Ch.50Earning, So Enjoying: NPC. (2)

It feels like it’s been a long time since I talked about this, but there’s an online game called “Eight” that seems to be the original version of the world I’ve reincarnated into.

This game is rated 18+.

When monsters die, blood sprays everywhere, and the story is both sensual and brutal.

But considering how the average age of gamers in my past life had risen quite a bit, this age restriction wasn’t really a barrier to entry.

And because of the mature nature of the game, there were several rather open gameplay elements.

One of those was a casino system where you couldn’t use cash, only in-game currency.

These days, almost all games had gacha elements, but Eight had very few of those.

The only ones were mount draws and pet draws. Occasionally there were limited party NPC draws, but even those had a pity system, so the pay-to-win aspect wasn’t that strong.

However, the game had a very clear system for making money from users—the in-game currency called “Can” needed for equipment enhancement and various spec upgrades.

In the current reality, without cash, this literally serves as common currency, but in the game, you could buy it with real money, and you had to use Cans to upgrade your favorite NPCs or main character.

But the exchange rate in the game was so terrible that very few people actually bought Cans with real money.

How bad was it? 100 Cans for 100 won. A 1:1 ratio. Absolute highway robbery.

In reality, high-level field monsters would commonly drop 100 Cans, but the funny thing was that no monster ever dropped more than 200 Cans.

So gathering Cans was genuinely, disgustingly difficult.

However, Eight had a system—a mini-game—that exploited this psychology.

That was…

“Are you three? I’ll need to check your IDs.”

“I’m this person’s slave. Master?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes.”

“Ah. Here you go.”

A large man in a black suit wearing mysterious black sunglasses, with naturally white hair slicked back, takes our IDs—mine and Ray’s—checks our faces, and solemnly nods.

“Hmm. Verified. Welcome to the Casino [Golden Castle], the crown jewel of [Trade City Aigram].”

The casino mini-game.

A gambling den where you could double or lose your non-tradable “Cans” with just the click of a finger.

While low-level fields or towns might be empty of players, this game could never have Aigram be deserted.

Because the gambling system only existed in this city.

In fact, when newbies asked questions in town and got no response, they’d often hear, “Have you been to the casino? There are lots of people there.” That’s how consistently populated this place was.

Under the pretext of earning equipment enhancement costs, many users would spend all day at the casino playing slot machines, marble rolling, and blackjack.

The odds were actually high and the payouts good, so people said you’d have to be an idiot to lose money here, or that it was just a filter for newbies.

But this is just a story about my past life’s game, right?

Why am I even here? I said I wanted to deposit money, not make it disappear.

“You don’t know? Aigram’s casino is perfectly synchronized with casinos in major cities worldwide. I don’t know what artifact they use, but coins won here can be used as currency in any casino anywhere in the world. And coins converted here can be stored for later use. You just tell them you’ll use them next time.”

“Ah. So if we convert our money into coins and deposit them here…”

“We can exchange them for use in other major cities?”

Ragni nodded with a smile after hearing our understanding. The game didn’t have this setting, but now that it’s reality, things are different, huh?

Well, then it’s not much different from a bank? There might not be interest, but all you have to do is resist the urge to gamble every time you come to withdraw money, right?

“Well then, let’s go in.”

After walking down a long corridor, we see a massive door that opens automatically as we approach.

This wasn’t in the game, which is quite refreshing. As the huge door opens with a metallic scraping sound, what we see is…

“…Whoa?!”

“Oh my.”

“Wow…”

A yellowish, or perhaps amber-colored scene, countless colorful people. And the noise filled with every emotion imaginable, along with the sound of spinning slots that I’d never heard in person even in my past life.

All that hot energy, along with cool air, burst through the doorway in an instant, completely overwhelming the three of us.

“L-let’s go in. Come on, both of you, follow me.”

“Y-yeah, sure.”

“L-let’s go together!!”

Perhaps out of a sense of responsibility for bringing us here? Though her voice was clearly trembling, Ragni began to confidently lead the way.

Wow. Is this what it means to be a princess? I was so overwhelmed that my legs wouldn’t move.

“Could there be sound-blocking magic on the doors? Such loud noise wasn’t audible from outside.”

“Not just the doors, but the entire building. Blocking just the doors wouldn’t be enough to contain all this noise.”

“…Is everyone in Aigram gathered here? How many people are there? Aren’t there more than we saw outside?”

As Ray and I followed Ragni, overwhelmed by the atmosphere, she seemed to adapt quickly, perhaps because of our reactions.

“Master, give me some money.”

“A slave who boldly asks for money—you must be the only one in the world.”

