The Only 1-Star Male in a Gacha Game

The moment the balance in my account hit zero, the clerk spoke without a trace of emotion.

It was the result of pouring everything I had—my parents’ inheritance, the money I’d saved by dropping out of college, even the fortune I’d made from crypto—into this single transaction.

“Welcome to Shion, Citizen Lee Seong-hyun.”

The bored clerk handed me a device that looked like a smartphone. On its screen, a red countdown had already begun.

“Once your citizenship expires, you’ll be deported, so keep that in mind. Oh, and if you die, revival costs will be automatically billed. Suicide is five times the normal rate. Well then, enjoy your time in Shion.”

After that mechanical farewell, I left the Immigration Bureau. The hunter who had been waiting for me clicked his tongue.

“Hey, kid. You’re a damn porter and you’re this slow?”

“It’s Helper. Nobody calls it that anymore.”

“Oh sure, sure. Our esteemed Helper sir. Just hand over the luggage already.”

I silently passed him the massive backpack. Inside were smuggled goods that would cost a fortune if cleared through official channels. In exchange for doing this dirty work, I had been allowed to set foot in Shion. After all, no one was going to bring a broke rookie here for free.

“Yeah, good work. Take this.”

The hunter tossed me a single business card.

“If you can’t get into a guild, give me a call. I’ll find you some odd jobs to last a few days. Make sure you succeed, kid.”

I watched the hunter’s back as he walked away after leaving those seemingly kind words, then checked the card.

At that exact moment, a familiar message appeared before my eyes.

“As expected.”

I let out a bitter laugh, crumpled the card, and tossed it on the ground. Countless identical cards were already scattered around like trash. Yeah, there was no way someone would help a clueless rookie out of pure goodwill.

But that was fine. Because I had these mysterious messages.

These short, cryptic sentences had been visible to me since I was a child. I didn’t know if they were hallucinations or something else, but they always talked about Shion.

A city where technology from countless dimensions and drifters from other worlds converged. A city where hunters and monsters, magic and martial arts tangled together beneath neon signs. A city that had overlapped with our own simply because they shared the same name—whether by miracle or catastrophe.

They occasionally went off-topic, sure.

Still, these messages had always served as my guide. Just as I had planned while watching them before entering Shion, I walked straight toward the Hunter Guild without hesitation.

There was only one way to obtain proper citizenship within twenty-four hours: get scouted by a guild. And to do that, I first had to awaken.

“Give me the cheapest awakening agent you have.”

I handed over every last credit I had saved for this purpose and received a cloudy, ash-like lowest-grade awakening agent.

Awakening success rate: 70%. Mutation into a monster upon failure: 30%. I pressed the gun-shaped injector against my temple inside a bathroom stall. I gripped my trembling hand tightly.

“…”

Just wait a little longer, sis. I muttered the words to myself to steel my resolve. For the sake of rescuing my only remaining family member who had been swallowed by a gate, this 30% risk was nothing. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.

CRACK!

With a pain like my skull was shattering, I lost consciousness.

And so I fell into a dream. The dream of another world I had always longed for. A peaceful daily life.

“I’m home.”

I opened the front door with my exhausted body and announced my return.

“Welcome back. How was today?”

As always, my sister’s voice came only from inside the room. I let out a heavy, tired sigh and answered.

“Same as usual. I’ll be a bit late tomorrow. The team leader asked me to stay and help with extra work.”

“You? Do you really have to? That sounds dangerous.”

“What else can I do? Everyone else is doing it, and they’re offering more money.”

I pretended it was no big deal in response to her worried tone. A discontented groan drifted out from the room.

“Ugh…”

“It won’t be much longer. Don’t worry.”

“…How can I not worry?”

Along with a sigh, the sound of wheels rolling came from inside the room.

“If something happens to you too, then I…”

My sister emerged from the room in her wheelchair. I grabbed her hand tightly, wanting to reassure her worried face.

“It’s fine. Once I save up enough for your leg surgery, I’ll quit right away. I’ve almost got it all. I hit it big with crypto last time.”

“I told you not to mess with crypto.”

“It’s okay. I only put in three times what I had. It was a safe value investment.”

“You really…”

When I threw out a half-joke to lighten the mood, my sister sighed and lightly smacked my back.

“Let’s eat. I made your favorite today.”

“What is it?”

“Mapo tofu.”

Nothing special. Just an ordinary daily life. Even though I had given up college, worked construction during the day, and took night shifts just to pay for my sister’s leg surgery, I loved this kind of life. So much that, if possible, I wouldn’t want to wake up from this dream.

“Oh, by the way, have you seen this?”

“What?”

“A game I think you’d like. It’s called Last Shion. Apparently it’s really fun. They’re opening the Korean server soon.”

“I don’t like stuff like that. Those otaku games.”

“Really? I thought you would. You watch anime all the time.”

“…So, what was the game called again?”

“Last Shion.”

But eventually, one must wake from any dream.

“Team leader! There’s been an accident!”

Maybe it was because I had overworked my body without proper rest. In the end, I never got to see my sister walk again. I died in an accident at the construction site.

