[NR] By Cheating! - Chapter 777 (Patreon)

Courtney snaps her fingers, “Okay. Now, is there any other questions for the wilds that aren’t deep?”

Rosha, “Well, since they aren’t the Deep Wilds and the Deep Wilds do try to reclaim land, why aren’t they reclaimed?”

Courtney, “Good question! And it goes back to the monsters. While people like to simplify, and I’m pretty sure I did this as well, it all comes down to civilization holding back the wilderness. That isn’t quite true.

“What is important is order that is maintained by NeoRealm natives. While most people think of civilization as order versus the chaos of the wilds? That isn’t true. Animals follow a primal sort of order. It isn’t law, unless you count the law of the jungle.

“Which is why wild areas are nests and such. Peter’s kingdom? The wilderness it formed from was held together by the bear swarm. It is why the area is packed with swarms. The bear swarm set the local order.”

Old Liam, “Eugh, swarms? You’ve been to that Kingdom, eh? A lovely people from the few that make their way out here, but I can not stand swarms!”

Jason nods, “I don’t think any of us are particular fans of them.”

Rosha, “Yup!”

Old Liam, “Anyways, you want to buy the box? I’m charging a hundred gold for it.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow, “That sounds suspiciously like the price of a new box.”

Old Liam shrugs, “Well, we’re going need a new one. Sides, it isn’t like we’ll be selling you a faulty box. The box will work perfectly fine.”

Rosha, “Eh, it’s only a hundred gold.”

Courtney sighs, “We might not get that much for the body. The tail is clearly important and that’s missing.”

Rosha, “Well, let’s just gamble on it. I don’t want to bother with this nonsense.”

Jason laughs, “What, don’t want to go test out luck at an auction house? Isn’t that normally where young masters like to flaunt?”

Rosha sticks her tongue out at him. “Screw flaunting our money by spending it on silly things. Gambling, even when not involving the actual spending of money to win money, has been hyper-restricted for a reason. Kind of surprised how much is still allowed here.”

Courtney sighs, “That’s just because even when so much work has been done to restrict it, people find a way. Though I must admit, NeoRealm is kind of the biggest loophole ever?”

Jason laughs, “Clearly you didn’t look into gambling enough then! They didn’t even count loot boxes as gambling for way too long. It is the equivalent of a casino letting you buy a box with chips and there is a random prize inside. But it isn’t gambling because you didn’t use actual cash on it and they aren’t personally buying those prizes back from you.”

Courtney, “That’s a little bit of an exaggeration?”

Jason shakes his head, “Nah. Not only is it exactly like that, some countries literally had that loophole. You could get non-cash prizes at one place and then ‘sell’ them at the place next door. Which isn’t gambling because you weren’t winning money.

“Such sophistry isn’t fooling anyone. Just because those things weren’t legally gambling, doesn’t mean gambling addicts don’t get caught up in them all the same.”

Rosha, “We teach statistics as a core skill now! How are there always people who don’t understand it.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow, “Can you give me a one-paragraph explanation that proves gambling isn’t worth it and will be accepted by anyone? You know what, I’ll make it easier. All you have to do is explain why flipping five heads on a coin doesn’t mean you’re more likely to get tails on the next flip. And it just has to get people to believe it instead of going with their feeling that they should be flipping tails any time now.”

Rosha, “Blarg. The mind just doesn’t seem built to get that kind of thing.”

Courtney, “Oh, there are some people that get and still gamble. After all, there are winners. At least we finally managed to get people to stop smoking.”

Jason laughs, “By cheating! Why smoke irl when you can smoke here or a custom sim and not have to spend tons on it.”

Courtney, “As if that would stop people from smoking.”

Jason, “I’m shocked you honestly think there aren’t people who still smoke. There are an infinite variety of drugs out there and few ever truly die.”

Old Liam sighs, “Real shame. Did you know there’s magic, some call them curses, that make it so drugs only make you feel nauseous? You’d think that would fix things, but people just developed magical drugs that bypassed the magic!

“Heard tell of a Kingdom that tried to fix their problem that way and yet still make a lot of money exporting stuff. They didn’t survive long after that because something magical enough to pierce the curse wasn’t calm like pipe or dream herb. So of course, since the kingdom made everything legal, soon everyone in the nobility was trying the new buzz! Well, you can probably guess where it went from there.”

Jason sighed, “They didn’t tune the magic to ignore beer and what not, did they?”

Old Liam laughs, “Goodness no! They didn’t want their peasants to waste their time drunk. Plus, I’m not sure they wanted the expense to customize the magic like that. I figure they thought they would be excluded from the magic.”

Jason smirks, “If they weren’t willing to pay for it to not target booze, I doubt they spent money to make sure it didn’t target them. A kingdom-wide magical effect isn’t going to be picky.”

Old Liam nods, “No sir!”

Courtney sighs, “Well, that’s informative, but we need to get this packed up. Are we paying for the box? I’m for it.”

Jason nods, “Sounds fine.”

Rosha shrugs, “Okay. It’s only 100 gold.”

Courtney claps her hands, “Perfect! Then let’s go and grab a good-sized box. Are they all the same or do we have a variety to select from that all ‘magically’ cost the same amount?”

Old Liam smiles wide, “Well, it is magical, that’s for sure! The material cost of the box is negligible. All that matters is the magic and what’s used to anchor it. Big or small box? Doesn’t matter unless you’re talking past a certain point. Which, interestingly, goes up when you change the size too much in either direction.”