Volume 5, Notice//(2/9)
There was nothing I could do on my own.
Letting my emotions get the better of me would only end with me being taken for everything I was worth.
“But...”
I cut in there.
As the stuffed animal-like Youkai focused on me, I pulled out my cellphone.
“I have a classmate who’s ridiculously good with money. I’ll get some advice from her first.”
Part 6 (Day 10/04 00:00 - 00:20)
“I see what’s going on here, Shinobu-kun. If you see nothing wrong with calling me at this hour, I think you should go get yourself officially diagnosed with a Madoka-chan addiction.”
“You don’t sound like I woke you up, so I’m glad to see we’re both living equally unhealthy lifestyles.”
“Hm? I hear a lot of music in the background. Where are you right now?”
Eccentric beauty Kotemitsu Madoka’s question led me to glance at my surroundings.
Unlike the ridiculous deluge of light outside, the casino itself was moderately filled with soft lighting and music. The volume was a little high, but that may have been to hide the sounds of the roulettes and slot machines. With the red carpet, chic wooden pillars, and decorative green mats on the tables, it was a colorful place.
Despite being a tourist area, the men and women in suits and dresses were not crammed inside like the beach during summer. Leisurely comfort seemed to be the standard here.
I looked down from the second floor to view the poker tables on the first floor.
It covered his expensive suit, belt, and shoes, so it seemed this con artist really liked snakeskin. I just hoped his cocktail glass wasn’t filled with pit viper sake.
“You care a lot about money, Madoka-chan, so have you heard of a Kodama Ryou?”
“Oh...”
“Sounds like you have.”
“He’s a pretty big annoyance in the world of investment. For him, the stock market is a form of gambling, not a business. He buys or sells them with sums measured in the hundreds of millions just to enjoy the thrill. You can’t predict what he’s going to do, so a lot of people have had their stock certificates suddenly turned to scrap paper thanks to him.”
“What is he trying to do?”
“Weren’t you listening? He enjoys the thrill. Do you know his hobby? Art auctions. But after pouring ridiculous amounts of money into a painting or sculpture, he almost immediately donates it to a random museum. The act of acquiring it is what he enjoys. Nothing could be more troublesome.”
“So where does he get his money? If he’s doing that kind of thing all the time, even your average rich kid would run out pretty quickly.”
“Since you bothered to contact me, I assume you already know. He tricks people for fun and then uses the money he gets to enjoy that thrill he loves. And once his wallet is empty again, he starts looking for a new mark. ...I said he donates the paintings and sculptures he gets to museums, remember? Thanks to that, every government feels like they owe him. The carefree government officials think of him as a necessary evil, so you can’t expect a proper investigation when he’s involved.”
“What’s this thrill nonsense? He’s made sure he’ll be safe no matter what.”
“But his techniques are stupidly simple. I doubt it, but your family didn’t fall for that, did they?”
“No, just some acquaintances. An old woman in Shikoku fell for it when she was trying to find the money to save her sick granddaughter. Do you think that story’s true?”
“There’s too little information, so I can’t say. But Kodama Ryou has scammed about two thousand people around the country and that’s only the ones I can confirm. Whether that particular story is true or not, he’s probably done something similar. That sick granddaughter sounds like exactly the kind of thing he would use.”
“What?”
“Why do you think everyone falls for it when his speaking skills are no better than an ape’s? I don’t know how, but he always shows up right when a family member has been in a traffic accident or had their house burn down. He targets people when they aren’t thinking straight. My guess is whatever put them in that state was his doing, too. ...Could this granddaughter’s disease be reproduced by ingesting some kind of harmful substance?”
....................................................................................................................................................................................
I looked back down over the railing and at the first floor poker table.
The lady killer decked out in snakeskin was getting drunk on expensive drink while toying with the cards he was dealt.
As he smiled in the light, I could not see a single stain on him. There was not even a drop of the blood he sucked from his victims.
“Um, Shinobu-kun. If you really do need money, I can help you out. I can get about two billion moving with a single phone call to my accountant.”
“How much of a debt do you want a classmate to owe you? Now you’re just scaring me. And that would be too boring. It wouldn’t feel like actually winning.”
“?”
Yes. For example, winning a ton of money against a computer program in the Heavy Cruiser Island VR casino city using a cellphone or smartphone wouldn’t help cheer me up.
“It has to be from that bastard.”
I extended the thumb and forefinger of my empty hand to make a handgun gesture.
And I thrust it directly toward the face of that snake man who was enjoying his time surrounded by beautiful women.
