My new Patreon link is patreon.com/forbiddenlust69 and also i will give extra chapters for every 150 power stone
Every time Ryusei Kiryu finished gutting fish and picked up the copper coins from the ground, he would check the change in the number in his wallet.
Just now, after he helped Sawamura Sayuri gut that sea bream, 3 copper coins dropped.
After collecting them, the number in his wallet at the time was [0 gold coins, 2 silver coins, 8 copper coins].
Compared to now, it only increased by 5 copper coins.
Strange, why is Sawamura Sayuri's drop rate different from other people's?
Ryusei Kiryu felt a little puzzled.
However, he didn't have time to think about it at the moment.
Because new customers came to buy fish again.
Ryusei Kiryu sat down and continued to help gut fish.
After another hour of work, he earned 83 copper coins, and the number in his wallet became [0 gold coins, 2 silver coins, 96 copper coins].
Seeing that the sky was getting dark, Ryusei Kiryu prepared to go home.
After all, Beika Town wasn't very safe at night.
Uncle Takagi quickly washed his hands and handed him some money.
"Uncle Takagi?"
"Take it! You've earned it! I can't let you work for free, can I?"
"Then thank you, Uncle."
"If you have time in the future and want to come, just come. I hope you can achieve your dream of becoming a chef."
"...Mm."
Leaving the market, Ryusei Kiryu counted the money in his hand and found that he had a total of 4,000 yen.
The hourly wage in Tokyo is between 1,163 yen and 1,300 yen.
He worked for an hour and a half today, and a little over an hour yesterday.
Uncle Takagi probably paid him for three hours directly, and the hourly wage he gave was higher than normal work.
"Uncle Takagi is a man of principle, but my dream isn't really to be a chef..."
Ryusei Kiryu shook his head, put the money away, and headed towards the subway station.
He passed a bookstore on the way.
Ryusei Kiryu walked in and asked the clerk, "Excuse me, do you have the book 'Love Metronome' in stock?"
The clerk thought for a moment and said, "I think we do. Wait a moment, I'll go find it for you."
A few minutes later, the clerk came out with a new book covered in a little dust.
"Customer, is this the book you're looking for?"
"That's right, I want two copies."
"Okay."
The clerk went back inside and got another copy.
"That will be 1,400 yen."
Ryusei Kiryu paid the money and put the two new books into his backpack.
--
There weren't many people on the subway.
Ryusei Kiryu was bored sitting there, so he took out a copy of "Love Metronome" from his bag, tore off the plastic film, and started reading it.
After only a short while, he felt his eyes ache.
The light was bad at night; it really wasn't good for reading.
Ryusei Kiryu put the book back into his backpack, closed his eyes, and began to do eye protection exercises for himself.
A girl sitting in the opposite seat looked at him curiously as he rubbed his face with his fingers.
Because there was no such thing as eye protection exercises in Japan.
Ryusei Kiryu silently completed the entire set of eye acupressure movements, feeling a slight warmth in his eyes and a relaxation in the muscles around them.
He couldn't even hear the surrounding noise.
He slowly opened his eyes, only to find that his surroundings were no longer the subway, but a familiar mist.
A glowing panel floated in front of him, displaying a set of seemingly mysterious finger massage movements.
An extremely impassioned sales pitch, like that of a live streamer, came from an unknown source and echoed in his ears.
"How long has it been since you clearly saw the veins of a leaf?"
"How long has it been since you clearly saw your loved one's face without wearing glasses?"
"How much longer do you want to endure the embarrassment of foggy lenses when eating hotpot in winter, or the annoyance of glasses slipping off when sweating in summer?"
"Look here! Our [Bright Eye Health Exercises] is not just an ordinary massage!"
What is this?
Ryusei Kiryu was stunned, then realized that this seemed to be the kind of "advertisement" he had seen after his last death.
However, this time the advertised product was no longer [Devil Fruit Blind Box], but a strange [Bright Eye Health Exercises].
"It has immediate effects! Each massage reduces your eye prescription by one degree!"
"It doesn't require you to set aside a lot of time; just 10 minutes before bed every day, listen to soothing music, follow along, and it's like covering your eyes with a soft blanket..."
"Don't hesitate! Buy it now! Original price 9.9 silver coins! Now only 1.9 silver coins! Get a copy of [Bright Eye Health Exercises] immediately!"
