What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Yandere Mercenary Company?

We headed towards the gambling den that Tyle had told us about which was located just a few blocks down the road.

The place itself looked normal from the outside at least and by that I meant it looked like a typical entrance to a nightclub.

There was a guard standing outside the entrance and he was screening everyone that was entering the establishment.

”Don’t tell me it’s a place that you can enter only by invitation?” I asked aloud.

Mara shook her head, ”It’s not.”

I guess she read his mind to know that.

Alright then, guess we should just go in.

I led the way towards the entrance and the guard raised up his arm to stop us.

”Hold on, where are you going?”

I gestured at the entrance, ”Isn’t this a gambling den? We’re going in?”

”Did someone else tell you about this place?”

”Yes?”

He snorted before lowering his arm and nodded at the door to let us in.

I guess while it wasn’t an exclusive place, they didn’t want random people to just walk inside this place either.

If someone else introduced you here, they would just let you in I suppose. Continue your journey on freewebnovel

I stepped up to the door and it slid open, revealing an empty hallway with a counter at one side.

At this point, I knew the process already so I went up to the counter where a rather attractive female attendant wearing a rather skimpy outfit was standing to disarm myself.

”Hello there! Welcome to The Crunch! I will have to ask dear guests to leave any weapons behind as our establishment operates on a no weapon policy!” She informed us a little too chirpily to be natural.

I ignored that and simply handed over my weapons while the rest did the same.

We were allowed to keep our personal shields though, which reminded me that Ries was still using a looted personal shield and I should probably take her to go equipment shopping one of these days.

Once we deposited our things, we went towards the other door and it slid open after we had gathered in front of it.

The inside of the place was definitely a gambling den alright… The place was filled with the acrid smell of cigarettes and alcohol and there were various games spread out around the room ranging from slots to cards and what even appeared to be a boxing ring.

I thought it was another Battlebot arena but I saw two actual humans currently beating the crap out of each other so I guess this one was using live people for the fights.

”Alright~ So what are we betting on?” Amber asked, her eyes shining.

”We’re not here to gamble, remember?” I chided her.

”Oh come on. We’re here to gather information right? What better way to do it than to mingle around as one of them?”

Mara turned to her, ”You just want to bring Tera around and make bets at those games to spend time with her, don’t you?”

”Don’t expose me!” Amber grumbled.

She wasn’t even denying it, huh?

Lea looked around the place, ”It would be inefficient for us to stick together and draw attention anyway… Perhaps we should split up?”

Well… The place wasn’t really that big but it was still quite sizable for a gambling den so that sounds like a good idea.

The only problem was…

”I will go with Captain. Amber, take care of Lea and Ries since they aren’t humans and it would be less troublesome if they are accompanied by you.”

”Hey! Why can’t I be the one to follow Tera instead?!”

”Because you can’t read minds.”

”Yes I can!”

Mara narrowed her eyes at her, ”No you can’t.”

”I can read their faces! That’s good enough!”

Mara crossed her arms and Amber grumbled for a moment before finally turning to Lea and Ries, ”Fine, fine. Let’s go search for clues somewhere over there.”

Huh, I’m surprised Amber actually agreed to her suggestion without much of a fight.

Mara tugged on my arm, ”Shall we, Captain?”

Well alright I guess?

I followed her towards the back of the gambling den, weaving in between the card tables to move deeper inside the hall.

”Do you have a plan?” I asked.

”I’m gathering information at the moment, give me a while, Captain.”

Oh, she’s reading the thoughts of the people around her. I guess that’s one of the good things about being a Psionic, although I wonder if she doesn’t feel overwhelmed with so many thoughts being thrown around her?

Perhaps she’s already used to it or it’s part of her being a strong telepath that it doesn’t phase her?

She guided me as we walked past several more tables until she stopped at one of the poker ones.

She stared at the table for a moment and I followed her gaze.

It looks like a normal poker table where a dealer was dealing to four players currently sitting around the table except those four people looked to be quite well dressed as compared to the others around them.

”What is it?” I asked.

She leaned over to me and whispered, ”From what I can hear from them… Remember they said that they serve organic food around here?”

I nodded, ”That’s what Tyle said right? This place got more popular because of that.”

”It seems like there’s conditions to get the organic food. It’s a prize, not something that you can simply buy it off of them. No wait… Ah, I see now… They’re using a prize system to get people to ’work’ for it.”

”Err… Ok? What does that mean?”

She then gestured to the chips they had on the table, ”See those chips? That’s what they’re using.”

I was wondering what’s so weird about casino chips when I remembered that they normally don’t use chips anymore since you can just plug your personal terminal or your Credit Chips into the slots to make bets instead.

So seeing physical chips was definitely weird here.

”So they use physical chips to keep track of their winnings or something?”

She nodded, ”That’s right. Interestingly, you can buy a set amount of chips everyday and to get the organic food prize, you need to win chips from others and gather enough to claim it. Or you could just exchange it for Credits of course.”

”Wait… They placed a limit on how many chips you can get a day? Isn’t that… Like… A little weird for a gambling den like this to limit our spending?”

She shook her head, ”You can still bet with actual Credits, but you can only claim the organic food with the chips. So even if you lose all your chips, you can get them back by betting your Credits. What you can’t do is to buy more of those chips.”

Right… I can tell that this was to incentivise people coming back here again just to get the chips for the organic food…

I scratched my cheek, ”So you’re using chips to ’buy’ the organic food?”

”Hmm… It seems like it’s a prize where you get it after reaching a set number of chips… So you don’t really ’buy’ it.”

”Ok… So I guess our plan is to get the organic food they have as the prize to check if it is laced with White Powder? If it is, we would know it originated from here?”

”That’s right. I hate to admit it, but it seems like Amber would get her wish of gambling here in the end. Anyway, shall we go and get ourselves some chips?”

I agreed and she led me over to another counter without asking for directions where another scantily clad girl was standing behind the counter.

”Good day dear guests! Are you looking to buy chips for our establishment?” She asked with a clearly fake smile on her face.

”Yes. What’s the price for one?” I asked.

”One chip will be ten Credits and you can buy a maximum of a thousand chips a day! You can exchange the chips back into Credits at the counter near the door and if you save up to a hundred thousand chips, you get to enjoy our special prize of a full course meal using the finest organic ingredients made by our in-house chef!”

Hmm… That means we’ll need to win a million Credits worth of chips then… Otherwise you will need to come back for a hundred days before you can just buy enough chips for it to exchange for that organic food.

I raised a hand, ”Could we combine chips?”

Her eyes darted to Mara for a moment, ”Certainly. As long as you obtain a hundred thousand chips, you will be able to exchange it! Although do note that the organic meal is only for one person so you won’t be able to share!”

Ok, I guess we’ll really need to make some bets because I wasn’t going to stay here longer than I need to.

I brought out my Codex and paid for two thousand chips which the girl then brought out two cases that contained said chips.

”Please enjoy yourself, dear guests!”

Alright… Where shall we start first then?