NOVEL NEXT Chapter 6 - Let's Pray
While summoning the holy grail that had been sleeping in the revelation and placing it on the ground, filling it with the divine stones Ark had scattered.
Yohena stole a glance at Ark’s face.
‘Celestia’ is a city where chosen heroes gather.
Of course, there were people who were original residents.
Ark, the ‘Shop Owner’, appeared in the city at some point, just like the heroes.
Buying things that made you wonder why he’d buy them.
Selling things that made you wonder if anyone needed them.
And always with his hood pulled down deep, never showing his face to anyone.
Sometimes when chatting with other heroes who visited the sanctuary, she had joked about him.
Saying that no matter what angle you looked from, you couldn’t properly see the face inside, so wasn’t it a robe with some kind of perception-hindering magic?
‘I remember questioning why such a thing would be necessary.’
Seeing the face under the hood today.
Wow, damn, jackpot.
It seemed necessary.
There were quite a few friends among the heroes who had a thing for men, and if they saw him, their eyes would spin and they’d immediately cling to him.
And such a man.
Was looking only at his fingertips with sparkling clear eyes that seemed to have perfectly preserved the purity of childhood.
The Revealer from another dimension she had seen earlier.
It was the complete opposite of his indifferent face devoid of any emotion, with dead eyes.
‘Haah…’
Thinking about that, Yohena suddenly felt her chest tighten.
“Yohena? Are you okay?”
“Ah, yes. Shall we start?”
As if he had accurately sensed such negative thoughts dominating her mind.
A kind and pleasant voice dug into Yohena’s ears.
If only Ark had been the real Revealer.
…Yohena shook her head, startled by the fact that she had harbored thoughts she shouldn’t have as a saint.
Thoughts shouldn’t contaminate the revelation.
Focus, focus.
For a F2P player, gacha is a major event.
The act of collecting divine stones by watching the story, clearing stages, and doing various things is called ‘mining’.
When all the divine stones that can be collected in-game are exhausted, it’s called a ‘depleted mine’.
The key to F2P is.
How much you can complete your deck before the mine is depleted.
That first grand opportunity was about to unfold before my eyes now.
‘…It’s not the first time though.’
The tutorial gacha was rolled before the protagonist ran off in their underwear.
But it’s the first time for me.
“O beloved Goddess Sweetie, this lowly servant now offers a prayer to you…”
Yohena started mumbling prayers.
Suddenly the sky darkened, and white fire flared up from the holy grail placed on the ground!
“Oh, gacha animation.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Ari, will you pray together too?”
“Sure!”
I couldn’t hold back my muttering.
It was a scene I had seen countless times on my smartphone screen, in the app player on my monitor.
But seeing it in reality, wow, the crackling sparks were quite a spectacle.
The flames that bloomed gradually intensified.
Eventually changing to a clear golden light.
A very intuitive system.
If the result is up to 3-star, it’s white.
If it’s 4-star, it’s gold.
If it’s 5-star, it’s a brilliant rainbow color.
…Anyway, a 10-pull guarantees a 4-star, so it’s gold for now.
Still, there were cases where the flame color changed to rainbow if a 5-star appeared in the middle.
‘It’s not easy.’
Right.
Considering the probability, getting a 5-star in just a 10-pull is greedy.
Finally, a massive beam of light shot up vertically from the holy grail.
Swoosh──!
Following the trajectory of that light beam, one white shooting star.
It’s a 3-star. That can happen.
And then shooting stars started falling sequentially.
White.
White.
White.
White…
No. This isn’t right though.
When I saw white for the sixth time.
“Rainbow!”
I couldn’t help but shout.
But cruelly, white again.
“Rainbooow!!!!”
“Rainbow~?”
Ari added a chorus from the side.
Right, let’s pray.
Let’s pray.
Beloved Sweetie? What kind of goddess name is that…
“Gasp, what am I thinking! Rainbooow!!!!”
However.
The eighth, ninth were also all too natural white stars.
Finally.
A golden star that seemed to contain mercy saying it would forgive even you who committed blasphemy… plop into the brazier.
“Phew…”
It’s a sight you can see very often when rerolling.
But seeing it in real life made it five hundred times more frustrating.
