Miracle Skill Vending Machine

As Yong-hoo spoke those magical words, ‘Only 1 Gold Coin’, the skill was activated. Light particles gathered on the body of the user standing in front of him, and moments later his body was shining brightly.

However, strangely enough, the user did not notice this change, it was as if he did not notice this light at all…

In fact, not only him but even the coming and going crowd on the streets did not notice this light coming from the user who stood in front of Yong-hoo.

‘Does that mean, only I can see this light?’ thought Yong-hoo inwardly and realized that no one other than him, not even the target user can notice the activation of this skill.

As Yong-hoo was analyzing everything, it was then, he heard that familiar sound from the Notification Window:

[Success: 1 Gold Coin Earned!]

‘Huh?’ Yong-hoo was taken aback when he heard this notification, and couldn’t help but mutter in shock, “It really happened!”

There really was that notification in an all too familiar voice of the system.

Yong-hoo is fairly certain that the system never malfunctions or messes up, which means that the skill really worked!

In other words, a gold coin has really been added into his inventory… and this wasn’t a gold coin that fell from the sky or out of nowhere, it was the gold coin that Yong-hoo received from the inventory of the user standing in front of him.

Even now Yong-hoo couldn’t believe it… and opened his inventory to confirm…

‘Inventory’

Up until a minute ago, Yong-hoo’s inventory never had any Gold coin, in fact, from the time he has come to this RPG-like world, Yong-hoo’s inventory has never had even a single gold coin… all he has ever had are the copper coins and the bronze coins, but no silver or gold coins, or anything that might remotely come close to being silver or gold… Therefore, when he saw it, he knew it…

‘‘This… this… this… There really is 1 gold coin in my inventory!’ he screamed inwardly in nervousness and excitement…

At the same time, he looked at the user opposite him with a nervous expression, Yong-hoo was worried that he might be labeled as a thief for stealing the other person’s wealth.

However, contrary to Yong-hoo’s worries, the other party simply waved his hand and said, “A young man such as you should think of working and earning money yourself… begging won’t provide you anything, so don’t try to live such a miserable life…”

After delivering such words of wisdom, the user passed by Yong-hoo and walked away not at all aware that he has been robbed…

“Huh?” Yong-hoo was dumbfounded… and can’t help but scream inwardly, ‘He doesn’t know!’

‘He doesn’t know that just a few moments ago he lost 1 gold coin from his inventory!’

Yong-hoo acquired a Gold Coin from the user, but the user didn’t even realize that he had lost one gold coin!

This is probably because the other party received no notification prompt stating that he has lost 1 Gold coin from his inventory. This further makes this skill a bigger bug than Yong-hoo had previously imagined!

Yong-hoo realizes that he is probably the only person who has this skill and knows about it, and since there is no information about it recorded in the Skill books or Adventurer’s Guides, no doubt no one knows about it… In fact, even if someone else has this skill in some other corner of this world, they would have kept it a secret and decided not to flaunt it… So, no doubt it is an unknown skill to the populace.
And since this is an unknown skill, hence there is no possibility of getting caught for using it!

However, the question is… ‘Can this skill be used indefinitely?’

Generally, skills can be used infinitely, however, there will always be a delayed activation / Cooldown period after each use… Yong-hoo needed to find this Cooldown time, and so he decided to check it out.
With such intention, Yong-hoo turned around then ran towards the same User again.

He was able to catch up quickly and said, “Excuse me.”

“Yes? Uh?” The user recognized Yong-hoo from a while ago and frowned when Yong-hoo again came to him.

Yong-hoo didn’t pay any attention to the user’s expression and chanted the skill without any hesitation, “Only 1 Gold Coin!”

However, this time the skill did not activate.

‘This means that there is indeed a cooldown period, but how long is it?’

Thinking so, Yong-hoo decided to repeatedly activate the skill on the same user in front of him…

Because of Yong-hoo’s irresponsible behavior, the user started to chide him…

Yong-hoo listened to the user’s sermon with an irritated expression…

The user felt that Yong-hoo was really patiently listening to his sermons, to the user’s sermons’ became more and more verbose.

‘What’s important is to be brave, believe in yourself, and work hard… if you work hard, you will definitely be rewarded one day…” – User

“……” – Yong-hoo

“Yes, I understand that venturing into the hunting grounds is dangerous, and it’s a terrible feeling to lose your memory upon death, but, if you aren’t even willing to put up the effort, then nothing will change!” – User

“……” – Yong-hoo

“Even I have died twice since I came to this world, every time I died, I lost parts of my memory, despite that, I did not sit down and did not give up hunting monsters… I had faith that one day, my efforts will be paid, and they have been… now I am Level 12. If I can do it, you can too… just have faith in yourself and don’t give up!

