“What game are you playing, Ruby?” Kana asked. "Oh, it's just this simple game called match jong. You match these mahjong titles together.”
“Sounds boring.”
“I'm not going to sugarcoat it; it is, but I'm only doing this so I can afford a stream gift card for a brother-and-sister visual novel that costs one dollar. You see, I’m playing through this app called Rewarded Melon that records your gameplay and rewards you with gems you can use for gift cards, which you'll get emailed.”
“Are you sure this isn’t some sort of scam?”
“I'm sure I’ve gotten tons of ads for rewarded melon that show people getting rewarded, so it's got to be true.”
“Well, even if it is, there's got to be some sort of catch here, right?”
"Yeah, there is; it takes forever to get gems. You get 900 for every 10 levels completed, but it’ll all be worth it when I get to play those visual novels.”
“Oh, and one last question before I go: how many gems do you need for those steam gift cards?”
“For a one-dollar card, it’s about ten trillion points.”Kana froze in place before patting Ruby on the head. “Oh, you poor sweet child, there’s no way in heck you're making that many points.”
“I will; you just have to believe.” Ruby winked. “I’ll go bring you some copium."
Kana sighed before walking out and closing the door. Once she left, Ruby continued playing. By this point, she had reached level 9330 and spent about 332 hours playing. Rewarded Melon had various other games you could use to earn gems, but Ruby just decided to stick with Match Jong. Many hours went by when suddenly Kana came back with a canister of copium in her hands.
“Here's the copium I said I was going to bring you." Kana threw the canister across the room. Ruby catches it and says, “Thanks; I'll use it later.”
Out of nowhere, the ground starts shaking. "Uh, Ruby, why is the ground shaking? Is there an earthquake going on?”
“I'm not sure; maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t.” A piece of a drill pops out but comes back down almost immediately. “What the?”
Then, like a mole in a whack-a-mole machine, out popped Mem-cho. “Eek!” screamed Kana. Mem-cho got out of the hole and started cleaning herself off. “W-wh-why do you have a drill, and why did you use it to drill a hole in here?”
"Oh, I got it from rewarded melon; I tried it out on a subathon and had enough by the end to buy this drill, and it just arrived.”
"Neat, I guess, and while we’re on the topic of rewarded melon, can you tell Ruby that she won't be able to earn 10 trillion points for a one-dollar Steam gift card?”
"10 trillion?”
"Yeah?”
"Back when I did the subathon, it was just 45 thousand points.”
"Wait, what?” Ruby asked.
“Yeah, they were only 45 thousand points back when I used them months ago, meaning your ass is getting screwed over.”
"Just like when aq-” Kana grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at Ruby. “Ouchie zowie!” Ruby exclaimed.
"Ruby, I understand you love your brother a little too much, but for the love of God, can you shut up about your incestuous activities? It's gotten more repetitive than you playing that dumb mahjong game on that dumb rewarded watermelon app that jacked its reward prices, according to Mem."
"Does she even have proof of the lower prices?”
"Yeah, just give me a second.” She pulled out her phone and started hurriedly scrolling and tapping before showing her what the old prices were. “Wow, I really am getting scammed.”
"Yep, but I'll let you use my credit card since all you wanted was a one-dollar steam card.”
“Thanks Mem-cho!” Ruby rushes to her computer and purchases the game, waiting patiently for it to install. Once done, she opens it up, but it just turned out to be a crypto miner that displayed a black image with the text "Haha, get scammed, loser! We're using your hardware to crypto mine."
Ruby was completely devastated and started crying, not knowing what to do. Mem-cho and Kana left the room, only to come back to Ruby, still crying, just as the two-hour mark passed, meaning they couldn't refund the game.
End notes: Hello once again, mates. This was supposed to be released last Saturday, but some irl stuff came up. All I'll say is that it's school-related, but that aside, the next fic will either be a gushing over magical girls fic or a bunny girl senpai fic, and as you probably noticed, I added paragraph breaks to this fic. I'll be doing so for my other fics soon. until we meet again.
