The Moon Saintess
Special options are a double-edged sword.
Why? Pull the same kind of damage and, just as I'd seen on the one-star options, the effect comes out twice as strong. The trouble is that options saddled with conditions like these never roll as duplicates, so the efficiency falls off. That's why the common wisdom is to chase damage, or reduced mana cost, on the lower stars, and save the special options for the stars up top.
And the special options themselves—I hadn't rolled all that many yet, but every one of them had been good. This time was no different. They don't betray your expectations.
"When Pentacasting."
A condition was bolted on from the very first line of the special option. It would trigger only if I Pentacast. For any ordinary class, the thing was dead weight. No—strip away Dragon Words Mage, and there wasn't a single class in the game that could activate it at all. Which is exactly why the chat collapsed into chaos.
From there, I pushed the theory one step further.
What if this thing the viewers were calling a class-exclusive special option didn't exist for every 5-star class? What if the real split was between the options of a 5-Star Root Class and those of a 5-Star Standard Class? The pool would still have to be stocked only with options for the class you were rolling, of course. But if that was the case, it made a certain amount of sense.
The conclusion was simple.
"Bwahahaha. I pulled it. The end of the end. A class-exclusive special option. So. At this point, do we acknowledge my graduation from 4-star SS special options?"
By that point, people were starting to decide none of it could be real.
It wasn't a completely groundless theory, so I had fun reading it. And their fear was already playing out in the real world. Did Windy even need to march an AI out front and conquer humanity? People were already complaining about how inconvenient life was in any field she hadn't touched.
"Come on, everyone. We live in a world where famous crypto whales brag about hundreds of billions like that's the baseline. It stung, sure, but my wallet isn't empty yet, all right?"
No need to spell it out for them one by one. Leave it like this, and they'd pick a fight among themselves and the topic would drift on its own.
I had something more important to settle.
"So. I won, right?"
"Huh?"
"Yeah... they say I was a little faster."
"No. That's not right. Hold on."
In my memory, my cheer had come first. I'd jumped up and whooped, and Lim Sarang had been about to whoop too, only to see her option and cheer after that. I figured they were messing with me. I paused the broadcast and rolled that moment of glory back on the live replay.
"..."
My memory had been edited. Lim Sarang really had been faster, by the thinnest possible margin.
"Ah... I lost."
"This game really was a luck-screwed piece of shit."
"..."
Lim Sarang gazed off at the far mountains. Looked like she'd even run out of material for the old excuse that her luck used to be bad. I caught myself thinking we made a pretty well-matched pair.
"Wallet versus luck. Who wins? Stick around long enough and we'll get an answer, right?"
"Hey now!"
I shut the teasing down, and yet, for some reason, I caught myself thinking it might not be so bad.
"Want to drop by the Temple?"
"Yes! I'd love to."
I'd finally pulled the option I'd been grinding toward for ages, so there was no reason to keep loafing around here. Lim Sarang and I headed for the Temple.
When we arrived, the priests came out to receive Lim Sarang.
"Lady Moon Saintess."
"You have come."
"...Hello."
These weren't ordinary priests. From the inner sanctum—a place ordinary users weren't even permitted to look at—priests in sacred vestments poured out in a crowd to greet her. Thanks to that, I got to tour the Temple alongside her.
Past the areas ordinary users were allowed to enter, through doors watched by paladins, a quiet corridor opened onto the Temple's true face. There, Lim Sarang met the man they called the Grand Archbishop.
"We have received an oracle. Lady Moon Saintess."
"...Am I becoming the Saintess? I heard there was already a Saintess..."
I had no idea how high a Grand Archbishop ranked, so I was off in a corner debating it with the viewers when a donation detonated.
"Aha."
So Lim Sarang was, for all practical purposes, in the same position as meeting the Magic Tower Lord directly.
"Everyone, just type lol."
While we laughed under our breath, the conversation went on.
"The Saintess who sits here now is the Sun Saintess. Two Saintesses exist within the Temple. Moon and sun. The two powers cannot coexist, yet both are the power of the goddess. When the two Saintesses gather in one place, the Temple enshrines the true Saintess."
At the same time, Lim Sarang said a quest had popped.
Probably something like my whole Magic Tower Lord successor business. No—this one looked a little more complicated than that. I didn't have anything resembling a rival. She did. And not even a user. An NPC. She would have to compete with someone who had lived an entire life in this world, and lived it as a Saintess.
"The Temple's power will be decided by which of you ascends to the Saintess's seat. Whether it wields the sun's power above all, or the moon's. That course will hold for as long as the Saintess remains upon the seat."
"Then... what happens to the other candidate, the one who doesn't become the Saintess?"
"She would lose the goddess's power."
"Whoa."
"..."
"Lady Moon Saintess is an adventurer, so there is little cause for worry. The Sun Saintess, likewise, will not die should she fail to ascend. She will simply be unable to use the power the goddess bestowed. And the one who does take the seat, having received the goddess's power in full, will be able to wield that power far more strongly."
The conclusion was simple.
Win the contest. Rise from Saintess candidate to Saintess.
I could only see the back of Lim Sarang's head, so I had no read on her face, and I started wondering whether there was anything I could do to help. Then she turned, and I relaxed a little.
Lim Sarang was smiling. With a look that said this was the most fun thing in the world.
The Grand Archbishop added a few simple explanations.
"The power of the sun is healing. With bright light, it mends wounds, gathers them close, and restores."
Sun and moon. Two kinds of power belonging to the goddess.
"The power of the moon is protection. It keeps one from being hurt. Beyond that, the two powers do not differ. Strengthening one's companions, at times binding an enemy's steps, restoring the condition of the wounded, and purifying harmful effects—these are powers they share. I pray you will wield the goddess's power well, and ascend to the Saintess's seat."
The Temple's Saintess Selection Quest has been activated.