Don’t have unrealistic dreams, begging won’t bring you money… let alone a gold coin, you won’t even be able to earn a silver coin or a copper coin this way… so, change your path…” – User said.

‘Hmm, it’s almost time… should I try again??’ pondered Yong-hoo inwardly…

As for the User’s sermons? Yong-hoo didn’t pay any attention to them… his attention was at the distant clock tower, checking the time…

‘It’s 10 minutes since the last use, let’s try now…’ thought Yong-hoo and re-chanted the skill…

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

“Hey, you bastard, were you even listening to what I was saying!”

This time, the user thought that Yong-hoo was playing with him and mocking him, so he kicked Yong-hoo’s shin in anger and annoyance, causing Yong-hoo to collapse on the street…

However, Yong-hoo didn’t grunt in pain, nor did he get injured so he didn’t mind it at all.

The reason why he didn’t feel any pain is because of the specialty of this village.

This Falken village of the Ramad Kingdom is one of the beginner villages, and therefore, it is also a safe zone.

This means that no matter how much you attack a user in this village, the attacks won’t do any damage to the other person. This is because the moment the other party is attacked, a protective shield will automatically wrap around the body and offset all the damage.

As such, Yong-hoo didn’t care about being beaten by the user in front of him, instead, his attention was focused on the user’s body in front of him.

Light particles have again gathered on the User’s body, this is the signal that the skill has been activated.
And Yong-hoo concluded that the cool-down period is somewhere around 10 minutes.

As for the more details, they can’t be tested here and on this user, because all eyes on the street were focused on this side as the user had shouted loudly while kicking him.

Anyway, the skill activated, and soon there was a prompt in Yong-hoo’s notification window:

[Failure: 0 Gold Coin Earned!]

Although the skill activated, however, this time it yielded no results.

“If you keep following me and pestering me to give you 1 Gold Coin, 1 Gold coin, even I will get angry…!”

“I understand… please forgive me… I am sorry!” Yong-hoo got up and apologized.

“Humph… you better be!” said the user and walked away with an annoyed expression.

After sending away the user, Yong-hoo also walked away from that place…

After walking for a while, he came to a different street and smirked, then he took out the gold coin that he earned from his inventory, and looked at it carefully.

From the touch he could feel in his hand, he was sure that this wasn’t an illusion, it was a real gold coin!
“I am going to be rich now!” he muttered with an excited expression, as he was sure that he has obtained a skill that can definitely make him rich.

Although, the success rate of the skill is currently only 10%, however, as Yong-hoo will continue to use it, the level of the skill will rise, and with that, the success rate will follow!

With such thoughts in his mind, Yong-hoo put back the gold coin in his inventory and walked towards a user, who, in his opinion might have gold coins.

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

[Failure: 0 Gold Coin Earned!]

This time it was a failure again, however, Yong-hoo wasn’t disappointed because he is aware of the success rate.

And since the cool-down time is also not very long, only 10 minutes, so within the next 10 minutes, he can use it again without any problem.

Understanding so, he decided to experiment with the skill.

This time, he did not wait 10 minutes and chose to activate it after 5 minutes. He walked towards a random user without giving regard to whether they might have a gold coin or not and activated the skill.

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

[Failure: 0 Gold Coin Earned!]

This time it was a failure again…

But to Yong-hoo, failure didn’t matter, and he kept trying again and again…

After 2 more failed attempts, Yong-hoo again activated the skill…

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

[Success: 1 Gold Coin Earned!]

‘Success!’ he thought as he quickly checked his inventory, and similar to the last time, 1 gold coin was added to his inventory. Moreover, this time again, the target user did not notice the loss of 1 gold coin.
By now Yong-hoo had understood the skill quite well, so he decided, ‘Let’s change places…’
With that, he went to the square.

Although a small village, it had a very large and beautiful square with several fountains and benches.
There were various shops around the square, several of these shops were also opened by the user’s, so, this area is always crowded with users.

Yong-hoo walked towards a random user and activated the skill…

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

The probability of success is not very high, so randomly using it on just about anyone is better than specifically stopping someone and bothering them.

It took a while, but it was again worth it…

“Only 1 Gold Coin!”

[Success: 1 Gold Coin Earned!]

Moreover, because of the repeated uses, the Level of the skill had also risen…

[ -Skill- Only 1 Gold Coin (LV 1–> LV 2)]

By the time Sun sent down, and all the people at the square were gone, Yong-hoo continued to use his skill.

He used it so much, that rumors started to spread about Kim Yong-hoo, the part-time worker of that general store has become a beggar… but Yong-hoo didn’t care.

To him, it doesn’t matter if someone calls him a beggar because he knows that he will be rich soon.

* * *

Kim Yong-hoo’s home.

