My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy - Chapter 182

As if on cue to his internal question, Frumpkin poofed into the air beside him with a very smug, satisfied look on his face.

“So you finally broke down and bought it, huh? I gotta be honest, I genuinely didn’t expect you to hold out this long. Especially considering, well, you know…” He trailed off, before raising his eyebrows suggestively and clicking his tongue against his teeth.

Jack looked at him with an expression that very clearly said “could you not?”

Frumpkin laughed.

“I’m kidding, kid. I know that isn’t actually the only reason.” He said.

He kicked up his feet and put his arms behind his head and a sunbathing chair poofed underneath him in a tuft of pink smoke.

“So, you managed to spend your shiny new lottery ticket I gave ya? If not, care if I spectate when you do? I’m as curious to see what happens as you are.” He said.

“That’s not really a sentence that inspires confidence, you know.” Jack said, looking at Frumpkin with mistrust.

Frumpkin waved Jack’s comment away with the back of his hand.

“Relax. I didn’t put anything bad in there. I can assure you that you will not end up missing any limbs, or get blown to kingdom come.” He said.

“That’s not any more reassuring.” Jack snorted, pulling the ticket out of his pocket.

Seeming to sense the presence of the ticket in his hand, the Terminal screen flickered and transformed into a new lottery wheel hovering in mid-air in front of him. In the dead center of the wheel, and taking up most of its flat space, was the same stupidly grinning portrait of Frumpkin that was on the lottery ticket. Around the outside of the portrait, the wheel was broken into dozens of identical tiny panels, each of which was covered with a small, impossibly shiny gold star. The ticket vanished from his hand, and the wheel spring to life, with the portrait of Frumpkin springing to life and laughing gleefully.

Jack stared hesitantly at the wheel for a long moment, before casting a side-long glance at Frumpkin.

Frumpkin shooed him with the back of his hand.

“Well go on! Spin the thing!” He said.

Jack sighed, and gave the wheel a firm spin. It spun, and spun, and spun for what felt like an unnecessarily long time, until it finally slowed to a crawled and stumbled to a halt over one of the numerous golden stars. As soon as it did so, there was a deafening fanfare of trumpets as dozens of confetti cannons appeared in the air all around Jack. He had just enough time to process what was about to happen as the amassed arsenal opened fire, their barrels exploding in a deluge of technicolor tissue paper like a bomb just went off in a pinata factory.

After Jack managed to extricate himself from rainbow avalanche he’d been buried under, Jack calmly conjured the shovel Simon kept in the barn and unceremoniously smacked Frumpkin upside the head with it. The little man sailed through the air before slamming into his own face on the floating lottery wheel. He hung in the air for half a moment, before slowly sliding down the surface of the wheel with a prolonged squeaking sound.

He dropped onto the ground with a cartoonish splat, before popping into the air again over his chair. There was an equally cartoonish lump on the side of his head, and he looked less than pleased. He snapped his fingers, and the giant pile of confetti, the cannons, and the shovel all vanished. Jack hoped the shovel got sent back where it belonged, or else poor Simon was going to spend hours looking for the damn thing at some point.

Frumpkin cleared his throat, looking at Jack with pursed lips.

“So, now that we’re equal, you gonna collect your prize, or what?”