Karma Hits the Guaranteed Pull
"…"
Looking at Rain — her expression radiating a bliss so pure it looked like she'd just downed something potent, her affection rating still perfectly intact — I fell into thought for a moment. Then I shook my head and spoke.
"Well… uh, yeah. If the person involved is happy, I guess that's what matters."
"Of course it is. Naturally."
Thanks, Rain. Live strong inside that wall of flesh.
Anyway, after dumping Rain into the mountain — no, into the bio-wall — I gave the superhumans who'd been exhausted from the expedition some time to rest. Then I looked down at the two Guaranteed Rank Gacha Tickets sitting in my hands, and a smile spread across my face all on its own at the thought of using them.
"Jessica. Jessica."
"What is it, Commander?"
"Aren't you excited? About the new ships that are about to join us."
"Technically ships and superhumans, but yes."
For all her grumbling, Jessica's expression betrayed a quiet anticipation she couldn't quite hide — and the source of that anticipation was simple enough. I wasn't entirely without gacha luck.
"Once you actually pull, Commander, the results tend to come out well. So yes, I'm rather looking forward to it."
"Heh."
Of course, someone might point out that a scrub♡ who usually bricks the moment he touches a gacha had no business saying that… but the truth was, whenever the pull was guaranteed, my results had a strong tendency to land quite well.
Take the Kraken currently munching on unaligned pirate ships outside the base — pulled at a one-in-a-million rate. Or Ignis, a near-SSS-grade, popping out of the returnee reward as a rank pull. Evidence was piled high enough to trip over.
I am Icarus — the man favored by heaven's own luck!
Swollen with that self-satisfied thought, I decided to just slam the Guaranteed Rank tickets and trust in the odds of victory.
But right then—
"Hold on a moment, Commander. There's one thing that's bothering me."
"What is it, Jessica? Interfering with this sacred moment of rank gacha?"
"Well, you see — just a few hours ago, you were laughing at the other commanders' gacha results, weren't you?"
"…I was?"
"So wouldn't your karma come due, and both Dimension Causal Fixings come out as D-grade?"
"What… did you just say?"
Jessica's observation, delivered so casually, left me reeling at the unexpected ambush that had just ambushed my gacha plans. Even so, I resolved not to bow to something as trivial as karma.
"Hmm… no. The rank-pull luck of a man favored by heaven would never yield to mere karma."
"Ah. Yes."
"Besides, I've already suffered one catastrophic gacha brick. It's about time I hit pity…!"
Of course, a fleeting thought crossed my mind — whether a "pity system" even existed for players' gacha in this world the way it had in the original game. But dwelling on that sort of thing felt thoroughly unmanly.
So I called over Griyanaar, who'd been loafing around ever since turning Rain into a permanent base fixture, and Partia, who'd been on standby at the base with nothing particular to do. Together with Jessica, who was already beside me, I led the remaining two straight to the Dimension-whatever-whatever… the gacha chamber.
I fed the Guaranteed Rank Ticket (Superhuman) ×1 into the machine. After the Dimension Causal Fixing apparatus finished its signature process of sparkling and glowing with theatrical excess, a solid-looking figure emerged with a pneumatic hiss.
Wait — a sole male? No, one of two males(?) out of this thing?
The thought that I might finally be getting a halfway decent male character filled me with quiet anticipation—
And then.
"Welc—"
"Sniff sniff. Igi-igi… so I've ended up in a male-pest's base, igi…"
"What."
"That face is decent enough. Suitable as my noble companion, igi."
The figure I'd taken for a large male character — not muscular, but big — turned out to be a D-grade feminist cultist belonging to the horrific religious collective known as the Iginodesungcha Cult.
I pivoted on the spot, mid-welcome, and turned to Griyanaar and Partia waiting behind me.
"Griyanaar. Partia."
"What is it, Commander?"
"Your word is our command, O Savior."
"Take that thing and do whatever you want with it, Griyanaar."
"Huh?"
"It'll be better than ordinary biological components, at least."
Same as with Rain — an order to go live a life of becoming one with some corner of the base. Naturally, Griyanaar and Partia looked a touch startled by my attitude.
"My, my… you're being rather thorough and swift about it this time."
"If that is the Savior's will, I shall take them. But evaluating a being that has only just emerged seems a touch premature, does it not?"
No sooner had they spoken than our feminist cultist helpfully added:
"The male trash intends to force a corset on me and make me an honorary male."
"…"
"Superhuman-discriminating male-pests deserve breeding disqualification, igi."
"…"
"…"
"Before I knew Buffetnism, every day was a dream, igi."
Having diligently pressed his own self-destruct button, the cultist made Griyanaar and Partia's understanding instantaneous. They subdued the feminist cultist on the spot and dragged him off toward the Nest of Life.
After all that, having wasted one Guaranteed Rank Ticket that was supposed to produce a superhuman for nothing, we returned to the command center for a brief rest.
Of course, the first thing I did upon arriving was take a verification screenshot — rest or no rest, I was not about to let this nightmare fade from memory.
Bunch of bastards.
To keep from wasting the one remaining gacha ticket — the ship one — I was preparing every ritual I possibly could.
"So the karma really did hit, huh?"
"…"
"Even in a world where space battleships fly around, the fact that karma exists is pretty amazing, don't you think?"
"…You're right."
Meanwhile, Jessica was alternating taps against my head with her rabbit ears, radiating a full see, I told you so energy. And since her reaction had been one hundred percent correct, all I could do was keep silent.
As a lesson from this whole affair, I had come to grasp a fundamental truth: when a person gets drunk on talk of heaven's favor and acts out of hubris, the karma always comes back around.
Counting that as a silver lining, I set about gathering whatever information I could from the chat and the gallery.
Setting aside my own mistakes, the information gathering for karma clearance and probability boosting(?) continued.