Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 124: Preview
Impossible...
This...
This was a death omen...
How...?!
The mechanics of the new Romance Trope gacha were... unique. As expected it was designed to maximize both hope and expenditure. Different from the straightforward (if brutal) bond banners, this one came with layers.
The old banners for the men themselves had expired, and she’d assumed that Chapter was closed unless some new, unfortunate soul stumbled into her orbit. It was a prospect she actively dreaded.
She wouldn’t go out of her way to roll again. Nope. Never.
Three was already tumultuous enough. Adding another one felt like inviting chaos. And honestly, what other man out there would be crazy enough to want this? To want her, with all her baggage and her trio of dangerous consorts?
Truthfully, she wouldn’t roll for more because... in the quiet, secret chambers of her heart, she felt a certainty. Only these three impossible men could ever love her in the ways they did.
Oathran with her childhood oath, Arkai with his fierce, gentle respect that bordered on worship, and Eastiel with his devotion written in blood and fury.
If there was no more, it was a relief.
So, fortified by that, she’d examined the new banner’s rules. Her initial reaction was a deep frown.
"Choose one ’precise wish’... If you win the 50/50, you can get one of the three five-star scenarios. But if you don’t get the scenario you set as the precise wish, you are guaranteed to get it within the next—oh for God’s sake, this is complicated as fuck!"
She parsed it out. Three grand prizes, the ’School Days’ scenarios for each man. The usual pool of standard five-star items lurked as the ’loss’ condition.
So, within 70 rolls, she could either lose the 50/50 and get a powerful but generic artifact, or win the 50/50 and snag a scenario.
Winning didn’t guarantee it would be the one she’d ’precisely wished’ for. If it wasn’t, then the next time she hit a five-star within 70 rolls, it would be her chosen one.
Standard gacha psychological torture.
She’d braced herself for a long, costly grind, a calculated drain on the resources she’d stockpiled.
Which was why... with how low the percentage of winning what she wanted at all... this felt like a death omen.
DI-DI-DING!
[Five-stars Scenario: Eastiel Edengold, the Bully!]
DI-DI-DING!
[Five-stars Scenario: Arkai Dawnoro, the Student Council President!]
DI-DI-DING!
[Five-stars Scenario: Oathran Alicei, the Transfer Student!]
All of them... WITHIN TEN ROLLS???
This wasn’t luck. This was the universe loading the gun before a betrayal. A pit yawned open in her stomach. In her experience, windfalls this massive were always, always followed by something really, really bad.
"You know what, System?" she said aloud. "If you want to somehow kill me, just kill me. Don’t reward me and then drop a meteor on my head out of nowhere."
[GASP!]
[Cecilia... how could you???]
Eh?
[We are not one of those kinds of cheap, cut-rate systems who would force you to play the game with death penalties and constant mortal threats! That is unethical!]
Huh?
There were... systems like that? Other people were out there being threatened with death if they didn’t complete daily quests?
[If a story needs to constantly threaten you with death to generate tension or ensure progress of the plot, then the story itself must be a cheap, soulless fabrication!]
The System huffed.
[We chose you because we admire the essence of your soul! Your narrative agency is paramount! Your story and character are already beautiful!]
"Wa-wa-wai-wait a minute." Cecilia’s jaw went slack. "You systems... there’s a whole... ecosystem of you? And there are poor saps out there who got dragged into stupid shit like this, but have to actually pay with their lives if they fail???"
A long pause.
[...is that an insult, Cecilia...?]
Even through her shock, Cecilia couldn’t forget the sheer, reality-warping power behind this entity. It was capitalistic, voyeuristic, and annoyingly cheerful, but it had reshaped her destiny.
The idea that there were darker, crueler versions of it, systems that operated on fear and extinction... it painted a horrifying picture of cosmic arbitrariness. Were there whole worlds operating on those vicious rules?
BZZZT—BZZZZ—BZZZZT—
A sudden, violent crackle of static erupted in her mind, sharp enough to make her wince. The System’s voice fragmented.
[Managing error... Accessing restricted data stream...]
[We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please do not worry about other operational frameworks. No one would dare to implement such barbaric protocols under the vigilant watch of ###### ## ###!]
The last part was a burst of garble, a name or title forcefully scrambled into incoherence. A name that inspired enough fear in the System itself to trigger a censorship protocol.
What even was that...? The god behind the gods? The manager of the systems?