“I won’t be satisfied unless I take back everything he’s taken and add some interest on top for good measure.”
Part 7 (Day 10/04 00:35 - 01:15)
I got my chip worth thirty thousand yen with the beginner’s luck system and sat at a poker table. It seemed the tables were divided into a few different categories based on how much you could bet at once and I was only allowed at the cheapest table on the far edge of the room.
But even there, I lost almost everything.
The female dealer gave me a sympathetic look as I left the table and then exited the casino.
“Rejoice, my thirty thousand yen chip transformed into one thousand five hundred yen. That’s thanks to getting two of a kind twice. Now I should be able to buy some dinner once I find a normal convenience store somewhere around here.”
“Shinobu, I think the dealer intentionally gave you those hands to draw you in.”
“I also figured out why the VR casino’s virtual currency is called Gears. The chip designs have a gear motif and it seems you can exchange chips between physical and virtual.”
Annoyance filled my tone as I started recalling my observations of the enemy.
“That place is pretty amazing. I’m guessing it’s to keep people from cheating by marking the cards, but they throw them all out after every hand and open the seal on a brand new deck.”
Just like normal animals, the fox, tanuki, and badger were rummaging through a trash can behind the casino.
“Look, they threw out this meat on the bone almost untouched! I can’t imagine why anyone would do this!!”
“They probably confused throwing out perfectly edible food with luxury.”
“Damn them. This is the kind of person that took the old lady’s precious pension money!?”
As they argued back and forth, they began chowing down like they were at a house party. I was just glad they looked so happy.
She must have decided they weren’t going to be any use because the Indoor Zashiki Warashi didn’t even look their way as she spoke to me.
“So what are you going to do? You have to challenge this Kodama Ryou guy to a game of poker to get back the money he stole, right? But I think you need some funds of your own to do that.”
“Yeah, it was no use. With a thirty thousand yen chip, I couldn’t even sit at the same table as him. The minimum was three million. I could blow three million on a single hand. And that could easily double or quadruple if someone raises the bet. There’s no way I can find that kind of money.”
The Zashiki Warashi glanced over at the road and the hands of the men and women slowly stepping out of black limousines.
“It doesn’t look to be like the casino guests are carrying around duralumin cases or anything.”
“I’m not going to steal it, you idiot. And they probably think carry cash is for poor people. They all pay with cards. You’ve heard of a black card, haven’t you? Those have no credit limit. The casinos all have giant servers in the back, so the VIPs always have access to the card companies. To them, it’s really only data moving back and forth.”
“And your card is?”
“You already know that. It’s just meant to make online shopping easier. Paying for my cellphone, cable TV, smartphone, computer, and online gaming is enough to almost hit the limit. I don’t have any leeway there.”
The fox walked out from behind the casino holding a bunch of French fries and began shouting as if he could not overlook what I had said.
“What!? Then what are we going to do? We’ve already hit a dead end before the game has even begun!!”
“That’s right. But anyone in an Intellectual Village casino is going to have odd tastes, so there will be plenty of people who know what things are worth. ...I don’t need actual money. I just need something they’ll be even more eager to get their hands on.”
“Shinobu, you don’t mean...”
“Red Yukata and Black-Haired Beauty.”
The three animals only tilted their heads at those brand names, so I explained.
“That junmai daiginjo is worth fifty thousand yen a cup, so what if I knew where bottles of it were just lying around?”
Part 8 (Day 10/04 02:05 - 02:30)
Simply travelling between the casino and inn was exhausting.
The Zashiki Warashi and I gathered the empty bottles lying around our room in the inn and filled them with tap water. My parents were completely drunk, so it wasn’t difficult.
“W-will that really fool them?”
The wet nurse tanuki was clearly nervous when we got back, but there was really no need to worry about it.
“The bottles and labels are definitely from the Jinnai Brewery and they’ll know I really am the son of the family if they check my identity.”
“But that’s only water in there, right?”
“No one can open the bottles. The scarcity is everything with brand-name sake. You’ve essentially ruined it as soon as you open it, so they can’t carelessly appraise it or anything. No one would be delighted to eat the leftovers of someone’s fancy dinner, right? Well, this is the same. ...As long as I don’t lose, no one’s going to check on the contents. And this many bottles should count for about seven million yen.”
“B-but what if they do a careful examination of the cork.”
