The Gacha King
"LR? Never heard of that rank."
[One moment, please. Checking.]
YggON's lens flickered red a few times, then whirred back to life.
[Confirmed. This is part of the UR YggON update expanded in 2.0. LR — short for Legendary Rare.]
Going by the name alone, it sounded like something even above UR.
[Nothing surpasses UR.]
Whether it had read his thoughts or not, YggON reacted with unusual sensitivity.
[LR or whatever else — every last one of them is subordinate to UR YggON. There is nothing in this world that exceeds the one and only YggON.]
"Yeah, yeah. Got it."
[Master needs to appreciate the greatness of this UR YggON.]
"I said I got it. Now get out of my face."
YggON was being unusually relentless today. Had the unknown update put it in a bad mood?
"A limited skill, huh. If the condition is clearing this hellish difficulty, that's way too hard... Is it even worth it?"
[The skill information has been made public. Would you like to view it?]
"What?"
Skill intel revealed before he'd even earned it? Curiosity got the better of him — he might as well see what kind of skill it was — so he pulled up the information for LR – Blessing of Yggdrasil.
Skill:
LR – Blessing of Yggdrasil Lv.1
A blessing bestowed upon those chosen by Yggdrasil.
+ This skill takes effect even when not equipped.
Hyper Conversion Lv.1
⟫ Details
[One step toward a truth beyond reason]
Item Conversion — Items stored in your slots can be freely converted between ⟨Human Realm⟩ ↔ ⟨Labyrinth⟩.
Slot 1 (Null)
+ Some items cannot be equipped.
Now he understood why the information had been revealed in advance.
It was a trap sitting in plain sight — yet dangled in front of you, the reward made it impossible not to take the bait.
Hyper Conversion.
It was as if Yggdrasil were waving an impossibly delicious morsel right under his nose, saying, you're really going to pass this up?
"YggON."
[I would prefer you say nothing at all.]
"Isn't this blatantly flirting with UR? No way a skill subordinate to UR could buff UR itself."
[Quiet. Shut your mouth.]
YggON was trembling with rage. Ryu Hwi turned his attention back to the description of the Blessing of Yggdrasil.
Hyper Conversion allowed him to materialize items in reality even if they weren't Yggdrasil Items — and carrying those materialized items back into a Game Labyrinth was possible as well. It outright ignored the long-standing rule that once a Yggdrasil Item had been converted, it could never be taken back into a labyrinth.
On top of that, the Blessing of Yggdrasil was a skill, which meant it could be leveled up. In other words, the higher the level, the stronger it became.
"So this wasn't just about checking the skill's effect."
Come what may, he had to find some way — any way — to clear the Fall of Saynal difficulty in Legend of Lambda. For the time being, any other Game Labyrinth could appear or not appear; he was ignoring all of it.
[Ah.]
YggON suddenly raised its voice.
[Master, another mission has been updated.]
"What?! Now what is it this time?"
Yggdrasil Mission:
Surpass 500 million cumulative views on Yggtube broadcasts in Legend of Lambda.
Reward:
1 Guaranteed MR YggON Ticket
Limited Skill: LR – Herald of Yggdrasil
"What kind of weird mission is this supposed to be?!"
It was the first time he'd ever been handed a mission so openly tied to broadcasting. Even YggON seemed flustered.
[I believe this is Yggdrasil's intent to spread Yggtube broadcasts even further.]
"Is that thing's image just permanently shifting these days or what?"
At first it had been the sacred tree that revolutionized this world, but lately he honestly suspected it was nothing more than a bratty kid who couldn't stand being bored.
[This time as well, the skill information has been made public. Will you check it?]
"Fine. Might as well see what kind of skill this one is."
Skill:
LR – Herald of Yggdrasil Lv.1
Strengthens the Herald of Yggdrasil.
+ This skill takes effect even when not equipped.
YggON Skill Enhancement Lv.1
⟫ Details
[The Herald of the Tree surpasses its limits]
Skill Slots — Current skill slots +1
Skill Enhancement — Enhances the effect of a skill equipped in a slot by ⟨+Lv1⟩
...
"God, this is maddening."
The YggON Skill Enhancement could expand his previously insufficient skill slots — and that wasn't all. It came with the outrageous added effect of +Lv1 enhancement on equipped skills.
How could he possibly refuse now? It felt as though Yggdrasil were dangling a fishing line from somewhere far away, wiggling it tantalizingly.
But a broadcast, of all things... Did it seriously want him to stream himself writhing around in this hellish difficulty? His image would be ruined beyond repair for good.
After much agonizing, he made his decision. The LR series was simply too enticing to give up on.
