Leonard tightened his grip on the bent copper. With so much determination, he gathered more metal scraps before dragging himself toward the direction of the market that he had passed by earlier.
If there was anywhere that might pay for junk, it was there.
The market was alive with noise.
Merchants shouted their items' prices, women haggled over vegetable stands, and kids ran between stalls. There was also the smell of baked bread, which made Leonard's stomach twist painfully.
'Right… I haven't eaten yet.' He sighed and shook his head.
He couldn't even afford food now. He needed to work first.
Leonard swallowed his pride and shuffled up to a blacksmith's stall. The man who was working in the store was tall. He had a chest that was as big as a barrel and arms that were thicker than his skinny legs.
Leonard cleared his throat, holding out the rusted copper like it was some kind of treasure.
"Uh… you buy metal, right?"
The blacksmith glanced down at him, his eyes narrowing. His nose wrinkled at Leonard's stench.
"What is this garbage?"
"It's, uh, copper?" Leonard forced a grin on his face. "It is still usable if you melted it down. I'll sell some at you for a bargain. What do you say?"
The man snorted.
"I'm not interested." He answered and waved Leonard away like a stray dog.
Leonard's smile twitched. He moved to another stall, then another. Some ignored him, others laughed at him outright.
'Damn… I hate this place.'
By the time he finally found a scrap dealer, he felt like his pride had been dragged through the mud.
"What's that?" The old man who seemed to pity him scratched his beard. He squinted his eyes at the pile of scraps Leonard had scrounged up.
"I'll take everything for one gold coin. After that, can you leave? What do you say?"
"Just one?" Leonard blinked in disbelief.
"For all of it. That's my offer. Now take it or leave it."
He stared at the single coin in the man's fat fingers.
After all that humiliation, all the sneering looks, all the sweat of hauling scraps like a rat… for just one gold coin.
Leonard bit down on his tongue and forced himself to take it. The cold weight of the coin dropped into his palm.
It was the first money he'd earned in this new life.
But instead of excitement, all he felt was dread.
He was tired, exhausted, and hungry.
"One coin…" he muttered as he walked away from the old man, his head hanging low. "I need ten coins for the mission… and if I get one coin for a whole day's worth of garbage-picking."
At this rate, it would take him a week. Maybe more. He imagined himself crawling through alleys, digging through trash, and bowing his head like a beaten dog just to earn some coins.
"…"
Leonard's tracks stopped in the middle of the street. He stared down at the gold coin in his hand. His lips curled slowly into a bitter smile.
"This is bullshit." He clenched his fist around the coin.
Leonard's thoughts raced. Work hard? Pick trash? Beg for pity coins?
No.
That wasn't him.
That wasn't what he was good at.
"And what the hell am I even good at?" he muttered to himself and sighed. "It was obviously not lifting sacks, not hammering steel, not even scrap-picking."
And then it hit him. The answer was so obvious it almost made him laugh.
Gambling.
That was his game. His talent. His curse and his blessing.
He wouldn't get the gambler's system without a reason!
Leonard's eyes lit up, and a low chuckle escaped his throat.
"That's it. That's the only thing I'm good at. The only thing I need to be good at."
He didn't want to waste his life away breaking his back like these people.
"Work hard?" Leonard smirked, tossing the single coin in the air and catching it. "No. I'll work smart."
His gaze swept across the market.
Now the look on his eyes changed. Somewhere out there, there had to be a way to gamble. Even if it's not known here, men were still men. People were bound to be greedy. It was already part of human's nature.
Leonard flipped the coin in his hand again and caught it.
One coin…
For a beggar, the money was for survival.
But for a gambler, it was the perfect capital.
"A single coin is enough to flip the board," he muttered to himself confidently.
And so, he used the coin to invest in himself.
The first thing he did was feed himself. At a food stall, he spent a part of the money on a piece of bread and a bowl of steaming stew.
The food was simple, but after starving for hours, it tasted like heaven. It was enough that his strength returned to his limbs.
Next, he found a bathhouse on the edge of the district. It was a cheap place where merchants and laborers washed for the day. He paid for a wash, and by the time he stepped out, his greasy hair was already cleaned and his skin was now visible beneath the layers of dirt.
Leonard looked at his reflection in the water bucket.
For the first time since transmigrating to this place, he didn't look like a diseased rat. He was still ugly and all, but he looked human enough for people to not avoid at.
"Now that's better," he smirked.
"I still look like a broke man, but at least I don't look like a walking corpse."
And for his final investment, Leonard passed by a carpenter's shop and noticed a pile of wooden scraps. For a silver coin, he bought a block of wood, a piece of wooden cup, and a small knife.
He didn't know that a gold coin would take him that far!
That night, in the cold street, he sat on the ground and carefully carved the wood. Chip by chip, he shaved the block into a perfect cube. Then, with deliberate cuts, he etched dots into each side.
When the first die was complete, Leonard rolled it across the ground. It clicked and bounced before landing on a three.
"Heh… they don't even know that I'm already making the first important tool for gambling,"