Downtown (4)

Does the butler actually like spicy food?

Had Seo Ye-in picked her gift with the purest of intentions, only for the Hellfire Pizza Bread to come up in the draw? Or was she just messing with him?

Various questions floated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠through my mind, but this hardly seemed like something I needed to get involved in. I decided to just sit back and see how it played out.

Our next destination was the Game Center, where plush toys could be won — decided back when we were eating honey toast. We stepped out of the bakery and strolled along at a leisurely pace, like a couple on a walk.

By the time we neared the heart of the commercial district, cheerful electronic jingles had begun ringing in our ears. The closer we walked, the crisper the sounds became, until at last the Game Center revealed itself — a glittering sprawl of flashing lights and arcade machines lined up row after row.

The noise swelled to a whole new level the moment we set foot inside. A jumble of sound effects crashed over us all at once, mixed with barely comprehensible shouts, screams, and whoops of victory.

— You beat the high score?

— No, stop cheating already!

— That's not how you do it.

— I lost, but I fought well.

And there stood Seo Ye-in, quietly covering both ears with her hands. Her blank expression was thoroughly steeped in displeasure.

I had a feeling it would come to this.

Of all the places we'd visited together today, this Game Center was by far the loudest. Not exactly somewhere you'd want to linger.

Using hand gestures and lip-reading, I communicated to her.

— Let's just find the plushies quickly.

— Okay.

First, we swept through the claw machines, which were relatively easy. With plush toys piled up like mountains, I figured we might stumble onto something.

Seo Ye-in peered into the machines for a good long while, but nothing seemed to catch her eye.

Not these, then.

— Clunk.

Still, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I couldn't just walk away empty-handed. I dropped a single silver into a claw machine and plucked a shark plushie in one go, tucked it into Seo Ye-in's arms, and moved on quickly.

Next up were the plushies displayed in the prize corner — the harder-tier ones you could only get by clearing a series of mini-games. A great big panda, a long anaconda, a starfish, a penguin...

For a moment curiosity seemed to flicker to life, Seo Ye-in's interest gauge inching upward slightly — then it promptly plummeted straight back to zero.

Not here either, huh.

— Shushushushk!

I cleared the mini-games at the speed of light, took the anaconda plushie as my prize, and wound it snugly around Seo Ye-in's neck. Then we headed to our next stop — and our last.

A special zone set apart in one corner of the Game Center. The facilities inside looked almost identical to everywhere else, but this area alone was eerily deserted. Fewer than ten people were playing mini-games in here combined, and every single one of them was a student. Ordinary civilians either never set foot inside at all, or wandered in and promptly wandered back out.

Seo Ye-in tilted her head, then asked with her eyes, 'What is this place?'

"The Student Corner."

Even within this Game Center, it was a space reserved exclusively for Dragon Slayer Academy students.

The moment we stepped into the Student Corner, the noise that had been filling our ears dropped off dramatically. The interior and exterior were isolated from each other by soundproofing magic.

Of course, the place was still packed with arcade machines, and students were in the thick of play, so it was hardly silent. Even so, the level of racket apparently fell within acceptable limits, because Seo Ye-in finally took her hands off her ears.

As for the students actually playing — surveying their faces, most were third-years with the occasional second-year mixed in. Like the shuttle bus, first-years were nowhere to be found.

And unlike the other zones, the atmosphere wasn't one of carefree fun. Every one of them was approaching their game with a grave, deadly serious demeanor.

Why?

Because they're not here to play around.

The single biggest factor keeping them so serious was the coin required to play any game in this Student Corner: the Dragon Slayer Academy Token.

These tokens were sold only at the student store. And the price?

300 points per token.

That was a pretty steep sum for a single round of a game.

To compare it with this week's conquest: Song Cheon-hye and I had put our heads together, schemed up every strategy under the sun, and endured every trial and error imaginable, and the score we produced was 925. Multiplied by the ground-floor conquest rate of 0.8, that came out to 740 points.

But play two or three games at the arcade, and 600 points would evaporate just like that.

Replay sales did bring in more income on top of that, but even so, there was no denying that 300 points a token was a heavy burden. Frankly, spending 500 points per visit to the Special Meditation Room would be a far more constructive use of money in the long run.

That was why first-years didn't even dare dream of trying, and why even the second- and third-year seniors approached their games carrying so much visible weight.

So then — what could possibly drive those people to burn 300 points in real time, over and over, on mini-games?

Seo Ye-in and I turned to look at a board set up to one side.

The prize list was refreshed at random every week.

Nine out of ten of the prizes were cosmetic items with little to do with actual combat power. The [Transparency Scroll], which rendered any armor whose appearance you hated completely see-through, or the [All-in-One Skin Brightening Cream], which crammed skin whitening and every manner of beauty benefit into a single jar — those were good examples.

On the other hand, prizes tied directly to performance did show up on the list from time to time. The [Random Rank-Up] randomly upgraded one of your owned skills or traits to a higher rank, and the [Equipment Enhancement Stone] was, as the name suggested, one of the precious few methods of improving an equipment item's performance.

Naturally, it was these performance items I had come here for.

Just then, Seo Ye-in, who had been browsing the list alongside me, brought up one of the prizes.

