My Femboy System-Chapter 50: Careful Calculations

The air was too still.

Not the quiet of tension or fear—but a waiting stillness, thick and soundless, like breath held by the Tower itself. The audience had thinned to silhouettes and whispers, their focus razor-honed. Every soul knew what came next.

The next hand fell.

Cards slid like polished bones across the table, and this time, I didn’t even look at mine. I just stared at him with quiet eyes.

At Vincent—unshaken, unlaughing, and untouched. A statue of tailored violence and silent calculation. He flipped his cards with habitual grace, placing them without pause. Then I laid down mine. Quietly. Smoothly. Almost apologetically.

Three eights.

He blinked. A twitch.

And for the first time since the game began, something faltered. Not visibly. Not fully. But I saw it. A momentary crack in the armor. The weightless drift of his breath as the blade hissed down.

Schlick.

Vincent’s second finger hit the obsidian.

No reaction. Not even a wince. Not a single, sorry sound.

But his nostrils flared just slightly and his pupils dilated. Blood pooled across the altar like spilled lacquer. I smiled, slow and deliberate, tongue sweeping across my teeth like I could taste victory in the iron of the air.

"Something wrong, Vincent?" I asked, voice velvet-wrapped venom. "Or just not used to seeing your own blood?"

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His silence told me everything.

Next hand. I took the cards with only a glance and laid them down with theatrical laziness. A pair of nines. Middling. But I didn’t play the hand.

I played him.

Vincent’s fingers paused, hovering too long over his draw. He shifted—barely perceptible, something off in the way he blinked, slow and sharp, like his mind was trying to re-thread itself.

He placed his hand.

Garbage.

The blade sang and his third finger was gone.

The crowd didn’t cheer. They stared. The Tower seem to still itself as one of its favorite sons bled on sacred stone. From somewhere above, Willow’s delighted chuckle spiraled down like perfume and poison.

My laugh grew louder.

Long, bright, and a little mad.

The sound cracked through the pit like a bottle shattering against stained marble. I laughed because I could, because the world still spun in my direction, because I was still breathing and he was running out of hands.

Vincent said nothing. His eyes were quiet knives.

He still hadn’t figured it out.

Another hand. Faster this time. But not rushed, tight. We both moved like two wolves circling a kill neither of us wanted to admit was already dead.

I played my kings.

He lost again.

Finger four hit the stone with a wet slap. Blood trickled like paint down his wrist, soaking into the leather of his glove. Still he made no sound, but his jaw clenched. A twitch of bone. Now the room did stir. The ones who seemed to know Vincent began murmuring because they knew, deep in their hearts, that he wasn’t supposed to lose. Not like this.

And certainly not to me.

But it wasn’t luck.

No.

This wasn’t divine intervention or some gambling god whispering in my ear. This was a craft. See, the real game had started hours ago, back in my quarters, pen in hand, sweat on my brow, vision narrowed to paper and possibilities.

My pen, I’d come to learn, wasn’t limited to etching transformation into flesh. I’d used it before to draw sigils—hanging in the air like smoke or scrawled into objects with impossible permanence, like when I first met Salem in the academy’s dueling grounds for example.

What I discovered in those moments was something staggering: this pen didn’t just write. It transcended human precision. Each stroke was perfect, as if guided by something beyond anatomy—beyond logic. So, when it came time to cheat the Tower itself, I turned to the only thing worthy of exacting such craftsmanship:

The cards.

First, I designed the primary deck—my deck. A full set, each card re-rendered by hand. Subtle alterations. Curves thickened by fractions. Lines ever-so-slightly longer. Hairline detailing on the queen of hearts. A shimmer on the spade tip of the ace. Nothing an ordinary eye could catch.

But Vincent?

Vincent would.

He had to.

That’s why I made the reference sheet. A quiet ledger of every single modification. Each card’s signature fingerprint. A private lexicon of deception. Then came the second deck—identical in form, but with a select few markings swapped between the cards. Not enough to seem off. Just enough to matter.

I slid that second deck into the front of the box—the one I’d now modified with a hidden latch stuffed beneath the velvet inlay.

Vincent had, of course, demanded to inspect the cards. That was part of the con. He ran his fingers over the backs. Bent them. Studied the markings with surgical precision. And he found exactly what I wanted him to.

He believed in the map I’d given him. Because the roads matched. The mountains matched. Everything matched—until it didn’t.

A flick of my thumb.

A breath.

And the second deck he had inspected swapped out for the original after my own sloppy inspection of the cards.

The real deck, now in play, bore the genuine markings I memorized. A system he thought he understood—until I started revealing the swapped markings. One card at a time. Twisting his confidence. Derailing his compass.

And now?

Now he was unraveling. Doubt crept in beneath his skin like a slow poison. The game’s tempo, once his to orchestrate, belonged to me. He no longer led. He followed.

We were down to one finger each.

The altar between us stank of old blood and older stone. The chandelier above flickered low, its light choked by shadows that leaned in, a silent witnesses to our descent. This was no longer a casino. It was a tomb.

Vincent’s expression had changed now. No arrogance. No fury. Just pure, calculated precision. I stared down at my cards.

Three. Queen. Jack.

A graveyard of paper.

But his gaze lingered.

Too long.

On the Queen.

I saw the flicker. Recognition. Confusion. The mark I’d altered, differing from the copied deck I’d fed him—just slightly, enough to pass the initial glance but not a second. Same as I’d done with the Jack last round. His mind raced, matching tells against tells, tracking a system that no longer existed.

He thought he knew my tricks. He thought he saw truth. But he couldn’t tell anymore what was real. I tapped the table once.

"Call," I whispered.

