The sun's rays woke me up for another morning, and I stretched in my bed before I got downstairs.
Once the bookstore was cleaned up (as much as I was willing to do), I decided to look at the online store.
There were quite a few things that were available in the shop, but there was one that caught my eye right away — a claw machine.
It had books, toys, and capsules inside it with a chance for you to get any of them when you pulled. And the machine was cheap as well and came with an automatic refill battery.
In other words, it sounded too good to be true, and I felt an impulsive need to buy it.
"Still, 50 faith points is too much…ugh, but the free refill on the battery…fine, I shall make this purchase. I do have a lot of faith points in my possession."
Never let it be said that I was not an impulsive buyer. And before I knew it, the balance in my system's wallet went down.
[Purchase successful]
[Current faith point balance: 70 Points]
I looked around, but the claw machine was nowhere to be seen, and I suddenly felt scammed by the system.
"Hey—! This is unfair. Where is my machine…"
I asked, and the system turned toward my purchased pages where I could see the machine. I clicked on it, and a Sims-type box appeared in front of me on the ground to show me where the machine needed to go.
As I moved the phone around, the box moved as well, and the screen showed the button — load.
"Huh—! Is this an interface? This feels more and more like a game every second."
I complained… rather, complimented as I moved around and found a corner near my counter to put the machine down.
Once the machine was down, I made sure it did not obstruct anything, and it surprisingly fit well with the interior décor… if you ignored the fact that it was a modern invention.
"Alright, I should try the machine first."
I walked toward the machine and looked for the slot to put the coin in, but there was none I could see.
Once more, I felt scammed by the machine.
"Huh—! Where is the slot for the coin? How am I supposed to use this?"
I asked as I touched the screen on the claw machine. But suddenly, it sprang to life, and a lively interface greeted me.
[Welcome user to the Everyday and Everything Claw Machine. To use, please pay 5 faith points.]
I clutched my chest as I took a step back. The sudden voice startled me, and I looked down at the machine.
"Huh—! Faith points? I need to pay with that? Do others also need to pay with that? I feel so lost. But I should try it to make sure that it works. Besides, this is mine, right? So whatever I make I should get back."
I told myself that this was a good investment as I moved my hand around to check where I needed to pay.
[Would you like to pay with 5 faith points?]
The machine asked, and I pressed yes.
Immediately, 5 faith points were deducted from my account, and the wheel on the machine spun before it threw out a capsule.
I opened the capsule, only to see a message on it.
[You already avoided a scam today, but make sure to avoid another one later. Ah~ congratulations on buying the Claw Machine.]
The message read, and I felt surprised to read it.
"Wow—! That message is… weirdly accurate. Anyway, this must be the first message every new owner gets or something. I should not look too deeply into it."
Even if this claw machine was magical, I had no intention of becoming reliant on it. I had seen many people lose their minds over physics and luck in my past life.
But it did seem like a fun way to collect faith points.
"So, how do I withdraw faith points from it?"
I asked, and the machine interface changed once more.
[Registered user, please scan the code to receive faith points.]
I used my phone to scan the code, and the 5 points I used got refunded back to me. The machine seemed to be useful, but I had a sudden thought that it was not very useful to me in the shop.
This needed to be in a well-crowded place where people could make use of it often enough. Somewhere like the train station maybe…
"Should I ask the duchess for help? The station falls on my way to the grocery. I can withdraw the daily balance and keep a check on it while I go out to get food in the evening."
Things were surprisingly starting to come together now.
A small part of my brain did tell me that it might be a bad idea to put something this advanced somewhere like a train station.
But a bigger part of me told me that I should not care about that.
And being the person I was, I listened to the bigger part of my consciousness and decided to talk to the station master before calling in a favor.
My store started to get more and more people not long after, and a few of them seemed interested in the claw machine.
Some of them even clutched the things they got out of it, and I wanted to ask them if they knew what faith points were as well.
But the fear of looking like a fool kept me away, and I decided to observe a local trying out the machine.
Unlike me, they took out a coin and inserted it into the surface of the machine, and it accepted it before giving the man a pocket-sized book that looked useless for the most part.
"Wow—! You got a fancy new toy, shopkeeper."
The old lady next door asked me as she came to visit (or gossip) once more, and I decided to make use of her.
"Well, the machine is not going to stay here for long. I am thinking of taking it out to the station and installing it there for people to use. I might as well make some money out of it."
The old lady looked delighted to hear this, but then she felt obligated to warn me.
"Heh—! You better be careful, young master. You don't know how dangerous the world is. People have no respect for property. Your machine might become a target for those people."
The old lady told me, and that was a concern I had as well. That's why I had checked up on the warranty the machine had before making that decision.
The system had told me that the machine had a 0% chance of being stolen and 100% chance to return back to the place of installation. It also had a one-hour repair feature for life.
And I trusted the system more than anyone else. After all, even the music box had returned. So I was confident that this machine would be just fine.
"Hmm, it will be just fine. You don't need to worry about that."
I told the older lady, and she just shrugged and took my word for it.