The crisp sound of marbles colliding echoed in the black box in Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's hand.
He rested one hand on his head, and with the other, he lazily shook the box in his hand.
Kuroki Ya, sitting upright in front of him, was like a hunting dog searching for prey, his ears perked up, his eyes eagerly fixed on the box in Ayanokoji's hand.
Ayanokoji slammed the box on the table and asked, "Odd or even?"
"Even!" Kuroki Ya hesitated for a moment before uttering an answer.
Ayanokoji opened the box. Inside was a die, and the number on top was "4."
"Phew... I guessed correctly."
Kuroki Ya exhaled in relief and took a 10,000 yen bill from Ayanokoji's hand.
Kuroki Ya had lost to Ayanokoji yesterday—no, it couldn't be called a loss, in short, he hadn't won.
Ayanokoji had expected that since this guy hadn't made any money from him, he would either cause trouble or avoid him completely.
Unexpectedly, he was thick-skinned. When Ayanokoji returned to the classroom in the afternoon, he came up to him, sincerely admitted that he had cheated, apologized to Ayanokoji, and hoped that Ayanokoji, "being a magnanimous person," would not trouble him.
When Ayanokoji heard this, he really wanted to ask, what kind of person did this guy think he was?
He would be burning incense if this guy didn't cause him trouble.
Ayanokoji had no real enmity with him, and he hadn't suffered any loss. Since he proactively offered a truce, Ayanokoji readily agreed. It was always better to have more friends than enemies.
In this Private Hyakkaou Academy, students' pastime during breaks was gambling. Ayanokoji, after Kuroki repeatedly emphasized that he would not cheat, agreed to continue gambling with him.
Their game was simple: guessing whether a die roll was odd or even, with 10,000 yen per round.
The die was an ordinary one Ayanokoji had taken from the casino, and the black box was just a regular plastic box, with no hidden mechanisms.
To show his sincerity, Kuroki even gave Ayanokoji the chance to roll the die, and Ayanokoji would guess odd or even.
If Ayanokoji cheated, he would easily lose badly.
It could be said that his sincerity was quite strong.
Ayanokoji did not cheat, nor did he plan to. Kuroki's gambling request was exactly what he wanted. He was using this opportunity to study the system functions of the gacha pool.
Kuroki Ya did not place such great trust in Ayanokoji without reason; he naturally had his own goals.
Yesterday, even with Kuroki Ya and Xiong Gu cheating, they couldn't gain any advantage from Ayanokoji.
Xiong Gu had told Kuroki during their post-mortem analysis that Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was actually a hidden gambling master who had already seen through their collaboration, and they were merely showing off their meager skills.
Xiong Gu had also specifically warned him not to trouble Ayanokoji, otherwise, he might be the one to suffer a loss.
Kuroki only believed half of Xiong Gu's words; the other half he decided to verify himself.
He came to gamble with Ayanokoji with the intention of testing him, and guessing odd or even on the die was the game he proposed.
After all, in a random event like guessing odd or even on a die, without external interference, the more times the game is played, the closer it gets to a fifty-fifty chance.
From yesterday afternoon to this morning, Ayanokoji had already gambled with him over seventy times. However, what Kuroki Ya regretted was that the win rate between him and Ayanokoji remained at four to six—he had four, Ayanokoji had six.
He had already lost over a hundred thousand yen to Ayanokoji.
Kuroki Ya's eyes had been tightly fixed on Ayanokoji's hand. He was certain he hadn't seen any signs of Ayanokoji cheating, nor had Ayanokoji used any special dice-rolling techniques, merely shaking the box containing the die.
Why had he lost so many times? How did he manage this? Or was it truly just his good luck?
Kuroki pondered for a long time but couldn't find an answer.
He, of course, didn't know that Ayanokoji possessed a system mechanism with a "ten-pull guarantee." In fact, excluding the guaranteed pulls, his and Kuroki's win rates were basically fifty-fifty.
"Want to go again?" Although he lost this round, Ayanokoji showed no emotional fluctuation and continued to ask Kuroki Ya.
Ayanokoji knew clearly that as long as the game continued, he would always be the one to win. The outcome of one round meant nothing.
"Let's stop here," Seeing that Ayanokoji was about to roll the dice again, Kuroki quickly said.
He had initially intended to test Ayanokoji, and now, even before the test yielded results, he had already lost over a hundred thousand yen.
His capital wasn't much to begin with, and it would soon be time to pay the [tribute money]. Losing like this continuously wasn't sustainable.
Before he could even probe Ayanokoji's true abilities, he would become a "livestock" himself for being unable to pay.
Let's just consider these hundred thousand yen a lesson. Who told him not to listen to Xiong Gu's advice and insist on gambling with Ayanokoji? It's best to retreat while he hasn't lost more.
As long as he found an opportunity, this money could easily be won back from others.
"Alright then," Ayanokoji put down the die with a slight hint of regret, stretched, and stood up from his seat.
Ayanokoji had experimented, and this "ten-pull guarantee" mechanism indeed worked as he expected; as long as the guaranteed number of pulls was reached, this round of gambling would be a guaranteed win.
One thing that surprised Ayanokoji was that he could independently control and choose when the gacha pool opened and closed.
In other words, when he accumulated ten gambles and earned one guaranteed chance, he could close the system gacha pool, preventing the system from synchronizing with reality.
It's like in a game when you've accumulated a guaranteed pull, but you're not interested in the current UP character, so you can save your gacha items and only pull when a character you like is on UP.
He could save this guaranteed chance and use it in a crucial round.
When the opponent thought they had a high chance of winning and, driven by greed, proactively suggested increasing the stakes, that would be the time for Ayanokoji to use his guarantee.
Of course, when the gacha pool was closed, he wouldn't receive gacha items even if he won in gambling.
This feeling of mastering the causality mechanism was truly strange. Ayanokoji believed that if he used this ability flexibly, becoming the world's richest person would only be a matter of time.
However, to Ayanokoji's regret, this mechanism only worked in face-to-face gambling.
Whether it was drawing cards and spending money in games, or gambling on online casino websites, the "pity system" would not activate. He also couldn't use this pity system to pick stocks that were guaranteed to hit their daily limit.
Ayanokoji had long been mentally prepared for this.
If the "pity system" were applicable to these types of gambling mechanisms, his system would have been activated long ago.
Ayanokoji was very satisfied with many aspects of the system, but one thing made Ayanokoji want to curse—that was the system's drop rate.
It was fine if he didn't get items when he lost a gamble, but how come all the items he drew when he won were [N] and [R] cards, not even an [SR]!?
Come on, after more than forty draws, in a game, you'd at least get an SR!
Ayanokoji even suspected that the system's drop rate had been secretly altered.
Unfortunately, he couldn't prove this point, nor could he complain to the system's developer. He could only blame his bad luck.
Dramatically, on this side of the gambling table, Kuroki Ya thought Ayanokoji's luck was explosive, while on the other side, Ayanokoji thought his luck was terrible.
It truly was a cause for sighing.
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