Dungeon Gacha Life Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Proper Way to Use a Fairy

After that, having gotten the details of Gacha out of Lapis, I threw myself into slime hunting to get my Level up as fast as possible.

I swung the iron sword I'd bought for this very occasion (thirty thousand yen, no less). The slime that took the hit turned into pale blue particles and vanished.

Maybe this weapon was a bit overkill for slimes. Well, fine by me — worth every yen I paid for it.

"Man, these things are weak."

Confirming there were no drops, I set my sights on the next slime. For some reason, it was just bouncing up and down in place, not paying me any attention at all.

"Do you not have a heart at all!?"

I ignored the creature yelling something up above. I landed a couple of hits on the slime and turned it into particles. Oh, a magic stone dropped.

"H-hold on, isn't it awful to use someone as bait and then just ignore them!?"

"Rude. This is teamwork, isn't it?"

Actually, a little earlier, I'd had Lapis run an experiment for me. It involved her holding a pebble and dropping it on a slime from above.

The effect was immediate — the slime registered it as an attack from Lapis and kept attacking toward her, up in the air where it could never reach.

After that, it was easy. Lure out any slime within reach, send Lapis up into the air — and I'd just keep hitting the wide-open slime until it vanished.

Slimes wouldn't attack unless you made the first move. And once attacked, they'd keep attacking whoever hit them, endlessly.

Meaning if the "tank" landed the first hit, the other person could attack in complete safety.

It was a strategy I'd read about online. In practice, slimes were weak enough that you didn't really need to go this far to beat them, but apparently people with low starting STR or poor equipment teamed up to use this method anyway.

And in my case, the one playing tank could fly. What kind of fool wouldn't take advantage of that?

"Can't be helped. I already got everything I needed to know about Gacha out of you, so you're pretty useless now anyway."

"You called me useless!!"

Lapis cried out, stricken. And immediately puffed out her cheeks, as if to announce she was furious.

"I'm the Gacha fairy! My true purpose is Gacha itself! It's when you pull the gacha that I really shine!"

"How so?"

"Things like calling out during rate-up events for high rarities, or the confirmed-hit announcements! I can also change up the light effects, and swap in a more lavish BGM too!!"

"Cut all of that."

"You just denied my whole reason to exist!?"

However I looked at it, that was just going to draw attention — an unnecessary feature. Thinking that over, I brought my sword down on the last slime remaining.

"Oh, my Level went up."

"Are you even listening to me!?"

* * *

I kept hunting slimes after that, and my Level climbed to 3.

"I really think 'Support Fairy' would be the safest bet, don't you?"

Lapis, who'd been shrieking her head off earlier, had apparently gotten completely used to slime-luring duty, enough that she now had room to chat.

The way she diligently flew around clutching her pebble, she was really getting into the role. Probably had more of a talent for slave labor than I did.

"Well, I guess that's the way to go."

The topic at hand was Lapis's existence.

A rookie traveling with a twenty-centimeter fairy. A magnet for trouble if I'd ever seen one. The kind of thing that'd draw out every idiot in the vicinity.

Still, apparently there was no way to hide her from view.

Which meant I had no choice but to shift focus to how I'd disguise my Unique Skill instead. From what I'd heard about Gacha, it was a far bigger risk than Lapis's existence. The rewards it could give were way too big — random riffraff or big-name clans were bound to take notice.

Hence the cover story: the Unique Skill "Support Fairy." I'd insist that Lapis was just an assistant supporting my exploration.

That would downgrade me from "someone with a ridiculously broken Skill called Gacha" to just "someone with a slightly unusual Unique Skill."

Explorers who traveled with a small talking creature like Lapis were rare. But they weren't completely unheard of either, so it shouldn't raise any special suspicion.

Or rather, I needed to believe that, or I wouldn't be able to cope. There wasn't any other option, after all.

(Well, I guess I should just accept that much.)

"Huh? What's with you? Looking at me with such gentle eyes all of a sudden."

She was useful, at least as decoy.

* * *

My immediate goal was Lv 11 — the level where I'd be able to do a ten-pull.

Until then, I was stuck fighting the same way as any other Explorer. Though if someone asked whether my style of fighting counted as "normal," I'd have nothing to say.

Safety really is its own reward, isn't it.

Anyway, it was almost time to head home. My Level had climbed all the way to 4.

Not a bad haul for the first day.

"Alright, let's call it a day around here."

"Oh, that's earlier than I expected. I figured you'd hunt right up to the last possible minute."

Lapis said something rude, blinking at me with a puzzled look. I'm not that much of a min-maxer, you know?

"Do you have any idea how much leveling up and back down it'd take to pull all the way to the pity cap? I can't be going all-out hunting like that every single day."

"Fair enough. Let's head back, then!"

The two of us started back the way we'd come. Maybe because we'd hunted the area clean, the passage ahead was empty of slimes.

Looking out at that empty scenery, I found myself thinking about Gacha's "pity cap." The same thing you got in plenty of mobile games — pull a fixed number of times and you're guaranteed the reward you're after.

Apparently my Unique Skill had that implemented too, and the number was 100 pulls. Meaning a hundred Levels' worth of cost. A long way off, that.

Still, that beat praying for some lucky spike that might never come.

After all, the drop rates were SSR 0.5%, SR 4.5%, and R 95%. Stingy enough to make you want to ask if they were mocking you. Get out here, devs.

And apparently, once you hit the pity cap, you got to pick your reward from a selection of SSR candidates. Frankly, every single one of them was absurdly overpowered.

I'd need to build my whole strategy going forward around that.

It was a long road ahead, but I had both time and money to spare. I'd already finished all my university credits, and I still had my allowance from home while enrolled.

Even if the cash from selling drops was small, I'd be fine for a while.

In the meantime, I had to reach that pity cap no matter what. From there, I could grow at an accelerating pace. Or so I hoped.

Anyway, safety first. No need to rush. Let's just take it steady.

The dungeon exit came into view, and I let out a breath.

Alright, one last mission for today. Time to go explain Lapis at the front counter.

"...I really wish it could've just been Gacha and nothing else."

"Keep that up and I'm going to cry!?"

Sorry, sorry.