All Six Were Yurie

In Raider, the odds of a five-star are two percent. Do the math the blunt way, and a hundred pulls carry an expected value of two five-stars.

...Right. They really had come out right on the expected value.

The five-stars had landed on expectation. That was not the same thing as Tequiel landing on expectation.

So what, exactly, had I pulled?

"How is every single five-star Yurie? This isn't a Yurie banner, is it?"

Faced with that miserable reality, nothing came out of me but a sigh. I dug my fingertips into both temples and tried, somehow, to hold the headache down.

Around here there's a saying: new, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bow, eat. Short for "if a new character drops, bow your head and take her." Unless she's such garbage you can't even park her as a digital figure, it means that losing the fifty-fifty — even if all you walk away with is a single copy — still isn't that enormous a loss.

Which is to say.

One standard character hogging six lost fifty-fifties was not, under any circumstances, a good situation. All the more so at the very start of launch, when the roster was painfully thin.

Better than not pulling anything at all, you say?

The moment I started actually using Yurie, a ranged character, people would obviously start in on me — Gemjalseu, owner of the Furcle medal, Märchen, playing like a coward, just throw the Gemjalseu title away, that whole routine. And was I even going to put Yurie in a party? I'd benched her back in the CBT for a reason.

For me, at least, this was no different from pulling zero five-stars. No — she'd work as a digital figure, so it was fairer to call it no different from pulling one.

I let out a long, heavy sigh, ignored the chat asking why I hadn't rerolled, and went on with what I'd meant to say.

"Is she a yandere or something? The second she clocked that she took every one of my firsts, I stopped feeling hate and started feeling something closer to unhinged obsession. You're just cosplaying a normal person, aren't you?!"

"Anyway, I've banked enough mileage to trade for a character and a weapon copy, so I'll just exchange—"

My mouth closed on the rest of it. I'd been about to say I'd make the trade and then sit down properly to look over the normal-attack animations, the idle, the ultimate cutscene, all of that.

...Was I really going to end it here?

If she showed up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in one more ten-pull, that was one pity exchange I could save for the next banner.

Blowing all the mileage here didn't not feel like a waste. It very much did.

"Before I exchange anything, I'm gonna do one more ten-pull."

Yeah. Just one more ten-pull. The mileage wasn't resetting anyway.

...Just in case, I went to the weapon banner instead of the character banner. If, by some one-in-a-million chance, Yurie came out of this one too? I wouldn't even be able to use the copy.

Suffer that on day one of launch, and I might actually collapse from the blood pressure....

Well, I'd need a rainbow before I could hope or despair — and a real rainbow just lit up?!?!!!

I was so startled I shot to my feet.

"...Huh? Huh?! Is it actually happening this time? At last, the reward for whaling without holding back — my ass!!! You fucking piece of—!!!"

"I'm done with gacha for today. I am willing to go harder, but today is clearly not the day. I'm starting to get genuinely scared, okay?"

Even in the middle of it, I had the thought that at least one solid YouTube clip had come out of this.

It was no comfort at all.

In the end I played hard with the Tequiel I'd dragged home on pity. I watched the normal attacks, the skill animations, the ultimate cutscene, the idle, the low angle, and the high angle.

And I reached a verdict.

"Okay, she's fun! Dual blades, so the attack speed is already fast, and then you pop a skill and slap an attack-speed buff on top of that? I'm exaggerating a little, but play Tequiel and then switch to a greatsword character, and the reverse culture shock is so bad you can't use them."

The ultimate was an AoE, so it looked handy for clearing mobs. And more than anything, she was pretty — the normals, the skills, and the ultimate cutscene alike. They'd clearly poured the work into a five-star.

"I don't know how she'll age, but pull her now and I think you'll definitely get the rush you're paying for. And the most important part..."

I let that hang, then zoomed the camera in and showed everyone Tequiel's navel.

"Still not pulling? Even after this?"

If I hadn't grabbed her by the collar with pity mileage, she'd have been a character with nothing to complain about. That single blemish was a real shame.

"Well, gacha's done.... The mayor with the glasses said she had something to give me, right? Shall we find out whether 'give' means a quest-shaped pile of busywork, or an actual present?"

I said that, but I figured it was busywork. Here, take this — and in exchange, I have a favor. Something like that, right?

"...Why isn't this busywork?"

Now I look like trash for suspecting her!

"Up until a second ago you were all chattering right along with me about how this was obviously busywork, and how nice it must feel to have bagged a mayor for a sucker. That's a double standard. You hear me?!"

"Yeah, there it is! Showing your true colors, you master of busywork! You thought you could fool ten years of otaku seniority?!"

I was saying it all bright and gleeful, but something about the mood was off. An in-game cutscene had kicked in over what should have been a busywork errand, and the mood could not have been more wrong.

...What? What was about to happen?

Having opened with that, Catarina looked out through the window at the City's walls, lit beyond the glass.

Her gaze dropped from the walls to the people walking the ground below them. They were not smiling.

She drew her eyes from the window. She turned her head and gave the map on the desk a light tap.

The one who had demanded that sacrifice. The very person who had made so much blood flow. The ruler who had kept the City standing that way. Before the protagonist, she neither smiled nor wept. She simply went on, perfectly calm.

So saying, the bespectacled mayor — no, Catarina — bowed her head. The highest person in the City bent at the waist and lowered her head to an outsider whose very identity was uncertain, because that was all she could do. And she spoke, pouring a desperate, urgent feeling into the words.

The desperation carried in that pleading voice had a force that closed my fist on its own. The grief on Catarina's face — outstanding graphics, craftsman's modeling — made me bite my lower lip before I knew I was doing it.

The story ended. The in-game cutscene ended. There were no choices. No quest window appeared. The game's system did not forcibly order me to do a thing.

Maybe that was why.

The aftertaste sank in deep enough that, for the first time in a long while playing a game, the tip of my nose stung. That day, on our stream, Catarina's standing with the crowd shot through the roof — and because I had doubted the Catarina whose standing had shot through the roof, I earned a brand-new nickname: Scum-of-Humanity, Cold-Blooded Märchen.