Doesn't Matter, Proceed
A new patch had been added to Repu Mountain.
"Everyone, I'm so glad to see you all enjoying Repu Mountain at such a leisurely, fun pace! And for you wonderful people, I've gone and patched in some brand-new content! And that is!!"
—Meow~
—Woof! Woof!
—Kyu-rook!
Cute animal cries rang out, and Repu kept it simple.
"It's the pet patch! You can raise pets now! Waaaah!"
Pets included dogs, cats, rabbits, deer, pigs, cows—pretty much every animal you could think of.
And every animal had slightly different appearances, with special animals appearing at random rates, too.
"Everyone can raise up to two pets, and if you abuse them, I'll come straight over and punish you myself, okay? So please keep enjoying Repu Mountain!"
I later learned you could reroll pets if you wanted a special animal. It was a gacha with only the type fixed from the start.
As soon as I logged in, I started talking to Lee Yebin about pets.
"ViniViniViniVini."
"Say it once."
"Vi."
"Vi this, Vi that—what the hell."
Just watching Lee Yebin get annoyed made me feel good. It was thrilling. Always fresh.
"So what."
"You're getting a pet, right?"
To my question, Lee Yebin answered with total confidence.
"Obviously I have to!"
"What animal?"
"Definitely a kitty! Meow!"
Lee Yebin had preferred cats over dogs since we were kids. So I'd expected that much, but…
"You're a dog person?"
"Obviously a dog."
I was a dog person. An extreme, unhinged dog person.
Honestly, aren't dogs way cuter than cats? I preferred dogs.
For one thing, they had loyalty, unlike cats. Not that cats had none, but when it came to loyalty, dogs were the best, right?
"Then let's each adopt one separately."
"You going for a rare animal?"
"Hmm… should I?"
At Lee Yebin's words, the viewers started reacting for us.
Calling it a pet gacha made me feel like garbage. It was just a game, so I could say that much, sure, but still.
"'Pet gacha' is a pretty violent way to put it."
"Isn't it fine? You're violent anyway."
"Excuse me?"
I could let everything else slide, but that "violent even at night" bit? Absolutely not.
"Hey, the bastard who just made the night joke—you're out. For real."
I personally hit him with a one-month ban.
Come back in a month, or write a reflection essay and post it. Write a reflection and I'll let you off.
There are jokes you can make and jokes you can't, okay? Take that stuff to the underground streams. I aim for the light side.
Sure, among the light-side people my personality leaned a little underground, but let's just gloss over that.
"Night joke? What is it?"
"Do I really have to spell it out?"
"Probably don't need to."
"Right?"
"Yeah yeah."
With that, Lee Yebin pulled money out of the box for me.
"Hey, I'm gonna go adopt a cat first."
"Okay, go ahead."
"You're not coming?"
"I'll think a bit and then go."
My real goal was to bring a dog back first, but as good as dogs were, aiming for a rare animal seemed smarter if I could manage it.
For reference, the animal gacha took either in-game currency or real money, and if I wanted one of those rare animals I'd probably need to drop around a million won in real cash.
A million won… a million…
…Ah, screw it. Should I go for it?
It wasn't like my gacha luck was terrible. I couldn't claim it was great either, but it seemed worth a decent shot.
"Chat, should we try for a rare animal?"
"Obviously we whale."
"'Vini falls for him'—you're out too. What is she falling for? If she goes to heaven I'll allow it."
I hit that guy with a one-month ban too. You sit quietly and write a reflection, or see you in a month.
The moment I said I was going for a rare animal, the viewers started dumping donations like maniacs.
While I accepted the donations I quietly ran the numbers once.
With this much money, even if I spent some of my own I'd still come out ahead.
This was exactly why streamer servers were so great. You could practically grab hype for free.
"Repu, Repu~"
"Oh my, welcome~ Your wife already took a cat home~ Even named her Malang, I hear~?"
"Did she?"
Apparently the cat Lee Yebin brought back was a white ragdoll. A fairly high grade, pulled in one try, so Repu had congratulated her a lot or something.
