300,000 Won for One Character?!

Seere’s signature Light Cone.

This one didn’t come out nearly as quickly as I’d expected.

Even after I blew past what I’d generously considered a safe fifty pulls, then sixty, then seventy, it still refused to show its face.

“Why...! Why won’t it come out!!! You gave it to me in twenty pulls last time, so now you’re throwing a tantrum? Come on, give it to me! Gold! Door! Gold, not purple!!!”

Was it really okay for the youngest daughter of a chaebol family to be screaming like this at her computer?

...No, but what was I supposed to do when I was this angry that it wouldn’t drop?

“It came out last time! It came out in twenty pulls last time!!! I don’t want to go back to the old days and need a hundred or two hundred pulls for one character!!!”

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠disaster of that mobile game I used to play started creeping back into my mind...

They’d definitely dumped out piles of freebies for summer events and whatever else, but the gacha had gone so spectacularly to hell that I’d ended up depressed all by myself, hadn’t I?

“I have four billion won in the bank...! Four billion! But I still don’t want to spend three hundred pulls just to get one character!”

This wasn’t about money.

It was about my feelings, okay?!

─ Thud-thud-thud!

“Ni... eighty! Right! You’re coming out now after all...!”

At last, with a flash of gold, the train door opened.

I couldn’t suppress the dopamine high and hammered the skip button like a maniac.

“Ugh, nghhh...! Still not a hundred pulls!!!”

Thank god!

I’d seen a strategy post warning about “off-banner” pulls, but instead of spitting out some other character, it had actually given me the one I wanted.

Back when I’d once flung three hundred pulls into the void, I’d gotten nothing but garbage characters I didn’t want, and my stomach had been boiling the whole time.

“Phew... off-banner is a rotten civilization... at least I didn’t get one.”

I wiped the sweat from my forehead in one smooth motion.

...Wait, hang on, I’m getting cold sweats just from this? My armpits are actually damp now.

Is this what gambling feels like? Is that why some of those chaebol third- or fourth-generation idiots get arrested for illegal gambling?

“Anyway... now that I finally got it. Let’s equip it ri— huh?”

─ Whoooosh!

I’d assumed there was nothing left to pull now that I’d already gotten the Light Cone I wanted, but...?

The moment I hit the next button, a brilliant golden flash erupted and a second five-star Light Cone sprang out of nowhere.

“Huh? Off-banner...?”

Since it wasn’t Seere’s Light Cone but some other five-star one, it was definitely an off-banner situation.

But... I got Seere’s Light Cone after just over seventy pulls, and then this one before I’d even hit ten more?

“H-heh... if that’s the case, I’m not complaining!”

The Fight Isn’t Over Yet even featured a gorgeous woman with silver hair in a Russian-style uniform.

Come to think of it, these things called Light Cones felt a lot like the Craft Essences from that game Fate I used to play, where they’d somehow fill in the gap with just one illustration.

...Hm. For something that cost the same as character pulls, using just a single illustration to pass itself off like that felt kind of cheeky.

“Still, well... it’s pretty, so I guess it’s fine?”

Money wasn’t exactly a big deal to Kwon Seah, the youngest daughter of a chaebol family.

“Anyway... Harmony? I don’t have that character, so let’s just skip the performance part for now...”

Before equipping Seere’s signature Light Cone, I moved my mouse over a tiny little button.

“Oh? What’s this? This world must be pretty strict about the rules. It even tells you the odds?”

Man... I missed this.

The games I’d played before just had players guessing it was probably some percentage or other.

“Let’s see, the rates are...”

“Huh...? You’re guaranteed to get one within eighty pulls? W-what’s pity?”

“So... there’s a 25 percent chance of getting something other than the Seere Light Cone I want? And if I get screwed by off-banner, then the next five-star I pull is guaranteed to be Seere’s Light Cone?”

But what exactly is pity?

Unable to contain my curiosity, I quickly made a post on the Galaxy Express Gallery.

“What... so if you pull eighty times, they just give it to you?”

...Why would anyone do that?

“I-I don’t get it? Wouldn’t that be a massive, massive loss?”

I covered my face with both hands.

“So character banners have a 50 percent off-banner chance... but that means at worst, I’m guaranteed to get the character I want within 160 pulls, right?”

I slowly went through every mobile game I’d ever played.

...Those trash games didn’t have pity at all.

If you failed to pull, you were just a moron who’d thrown money into the toilet.

One million won.

Two million won.

Three million won!!!

“Those games basically told you to go screw yourself if you were unlucky, even after dumping infinite money into them...”

Was this Galaxy Express game not interested in making money?

“Most users would think it’s generous just to get the character itself... Oh, wait, is that it?”

Was it really that kind of system?

I hurriedly flipped through the gallery’s info posts.

“If they’re going to hand out characters like this, then it has to be a game that needs you to pull lots of copies, right? Yeah, it must be one of those games where you have to pull extra copies to level them up, just like the old one!”

I said that while looking for info, but I was wrong.

“Huh... the level cap is ninety, and leveling up and character breakthroughs can be done with currency earned by killing monsters?”

Character breakthroughs were exactly what I knew them to be.

The max level was ninety, but from level thirty onward it put speed bumps every ten levels, and if you wanted to level up, it demanded specific items.

In the old game, you had to pull extra copies of the character to do that, but in Galaxy Express, you could do it with materials that dropped from monsters.

My blazing post was deleted in exactly three minutes.

Thanks to that, I learned that most people didn’t particularly like Galaxy Express’s monetization model.

...Why didn’t they like it? It said you’d always get what you paid for.

