We Need More Friends (3)

And there, amid the Favor Points that had piled up to absurd heights, sat a massive stockpile of currency — with the event-exclusive shop window open right beside it. I took a moment to catch my breath.

Of course, that moment didn't last long.

"Aaaaah—!"

Done… I pulled the trigger…!

After dropping a cool four hundred and fifty thousand points in a single lump-sum payment, I looked down at the ten-pull tickets now sitting in my hand and felt my heart hammer in a way it hadn't in a long time.

Holding on to that rush, I slammed the ten-pull tickets straight into the machine — and that dimensional whatever-it-was, the gacha apparatus, did what gacha machines always do.

It erupted in a blinding flash and a violent tremor, spinning like a gyroscope gone completely berserk. Hair and clothes whipped wildly around both ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me and Jessica as if a miniature storm had broken loose right there in the room.

"Now that is a sight worth looking forward to, wouldn't you say?"

"You can say that again, Commander."

If anything, the sheer spectacle only cranked our expectations even higher. We grabbed whatever nearby structure we could find and hung on for dear life.

Before long, the light and wind pouring from the gacha machine began to die down. The storm settled. The glowing haze faded. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠machine's tightly sealed core finally cracked open — and a success notification bloomed right in front of my eyes, dumping what felt like an extra two hundred percent dopamine straight into my brain.

But that high didn't last either.

I dismissed the alert, pushed through the steam — or fog, or whatever it was — billowing from the wide-open machine, and heard the click of footsteps. A figure in a nun's habit stepped into view.

"Good day to you. You must be the Savior our order has spoken of."

"…Huh?"

The problem was, the moment I saw her—

"Who…?"

—I couldn't hide my confusion. This was a completely new character. Someone I had never once laid eyes on during my time playing the game.

The character standing before me for the first time in my life looked, at a glance, like nothing more than a nun in an extremely plain outfit.

No elaborate ornaments like the others. Her hair was blonde — common enough among gacha characters that it hardly counted as distinctive. Height somewhere between a hundred fifty and a hundred sixty centimeters? Ah, her irises were gold, which was a little unusual.

The habit was more ornate than anything a real-world nun would wear, but by the standards of this game's nun costumes, it was almost aggressively modest.

Did a character like this even exist?

Nothing in my memory lined up. All I could do was tilt my head.

The one silver lining was that she was definitely a character from this game.

Wait a second… looking closer at that outfit, it kind of resembles Pashtura's, doesn't it?

The decorative details on the nun who had just called me Savior looked remarkably similar to the ones on the "heavily modified nun habit" Pashtura always wore. And the moment I noticed that, I realized exactly which "order" she was talking about.

Ah. That place. One of those factions that only exists in the lore — the fanatical religious order.

I vaguely remembered that Pashtura was supposed to be affiliated with them too. Nodding to myself at the confirmation that the nun in front of me belonged to the same order, I offered a proper welcome.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Right. I'm Icarus — I run this base and its fleet. And you are?"

"Oh my. How rude of me, Savior."

Unlike the others, she insisted on addressing me only as Savior. She parted the lingering steam, stepped right up to me, lightly lifted the hem of her ankle-length habit, and offered a brief bow along with a concise self-introduction.

"It is a true honor to meet the Savior recorded in our scriptures. I am Partia, a humble sister of the Mayauel Order."

"Partia?"

"That is correct, O Savior."

The instant she said the name, a status window for the nun who had just introduced herself as Partia cascaded open before my eyes.

What the hell, Partia?! Look at those stats! How is my heart not racing right now?!

For someone whose appearance was the dictionary definition of plain, those numbers were pure, unfiltered murder. Even accounting for the loose, billowy habit, she looked delicate — slender limbs, nothing particularly muscular about her, and a chest that somehow managed to look enormous by comparison. How those stats came out of that body was a mystery I couldn't stop turning over.

No. Wait. Speculating about that kind of thing in a game is just stupid.

Whether or not it existed in reality, virtual worlds had always come equipped with the wonderfully convenient concept of "internal musculature." Figuring Partia was probably the same kind of character, I nodded to myself and offered another round of welcome.

"Welcome aboard. For now, let's head inside and finish talking there."

"I am grateful for your consideration, Savior."

Once we were back from the gacha chamber, I told Jessica to give Partia the base tour and walk her through everything she needed to know. Then I immediately opened the gallery and prepared to post a question about this character called Partia.

I tried the gallery's wiki tab first, of course. Unfortunately, the fact that I had never seen her before I quit the game said everything. She was apparently one of the more recent production characters — and with the player base buried under event grinding, the wiki updates were looking pretty anemic.

They're just screwing around on the wiki tab.

No actual information — just that kind of low-effort garbage. Like it or not, if I wanted real intel on Partia, I was going to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have to post a question thread myself.

Oh, and for the record, I tried asking in chat too.