A [Buy Now] button popped up on the panel.
Ryusei Kiryu looked at the upper right corner of the advertisement.
There was a countdown there.
[00:00:20]
Ryusei Kiryu knew that this meant the strange advertisement had 20 seconds left.
So, should he buy it?
The "discounted" price of 1.9 silver coins was not expensive compared to its miraculous effect of reducing myopia.
Ryusei Kiryu currently had [2 silver coins, 96 copper coins], which is 2.96 silver coins, enough to buy this item.
But Ryusei Kiryu's eyes were not nearsighted.
He actually used to be nearsighted, but after his age regressed by 10 years, his eyes returned to their state from ten years ago, and his vision also returned to normal.
He seemed to have no use for it.
Ryusei Kiryu recalled the advertisement copy in his mind.
[It has immediate effects! Each massage reduces your eye prescription by one degree!]
This introduction didn't seem to limit it to only massaging oneself.
If this set of [Bright Eye Health Exercises] could also work for other people's nearsightedness... Ryusei Kiryu thought of Sawamura Eriri, who was extremely nearsighted and usually wore contact lenses.
There was also Kasumigaoka Utaha; her image in the anime usually involved wearing glasses. Although it wasn't explicitly stated in the plot, considering she was a light novel author who often had to write at her desk, she most likely also had nearsightedness.
If he mastered this set of eye protection exercises, he would have a legitimate reason to touch their eyes.
In the future, if he encountered another Heroine with nearsightedness, he could also use the same method to touch their eyes and "check in" from them.
They would recover their vision, and Ryusei Kiryu would get copper coins.
This was a win-win!
As soon as Ryusei Kiryu thought of this, he reached out and directly clicked the [Buy Now] button in front of him.
The next moment, a prompt popped up on the screen.
[Purchase successful!]
[Current Wallet: 0 gold coins, 1 silver coin, 6 copper coins.]
Subsequently, the surrounding mist began to dissipate rapidly.
Ryusei Kiryu found himself still sitting in the subway seat.
The other passengers were also there.
But they all remained in their original poses, motionless.
There was no sound in the air.
Ryusei Kiryu looked out the window.
The scenery outside the window was also stagnant; even the wind had stopped moving.
Everything except him seemed to be in a state of "time-stop."
A few seconds later, the mist completely disappeared, and time resumed its movement.
Ryusei Kiryu saw the passengers move from their frozen states.
The girl opposite blinked her eyes; she suddenly noticed Ryusei Kiryu looking at her and lowered her head, a little embarrassed.
Ryusei Kiryu smiled, opened the system panel, and looked at his inventory.
In one of the slots lay a thin booklet emitting a blue light.
[Bright Eye Health Exercises].
Chapter 22: Peeking Comes with Risks
The subway arrived at the station.
Ryusei Kiryu got off the train and walked towards the exit, still thinking about the "advertisement."
He wanted to figure out what conditions triggered this system mechanism.
He hadn't done anything special on the train just now.
He just felt his eyes were tired and did a set of eye protection exercises.
Then the new "advertisement" suddenly appeared.
The product advertised in the "advertisement" was also "eye protection exercises."
It had the flavor of a mobile phone secretly collecting information in his previous life, and shopping software pushing products through big data.
Ryusei Kiryu tried to summarize the rules of the "advertisement" in his mind:
[Firstly, the advertisement will appear with an unknown mist and will also disappear with that unknown mist.]
[Secondly, while the advertisement is running, the entire world seems to enter a time-stop state.]
[Thirdly, after the advertisement finishes playing, there will be 20 seconds of purchase time remaining.]
[Fourthly, the product pushed by the advertisement seems to be related to what he was doing when it was triggered.]
[Fifthly, the products pushed by the advertisement are likely to be at a discounted price.]
[Sixthly, after death, he might be able to revive by watching the advertisement again.]
Ryusei Kiryu drew these six conclusions based on the two "advertisements" he had seen.
Some of these conclusions still needed to be verified by him.
"I wonder when the next advertisement will appear."
Ryusei Kiryu walked out of the subway exit, looked at the sky, which was almost completely dark, and quickened his pace.
"I'd better go back quickly."
--
Ten minutes later.
Ryusei Kiryu successfully returned to the old apartment building.