A Lucky Day
"You really don't get it, rookie."
Kkamagwi held up a hundred-sided die.
"Just staying alive — you call that living? Living's got to be fun."
"That's true enough, sir. But with only one die—"
"This is all you need, and you can do it. Gamble!"
"Gambling... sir?"
"Yeah! The most fun thing in the world is—"
"Enough. Don't drag out talk that'll get us in trouble."
The die was marked with numbers from 1 to 100. They'd shaved a little off at each numbered spot to make a face, but with a hundred of those faces the thing was nearly a sphere. Toss it plain and it would roll on forever.
"A die with a hundred faces. First I've ever seen, sir."
"You almost never do. Goes against the whole principle of a die."
"Dice have a principle, sir?"
"Every face is supposed to carry the same odds. This one can't. A true regular hundred-sided polyhedron doesn't exist."
Meaning some numbers were likelier to come up than others. Only slightly — but still.
"If you don't want to buy it, just say so. What's our pretty little die ever done, that you've got to run it down?"
"Leave out the die and the whistle and just name a price."
"Come on."
"Don't like it? Then I'll take a lap and come—"
"Opening customer, so I'll make it special. Fifty rounds of standard-issue rifle ammo. Thirty of them loaded in a magazine."
A considerable sum. But if the goods were decent, it wasn't a bad price. With just these, I could step straight into delivery work without a problem. The problem was the quality.
"Let me look the goods over."
"No need. Top grade."
"Sure, sure."
"That hurts. You don't trust me?"
"If I were dumb enough to trust you, I'd already be dead."
"Come on!"
The medicine was labeled with where it had been made and the date it was compounded. When and where told you the quality of a product. Only, of course, if every word of that information was true.
Probability the lettering was forged...
Checking was simple.
Probability it was compounded more than a year ago...
I went over every last corner, one by one. If even a single thing was off, the quality couldn't be guaranteed.
Probability it's unopened...
Basic survival goods weren't made in just one or two places. They were the supplies people burned through fastest. But count only the places that turned out top-grade stock, and it narrowed to a handful. That was the point I watched.
For years I had kept in constant contact with the top-grade goods coming out of certain factories — until I could use the ability quickly, and accurately. Unlike low-grade stock, whose quality swung all over the place, top-grade goods were uniform. That was what made it possible.
Probability it was made on production line 31, Building G, Azure Works...
The medicine was genuine top grade, every bit of it. Of the rest of the survival goods, about half were high grade, and not a single item was low grade. Trade them for fifty rounds and I came out slightly ahead.
Even so, I couldn't just snap the deal up. I had to put on a proper show of haggling the price—
"Ah. I misspoke. Not fifty. I'll be needing sixty-five."
"...Out of nowhere?"
"I miscalculated. A man gets mixed up sometimes."
"Fifty and sixty-five are a hell of a gap. How exactly did you mix those up?"
"Come on. It happens."
This bastard. Had he smelled something?
He'd called it top grade out loud, but the truth was he hadn't been sure of the quality himself. Probably goods he'd picked up cheap through a route he couldn't trust. Looked like even he figured they might be wrapped in forged information. Still, they looked like top grade on the surface, so he'd named fifty rounds — a price someone might reasonably bite on.
He watched me check the quality. Closely.
I'd used the ability to check quality on every deal before this, too. This one had definitely learned the look on my face, the little movements, from the times I found top-grade stock. True to form — a merchant black clean through.
I was never dealing with him again. This would be the last time. I'd give him one concession.
"Fine. Fifty-five rounds. Not one more."
"Come on, does that even make sense? You want ten knocked off?"
"What are you talking about, you black bird. It was fifty to start. I'm not cutting ten. I'm giving you five extra."
"I told you, I got mixed up. Figure it was sixty-five from the start and it works out."
"Keep that up and you'll go bald."
"Huh? I'm not bald."
"You will be."
Sixty would have been fair value, so sixty-five was out of the question. And if I paid fair price, all the haggling would have been for nothing, so I couldn't give him sixty either.
"Fifty-five. Take it or leave it."
"Hmph! Then forget it!"
Look at him. If it really was top grade, he figured he had plenty of customers who'd pay more?
"...Hey, Kkamagwi."
"What. You haven't left yet?"
I wasn't dealing with this bastard again after today anyway. No reason to cut him any more slack.
"Then how about this. We try that most fun thing in the world you were talking about."
"Huh?"
I picked up the hundred-sided die I'd set aside.