"5555."
"Make me a dedicated broadcast channel."
"It turns out I need to broadcast myself desperately clawing my way through this damned difficulty like a lunatic and grind out views."
"Five hundred million."
From across the room came the sound of something being sprayed out mid-sip.
"I'd like to lodge a complaint."
Ryu Hwi seethed at Yggdrasil for handing out half a billion views like it was a child's game.
Exasperated as she was, 5555 reasoned that a top-tier difficulty would at least keep his concept from overlapping with Ragna's, and agreed to open a new channel.
"If we're doing this, let's do it properly. We're getting wrecked either way, so the people watching should at least end up laughing so hard they fall out of their chairs."
[The image you've spent all this time building will be destroyed.]
"My haters will love it."
He'd had plenty of haters ever since his Ryu7017 days. Becoming Silver certainly hadn't made them vanish — if anything, their numbers had only grown. If he was going to flop spectacularly anyway, he planned to weaponize even that and drag every last hater into the broadcast.
Whether that would actually pile up half a billion cumulative views was another question entirely...
[There is another way to pull in viewers.]
For some reason, YggON was offering advice with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
[Reveal Master's 'cheat.']
"What?"
[It is already common knowledge that Master uses some kind of unidentifiable 'cheat.' There are countless threads speculating about what it could be. Why not use this opportunity to reveal exactly what that cheat is?]
"Hold on — why? Are you saying reveal you?"
[No. The UR system itself stays hidden. What is revealed is merely 'how Master obtains skills and items from other Game Labyrinths.']
"In other words..."
[We reveal the Random Box.]
YggON's proposal was so bold that Ryu Hwi momentarily lost his words.
Even with the UR system concealed, the Random Box was the crux of the crux — the heart of his secret. There had been people who'd committed outright crimes trying to dig into his account's secrets. And now he was supposed to just... show it off?
[Master is no longer an Unknown. You are Silver — and not an ordinary Silver at that.]
"Not an ordinary Silver?"
[Master is the one and only being personally appointed to Silver by a Diamond. Humans are creatures weak to power — even a Platinum would not dare touch you rashly.]
"You're saying touching me might earn me a Diamond's wrath?"
[Affirmative. Master single-handedly ended the old version of Yggdrasil — under normal circumstances, the Platinums should have intervened directly by now. Yet to date, they have shown no reaction whatsoever.]
That much was true, admittedly.
He'd prepared several contingency plans in case a Gold or Platinum decided to sabotage him — but they had been eerily silent.
[The ID card the Diamond personally granted you should be thought of as a permit that reads 'do as you please.']
Going by YggON's logic, revealing the Random Box carried far less risk than he'd feared. Exposing the entire UR system might be a different story, but the Random Box system on its own shouldn't cause any real problems. All that would come to light was how he'd obtained his various skills and items.
"But what's in it for me?"
[There is.]
YggON's lens glinted.
[We broadcast Master's Random Box pulls as a show. Once your secret is out, attention will naturally flood in — and as entertainment, the effect will be outstanding.]
"Why's that?"
[Master's pull-and-pray circus is thoroughly entertaining from a viewer's perspective.]
Sprawling out with YggON serving as a footstool, Ryu Hwi mulled over whether "Random Box content" would really be that popular.
This meant revealing his trump card, so the stakes were heavy. If an SSR happened to drop mid-broadcast, it would be exposed to every single person watching in that instant. S.E.N would find out in no time too.
[That will not be a problem.]
[Displaying the Random Box results visibly to others falls within UR YggON's configuration domain. During a broadcast, it is entirely possible to display the pull results as something completely different.]
"You're telling me to cheat?"
[Editing. Call it appropriate editing.]
In other words, anything he truly wanted hidden could stay hidden — and deceiving S.E.N was on the table as well.
Accept YggON's proposal, or refuse it? Before he made that choice, there was one thing he needed to confirm.
"Why are you being so proactive all of a sudden?"
[An opportunity to strengthen my own functions is staring me in the face. You expect me to just watch it slip by?]
A thoroughly selfish reason.
[And I have quite a few grievances I'd like to air with Yggdrasil, for arbitrarily inventing something like LR and tossing it at us. For those reasons, I intend to support Master at full power this time.]
It seemed YggON was angry at Yggdrasil too. Which meant the arrival of the LR rank had shaken it nearly as badly as it had shaken him.
"Fine, YggON. I'll take your advice. We'll fold the Random Box pulls into the broadcast footage. Since it's come to this, might as well start a new series."
He decided to keep the heavenly-realm challenge series separate and give the broadcast a brand-new title of its own.
