Chapter 35: Luck Value

Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Luck Value

He stared at the System window with wide eyes, stunned by such an incredible development. Finally, after all this time, he had obtained coins for his gacha system. And that wasn’t even the most incredible part.

’Status...’ he thought.

The System window responded to his request and showed him what had changed.

***

Status

[Name: Victor Sapphire (Prime)]

[Rank: Initiate]

[Classification: 740,236,404]

[Path: Gacha System Master]

[Path Rank: Initiate]

***

Gacha

[Currency: 600]

[Summons: 6]

[Luck Value: 4/100]

***

[Your Luck Value has increased. In turn, your chances of obtaining better gacha summons have increased considerably.]

If he had already been happy about defeating the Penitents of the Mist, this incredible reward made him even happier. He looked at Brika, hoping she wasn’t doing anything strange while he was still stunned, but the goblin seemed to have her own interests to attend to.

She was staring at her own System window with an astonished expression. Apparently, they had both received incredible rewards for their victory.

"Did you move up in the rankings?" he asked.

"Yes," Brika replied without taking her eyes off her System window. "I’m ranked 732,888,459. I climbed a lot higher than I expected."

Victor certainly hadn’t expected to climb so many places in the rankings either. Since the same thing had happened to Brika, he wondered whether moving up the rankings had any benefits beyond serving as an indication of a participant’s power.

After dismissing the window, Brika crouched beside one of the corpses. Victor watched as she ripped the claws off several Penitents.

Aside from their terrible stench, their bodies didn’t reveal much: a simple composition of bones, black robes, and sharp metallic claws. How could they even become intangible, and why was light their weakness?

Perhaps these were questions Victor would never be able to answer, since he was eager to move forward and escape this dark scenario.

A couple of seconds later, Brika reached into a Penitent’s robe and pulled out a round, black stone. Victor could tell that the foul smell came from it, or at the very least, that the stench was concentrated there.

Even Brika noticed the stench, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"This thing... is a magic core."

"A core? So the Penitents are like golems, then?"

"Seems that way, although there’s no sign that anyone created or controls them. They just seem like wild animals roaming freely in the darkness."

That didn’t reveal much, but at least they could infer that there wasn’t some great villain behind the origin of the Penitents of the Mist. That was one less problem to worry about.

Brika stood up and approached Victor.

"Get your bag. We’re taking the Penitents’ claws with us."

"Do you think they could be useful for making weapons or as raw materials for other items?"

"I don’t think so. It’s obvious," Brika replied dryly.

Victor sighed. He already had plenty of things to think about, but Brika was right. So he went to get his bag, and the two of them stored the Penitents’ claws inside.

With that taken care of, they both looked toward the darkness, at the long road still stretching ahead of them, the path they would have to travel to escape the scenario.

No one knew when that torment would end, since Brika couldn’t make out its end among the blurred shapes on the horizon. Even so, perhaps they were getting closer to reaching it.

Later, they rested in one of the houses, which was now illuminated by candlelight. Sitting on the floor in the corner farthest from Victor, Brika used duct tape to attach her flashlight to her pistol.

She turned the flashlight on, then off again to check whether it was firmly attached. Victor leaned back in his chair and watched the flames in the kitchen stove.

’That’s pretty clever. If you shine the flashlight at a Penitent, you’ll make it tangible and be able to shoot it without hesitation.’

Perhaps Brika hadn’t thought of that because she could see in the dark. Victor, on the other hand, had initially thought that carrying a light source would be a problem because it could attract monsters.

And he had been partly right, since the torchlight was what had attracted the first Penitent.

In any case, he wanted to focus on the gacha. He now had 600 coins, and his Luck Value had increased. He was eager to spend all those coins, but whenever he looked at Brika, he remembered that he didn’t want to reveal his Path to her.

But that would be unfair to her, wouldn’t it? Victor now knew that Brika could exchange points for items related to firearms through her System. Her Path, Call of War, was pretty obvious by this point.

’Would it be okay to use it in front of her? I’m not sure she knows about gacha systems, so she might think we have similar Paths.’

Well, he couldn’t treat the young goblin as if she were his enemy all the time. Brika had more than proven herself to be an excellent ally, but what if it was all just another act? It would be less obvious than that idiot Ayax’s performance.

Despite that, Victor remembered the moment he had met her.

’You can’t fake such clear resignation to death.’

He knew the look of those who genuinely wanted to die. He shook his head, as if trying to shake off those dark thoughts, and called up the gacha system.

[6 Summons Available]

[Cost: 600 Coins]

[Perform Summon?]

[ Yes ] [ No ]

Victor looked at Brika, then at the window.

’If she betrays me, I won’t hesitate to kill her.’

With that thought in mind, he said:

"Summon."

The sphere appeared. Brika raised her eyes and watched what Victor was doing. The colors passing by one after another were somewhat uncomfortable to look at, but she didn’t seem to mind too much.

Victor looked into her eyes as if he were asking her a question:

’After this, will we be enemies?’