There’s a saying called “karma.”
Basically, it originated from the Buddhist concept of karma, but it’s not really that complicated.
If you do wrong, you get punished. If you do good, you get rewarded.
This basic notion of rewards and punishments based on good and evil is kind of an instinct for humans wanting to maintain groups, so karma has existed throughout history, with different forms and names.
Those who accumulate good deeds in life go to heaven, or those who valiantly die in battle enjoy glory in an eternal battlefield, or today’s sacrifice of a writer, who finishes their quota and spends the night watching VTuber streams while sipping on expensive whiskey.
At first glance, it seems like a truly nice concept. But remember this: people are always easily swayed towards evil, and there are no exceptions in karma.
Those who pile up bad deeds burn in hell, cowards rot meaninglessly in Hell, and the writer who stayed up all night drinking and watching VTuber videos suffers under the last deadline.
And just like that, those who manipulate chances will suffer the consequences of manipulated probabilities.
Like those times I rolled a bunch of gachas recently and got nothing but one-star characters.
“Gah!”
Oh goodness. What an utterly terrifying statistic. Just thinking about it makes me short of breath.
I thought I was used to a ceiling-less system from the early days of the Holy Grail War games, but I realize now it was all just an illusion.
No matter how many four-star abilities and skills I snagged, this is just over the top, isn’t it?
In this medieval fantasy world where the only entertainment is “yas,” to take away the thrill of gacha is just unfair.
But these days painted in shades of gray end today.
Bam!
With a heavy sound, two large bags tumbled across the desk.
After I dashed away from Eve, I headed straight for Benny’s workshop, split the loot half-and-half, played around with Shadow, showed off the one-sided nipple patch I had stealthily grabbed before, and when a horrified Benny chased after me, I shooed him away with “no, please don’t do that.” Only after that did I return to the Fairy and Silver Coin.
Once I silenced Ellie’s nagging about how long I’d been wandering about unnecessarily, saying I was off to get lunch, I holed up in my room and locked the door. That brings us to the current situation.
“This is yas…”
I stroked the piles of gold coins and gemstones with a voice full of delight that escaped me naturally.
Since the gacha operates with gemstones anyway, I gave most of the cash to Benny, so there’s an exciting satisfaction in handling the gemstones I brought over.
So smooth…
Admiring the superior gemstones’ fine colors, I took out the Goddess Statue from my robe pocket.
Today, she seemed rather serene, either because she had nothing special to say, or maybe she had no energy left after using her power in the labyrinth. She maintains her usual posture with open arms.
“Right. Even a goddess must have her share of troubles.”
It has been an established theory for the last thousand years that the Goddess of Love is too busy maintaining the labyrinth to intervene in the mortal world.
However, the Goddess of Love has made quite a few interventions for me.
Manipulating the gacha odds may be indirect intervention, but changing the form of the fully maxed-out goddess statue— which has now become a sacred relic— or whatever she whispered to me in the labyrinth is quite a direct engagement, isn’t it?
Of course, she must have overdone it to some extent. Perhaps there are side effects… like an extended period of guaranteed bomb fail in gacha, very likely.
“But surely, with this much rolled, something will come out.”
No matter how much I’ve pulled in my earnings, I still feel resistance spending such a colossal amount on gacha alone.
This is an amount that could easily buy a full set of gear to use in the mid-tier dungeons, or I could buy high-quality aura formation methods or mana breathing methods, or even purchase overpriced land in Pangrave for a house like Ellie did.
But above all, I think normalizing gacha probability is the priority over all that.
I made a vow to uproot the seeds of calamity I sowed, rather than just living comfortably and warmly.
I can’t leave the gacha, which is the very source of my abilities, in a broken state.
“Huh.”
Even with this much money piled up… or rather, the thought of using it all makes me nervous.
Taking a deep breath, I activated the gacha system.
Ding!
[Regular Draw]
– Consume cash or their equivalent in gemstones to randomly obtain items and skills ranging from 1 to 5 stars.
[1 Draw] [10+1 Draw]
NEW!
[Limited Draw]
– Consume cash or their equivalent in gemstones to randomly obtain items and skills ranging from 1 to 5 stars.