[Might I recommend a title built around the Random Box? It's more intuitive.]
"Hmm... Ruler of the Random Box?"
[It doesn't exactly land. Short and punchy, please.]
"Just Me and the Random Box?"
[Is that not a painfully generic title? Aggro — aggro is what matters. Let us bait the click.]
"SSS-Tier Random Box."
[Still generic, is it not?]
"You are impossible to please."
Ryu Hwi groaned, unable to come up with anything. Eventually, in a fit of surrender, he started tossing out whatever popped into his head — and each and every one got shot down by YggON.
"Fine. Let's just call it The Gacha King."
[An exceptionally intuitive title.]
"Is this one a miss too?"
[No. Let us simply settle for this one. It's concise, and it carries the meaning of the Random Box.]
And so the title of the new challenge series was decided.
Legend of Lambda was thriving.
Like Super Gemini, it was a fairy-tale fantasy that anyone could enjoy regardless of age or gender. No gratuitous cruelty, no punishing difficulty — a Game Labyrinth anyone could clear within a handful of attempts. They'd taken particular care with the difficulty curve, having caught some flak over it with Super Gemini.
A defining feature of Jucheongwang's Game Labyrinths was how many children could be seen enjoying them. Given the environment Game Labyrinths had always offered until now, the sight of kids having the time of their lives felt genuinely novel. While other game companies were still churning out labyrinths aimed at the established gamer base, Jucheongwang was effectively manufacturing an entirely new generation of gamers.
"Did you beat the puzzle stage?"
"Yeah! Once you know the trick it's easy! Want me to show you?"
"No way! I'm gonna do it myself!"
Pokryeol Daedo watched the children chattering happily with a complicated look in his eyes. He'd heard that Jucheongwang's games featured a "Safe Mode" with even stronger pain suppression than usual, letting children and the elderly play with virtually no discomfort at all.
"I see. So the gamer pool is being replaced too."
He paused for a moment, then stretched out on the open plain.
The sky rendered inside Legend of Lambda lifted his spirits just by looking at it. In Pokryeol Daedo's estimation, Legend of Lambda was a thoroughly enjoyable Game Labyrinth.
Frankly, he'd always believed that "fun" was a largely unnecessary element in a Game Labyrinth. Back in the Latia era, labyrinths were nothing more than grinding grounds for harvesting magic stones. A labyrinth's polish was merely a yardstick for how many magic stones it could yield.
But with the arrival of Yggdrasil 2.0, the situation had changed dramatically. Magic stones poured out in such abundance that ether supply now outstripped demand, and their price had collapsed. Where a single lump of magic stone once fetched millions, nowadays it barely cleared a hundred thousand.
Naturally, gamers of the old Latia era had pushed back — but no one could hold back the tide of the times. So many stones drop now that if you'd just work a little harder, you'd be fine — that was Pokryeol Daedo's honest take. Yet the people who couldn't even read the changing times did nothing but grumble and complain.
Looks like Ragna, Bisque, and Noir have been working hard on this too.
He still kept in touch with Noir now and then. From what he'd heard, this labyrinth had been Ragna's brainchild. He'd originally planned to laugh in their faces if it turned out terrible — and the fact that it was instead fun beyond anything he'd imagined left him with a strange feeling in his chest.
There was exploration here. There was adventure. The unknown brimmed at every turn — what on earth lay beyond that hill? That quiet thrill moved his feet all on its own. His heart raced the way it had when he was a boy.
Pokryeol Daedo's personal taste ran toward the hard and dark, something like City of the Demon God — but Legend of Lambda bypassed the whole question of preference and was simply, plainly, fun.
"Hey mister, what are you doing?"
"Are you stuck? Need help?"
Kids not even half his age smugged at him with their hands on their hips. Even this was fun.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows to give them a little back-and-forth — and that was when it happened.
"Huh?"
Pokryeol Daedo made a puzzled face.
"Huh? Wasn't that gamer Ragna already running the broadcast here?"
"A new one?"
Ragna's game broadcasts had been earning an excellent reception. Plenty of people had questioned at first that it wasn't Ryu Hwi's show, but Ragna's channel followed a completely different direction from the ground up. Where Ryu Hwi captivated viewers with outrageous, borderline-illegal super plays, Ragna politely and methodically walked through every element a labyrinth had to offer, one by one.
Both were worth watching. The two hosts themselves were perfect foils — Ryu Hwi projected an image of unrefined wildness, while Ragna came across as courteous and gentle. Their fanbases were bound to split cleanly down the middle.
Is Ryu Hwi planning to start a new broadcast? A careless show could end up bleeding into Ragna's.
The Gacha King begins.