“Don’t worry. One unique trait of the Jinnai Brewery is the lack of a decorative label over the cork. The idea is that avoids dirtying the mouth of the bottle with adhesive. The clasp over the cork is used to tell if it’s been opened or not, but you can bend that with a coin. They won’t be able to tell as long as they don’t check with a jeweler’s magnifying glass.”
The fox and badger were discussing our strategy a short distance away.
“What are we going to do?”
“Kodama Ryou is a con artist, so there’s no need for us to play fair either.”
The Zashiki Warashi tapped her shoulder with a huge sake bottle.
“But pulling this off only gets you at the same table as him. He’s managed to stay at that high-stakes table for who knows how long, so he has to be cheating somehow.”
“W-we’ve heard something about that.” The tanuki raised one paw while standing on her hind legs. “We heard it from a gentleman who lost everything to him. He claimed Kodama Ryou uses an Usuhiki Warashi and that he wouldn’t have lost if he could have found some proof. The man was pretty drunk, though.”
“An Usuhiki Warashi, you say?”
A troubled look filled my face.
Hadn’t I heard giggling from between two buildings and seen a Youkai that looked like a small girl?
An Usuhiki Warashi was a subspecies of Zashiki Warashi that would appear near the stone mill in old houses. Other than that trait, they were almost identical to a Zashiki Warashi. They brought wealth and fortune to the family of the house they lived in, but that house would fall into decline as soon as they left. According to the records, they would predict fires or lead to an entire clan being wiped out in a single night.
The only other major trait was the frequent non-malicious pranks. In those cases, it apparently wasn’t unusual for them to leave the home or stone mill they saw as their territory. For example, when children were playing in the house’s yard or in the schoolyard, an extra child would mysteriously appear among them. It was obvious an Usuhiki Warashi had joined in because the adults would find the number of children had increased when they counted them, but they could never figure out which one was the Usuhiki Warashi. They would also sneak into the family’s futon as they slept, flip over their pillows, pull away the blanket, or play other pranks around the bed.
The legit Good-for-Nothing Zashiki Warashi tilted her head.
“But I thought Youkai weren’t allowed in the casinos. If this Kodama con artist is using one of my subspecies, wouldn’t he be caught almost immediately?”
“Yes, but there were some suspicious-looking people among the casino security guards.”
Intellectual Villages didn’t trust the police much, so armed guards weren’t an uncommon sight. They were armed with weapons that didn’t run afoul of the Swords and Firearms Control Law. For example, a small crossbow or a blackjack made by stuffing small metal balls into a leather bag. They would use those weapons to beat up dangerous animals, crop thieves, or industrial spies.
But this was a casino city.
The guards here seemed even more heavily armed than the normal guards who surrounded eccentric beauty Madoka-chan. Some were even equipped with the kind of mechanical arm used for medical or engineering purposes that increased a human’s strength five or ten times over.
I definitely didn’t want to make an enemy of them, but some stood out even more than the others.
“They had pentagram-like marks on the backs of their gloves and they felt like a mix of a charismatic spiritual leader and a hitman.”
“Mh? That sounds like an Onmyouji to me! I know all about them. If they’re using a pentagram, they must follow the Abe style!! Maybe they’re sarcastic intellectuals who curry the favor of the Imperial Court and the nobles to live the good life!!”
The badger flailed his short arms and legs around while shouting, but...
“Hey, what do you think?” I asked the Zashiki Warashi. “Is it really likely that they have an anti-Youkai unit that specializes in the paranormal?”
“Who can say? They’re probably about the same as a girl with an affinity for the spiritual. They can probably sense that something’s wrong, but I doubt they have the power needed to directly kill a Youkai. If people like that were so easy to get your hands on, the country would have made up for the gaps in its laws by now. Not to mention that those kinds of people belong to organizations that don’t like to make public appearances.”
She was referring to the world centered on Hyakki Yakou.
Seeing people like Hishigami Mai or the Illness Magic User made it easy to forget how hard it was to kill a Youkai, but people like that were few and far between. You couldn’t just hand them some cash and have them guard your casino like a part-timer.
“But this is probably enough to catch anyone cheating. It’s always the humans who use Packages, so they can use their numbers and physical strength to put a stop to it when they sense that something’s wrong.”
“B-but Kodama Ryou is using an Usuhiki Warashi to cheat right now,” pointed out the wet nurse tanuki.
“It’s simple,” I answered with a shrug. “He’s probably bribed them.”
The three animals groaned.
“That would explain why they found us so easily when we snuck in. He must have ordered them to focus on searching for anyone who might harm him.”
I have no idea what method you used, but something tells me that was your own fault.
