Vlad's explanation seemed to do a fine job of putting Kaiji in his place. One of the last things he wanted was to get knocked out against his will again if it was avoidable, and he wanted even less to be shoved into the same category as the bleached bastard. He sank down a little, looking increasingly miserable with every addition. Having mostly come down from his rage, he was now steadily drifting to another extreme.

The description of the Head Doctor's game wasn't lightening Kaiji's mood any. Vlad was right, of course. "It sounds like things are always going his way," he whined. It was probably a bluff and Kaiji had only been here for a short while, but it seemed that every announcement that the Head Doctor made was absolutely perfect. Sure he had expressed some form of worry at a couple of points, but within a few hours everything was happy and wonderful in his horrifying little world again. "But I know what you mean." Even the creepy old man who had led Kaiji to so many deadly and frightening gambles had the courtesy of giving him the rules plainly and clearly before pulling him into things. And the rules were typically fair on some level, ranging from extremely simple to somewhat complicated to explain.

This was just... Who even knew?

Kaiji didn't seem to be at all satisfied by his victory, but he did remember to update his makeshift scorecard: Vlad still had a score of five, and now he himself had a score of one. He slid the sheet over to Vlad. "We can either switch cards and see where this goes, or we can leave it like this and just top it off." Had he forgotten to mention that it was possible for the Slave and the Emperor to switch places between sets? Either way, he didn't sound like he had any strong feelings about either option so it was completely up to Vlad.