Just then the Tower leaned in—its walls bending, its lights dimming—as if the very structure held its breath to witness a god unravel.

Vincent didn’t speak.

He didn’t blink, didn’t twitch. He sat statue-still, eyes locked to the cards in his hand as though sheer focus might warp reality, might change the outcome. But the magic was gone. His spell—if there had ever been one—had shattered. And now all that remained was a man trying to solve a riddle whose answer had already burned.

I watched the arithmetic flash behind his eyes, rapid and desperate.

Like someone tallying escape routes in a house collapsing floor by floor.

Then—he exhaled, slow and defeated.

It wasn’t a sigh of loss. It was older than that. A release of pressure that had built for too long. A man uncoiling after years of pretending the crown wasn’t crushing him. With hands that barely shook, he laid the cards down.

Seven. Ten. Ace.

Dead weight. Not just trash. Hopeless.

The air thickened. Even the chandeliers above flickered, as if unsure they were allowed to shine. For a second, no one moved. No one even breathed. Then I smiled and placed my own hand on the table—slowly, methodically, one card at a time. Drawing it out like a dirge played on violin strings.

Also trash.

But better.

I won.

The silence that followed was sacred. The cards lay like spent bullets. Blood dried on black marble. The Tower itself seemed to shudder—its foundation shifting in response to the impossible. Then, like glass under tension, the silence cracked—

And the casino detonated in sound.

Shouts. Laughter. Screams. Chairs overturned, glasses shattered. Someone wailed like a widow. Someone else burst into laughter that sounded far too close to a breakdown. The Tower itself seemed to groan—walls shivering with the weight of collective release.

And me?

I laughed.

Gods, did I laugh.

I laughed so hard it echoed off the sandstone, so loud it made my wounded hand throb in time with every mad breath. The sound poured from my lungs like smoke and triumph, wild and unfiltered. I staggered back from the table, blood trailing from my mangled hand, body swaying under the weight of hysteria and victory.

Across from me, the Overseer stepped forward, mask expressionless, voice like frost cutting through the fire.

"Victor: Cecil Valen. All assets transferred. Total amount on hand: one-hundred and twelve thousand."

Vincent nodded once. He didn’t wince, didn’t pull away. He merely extended his hand, palm down, fingers blood-slick and trembling.

Schlick.

The final blade came down. His thumb dropped to the altar and still, he didn’t so much as flinch. In fact he looked...almost peaceful in a sense, as though the game had finally bored him. He bowed his head in my direction—a gesture of genuine grace and then he leaned back in his seat, spine relaxing, one leg crossing over the other. A yawn slipped past his lips—slow, casual, indulgent. He looked more like a man winding down after tea than someone who had just lost everything.

The switch in my brain flipped.

His stopwatch was already in my hand—still warm from his coat pocket. I placed it on the table and in one fluid motion—

I moved.

The air snapped around me as I launched at him, barehanded and prepared to drive my fist into his throat before he could unfold whatever madness he had planned.

I didn’t make it a step.

Six figures clad in black descended on me like fate. They moved as one. Not fast—instantaneous. I felt them before I saw them, and by the time I did, I was already bound, arms crushed against my ribs, knees buckling beneath a crushing force that didn’t belong to flesh or gravity.

Overseers, powerful ones.

I could feel it in the way they touched me—like the Tower itself was holding my bones in place. Like reality had gotten hands and decided I’d had my fun. Their grip burned with pressure. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. And worse, I was still bleeding, fast.

One of them leaned close, breath dry as dust and voice carved from cold iron.

"Violence will not be permitted on casino grounds."

I forced myself still, barely, my rage held back down into the pit of my stomach. I swallowed the taste of blood and frustration. My vision blurred. My teeth ached with the pressure of restraint and after a long moment, they let go.

Not gently.

I stumbled, coughing violently, my arm screaming in pain, but I stayed upright.

Vincent didn’t even look my way. He was still lounging like a man on the deck of a ship he no longer cared to steer. I turned to the Overseer—the main one, the one who’d presided over the match—and pointed a single, bloodstained finger at Vincent.

"Can you remove him?" I asked, voice like a blade that had dulled from too many cuts. "Now. Kick him from the Tower. End his cycle."

The Overseer’s eyes pulsed with subtle darkness behind his mask.

"Im sorry but," he paused, "Vincent Lacona’s period of gambling has not yet concluded."

"What do you mean not yet concluded?!" My voice cracked like a whip. "He’s out of fingers. Out of assets. I took everything."

A low murmur swept through the crowd.

Discontent.

Movement.

I turned just in time to see it begin.

One man stepped forward, gaunt and pale. Face hollowed by nights spent wagering things he no longer remembered. He walked slowly, deliberately, and dropped a stack of chips on the altar in front of Vincent.

Then another.

A noblewoman in a shredded velvet gown with eyes like broken glass. She added hers with a flick of the wrist, as if paying tithe. Then two more. Then five. Then ten.

A cascade.

A procession of gamblers withered and ruined, each dragging themselves to the altar and placing their own wealth before the man who had lost everything. With every chip added, my stomach twisted and the pile grew. Mountains of it. Riches beyond reason. Tokens enchanted and cursed, runed, blood-bound, and sacred. Every color. Every class. The weight of faith in Vincent—undeserved, rabid, and mad—rising before my eyes.

He didn’t look surprised. Didn’t thank them. Didn’t even smile.

Just watched. Like a man watching crops rise in fields he’d salted himself, knowing they’d grow anyway. I staggered back, suddenly hollow. Because I realized what had happened.

I hadn’t won the game. I’d won the round.

And Vincent?

Vincent had just turned losing into reinvestment.

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