The static faded, leaving a faint, buzzing aftertaste in her mind. The System seemed... flustered.
"Alright, don’t force yourself, System," Cecilia said, a strange, weary empathy cutting through her alarm. She’d just hit the jackpot and then accidentally stumbled into cosmic classified information. "We don’t want you to go offline for another 24 hours..."
The morning with Oathran had yielded nothing but spent resources. Forty rolls, a significant chunk of her carefully hoarded currency, vanished into the ether without a single chime of success.
They’d woken, dressed, and set about the day’s logistics, coordinating the distribution of the diluted elixirs to both Hettor in the jungle and Qinryc in Cassia. Then, they’d taken to the skies, the world shrinking below them as Oathran’s powerful wings carried them toward their next destination.
The desert palace.
They’d arrived to find Eastiel still embroiled in the day’s court. Not wanting to disrupt the lion’s job, Oathran had announced his intention to ’wash off the journey’ and vanished toward the bathhouses, leaving her alone in one of the sun-drenched parlors.
Alone, with the System interface glowing invitingly in her mind’s eye. One more ten-roll, she’d thought. Just to see.
That was when the impossible happened. Ten rolls. Three earth-shattering chimes.
Crazy.
Now, sitting in the honeyed afternoon light of the desert palace, she focused on them, and the previews shimmered into view.
[Eastiel Edengold, the Bully]
The image materialized, and Cecilia’s breath caught.
It was Eastiel, but... not.
"Oh my God... such a... bad boy...?"
He wore a stiff, dark uniform, the collar slightly askew as if he’d been in a scuffle. His famous golden mane was gone, shorn into a short, practical hair that somehow made the sharp angles of his face even more pronounced.
Human ears. Human ears! And he looked... so young. The regal gravity was replaced by a raw, athletic arrogance. A smudge on his cheek, a defiant glint in those familiar golden eyes that were narrowed in a permanent, captivating sneer.
He looked mean. Snarky. Ready to pick a fight with the world over a philosophical comma. A laugh burst from her, followed immediately by a fierce, hot blush that crept up her neck.
This... this reminded her of the young man she knew too well. The brilliant, furious critic who would debate her, the temple, the empire, and the world into the ground.
[Arkai Dawnoro, the Student Council President]
GASP!
Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh. Oh. Arkai looked... youthful. The burdens of lordship and loss were softened, though a hint of that solemn, world-weary understanding still lingered in the depths of his eyes, making him seem wiser than his years.
The title fit him like a glove. ’Student Council President’(?), whatever that was, it spoke of quiet authority, of responsibility shouldered willingly, of being the steady rock everyone relied on.
The uniform was crisp and proper on him, but her imagination effortlessly filled in the powerful lines of muscle hidden beneath the structured fabric. Mmm... A different kind of heat bloomed in her chest. This was the protector, the leader, the one who made you feel safe just by standing in the room.
[Oathran Alicei, the Transfer Student]
Eh?
Eeeeehhh???
Her brain short-circuited.
Seeing Eastiel with short hair was a shock. But this—Oathran with short hair?!
How?! How could—How?!
Short hair Oathran?! Whuh?! Huh?!
She had to consciously remind herself to breathe. Forget the ’transfer student’ thing. The hair. The glorious, misty white waterfall that was as much a part of him as his horns or his wings, the hair she loved to twist her fingers in, that framed his ancient, perfect face... it was gone. Cropped close to his head in a style that was severe, modern, and devastatingly handsome. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
He looked... ancient and majestic with long hair. He was glorious, powerful, beautiful, perfect.
But this short hair... ah...
It was fierce. It was sharp. It stripped away the fairytale prince and revealed... something else? The ruthless warrior? Not quite... The cutting intellect? Yes, but not that too... The man who could walk unnoticed in a crowd yet still commands it with a glance? Yes. Yes. That’s it.
He looked like the strongest. The honored one. ’The’ Goj—
Mmmmmmmm... She knew part of the allure was the sheer novelty. She would never see him like this in real life. It was a forbidden glimpse, a ’what if’ given form.
But it felt like more than just a cosmetic change. As she stared at the image of the short-haired, uniformed Oathran, his mist-grey eyes holding a familiar, melancholic intensity even in this youthful guise, it felt like...
It felt like a life where Oathran wasn’t a Dragon Lord.
A life where he wouldn’t need to...
...die.
