by Hirukuma,
Oh, it’s the short-haired hunter. Nice assist! That’s what I wanted to know.
“Hmm… Well, we’re in the middle of rebuilding the settlement. We have to make sure we have enough hands, right?”
The hunters’ mouths hang open. Ah, Lammis…I don’t think he meant right this instant. If you said so, I’m sure he would wait until the reconstruction was finished.
“Okay, let’s all keep doing our best!”
Everyone aside from her sighs and goes back to work. Cocking her head in confusion at the situation, Lammis gets back to clearing the rubble away, too.
No particularly interesting events happen after that, and noon comes. I sell several cups of ramen and cans of oden to the inn reconstruction group, and then Lammis puts me on her back and moves me in front of the Hunters Association.
I sell one item after another to the people who were waiting for my arrival. If this keeps up, I’ll make back my losses from yesterday in no time.
Most of these customers have purchasing experience, but a good handful are entirely new. I don’t recognize their faces, which means they must have come to the Clearflow Lake stratum just today.
All the new people have one thing in common—they’re wearing cloth headbands, long sleeves, and pants with lots of pockets. They look very craftsmanlike. With just a quick glance, I see around a hundred of them. That would mean the settlement’s population has at least doubled.
What a bother… I’m going to sell a ton of things again, aren’t I? What a bother, seriously—such a pain… I’ll have to add up all these points later.
“Okay, Boxxo, I’m going back to work!”
“Welcome.”
I’ve been returned to my usual spot in front of the inn, and as I’m interacting with customers, a person suddenly steps in front of me.
I see this world has glasses and businesslike clothing as well. A lady with black-rimmed glasses, a green button-down, and a skirt that only goes a little above her knees is watching me closely.
If this were Japan, I’d say she looks like an accountant or a lawyer. The corners of her eyes are angled slightly upward, making her look a little scary, but she’s a beauty.
A large man, about six and a half feet tall, stands behind her. An acquaintance of hers? He’s top-heavy with hulking muscles and long arms, and he has wrinkles on his brow, downward-slanting eyes, and a low nose. My honest first impression of him is that he looks like a friendly gorilla.
He’s wearing something like a suit, but it’s bulging in places and looks about to tear open at any moment. He’s wearing something similar to a giant backpack.
“Would I be correct in my assumption that you are the box with a mind? I believe you were called Boxxo.”
Suddenly, the woman is speaking to me. Wait, how should I reply? F-for now, I’ll give her my usual greeting.
“Welcome.”
“According to the information we received earlier, that would be a yes, am I correct?”
…This woman is hard to deal with! Her expression is completely unchanging, and she’s staggeringly intimidating. Her gaze is enough to make me stiffen up. Then again, I am a vending machine.
What’s she after? It seems serious. Wh-what should I do?
“Huh? What’s wrong, Boxxo? Oh, um, who might you be?”
Lammis pops out from behind me and openly addresses the glasses-wearing lady.
“You must be Lammis. I apologize for my rudeness. My name is Acowi, and I work in the money-exchange business. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. The one behind me is my aide, Gocguy.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Acowi speaks in a cold, clear voice, while Gocguy’s tone is warm and relaxed. They’re polar opposites.
Anyway, the money-exchange business? The modern version of that would be converting yen to dollars and the like, right? From what I recall, a long time ago it was a business that would exchange gold coins for silver coins and vice versa. I think I heard it was the origin of banks.
“We’ve received word that this stratum is running short on silver coins. That’s the reason for our visit.”
All right, who’s the one hoarding all the silver coins? That’s simply disgraceful.
“Oh, well, everyone pays Boxxo in silver coins, after all!”
Shh! Lammis, you can’t say that. Er, wait, are they here to file a complaint because I’m blocking the flow of money by hoarding all the silver coins?
Even if they are, I can’t give them back. I converted them into points. There’s nothing I can do now.
“I see my suspicions were correct. We decided this would be a good opportunity to come to you, Boxxo, with a proposal. We’ve brought about one hundred gold coins with us. Could I exchange them for several of the silver coins you have?”
Business talks? I’m not opposed to converting between silver and gold coins, but one gold coin is the same as about a hundred silver coins, isn’t it? In yen, that would make a single one worth ten thousand. Disregarding fluctuations, of course, but it would come out to around that. They brought a hundred of them, too—that’s a sizable sum. Is this going to be all right?
I’d like to exchange them for her if I can, but what should I do?
Do I have a money-exchanging feature? Normally, vending machines don’t have any. Um, I just did a quick skim of the list and didn’t see anything.
“Too bad.”
“Does that mean you cannot comply?”
I’m sorry. I’d like to, but I have no way to.
“Oh, but if you can’t exchange them, can’t you just buy something with gold coins? Won’t change come out?”
Lammis’s casual suggestion causes Acowi’s disappointed face to light up. Her eyes begin to sparkle in the first display of emotion I’ve seen from her.
I wonder what would actually happen if you put in a gold coin. Nobody’s ever tried it before. Since I don’t know if I can give change, no one has been foolhardy enough to test it.