After coming back to his house, Yong-hoo took out several bags of gold coins and poured them on the ground.

As all the gold coins that he had earned in just one day were piled up on the ground, the number reached so high that one might not be able to earn it in several lifetimes.

The number of gold coins piled up on the floor was 57… 57 gold coins.

Yong-hoo’s monthly salary at the general store is only 5 copper coins.

And the currency system of this RPG-like world is as follows.

10 bronze coins equal 1 copper coin, 10 copper coins equal 1 silver coin, and 10 silver coins equal 1 gold coin.

“If I continue to work at the general store……”

Then it would take Yong-hoo more than 95 years to earn 57 gold coins…

Moreover, of the 5 copper coins that he earns monthly, Yong-hoo spends most of it on living expenses, and there is almost nothing that he manages to save… which means, if he continues to do what he has been doing for the past year, he will never be able to earn such an amount!

But using this BUG-like skill, Yong-hoo was able to earn 57 gold coins in just one day!

“Today I earned 57 gold coins… tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow…”

Yong-hoo calculated that if he continues to use this method to earn money with the same daily average, he will be able to earn more than 1700 gold coins in just one month!

The monthly salaries of Royal Knights are around 1 gold coin… So, it can be understood that 1700 gold coins are a really huge amount.

As Yong-hoo did all these calculations, he couldn’t help but salivate…

But then, a thought clicked in his mind, and he couldn’t help but wonder… ‘Can I continue to do this…?’
In a way, what he is doing is stealing.

Of course, he is using a skill to do it.

Although the law of the Ramad Kingdom states that all users can freely use their skills… Regardless of what skill it is, as long it is a skill, they will not be charged…

This is a special law that only applies to the users, Yong-hoo has read it several times in the Adventurer Guild’s guide books.

So, legally, even if he is stealing other’s gold coins with the help of his skills, Yong-hoo is not committing any crime…

Moreover, users are still exempted from several small crimes…

So, he has no legal reason to worry…

But, morally speaking, this is the wrong thing to do!

Morals of other people might say that it’s fine, and everything is fair, but Yong-hoo’s conscience is telling him that what he is doing is wrong.

And since his morals did not allow him to do this, Yong-hoo felt that he can’t continue to use this skill…
But, suddenly an idea clicked in his mind, ‘Maybe, I just need to change my approach and my targets!’
Yong-hoo obtained this mysterious skill from the ‘Miracle Skill Vending Machine’, and the Miracle Skill Vending Machine that appeared in his room was a gift from the Goddess of this world.

So, the question is, if stealing is morally wrong, then why did the Goddess put such a skill in the ‘Miracle Skill Vending Machine’?

Yong-hoo didn’t know why did she do something of this sort…

He could only assume that although she must want him to use this skill to make money, she wouldn’t have wanted Yong-hoo to use this skill ‘just’ to make money!

And Yong-hoo feels he has figured out that reason.

He can use it in a much better way, in a way such that Yong-hoo can help other users!

The NPCs of this world generally don’t interfere in the Users’ business unless users cause damage to them.

Because of this, there are several users who have become half outlaws and bullies other users.

Although there used to be people who tried to teach lessons to these outlaws, however, they were beaten badly by the outlaws and now completely ignore them.

So, a lot of thugs and outlaws have gathered in the Falken Village.

As they say, birds of a feather, flocks together… The outlaws of this village have gathered together and formed their own parties… one such party is called the Rock-Armed party.

In a hunting field outside the Falken Village, there is a good hunting spot.

It was previously owned by the lord of the territory, but as it became a popular hunting spot because of the high spawn rate of monsters, it became a hunting ground often used by users. the monsters in that area are not too strong, and they provide good ‘exp’, and ‘drop items’ for the beginners.

Technically speaking, that hunting spot belongs to no one and can be used by almost anyone… but now it has become the exclusive territory of the Rock-Armed Party.

Although, legally it is not allowed to monopolize hunting grounds, with a bigger fist, higher power, and deeper pockets it is indeed possible.

Rock-Armed Party used these methods…

And as such, Yong-hoo decided to use this skill on them.

…

Next Day

Yong-hoo left his house early in the morning, his objective was to return back all the gold coins to the users.

“Excuse me… you dropped it on the street yesterday.” Said Yong-hoo as he returned the gold coin.
When they were given back their gold coins by Yong-hoo, they were taken aback, but everyone took it back and said thank you to Yong-hoo.

Nobody would have imagined that these gold coins were actually stolen by Yong-hoo, without even getting alerted by the system prompt…

So, when Yong-hoo told them they had dropped it on the street yesterday, they took his words and accepted them generously.

It was only natural for them to do so…

And when Yong-hoo had returned the gold coins of three users, an unexpected system prompt popped up in his holographic window and it said…