Chapter 453: Tasks Of Dishonour

"But that’s not fair, Sir Luca." Sigird retorted. "Everyone here has been racing each other since childhood! We all know who’s fastest! Everyone would just bet on the fastest centaur—"

"Ah, naive Sigrid." Luca pulled her cheek affectionately. "We already thought of that. Mavis and I came up with the idea of giving hidden disadvantages to each racer. Look at Juno over there."

He pointed at one of the racers preparing for the next heat.

"She’s got hidden weights strapped under her armor. She’s slower than normal. And Palya, in the corner? Rubber band around her hind leg. They all have different disadvantages."

"So even if you know who’s normally fastest, that person might have the biggest handicap. The results are unpredictable."

Sigrid absorbed this. It was...clever. Disturbingly clever.

"But isn’t that unfair to the racers? They can’t compete at their full potential. And...couldn’t they just tell their friends about their disadvantages?"

"Two points." Luca held up two fingers. "One: the racers don’t care about winning or losing. They’re mostly in it for the participation coins. Two: as for telling their friends..." He smirked. "This is where centaur honor comes in. If they make a promise not to reveal their disadvantage, they’ll keep it. Even to their closest friends. You know that."

Damn it. He was right.

"So here’s how it works." Luca continued. "The audience goes to Mavis. They pick a racer and place their bet. The racers run. The winner gets the payout. The losers lose their money. Simple."

He shrugged. "Horse racing is very common back in my world. I just brought it here to corrupt you all a little."

Sigrid watched a group of winners celebrating—and, across from them, a centaur with her head in her hands, weeping.

"At first." Luca added. "Everyone was skeptical. They said it seemed dangerous, that people could lose their minds to it."

Sigrid nodded, feeling a flicker of pride in her comrades.

"But after Mavis convinced them to play a few rounds just for fun...well." He chuckled. "The thrill of winning is something you can’t comprehend until you feel it. And now look at them."

Sigrid looked and she saw her proud, dignified warriors who had caved so completely to this human vice. Her heart sank.

But Luca wasn’t done. "More than the thrill, though, they’re interested in what they can win."

"What do you mean?"

He guided her around the edge of the training field, toward a large stall that had been set up nearby. Claudia was manning it, and behind her, on shelves and tables, was an astonishing array of goods.

Pots and pans. Books with strange titles. Toys that whirred and clicked. Clocks with glowing faces. Bottles of colorful sauces. Paintings. Gadgets that Sigrid couldn’t even begin to identify.

A crowd of centaurs was clustered around the stall, waving their golden horseshoes.

"A hundred tokens for that painting!"

"Six hundred coins for those ingredients! Give me that one! That one!"

Claudia was handling it all with remarkable composure. "Hold on, hold on. One at a time."

Luca gestured at the display.

"I brought a bunch of knickknacks from my world. If the prizes were things from this world, no one would be tempted enough. But the moment they realized they could win objects from a different world?" He grinned. "They completely caved."

Sigrid stared at the goods. Even she, who was actively furious at this entire setup felt a twinge of longing.

That clock. Those books. That strange glowing orb. She wanted to examine them. She wanted to have them.

If even she felt that pull, then the others never stood a chance.

"This is evil." She muttered. "Who came up with this plan?"

"Your sister, actually."

Sigrid’s head whipped around. "Mavis?"

He nodded. "She’s the one who realized that the other centaurs would be as fascinated with my world’s tools as she was. She suggested using them as prizes. It worked perfectly."

Sigrid buried her face in her hands. Of course. Of course Mavis had jumped at the chance. She’d always said the centaurs needed to change.

Now her philosophy was aligning perfectly with Luca’s chaos.

She looked toward her sister, who was still cheerfully managing the betting platform.

Despite everything, Sigrid felt a reluctant flicker of pride. Mavis was in her element.

Then her eyes caught something else on the prize stall. A sign that read:

[TRAINING SESSION WITH THE HERO - 5000 Golden Horseshoes]

[COOKING SESSION WITH THE HERO - 4000 Golden Horseshoes]

[15 MINUTES TO SPEND WITH THE HERO - 5500 Golden Horseshoes]

She pointed, her voice flat. "And those?"

"The grand prizes!" Luca laughed, completely unashamed. "The ones on display are the lower-value ones. Easy to win with small bets. But those—" He pointed at his own name. "—cost five thousand, ten thousand coins! You have to gamble quite heavily to earn enough for time with me."

"Hmphn Don’t you think it’s rather egotistical, Sir Luca?" Sigrid folded her arms. "To put spending time with you as the highest prize?"

"Maybe." Luca sounded entirely unbothered. "But answer me this: how much would you pay for an afternoon with me?"