"You win, I buy the lot for sixty-five rounds. No — seventy. I win, I buy it for fifty."
"That's a crooked bet. I win and I get five more, but you win and you knock off fifteen!"
"I never said it was a fair bet with even odds."
While I talked, I kept fiddling with the die without a pause.
"What if it's a bet where your odds of winning are much higher? Say your win rate is more than three times mine."
"What are you trying to pull?"
A blue light slowly began to gather over the die.
Probability a multiple of five comes up...
"This die doesn't have even odds. A few of the numbers are likelier to come up than the rest."
"Hmph. How much of a difference could it even be."
"Well. A true gambler would have to account for a difference even that small."
"Since when were you a gambler?"
"I'm betting a multiple of five comes up. By your logic, my odds of winning come to one in five."
Kkamagwi tilted his head.
"Then what about me?"
"If it isn't a multiple of five, you win. No matter what comes up."
"Pfft—ha! For real?"
"Don't want to, forget it."
"No changing your tune after you lose."
He tossed the whistle I'd set aside in among the survival goods. While he did, I started casually touching the larger pieces — the first-aid kit, the solid-fuel can, the medicine case.
"You'll be taking the whistle too, won't you? Seeing as you're handing over a whole seventy rounds."
"In exchange, I throw the die."
Kkamagwi's eyes sharpened at once.
"Don't tell me you mean to drop it from an ant's height and steer the face. I don't do cheap tricks."
"I promise I'll throw it from eye level."
"Why does it have to be you throwing?"
"It's your die. How do I know you haven't rigged something into it."
"Ha! If I had that kind of skill, I'd have gone off to gamble for a living."
"Anyway, I'm touching it for the first time right now, so it's cleaner if I throw it. Wouldn't you say?"
A die I was handling for the first time, right in front of him. And it had never once left his line of sight. There was no way for me to rig it. Ordinarily, that is.
"Hmm... Fine. But you throw it properly from eye level. Otherwise it's void."
He'd bitten.
"S-Senior? This bet's against us, sir. Wouldn't it be better if I just put in more of the ammo I've got and we—"
"We're only doing it for fun."
"Sir?"
"Kkamagwi said it himself. Playing with dice is fun. He's throwing that die in with the sale, so we ought to test whether it's actually a fun piece of goods, don't you think?"
"Uh..."
"Right! Our dear customer ought to try it before he buys!"
"This kid seems nervous, so I'll step aside a moment and talk him around. He's the one paying, after all."
"Sir!?"
I threw an arm around Hocheol's shoulders and casually drew him off to the side.
"Listen carefully. When I step on your foot, make a scene. Any kind of scene."
"Sir?"
"Just do as you're told. Make a mess and knock over the setup I've arranged. That's all."
"I'm not really follow—"
"You'll get what I mean soon enough."
Time to set the board.
"Our rookie says he'll trust me and foot the bill."
"Yes, sir..."
"Good, good. Hurry up and throw!"
"There's one small problem, though."
"Huh?"
"This die. So many faces it's practically round as a ball. Throw something like that from eye level and it'll roll a long way."
"Well, yeah. It would."
"Be easier to block its path so it stops somewhere reasonable, then throw."
The various goods I'd been touching off and on since earlier were already giving off a blue light.
"If I do it like this—"
I stood three bulky items up in the shape of a squared-off U, a wall to keep the die from rolling away.
"How's that."
"You're going to use that wall as a target and throw the die into it. That it?"
"Then the wall keeps it from rolling off. And it keeps any other variables from acting on the die."
"Hmm. No complaints, but—"
"But?"
Kkamagwi sucked a breath through his teeth, unable to shake the suspicion.
"The way you see it, the die was made unbalanced, so multiples of five are likelier. That's why you're betting on it?"
"Something like that."
"Well, I'll be..."
He reached for the die in my hand.
Check it all you want.
Kkamagwi turned the die this way and that, examining it.
"Even if the odds are off, it can't be by much..."
"Then that's good for you, isn't it? What's there to hesitate over?"
"It's just creepy. A guy who never takes a loss, wanting to make a bet like this."
"Of course I wouldn't take a fight I'd lose. The way I see it, this fight favors me."
"Based on what?"
"Because that's how the die is built. The odds of a multiple of five are half, at the very least."
"Ha... What is this. Are my eyes just bad?"
He inspected the die carefully, but he couldn't find anything unusual. Naturally. The die was innocent.
"Ah, screw it. No matter how I look at it, I'm the one with the advantage!"
"Then we're agreed?"
