My next day — as well as the year, and the month, after which my Gacha refreshed — began quite early for me.
And no, contrary to everything, it wasn’t impatience to spin that same Gacha again or anything of that sort.
Nobody even woke me up!
I woke up on my own…
from a nightmare.
“Master, you again?” — once again, just like every previous time, 2B appeared beside me instantly; she understood the purely physical processes that overtake me in such moments, and had managed (silently — since I never asked) to study “what nightmares are,” but didn’t understand how to protect me in this particular case, or how to fight it at all.
Which made her feel awkward, awkward enough that even a “block of wood” like me could notice it.
As well as her attempts to show concern and smooth over the aftermath whenever I bolt upright like that.
What can you do, there’s the death of my parents, and what I went through in that alley where I met the Punisher…
I’m still an impressionable teenager after all, so nightmares, unpleasant as they are, are a predictable outcome.
Over time I’ll grow callous, I hope, and nothing will be able to shake me anymore, either thanks to the life around me or thanks to the assimilations, but one way or another, it’ll happen.
For now, though, there’d been too much recent event for me.
“Yeah…
it’s all fine, thanks, Yorha,” — in moments like this, calling her “2B” just feels wrong somehow.
“If everything were fine, you wouldn’t wake up like this every other time.
And there’s no need to thank me, it’s my duty.
Will you try again to…” “No,” I cut Yorha off, getting up out of bed.
I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.
Since it’s already a proud 5:34 on the clock, we’re getting up.
Today’s a big day after all…
in more ways than one!
First, one of the most important things, though not the most important.
Today, exactly today, in honor of the start of the new year, new computer monitors will appear in the electronics stores!
Yes, I know, for some people that’s a trivial thing, but for me, having gone through Gennadiy’s memories, I felt awful discomfort from that “damn box you’re supposed to prop on the fridge like a TV” that I had here instead of a monitor, and I’d been monitoring the market this whole time, waiting for something…
more compact to come out.
By the way, Gennadiy unfortunately no longer remembered whether it had been like that in their world, but in this one, the first samples of thinner monitors were clearly nowhere near what I saw in Gennadiy’s memory as the latest word in technology.
Sure, dozens of times better than these box-monitors, but still noticeably clunkier than what I’d like to have on my desk.
But fine — it’ll do.
Second on the list of important things was buying a new MULTICOOKER!
Because…
thoughts that something’s broken in the old one have been nesting in my head for a while now.
Since I’m heading that way anyway…
screw it, I’ll buy something else that’s badly needed!
Because the only thing I make well — pancakes — even those are starting to burn a little in it, which hints that the problem’s no longer me.
And finally, yes, it was time to buy some pulls and start spinning the Gacha.
But first…
I need a cold shower — to wake up and wash off the remnants of the nightmare.
And we’ll vent any excess energy and anger at myself perfectly well on the exercise machines!
Then there was breakfast too, since wishes and dreams are important, of course, but the body demands to be fed, insists on it, even.
During which I finally settled on one thought — time to chuck the old multicooker in the trash!
Could even toss it out the window…
another burnt soup.
How does this marvel of technology manage it?
I’ve already tried lowering the cooking time and the temperature, but no!
Only at the lowest setting does it not burn — it just stays undercooked instead!
I’ll go today!
Just a bit of advertising work first, I’ll warn my clients I’ll be stepping out — decided to be upfront about that — and then I’ll trudge off to buy a new multicooker!
Meanwhile…
Yorha stayed behind reading in the small living room on the first floor, from where nearly the entire ground floor’s passages were easily visible, including the entrance and the way up to the second floor — her favorite position in case of a break-in on private property.
I didn’t feel like activating the Gacha with her around.
Maybe leftover distrust, maybe I was embarrassed about my own reactions, since, as already confirmed, Yorha can’t see either the three information pages of the Gacha or the cards I get.
So to her I’d just be staring off into nothing and waving my arms around in front of myself.
Oh, right, and I might also react loudly to something she can’t see — don’t want to unsettle an android who’s already worried enough about my mental state.