– Probability of 3-star or higher appearing is doubled.
– Probability of masterpiece appearing is halved.
– There are special items and skills that can only be obtained from limited draw.
– Cost is 10 times that of the regular draw.
– Remaining time: 23:59:37
[1 Draw] [10 Draw + 10 regular draw tickets]
“What…!”
There’s a limited draw here…?
To be honest, I expected something like this to come up eventually. After all, wasn’t it clearly labeled “regular” draw?
The fact that it indicates “regular” suggests there’s something special as well.
And now… the limited draw I’ve been eagerly waiting for has finally appeared. The details are a bit different from what I imagined, though.
“It costs 10 times as much? And the bonus for drawing 10 times is a regular draw ticket?”
Am I losing my mind?
A single regular draw is 1 silver, and a 10+1 draw is 10 silvers. So for 1 gold, I could draw 110 times.
But a limited draw just gives you 10 draws for 1 gold. Additionally, you can get 10 more regular draws, but those 10 can also be had for 1 gold worth of draws.
Basically, spending 1 gold only gives me 20 draws in total, between limited draws and regular draws.
No matter how terrible the probabilities are and how this period of penalties is due to my past manipulation…
Ultimately, the most critical aspect of drawing is the number of times you can do it.
Even if the probability of pulling 3 stars increases, cutting the number of gacha pulls by one-tenth is actually a loss, right?
However, even so, my eyes couldn’t tear away from the limited draw.
Is the number of draws really the most important factor in gacha?
If given a choice between rolling 50 times with a 1% chance or 1 time with a 50% chance, I would surely pick the latter.
Isn’t that kind of reasoning applicable to the limited draw too?
Moreover, the probability of masterpieces appearing has been reduced.
Masterpieces are not inherently bad; they’re sort of gimmicky items, but they hold guaranteed liquidity.
Nonetheless, they’re not exactly my favorite category either.
Frankly, this gacha system’s probabilities have always been a mess.
If I sell one 3-star masterpiece, I’d earn dozens of opportunities to roll again. But will there be a worthy 3-star among those dozens?
Nope. At least, it hasn’t happened so far.
In that case, I’d rather have some useless ability rather than a masterpiece.
After all, abilities definitely have a place where they can be utilized.
But to say the probability of pulling 3 stars increases while the chances of masterpieces decreasing?
That’s essentially saying the range of “effective hits” is widening.
In the goddess gacha, there’s no pick-up, but you could say the chance of getting some random guy bursting through the pick-up buff is slim to none.
Especially concerning are the items and skills that appear only in the limited draw.
This damn gacha system is so unfriendly it doesn’t inform you what comes out.
But I have the memories from my past life. I still remember the frustration of missing the limited character and obsessing over it for six months.
Limited characters usually have good performance. Especially if it’s the first limited pick-up, even more so.
That’s common sense, truth, and as solid a statement as the cuteness of an ornithorhynchus.
Moreover, the limited period isn’t even a week; it’s just a single day.
A limited draw while the Goddess of Love endures side effects.
“I can’t help it.”
No matter how I think about it, there surely must be something to it. I’m not being entranced just by the word “absolute limited.”
I’m not pouring gold into the limited draw while being obviously duped by it. I’m chasing something unseen by others!
As my wavering heart tilted to one side, maybe it swayed the moment I saw “limited.”
All I needed was a reason and a bit of courage.
Cursing the last bits of rationality within me, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“5-star! I’m going for it!!!!”
I furiously slammed the limited draw button.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The nonstop alarm echoed in my ears. But it ended roughly ten times faster than I expected.
No matter how much my fingers fiddled, the system showed no reaction. Empty pockets.
And soon after, the clutter and the list appearing on my retina poured onto the bed.
Ding!
Needless to say, in the beginning, I only got one-star items.
Pulling a one-star at ten times the cost made even my heart, as a chronic gacha player, ache… but…
It ended sooner than expected. Apparently, there’s some connection between the goddess’s current state and the limited draw.
As the list started to mix in two-star items, my breaths quickened. Conscious of it, I kept scrolling down.
And then…
“AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”
A dazzling array of colors burst forth, and I let out an involuntary scream.
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