Nightmare Fantasy Online

The second day of the Nightmare Carnival:

"PLEASE! Take this and leave!!" - Casino owner

"...why?" - Garami

I am confused. When I returned for another fruitful day at the casino, the owner of the place, a rabbit-headed NPC, was kowtowing in the lobby after I entered. Again, why? I only crushed the spirits of a few dealers, emptied some slots, and got such a big windfall on the roulette that it should be dubbed a "stormfall". 

In front of the owner was a pretty fat item bag. Probably filled with various items as a bribe to get me to stop playing. 

However, I won't stop. If I do, this will be the sixth casino in my life that I've been blacklisted from even without any cheating! I left without problems the first five ones, but that was because I didn't want masked thugs after my life and winnings, but this is a game. I'll just flip the odds against them as I did with the slots!

"Please, I beg you! Just take this and leave! If our establishment does not clear our quota, then-!" - Casino owner

"Quota? What quota?" - Garami

The casino owner, a thin man with a full-face mask and dressed in a green suit, said something strange there that piqued my interest. The owner's voice turned more desperate as he tried to push the item bag onto me.

"N-n-n-nothing at all! Now, away you go!" - Casino owner

"Wha-, wait-!" - Garami

---

"-and then they threw me out! Like yesterday's garbage! Can you believe that!?" - Garami

After the unreasonable treatment that I received from the casino, with the final nail being that all the other casinos on that floating island had banned me from entering, I ran over to the festival island to vent my anger on the various stalls and games there. 

After half a day's worth of rage-filled gaming, so much that I didn't notice all the people that were staring at my rampage, unbelievably enough, I found a secluded shop that was selling refreshments to the players. The place that Al Azif had obtained was another example of this.

While drowning my sorrows and embarrassment over my berserker-like attitude earlier with amazake, I complained to the pink rabbit that had been in the shop when I arrived.

"That's horrible," replied Jill the Pink Demon, who was chatting with me with an expression on his face as if he was good-talking to a troublesome guy. How rude! But his next words looked to be straight from his heart:

"Or rather, isn't it strange? Why "quota" does a casino in an event like this even need to follow?" - Jill

"That's my line! It's a different story in the real world, but why would an in-game casino run by NPCs even need to worry about that stuff? They don't need to pay rent or anything!" - Garami

"There's also the question of what the "quota" is for." - Jill

What it is..., I didn't think of that. Maybe the CP..., but why would the NPC worry about getting those? Then the number of guests? But to my dislike, people began to gather at the casino when I started crushing the dealers. Not that they didn't gamble much themselves. They only looked at my games...

"Hmm, it's a mystery..." - Garami

"I don't think there's a big need for us to worry about that. People who watched that event have started chatting about it on the BBS, that "the demon princess' demonic luck got her banned from the casinoes"." - Jill

"What the hell?!" - Garami

When did those kinda rumors start to spread?! Ever since yesterday with the incident with the sleazeballs? And who's a "demon princess"!? I looked at the posts Jill told me about, and sure, tons of stuff I've done in the event is written here. There's even a dedicated thread to it! The sole good thing is that my in-game name hasn't been leaked yet...

"Anyway, those verification maniacs are working on it, so we should just enjoy the game." - Jill

"Which makes me wanna ask, why haven't you quit your current character and started a new one?" - Garami

I mean, he's still a G-ranked Pink Demon even after all this time. I would have stopped playing and re-started with a new character if I was in the same hopeless situation.

"Meh, it's not that bad. The Dungeon I'm trapped in is what you could call a "water ruin". Tons of magical fishes and water canals block you from moving as you please, but there are tons of books in the library-like areas of the Dungeon, so I've used my time in imprisonment efficiently." - Jill

"Huh, you also use [Linguistics]?" - Garami

"Along with [Water Magic]. Back then, I was hoping that skill would give me some magic that could let me escape from the Dungeon, but..." - Jill

"My condolence." - Garami

"Don't worry about it. This is my problem. Anyway, you talked about getting some compensation from the casino. Did you get anything good?" - Jill

"...just some gambling stuff." - Garami

The contents of the item bag I got from the casino owner included several pieces of furniture that I could add to my Player Room. Specifically, a card table, a slot machine, and a roulette table.

There was also a good amount of playing cards and board games inside the bag, and even a "Fortune Ring" accessory. I'm NOT gonna wear the bunny girl outfit that was included as well though.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to pry into your matters." - Jill

"No harm taken." - Garami

"Then, you're planning on hitting the lottery after this? I'll join you." - Jill

"Why?" - Garami

"I'm hoping that your devilish luck is contagious." - Jill

Don't treat my "Stella-style gambling arts" as some virus or disease. 