I immediately pulled out whatever money I could grab from my pocket and handed it to her. She took it, snatched two glasses from a passing employee’s tray, left a tip, and handed one glass to me. But, that woman’s outfit?

“Stop staring at the employee’s butt and take the glass. What are you doing?”

“R-Ragni, isn’t there one for me?!”

“I wasn’t looking at her butt. I was looking at her outfit.”

Bunny girl? Wait, why are all the women dressed like this?

Now that my eyes and ears are adjusting, I look around to see bunny girls with garter belts, women in shirts with no bottoms, some with animal ears, and even some in just underwear.

Whoa, there were bunny girl employees in the game too, but not this many! And the variety is more abundant in reality, is that right?

More importantly, this is alcohol?

“Hmm, do you like outfits like that?”

“I don’t like them, I’m just curious. Don’t you find their appearance strange?”

“Huh? Jack, are you perhaps a species discriminator? Eh?! No way?!!”

“What?! Where did that come from?!”

I’ve seen many clichés where people reincarnate and treat different species equally, saying “You’re an interesting human,” but suddenly I’m a species discriminator?! I’m a reincarnator? I don’t have anything like that?!!

“You didn’t seem to be looking at their ears, but you were staring intently at the rabbit-folk and cat-folk.”

“Huh?! Those people are beast-folk? Aren’t those just hair accessories?”

“What? What are you suddenly talking about? Hair accessories? What kind of animal head accessories…”

“I’ve heard there are people like that. Women who wear beast ear decorations and tail accessories and act coquettishly. I never thought Jack would like such things. Like master, like slave, I guess?”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. I truly didn’t know those people were different species.”

And Ragni, what are you saying? Are you calling me a pervert too? Do you really want to get in trouble?

There are different species in Eight.

Beast-folk, elves, demon-folk, dwarves, and demons and celestials. But to think I’d see beast-folk in Aigram? In the game, the beast-folk were a race that never set foot outside the [Spirit Demon Country].

I even remember the story of a fox-eared female warrior NPC you could recruit there, who was once a 0.5-tier character usable for a long time.

She was popular too, wearing a suggestive kimono and a Gat-bon-do hat.

But to see beast-folk working in a place like this—the world is truly unpredictable.

[-Occupation: Beast-folk Bunny Girl- Level: 35]

Wait. What kind of occupation is “Beast-folk Bunny Girl”? And next to her, someone’s occupation shows [Beast-folk Cat Girl]. This is driving me crazy.

And why are their levels so high?

I enjoyed the eye candy while looking at the status windows appearing beside them, and as I followed Ragni, we arrived at the coin exchange counter.

Let’s finish what we came here to do.

“Please convert all of this to coins.”

“Yes, I’ll verify. …19 million Cans confirmed. Would you like to convert all of it?”

“Yes. Please convert everything.”

The woman at the exchange counter—I’m not sure what she is. A female with devil-like horns on her head and an enormous chest, she handled the large sum without surprise and naturally processed everything into coins.

After some procedures, she handed me a card and explained that with this card, I could use the coins stored in it to play games. She added that since my fingerprint was registered, no one else could use it.

What is this? A debit card?

“With this, can I play games at casinos in other cities too?”

“Yes. You can play games and also exchange currency there. There will be fees, would you like me to explain?”

“Ah, yes.”

After listening to explanations about exchanges and fees, I had to admit that the casino really did function as a bank. The fees for depositing large sums were genuinely minimal.

Having finished our business, we were about to leave the casino…

-Grip.

“Ragni?”

“Master? Since we’re here, we should have some fun. You weren’t planning to just have a glass of wine and leave, were you?”

“I-I want to try too! Everyone looks like they’re having fun! They look so happy when they shout!”

…Hey, can’t we just exchange the money and leave? I heard in my past life that money won in one go is usually lost in one go.

We just earned this money today, we can’t lose it all in one day, right?

“Don’t worry. Just give me my share, about 500,000 Cans should be enough to play until I’m bored.”

“Give me my share too! 200,000 Cans!! I’ll play with the money I haven’t received from Ragni yet!!”

Did our kids lose their sense of economic value after getting a lot of money? 500,000 is 5 million won, and 200,000 is 2 million won. Hey! If I don’t say something properly, we might even lose the house deed…

“Ragni!! Hit?! Take this?!”

“Hit! Hit!! Definitely call!”

“Clover 3. Blackjack. Congratulations!”

“Nice!!!”

“Kyaa! I won again!!!”

“Aah!! Jack!!! Lend me some money!! I lost everything!!!”

I was clearly about to scold them, but somehow I got persuaded and started winning big with Ragni.