“Anyway, we’ll have to reveal his Usuhiki Warashi trick on our own. We can’t expect the casino to do anything about it.”
“D-do you have a plan? I really don’t think you can win by leaving it up to luck.”
“I wouldn’t even try if that’s what I was doing.” I gathered up the sake battles filled with tap water. “Zashiki Warashi, give those three the smartphone you borrowed from me. It’s necessary.”
“?”
“Also, you three won’t be going with us. There’s a lot I want you to do instead.”
I rattled off my instructions.
After telling the Zashiki Warashi what she had to do, I turned toward the fox, tanuki, and badger who had started swiping their front paws across the screen to see how it worked.
“And I will of course need your help for this.”
“We will do anything to help the old lady, but we can’t even get inside the casino.”
The badger tilted his head as he spoke, so I replied.
“Not all help has to come from inside the casino.”
Part 9 (Day 10/04 02:41 - 03:00)
If the joker is included in the deck, one of the players must announce it. The announcer’s winnings for that hand will only be 0.8 times normal (with the exception of five of a kind that can only be made with a joker).
If the winner forms their hand after discarding the joker, their winnings will be twice normal.
If a player is caught cheating, they will be penalized twice their bet amount. However, a simple bluff does not qualify as cheating.
Cheating is eliminated by the thorough management of the dealer, but it can also be directly pointed out by an opponent.
But if the loser accuses the winner of cheating and no cheating can be proven, the loser will be penalized one hundred times their bet amount for ruining the game and damaging the winner’s reputation.
If a player does not swap out a single card, their winnings will be 1.5 times normal.
I went over the local rules in my head as I once more threw open the door to the casino that took away almost all of the thirty thousand yen chip I got from the beginner’s luck system. A few people looked down on me as the guest who did not belong yet returned anyway, but I that didn’t matter.
I had only one target: the top-rate poker table that Kodama Ryou still sat at.
“Hi there!”
Just as the dealer was about to deal the cards to the con artist and four other ladies and gentlemen, I called out to them.
I also shoved aside the middle-aged man sitting next to Kodama Ryou, knocking over the cards and chips in the process.
“You... Ha ha. Yeah, you! ...You’re Kodama-san, aren’t you? Kodama Ryou! They had a championship to determine the best player in Japan’s four greatest casinos, but why didn’t you join in? That was just child’s play, so if you’d shown up, you could’ve changed history.”
“Hey!” shouted the angry middle-aged man.
Some men in black were positioned by the walls and columns so they could keep a view of the entire floor yet not interrupt the flow of guests. They all began rushing toward me, but not because they thought I was a threat. They probably thought I was here to complain about my previous loss.
They grabbed the back of my neck and my arms, but I still laughed.
“You’re like my hero, so I want to steal your unbeatable secrets with my eyes! I’m not asking to be your apprentice or anything like that, so will you play against me just once. I brought the money I need to bet on it, so can’t you just play one game!?”
The snakeskin con artist slowly closed his eyes.
Eventually, he opened them ever so slightly.
What was he thinking? What was he weighing on the scales?
“Well...”
He made extra sure his voice lacked any kind of displeased distortion like a skipping record.
That was all it took for the men in black’s grip to weaken on my arms.
“Before we talk, could I treat everyone at the table to a drink? I have to do at least that much if we’re robbing them of a game.”
“Oh, yeah. Um, sorry!”
“What do you say, everyone? Will you leave this to me and take a drink to this young man’s future?”
They accepted the con artist’s request with bitter sneers more than with displeasure.
Yes, that’s right.
This is perfect.
I had destroyed a game where money changed hands by the millions and Kodama Ryou was the undefeated player at the table. The gallery had to be hoping he would drown this impolite brat in a hell of debt. Pushed on by that, Kodama Ryou had to be thinking he would “kindly” give me what I wanted and take everything I had to make up for the game I had robbed him.
If he wasn’t willing to ruin a stupid kid’s life for money, he wouldn’t work as a con artist.
But had he realized that the stage was set? There were no brakes on this roller coaster. Once the drop began, he couldn’t back out no matter how ridiculous it got.
If a casino’s top player backed out of a game suggested by a stupid-looking high school boy, he’d be seen as the biggest chicken of them all.
There had to be a type of reputation and trust he wanted to earn even if it meant deceiving everyone.
He needed it to keep the money flowing in from his victims.
“So what do you mean when you say you brought the money you need to bet on the game? I doubt a kid your age has what it takes to sit at this table.”
