"Huh—! What happened to the machine? Why did it stop working? Oh no—! Have we somehow angered the gods or something?"

People wondered as they saw that the machine had stopped working. Many of the people who were in the line looked crushed.

"N-No way—! It's far too early for the machine to close—! It's not even been 15 minutes…! Have we truly done something?"

As people panicked and wondered what happened, someone finally put two and two together and came up with a reason that worked based on the limited information they had.

"Can it be… the divine machine is angry at us because we bullied the weak too much and it had enough? W-What should we do now?"

Because of my small action of turning off the machine, a large conspiracy theory started to brew.

Had I been a better person, I would have reversed my decision to calm these people down.

But I was not a good person. I was a selfish person who liked to flaunt his strength in secret, even if no one knew about it.

"H-Hurry—! Push that person forward. Maybe the machine will restart if we allow the one we pushed back to come forward."

People started to make up stuff to get the machine to start up again, and as a result, I was pushed to the front.

I looked at the machine, and the machine looked back at me as well. Now, it was time to finally make a decision.

'Should I restart the machine? Yeah sure, why not.'

After all, I was not the one who would have to deal with the result of my actions. People would just think that it was the machine's own whims.

I turned on the machine as soon as I reached for it, and everyone behind me gasped out in shock and surprise.

"Oh my god! The divine machine started."

"So it does have a will of its own! We will have to be more careful in the future."

"H-How did it start again? Is it keeping a watch on us all?"

People wondered and panicked at the same time. They seemed to have no idea what to do.

As for me? It was simple.

I used the machine and paid the price to get the capsule I wanted from it. Once I had it, I decided to take a step back and allow others to come forward.

One of the people in the line looked enraged by all this, and his eyes looked a little red.

"Tsk, I don't believe this machine restarting is that big of a deal. I am sure that it was a fluke this time. I have been here before, and nothing of that sort ever happened. Let me show you—"

The man broke the line off, and as soon as he touched the machine, I closed it off.

Seeing the machine stop working made the man panic.

"Tsk, how dare you—! You broke the machine again. What are we going to do now?"

Someone asked, and the panicked man quickly made excuses for himself.

"I-I did not do anything. I just touched the machine and it just… anyway, maybe it's your fault—! It is not my fault."

The man spoke loudly and tried to make a run for it. But he was caught quickly enough.

A few more troublemakers shifted in their place as they looked at the claw machine. I had a feeling that they were trying to decide whether they wanted to try their luck or not.

It was amusing, and I decided to stick around for a little while longer to see what would happen.

A few people did try their luck to cut through the line, and I did the same thing again and again before they all stopped.

'Why did I think these people were better than the modern people when it came to queues? They are just… calmer. But in terms of actual behavior, they were just as bad.'

I had some run-ins with some people the future would call 'Karen,' so I already knew how rough it could be out here.

Finally, after an hour of observation, I felt hungry, and it was also time for me to turn off the machine.

So that was what I did, and I headed back toward my shop.

As soon as I opened the door, a very familiar thing darted between my legs.

"Have you brought breakfast? Why were you so late? I am so hungry. Please feed me… what is this?"

The puppy sniffed the pocket of my coat that I had put down, and it reminded me that I had pulled on the claw machine but never bothered to check what I pulled.

As I brought out the fortune slip, I decided to read it.

[You shall have a fateful encounter soon with a pair who can shape the world. Should you choose to save them, they shall become your biggest help.]

The message this time was simple, and it also felt like good news. After all, I was in need of big help.

"Fateful encounter… huh? Sounds romantic or something. Wait—! Does that mean I can get cheap labor…? Not that I need it or something, but I do want to save money…"

I wondered about that but ultimately decided against it.

Paying less was not going to help anyone, especially when I could afford to pay decently well. Instead, I could just work my employee to the bone to extract all the value out of my money.

That was what I and any other struggling person out there would have wanted—money for work.

Of course, there were always people who wanted money but did not want to work or have the skills to work and then complained. But I doubted I would have gotten this message if that were the case.

"Yup—! That's what I will do. I look forward to getting some 'help' soon."

I told myself as I got back to work. And by that, I meant cook breakfast.

I decided to make some modern-style dishes with a lot of flavor because the dishes in the current time period were… not that well.

But that was only because people had no means to know what gave dishes their flavor.

Many spices like turmeric and such were used as medicine and not in cooking, and they were in low supply as well. The only way to get most of it was through trade.

And trade made everything so darn expensive.

"Oh well—! As long as the system shop has it, I guess I have no room to complain. And spices and food cost way less anyway."

I told myself as I brought the food to Fenrir as well.

The dire wolf pup dove into it and was finished even before I started to eat mine.

"Wow—! This is really good. Do you think I can get more, master? You will give me more, right?"

The wolf kept begging me, and I had to get up to give it to him even before I could start on my own food.

Three servings and a half-eaten plate of food in front of me later, and I decided to tune Fenrir's begging out. It was unlikely that his stomach was ever going to get filled up anyway.

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