Life on the Line: Gacha (3)
Going back a few moments to the corridor leading toward the isolation chamber. Before I reached it, I deleted the game I had originally installed.
I needed to raise my survival odds against Why Are You Luckier Than Me?. If its management condition revolved around pity, I had to drag the damn thing into a realm of pure, unfiltered luck where pity systems couldn’t save it.
Using a translator, I scoured the internet for the gacha game with the absolute worst drop rates. Two candidates popped up: a mobile game literally called Dog Meat and some Chinese title. I installed the second one, steeled myself to paint the ceiling with my insides, and arrived at the isolation chamber.
It’s a shame the preparation ended up being exposed by the very same person.
Afterward, Jang Tae-sik unleashed a passionate tirade at Why Are You Luckier Than Me?. A 5% chance with a 300-pull ceiling was ridiculous. The probability of failing to pull the highest rarity before hitting pity was 0.000000207%. Even a liberal-arts major could see the numbers were insane. He claimed it never dropped a six-star before a hundred pulls, and so on.
Why Are You Luckier Than Me? listened to his desperate screams in perfect silence. I kept my mouth shut. I was remembering what Manager Kwak Choon-bong had drilled into us over and over during orientation.
“Unless it is truly unavoidable, you must never provoke an entity’s anger. Rules we consider absolute safety measures mean nothing to them.”
“Manipulating the odds in a contest is the act of trash!” Jang Tae-sik shouted, now fully turned toward me.
I simply watched Why Are You Luckier Than Me? in silence.
The black humanoid shape it had created began to shudder violently, as though overwhelmed by uncontrollable rage.
“Huh?”
Jang Tae-sik, who had no idea why it was reacting this way, panicked at the change. Then, completely misreading the situation, he doubled down.
“You’re mad at that agent, right? See? Probability manipulation really is trash behavior!”
If this guy had been assigned to any other entity, he never would have survived three times. What a perfectly unlucky bastard. You don’t know this, but the probability manipulation started on its side first.
The maw of the black figure slowly opened wide. What had still vaguely resembled a human face moments earlier transformed into a monstrous maw lined with dozens of razor-sharp teeth.
“I-I called him trash! It wasn’t aimed at y-you…!”
[I’M NOT TRAAAAASH!]
Crunch.
Thud.
In the end, Jang Tae-sik met the same fate as everyone else. Maybe it was especially furious this time. Unlike the others who had only been torn apart at the neck, Why Are You Luckier Than Me? ripped off and swallowed his entire upper body. All that remained in the isolation chamber was Jang Tae-sik’s lower half, still pumping blood onto the floor.
“Thank you.”
The black shape vanished. The voice now came from the tablet. I took that to mean management was complete.
Correct answer, apparently. I dragged Jang Tae-sik’s blood-spurting lower half over to the wall by the isolation chamber entrance and left it there.
Clang!
The inner door opened, as if confirming the situation. The moment I tried to bolt out—I didn’t want to stay there even one more second—a voice that was no longer cheerful but dry and viscous slithered out from behind me.
It felt like a thousand needles pressed against my heart.
“…Understood.”
I barely managed to squeeze the words out.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
After passing through the three iron doors, I finally stepped outside the isolation chamber. My trembling legs were the only things keeping my exhausted body upright. The blood-stained body bags had already been cleared away.
“See? Told you he’d come out. Pay up on the N-Grade versus employee bet.”
“…I got it, so shut up already.”
The two employees guarding the isolation room greeted me. Apparently they had bet on who would walk out alive. I wanted to criticize their lack of humanity, but in an environment like this, it would have been stranger if they hadn’t become like that.
“How much do you two know about that entity?”
“How much?”
“Management methods, its mood swings, that sort of thing.”
“Did something happen in there?”
Their expressions turned grave. I explained what had occurred inside the isolation chamber, though I left out the gacha mechanics of the game I had installed. I only said that Jang Tae-sik had accused me of cheating.
“If you didn’t know, that tracks.”
“Sorry?”
