There's No Rigging in Gacha

"Huh? Y-you weren't angry?"

"Oh, I was."

"Th-then why are you giving them to us?"

"Mm."

I nodded at my two flustered disciples.

Anger was anger. Business was business.

I wasn't about to stop using the QP Shop anytime soon, and there was still plenty I wanted to buy. The heroes needed to start earning points as fast as possible.

"Yeah."

Status Window?

"Not mine?"

"Pardon?"

"Never mind. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Show me."

Ding!

Blue status windows bloomed above Haring and Nya-nya's heads.

They looked similar to mine, yet slightly different — no physical stats, no QP, and instead a peculiar attribute called Interest Level. The two of them clearly couldn't see any of it. They just kept glancing at me, trying to read my mood.

"What kind of quest should I give…?"

"Uh. Anything is fine…"

"We'll do our absolute best!!"

"That so?"

In that case…

Might as well start with the easiest thing.

I'd recently discovered a way to make them grow without assigning actual missions. I tipped Nya-nya's head down, opened the quest window, and patted her hair.

"Good job."

"Pardon?"

Messages floated up through the air. Nya-nya, blindsided by the sudden praise, blinked in confusion before bowing her head.

"Um… thank you?"

"M-me too! Praise me too!"

"Mmm…?"

"You, bow."

"Yes ma'am!"

Haring dropped to her knees and ducked her head low. I gave her hair a few firm pats.

"Praise."

"Hehehe… thank you!"

Same result.

"That's a dud."

"Me?"

"A dud. Total dud."

Experience transferred over, but no QP came in. Apparently this "praise" function didn't count as a quest. Useful for power-leveling heroes in a hurry — useless for earning points.

I left a dejected Haring behind and pulled up the quest list I'd used before.

Roughly forty quests in total, counting duplicates. Back then I'd never actually looked at them — just figured, eh, something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this should work. Seeing them properly now felt oddly novel, so I clicked one floating in the air.

"Edit?"

Hmm…

"Too much work."

As long as they roughly understood the description, that was good enough. I set everything to auto-fill and shoved the quests onto my disciples.

Haring and Nya-nya's expressions turned rather complicated as they stared at the forty-odd quests.

"Aren't these… the ones you gave us before?"

"Yep. Why. Don't like 'em?"

"Th-that's not it."

"We love them! We love them so, so much. Haha."

"Then we're good."

I sent the two of them out of the royal castle without a second thought and headed into my room.

"Time for Netflix."

A week had passed since I'd freely handed out the quests the heroes had been so desperate for. I'd learned quite a few things in that time. First of all—

"Quest! We cleared a quest!"

"It's so salty."

"Huh? Chicken?"

"Chicken's always salty."

Salty. The QP was salty.

A measly three points, four points — not enough for gacha, not even enough for a proper chicken dinner. In a full week, Haring and Nya-nya had scraped together a grand total of eight hundred points. And that was with bonus points from their high Interest Levels.

"How did I even get forty thousand…?"

When I'd first opened the status window, I'd had nearly forty-seven thousand points. Sure, I'd handed out a lot of quests before, but the ones I'd given this past week hadn't been a small number either. Only two people working through them, yes — but they were fast, clearing about twenty a day. Their pace had slowed as the week wore on and exhaustion set in, but still.

I stared into empty air, turning it over, until one thought surfaced.

"…The ogre?"

The Ogre Chieftain was a monster even the strongest heroes of this generation struggled to take down. My disciples had killed one, so the QP payout must have been enormous. QP scaled with quest difficulty, after all.

Crunch crunch.

"Maybe I really should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have them take on a Legion Commander."

A Legion Commander was a demon that made ogres look like small fry. If the ogre had been worth roughly forty thousand, a Legion Commander subjugation would pay out a fortune.

The problem was that the current heroes couldn't even touch a Legion Commander's toes.

"Instant death. A thousand, ten thousand respawns and they still couldn't kill one."

Sluuurp…!

To take down a Legion Commander, they needed to become real heroes — the kind from the previous generation — not mass-produced ones. Even a thousand Haring-and-Nya-nya-tier A-rankers wouldn't be enough. No matter how carefully I coached them, catching one anytime soon was absolutely, completely impossible.

"Should I just keep praising them? Mmm… that's a bit much…"

A few head pats weren't going to make them ridiculously strong anyway.

I kept turning the problem over while my eyes stayed fixed on the empty air. Empty to anyone else — not to me.

Crunch crunch.

A screen filled one entire wall of my enormous room, playing footage I could never have seen in my current life.

"—We'll stop that alien! Go, now!"

"—Arrogant. You think the likes of you can stop me?"

"Ooooh…"

A superhero movie that had been pretty famous in my past life. I'd watched it and loved it back then, but three hundred years of reincarnation had wiped most of it from my memory. I'd become that very thing people used to say about masterpieces: selling my unspoiled brain, anyone?

I shelved my worries entirely and sank into the screen.

At last the villain seized a massive gauntlet and declared to the heroes—

"—I will show you. This world needs me…"

Click.

"Ah!"

The screen went dark.

"That was the important part…!"

I crushed the caramel popcorn tub in my arms.

This was not okay!

"You old hag! Ever heard of karaoke rules?!"

Who cuts someone off mid-watch?! I snarled and clawed at the empty air, but the only thing that warped under my grip was the merciless text: Your 7-Day Netflix Pass has expired.

"You… you monster!"

I fumed for a long while before checking my remaining points.

"…Just enough."

Thankfully, I had enough for one more purchase. But a week from now was the real problem. Another two thousand points would come due, and I still needed chicken. On top of that, I still had to use the Goddess's Daily Word — something I hadn't touched since day one and day two.

I'd planned to save those carefully and ask important questions later, but the catastrophic gacha failure meant I'd only gotten two uses.

For the record, day two's Daily Word had been: "There's no rigging in gacha."

"Liar. It's totally rigged."

Who did she think she was fooling? If it wasn't rigged, there was no way an SS-rank random box would spit out a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠uselessly sturdy rabbit plushie. Fraud. Straight-up fraud.

I stretched the rabbit plushie's cheeks out long and wide, then tossed it onto the sofa.

"Yeah."

"…I'm actually broke."

I let out a small sigh and sank into the plush sofa.

"Guess I'll start from the beginning."

The flow had been broken — picking up mid-movie just wouldn't hit the same. I hit play, and the familiar logo rolled as the film began again. I rang the golden bell beside the sofa and asked for popcorn.

Unlike cola, the cooks could whip up something reasonably close to popcorn if I asked. Ordinarily I'd go for caramel, but right now every last point had to be pinched.

"—He's coming to Earth."

"—All of us have to face him."

"…Yeah. Two people isn't gonna cut it."

I was going to need more earners.