Lisa and Reever walked into a fully white building with a look of awe on their faces. Elina hadn't been lying when she said this place was amazing.
There was a distant sound of a crowd coming from inside the place. Lisa was truly surprised by how many people were there.
"And you said only Nobles are allowed here?" Lisa asked.
"Nobles and their friends," Elina said. "This place has a minimum stake of 500 Gols, so not anyone can come here. If anyone doesn't seem to belong in this place, the guards won't even let them enter"
"Stake? What do you mean?" Reever asked.
"Let's go to that counter first. I will explain later," Elina said. They walked over to the counter with a woman on the opposite side of it.
Elina brought out a stack of paper money and put it up on the counter. "1000 gols worth of tokens. Give me mostly 20s and 50s," she said.
The woman on the other side of the counter nodded and took the money. A moment later, she brought out a plate with about 30 yellow-colored glass coins, and 8 blue-colored glass coins.
Elina took them and stored it in her storage bag. "You cannot use the money to gamble and instead have to use their glass coins. Also, you can only buy a minimum of 500 Gols worth of these coins, so poor folks usually can't come here," she said.
Lisa thought she understood it a bit, and so did Reever. Ning felt like he knew about this before, but the memory was way too vague to trust it.
"How much do you want to buy for, sister?" she asked.
"Hmm… let's start with 500. I don't really want to spend too much money since it's not really mine," she said.
"What about you, brother-in-law?" Elina asked expectedly.
Reever didn't know what to do. To him, 500 Gols was still a lot of money to just throw away in a gambling house. Also, he didn't have 500 Gols on him at the moment since he didn't need much money in the palace at all.
"It's fine, I will buy it for you," Lisa said and took out 1000 Gols to get herself the coins as well.
"Give her mostly 10s and 20s," Elina told the girl behind the counter. The girl nodded and a moment later brought out the coins.
Lisa took half and Reever took half.
"Alright, let's go," Elina said, but Lisa didn't move. Instead, she turned around to Ning and asked, "Hey Ning, you want to join us too?"
Ning thought for a while, but he didn't see the purpose behind gambling since he could easily create money out of thin air, especially since the paper money seemed to have no sort of uniqueness to them, so he could create as many as he wanted without having to worry about authority.
'But it might be fun,' he thought. He was still deciding when Elina spoke. "Sister, why are you asking the guard to play? I doubt he even has money for it. If he could bring out 500 Gols like nothing, he wouldn't be working as a guard, would he?"
"Elina, you shouldn't speak like that. Ning is my and my husband's—"
Before Lisa could finish speaking, she heard a slam from behind her. When she turned to see where the sound had come from, she saw a high stack of money on the counter.
"For 10,000 Gols please," Ning said, passing the money to the dumbfounded lady behind the counter. He turned around to see the shocked faces of Elina, Lisa, and Reever.
He looked directly at Elina and asked, "Were you saying something?"
"Y-Y-You! Where did that money come from? Did you steal it from the pa—" before Elina could finish her sentence, Lisa glared at her not to speak where they were from.
"You don't need to worry about that. This is my own money," Ning said as he took the coins the lady passed him. Amongst them were many red ones that represented 100 Gols.
"You are lying! I will talk to uncle Tim about this. I will get you fired," she said.
"You'll get me fired?" Ning asked with a chuckle. "How about I leave right now, and you will have to find yourself a carriage and return back on your own without a guard?"
"You!" Elina got angry. Ning on the other hand was finally feeling some sort of relief putting the little girl in her place. However, he couldn't help but call himself stupid when he realized their age gap.
He was fighting with a little girl that was born while he was asleep for eternity in the forest.
'What the hell? Why am I so childish despite being so old?' he thought.
"Elina, stop talking. Let's go," Lisa said, shutting up Elina from speaking any further. Elina gritted her teeth but spoke no further. She took her past the corner and into a massive hall with many people.
The entire hall was probably around 50 meters wide in all directions as well as nearly 20 meters high, with a wide staircase leading to the 2nd floor.
They could see many tables spread all around the room, lit up by light hanging on them from up above.
There was a massive chandelier in the middle of the room, hanging from high in the ceiling. The cool air in the place helped make it feel not as crowded as it was.
Ning could see hundreds of people playing in the casino at different tables. There were also quite a few on the 2nd floor, but not as many.
What surprised him the most was that nearly a third of the people in the room were actually employed by the casino.
"What do we do now?" Lisa asked.
"Now we go and sit at any place and play their game," Elina said and she looked around for an open spot.. She found one immediately and said, "For now, let's go there."
