"Yeah, that's it. A little harder—ah, that's the spot!"
Roy leaned back in the bath as Bernie, the stuttering dwarf, kneaded his shoulders with his hairy arms, just the right amount of pressure. A flattering smile spread across his rough, flushed face.
"H-how... how does it f-feel?"
"Not bad. With hands like yours, you could open a proper massage parlor in Carbon Mountain."
"Th-then... what about the debt I owe...?"
"We'll talk about that later. You're not getting out of it anyway."
"Phew..." The thick-tongued dwarf wiped away his nervous sweat. He swore he'd never met a man who played Gwent so strangely. Roy kept laying down unexpected cards, leaving his opponents unable to defend themselves.
Dief, the big-bellied dwarf whose card skills ranked among the top ten in all of Carbon Mountain, had been trounced ten games in a row and knocked straight out of the first round.
The other three had taken their seats unwillingly and played a few rounds against Roy. Every one of them had lost miserably, and he'd taken a good deal of their money.
But Bernie still refused to admit defeat. The stubborn, thick-tongued dwarf kept coming back for more, losing even the clothes off his back and racking up a debt of thirty crowns—about a month's wages.
In the bath beside Bernie, Regan's buttocks twitched as though he'd been insulted.
"Kid, you absolutely can't slander a dwarf's honor. Bernie would never welsh on a debt! We may have a short fuse, but we've got qualities humans lack. We're not just mighty and manly in appearance—dwarves raised in Carbon Mountain value honor and loyalty above all! Anyone who stiffs someone over Gwent or a bet won't be able to show their face in Carbon Mountain again!"
Roy nodded to show his respect.
He'd heard