Balthazar's eyes fluttered open, his breathing ragged as he gasped for air, chest heaving up and down.
His hand instinctively touched his face. The wounds from his fight with Hernece were gone. No bruises lingered beneath his eyes, no dirt stained his clothes.
He realized he was seated on a wooden chair that creaked with every slight movement, as though the fragile thing might collapse at any moment.
Balthazar glanced around. The only light in the room came from the pale moon filtering through a red–curtained window.
He scanned the space once more. It was barren, save for a single bookshelf in front of him, its contents old and yellowed with time.
Lowering his gaze, he noticed the chair he sat upon had a twin directly opposite, with a table between them.
The table was brown, modest in size and atop it rested a chessboard.
Balthazar raised a brow.
A chessboard? he thought, startled.
He studied it closely. A lone white pawn stood ready, a single step away from promotion into a queen.
Balthazar frowned.
Who was playing this match?
The arrangement struck him as odd. Just two chairs and one table, set precisely in the middle of the otherwise empty room, with moonlight pouring down as though spotlighting the game itself.
On the board, black pieces had dominated the field. Yet if play continued, the lone white pawn could overturn the game. Once it promoted into a queen, the tide would shift, and victory would fall into White's hands.
Stranger still, the captured pieces outside the board lacked any extra queen to replace the pawn. Instead, there was an additional king. For some reason, this set allowed two white kings.
Unconsciously, Balthazar rubbed his chin.
Then, a sharp chime rang through the room.
Ding!
Startled, Balthazar tore his attention from the board. This was the moment he had been waiting for, the moment every young man awaited when he reached eighteen.
In this world, those who turned eighteen were transported elsewhere. Was it another world? Another dimension? Or merely somewhere far beyond the Kingdom of Chesper? Balthazar did not know. What he did know was that people called this place the Gambit Realm.
The Gambit Realm, where countless monsters and unseen terrors lurked in the shadows. And yet, it was also a land of opportunity, rich with strength to claim, precious minerals to mine, and rewards beyond imagination.
It was there that new Gambits were tested for their worth. From what Balthazar had learned, every new Gambits was sent to the western reaches of the Gambit Realm for their trial.
As his pulse quickened, something materialized before him.
A glowing blue window shimmered into view.
[Happy 18th birthday, Host! To celebrate your coming of age, you have been officially recognized as a Gambit!]
Balthazar's eyes widened at the familiar text. He had secretly read about this in the Silva family library. The words matched perfectly with the descriptions written in a book meant for new Gambit.
His lips curved. Excitement welled within him as he anticipated what his status might reveal.
[Stats]
[Name: Balthazar Na Silva]
[Class: None]
[Flaw: None]
[Race: Human]
[HP: 70]
[MP: 90]
[Level: 1 → Requires 10 EXP to level up]
[Gambit: Pawn → Requires 300 EXP to advance to Knight]
[Unique Traits: None]
[Skill: None]
> Strength: 3
> Agility: 2
> Constitution: 2
> Intelligence: 4
> Luck: 1
> Charm: 3
[Gambit Points: 0]
Balthazar's jaw slackened. The truth struck him at once.
He had been branded as a Pawn, the lowest of all Gambit ranks, beneath the Knight, Bishop, Rook, and Queen.
But that wasn't what shocked him most.
What truly stunned him was the impossible line displayed beside his Gambit title.
He could… advance to a Knight.
Such thing should have been impossible.
For every person, the moment they reached eighteen and entered the Gambit Realm, their Gambit rank was set. It was random, some were cursed with Pawn and treated with disdain. Others were blessed as Queens, praised and envied by all, with leveling made far easier for them.
Higher ranks always came with bonuses: stat points, skills, Unique Traits, even a starting Class.
But once assigned, a Gambit's rank was permanent. Immutable. Never to be altered, never to be raised. Those born as Pawns remained Pawns forever.
And yet here, on his own status window, Balthazar saw it:
The chance to ascend beyond Pawn.
Never, in all the history of the Kingdom of Chesper, had such thing been recorded.
Could it be… that he was chosen? Special? Destined not to crawl in the dirt, but to stand above, greater than all who mocked him?
A grin stretched across his face. If he possessed the potential to climb all the way to Queen, then Hernece — and everyone else who looked down upon him — would one day kneel.
He forced his excitement down and studied his stats again. To his surprise, they were not terrible.
All those years of training had borne fruit. Just as the book had said:
If one trained the body diligently, Strength would grow stronger than the rest.
He had followed its advice, hammering his body in hopes of raising that stat. Yet in the end, his highest attribute was Intelligence. Was it because of his love for books? His second highest was Charm, which puzzled him even more. All his life he had been scorned, insulted, treated as less than dirt. If his charm was so high, why had no one ever seen it?
The thought of the taunts, the cruelty of the Silva household, made his fists clench in anger. He shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on the past.
He needed a plan for the future.
Rising from his chair, Balthazar crossed the room to the red–curtained window. He pulled the drape aside and peered outside.
A ruined village lay before him. Charred homes sagged under collapsed roofs, blackened walls revealing desolate interiors.
He felt a pang of pity. The book he had read suggested that the Gambit Realm had once been home to people much like humans. Until Titans — terrifying creatures capable of thought — descended and destroyed it all, leaving behind only wreckage.
But why then, he wondered, were Gambits sent here? Why did the intelligent Titans no longer appear? And how had the author of that book known such secrets, when the Realm itself was said to be older than two millennia?
Again, his mind threatened to wander too far. He shook himself and turned back into the room.
A mansion. That's where he must be. Once belonging to the ruler of this land, perhaps.
His gaze returned to the chessboard. Slowly, he reached out and picked up the waiting pawn.
He guided it to the final square, promoting it, yet instead of a queen, the set forced him to replace it with the extra king.
Now, there were two white kings upon the board.
He had no idea why he did it, but deep inside, something compelled him to make the move.
Ding!
The sound made him jolt. He looked to his side.
A new golden text appeared before his eyes.
[Congratulations! You have obtained a skill!]
A skill?
Just because I promoted the pawn?