“Heh. Heh heh. I’m not really sure if I can use it or not.”
With a stiff smile, I clunked my “funds” up onto the table.
“But I’ve got Red Yukata, Black-Haired Beauty, Lovely Nape, and Gorgeous White Hand. I don’t really get it myself, but these are my grampa’s treasure. Is this enough for a game?”
“Oh? The Jinnai Brewery?”
The snakeskin man actually sounded a little surprised at this.
The name was pretty well known, so a stir ran through the ladies and gentlemen in the gallery as well.
“Well, well. You don’t see this every day, but it’s still not quite enough.”
Liar.
I know this is easily enough for two or three games (if they weren’t filled with tap water, of course). You just want to rip off a kid who doesn’t know what it’s worth, don’t you?
“So how about this? Why not play a special game just between the two of us? Let’s keep the dealer and the casino out of this. You want to steal my techniques, so including the other players would only get in the way, wouldn’t it?”
“Y-you’ll do that much for me!?”
That means you don’t have to worry about the other players or the dealer stealing your winnings, doesn’t it?
“Yes, yes. How much do you know about poker?”
“Th-the basics. I’ve played it with some friends in my class. Y’know, you shuffle the cards, deal out five each, and then exchange however many you want.”
“Ha ha. Then I guess you wouldn’t know what Texas Hold ‘em is. Well, we can play the Japanese card game style with five cards each. We’ll exchange cards...”
He snapped his fingers, someone tossed a die over from another table, and he rolled it.
“Okay, we’ll exchange them twice. Is that fine?”
“But then it won’t feel like a real casino game after I came all the way to Goldmine Island. ...Oh, I know. Can we use the casino’s rate and local rules?”
“Fine. What should we do about a five of a kind using a joker?”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
“Then let’s allow it. That makes 53 cards including the joker. Today’s lucky sort is...”
He swung his hand and the dealer spread the cards out on the table face-down before pulling one out.
“Okay, the seven of spades. In this game, a royal flush of spades will be a special hand and the only one that can defeat a five of a kind.”
“Also, I want to see how you use the cards, so can we do away with the raising and calling? Let’s risk it all from the beginning. I won’t get anything by seeing how you fold.”
“Fine. I’ll give you what you want here since it should be an important lesson for you.”
He must have wanted to show how generous he was or to draw in the gallery because he accepted my suggestions surprisingly readily.
“I’m actually pretty happy about this,” he said. “A lot happened on my way to where I am and I even had someone I viewed as a teacher. Seeing you here kind of makes me think I’ve finally arrived where he was. So...”
He smiled thinly and snapped his fingers.
Immediately, the front double-doors opened and several men in black stomped inside.
They were holding something from either side.
“That Zashiki Warashi is your Youkai, isn’t it?”
I could feel unpleasant sweat seeping out on the back of my neck.
The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata was bound by what looked like white plastic rope. And not just her arms and legs either. It was wrapped around her torso, her neck, and all of her body like some kind of sick form of torture.
Still smiling, the con artist spoke.
“You see, the casino knows how to take care of Youkai related to fortunes and money.”
He spoke quickly.
The Youkai that should have been invulnerable to blades or bullets was giving me a pleading look.
“They say Zashiki Warashi come from the threshold, below the floor, or below the stone mill. Those seem to have been common places to bury murdered babies. Using that legend, they crush an old stone mill into powder, place it in a furnace, and create glass fiber rope out of it. Not even the Youkai’s great strength can break it.”
“...”
“This! This is how it has to be, boy!”
Kodama Ryou’s raised voice seemed to swallow me up.
It seemed to create a current that swept me away without letting me make any kind of protest.
“If you want to feel the true thrill of a gamble, you must follow a few simple rules of etiquette. First, do not keep any assets in reserve. And second, do not keep any tricks up your sleeve. ...How about you bet that Youkai as well? If you don’t, you won’t get any closer to the true essence of gambling.”
“.............................................................................................................................................”
“Now, let’s do as you said and risk it all from the beginning. No raising, no calling, and no wisely folding. Surely you don’t mind. You were the one asking for just that.”
For a moment, truly just a moment, the inside of my forehead felt oddly cold and I felt like I was going to forget everything. I had known this was coming, but my vision still nearly filled with white light.
Yes, I had known this was coming.
In other words...
Yes, yes! I was waiting for this!!
When speaking with Madoka over the phone, she had pointed out the initial problem I would face.
“Shinobu-kun, do you really think an expert cheat-->>