Adelaide gave Clementine a confused expression while Cedric gave a mocking smile noting believing Clementine's statement. Clementine unlatched her briefcase and took out two items from it, one of them was a rolled-up piece of parchment, and the other was a small stack of papers.
"What I have here is a deal I made with the inventor Clementine to be the main investor of her most recent invention," Clementine spoke smugly as she unfurled the rolled-up parchment revealing a partially finished blueprint. "If we lose this bet I'm willing to back off and allow you to take my place as the main investor."
Cedric glanced at the blueprint over, even with his cursory knowledge he could see the brilliance in the design, if he got his hands on the spot as the main investor he could make enough money to stop being a pathetic lapdog. Cedric smiled greedily as he stuck out his hand to agree to the bet but before Clementine could shake his hand Adelaide pulled her away to the side.
"Cle—I mean Sir Percival are you sure about this? You can't let that weasel get his hands on your newest invention." Adelaide whispered her concern.
"Don't worry we are going to destroy that rat. I can't wait to watch that glimmer of hope disappear from his eyes!" Clementine chuckled sadistically.
Clementine turned back around to Cedric and shook his hand. The pair followed Cedric and his lackeys out of the lounge and into another room, the thick scent and smoke of cigars assaulted Clementine's nose as soon as she entered. The room they had entered resembled a miniature casino, with various men playing rounds of poker, craps, and other such games. One table in particular caught Clementine's attention and with that, she started to hatch a mischievous plot.
"I propose three rounds best two out of three wins. We can decide who chooses first through a coin flip." Cedric said pulling out a bronze coin from his pocket. Clementine nodded in response and casually called heads. When the coin landed back in Cedric's hand he flipped it over to reveal the back side of the coin, he had won. Clementine smiled in pretend disappointment and then walked away to the side with Adelaide to deliberate.
"Of the games here, I'm most confident in poker. Hopefully, he doesn't choose billiards, if he does it will be a difficult game." Clementine spoke in a whisper just loud enough for Cedric to overhear.
"For our first game, I chose billiards," Cedric spoke smugly as Clementine's face warped into worry.
Adelaide attempted to comfort Clementine and even proposed to play the game instead but Clementine just smiled and shook her head, it was fine. As Cedric and Clementine walked up to the billiards table each taking a cue stick taking a moment to prepare.
Unfortunately what Cedric failed to perceive in his eagerness was how the corner of Clementine's lips moved up imperceptibly and how her eyes momentarily flashed in delight.
As the game progressed it became clear that Clementine was falling behind. She was a large sum of points behind, it wouldn't be impossible for her to turn it around and win but it would likely take a miracle with her skill.
"I never thought it would be this easy, how sad that your overconfidence led to to your inevitable loss. Remember to graciously back as the main investor." Cedric chuckled mockingly as his lackey further hyped him up.
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, the first game hasn't finished yet. You never know how things will end." Clementine mused as she subtly changed to use her left hand.
Without warning or explanation, the tides of the game turned. Clementine had begun to easy pocket balls that earlier she had struggled with. Slowly but surely she kept racking up points slowly catching up to Cedric's score. With one last flourish of the cue stick, Clementine had pocketed the ball, she had handily beat Cedric.
"This is why you shouldn't be so confident in the results before you have won." Clementine ridiculed the flustered man.
Clementine reminisced silently, back in her original world she was banned from playing billiards by her friends for the simple reason that she was at a professional level and no one wanted to lose that badly. As such every time she managed to convince her friends to allow her to play she had to play with heavy disadvantages to give her friends a shot. She had done a similar thing here, for most of the game she used her nondominant hand and with how long it had been she had played last, it created enough of a skill gap that Cedric got a large ego as they played. Oh how she enjoyed watching his face morph into shock and confusion once she had switched back to her dominant hand, it was the right move to trick the man into choosing billiards.
Clementine was brought out of her thoughts by a very piercing stare, she whipped her head around trying to find the owner of the stare but she couldn't find anyone particularly suspicious. She felt her anxiety and stress rising as the person continued staring, it felt as if they were undressing her with their stare like they could see past her disguise and knew who she truly was. It was deeply unnerving and just as she was about to investigate the sharp gaze disappeared as though it was never there in the first place. The sudden disappearance of the stare was deeply concerning to Clementine but she had no time to dwell on it as Cedric was already motioning for her to choose the next game, she needed to focus on this matter.
