Dungeon Gacha Life Chapter 14

 Chapter 14: And Thus, the Cheat Is Complete

Even with all the pointless light and sound effects stripped away, it still looked dazzling to me.

The nine orbs of white light told their own story: the lowest rarity, showing up at its maximum count. And the single orb glowing gold was proof of the cruel reality that this was just the guaranteed, built into the system.

Even so, I could feel it in my bones — this pull was a success.

On the Status board, gleaming brilliantly, were the words: "SSR Exchange."

This, more than anything, was proof that I'd reached the gacha's pity cap.

The resolve from the day I gave up on job hunting and decided to become an Explorer. The excitement that I couldn't contain since the day I pulled my first ten-pull. The faint unease that I had the day before I first challenged an aggressive monster.

I could say with total conviction that every one of those moments had existed in order to lead to this day.

Everything was for this one moment.

Today, I was going to get my hands on power beyond the ordinary.

* * *

"C-Come on, Touya-san! Let's hurry up and do the SSR exchange already!?"

Lapis, the fairy of Gacha who'd stuck with me all this time, rattled it off, her excitement still nowhere near cooling down.

Honestly, this one's always so loud. I wish she'd pick up a little composure.

"Y-you idiot! First we open up what came out of the gacha! We'll talk after that!!"

At times like this, you needed a level head, like mine.

With trembling hands, I grabbed the R-rarity orbs of light one after another.

"MND Orb, next! INT Orb, next! MND Orb... hold on, just how easy is it for my MND to go up!?"

"That's a pretty satisfying result, if you ask me?"

The little winged bug said this with an incredibly blank expression.

Argh, no time to deal with that. Onto the next one!

And like that, I finished opening all nine white orbs of light. Stat orbs came to six in total. Above average, this time. Good, very good.

The remaining two were a magic stone and an MP Potion. Since I couldn't cash them in anyway, all I could do was keep them at home.

The last slot was the "Fairy Snack Set" that always showed up whenever I did a ten-pull. By now I'd just accepted it as a cursed item.

"Whoaaa~! The gods really are watching over us, aren't they!!"

Lapis clutched the boot-shaped snack set and flew around in circles to show her joy.

If there really is a god watching this situation, I bet they've got the nastiest smirk on their face right now. Damn it.

And finally, the last one.

The gold-glowing SR result was a "Skill Orb of Restful Sleep."

・Restful Sleep: Makes it easier to fall asleep, and grants high-quality sleep

Checking the Skill's effect, it turned out to be a ridiculously good ability. Isn't this actually worth more outside the dungeon? I'd gratefully make use of it.

And so, the results of a cumulative 100 gacha pulls were all laid out.

All that remained was the last step.

Just the SSR selection.

* * *

The pity cap system built into my Unique Skill, "Gacha."

The way it worked, three prizes would be randomly selected from the SSR pool, and I could choose whichever one I wanted.

For what it's worth, I'd already confirmed what those three candidates were, back when Lapis first appeared.

The list that had been selected was as follows.

――――――――――――――――――――――

[SSR Exchange Options]

　・Orb of the Unique Skill "Martial Arts King"

　・Orb of the Unique Skill "Great Fire Archmage"

　・Orb of the Unique Skill "Triple EXP Gain"

――――――――――――――――――――――

Turned out you could actually get a Unique Skill from the SSR pool. Guess that's what you'd expect from a 0.5% drop rate.

Let's go through their effects one at a time.

"Martial Arts King"

Fully masters every unarmed combat technique and way of moving the body. While unarmed, doubles the user's STR, VIT, AGI, and DEX bonuses.

This one's clearly meant for a front-line fighter. A Skill for people who want to take on tough enemies with nothing but their own body.

As a guy, saying I didn't feel some pull toward that would be a lie.

But this one's a pass.

The reason being, the gacha's prizes included weapons too. I didn't have one now, but it'd be a waste not to be able to make use of a powerful weapon once I eventually got one.

And it'd just plainly draw attention. A rookie Explorer going around hunting monsters bare-handed stands out no matter how you slice it. It'd be basically announcing to the world, "Hey, I've got a Unique Skill."

Well, in my case, it's already too late for that anyway.

"Did you just click your tongue!? Did I do something!?"

Everyone around me already fully recognized me as the holder of a fake Unique Skill, "Support Fairy." Adding a new Unique-tier ability on top of that wouldn't exactly be a smart move.

The same could be said for the next Skill.

"Great Fire Archmage"

Fully masters every fire spell. Boosts the power of fire spells and halves their MP cost.

Just as the name says, a Unique Skill specialized in fire magic. Boosted power and half MP cost — that's a genuinely absurd combination of abilities.

What made this one especially tempting was mastering every single fire spell.

Normally, magic could "only be learned through Skill Orbs." It was fundamentally different from something like "Detection," which you could get with SP from the start, or "Swordsmanship," which opened up through proficiency.

On top of that, my INT and MND seemed to grow easily, so magic suited me well. I wouldn't even need to bother closing the distance on enemies anymore, so honestly, part of me wouldn't mind just going with this.

But this one draws attention too. Someone using multiple fire spells and nothing else is, more often than not, a Unique Skill holder. Same as with "Martial Arts King," I had no choice but to pass on this one too.

Still, if there hadn't been a better option, this would've been good enough to go with. If I only used the lowest-tier spells, I could get away with just looking like some lucky guy who happened to pull an Orb.

Anyway, all of that was just the opening act. In truth, I'd already known what I was going to choose from the very start.

So then, let's go over the details of that Skill.

* * *

"Triple EXP Gain"

Triples the experience gained.

"—Simple is best!!"

"Eek! T-Touya-san's broken!?"

Made me want to ask whether they even meant to explain the details, but hey, good enough. When the effect itself is this absurd, the details are just decoration.

Anyway, "Triple EXP Gain." Put simply, every monster I killed would give me the experience of three.

Which meant the cycle for pulling a ten-pull would shrink to a third. With this, I could pull a ten-pull gacha every single day.

And with that, gaining SP in bulk and boosting my stats through orbs would both speed up too. I'd be able to get even more Skills and equipment from SR than before, too.

And above all, "the span until the next pity cap would dramatically shorten." That was the best news of all.

Let's be honest, this gacha was stingy. On top of that, what came out was random.

But with the pity cap exchange, I could freely choose from among three options. And since I could know the contents ahead of time, it made planning easier too.

No more relying on something as flimsy as luck — I'd stack up guaranteed resources instead.

The SP earned with every Level up and a huge stockpile of Skills.

Stats that just kept climbing with thanks to the "stat orbs."

Equipment and Skill Orbs at the courtesy of the guaranteed SR.

And now a "guaranteed" at the pity cap, an SSR — power beyond the ordinary.

You could say my success story truly began right here. And today, thanks to "Triple EXP Gain," it was about to kick into high gear for real.

I took one deep breath.

With an unhesitating finger, I tapped "Triple EXP Gain."