As for me…
"Repu."
"Yes~"
"…I'm doing a hundred multi. Random animals."
I was slamming a hundred multi. Rare animal, let's goooo.
The second Repu saw my donation he burst out laughing. Fair enough—that was a lot of money.
"Woooow… Dodo, you must be loaded?"
"Our viewers are the loaded ones."
"Wow~ amazing, really~ Shall we hop into the gacha right away?"
"Sounds good. How does it work?"
Repu moved somewhere else, and I followed him over.
I ended up standing in front of a flashy-looking machine—this had to be the animal gacha machine.
"Just press this button."
"I press the button?"
"Yep, press it."
"If I want to stop midway through a multi, can I get a refund?"
"No refunds~ But transferring or selling the remaining pulls to someone else is allowed~"
"Okay~"
That was an advantage, at least.
Alright. Straight into the gacha.
I pressed the button in front of me. The machine spun and spun, and then…
—Moooooo~
A cow's cry. So pressing the button made animal sounds play.
What appeared in front of me was a pretty cute brown calf, grade D. Common, so D made sense.
"That's a D-grade. You're rolling again right away, right?"
"Obviously."
I started smashing the button like I was mashing combos.
Every time, Repu announced what animal and what grade it was.
How much time passed? Around the fifty-pull mark I still hadn't seen anything above A-grade.
"What grades even exist?"
"There's S-grade and EX-grade~"
"What are the rates?"
"S is 0.1%, EX is 0.01%~"
"Wow, Repu, you money-grubber."
"I do like money a bit."
He was so shameless I had nothing left to say.
I kept rolling, and somewhere around seventy pulls—
—Flash! Flash-flash!
Instead of an animal cry, a brilliant light burst out.
A dazzling golden light, and with it came—
—Oink!
A pig's squeal.
When the light faded, what stood there was, of course, a pig.
A pig gleaming in brilliant gold, with wings on its back.
"S-grade! Golden Pig!"
S-grade instead of EX was a little disappointing, but that wasn't the important part.
The important part was that it was a pig.
"I'll take this one."
"Huh? You're not rolling more?"
"I'll go for EX later once I've saved up more cash. Besides, S-grade is still a server first, right?"
"That's true. No one else has dropped a clean hundred multi besides you, Dodo."
"Okay, then this one. Name: Vini."
"What?"
Repu's voice went momentarily flustered, and then—
The viewers even gave me a standing ovation.
"A-are you sure? Putting your fake-marriage partner Vini's name on a pig is…"
To the now-cautious Repu, there was only one thing I could say.
"Doesn't matter. Proceed."
"Y-yes sir!!"
Repu really did know how to read a room. He actually went along with it.
And that was how I brought our beautiful, adorable, beloved S-grade Vini over to Lee Yebin.
"Vini, let me introduce you! This is Vini! Vini! This is Vini!! Say hi!!"
Our good, pretty, cute, dazzling S-grade Vini answered right away with an "Oink!" Aww, what a good girl.
And that other mean, ugly, filthy, foul-tempered F-grade Vini…
"You evil bastard!!!"
…immediately jumped me in real life.
"Where's a pig oinking from—chat, one sec."
I decided to pull out the finishing move I'd prepared for this exact day. Yes, the finishing move saved just for today.
"Since you're here, have some chocolate."
Chocolate.
How was it different from candy? Come to think of it, Lee Yebin liked chocolate more than candy.
But this time she had no intention of letting me off.
—Thwack!!!
"Guek."
Lee Yebin's kick sent me sprawling, and she started pouring out pure irritation.
"You evil bastard, change the name. Change the name riiiight now!"
Absolutely not changing it. Nope. Not a chance.
How perfect was it? A pig named Vini. Peak comedy.
In the end, Lee Yebin planted her foot on me and delivered a clear warning.
"Change the name. Got it?"
No to violence! This actually hurts like hell.
Of course I didn't change the name. Taste my unyielding resolve against violence, Lee Yebin.
This was the true spirit of resistance. Hell yeah.