"Throw it already!"
The squared-U target and the die glowed blue. The setup was finished.
Probability that, thrown into the target, it strikes all three walls and then stops showing a multiple of five...
The more I communed with the various elements bound up in an event, the more realistic the probability I could see. What appeared when I communed with the die alone was the probability inherent to the die itself — an abstract figure, from a state in which no variable had intervened at all. It was a probability that didn't account for where and how the thing was thrown, which way it rolled, how it came to a stop.
But once I communed with the objects the die would strike, it was a different story. I could see the probability adjusted under the influence of those variables. And if there weren't one such variable, but three? I got a figure even closer to reality.
Too low, for now.
"Ah, wait. The walls are too close. Let me adjust the position just a little."
"Awful lot of fuss over throwing one die."
"Why are you so worked up? You said this was the fun part."
"Woo, I'm thrilled!"
"Mm. This should about do it."
Shift the walls even a little and the probability changed.
Probability that, thrown into the target, it strikes all three walls and then stops showing a multiple of five...
It had gotten seriously worse. Didn't matter. I'd just keep at it until it worked. Time to send Hocheol in.
I casually extended a foot and pressed down, gently, on his.
"Ah—ah—achoo!"
Clatter. Hocheol mimed the sneeze and slapped the standing wall with his hand, knocking it flat.
"Sniff... Whoo. Caught a cold in the nose, sir."
"Come on. Don't jinx it."
Kkamagwi clicked his tongue and set the wall back up.
Probability that, thrown into the target, it strikes all three walls and then stops showing a multiple of five...
The man's hands were uncanny.
The board was complete. Of course, there was still about a ten percent chance I'd lose. A gap that size, I'd just call a human touch.
"Throwing."
"Be my guest."
"I-I'm nervous, sir!"
Thwip. The hundred-sided die left my hand at eye level. Tap, tap, tap — it struck all three walls in a row. Rattle. It dropped into the center of the enclosure and stopped.
"One hundred."
I won.
"...No way."
"A-amazing, sir!"
"I told you. This die doesn't have even odds."
"..."
"There. One magazine loaded with thirty, plus the remaining twenty. Fifty rounds in all. No complaints?"
In truth, I could have set even more outrageous terms and not handed over fifty rounds at all. But guarantee a win that blatantly, and his suspicion would only have grown. This much was about right.
"Damn it. What the hell just happened?"
"What do you mean, what happened."
"Is there really something wrong with this die?"
"Even if the odds were barely off, like you said, it's still one in five, isn't it? That kind of thing happens all the time."
"Damn it."
Thwip. Kkamagwi threw the die at the target, still standing where I'd left it. Sixty-five came up.
"What? Is this die actually broken that bad?"
"Starting to believe me?"
That one had actually been luck.
"Quit throwing it and hand it over."
"Huh?"
"Weren't you selling that die as part of the deal?"
I needed to grab it before he could throw again.
Thwip. But he couldn't help himself, and flicked it once more in a flash. Ten.
"Guess it really is. A die that likes to land on multiples of five."
What? Why was it actually true?
"Hey, give it here. I bought it."
I snatched it and shoved it into my bag.
"...Hey, Bat. You've got sharp eyes, I'll give you that."
"Hm?"
"Honestly, there are plenty of times I can't vouch for the quality of what I'm selling. But you always see right through it."
What was this, all of a sudden. It didn't suit him.
"Even the die looked like nothing special to my eye... All I can say is, that's one hell of a sense."
"This isn't you working up to 'so give me five more rounds,' is it?"
Kkamagwi let out a short laugh and swept his closely cropped hair back.
"Mind if I ask you a favor sometime? I'll make it worth your while."
"What kind?"
"When I need that eye that sees straight through things. From now on I'll charge you a fair price. I mean it."
"Hmm."
"Makes me wonder if you've got some kind of ability. Not that you'd tell me if I asked."
"What ability."
"Doesn't seem possible to deal with you while fooling those eyes anyway. From here on, I'll keep it clean."
There was a sincerity in it I hadn't felt from him before. Even so, this wasn't a man to believe easily.
"Well. Do what you want."
I'd be watching.
"Oh, and I don't need this even for free, so—"
I pulled the whistle out from where it had been hidden among the goods I'd bought and set it down in front of him. I couldn't let Hocheol go around carrying an unlucky thing like that.
"You go ahead and blow on it all you like."
And a man who had watched the whole thing from well off — masks dangling in thick clusters from his hands — slowly came closer.