kscans

Chapter 90 - Unfortunate Beautiful Girl

"So, what are we doing now?"

"Heh... what to do or not to do. Rika-chan, we're just stupid teenagers right now, aren't we?"

There's no way we have a plan. Planning...? Never heard of that word. It's all improvised. If we wanted to buy clothes, we'd go clothes shopping, if we wanted to go to the arcade, we'd go to the arcade... whatever we felt like that day. Right now, none of us, me, Takahashi, or Suzuki, have anything particular we want to do. This kind of thing happened often enough. What to do after securing money for fun.

(At times like this...)

We used to use a map back in the day, but I don't have one on me now. I quickly swung my arm and conjured up a roulette in the air.

"Here you go, Chika-san."

"Eh, what's this?"

Takahashi explained to the confused Chika-san who was handed a dart.

"It's 23-ward darts. When we couldn't decide what to do, we used this to decide."

"Right, right. Once it's decided, we'd just go there and wander around."

Back then, we'd stick a map of the 23 wards on the wall and throw darts blindfolded.

"So let's spin the roulette!"

I pushed Chika-san's back to get her to move forward.

"Do your best, Mama! Try to hit somewhere fun!"

"Even if you say that... I can't see anything at all... this isn't a speed that dynamic vision can handle..."

Well, it wouldn't be fun if you could aim and hit intentionally. The charm of roulette is the randomness.

"H-here goes!"

Whoosh! Thunk! The dart stuck in with a satisfying sound. The dart hit... Chiyoda. That's totally a good hit. The Prime Minister's residence, the Diet building... huh? This isn't a social studies field trip, so looking at those places would be boring? That's where my connections come in. I can give you a proper tour of places you can't see on regular tour groups.

"Plus, visiting shrines and temples wouldn't be bad either."

"Leave the restaurants to me. I know lots of recommendations."

"Akiba would be good too. I haven't been there in a while, but I wonder if those game shops that sell all kinds of questionable stuff are still there."

"If we're talking subculture, there's the hidden Akiba beyond the surface Akiba."

Unlike the dark market in Shinjuku where I took Rika-chan and Hikaru before, Akiba is completely entertainment-focused. While surface Akiba has been losing its subculture color as it diversifies, the hidden side is the opposite. It's getting deeper and deeper, becoming like a concentrated broth.

"Eh, really?"

"Yeah. There are normal otaku goods that could be sold on the surface too, but it's the hidden side after all."

They sell suspicious electronics that could never be legal no matter what, and dangerous game consoles loaded with occult elements. While full-dive VR is just fiction in the real world, in the hidden world there are VRMMOs where you can enjoy real death games.

"Around spring, I think? Izanami opened a real underworld cafe."

"...Izanami, as in the one from the nation-building mythology...?"

"Oh, Hikaru knows it well. Yeah, that Izanami."

The staff are yomotsu-shikome, but they've probably adapted to modern needs. They're all beautiful women and girls, so don't worry. It's just that weak people who eat there can't return to this world.

"How is a place like that allowed to operate..."

"There are no laws in the hidden world."

Food safety laws don't apply either.

"...Hey Mama, I'm really curious about this."

"What a coincidence. So am I. There's a morbid curiosity, but it really piques my interest."

She seems interested in hidden Akiba itself rather than the underworld cafe.

"Then let's go to hidden Akiba."

That's what we decided. Since I hadn't been there much except by teleportation, I properly asked for directions at the reception desk before heading to the location.

[Welcome home, Master☆]

"I'm back." <<...>>

As soon as we entered hidden Akiba, the maid robots protecting the city's safety greeted us. Even though they could be made indistinguishable from humans, you can feel their dedication in deliberately making them recognizable as robots with facial lines and ball joints.

"Um... Satou-kun? These maids are equipped with incredibly heavy firearms..."

"...Hey Satou, someone's firing rocket launchers over there."