“So this is how they sell characters...”

As I studied the character’s stat window, I found a section labeled Eidolon.

Right. It was a mobile game, but at its core it was still an RPG, so of course there were systems for strengthening characters.

“Leveling up... gear... training, growth, breakthroughs, enhancement... yeah, yeah. There’s no way an RPG wouldn’t have this stuff.”

When I clicked into the Eidolon section, I saw six locked slots.

These slots could only be unlocked by inserting an item called Seere’s Eidolon.

“Okay, I get it now. If I pull Seere more here, I get Seere’s Eidolon, right? And that unlocks these special effects?”

First Eidolon: Extermination

“When dealing damage to an enemy whose current HP percentage is 80% or lower, crit rate increases by 15%.”

“That seems pretty good for boss fights...?”

Second Eidolon: Butterfly Dance

“The speed buff from the combat skill can stack up to two times.”

“...Wait, hold on. Isn’t this broken? Two stacks? Then I’d get even more of the Light Cone’s damage boost effect, right?!”

This was different from the mobile games I’d played before.

In those games, breakthroughs just went ding, ultimate damage multiplier up from 100 percent to 200 percent! Ding, random stat increases! And that was about it.

That was the whole thing?!

“What is this... there’s actually a money-spending feel to it...”

No, maybe it was still trash. I should at least ask.

“So... if I spend money, I definitely get stronger. But then is it just me getting stronger and that’s it...?”

“Wait, what? If you pull strong characters, there’s actually a ton you can do?”

PvP where you could directly kill other players.

PvE where you could beat the hell out of set monsters and brag about your score.

And judging by the rest of the comments, there were also endless climbing towers, plus the ability to show off your gear score too.

“This is pretty good...”

I mean, I had four billion won in the bank, didn’t I?

...And there was a bag stuffed into the corner of my bedroom right now that was worth tens of millions of won, wasn’t there?

“So... how many trucks do I need to buy before I can pull Seere six more times? If I want to be first in both PvP and PvE, full dupes are basically the bare minimum~!”

I moved my fingers quickly.

If I filled the full 160 pulls and got Seere six more times, then I’d need roughly another thousand pulls, right?

When I checked the shop, the first-purchase bonus had already vanished, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so the amount of bonus currency was lower.

Still, it was eight thousand total, so even if I needed 1,600 for ten pulls, I could probably pull fifty times?

“Let’s see... if that means a thousand pulls, and one truck buys fifty pulls, then I’d need to buy twenty more?”

Twenty more?

I did the math with that thought in mind, but the total only came out to about 3.6 million won.

“Crazy... Seah! Is 2.4 million won the name of some dog in somebody’s house?! I already pulled the character, and now I’m supposed to spend another 2.4 million just to make her a little stronger?! A game console doesn’t even cost a million!”

I shot to my feet, screaming, and quickly checked my bank account.

There was still roughly four billion won sitting there, enough that I didn’t even need to bother looking at the last digits.

“Four billion... 2.4 million... four billion... 3.6 million...”

Cold sweat streamed down my forehead, and when I thought I might need to pee, I pressed my thighs together tightly while still standing.

2.4 million won... before I’d been possessed into Kwon Seah, that was more than my monthly salary.

“I mean, if it’s food, I can at least tell myself it’s good for me because I’m eating expensive stuff...”

But this was pure, naked money-flushing, wasn’t it?

I’d gone on about a Birkin bag and all that, but that thing wasn’t even something I’d bought myself—it was a gift.

There were luxury items more expensive than 2.4 million won everywhere in this house, but there was nothing I’d personally bought since becoming Kwon Seah.

“Hah... Seah! Seah! Kwon Seah! What are you hesitating about?! 2.4 million won is about the same as the interest, anyway!!”

I laughed loudly, sat back down, and crossed my legs.

“Maybe I’ll get lucky? If I’m insanely lucky, I could pull it without an off-banner and spend less than 2 million won, right? Six copies for a million won, maybe?!”

This felt like a gamble with roughly one million won on the line, didn’t it?

Wasn’t this basically a safe gambling den? If I breezed through the fifty-fifty off-banner chance and pulled Seere six times in a row...!

“...Agh! No, that’s not it! Seah, are you an idiot?! You already spent two million won—what do you mean you won a million won?!”

I shot back up again, fussing and flailing, and kept turning the game’s shop window off and on.

“I have four billion won... I have four billion won...”

...What’s the big deal about spending just a little over two million won?

Honestly, compared to golf or skydiving? Horseback riding? Wasn’t this an incredibly cheap hobby? It wasn’t like this was some nasty drug habit or anything.

And it’s not like I’m hiring women or drinking, either...

“...Fine. Okay, Seah. Don’t dump all two million won in at once—just spend it as each bullet runs out.”

After giving my butt a few hard pats with both hands, I was trembling all over, hypersensitive, and I pressed my palm against the tip of the throbbing heat in my chest.

“Pull, pull! Just pull! I want to fully break this stuff too and brag about it in the community...!”

Even the games that only boosted ultimate damage, even the ones that only raised stats—once you fully enhanced them, people called you a perfect owner and posted it to the front page!

I quickly finished my blushing face verification and stomped my feet in place.

─ Ding-ding-ding!

“Let’s finish this in exactly one million won! That means I’m saving a million won, okay!!!”

Honestly, if the youngest daughter of a chaebol family’s hobby budget was 2.4 million won, that was absurdly cheap!

And so, while my happy little fantasy kept spinning and spinning, I hammered the character-pull button again and again.

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