Mukoubuchi Chapter 4

Mukoubuchi 4 is now up! In this chapter, we join a man named Kogure who is saddled with a huge debt and needs to win it back tonight no matter what! Can he make it past the mysterious Kai?!

Thanks to Sonickrazy for the translations and Penchan for the cleans.

Chapter Link

 "Lifeless money may never return across the table." 

(This post was written by Sonickrazy)

So I'd say this chapter is where the manga REALLY begins. From the first 3 chapters you probably thought it was gonna be a typical story of a guy who gets gradually better at something until he becomes the best at it, but no, it's the story of serious, high-stakes mahjong centering around a legendary demon in human form called Kai. I'm sure readers must have felt like Kogure was going to win and make back his money, but instead he's used as a sacrifice to show how brutal and unforgiving Kai really is. You think of characters like Tetsuya and Akagi who do anything to win and are quite unforgiving at times, but I doubt they would refuse to give money to a man who was about to be killed by his debts.

It is a sad story and this chapter probably makes you hate Kai, but that's kind of the man he is. He wins, no matter who his opponent is. And you have to consider that Kogure also went into the game knowing that if he lost he'd probably wind up dead; he had no other option and it was only when the reality of the situation hit him after the game that he started bargaining with Kai, the man who'd beaten him. Technically Kai did the correct thing, though it might not have been the "right" thing. And the others around him weren't much better about it, the owner of the apartment even showed that he knew that Kogure was on his last legs. That's how underground gambling is. When you win, you get paid handsomely, but when you lose, don't expect anyone to be forgiving of your situation. So this chapter was also a cautionary tale about the world of debt and underground gambling.

By the by, there also exist underground Poker games in America and elsewhere that operate similarly to this. They operate in secret and move from place to place such that the feds don't catch on to them. I've heard of people going into debt and having to do life-endangering tasks to make it up because of games such as these. I suggest you stay clear of them.