Still.
“That’s too bad. Yohena, good job.”
The stack of blasphemy I accumulated earlier.
I need to resolve it by patting the saint.
“Uh, uhh…? Y-Yes. Thank you, Ark…”
As if my faith had reached the saint.
Yohena’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s again.
Karma cleansing complete.
I won’t doubt you.
You’ll give me a rainbow next time, right?
With such earnest feelings, I forced my twisted lips to form a smile.
Yohena put her hand into the brazier where the flames had completely disappeared and rummaged around.
She took out nine white papers and one gold paper.
It made me feel a bit bitter.
“Wow, it’s gold…!”
It’s guaranteed.
Saint, are you going to act like an amateur?
I received the paper Yohena handed over shyly, and flipped through it like checking banknotes.
At least the hand feel is good.
[3-star Generic Hero Contract x9]
[A contract that allows you to make contracts with heroes gathered from various places to solve the anomaly of the tower. You can make a contract by presenting it to a 3-star hero.]
Let’s set this aside for now.
Let’s see.
Who is it?
Who made the golden sound?
[4-star Hero ‘Setis’ Contract x1]
[This is the contract of Setis, a magician from the City of Flames. Her neat personality can be felt from the signature.]
[※ Setis will appear in the field after conquering the 3rd floor of the tower.]
“……”
Even I.
Couldn’t help but have my expression harden in front of this terrible scrap that seemed to have just arrived from this flame hell.
As with most gacha games.
While there are 3-stars that perform better than 5-stars.
There are also 4-stars that perform worse than 3-stars.
A master of F2P fire decks.
Even I, who would definitely send a meme post whenever I wrote a guide.
It was the very embodiment of waste that I couldn’t find a use for and ended up stashing away in the alchemy workshop.
Moreover, there’s even a restriction that I can’t recruit her right now.
It’s truly a dud.
A mega dud!
For now, there was nothing I could do immediately.
I stuffed the contracts into my inventory.
“Yohena, and Ari? Are you not tired by any chance?”
I threw out a courteous question.
“A little…?”
“I’m fine.”
Ari made a slightly tired expression.
Jingle──
“No, no, I’m fine! I’m overflowing with energy right now!”
Ari immediately perked up when I shook a bottle of experience potion I had left as a reserve just in case.
Is this how a child feels when seeing Santa Claus’s gift bag?
How happy she must be.
I must give her plenty of REWARD later.
Zone 5 is where monsters that attack from range first appear.
As you go up to higher floors.
The patterns get dirtier, with monsters that don’t just target the front-line tank.
But snipe the back-line dealers first.
However, now it’s all just one arrow shot.
If it were a battle left to AI like in the original.
It would have proceeded by attacking the close-range slimes first.
“Ari, can you attack that slime with the horn-like thing first?”
“Leave it to me!”
When given specific instructions.
She carries them out specifically.
It felt like I was being healed from the painful past of almost throwing my phone countless times.
“…Yohena? Why are you healing me?”
“Ah, just… because I’m bored.”
I was really being healed.
It must be boring.
“There’s some potion left, if you drink this you should be able to beat up slimes even with that book. Want to drink?”
“Noooooo. I’m fine.”
The way she shook her head violently.
It was almost like headbanging at a rock concert.
As expected of the saint.
She must have understood with her brilliant mind that the party’s main dealer needs to get stronger first.
While I was thinking that.
Swoooosh──!
Pop!
The impact feels good.
If the original had this level of impact, it would have been an even more godly game.
[Tower of Wishes Floor 1 – Land of Fresh Verdure Zone 5 Cleared!]
Remaining stamina is 80.
40 for zones 6 to 9. 20 for zone 10 where the boss appears.
Should we force our way to Floor 2 Zone 2?
No. If I push too hard on the first day, a rebellion might occur.
I’m not the Revealer but the shop owner.
So let’s take it easy.
“Let’s just go to the end of the 1st floor. Aren’t you curious? What kind of monster might be waiting?”
“……”
“Ark…?”
Jingle jingle.
“Let’s go.”
Motivation!
Passing through various slimes with bland colors and different shapes.
Zone 8.
“The color of the slimes has changed!”
