Chapter 535.1: The Spark That Ignited The Barrel

In a small villa by Linghu Lake.

Glancing at the jagged lines and flashing numbers on the trading device, Ample Time, who was seated at the table reading a newspaper, curled the corners of his mouth upward. Just a moment ago, someone had injected five million chips into the market.

Though the funds were broken up into smaller purchases, it was immediately obvious to him that all of them came from the same source.

To make it easier for those gamblers to play their zero-sum game and reduce the chip transaction friction, he hadn’t even implemented a trading fee.

The most important part was... That young man he had only met less than a month ago hadn’t disappointed him, there were already over 1,000 people active on the S coin trading platform.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

If his guess was correct, those represented at least half the nobles in the Inner City and their relatives, most of whom probably hadn’t even read the terms of the digital contracts before buying in. With the nobles fueling the hype, his accessible game of musical chairs would soon trigger a chain reaction, reaching the next layer of decadents at the Queen of the Night, dragging in the dancers on stage, then the mercenaries and traders beneath it.

Those people were definitely part of the high-income groups in Boulder Town. The chips in their pockets might even reach seven figures!

As for the bank clerks, city hall employees, and boutique tailors... Though those middle-income earners didn’t have as much wealth, with five digits savings at most, their hunger for wealth was far greater.

It was just a pity that Boulder Town had already been drained dry. Otherwise, the finale would have been spectacular.

As the developer of the trading system, Ample Time could see the cards in every player’s hand. He didn’t even need to guess from their trading behaviors.

But honestly, making money off those folks wasn’t all that satisfying. After all, everyone knew bullying idiots was immoral.

"Wow, how many newspapers did you subscribe to?!" A voice came from the entrance. Dori walked in, arms full of newspapers.

"Every one I could," Ample Time stood up and took the stack from her arms with a smile. "I have to support the career of our little investigator, don’t I?"

"I'm a journalist!" Dori glared at him before blinking once. "And what even is an investigator? I thought it was a term of the New Alliance, but when I asked around, no one had ever heard of it."

Ample Time’s face turned green the moment he heard that. He almost choked on his own saliva and coughed twice in a panic. "

Ahem!

Don’t, don’t ask anyone else about that! I’ll explain later... Please...!"

He didn’t want to die of embarrassment!

Seeing the infamous troublemaker pleading with her, Dori smirked and didn’t plan on letting him off so easily. "Pinky swear!" she said while holding up her pinky.

"P-Pinky swear," Ample Time awkwardly hooked his finger with hers. But just thinking about how he would have to explain things later made him blush.

How was he supposed to explain that? He couldn’t bring up the other world!

He couldn’t just say it was from a movie... No, it was too dirty! And all data transmissions were reviewed, his brother Light would definitely see it!

Did it really have to be this formal?! Pinky swears and everything...

Still, Dori was as easy to please as ever. She didn’t seem to notice his red face. After the pinky swear, she sat happily at the breakfast table and dug in.

Ample Time also bit into a bun to cool his nerves and turned his attention to the tall stack of newspapers beside him.

Come to think of it, Survivor’s Daily had recently launched several new editions.

Including the Worker’s Daily, Agricultural Guide, and Fashion Weekly...

The industrial outflow from Boulder Town had injected new vitality into the New Alliance, and Survivor’s Daily was just one manifestation of that. It was perhaps the most visible.

The greatest legacy of the Prosperity Era wasn’t the black boxes, but their united language.

Even though people across the wasteland had all sorts of bizarre names, some were called Table, Chair, Wrench, Hammer, or even Li Lei and Han Meimei, they all spoke a common tongue, with only slight pronunciation differences. That made cultural and ideological exchange far easier than on Earth.

Because of that, the effects of industrial transfer and demographic siphoning were amplified. What should have been a slow, gradual process now unfolded with freefall intensity. But he didn’t feel sympathy for those people in Boulder Town. Arrogance was the original sin.

The nobles weren’t just arrogant, they were greedy. What should have been a money-printing machine serving over half a million people had been turned into a VIP cash dispenser. Despite having no foreign reserves, they insisted on playing debt games with the New Alliance.

If Ample Time didn’t scam them, who else should he mess with?

