IGTL Chapter 45

Chapter 45 – I Actually Won the Lottery! Just Like I Thought, “Rare Drop Rate +500%” Really Was Incredible!

As a result of buying sports lotto, I won.

After confirming the result, I was now alone in my hotel room, singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

Bright blue skies, with drifting clouds.

Little birds sang in groves and forests.

Our hearts were cheerful, overflowing with joy, 

and our bright smiles shone for all to see.

When I opened the curtains, sunlight poured into the room.

What was I supposed to do? The world was dazzling.

It looked radiant.

Just as I thought, the effect of “Rare Drop Rate +500%” had been real.

To the gods… I had to deliver “Ode to Joy” to the gods!

I was singing with that feeling in my heart when a loud thud came from the wall.

The classic wall-thump.

One of the physical dialects used to express the sentiment of, “Shut the hell up, asshole!” by punching the wall once.

“Phew…”

But it did not get through to me now.

Even the wall-thump sounded like birds chirping.

What was I supposed to do with this feeling bubbling up from the bottom of my soul?

I had not even received the prize money yet, and I was already grinning.

That said, I really had not expected there to be 150 first-prize winners.

The carryover had been 3 billion yen, and I had only bought six tickets, so the payout came to about 20 million yen per ticket. Even so, since all six had hit, that was 120 million yen.

Because I had bought them online, the prize money would be deposited directly into my bank account.

There was no need to go all the way to a physical location.

For now, today was a victory party day.

I could not sit still.

And when you said victory party, there was only one thing that came to mind.

Beer. A beer shower!

But that would have been wasteful, so I decided against it.

I would buy a ton of alcohol and drink until morning.

I would order delivery, watch some anime on Netflix I had been curious about, and laze around all day.

Once that was decided, there was only one thing to do.

Still riding that high, I dashed out of the hotel room and headed to a nearby liquor shop to buy booze.

While I followed the navigation on my smartphone’s map, the savory smell of grilled squid drifted over from somewhere.

Drawn in by the smell, I veered off the guided route and ended up in a shopping street lined with festival stalls.

“Huh? Is this a festival or something?”

Apparently a festival was being held.

Perfect timing, then.

It was around lunchtime now.

In other words, it was the perfect time for a pregame before the real victory party.

I withdrew some cash from a nearby convenience store, then took it with me and stepped into the shopping street where the festival was taking place.

“All right, what should I eat first…”

With a 400-yen festival-priced beer in one hand, I wandered the stalls and first took my time checking what kind of food they had.

According to the guide sign, there was a takoyaki stall nearby.

And when it came to festival food, takoyaki was indispensable.

I stopped in front of the stall and decided to buy one boat of takoyaki.

“Excuse me, could I get one boat of takoyaki?”

“Sure! One boat of takoyaki. Thanks!”

After paying the 700-yen price and obtaining my festival-priced takoyaki, I went on to get yakisoba, grilled squid, and a frankfurter. Then I spread everything out at the rest area and started eating with a beer in hand.

Yeah. It was good.

Everything had been festival-priced, and it had cooled a little while I walked around the stalls, but that was part of the charm too.

“Festival food really did hit the spot after so long.”

Personally, I preferred Gindaco* when it came to takoyaki, but festivals were a different story. (TN: Gindaco is Japan’s most popular, premium takoyaki chain.)

Takoyaki from a stall, soaked with sauce. Absolute perfection.

“All right, now that I’m full, guess it’s about time…”

About time for what?

That should have been obvious.

There was only one thing to do at a festival.

The prize lottery, the one lined with games, toys, and all the usual festival and fair prizes.

One try cost 300 yen, and the prizes included an Atami* travel voucher, a popular game console, game software, and more. (TN: Atami is a famous seaside hot spring (onsen) resort city in Shizuoka Prefecture.)

People always said these festival lotteries never really paid out, but with “Rare Drop Rate +500%”, that should not have been a problem.

“Excuse me, can I get ten tickets?”

“Sure. That’ll be 3,000 yen. Draw ten tickets from here.”

In exchange for 3,000 yen, I bought the right to draw ten festival lottery tickets.

The effect of “Rare Drop Rate +500%” was still active.

Honestly, I had nothing but confidence.

As I put my hand into the box to draw, a bunch of kids gathered around.

They were clearly very interested.

“Mister, win that one!”

“Yeah, and I’m not a mister, I’m a big brother. But I’ll do my best and try to win it.”

At one point, some random kid I did not even know talked to me, but I brushed it off with harmless small talk.

A police officer on patrol was glancing over here, too.

Did I look like a suspicious person or something?

After finishing my ten draws, I flipped the tickets over and pumped my fist.

“Yes! I got the special prize, an Atami travel voucher!”

The moment I made sure everyone around knew I had won the top prize, the crowd stirred, and the stall worker let out a bizarre little, “Hah?”