“I see! Gocguy, we’re buying in bulk. The gold coins, please.”
Ah, the first insertion. Wh-what should I do? If they don’t get change, I’ll give them back the gold coin.
Ohhh, the first gold coin of my life as a vending machine is inside my body. If she buys something that costs one silver coin, ninety-nine silver coins will come out. I just have to man up—you never know until you try.
A sensation I’ve never felt before bubbles up inside me, and my vending machine body vibrates. So this is what it’s like for a gold coin to enter your body. Wait, now’s not the time to be basking in the afterglow. What happened with the change?
Silver coins clatter down in a stream into the change saucer. The coins overflow and begin dropping to the ground. The hunters watching from farther away are gulping, I see.
Change came out normally—if it hadn’t, they might have treated me like a thief.
“This should be good. Let’s go on a shopping spree, shall we?”
One after another, the gold coins are inserted, and one after another the silver coins are expelled. The giant Gocguy bends down and collects every last silver.
After putting in ten gold coins, Acowi seems satisfied. She stares at the backpack filled with silver coins, looking quite pleased. She must get more expressive when money is involved.
“Any more than this and we may put a burden on Boxxo, so we’ll stop for now. I will be back at a later date to purchase more. I look forward to working with you again.”
She looks like she’s about to start skipping away. Gocguy is carrying the pack stuffed with coins without struggling. He seems as strong as his appearance would suggest.
I wonder if I’ll be seeing them frequently for a long time. Well, they don’t seem like bad people.
“Boxxo, you’re really rich, huh? We better be careful nobody takes your money.”
“Welcome.”
She’s right. Well, I’m not sure anyone could get money out even if they destroyed me and broke me down. The items I
sell are part of a system that just makes them, so it doesn’t feel like I have coins inside me. It’s more like they appeared when the situation called for it.
Meanwhile, several enthusiastic pairs of eyes are staring this way. For the younger hunters, my body—having swallowed ten gold coins—must look pretty appealing.
Come to think of it, it’s unwise to put vending machines in unsafe places. That goes to show how peaceful Japan is to allow them to exist almost everywhere.
For a while, I should be on my guard around people who look like they’re having any dumb ideas.
“Oh, right. Sorry, Boxxo! I kept forgetting to tell you. It looks like we won’t be able to see Hulemy for a while. I sent her a letter, but I didn’t get a reply… I think she’s still relaxing somewhere in the stratum. We’ll have to stay here until I can get in touch with her. Is that okay?”
Lammis puts her hands together and bows to me. I tell her, “Welcome.” For a moment, I wondered who Hulemy was, but that’s her magic-item-engineer friend she talked about when we first met, isn’t it?
I think to myself, in a detached way: Oh, right, that was the original goal, wasn’t it?
The day was filled with strange meetings, but the first day of reconstruction is now about to end without any problems in particular. Night falls, and after settling into my regular spot in front of the Hunters Association and selling dinners, I watch mindlessly as the settlement’s lights go out, one by one.
There’s a magic item that’s pretty much a light bulb, and there are a few of them scattered about the settlement, too, but it’s still very dark compared to nighttime in Japan. Magic items apparently fetch high prices, and most normal households don’t use them. Generally, most of the tents have lanterns or even torches set up.
The spots around those lights are illuminated, but a deep darkness lingers just a few steps away.
The spot that I’m in is away from those lights as well. Normally, I’d be easily missed, but I’m a vending machine. I give off my own light, so I always stand out to an unnatural degree.
But today, I turn off the lights, and then I purchase the Paint-Change feature and paint myself all in black. Partly because of the hunters who watched the exchange earlier but also because of the incident with that low-life villain trying to steal my money during the expedition. I decide that at night, I’ll blend in with the darkness to avoid any unnecessary quarrels.
“What? Isn’t it always around here?”
“Maybe they moved it. That crazy-strong girl is always carrying it around, remember?”
“Shit. Let’s head around to the inn.”
Speak of the devil. They aren’t the same hunters we were working with before, but a group of three men seems to be searching for me.
If they actually make a move on me, I do have Force Field, and if I play my voice at maximum volume, several people from the Hunters Association would burst out, so it wouldn’t be a problem. But I suppose peaceful resolutions are the best.
Vending Machine for Adults
One week has passed. The settlement is bubbling with a revivalist mood, and it’s been fairly lively.
I can tell the new residents apart because they’re always surprised to see me. Very easy to understand.
It baffled me how the Hunters Association, which essentially runs the settlement by itself, can provide for so many people. Apparently, though, materials scavenged from that two-headed snake and the king frog fiend were sold for absurd amounts.
Also, the Hunters Association contract states that in exchange for the promise of significant rewards, the association has advance claim to all the materials hunting teams get from slaying monsters. The hunters are stomping their feet in frustration this time.
Ultimately, those who participated in the king-frog-fiend hunt received a special reward, and since then, none of them have complained. Come to think of it, the hunters who were wounded and couldn’t escape bought a lot from me, saying, “You’re the reason we’re alive—thank you.”