It was an injury that could have been healed instantly with a single potion. But this world didn’t have Shion.

Shion had taken my sister from me. And in return, Shion had given me a new life. After witnessing every last memory of my other self in that world, I opened my eyes amid terrible pain.

“…Ah.”

At the same time, I realized this was the world inside a game. The mobile gacha game I had debated whether to play or not in my previous life.

Last Shion. A male-oriented open-world mobile gacha action game. The kind of otaku game people usually called it.

The city that served as the main setting for that game was none other than Shion—the city I was currently standing in.

“…Is this for real?”

Having realized the truth, I let out a hollow laugh. Because I finally understood what the messages floating before my eyes meant.

Maybe it was because of the awakening agent I had taken. The messages floating before my eyes had multiplied dramatically. What used to flicker in one or two lines at a time now poured out endlessly, like I was staring at an internet forum.

“No matter how I look ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at it… this is exactly that, isn’t it?”

The sight of this real-time updating board felt incredibly familiar. These were the posts from the Last Shion community I used to browse all the time in my previous life. Did that mean every message I had seen until now had been threads from that very forum?

No way. The ability to peek at internet posts from another world?

I stared at the now-empty injector. The stuff inside must have been a proper awakening agent, right? I wasn’t hallucinating, was I?

It was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hard to believe, but no matter how ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠much I thought about it, the only conclusion I could reach was that this was my ability. I was laughing dryly at the absurdity of it all when another message appeared.

“What the…?”

A bizarre condition presented itself as a quest. Get first place in the popularity poll? Last Shion was a male-oriented subculture game. A game where even male characters barely got any positive reaction—and they wanted me, a male character, to take first place? It was practically an impossible mission.

But if this quest was real, the reward was far too tempting.

“…I can go back to my original world?”

Go back? Return to my original world. That meant—

The very dream I had just been dreaming. A warm, ordinary daily life. Not a cold house where no one waited for me, but a home where my sister was waiting.

Until now, I had rushed here believing that coming to Shion might let me get my sister back. I had come solely to reclaim what Shion had taken from me. But if there existed a world line where I had lost nothing at all…

“……”

I wanted to return there no matter what.

But the popularity poll could wait. First, I had to focus on the upcoming tryout. Even if the quest was real, surviving came first. With that thought, one particular post caught my eye.

I couldn’t ignore this. I was curious where I ranked. Hell, did my name even appear on the list?

With a pounding heart, I tapped on the post to check the results. Wait, could I actually view the content just by tapping?

“Oh… it works.”

The portrait drawn next to the name “Helper” was a face far too familiar to me. And Helper’s result was zero votes.

“…Haha.”

A hollow laugh escaped me. Zero votes. Not a single person had voted for me?

Well, who would vote for a nameless 1-star mob character? I was at rock bottom from the very start. But oddly enough, that was a good thing. It meant there was nowhere left to fall.

From now on, my goal would be to get even a single vote somehow. But right now, I needed to focus on securing citizenship. That was the only way I could survive in this city. And to do that—

“Next please. Please enter the measurement room.”

I had to check my ability first. Following the guild staff’s guidance, I headed to the measurement room.

“Place your hand inside the meter and do not remove it.”

I followed the instructions and inserted my hand into the device, which looked similar to a blood pressure monitor. The meter began to hum loudly as it activated.

“Hmm…?”

No matter how long I waited, there was no result. When I looked at the guild staff in confusion, they spoke to me in a indifferent tone.

“No reaction means you’re a non-awakener. You can come out now.”

“N-Non-awakener?”

“If you can sense mana but cannot move it, you’re classified as a non-awakener. Come on, hurry up and get out.”

Wait, a non-awakener? That couldn’t be right. Then what were all these posts floating in front of me?

If I was judged as a non-awakener, it would be extremely difficult to get chosen by any guild. I had to somehow force an awakening verdict here.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t sense mana. Even at this very moment, I could feel another sensation flowing through my veins.

But just like the staff said, I had no idea how to move it. A person could feel their blood flowing, but they couldn’t will it to move, right?

“……”

No. Don’t think it’s impossible. This was the city of possibility. Anything could happen here.

Besides, mana wasn’t blood. So I changed my thinking. Controlling mana meant using an ability.

My current ability was simply seeing these posts. It wasn’t exactly “using” an ability.

Then using my ability would mean… being able to freely manipulate the posts in this community.

But I didn’t know how. How could I control letters that appeared randomly in my head? I felt helpless, like I was just staring at an internet browser window.

Internet?

It was something I had done countless times in my previous life. The first thing I did to gain information and connect with the world. I closed my eyes and issued a command toward the boiling mana inside me. A single keyword to access this chaotic sea of information. A word that could never be separated from the game called Last Shion.

“Login.”

The moment I spoke, I felt something like a switch flipping inside my body.

A message resembling patch notes appeared before my eyes. But before I could focus on it, an even more shocking sight unfolded in front of me.

On the monitor connected to the meter, five brightly shining stars appeared.

“…5-star?”

5-star. It was the highest rank in Last Shion’s power system.