Or she’ll drag me off to a psychologist.
So then, I traded fifteen hundred for pulls — to hell with free accumulation!
And the first ten went off!
1) Johnny Cage’s Vest (MK10).
“Well of course…
what else could drop as my very first item in the Gacha?
What the hell is even going on here?” I sighed mournfully.
Sometimes some things just never change.
Meanwhile, in another world.
“There!
You saw that!
Just — gone, poof!” Johnny exclaimed, as his friends stared blankly at the vest that had vanished right off him.
Sonya Cage’s eye was visibly twitching.
“Yes, and I even sensed something next to which my own powers feel like a mere grain of sand,” Raiden replied calmly and gravely — he, along with Liu Kang, already crowned king of the underworld, had been dragged here by poor Johnny’s wife, just so the two of them could at least confirm nothing paranormal was happening around him.
“So you’re telling me some kind of higher god, or something even more powerful…
is stealing my husband’s things?” — grasping her own words proved difficult.
“Seems that way.
But what’s so valuable about them, my friend?” Liu Kang looked at Cage.
“Besides the fact that I wear them?
Absolutely nothing!
And I seriously doubt some deity is one of my fans, so my clothes have dubious value to beings like you,” Johnny replied, trying to keep himself under control, already considering paying a visit to a therapist…
for a session or three, at least.
Back in the Marvel world.
“Let’s keep looking,” I muttered to myself, checking what I’d gotten next.
2) Ability to Glow (Twilight).
“And what good is this to me?
Fine if it were at least controllable and worked in the dark.
But no, according to the gacha’s rundown, it only works when sunlight hits your skin.
And it can’t even be turned off!” — okay, I’d found the single most idiotic ability there was, even my sense of time is better than this — at least that one’s useful!
“Okay…
the list of ‘pretend this never dropped for me’ just got one entry longer.
Knull — scoot over, you’ve got a card-neighbor now,” I grumbled darkly.
Not quite the haul I was hoping for.
Fine, it’s not over yet!
3) Six Contracted Lives (The Black Rabbit Has Seven Lives / Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi).
“Wow…” escaped me.
But if what the Gacha’s telling me is true, this is a seriously cool ability.
Not ultimate-tier, but very good.
And best of all — inconspicuous!
This thing is a contract already self-powered from within, but thanks to the Gacha’s copying process, there’s nobody left to hold me to account for it.
Not only is its original owner (the one on the other side of the contract) absent from this multiverse, but it’s already self-sustaining and will just keep quietly working my whole life, self-sufficient, drawing power from nobody.
Excellent!
Though, I’m mostly just relieved that it won’t let me down at some unexpected moment.
As for its actual function — it literally grants me six extra lives per day…
it should have had a shorter cooldown between them, but as it turns out, its creator was the one who tuned that time gap, so screw me, no 900-second cooldown per life for me.
Still, I do have Boost Cards that could be applied to it later.
Though I have a feeling that getting it to the level I’d want would eat up quite a lot of them.
And the nicest part about this resurrection — it’s a genuine resurrection, meaning it’s not triggered by anything less than injuries incompatible with survival.
So scratches, bruises, broken bones — none of that will give it away!
Overall…
this ability card is so good I’d want to apply it right this second, but the understanding that I can’t, not yet, held me back.
Why can’t I?
All because of Axel’s assimilation.
If motorcycle racing isn’t enough, I’ll have to move on to actual fights.
And what kind of fair fight is it when, unlike my opponent, I’ve got SEVEN lives?
I’d have to kill myself six times every morning just to discharge the ability before any possible fights, and I’m not exactly ready for that.
No, I get that against someone on Galactus’s level or thereabouts, seven lives or seven hundred seventy-seven wouldn’t make a difference, but I’m not planning on picking fights with anyone like that.
But against someone on my own level…
I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot and freeze my assimilation progress practically forever.
Maybe I’m wrong, but something tells me not to test that theory!