Sigrid face heated, as she realized the only answer was verything. She’d pay everything she had. Every coin. Every sword. Every scrap of armor. An afternoon with Luca was, it was the happiest she’d ever been, and she’d pay any price for more of that.

Luca’s grin told her he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"That’s what I thought."

Sigrid growled under her breath and looked away—and her eyes caught on another large board, one she hadn’t noticed before.

It was surrounded by centaurs who were studying it intently, some of them scribbling notes.

"And what is that?" She asked.

Luca guided her closer, and as the words came into focus, Sigrid felt her headache return with a vengeance.

[ LOOSENING UP TASKS—Earn Golden Horseshoes!]

[Sleep in very late—25 coins]

[Fail to maintain equipment for one day—20 coins]

[Skip exercise—15 coins]

[Waste a small portion of food—15 coins]

[Arrive late to an event—25 coins]

[Tell five different lies—30 coins]

[Go an entire day without saying "honor" or "duty"—40 coins]

[Wear something frivolous—20 coins]

[Spend an hour doing absolutely nothing productive—10 coins]

The list went on. Dozens of tasks. All of them things that no self-respecting centuar would ever do.

And yet, there was a crowd around the board taking notes and planning.

"You see?" Luca said, his voice warm with satisfaction. "Another way to earn money. Every task on the board is something a centaur would never normally do. Sleep in. Skip practice. Waste food. Tell lies. But if you do it and report back to Mavis that you’ve done it, you earn the listed reward."

Sigrid’s voice was barely a whisper. "But...how would you even verify that someone actually did these things? Anyone could just lie and claim they’d—"

Luca’s smile was the smile of a man who had thought of everything.

"That brings us back to what I said earlier. Inherently, no matter how much a centaur changes, they’re truthful and honest. None of them would claim to have done a task unless they truly did it."

"You’re using our own nature against us!"

"What can I say? It’s convenient." He shrugged, utterly unrepentant. "Blame yourselves for being so honorable."

Sigrid stared at the board, the racetrack, the cluster of weeping losers and her sister happily orchestrating the whole circus.

The plan was perfectly structured. Every element—the thrill of winning, the allure of another world’s treasures, the tasks that slowly eroded discipline—worked together to corrupt the centaurs, to make them a little less rigid, a little more flexible.

A little more...human.

And the worst part was, it was working brilliantly.

She turned to Luca, who was still stroking her back with that gentle, absent-minded rhythm. His face was the picture of innocence.

"You...are a menace."

He beamed. "Thank you."

"That wasn’t a compliment."

"It sounded like one."

Sigrid drew herself up, her jaw set with fresh determination. "Well, whatever you say, I’m going to stop this entire operation of yours right now."

"Oh?" Luca went very still on her back.

She twisted around to face him, her blue eyes sharp and serious.

"I don’t know much about gambling, I’ll admit that. If you want to find the experts, you’d have to go to the dark elves." She rolled her eyes. "Those lot are always up to mischievous deeds. Gremlin nature, the whole lot of them. Probably know more about gambling than anyone else on the continent."

’Dark elves...’

The exact opposite of the woodland elves he’d come to love and apparently exactly the type to run a casino.

"But I know this much. Gambling ruins people. There are books about men who lost everything and sold their own families to get it back, and then lost them too."

Her voice hardened. "I will not allow my clan to march down that road. I’m putting a stop to it now."

But despite such strong words, Luca didn’t seem troubled in the slightest. If anything, he looked amused.

He leaned forward, draping himself over her shoulder, his lips practically brushing her ear.

"And what exactly are you going to do about it?"

She stiffened. "I—"

"Are you going to fight me?" He nudged her playfully. "Beat me up? Teach me a lesson? Give me a harsh scolding?"

His finger found her cheek, poking it gently. "Come on, Sigrid. Go ahead. Beat me up. Tell the whole village what a scoundrel I am."

Sigrid’s face burned. She wanted to. Ancestors, she wanted to.

But she couldn’t.

Part of it was practical. He was the strongest being in the world. She could swing a sword at that face all day and accomplish exactly nothing.

But the bigger reason was that she didn’t want to.

She’d seen his face in the firelight. She’d watched him laugh. She’d woken up clean, warm, and cared for in a bed she didn’t remember falling asleep in.

The thought of drawing a blade against that face, made something in her chest twist in a way she found deeply embarrassing.

So she took the other road.

"Fine!" She said, with all the haughtiness she could manage. "I don’t need to fight you. I’m the Commander. Second only to the queen herself. I’ll simply tell everyone to stop—and they’ll listen."

"Will they?" Luca’s face was infuriatingly serene. "I wouldn’t be so sure. The path we’ve put them on...it’s addictive, Sigrid. It gets into your blood. I don’t think they can escape just because you say so."

He lifted his head and scanned the crowd and said,

"Here. Let me show you."