Episode 85 — The Hybrid Operator

The next morning, I finally logged into my Throne of Sloth to complete my daily quest: brushing Tama.

"Master Zect! I have apprehended the suspicious individual as you ordered!"

Bartos stepped into the living room, his voice ringing with even more pride and steely resolve than usual. Behind him were Volg and Gustav, and behind them—bound tightly in ropes with his hands behind his back—was the man from the Magic Races.

"......"

I stopped mid-brush. I had indeed said "capture him" the previous night. However, I was certain I had added the adjective "gently" before it. The scene before me looked less like a gentle invitation and more like the high-profile arrest of a violent criminal.

"Bartos... Uh, we don’t need the ropes. Untie him."

I let out a sigh, and Bartos’s eyes widened in surprise.

"But Master Zect! This man is a demon, and a dangerous individual suspected of fraudulent activities at the casino!"

(I told you to be gentle... You got too hung up on the keyword 'capture' in the command chain. Is the concept of 'voluntary questioning' not in your internal dictionary?)

"Just do it. ...Volg, Gustav, good work."

Volg shrugged and expertly sliced the ropes with a knife. The man, now free, rubbed his wrists and quietly looked up at me. His eyes were even deeper and more intelligent than they had appeared in the recording.

"I am surprised. I did not expect the master of Felsen to be such a young man. And those strange garments... forgive me, I am a bit confused."

The man straightened his posture and bowed deeply.

"My name is Argo. I believe I know why I was apprehended, but will I be given a chance to explain myself?"

His way of speaking was surprisingly polite and logical.

"Have a seat, Argo. I want to talk about the casino. I’ll skip the fine details, but you were tracking the numbers, weren't you? Adding one when a two through six appeared, and subtracting one when it was ten or higher. You were hunting for the right moment to bet, right?"

As I laid out the secret so plainly, Argo’s brow twitched ever so slightly.

"I am impressed. To have my thought process pinpointed so accurately. However..."

Argo adjusted his glasses with a slightly apologetic gesture.

"The method I used was a bit more complex. Two and seven are plus zero-point-five. Three, four, and six are plus one. Five is plus one-point-five. Ten and higher are minus one. Aces are minus zero-point-seven. I constantly try to keep the total value converging toward zero to calculate the deck’s bias with more precision. It started as the method you described, but after several visits to the casino, it naturally evolved into this."

"............Huh?"

My thought process froze for a second.

(Is that... the Wong Halves? That’s known as one of the highest-difficulty counting strategies, something considered to be at the limit of what a human can calculate in real-time. And he developed that... on his own? In a world where magic is basically a cheat code?)

Names of geniuses flashed through my mind. Was this the "Demon of Mathematics," John von Neumann? Or Edward Thorp, the father of card counting? No, sitting before me was an "Algorithm Monster" from another world.

(This guy is a genuine super-genius! It’s not just that he has the same OS; his CPU clock speed is on a different level. It’s a miracle his cooling fans aren't audibly spinning.)

"Meow. (You’re making that weird face again. Your mouth is hanging open.)"

Tama’s meow finally forced me to reboot.

"Argo. With a brain like yours, you could probably become a high-ranking official back in the demon territories. Why stay in Felsen, where there’s no decent work and nothing but prejudice?"

At my question, Argo gave a self-deprecating but gentle smile.

"It is the same for me, whether in the demon lands or in Felsen."

"Same?"

"I am of mixed heritage—a child born between a demon and a human. In the demon lands, I am treated as an 'unclean being' tainted with human blood. In the human lands, I am loathed as a 'creepy demon.' Wherever I go, I am outside the system. I am a foreign element with no place to belong."

Argo’s words caused Gustav to grimace in pain, while Volg looked as though he were tasting the bitterness of a bad cigarette.

"So, you have the specs, but because they don't like the casing design, you’re denied login privileges..."

I took a sip of my Cola and suppressed a burp.

"Argo. I hate inefficiency. A high-performance asset like you smoldering in the corner of a casino is a fatal bug for this city."

"An... asset? Is that what I am?"

"Yeah. We don't have time to mess around with low-level errors like prejudice. Argo, don't you want a job? Move from the side that beats the casino to the side that accelerates this city’s economic system. In other words... how about working for the Lord?"

Argo’s eyes widened as he looked at me for the first time. In his pupils, I saw astonishment—a flicker of noise that could not be calculated.

I gave a fearless smirk from my Throne of Sloth.

"Don't worry, it’s simple. While I’m sleeping, just update this city to be more efficient. First, let's get you out of those rags and into some decent clothes. Gustav will handle the budget."

"Understood, Mr. Zect!"

Gustav shouted with a joy that made it sound like it was his own good news.

And so, the ultimate "Operator" was integrated into the Felsen OS. My dream of a perfect shut-in life had just moved one step closer to completion.

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.