After paying our bills, we went to the lottery stands. There are multiple of them, but..., most are mobbed by players. All of them must be planning on spending their lottery tickets. Many of them seem to be sucking on some candy. Is it popular?

Even Jill didn't seem to like having to wait in that huge of a crowd, so we went to one of the less populated stands. Masked men in a green kimono were manning the stand that had five lottery machines standing in rows. The kind you can turn around and colored spheres pop out.

A sign at the side told us about the prices, to the point of their rate of appearing.

The special prize seems to let your Player Room extend to the size of the field. As fitting for its name, you can only win 1 among all the stands, and no one has gotten it as of yet. Please don't let me get that one. I've got enough attention on me as it is.

And the Fortune Ring is part of the 4th prize. It increases your LUC by 30 points. Not bad for an event item. All the other accessories improve their original stat by the same amount. 

The "Nightmare of Greed" stuff isn't that interesting to me. They're strong and you can choose which type of weapon you want, but they come with a side-effect called "Hungry Greed" which reduces the EXP you get for the next 24 hours after you kill a monster by 1%.

Kill 10 monsters. down 10%. Kill one more an hour later, your EXP is down with 11% for 23 more hours, then 1% an hour after that again. It can't go past 50% though, but I still wouldn't want to use it. 

Well, it could be a nice thing to have if you're gonna fight a boss that doesn't have any underlings. As far as I know, these weapons may be the strongest items a player can get their hand on at the moment. Kinda strange they're offering them through an event. 

"...let me try out first." - Garami

"Sure." - Jill

Due to my rampage, I have 108 tickets to use for the lottery, with each spin needing 3 tickets. This gives me 36 spins in total. I gave the masked man 15 of them for now and spun each machine one at a time. 

The results, from left to right, are; White, Blue, White, White, Yellow.

"Wow! You got a weapon already!" - Jill

Yeah, an Iron Spear. Can't use this. I then tried three more spins on the fourth machine and got: Yellow, White, and...

*Ding, ding, ding!*

The masked men run a bell as a black sphere comes out of the machine. The reward is...the Skill Book for [Spear Proficiency]. I still can't use it due to my Scout class...

"Awesome! So this is the good machine-" - Jill

"It's the worst of them all. Ignore it," I told the rabbit as I moved to the first machine again and gave another 9 tickets to the masked men for another 3 spins.

"Huh? How do you know that?" - Jill

"Instinct." - Garami

The rabbit looked at me with a face that voiced his awkwardness regarding my answer, but it changed into a shocked one when I rolled: Yellow, Yellow, Red.

After accepting the two weak HP Potions and placing them with the MP potion from before, I equipped the "Power Anklet" on my leg before taking 5 rolls on the third machine again.

Blue, Blue, White, White, and...Black. 

*Ding, ding, ding!!*

I then spent all the remaining tickets to spin the first machine 20 more times. After all the spins were finished, I'd obtained a total of:

• 15 candies,
• 4 weak MP potions and 3 weak HP potions,
• 1 Iron Spear, 1 Iron Chestplate, and 1 Iron Sword,
• 1 HP potion.
• 1 Power Anklet and 1 Mana Earring,
• 1 Skill Book of [Spear Proficency] and 1 Skill Book of [Dagger Proficiency], and,
• a total of 1.5 AP.

Good enough. The only problem is that all the ringing and dinging from the bells had attracted a huge crowd of people. 

"What's up with this girl's luck..." - Jill

"The fifth machine in your case," I told the rabbit who had given his tickets away for five spins and was about to use the first machine I'd gotten the three silvers on. 

The result was: White, White, Yellow, Red, and...

*KA-POW!!*

Instead of a bell, the masked men fired a firework from the top of their stall as a golden-colored sphere rolled out of the lottery machine.

"........." - Jill

And the rabbit had turned into a magnificent statue. Same with the crowd. All according to the plan~.

While everyone was frozen stiff, I snuck away under the cover of [Lurk] and fled to the alleyways.

---

As I maneuvered through the dark alleyways, I hummed a tune in my happiness over successfully switching the attention from me to the rabbit. Figuring out which of the lottery machines were good hits wasn't that difficult. The bad ones were those with loose handles. A small detail anyone would understand after a few rounds.

Still, to think that the first prize came out. That was outside my expectations. I was thinking that another silver would pop out, not a golden winner...

"*ksst* bad *ksst*"  

Is there someone there? While keeping [Lurk] active, I started to listen to the..., creatures around the corner...

Oho? So that's the case..., time to quit early today. Tomorrow's gonna be interesting~.

I guess today's that already though!?