“You really didn’t know? Only one person was ever going to come out alive.”
What?
“It should’ve all been in the report. Just how carelessly did you read it?”
At those words, the entity report I had skimmed earlier floated back into my mind.
DESIGNATION:WHY ARE YOU LUCKIER THAN ME?
GRADE:LEVEL 2
TYPE:HUMANOID
Tablet discovered in 2023 at XX Apartment, XX-dong, Daegu. Responded to reports of the device killing people. Scene already contained three casualties.
Upon detecting the Field Response Team, the entity forced each member to perform gacha rolls on their own mobile games. Of the five dispatched, the two who refused were [CENSORED]. The remaining three personnel subsequently [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED].
Even after containment, the entity periodically demands new subjects for gacha. An average of twenty N-Grade personnel per day must be deployed before the entity produces its desired outcome.
Where the hell was any of that written? Don’t tell me the censored sections actually contained that information. No, of course they did. The worst possibilities always turn out to be true. Maybe this was what the Bureau meant by not treating me like a real employee.
“Well, you lived. If there weren’t any special anomalies, go get some rest.”
“Good work.”
“Actually… there was one more thing.”
I relayed the final words Why Are You Luckier Than Me? had spoken just before I left the chamber.
“…….”
“…….”
Both employees’ faces drained of color.
“Got it. We’ll pass the information to the intel team.”
“Go rest. You’ve earned it.”
They quickly regained their composure and sent me on my way. I didn’t press further. The last thing I wanted was an invitation to an interrogation room.
“You came back later than I expected?”
The moment I opened the office door, Team Leader Lee Mi-na, who had been sipping coffee, greeted me with her usual airy tone.
“The management process took longer than anticipated. There was also an incident midway.”
“And yet you still came back alive?”
“I was lucky.”
“More like unlucky, I’d say.”
She tossed out the casual jab at someone who had just barely escaped death. If the day ever came when I could laugh at remarks like that, I’d celebrate becoming a proper Bureau employee.
“Should I file a report on what happened during management?”
“Normally yes, but not this time.”
“Sorry?”
“The information team already contacted us. They said it would only cause you trouble if you heard more.”
Lee Mi-na set down her coffee and walked over. She reached out and lightly tapped my temple with her index finger.
“They’d have to put you through the memory erasure procedure.”
“Memory erasure?”
“That’s right. Probably everyone except you and the information team would have their memories wiped if they found out. It’s going to be a hassle until then.”
The deathly pale faces of the two isolation chamber guards flashed through my mind. So they had known after all.
“I heard the entity declared you permanently banned from managing it.”
She withdrew the finger from my temple and folded her arms, tilting her head with a mysterious little smile.
“How interesting. That kind of behavior is usually reserved for ability users.”
“Ability users?”
“People who possess enough power or artifacts to actually compete with entities.”
“Like you, Team Leader?”
“Oh my.”
She gave me a languid smile, studying me for a moment before issuing her next order.
“Take tomorrow off and come in the day after. We usually give rest after management duties.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See you then?”
I left the office behind her playful, fluttering hand wave.
“Haa…”
What would have happened if I had been thrown into the same sequence as the three dead members of Team 3? The image of my own headless body floated through my mind. Even an ugly face was better than no face at all.
The instant I reached the dormitory I headed straight for the bathroom and turned the hot water on full blast. The smell of blood clinging to my body slowly faded.
That son of a bitch. Next time I see it, I’ll set a twenty-four-hour gacha record on the Dog Meat game’s mythic banner. Of course, I’d probably never see it again.
After finishing my shower I collapsed onto the bed and turned on my terminal. The gallery notification was sitting at 99+.
A dry laugh escaped me. Even if they were just dopamine dispensers, these people had still saved my life.
People who possess enough power or artifacts to actually compete with entities.
Lee Mi-na’s words about ability users echoed in my head. Maybe I already qualified as one.
“Whew…”
I let out a long sigh, expelling all the complicated thoughts, and wrote a new post in the gallery.