Their ancestors could never have imagined that the chips they invented to end barter among wasteland survivors would one day be passed around like toys by their descendants.

If the Boulder Town nobles hadn’t earned so many domestic credits, if they had diversified by holding some silver coins or silver coins backed assets while lending chips to the New Alliance, it would’ve been much harder for the New Alliance to fleece them. Their trading relationship would’ve bound the two sides together.

However, hindsight was always 20/20.

Their administrator had seen through their nature from the start. That was why he never yielded on free exchange between silver coins and chips. And though the Boulder Town Bank might have sensed the danger, it was already too late.

In truth, the administrator had been merciful. He had given them a chance. Up until the end, every one of those gamblers had the chance to slam the brakes.

If Malvern could have controlled inflation for five years and helped the New Alliance get through their early development phase, then allowing chip to silver coins conversions would have naturally vented the bubble within the city walls. If the New Alliance wanted to grow, defaulting was never an option.

Anyway, their moral flaws were their own business and not for the New Alliance to judge.

But the gamblers wanted to win too badly. And more than that, they wanted to be the only winners. They turned what could’ve been a long-lasting game into a life-or-death arena.

And in any arena, someone had to die.

It was a war, and it had already begun.

The only difference was that the war wasn’t fought on a battlefield and it wasn’t obvious.

Most people only realize it’s over after it ends silently. Only then, looking back, do they begin to understand what they lost.

It was a pity there weren’t more financial instruments in the game. Otherwise, shorting chips could’ve earned him a fortune. He would’ve been financially free both in-game and out.

Dori had noticed the trading device on the table. She picked it up curiously, stared at it for a while without understanding what it was before muttering, "What is this? You’ve been staring at this thing since morning."

Ample Time smiled, regaining his composure. "A criminal tool for bad people. Good kids shouldn’t touch it."

"... A criminal tool?" Dori echoed in confusion.

"Yeah." Ample Time teased her further. "See that ‘clear position’ button? If you press it, a few people in the Inner City over there will probably die. Want to try?"

Of course, that would ruin his chances of maximizing gains. His chips in Boulder Town Bank would be frozen. But he didn’t really care about those intangible things. That plan had only been a way to test a theory of his.

Making a beauty smile wasn’t a bad outcome either.

But Dori wasn’t laughing. She was so startled by his words that she quickly and carefully set the dangerous device back on the table.

"Seriously... Is it that scary?" she said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. She had a strong feeling he was just teasing her again.

Contrary to his usual nonsense, he was dead serious. Conservatively speaking... More than a few people would die.

Running his fingers through her soft green hair, Ample Time smiled gently at her doubtful eyes. "I haven’t forgotten what those bastards did, bullying my gentle, kind, and lovely Dori. I have to make sure they pay a little for how rude they have been."

"Ew! That’s so cheesy!" Dori jumped back, blushing furiously.

Despite her reaction, she couldn’t help feeling a wave of sweetness filling her heart. She had already decided to let it go, but he still remembered...

Seeing she didn’t think he was joking, Dori hesitated, then said softly, "Actually, I don’t really hate them anymore. You don’t need to get revenge on my behalf. I’m not going back anyway... But since you’re so vengeful..."

"No, I’m not vengeful," Ample Time interrupted. "It’s just... I remember everything about you."

Corny lines that would earn him an eye-roll in real life actually worked on the wasteland.

Dori’s face turned crimson again. She scrambled for her bag and darted toward the door like a startled animal. "I-I-I’m going to work!"

Watching the commotion at the entrance, Ample Time chuckled and turned his gaze back to the newspaper in his hand.

When he saw a report on Boulder Town’s current state, he shook his head and muttered to himself, "So many fools... Heh, there’re not enough liars to go around."

...

[The editors of the Economic Times had published a joke mocking their neighbors. A merchant from the New Alliance dined at a Boulder Town restaurant and saw everyone paying with paper. Shocked, he asked, "Where are your chips?" The server proudly answered, "We pay with IOUs now!" and showed a receipt with a long string of zeroes.]

[The trader flipped his pockets inside out but couldn’t find enough chips. Then he had a brilliant idea, he tore off a napkin and wrote an even longer string of zeroes, buying the whole restaurant.]