Goddess of Fortune

Saturday, February 4th.

The time had finally come.

One day before the Arena content opened.

We had worked ourselves to the bone in the meantime. Skypia was already more than sixty-five percent complete, and after paying off the fifty-million-Rena debt to O-Wang Company, our total assets sat at one hundred eighty-five million Rena.

Ah—of course, that figure still excluded the produce and cooked dishes that hadn't received the price patch yet. Given how steadily we'd been running the mini tractors, there had to be at least seventy million Rena worth of food stacked neatly in a corner of the warehouse.

Just thinking about it is reassuring. A pile of cooking worth more than a single piece of Mythic-grade gear.

Anyway—right now, with the Arena a single day away. We'd made all kinds of preparations and strategies for combat, but in the end the real core was the players' specs.

Hadn't we already confirmed as much when we visited O-Wang Company? They'd even built a gym and were devouring one-on-one combat experience at a monstrous rate. The control gap between male and female players was already significant on its own, and their side had several of those infamous PUBG streamers mixed in.

A pure mechanical fight was a lost cause. We had no choice but to crush them with gear specs alone…

In that sense, I'd like at least two Mythics to come out while still leaving enough money for betting.

If we were truly unlucky and both Mythic-grade pieces hit hard pity, we'd burn through a minimum of a hundred fifty million in assets. The Unknown Energy value that climbed with every failure increased randomly by somewhere between two and four—and if even that rolled low on us, the cost could balloon close to a hundred eighty million.

The absolute worst-case scenario imaginable. At that point, we wouldn't have enough seed money left to score a jackpot through the Arena's betting system.

In the end, the completion of the big picture I planned hinges on the Arena betting system. I've staked everything on it. Please—at least fifty million Rena has to remain…

My head was a mess. The more money we poured into the betting system, the brighter the future waiting for us—but if we pinched pennies, holding multiple Mythic-grade pieces became nearly impossible. By my calculations, the minimum Mythic gear we needed for a fighting chance against O-Wang Company was two pieces. Even that wasn't a hundred-percent guarantee. Deep down I wanted three, but then the betting fund would run dry, and that was its own problem.

The admin said the expected value was fifty million Rena, so if three pieces came out for exactly a hundred fifty million, that would be the best-case scenario…

Would things really unfold the way I hoped?

Just look at Oh Yeong-jun from Akatsuki. After watching Rim-ani pull a Mythic for under twenty million Rena, he'd shaken out his entire fortune and challenged the gacha—only to fail spectacularly. Forty million spent, and his Unknown Energy sat at a pathetic forty-seven.

Currently in the lead was Mu-yang Group. Sliding at the last second in the vehicle auction had left them with plenty of spare cash, and Rim-ani pulling a Golderlite ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sword on the fourth try had them riding high. With the Arena right around the corner, Park Bong-sik himself went for Mythic gear in a bid to power-spike. Well now—didn't they say the average converges the more attempts pile up? Park Bong-sik didn't quite hit hard pity, but he stacked Unknown Energy all the way to ninety-three before finally pulling a Blazerlite Sword. Cost: seventy-five million Rena. Calling it near-pity wouldn't have been an exaggeration.

With no more room to mine while constructing Munastiris, Mu-yang Group couldn't raise further funds. They would enter tomorrow's Arena with two Mythic-grade pieces.

Seoni Moon had seen individual attempts after Tu-nyang-i's Witherlite Sword, but at the company level they were still conserving capital. Their leader, NS Namsin, was apparently too swamped with Sunny Group business to issue clear directives.

And then there was the one we were watching most carefully—O-Wang Company. After paying off the fifty-million debt, they'd scraped together every last coin and managed to pull a single Mythic. Their choice: Spiderlite. Around fifty-five million Rena. A clean, unremarkable pull.

Witherlite is mandatory, and I'd love one more between Spiderlite or Blazerlite.

I ran all of this by the company staff. One pull would be done publicly on stream; the other would be handled off-broadcast in secret, to keep as much information from the rival companies as possible.

