"Toria, let's play at the casino!"
"A casino? They have those here? As expected of the royal capital."
Since such an establishment existed in the royal capital, we decided to drop in and have some fun.
"Looks like it opened recently! Word is it's state-of-the-art!"
"Which means new content! Whew, sneaking in stealth updates—not bad, devs! Put out an announcement, though!"
"Still, even if they announce a casino opened in the royal capital, won't most players have nothing to do with it?"
"Seriously, why does this game even call itself a social game?"
It wasn't as though players could interact enough to actually build a "social" network anyway. A complete mystery.
"I wonder if there are bunny girls? Are there?!"
"I sure hope so! There really ought to be!"
I mean, it was a casino! Bunny girls were part of the package deal, logically speaking!
With that in mind, we skipped merrily along toward the casino.
——
————
"Doing business here in the royal capital where those two aren't around truly heals the soul..."
A certain merchant had arrived in the royal capital.
His base of operations was Tsudon. However, he was a shrewd man whose commercial reach stretched far and wide, boasting a branch shop in the royal capital as well.
Thanks in part to the agricultural produce grown by the Spirit-possessed he had the misfortune of dealing with, he had made an absolute windfall, prompting him to recently launch some entertainment facilities—namely, a casino.
Today, he was there on an inspection.
"Well, well, if it isn't the Owner! Here for an inspection?"
"Indeed. How are things faring?"
"Wonderfully! Those slot machines and coin vendors are simply magnificent!"
The casino's main attractions were its machines, particularly the slots and coin dispensers.
Crafted by pushing magic tool technology to its limits, these state-of-the-art automated contraptions required zero human intervention.
Coins were inserted into the slots, with forfeits and payouts handled entirely automatically.
And should customers run out of coins, they could instantly purchase more from the vending machines at any time.
"Naturally. There is no waiting around for coin counting or payouts like in conventional staffed casinos."
"Indeed. As a result, our customer turnover rate is splendid."
"Setting the price at twenty copper coins per casino coin was a fine choice as well. Even if the slots did require dedicated tokens."
"Yes. An optical illusion, perhaps? With the coin count reduced to a twentieth, many customers seem willing to place far more extravagant bets."
Slots that saw coins multiply and vanish in the blink of an eye, paired with dispensers that let patrons buy more the second they ran dry. Through this combination, spending a few minutes here was equivalent to several hours in a conventional casino.
The longer a customer played, the more the house profited—such was gambling.
And where reckless spenders gathered, another branch of the merchant's business flourished: moneylending.
Entice them to spend money, lend them money, collect the money. A flawless loop.
In short, business was turning an exceptionally, wonderfully massive profit.
"With these earnings, I can withstand whatever absurd demands that Spirit-possessed throws at me...!"
"? Owner?"
"Ah, no, it is nothing."
...Business cost money in all sorts of ways.
Well, strictly speaking, since he reliably recouped his funds from the Spirit-possessed, the ledger ended up in the black anyway, but the costs were mostly for stomach medicine and the like.
"Now then, I shall go inspect the branch shop. I leave things in your hands."
"Yes, sir! Understood, Owner!"
And so.
At that very casino, the two Spirit-possessed arrived.
————
——
"I'm gonna buy 838,861 coins!"
Standing before the coin vending machine, Alto suddenly blurted out that bizarre declaration.
It was an awfully specific number.
"You're buying that many? Do you even have enough money?"
"Ohoho, Toria doesn't know? If you buy 838,861 coins, you can get them for 4 Gold!"
"That's an ancient bug, dude."
When a variable counter exceeded its upper limit, it wrapped around and reset to zero. Recalculating from zero, it allowed a purchase to go through for less than the price of a single coin.
Like in a circuit race where, the moment the lead car caught up to a lapped car, the lapped car was treated as being ahead of the leader.
In technical terms, this was called an integer overflow.
However, that was a relic of the past. It was a bug unique to early-generation games that had to shave off every byte of memory even to the point of omitting upper limit checks; in this day and age, it wouldn't exist unless someone royally screwed up.
"There's no way that's real. Besides, 'Gold' means four gold coins, right?"
"I'd assume it means the lowest denomination, copper coins! Well, doesn't hurt to try, does it? Down with the purchase... 838,861 coins, please~"
Alto typed 838,861 into the coin vending machine. And the displayed purchase price was, sure enough... 4 copper coins.
"Oh, for real?"
"Whoa, hey, that's way too much of a bug."
"Whatever, glitches aren't cheats, they're features! It's their fault for accepting the input without handling it!"
Looking thoroughly pleased with herself, Alto dropped in 4 copper coins and confirmed the purchase.
Instantly, a torrent of coins came clattering out of the dispenser.
"You can actually buy it?!"
"Hyahha! It's like the vending machine hit the jackpot!"
I wondered if it would really dispense all 830,000 coins, but the stream clattered to a halt after around 10,000.
"Huh, it stopped? It probably hasn't even hit 20,000 yet?"
"I mean, there's no way this machine actually holds 800,000 coins. Just look at the size of it."
"Tsk, what a rip-off! It let me enter the number, too! This is a bug! I demand a fix!"
"Truly the textbook example of a complainer demanding fixes only for what inconveniences them."
"Ha, you're right. If they fix this, they'll patch out the cheap coin glitch too... Better keep my mouth shut!"
With that, she shoveled the dispensed coins away with a loud clatter. Just then, a clerk approached.
"E-Excuse me, customer..."
"Hm? What is it?"
Seeing Alto beam brightly at him, the clerk sucked in a terrified breath. He had spotted the Halo floating above her head.
This was clearly the shop's blunder. As a mere store clerk, he had no desire to speak out of turn and get himself killed.
"...I-I highly recommend the slots over there!"
"Is that so, is that so! Let's go try 'em right away!"
"Well, guess I'll buy some too. This machine over here should still have coins left."
"Eep!"
——Fortunately, both of them lost every last coin, so the casino suffered no damages. In the end.
And by the time of their next visit, the vending machine's glitch had been patched.
"They sure fixed that fast. Tsk."
"Can't be helped. Let's praise the devs for their competence."
"Having a coin purchasing bug in the first place makes their competence pretty debatable, don'tcha think?"
"True that. Ah, let's play something other than the slots today. They swallowed everything last time."
"Agreed!"
That day, they purchased coins normally, and lost every last one.