"Tiger plushie?"

It was less that it carried any particular significance and more that the word "plushie" had simply jumped out at her — but having noticed it, she seemed to want to see what it was. And so our eyes met those of the Tiger Plushie enthroned on the prize display with a commanding, majestic air.

It was about the size of a large dog — quite substantial — and every detail, from its facial features down to the tip of its tail, was rendered with almost excessive care. At a glance, you might genuinely mistake it for a living tiger.

Seo Ye-in drew close to the tiger plushie and engaged it in a long, hard staring contest. Then she pressed her index finger firmly into its nose, its cheek, and so on. The way the fingertip sank in all soft and springy confirmed it: definitely a plushie.

But she still couldn't tear her eyes away from the tiger.

It seemed I had finally managed to properly pique her interest.

I asked her.

"You want it? The tiger?"

"Yeah."

It was good that we'd finally tracked down a plushie she actually wanted. Which meant the next problem was how to get it — the second reason those seniors were taking their mini-games so gravely.

Because every prize came with a condition attached.

The tiger plushie's acquisition condition was viewing the ending credits. Whichever game you chose, you had to see it through to the very end. And if you died along the way, you had to "Continue" — with a token charged each and every time.

In other words, every death meant another 300 points down the drain.

I explained all of this to her, and after listening quietly, Seo Ye-in said,

"I have lots of points."

"Do you? How many?"

Seo Ye-in took out her student ID and checked the point balance on the back.

"Twenty thousand."

"You've saved up quite a bit."

At this stage, the only ways for a first-year to earn points were ground-floor conquests and selling replays. Having 20,000 banked meant that while she might not match Go Hyeon-woo or the other rising stars, Seo Ye-in's replays had been selling pretty briskly too.

Of course, even with a fat balance, dying like it was dinner time would gobble up those 20,000 points in no time flat.

"Let's pad it out a little, then."

It couldn't hurt to secure a few extra tokens in advance, after all. Before diving into the main game, I led Seo Ye-in over to a slot machine tucked into one corner.

The slot machine's rules were simple. Insert a token, pull the lever, and get a result — then receive tokens back according to that result. Sometimes it paid out five or ten, and on a jackpot, even thirty. But with middling luck, you got zero. Meaning 300 points, slurped down without a trace, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the end.

But what if our lucky mascot pulled it?

Seo Ye-in, whose luck was decidedly not middling? That was well worth betting on.

Having exchanged a glance with me, Seo Ye-in purchased a handful of tokens from the student store. With a jingling sound, several coins materialized out of thin air and dropped into her palm.

She inserted one token into the slot machine and pulled the lever. The machine shuddered with a clunk and spat out four tokens.

Decent start, but...

She inserted another token and pulled the lever again. This time, the machine spat out two. On her third attempt, one token in, one token out — break-even.

So it really does work that way.

The hypothesis I'd formed when opening the Black Snake Gang's random boxes seemed to be gaining considerable weight.

Seo Ye-in's trait apparently contained something like an invisible "luck battery." When a jackpot hit, the total store of luck drained by a substantial amount. Each subsequent act of testing her luck further depleted the remaining battery, until eventually she was no different from someone with no trait at all. Then, after a certain stretch of time, the battery recharged like her luck was filling back up — and the jackpots came bursting out again in succession.

She's had more than enough of a jackpot today.

She'd pulled two A-Rank bracelets already; being greedy on top of that would just be shameless. From here on out, the right move was to carve our way forward on skill.

"Shall we begin, then?"

"Yeah."

We took a light lap around the Student Corner to decide which game to challenge.

First priority: we had to go with the genre Seo Ye-in was most confident in. Ask someone to suddenly become a slasher and fight their way through, and there was no chance they'd perform. So the genre was settled — a shooting game.

Second priority: it had to be a two-player co-op game.

This was a space for aspiring heroes of the future, and the mini-game difficulty here had skyrocketed accordingly. I couldn't say about myself, but Seo Ye-in alone would be hopeless. There was a far greater chance she'd burn through all 20,000 points before ever glimpsing the ending credits, so it was better for me to drive the bus to at least some degree.

The game ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had carefully selected under those premises:

On the screen, a man and a woman stood posing with pistols in hand. And two pistols, identical to the ones they held, sat waiting in front of us.

Each of us picked up a gun, and Seo Ye-in was first to insert her token into the machine. Then she held a second token out to me, but I shook my head.

"I'll use mine."

For me, spending more or fewer points was hardly the issue. Because the acquisition condition for the prize I was after was a bit harsher than the rest.

The ending-credits condition was the same as Seo Ye-in's, but the moment my "Continues" exceeded four, I would have to give up on this reward. It meant I had to play while treasuring each and every life like it was precious gold.

Ordinarily, this was a difficulty level that even second- and third-years wouldn't dare attempt. From my standpoint, though, it barely earned a scoff.

I won't even need five.

I was going to see it through to the end on a single coin.

A good moment to recall the various nicknames I'd held in Dragon Slayer Academy. The S-Rank Factory. The Graduate Manufacturer. Rank One. The Strongest Supporter. God of the Fixed Zone.

And...

The Mini-Game Demon King.