Life on the Line: Gacha (2) [So Fun! So Fun!]
The black figure of Why Are You Luckier Than Me? clapped its hands while making lisping sounds.
That bastard was having the time of its life even though it had lost every single gacha roll. The results never meant anything to it in the first place. It was happy if its opponent pulled something good, because then it got to bite their head off. And if it pulled something good itself, it felt great about the pull. Must be nice, living a life where everything just makes you happy.
The third N-Grade personnel sat down in the chair.
“Ugh…”
He looked like he was barely holding back vomit as he stared at the headless corpses sprawled on either side of the chair.
“I brought a complete gacha.”
[Huh?]
“You collect forty-five different pieces by rolling gacha and—”
CRACK!
The third man’s head flew off before he could even attempt a single roll.
[Too hard! Don’t get it!]
Jang Tae-sik let out a long sigh as he looked at the fresh headless corpse.
“I told you to just install a normal gacha game. Why don’t you ever listen…”
He walked over to the table, slid both hands into the armpits of the third corpse, and spoke to me.
“If there’s no space left around the chair, we have to move the bodies near the isolation room entrance. Mind giving me a hand?”
“Sure.”
I could have told him to do it himself, but I didn’t. After conveniently forgetting about the last turn, it felt too hypocritical to pull the “I’m just an employee!” card.
I helped by grabbing the corpse’s legs. Since I didn’t have to stare at the bloody stump, my mental state stayed relatively intact.
“Whew.”
“Agent.”
While I was wiping sweat from my forehead, Jang Tae-sik approached again.
“Are you really planning to go last?”
“Looks that way. If you succeed, Mr. Tae-sik, I won’t have to gamble at all.”
I didn’t want to put my life on the line. I said it plainly, without any pretense. A rookie might not get it, but someone who had beaten that thing three times should understand exactly how I felt.
“Understood.”
Jang Tae-sik nodded.
I’m really sorry. If I make it out, I’ll at least buy you a meal…
“It’s a shame. I was going to tell you the secret if you swapped turns with me.”
Secret?
“I didn’t survive three times by accident.”
His face brimmed with confidence as he made the offer. Did he really have some exclusive tip?
“Swap turns with me and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Advice from a fourth-round veteran instead of stepping up to the gambling table myself.
“I’m good. Just keep going.”
I turned him down flatly.
I had a gallery behind me, after all. Why would I trade that massive amount of big data for advice from some fourth-timer N-Grade grunt?
“…You’ll regret this.”
Look at him. Not exactly pure goodwill, is it?
If you can’t pick up on something that obvious, you’re an idiot.
Sometimes people get extremely lucky and pull the highest grade on their first try. Maybe the first two or three pulls would even be generous. But once he rolled a massive number of times, the law of averages would kick in. That’s why the term “regression to the mean” exists.
Yet even after rolling countless times, it was still unluckier than twenty other people every single day? If the Fair Trade Commission looked into it, they’d slap it with fines for probability manipulation.
In other words, Why Are You Luckier Than Me? wasn’t playing with pure luck. It had almost certainly rigged the probabilities when setting up the gacha. The way it said things like “overate” or “so fun” whenever someone got lucky proved it wasn’t genuinely hoping for good pulls.
[You fourth! Fourth!]
“Probability is 0.7 percent. No ceiling.”
[Good! Good! Start!]
Jang Tae-sik pressed the gacha button first. A flashy animation appeared, followed by an orange statue.
[Luck is a skill too. Let’s go!]
An over-the-top character straight out of a hot-blooded gambling story popped out against a casino backdrop. The star count was… six stars!?
If that was the case, Jang Tae-sik would die too…
“What a shame.”
[Next is my turn!]
For some reason, even after a top-tier unit appeared, the two of them kept rolling. The anomaly continued.
Even though six stars had shown up on Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’s screen as well, it still wasn’t satisfied.
[Your turn! Your turn!]
Even after multiple six-star pulls across the next hundred rolls, the gacha battle continued. Why wasn’t the rule triggering? I had no idea.
I opened the gallery. When you don’t know the answer, you look at the cheat sheet.
Pretty sure most of the old-timers here have only heard the name. It’s the one that just needs people fed into it. If we’re short on personnel sometimes low-level staff get sent in, but otherwise there’s no reason to deal with it.
The friend who posted about their buddy dying earlier is a three-time survivor. Anyway, main point: “Why Are You Luckier Than Me?” doesn’t play fair. According to team-leader documents, the first ten people are a guaranteed 0%. After that it matches the opponent’s probability. Once it goes past fifteen it starts gradually raising its own gacha rate.
