to top it all off, the jungle strangely lacks any furred beasts.

Ninety percent of the life found within the jungle thus far has solely been the Goblins – and very rarely will the groups run into giant snakes that occupy the more muddy regions of the jungle.

So, after turning back and returning to the now barely warmer ancient hall, the cohort figured now was the perfect time to enact Olive's Transfer Circle.

Olive quickly found a clearing between the Blue Devils' corpses where she could fit the Transfer Circle. She began drawing in the Blue Devils blood, a deep shade of purple, while Adams and the rest stood to the side waiting patiently but expectantly.

"So what makes a Lost Soul different from a regular soul?" The Admiral asked amidst the waiting.

"I'm not sure." Olive replied.

"Lost Souls don't appear from everything you kill?" The Admiral asked.

"No."

"Not even other humans?" He pushed.

"Hey! She's not a killer!" Church barked.

"What do you mean, Adams?" Isaac glared.

"Well, I for one find it hard to believe that Goblins and these Blue Devils carry a soul to begin with, but humans assuredly possess them. So since the beasts don't leave Lost Souls, do we?" The Admiral explained.

But Olive shook her head, "We don't leave them either. None of the girls from my group left behind a Lost Soul. . . neither did Cole or Jenny."

"Maybe it has something to do with the word 'lost'?" The Admiral brainstormed.

"What do you mean?" Church asked.

"Since demons exist I feel safe assuming angels exist as well. From there we can simply work backwards through our own religions; what would it take for a soul to be lost? Well, what is supposed to happen to a soul after death? It goes to either Heaven or Hell, right? So maybe it's lost because it can't get there." Admiral Adams conveyed his thoughts.

"A soul that's trapped here. . ." Olive muttered.

"A ghost?" Church concluded.

"And what stereotypically creates ghosts?" The Admiral continued.

"Resentment." Church finished.

"Precisely. Lost Souls are perhaps the souls that are trapped here and the reason not everyone leaves behind a Lost Soul is because their souls safely travel to either Heaven or Hell. So if we want to sacrifice a normal soul –" The Admiral paused and looked at Church.

The Admiral knew this group would be mad at him for suggesting something along these lines, but if Church said it.

"We'd have to sacrifice the living!" Church's eyes widened.

"You can't be serious, Adams!" Isaac barked.

But the Admiral only laughed in response.

"I never said it had to be another person! Absolutely not! I could never be so cruel! But one of these Blue Devils perhaps? I could be persuaded." The Admirals' gaze sharpened towards Olive.

And with that, Olive got to work on a second Transfer Circle. This Transfer Circle, however, was going to be activated by Lily and will have the squirming body of a Blue Devil placed upon it. Isaac luckily just ventured into the snow to find one.

Thirty minutes later, Isaac returned with the throat of a Blue Devil clasped between his fingers. The blue fiend aggressively tore at Isaac's forearm, but upon a closer look, Olive noticed that all of the Blue Devils' fingers had been snapped backwards and its fingertips were similarly cut off.

Isaac slammed the blue creature into the center of the Transfer Circle and held it down with his bare palm, gorging the beast's organs against the solid stone floor. Then, with both Admiral Adams and Lily back-to-back, Olive began instructing them on the ritual.

The two simultaneously leaned forward and placed their palms against the two Circles within the greater formation. Then, from the moment their two palms made contact with the Circle, they felt an energy rapidly drain from their bodies. It almost felt like their alertness was being stolen as fatigue rapidly assaulted the two of them.

With barely any energy left, the two slowly bent over and placed their foreheads between the two Circles. Their eyes naturally closed and their consciousness began to waver between present and extinguished. In that dream-like state, the two Circles began to ignite with fantastical colors – rich blue vastly overpowering the arrays, the color of Cain, while a light orange burned for Adams and a bright yellow glowed for Lily.

The lights quickly reached their peaks and stood there momentarily before instantly disappearing with the flip of a switch. The corpse of the Blue Devil remained, but its life had miraculously ended during the ritual.

On the opposing side, nothing within the Circle had changed, at least to the eyes of everyone except Olive. She could tell that the Lost Soul disappeared, but besides that, everything else appeared normal. Lily and Admiral Adams were dripping with sweat while stiff as boards – each of them still and silent since the ritual concluded.

Lily was the first to roll over. A heavy sigh expunged itself from her lungs as she hit the ground.

Behind her, the Admirals body immediately tensed. His eyes shot open and he began to dig his nails into the stone, cracking some of them and forcing blood to smear from his fingertips. He clenched his teeth and began raging his vocal chords, screaming like that of a beast caught in a trap.

In the Admirals ears, however, a voice appeared that the others could not hear.

"Slave!" The sound of a thousand voices echoed off one another all while a pervasive sense of quietness assaulted the Admirals senses.

The Admirals' eyes rolled behind his head.

And he collapsed to the floor.