"They also handle maintaining public order. Plus it's the creator's hobby."

Firearms and girls are the perfect match. Now, where should we go first... ah, there's something good.

"Everyone knows about gashapon, right?"

Gashapon, gachapon, gachapon, gacha. There are various names, but except for Sarna-chan from abroad and Chika-san, I think everyone has tried them at least once as a child.

"How nostalgic. When Rika was little, she was obsessed with them. Whenever we went out and found one, nothing could move her from that spot."

"Stop telling embarrassing stories! So what about the gashapon?"

"There's an interesting gashapon. This way, this way."

I led everyone to a familiar gashapon specialty store. The store really only has gashapon, but the number is incredible. The lineup too.

"Toys, electronics, food ingredients, all kinds of... familiars? Familiars... Satou-san?"

"Exactly what it says. You can get familiars."

More precisely, capsules containing summoning circles come out. Normally, contracts with familiars directly reflect the power difference between you and them, but these are different. If you get a dragon summoning circle, even a regular person can safely make a dragon their familiar.

"The lineup is certainly impressive, but..."

"Not punchy enough?"

I understand what Chika-san wants to say. Actually, what I find interesting isn't the product lineup but the gashapon system itself.

"System?"

Sarna-chan tilted her head. Don't worry, I'll explain it properly.

"You see, whether you can get something good depends on luck, but... luck is pretty vague, isn't it?"

It's not something you can see. But what if luck could be quantified?

"Hikaru. Try touching the lever of any gashapon."

"? Okay."

Hikaru touched the lever of a stuffed animal gashapon as instructed. Then his quantified luck and the output rate calculated from it appeared in the air. With a max of 100, Hikaru is... 23.

"Visualizing luck... is that even possible?"

"It is. Or rather, it became possible. I'm acquainted with the shop owner here and helped complete the technique."

There are goddesses who govern luck, and receiving their blessing brings good things. Luck exists clearly, even if it's invisible. So it's not impossible to quantify it. And by quantifying it, new facts were revealed.

"Hikaru. Try dancing randomly."

"D-dancing?"

"Or like, try making some weird movements."

"Uh, okay."

Though confused, Hikaru began acting strangely, spinning around and doing bridges on the spot. And what happened?

"Ah, the number changed!"

The luck value had changed. Not dramatically, just increased by about 3, but it definitely increased. Oh, it decreased. Maybe Hikaru's gesture of putting his hand to his mouth while saying "no way..." was bad. But it's not like that action alone is taboo. It's more about the connection with what came before and after, the timing and such.

"Luck is surprisingly fickle."

It goes up and down with little things. You know about good luck charms, right? That's the same thing. Again, it's not a dramatic increase, but you can definitely expect a certain amount of increase. Thanks to luck being visualized, it's been proven that these aren't meaningless. The customs that have survived and been passed down to this day without being eliminated might be the crystallization of humanity's tireless efforts to improve their luck even a little.

"Most of the regulars here have developed their own luck-boosting methods."

The sight of them developing new routines is incredibly funny. The person involved is probably serious, but from the outside, it's a storm of bizarre behavior. Well, there are no other customers now, so unfortunately we can't see that.

"...It certainly is interesting."

"Satou-kun, have you developed that kind of routine too?"

"I have. Well, in my case, I'm not doing it that desperately."

Because I can boost my luck without doing all that. The Fate Extortion Curse Method is the pinnacle of that. With a slight application of that, I can easily hit 100. Well, this isn't something I should use casually, so I don't.

"More importantly, how about it? Getting interested? Then try it a little."

They nodded and went to gashapon machines that looked interesting to them and started their bizarre behaviors. I quietly took out my smartphone and filmed the scene.

(Heh, I should be able to get some funny footage... wait, Sarna-chan?!)

When I happened to see Sarna-chan's luck value, I was speechless.

(O-one... I've never seen such a number before...)

Even unlucky people usually have around 10...