The figure cloaked in darkness behind a semi-transparent folding screen chuckled in amusement at Clementine's reaction. Clementine and Adelaide's appearance had intrigued him quite a bit, but out of the two Clementine was the most interesting. He had watched in amusement as she manipulated the man to choose the game she wanted and how she hid her real skill until the last moment. He found her feisty attitude to be incredibly charming, he didn't want to let any of her antics escape him so he subtly turned down the intensity of his stare so he could watch her secretly.
Clementine put very little thought into choosing the next game. She put so little thought in fact that she was destroyed by Cedric. It was a complete and total sweep, a loss that Clementine took in stride.
Rising from her chair Clementine motioned around the room as she spoke. "We both have won one each. For the last game, I propose that instead of playing a game that requires a mixture of luck and skill how about we play one that requires pure skill? There will be no doubt in who wins then."
"What do you propose then?" Cedric responded slightly intrigued by the idea.
"A simple shooting match. If I remember correctly from what the attendant told us about all the facilities here, there should be a shooting range out back that we can use."
"That sounds like a wonderful final match."
With that a large group of people walked out of the game room, a large portion of the people that followed them out had watched the competition and wanted to watch its conclusion. When they entered the gun range Cedric walked up to a nearby attendant giving them some instructions, the attendant scurried away and after some time returned with two large guns.
Clementine had never been a fan of guns they brought back too many memories that she wanted to forget so she never paid interest in guns and their many types. Even with her limited knowledge of weaponry, she could easily tell what Cedric's plan was, these guns were likely very hard to handle and had an immense recoil. Both she and Adelaide even with their disguises couldn't hide their smaller frame and low muscle definition, Cedric was likely hoping to use this to his advantage even if they could handle the gun the recoil would create large amounts of discomfort and pain that would progressively worsen their shooting.
While Clementine trusted the female lead's shooting ability she felt that this challenge may be a tad bit too difficult for her. As she was about to open her mouth hoping to dissuade Cedric from using these guns for the final challenge, Adelaide cut her off and stood in front of Cedric.
"I wonder if it would be fine if I participated in the last challenge in the place of my business partner. He's had a weak constitution from birth and I worry that this may be too much for him. Let me play in his stead." Adelaide requested in fake concern and urging but Clementine caught the flash of anticipation and excitement in her eyes.
Cedric chuckled amused, looking over Adelaide he concluded that she was the weaker of the two as her hand was delicately soft like a noblewoman's, a ridiculous thought that Cedric dismissed without knowing how close it was to the truth. Cedric nodded in agreement and handed Adelaide the gun as they walked towards the target.
There were five targets for each player with an image depicting how many points one would get for shooting in a specific location. The targets were placed at different distances the closest being 20 meters away while the farthest was 80 meters away.
Adelaide and Cedric walked up to their station and loaded their guns with the ammunition. Cedric was the first to fire as Adelaide concentrated on her first target. Cedric finished firing at his remaining target looking quite smug as an attendant ran to retrieve the targets when it was safe to do so. Cedric had acquired a total of 38 points, he got three 7s, one 8, and one 9. It was a very good score for a gun as difficult to handle as this one.
The audience turned to watch Adelaide who had yet to shoot, she stood very stably as she concentrated on the target. Some people mocked her in hushed tones which Adelaide ignored as though there was no one in the room at the moment. Adelaide let out a deep exhale and suddenly fired the gun in rapid succession until all the targets had been struck. The attendant once again ran in to collect the targets, some people chucked and congratulated Cedric believing that had easily won. After some time the attendant returned and the crowd grew silent to hear the final total.
"Sir Reginald has scored 43 points with three 8s, one 9, and one 10." The attendant announced.
The crowd blew up in surprise as they looked at they looked at the final point total. Adelaide had beaten Cedric by five points, but none of them saw that coming most especially Cedric. His face was flushed red with anger and embarrassment as Clementine and Adelaide gave him smug smirks.
"Looks like we won. Don't go backing out on our little deal, we have plenty of witnesses who heard it. Be the honorable man you are and don't forget to uphold your part of the deal. If you need to get into contact with us to transfer over the product right send a message to this address." Clementine swaggered handing Cedric a slip of paper and with that done the two disguised girls left the Gentleman's Club.
"That was quite amusing! We should do that again another time." Adelaide chuckled as boarded a carriage and rode away.
"It was." Clementine agreed with a mischievous smile on her face.