nSlots

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nWell then, our labor problem is over, Feni the phoenix has hatched, and we have a newly improved inn. The dungeon… is still fine. The riddle area is still peaceful after all.

nAnd so, I thought about what the Dancing Doll’s Pavilion is lacking in.

nI take pride in our food and sleep being at a level that can’t be found anywhere else.

nThe reason to come to the inn is the dungeon. Then, in charge of healing is the onsen. It’s a wonderful lineup.

n… However, there’s still one thing we lack.

nEntertainment.

nI’m not talking about an ero district. Though something like that might be necessary, I want to avoid that since there are children (lolis) here. The owner is the owner, and Haku-san said she’d kill me if I taught her something bad.

nWell, as for what I want to add, some kind of game corner. Something common to onsen inns.

nThough I really want to add table tennis now that I’m thinking about onsens, I decided to put it off since I wouldn’t be able to prepare them without using DP for the ping-pong balls. It’s only good to make it if it can be made with this world’s materials.

nSo, a game corner huh… well, since there’s no way I could install video games, looks like gambling’s the best bet. First thing I’m going to make is slots. For the outside, there’ll be indicator panels with spinning disks… what was it called again? A drum reel? I’ll make them using golems and install a lever that powers the spin.

nThere wouldn’t be much on the inside, just the spinning mechanism that would do its best to spin when the lever is lowered and make ‘that’ sound. It doesn’t turn into rotational power directly, the lever would store up power like when you flick a finger, letting it all out when it gets lowered to a certain point.

nAs for judging when to stop spinning, that was the drum reel golem’s job.

nFurthermore, there would be a golem that gives money when it’s a win.

nEven if someone disassembled it and asked how it worked, I could just say that I found suitable magic tools to do it. So convenient.

nBut for the drum reel, it would stop on its own when the rotation slows down, as well as when the button on the side is pressed. Then, it would just barely slip off of the grand prize if it almost landed on it. I’ll be sure to have it occasionally land on it, but it feels like I’m just giving away my profits.

n… Unfair? Fraud? This isn’t a charity, this much is natural.

nAt any rate, I called Ichika up since I finished with the prototype.

nIt’s special, so let’s leave the reception desk to the newbies. We probably won’t get any visitors anyways.

n“Well, this is a slot machine. Ichika, please give it a test play. Here’s five hundred copper coins.”

n“Oooh! So this’s slots huh! Leave it to me~, I’ll pay ya back with double!”

nYep. Even if you doubled it, wouldn’t the money just come from the dungeon’s funds?

n“I see I see, so ya put the coin into the hole and pull the lever…”

nKachink, kachink, kachink. She put three copper coins into it and lowered the lever.

nGyurin~. The drum reel spun vigorously.

n“Oooh, it’s turnin’, it’s turnin’! Eeeh, now… this button causes it to stop…”

nPochi, pochi, pochi. When she pressed the button, the drum reel stopped.

n“Ooh~… Huh, what’s this mean?”

n“It’s a loss. Try again.”

n“Nn, got it~”

nPutting more copper coins into it, Ichika gave it another shot. Hmm, it feels a bit plain, maybe I should’ve put more thought into its production?

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n*

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n“Uoooooooh! Go, go, gooooo n’ get it! —! Aaaah~! Almost!!”

nOne hour later. Getting small wins over and over, she’d exceeded her starting funds of five hundred coins just once, but now she was down to fifty coins left.

nShe was going nuts with a force that might be able to destroy the slot machine. Guess I don’t need to work more on its production huh, let’s add more if she gets tired of it.

n… Ah, maybe I should make its main body out of iron? Ichika’s clinging onto it hard enough for it to creak.

n“Ichika. You should start finishing up.”

n“B-but! I-I still have money left! I-I’ll definitely make a turnaround now! Check it out, y’see how it was just about to hit the thousand copper grand prize? I’ll get it next go!”

nYeah, she’s a no good woman. A typical no good human that spends their money on gambling despite going in to debt because of gambling. Pretty hardcore to not learn from her mistakes even though she fell into slavery.

n“Yep, it’s unfortunate but that’s impossible. I made it so that it’s not possible.”

n“Wha… t…?”

nIchika hung her head down with a face full of despair. Yep, I didn’t think that I’d see such a horrible face over something like four hundred fifty-six copper.

n“… In practice it shouldn’t be so obvious, I’ll have to adjust it a bit more. That was helpful, thanks.”

n“Kuh—… I was gettin’ played… on Goshujin-sama’s palm…? Daaaaaaaamn…!”

n“Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay back the money you borrowed. I’d like for you to return the remainder though.”

n“Aaah~…! Kuh—, i-it can’t be helped…—”

nStill, that’s an amazing fit. Ichika might be a bit of a special case, but I’ll prepare around three of these. It should be fine to put them into the newly built game room.

nHowever, having just slot machines in the game room might feel dull. Maybe I’ll make some other things too?

n“Come to think of it, what other kinds of gambling is there?”

n“Nnn~, ya know about dice? The hero made these box things, their faces’re numbered one to six… it’s common to use ’em.”

nI see. So dice huh? It’d be easy to produce them too. Incidentally, though I asked if there were playing cards, they aren’t made here because of poor printing techniques and paper quality in this world. There does seem to be something like metallic plates though… they seem pretty rare and expensive though. They don’t appear to be that popular.

n“Basically, all of those are be games of chance. Any that focus on strategy?”

n“There’s the arena… and horse racing too.”

nFumu, that’d be hard for us to reproduce… no, wait a second. Maybe we could race the rats? It might be a good idea to use all of those leftover rats as subordinates. Nowadays they’ve just been acting as surveillance cameras around the dungeon.

n… Ah, but maybe it’d be hard to hold a race with our current amount of guests? Let’s put that one on hold.

nIn this world with little in the way of entertainment, we might become popular if we mass-produced some proper playing cards. Actually, maybe it’d make a good dungeon drop? I already said that we got the massage chair from the dungeon. I’ll say the same for the slot machines.

nAlright, let’s put some playing cards in treasure chests. They’ll have to spread around to get popular after all. So, its appearance should be fine if I say that I found it in the dungeon and put it in the game room.

nI also set up a table with felt stuck to its top, making it into something that gave the feeling of being something to play on.

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