When I flipped over all ten tickets, I found one special prize, two first prizes, four second prizes, two third prizes, and one dud.

Once all of that became known to the festival crowd, the stir turned into cheers.

“S-Sick! It’s the special prize! Somebody got the special prize! And first through third too, no way!”

When I handed the tickets to the stall worker, he looked completely unable to process what was happening.

“N-No way… There shouldn’t have been any winners…”

But maybe because the patrol officer was nearby, he said nothing more and started stuffing the prizes into a bag.

At the end, with a twitching expression on his face, he handed them over.

“…C-Congratulations. Here are your prizes.”

When I checked the bag, the special prize, the Atami travel voucher, and the first-prize game console were not in it.

“Excuse me, the special prize and first-prize items aren’t in here…”

“Ah, s-sorry. Here are the special prize and first-prize items…”

“Yes. Thank you.”

After handing them over, the stall worker muttered under his breath.

“What the hell happened here…? Damn it, someone must’ve put the winning tickets in by mistake…”

Apparently, there had not been any winning tickets in the lottery to begin with.

Even though it was supposed to be a fun festival, there really were people who thought up rotten things. Still, as expected of “Rare Drop Rate +500%”. It was incredible that it could even let me draw winning tickets that were not supposed to exist.

If the winning tickets had actually been in there, then maybe this would have counted as me wrecking the stall, but judging from what the worker said, there were no winners in there in the first place.

Since I had drawn everything from the special prize down to third prize, they were probably already out of prizes. So honestly, it was a relief I managed to stop more victims from showing up before things got worse.

And I got prizes out of it too, so I was feeling pretty good.

“H-Hey, wait a second. C-Could you at least leave the empty boxes behind?”

Just as I was about to leave, the lottery stall guy asked if I could at least leave behind the prize boxes.

Obviously, I refused.

“Sorry. That’s not happening.”

“C-Come on, don’t say that…”

Yeah, no. If I handed over the boxes, he would probably use them to make it look like the prizes were still there, and if somebody bought tickets because of that and got burned, I would feel awful.

“Well then, I’m off.”

“H-Hey, at least leave the boxes behind!”

No, no, lottery stall guy.

You really should not have shouted that part out loud.

People who looked like festival committee staff were already talking into their walkie-talkies after hearing him, you know?

Ignoring the lottery stall worker’s shouting, I slipped into an alley, stored the prizes in Item Storage, and then set off once more for the liquor shop.

◇◆◇

“W-Wine costs this much…?”

Following the map on my smartphone, I finally arrived at the liquor shop, and the moment I saw the locked wine cellar, I froze in shock.

The wines kept inside the locked cellar started at 8,000 yen, and the expensive ones went all the way into the hundreds of thousands.

I only understood which wines were good by looking at the price tag, so while I stood there stuck in front of the cellar, a clerk spoke to me.

“Sir, are you looking for wine?”

“Y-Yeah. Today’s kind of a special anniversary, so I was thinking I wanted to drink some really good wine. Do you have any red wine recommendations?”

“A recommended red wine, is it? Let’s see. In that case, how about this one?”

The clerk recommended a bottle of wine from the sale bin, priced at 1,500 yen.

Huh?

I had been looking at the locked wine cellar just now, right?

So why were you recommending wine from the sale bin over here?

For now, I picked up the recommended red wine and stared closely at the label.

The label had an angel drawn on it, and it said the name was Angel’s Rosso.

I did not really understand anything beyond that.

Then the clerk started speaking with an enraptured expression.

“This sweet sparkling made from Brachetto black grapes…”

◇◆◇

“Thank you very much for your purchase! We look forward to seeing you again!”

“Huh?!”

Before I knew it, I had bought the wine the clerk recommended.

That sales pitch had been amazing.

I got completely sucked in.

Well, whatever. I had gotten to sample it, and it tasted good.

As long as I could celebrate this special day with tasty alcohol, even cheap alcohol, that was enough.

I was grateful to that clerk for introducing me to a delicious, inexpensive 1,500-yen wine.

Besides, I had also bought sake, beer, and highballs.

Heh heh heh. Today was a party.

A millionaire commemoration party, held alone while holed up in a hotel room.

I was already looking forward to it.

I went into a back alley and stored the huge haul of alcohol in Item Storage. Then I opened the Domino’s Pizza page on my smartphone and ordered a Pizza Rice Bowl, which was pizza toppings over rice, a Domino Deluxe Pizza Sandwich, plus a Green Salad and Potato Kara from the side menu.

Apparently, because of the hotel’s delivery rules, those could not be brought directly to the room, so I would be picking them up in the front lobby.

After that, I bought canned bar snacks and convenience store sweets at a nearby convenience store, returned to Candeo Hotel for a bit, set my things down in the room, and then waited for the pickup time to arrive while soaking in the bath.

After getting out of the bath and heading to the front lobby, I spotted the Domino’s delivery guy at just that moment.