The way it talks about “overate” or “so fun” after chomping on heads makes it obvious it’s just stuffing its stomach for the first ten under the excuse of gacha. So if the newbie’s turn is still under ten people, this post probably wouldn’t even be up.
Anyway, please come back safely. My dopamine is on the line.
As expected, someone had left a hint about the entity in the new thread. EntityPounder—what a perfect username. I’d have to thank him later.
There was a grade above the highest grade? I turned my gaze back to the two who were still rolling hard.
Jang Tae-sik was pressing the button with cold sweat running down his face. So he really hadn’t survived three times for nothing.
WHOOOONG!
A brilliant light and sound exploded from Jang Tae-sik’s screen.
[I ask you—are you my prey?]
A female character wearing beast pelts over armor. The star next to her name was six stars. But the color was red.
[You pulled it? You actually pulled it?]
“Two thousand two hundred and thirty-second pull.”
[Nice!]
Why Are You Luckier Than Me? tapped its tablet as well. The second slot on the screen it showed read Transcended 6-Star. Six glowing red stars were embedded beside the text. The order in which Why Are You Luckier Than Me? had obtained its own highest grade was also the 232nd pull.
[Draw! It’s a draw!]
“Haa… haa…! I did it!”
Jang Tae-sik threw his arms up in victory and finally let out the breath he had been holding. That bastard had definitely said earlier that since this was his third time he would give me information. So it was all a bluff. No wonder the training manual said not to listen to anything N-Grade personnel told you.
Anyway, was it over now?
Jang Tae-sik stood up from his seat and turned to look at me.
“It’s your turn, Agent.”
“Excuse me?”
“In the event of a draw we have to do a rematch, so the order gets pushed back.”
I had held onto a sliver of hope, but apparently there was no rule about letting the next person compete instead. None of the reports or gallery posts had mentioned this.
Tsk.
Jang Tae-sik clicked his tongue and leaned back against the wall.
“I’ll be cheering for your success.”
A smile played on his lips.
Just how much did this guy actually know about Why Are You Luckier Than Me?? I had no idea. In the end, my real opponent wasn’t him anyway.
I walked to the table and sat down. Up close, the tablet was covered in dried blood. The black figure held it without a care. Blood dries. From this point on, it was a real life-or-death gamble.
“Three hundred pulls at five percent.”
[Huh?]
Why Are You Luckier Than Me? sounded genuinely surprised after hearing my terms. That was understandable. The probability was completely different from normal gacha games. This title couldn’t even be officially serviced in Korea, so seeing it for the first time wasn’t strange.
[There’s really a game like that?]
I nodded instead of answering.
[Good! Good! Let’s start!]
With a trembling hand I pressed the gacha button. Traditional Chinese music flowed out along with a rich, savory voice.
Nine 4-stars and one 5-star.
Then it was Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’s turn. Eight 4-stars and two 5-stars.
We kept alternating turns like that. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty pulls. Not a single highest-grade character had appeared yet, even though both of us had far exceeded the 5% expected value.
[No luck! So unlucky!]
It was saying things it hadn’t said at the beginning, so even Why Are You Luckier Than Me? seemed annoyed that its results were worse than the probability suggested.
Then came the long-awaited sixtieth pull.
I got nine 4-stars and one 5-star.
On Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’s third and ninth slots, six stars appeared. It had pulled two highest-grade units in ten rolls—a massive stroke of luck.
[Wow! Wooooow! I pulled it!]
“Looks like I was a little unluckier.”
[Right! Right! Since I lost, you can go!]
The black figure offered a handshake. I hesitated for a second about whether I should take it, but getting on an entity’s bad side inside an isolation room was a terrible idea, so I shook its hand. The sensation was like grabbing a slab of butchered pork.
Just like Jang Tae-sik had done earlier, I let out a sigh of relief and sat down beside him. He was staring at me with a shocked expression.
“It’s your turn now, Tae-sik.”
I smiled and looked him in the eye.
“I’ll be cheering for your success.”
You have to give back what you receive.
“…This is a scam.”
“Pardon?”
Suddenly Jang Tae-sik ran in front of Why Are You Luckier Than Me?. He thrust his smartphone screen forward and shouted.
“This agent just cheated!”
[Whaaat?]
The screen showed an article about the game I had chosen to play.
Oh crap.
“This person won the match using unfair methods from the very beginning!”
He actually found it.