"Leave it to Mayo, geosida. Mayo will show you the true hand of a god, geosida."

"……"

I wasn't exactly blessed in the gacha department myself, but for some reason I just couldn't put my faith in Mayo. Looking at her, all I could picture was a string of failures ending with her throwing a tantrum and rolling around on the floor.

"You just imagined something really gross about Mayo just now, geosida. If you don't apologize, Mayo won't make the mayonnaise rice she promised, geosida."

"Yeah, thanks. I'm never apologizing."

Either way, a decision had to be made. We couldn't keep dragging this out forever. The Mythic-grade gear pull that could decide V-Live's fate. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't shoulder the entire call alone.

"We do it together. Everyone gather at Genesis Village!"

"Yeeees!"

Dopamine flooding. The luck-of-the-draw gacha stream was about to begin.

To reiterate once more, the process for pulling Mythic-grade gear was simple. Buy Books of Fortune from the NPC in Genesis Village at fifty thousand Rena apiece. Use them to pull and collect Fortune Fragment Coins of five types—L, U, C, K, and Y. Hand one of each type back to the NPC to forge a complete Fortune Coin. Combine that Fortune Coin with specific materials to create an Essence of ??. And then only the final step remained: smear the essence onto a Netherite Ingot at the smithing table.

Eeeeeasy, right?

And right now, seven streamers had gathered in Genesis Village to put every one of those steps into practice.

"Red Mayo!"

"Blue Miho!"

"Beep! Don't tell me you two are outing your political colors right now?"

"What are you talking about?!"

"For the record, Mayo and Miho's opinions have absolutely nothing to do with V-Live Company as a whole…"

The staff were buzzing with excitement on their first group outing off Skypia in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠while. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kids—this was not the time for that.

"……"

The viewers were just as hyped as the streamers. And of course they were—among Rena World's leading companies, O-Wang Company, Mu-yang Group, and even Seoni Moon had all secured Mythic-grade gear, while V-Live Company, fresh off a Purge Day three-peat and a stellar showing at the vehicle auction, had been suspiciously quiet. That left our fandom drained in the communities and everywhere else. When rival companies were crowing about their Mythics, our fans simply had nothing to say back.

"Alright—I'll distribute one million Rena per person. Use it to buy twenty Books of Fortune each."

Seven million Rena vanished in an instant. And just like that, each of us held twenty Books of Fortune in our hands.

"Whoever pulls the most Fortune Coin Fragments from this will be entrusted with our company's fate today."

"Just trust Mayo, geosida. Fortune always follows Mayo, geosida. Well, except for team luck and jungler luck—but other than that, Mayo's fine, geosida."

"……"

Surely Mayo isn't actually going to win this… right?

According to people who'd done this before, a million Rena typically yielded somewhere between two and four Fortune Coin Fragments. Of course, if you were truly cursed, you might get one—or none at all. This was content that lived and died on pure luck.

"Alright then—five, four, three, two, one. BEEEEEGIN!"

"Ah……"

I'd more or less expected it. I'd never been particularly lucky with this kind of thing. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stared at the two Fortune Coin Fragments left in my inventory and cleanly gave up. Right—this sort of thing should be left to people who were actually lucky on a regular basis.

"Th-this is rigged, geosida. Mayo can't believe a result like this, geosida."

"Why? How many did you get?"

"……"

With a look of utter devastation, Mayo was holding a grand total of one Fortune Coin Fragment: a single lonely 'C'.

Whew. At least someone did worse than me. That's oddly comforting.

"Shame. I got two."

"Huh? I got two too."

"I got three."

Subnitti and Miho had two each; Na-ro-si and Han A-yeon had three. Which left only Lucy's final tally.

"I got five… is that a lot?"

I lunged forward before I even realized it and seized Lucy's hand.

Was Lucy truly the Goddess of Fortune after all? Not four—five.

V-Live Company's fate now rested entirely in Lucy's hands.