The two-headed snake is called a double serpent, a monster that inhabits the Clearflow Lake stratum. As I predicted, it’s a natural enemy of the frog people, and usually they fight each other, preventing large-scale outbreaks. This time, the double serpent had evidently been on a long trip, attacking smaller frog-people settlements and strengthening itself.
The Hunters Association’s view is that it was on its way to the settlement at which we’d been fighting because it assumed there would be a lot of frogs there now, but it spotted the human settlement first, and that’s how this happened.
As for why I’m so well-informed on the subject—that would be because I’m currently in the Hunters Association’s director’s office.
“So that’s about the gist of what happened. Boxxo, you and Lammis both did very well. If you hadn’t been there, it’s likely the situation would have kept getting worse. Thank you.”
“O-oh, please, raise your head.”
Director Bear rises from the sofa and begins to bow, and Lammis waves her arms wildly, trying to get him to stop. So wildly, in fact, that she’s creating wind currents. Such is her incredible Might.
Meanwhile, a vending machine stands next to her. If someone from Earth saw this, they’d doubt their own eyes.
“Explaining the special reward and the entire picture of the incident was one reason I brought the two of you here, but I did have one thing I wanted to ask Boxxo.”
Hmm? I wonder what it is. Hearing him speak in such a roundabout way is making me nervous. Whenever Director Bear’s eyes get serious—my, let’s say, animalistic survival instincts whisper to run away. Even though I’m a vending machine.
I know he’s a gentleman on the inside, but the pressure of a giant bear being in front of you isn’t something you can easily get used to.
“Boxxo, I’ve heard you can produce anything somebody wants as an item for purchase. Is this true?”
That’s an exaggeration. I can select items that I think someone will want, but the only items I can get are the ones I’ve bought from vending machines before.
If I could deliver anything, I could just stock handguns and weapons, and that fight probably would have gone a lot more easily. I can’t have anything vending machines wouldn’t sell, and though I’m proud I’ve bought almost everything I’ve ever seen in one, there are probably still more vending machine products in the world that I’m not aware of.
My answer is no, but I still want to tell him that, to a certain extent, I can. How should I respond?
“Welcome Too bad.”
“Hmm. What does that mean?”
“I think Boxxo wants to say that he can do it, but he can’t do some things.”
“Welcome.”
Lammis’s interpretations are constantly saving me.
Director Bear seems to understand; he nods several times. Wow, he looks like a bear begging people for food at the zoo— No, that’s a rude thought.
“I see—so that’s how it is. Then, if possible, I have a request of you. Uh, Lammis, could you wait outside? I have something secret to talk to Boxxo about.”
“Sure. Um, should I wait on the first floor?”
“Yes, thank you. I’ll send someone to get you once we’re done.”
“Okay, got it. Mom always said not to interrupt men when they’re talking. I’ll be waiting downstairs!”
“Thank you,” I say as she withdraws. Lammis waves her arm around behind her and closes the door.
A bear and a vending machine in a small room. Of course, if he doesn’t start talking, we won’t get anywhere.
“First, I’ll give you an overview of the situation. A lot of people are surging into this settlement right now. Originally, until three years ago, this place flourished more… In fact, it was big enough to be called a town.”
I could tell there are more people in the settlement just through my sales, but the inn’s mistress and Karios mentioned something happening three years ago, too.
A place y
ou would call a full-fledged town… The buildings around the Hunters Association are grand, and I always thought the settlement was simply too big for its population of about a hundred, but now I understand. That makes sense.
“We lost many residents during that incident, and many of those who survived left. The only ones who stayed were the hunters and the most enthusiastic businesspeople. We levy no taxes here. They remained here for that, so this incident didn’t scare them off—in fact, it already looks like they’ll make up for their losses.”
The people here really are hardy. As a resident here, they’re the best I could depend on.
“After this incident with the double serpent, word got out that we killed it without any deaths. People began to praise our defensive capabilities, and many gathered wishing to move here, which is why we’re thriving right now. We plan to not only repair the ruined homes but also build new ones, and stores as well.”
That means I’ll have many more chances to profit. I’ll have to start thinking about what new products and features I want to get.
“An increase in people causes several problems. I have hopes for you in the food area, Boxxo, but the merchants understand the facts, too. Many goods are now flowing in, so it’s not a big worry.”
Hmm. I see. Shops are starting to line up in front of the Hunters Association, after all. My cup ramen sales have fallen lately, so I was just looking for a new product. Of course, I’ve been selling more beverages to make up for it, so my total profits are holding steady.
It seems like the seasoned veterans who have lived through the multifaceted Japanese-beverage business world are still overwhelming this world’s drinks with their flavors and novelty.
“I’m sorry—I got off topic. Anyway, for the real problem… The upcoming concern I’ve been worried about the most is related to our sexual manners and customs. We bear fiends have little such desire outside of our breeding season, but that isn’t true for humans. With the increase in people, we’re facing a shortage of supply to meet demand.”
I see—so this is the kind of talk he wanted to have. Which is why he had Lammis leave.