“Let’s see. According to the revelation, monsters also have attributes, and if you draw out power matching their attribute to attack…”
While the tutorial saint was fulfilling her duty.
“Ari. Just shoot.”
I gave instructions silently.
1.5 times damage to favorable attributes.
0.75 times damage to unfavorable attributes.
But in the face of overwhelming strength?
Pop!
“Well done, Ari.”
Attributes are meaningless before that.
Even the earth attribute slime, which is unfavorable to Ari’s wind attribute, was one-shot.
Jingle jingle.
The divine stones I deliberately put in my pocket, not the inventory, made a pleasant clinking sound.
Before we knew it, Zone 10.
“It’s really big…”
King Slime. Level 10.
The boss has appeared.
“Um, Ark. Can I really handle that alone too…? I’m really weak in close combat…”
Once again, courage drained from Ari’s body.
“Ari can do it.”
“Ari can do iiiit…!”
Courage recharge complete.
Ari pursed her lips.
From my observations so far, it’s a kind of tic… no, habit.
It was a silly expression that came out when she was highly concentrated.
I appreciated Ari comfortably with my hands behind my back.
A light wind hummed around Ari’s feet.
The blue energy gathering on the arrow gradually became clearer.
After the trembling bow found stability.
Fire!
“Kyuuu───!”
It pierced right into the slime’s plump belly, making a hole pop in its body.
“Uh, uh, uh? I-It’s not dead…!”
“Shoot one more time. Yohena?”
“Blessing of the stars.”
It’s holding up well, probably because it’s a boss.
Perhaps because the saint’s buff also had a psychological stabilizing effect, Ari, whose SAN was about to plummet, quickly regained her composure.
One more shot.
“Kyuaaang!”
Oh singular strike!
With a brilliant effect that anyone would recognize as a critical hit popping off.
The King Slime exploded, scattering sticky bodily fluids everywhere.
“Ah.”
That’s all materials.
Gotta pick them up.
As I was quickly moving to pick them up and put them in my inventory.
[Tower of Wishes Floor 1 – Land of Fresh Verdure Zone 10 Cleared!]
[You can now enter Floor 2 of the Tower of Wishes.]
[New feature unlocked: Guild House]
[New feature unlocked: Hero Dispatch]
A status window congratulating the clear popped up a beat late.
And new features were unlocked one after another.
But that wasn’t the important thing.
“No way, no way…!”
My whole body trembled with excitement.
In the place where the King Slime disappeared after rolling around with an ‘X_X’ expression.
A single card had fallen.
Carefully picking it up.
[King Slime Card]
[A card depicting ‘King Slime’, the boss of the Land of Fresh Verdure. Its cute expression is exquisite.]
[When equipped to a weapon, increases the hero’s critical hit chance by 5%]
A trophy that drops with a low probability of 0.5%, derived from aggregating user big data!
As you go up to higher floors, whether you land critical hits has a huge impact on clearing.
It was a spec-up element that people would pour hundreds, no, thousands of stamina into farming for.
Although the gacha failed.
Still, it seems the prayer earlier had an effect.
With a refreshed feeling.
I had a bright smile on my lips.
Today.
“I’m lucky.”
“…Ark? Are you saying we should sleep here?”
“Umm… I’ll return to the sanctuary. I’ll visit the shop in the morning.”
My luck was good.
But the world is screwing me over.
The ‘Guild House’, which should have been repaired to some extent to a livable condition while going through the tutorial normally.
That is, the lodging for the heroes belonging to my party.
It was the very embodiment of desolation!
The sight that unfolded before my eyes was reminiscent of the abandoned houses and haunted houses that YouTubers go looking for.
[Guild House]
[Provide a comfortable home for recruited heroes to increase their efficiency.]
Current capacity: 1 / 8 people
Current comfort: 0
Current coziness: 0
Current splendor: 0
The cowardly traitor, Yohena, quickly fled, saying she had her own place to lay her body.
“Um, Ark. …No, right?”
Ari said in a trembling voice from behind.
I quietly turned around.
And gently cupped Ari’s face.
“Ari is the best. Ari can do it.”
“Ari is the be… No, this is still not okay!!!”
Tsk.
It’s not working.
Tonight seemed like it would be a bit longer.