DOOMED TO BE A VILLAIN

What?"

Davies couldn\'t believe his ears at the words had just heard from the old man\'s mouth.

\'Is he high on something?\'

\'... or has he been fingered in the brain?\' he wanted to ask somebody, but felt like no one would be able to give him an answer that would calm his rising annoyance.

Davies could only think that someone had severely finger-fucked the old man in the brain, otherwise he wouldn\'t be saying something so stupid and expecting that Davies wouldn\'t take offense. The fact that he had a content smile on his face as if the words he had just spoken were the wisest words to ever grace the human ear, infuriated Davies even more.

Originally, this was supposed to be something extremely easy, he would have gotten the power stone and humiliated Lee Jung, killing two birds with one stone, but due to the old man\'s absolutely stupid idea, he would have to go for a round of stone gambling against a luck-empowered protagonist, thus making his job extremely annoying and nigh-impossible.

He already knew that winning in a game of luck against a protagonist was an impossible task, and it would become even harder as protagonist\'s usually had cheating tools in addition to an extremely high amount of luck. 

The fact that Lee Jung was at this place and that he had somehow been involved into stone gambling made Davies realize that Lee Jung probably had some sort of cheat that could help him recognize stones that would have power stones in it.

Unfortunately, Davies had no such skill, so it was impossible for him to win against Lee Jung fairly, and it was even more difficult to find a way to cheat on such a short notice.

He also wouldn\'t protest and begin to shout out his grievances as doing such a thing was below his pride… 

Fate had really kicked him into a corner, but like a wounded beast he was going to revolt, he was no longer to going to play her game, there was no need for him to show any modicum of respect to people who didn\'t deserve it.

He was going to crush Lee Jung\'s hopes of ever getting the rare-grade power stone, he would show them a whole different game from what they had in mind.

Upon deciding this, the annoyed expression on his face faded away and was replaced with an impassive look and an occasional wicked glint in his eyes. Daniella looked at him with a questioning expression in her eyes that said,

\'Just give me the word, and I\'ll smash some senses into their heads,\' but Davies was not looking to smash anybody\'s head… for now.

Daniella saw that Davies didn\'t intend to say or do anything at the moment, so she kept quiet and waited beside him.

As for Fiona, her brain was still catching up to everything that had just happened, so she had no words to say to Davies.

The old man and the attendants looked at Davies, but were met with his cold and impassive face as he stared at them with dead-looking eyes.

Somehow, their befuddled minds decided to take his silence for acceptance as he was not exactly voicing his objection, but… if only they knew how wrong they were.

Since they seemed to have come to an agreement, they all began to move to the floor where stone gambling took place as they obviously can\'t begin stone gambling here.

The old man led the way with Lee Jung walking alongside him and he was followed closely by the attendants, Davies\'s group walked behind them, the onlookers who had been watching the situation between Davies and Lee Jung earlier followed after them as well.

Looking at the difference in treatment between him and the protagonist, even though he was without a doubt, the one with a higher social status and was supposed to be treated better, made him begin to smile. 

Before long, his trademark wicked smirk appeared on his face, \'Seems I\'ll have to burn down another building in the city.\'

If anyone could hear his thoughts, they would wonder what he had smoked to be thinking that he wanted to burn down a building in Yorkshire city, and what was funny was that he had said "another building," which indicated that it wasn\'t the first time he would be doing such a thing and would laugh even louder, thinking he was a braggart… until they heard his name, only then would it dawn on them that he meant every word he had said, and had the capability to follow through with his words.

Unfortunately, since no one could hear his thoughts, so no one would be able to witness such an interesting scene.

After a while, they got to a wide area that was filled with all sorts of people in luxurious clothing and quite a few stalls that had stones piled up in front of them or inside of them. 

The air was filled with raucous laughter, yet some slow background music and the merriment and good mood of the crowd could be felt, just through vision.

The arrival of their large group as well as the old man in the lead of the crowd that everyone in this place recognized to be the president of this establishment, attracted quite a great deal of attention, and the interests of the crowd to the just arriving group increased even further when some of the original onlookers of the conflict that was going on between Davies and Lee Jung, stepped into the crowd and began to spread the news of what had happened on the top floor.

The old man stepped forward to explain the rules for the stone gambling competition to both Lee Jung and Davies,

"Each of you will buy stones from any of the stalls around and then bring them to be opened up, after which whatever comes out will be evaluated by the appraisers present,"

"Whoever has the highest total value after evaluation of any power stones that come out... If they come out, wins the game and thus, the chance to buy the moon stone(the rare-grade power stone being fought over)," the president explained.

"Any questions? No, if so, you can beg-" the man tried to hurry up and start the competition, but was immediately interrupted by Davies.

"I have a question," Davies quickly interjected,

"...Actually, I have a couple of questions, of which the first is,"

"You never mentioned how many stones we are supposed to buy for the competition, isn\'t there a limit to the number of stones each of us can buy?" Davies asked, an interesting scenario already appearing in his head should the answer of the old man be what he wanted to hear.

"You can buy as many stones as you wish, the end goal is for the results from the stones to be higher than the other person, nothing else matters," the old man used the same rules that were usually used in any stone gambling game as there was no need to change it.

\'If a person\'s luck was bad, then there was no amount of stones that could be bought that could save him\', this was the thought of the old man as he spoke, he had seen it happen countless times, people buying more stones in a bid to try and get more power stones, but it usually ended up in a waste of money.

"Hmmm, ok," Davies nodded and looked to be in thought, but after a few seconds, he asked his next question,

"My second question, let\'s say one of the competitors has no way to purchase a stone, then what happens to the competition?" Davies asked, everything already aligning with his thoughts, but he wanted to hear the answer to this question as it was potentially the nail in the coffin for Lee Jung.

"Of course, it\'s an immediate forfeit for such a person," 

"If one doesn\'t even have the money to buy a stone required for the stone gambling competition, then he has no business competing," the old man scoffed, wondering why Davies was even bothering to ask such a question, but then it didn\'t really matter much anyway.

"Hmmmmm, good," Davies said and his wicked smile became more pronounced as he took a side glance at Lee Jung who was standing a mere few feet away.

Lee Jung suddenly felt an intensely bad premonition, but he did his best to shake it off as the situation looked to be in the bag for him, and it didn\'t even require the slightest effort.

His instincts told him that he could pick up more valuable stones than Davies could, even with his eyes closed.

"Before we start, how much is one of those stones anyway?" He asked his last question even though it wasn\'t a question he really needed the answer to, he wanted someone to say it out loud, so that when he began to take action, it would have the shocking effect on Lee Jung that he wanted it to have.

"The stones are a million powerstone dollars per piece," the old man answered again.

This time Davies simply nodded his head and didn\'t say a word.

"If all the questions have been answered, then you can begin picking stones," the old man spoke with a louder voice than normal, indicating that the competition had begun.