When I realized it, I was in my room, and in front of me, I saw what looked like a Gacha Machine with a lever on the left side and a spinning timer showing 59 seconds.
In my left hand, I was holding the Hook, but in my right hand, a silver coin appeared.
There was a coin slot in the Gacha Machine. I knew what I needed to do.
Without hesitation, I inserted the coin and pulled the lever.
I heard a sound somewhat similar to a casino sound, while on the Gacha Machine screen, I first saw it stop on an Old English Sheepdog, Prince Eric's dog, Max. The second was a seagull named Scuttle, and lastly, it almost stopped on King Triton.
'That's it!' My eyes sparkled.
There was no instruction manual, not even an explanation, so I deduced that I would be able to choose one of the three options that appeared.
But… I was happy too soon. It slowly spun and changed character until it landed on Ariel, the Little Mermaid.
Then, right before my eyes, the Gacha Machine disappeared, and in the air, two cards shone.
I grabbed them.
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1: [Ariel (The Little Mermaid) ★★★☆☆]
2: [Scuttle (The Little Mermaid) ★★☆]
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The fact that I didn't have the option to choose caught me by surprise, but luckily, Ariel appeared among the two cards I got — and by the way, I was expecting only one card.
'She's 3-star but with 5-star potential?'
I still don't know how to increase the star level of each card, but I imagine it must be possible; otherwise, it wouldn't make sense to show that it has the potential to reach 5 stars.
'Maybe if I sacrifice a 3-star card, it might be possible to evolve her to 4 stars?' I thought.
It seemed plausible. I even considered the possibility that not just one 3-star would be necessary — maybe even ten. However, if it's to evolve to 4 stars, I believe it would be worth it.
'Status.'
At my thought, my status page appeared.
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|Name: Noah Amano
|Race: Human
|Level: 2
|Title: ___
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Gacha: 0
GP: 5
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Assimilation in Progress [2/3]: [Hercules (Hercules) - ★★★★★ (20.1%)] - [Elastigirl (The Incredibles) - ★★★★☆ (12.1%)]
Assimilated [1/3]: [Li Shang (Mulan) - ★★★★]
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Summon [1/3]: [Cri-Kee (Mulan) - ★★★ (Loyalty: 55%)]
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"Yes!"
I made a victory gesture with my fist.
'Now I can assimilate three at the same time...'
I went to the drawer and grabbed Frozone's card.
'In a world like One Piece, which is about 90% water, 4 stars for this card is too little,' I thought.
Clicking on assimilate, the card disintegrated in my hand. Soon, the fragments entered my body, and I closed my eyes for a moment.
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Assimilation in Progress [3/3]: [Hercules (Hercules) - ★★★★★ (20.1%)] - [Elastigirl (The Incredibles) - ★★★★☆ (12.1%)] - [Frozone (The Incredibles) - ★★★★ (11.5%)]
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When I opened my eyes, I thought: 'As expected, if it's a male character, even if he has a special ability, assimilation is faster.'
Just to test, I tried to freeze the humid air around me.
After these tests, I thought about the level-up mission I had just completed.
Saying that I expected something like this would be a lie. I never even considered that I would be sent to another dimension because of this Gacha System.
Of course, I thought even less that the mission would be to kill someone. However, I console myself by thinking that the 'intruder' is one of those protagonists from stories where, in their past life, they were complete trash.
Some were even assassins, raised to kill. Others were politicians, even those wretched ones whose titles start with the letter "R."
Of course, I did think for a moment that 'Eric' could be someone innocent, maybe even someone close to a saint who got a chance in another world.
But... would that stop me from wanting to complete the mission if I knew that?
I really didn't want to think about that possibility. The truth was that I didn't know.
Deep down, I knew I wasn't desperately needing this promotion, but at the same time, I wanted it. I wanted to gain more and understand more. Leveling up made me believe that it was possible and proved that I wasn't wrong.
And last but not least... I want to believe that I am not just some puppet of a system. I want to believe that the judgment for this mission was for something good, that what I did was for the better.
I knew myself how superficial I was being, but in the end, I didn't want to—and wouldn't—give up the Gacha System.
But I understood one thing.
The mission to kill or deliver pirates to the navy might have been a test — a test to see whether I was willing to kill or not.
Maybe if my choice had been different and I had never chosen to kill but instead capture those pirates, I wouldn't have even received this mission.