Better to finish off Axel and proudly absorb the card than get stuck forever with a not-so-powerful character sitting in my assimilation slot for an unknown length of time.
But the second it’s done — apply the card immediately!
Right away!
No question about it!
This is exactly what I’ve been wishing for — “idiot-proofing,” as well as protection from a falling rock, a stray bullet, a mugging in an alley, or a car accident.
“Well, looks like I just got a card of the highest rarity.
Alright, let’s see what’s left,” I said, without much hope for anything useful.
The Gacha had already trained me well on that front.
4) Weapon Creation (Mairimashita!
Iruma-kun).
“It bothers me a little that this power comes from some demonic clan called Sabnock, whose hereditary ability it apparently is.
And the actual method…
I don’t want to put nasty things in my mouth!” — I shuddered.
According to the activation conditions, I have to literally bite the material I want to create a weapon out of.
The weapon’s limited to melee only — meaning I could gnaw myself sick trying to make a gun and, at best, create something gun-shaped out of whatever material, but it wouldn’t actually fire.
Still, there’s an upside — bite Captain America’s shield and you could create yourself a two-handed vibranium greatsword.
Not bad, as far as I’m concerned.
Main thing now is not to accidentally bite something between someone’s legs, otherwise…
my imagination breaks down just thinking about it.
After that I moved my gaze to the next card the Gacha had dropped, and…
“No, come on, you absolute jerk!
Gennadiy spent over a year trying to roll this, caught two events, sank real money into it, and got nothing, and I get it just like that on my fourth pull ever?” 5) Musashi (Azur Lane).
Yeah, Gennadiy’s feelings really slammed into me just now.
But going by the memory — I get it.
Oh, how many times he spun for her in that game’s gacha.
And for me she’ll just be dead weight.
This lady’s usefulness and functionality in this world is questionable, plus about half these ship-girls have some degree of PTSD or other issues in one form or another.
Eternal war, grim world, all that.
So, pretty girl on the card, but at best — I’ll feed her to 2B for reinforcement, if that kind of function even exists here.
Or, if not, then Knull’s going to have to scoot over again.
“Alright, I already got the most useful thing, so the rest is bound to be junk.
No point getting worked up over it,” I told myself, calming down.
6) Yuu Hasunuma (Ane Naru Mono).
“Um…
kind of mixed, this one,” I mumbled, digesting the knowledge…
and yeah, the Gacha’s poking fun at me again, handing me another orphan!
But the description…
yeah, I honestly don’t know what to make of this.
On one hand — a weakling, whose assimilation wouldn’t even take a full day.
On the other…
“you will become so adorable that all manner of super-beings of the opposite sex, instead of killing or eating you, would prefer not to kill you, and might even help you instead.
The stronger the entity, and the greater the power gap in her favor, the higher the odds of a successful, or critically successful, outcome to your encounter with her” — something like that, if I’ve understood the info I got correctly.
Otherwise the guy doesn’t have much going for him — cute, even by my standards, as a guy, a cute appearance!
Slight build, as far as I can tell from the card’s image, and the Gacha’s info says his personality is basically nonexistent too.
Orphan — lost his parents young, never settled long with any relative, so much so that they practically played hot potato with the kid, shuffling him from one relative to another.
And at some point he up and summoned a demon…
judging from indirect data, a powerful one, closer to Lovecraftian.
And that’s when that particular trait manifested…
anyway, now the guy’s got himself a wonderful older sister figure who took charge of caring for him — in every sense of the word.
And to make it worse, this particular title has a fork into a regular manga version and a hentai version, both official, both with the exact same name!
Even drawn by the same mangaka.
And who the hell knows which version I’ve got in my hands.
The slice-of-life one?
Great, dodged a bullet.
The hentai one?
I’m not sure I want to find out what those superior “female entities” would want from me if I ran into them!
Nor do I want to check whether the Protagonist of the Hentai Version has some special powers not described here that I might pick up.
“Alright, not much here, worth a quick look,” I said, sending yet another character card off into card storage.
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There are chapters ahead.
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