novelbest Chapter 243: The Gambler and the House
Chapter 243: The Gambler and the House
Having said her piece, Pandora didn’t push any further.
The room fell silent.
The only sound was the faint, rhythmic tick of the wall clock. Tick. Tock.
Aldrich’s expression shifted several times in the silence.
He absolutely hated this. Hated the feeling of the situation spiraling out of his control, of the entire trajectory being mapped out by someone else.
Rationally, the deal was a steal. A massive return on a negligible investment.
But the pride of a man in his position made him instinctively recoil from being led by the nose. From acting out a script she had written.
His fingers tapped the table. Twice. A dull, heavy sound.
“You’re painting a very pretty picture for yourself.”
He paused, his eyes going cold. He put on a show of dismissiveness, trying to bulldoze her with sheer presence.
“You’re still weak, Pandora. You aren’t nearly as important to me as you think you are. I don’t need to trade away something this precious just to make a minor inconvenience go away.”
“Is that so? I completely understand.”
Pandora didn’t take the bait. Not even a flinch. She just nodded earnestly, looking like she’d just had a minor epiphany.
She didn’t argue. Didn’t push back.
Because she didn’t doubt it for a second. “Pandora Douglas”—a mere Second Rank apprentice—really wasn’t that important to him.
But...
Ember was a completely different story.
A flicker of a smile passed through Pandora’s eyes. One that Aldrich couldn’t read.
It was the look of someone watching a beast pacing blindly around the edge of a trap.
Not that it helped the growing, stifling irritation in Aldrich’s chest.
A few more seconds of silence passed.
Then, without warning, Aldrich snorted.
“Hmph.”
He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. It hit the floor with a massive CLANG.
He didn’t bother picking it up. Just turned and walked out. No hesitation. No looking back.
His footsteps were quick, almost messy.
SLAM.
The door shut hard behind him.
Quiet returned to the room.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
One second. Two.
Dead silence.
This wasn’t the interrogation room with the heavily soundproofed oak door; the soundproofing here was only standard. With Pandora’s sharp hearing, she should have been able to pick up the muted sound of leather soles hitting the carpeted hallway outside.
But reality offered nothing. It was eerily quiet.
As if the hallway was empty.
Or rather... as if the man who had just stormed out was standing right on the other side of the door, refusing to leave.
The corner of Pandora’s mouth ticked up, just a fraction.
The next moment, the door opened again.
Aldrich walked back in.
His footsteps were heavy this time. His face was a mask again—completely flat. The irritation and the anger at being manipulated had seemingly evaporated, as if they’d never existed.
He walked back to the table, grabbed the chair he’d knocked over, and sat down.
This time, he was holding something.
He didn’t say a word. Just held the object up slightly.
Then, calmly: “I need a contract. Academy-guaranteed.”
Pandora smiled.
Zero hesitation.
“Of course.”
Outside the campus, there were outside rules. Inside the campus, there were inside channels. A contract was the baseline guarantee when both sides reached an agreement.
..................
Ten years was a long time for a Demon Hunter apprentice.
It was long enough to turn a prodigy into a mediocrity.
But the Sentence of the Void carried a different kind of weight.
It was an abyss named “Nothingness.”
Looking at the Disciplinary Court’s historical records, the inmates who survived a one-year stint of the Sentence of the Void sat at less than thirty percent.
And that number included the ones who came out technically alive but completely driven insane. The ones who actually walked out intact—still sane—were probably under ten percent.
It was a high-probability death sentence. Or something worse than death.
But.
Such a massive expected return, and all it cost him was a Wizard-path item that held very little value to him anyway—a niche market item that was a pain to offload.
So why not roll the dice?
Bet on her dying. Or going mad in the Void.
That way, he eliminated a future threat without paying a single tangible price.
But then again, how many gamblers actually beat the house?
It was exactly why Pandora almost never gambled.
Unless, of course, she was the house.
..................
Fifteen days later.
Deep within the Disciplinary Court.
A heavy door swung open in front of her.
It didn’t open onto light. It opened onto pitch black.
The only thing visible was the corridor stretching inward, and even that was barely a shade lighter than the abyss it led into.
The further they went, the more even that faint outline seemed to be swallowed by the impenetrable dark.
This was the entrance to the Sentence of the Void.
Pandora walked down that corridor now.
Her hands weren’t bound, but she had two guards flanking her.
“Guards” was a loose term—they weren’t regular prison staff. One of them was even a familiar face.
The green-haired Disciplinary Court enforcer whose name she still didn’t know.
He looked at her, his expression somewhere between resigned and uncomfortable.
“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of irredeemable villain,” Pandora said with a smile, directing her words at Green-Hair.
“Cheer up. At the very least, you won’t have to look at my face for a year.”
Her tone was light. Like she was talking about a brief vacation.
“And if my luck holds, maybe you’ll never see me again.”
Green-Hair’s face stiffened.
I mean, she wasn’t wrong. But still...
Wasn’t that supposed to be his line?
Hearing it from the mouth of the person about to be shoved into the Sentence of the Void made it sound deeply, profoundly wrong.
Suppressing that familiar, suffocating feeling in his chest, Green-Hair didn’t say anything else. He just walked in silence, flanking Pandora with the other guard as they stepped deeper into the darkness that seemed to swallow everything.
Pandora in front. The two men right behind.
Their footsteps echoed massively in the dead-silent corridor, only to be snuffed out instantly by the heavy darkness.
Soon, they reached the end of the hall.
Almost no light. And a terrifying stillness.
So quiet that Pandora could clearly hear her own heartbeat, alongside the ragged, deliberately controlled breathing of the two guards behind her.
“So this... is the Sentence of the Void?”
Pandora’s voice broke the silence, carrying a hint of cheerful curiosity.
“Doesn’t seem that impressive—”
“No.”
Green-Hair’s cold voice cut in, frost crystallizing in the hallway.
“Put your head on the block.”
The word “What?” died in her throat.