There was a chance that my promotion mission could have been something like retrieving an item, like someone's golden finger — something similar to what happened in 'Konosuba,' where the Goddess Eris disguised herself as a thief and recovered golden fingers.
Or maybe I was overthinking it and would have received this mission anyway... The truth was that I had no idea.
I tried—and keep trying—to communicate with some kind of existence behind this Gacha System, but without any success.
There's not even a manual or anything written to give me better context about it.
In the end, I'll only be able to discover the truth with time.
Anyway, I didn't want to keep thinking about it too much, so I started planning what to do.
I still needed to deal with Arlong. Whether 'Eric' was someone who deserved to die or not wasn't something I wanted to think about right now.
'With my current strength, using the Hook, dealing with Arlong shouldn't be difficult,' I thought.
My goal of reaching 20% assimilation with Hercules was completed. Not to mention that I even had something extra, like Elastigirl's and Frozone's abilities.
By the way, if there was something truly good that I got out of all this, it was that since I leveled up to level 2 and started assimilating Frozone, the influence I still had from Elastigirl pretty much disappeared.
'I hope this lets me assimilate his powers faster,' I thought.
As long as I'm not influenced, I wanted to assimilate his abilities as soon as possible.
I was almost putting the cards I had acquired back in the drawer when I noticed something strange.
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[Ariel (The Little Mermaid) - ★★★☆☆]
Assimilation: Ariel, the Mermaid Princess of Atlantis, is driven by an insatiable curiosity and a passionate heart. Unfortunately, she was deceived and lost her powers and voice after being tricked by the Sea Witch, Ursula.
Summon: Formerly a mermaid princess of Atlantis, with her enchanting voice, she could soothe hearts and influence emotions, while her ability to swim swiftly and breathe underwater made her a formidable ally in aquatic environments. However, she lost all of that and became a voiceless human.
Note: If summoned, only if she kisses her true love will she be able to break the curse of the Sea Witch, Ursula (Deadline after summoning: 3 days). If the curse is broken, she will automatically evolve to 4 stars.
Note 2: If assimilated, the gains will be minimal. Recommended not to do this.
Note 3: She can also be used to evolve a 3-star card with 4+ star potential. But attention: only if it is the same card you wish to evolve — in other words, another Ariel card, which will have a higher value. If you try to use her to evolve a different 3-star card, her value is reduced by half.
Card Evolution: 3 Ariel cards, the Mermaid Princess of Atlantis, or alternatively 6 random 3-star cards.
Warning: Since Ariel is in a special condition, when evolving to 4 stars, she will still retain the negative effect unless the curse is broken. The only advantage of doing this without breaking the curse is to convert her into 4-star card fragments.
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Previously, there were none of these notes, not even a better description of what would happen if I assimilated or summoned. I hadn't noticed it before because I only glanced at the number of stars, and the notes were written in very small text to fit on the card.
If before I didn't understand anything, now I understood better how these cards worked.
And, from what I understood, I need 1+3 cards of the same type with 3 stars to evolve to 4 stars. Or 6 different cards from the one I wish to evolve.
The Frozone card I just assimilated was 4 stars, but it couldn't evolve to 5 stars, unlike the Elastigirl card.
'I should have read the card before...'
I don't believe Frozone's maximum potential was only 4 stars. In my opinion, it should be at least 5 stars.
But, just like Ariel's card, Frozone's card should have had some note explaining why it was like that.
Maybe some kind of injury he suffered that reduced his maximum potential?
Honestly, I don't know, and unfortunately, I didn't get any information when I opened my status and clicked on him. It only highlighted while showing the assimilation value.
'Okay, I'm not going to keep speculating. Let me check the other cards I got before first.'
One by one, I picked them up and looked at them.
However, I didn't find any information that added anything useful.
Actually, I lied. There was something.
Item cards could be fused with a success and failure percentage. Additionally, they could also evolve without a substantial modification, just increasing their power level by increasing their stars.
'I want to upgrade the Hook's stars,' I thought.
I admit that seeing all this, I somewhat regret not spending my GP on silver scrolls instead of buying the gold ones.
With several cards, I could now have evolved a character or even an item card to 5 stars...
'Okay, no point crying over spilled milk.' I got up from the bed.
When I finally noticed what time it was, I froze.