"By the way, Roland, why haven"t you been making your Gachapon draws lately?"Harloys had received many benefits from being Roland"s soulbound equipment, and she was quite curious about the System hidden within him. The System"s power to distort karma was absolutely inconceivable. As long as it was used properly, it would be ridiculously powerful.
"…I recently used some draws but never got a single good item."
"Why haven"t I heard you mention this before!?"
Harloys was astonished to hear this. With her understanding of Roland, he would have definitely bragged about and shown off anything wonderful he obtained. So, since he wasn"t bragging about his good luck, that meant…
"…Yep, there"s no need to talk about the results. In the last ten draws, I got five blue, four purple, and one orange."
"That"s not bad, though—why didn"t you mention it at all?"
As of late, Harloys had come to understand Roland"s strange terms. Blue meant Elite-tier, purple meant Myth, or Epic-tier, and orange meant Legend-tier items. Getting four Epic-tier items—and one rated even higher—seemed like quite the good deal to her.
"I"ll refrain from mentioning the Elite items. Although none of them are that great, they"re at least somewhat usable."
"…Then the Epic-tier items should be even better."
"Yep, I was delighted when I got my first Epic-tier item. It was "Kratos" Guide to Melee Combat, Part 1.""[1]1
"Kratos? Who"s that?"
"Some vicious individual who"s skilled at slaying demons, dragons, and G.o.ds. To use a not-so-suitable a.n.a.logy, he"s basically the equivalent of a great Sword Saint from the immemorial generation."
"Then isn"t that a wonderful thing?"
"I looked through this book, and it was indeed written by him. Slaying an immemorial War G.o.d, singlehandedly killing a SemiG.o.d Hydra, and engaging in melee combat with colossal gargoyle monsters. This Part 1 book contains his heroic deeds, where he defeated everyone and made himself look stronger than the G.o.ds. I checked the historical records, and he really was a person from the immemorial generation."
"…Then why aren"t you happy?"
"Just Part 1 alone is incredibly thick. You could use it as a brick! And it doesn"t contain any techniques about practical combat whatsoever. It only has his heroic deeds, which means it"s nothing more than the game"s history to me—er—like a knight novel. How could I possibly be happy? Not only that, the final page of Part 1 stated that Part 2 has the secret techniques on how to craft his unique weapons, and that Part 3 has his combat techniques and experience."
"I understand now. Part 1 was useless, while the other parts are useful. And you never drew the other parts, which is why you"re so depressed!"
"No, I actually drew Part 2 right after that one, which included the technique to create the immemorial G.o.d Weapon known as the Chaos Sword…"
"What? Show me!"
After some slight hesitation, I handed over a very small booklet.
"…That"s all? The materials required, the smithing process, enchantment, and everything else necessary for a G.o.d Equipment"s construction should be enough to fill up an entire library."
Well, there was no need for me to explain anything to her as she immediately opened up the booklet. After reading what was written, her expression was one of shock—the contents were, to say the least, quite simple.
"Find a G.o.d, kill him, then steal his weapon. There you go, now you have a G.o.d Equipment. After killing off several G.o.ds, you"ll definitely obtain a one-handed G.o.d-tier sword sooner or later. If you"re too unlucky, then try again. But this method is somewhat limited. For instance, I found a Harem G.o.d last time and managed to slay him, which gave me a two-handed sword G.o.d Equipment. Unfortunately, I don"t know twin-handed sword techniques, so I was unable to use it. Ptui! These random drops are so ridiculous, and the G.o.d Equipment is bound to my soul, so I can"t even give it away to one of my followers."
"…Haha. I suppose he"s such a practical fellow."
Harloys forced herself to chuckle twice in an effort to console me as I was becoming more and more annoyed.
"Good luck to you. Perhaps you"ll even draw Part 3 in the future. At the very least, the fighting techniques in Part 3 should be useful, right?"
"…Don"t even mention it! I, in fact, did draw "Kratos" guide to melee combat" yet again."
Harloys sympathetically looked over at me. Even though I was trying my best to keep up a smile, it was apparent that there had been some problem—that was how my luck typically went.
"You can"t learn the technique?"
"…No, although I drew "Kratos" guide to melee combat," again, this time it was "The continuation of my heroic deeds that I didn"t mention last time, so allow me to continue in this addendum." I read it for two hours—how this Spartan Kratos fellow discussed fighting with his SemiG.o.d brother, how he challenged the t.i.tan Giants, and how he was being hunted by the Mother Earth G.o.ddess. As expected of a hero with Barbarian blood, he sure knows how to brag. If everything he said was real, then wouldn"t he be able to kill off the G.o.ds and destroy the world…?"
"…I truly do sympathize with you. But if these were three out of four of the Epic-tier items, what was the fourth?"
"Ha! The fourth one was "The addendum to the addendum of Kratos" guide to melee combat: Since I know you didn"t really believe me, now let me tell you all the evidence; just listen, that t.i.tan Giant was truly larger than a mountain, and this Hydra was larger than a s.h.i.+p…" I read this book for two full days and deeply learned about the importance of teaching literacy to the Barbarians. Forget about misspelled words—he didn"t even use any punctuation! Do you know what it"s like to have obsessive-compulsive disorder and correct every single bit of his punctuation? I read it for two days, but I spent two weeks correcting his grammar!"
"You really did finish it!"
"…Well, he"s still a super powerful individual from the immemorial generation. Perhaps he knew some top secrets. But the result was…"
"Don"t frown like that. It"s still of the Epic tier, right? It should at least be something good. A G.o.d Equipment?"
"Ha, from a certain standpoint, it really was. Kratos" full set of defensive equipment, the real deal."
"Doesn"t that mean you profited in the end? Wait a moment, you said that Kratos was a Barbarian…"
"…That"s right! No matter if it was the immemorial generation or in today"s age, Barbarians have always fought while naked. But, Kratos was better than most as he still wore one defensive piece of equipment, which my System reviewed as Legend-tier."
"…So what was it?"
"Well, it"s a p.o.o.p-yellow pair of strawberry blazoned underwear, original flavor. Would you like it? I"ll give it to you for free!"
"…Disgusting! Hurry up and throw it away! You actually carry such a disgusting thing on yourself!?"
"I don"t have any choice. It"s the same as those soulbound twin swords of his—his underpants are actually soulbound to me! I can"t even throw it away if I want to! Come, why don"t you try?"
After some chaos and scuffling, I confirmed that even though Harloys also counted as my bound equipment, she was still unable to equip this s.h.i.+ning "soulbound" underwear of mine. I could only helplessly bring out a large amount of bandages, tie the underwear up again, and throw it back into my personal dimensional storage.
"…Truly a pitfall of Gachapon draws. At least those Elite-tier items were useful, right?"
"Yeah, the Elite-tier items were special type of cards, each with a rune etched onto it. As long as I got "San, Yang, Kai, Tai!" I would be able to obtain a G.o.d Equipment that Kratos had personally used. For this, I even specifically asked my System. She said there would be no pitfall involved with the G.o.d Equipment and it would definitely be real."
"You have five Elite grade items? Doesn"t that mean you drew them all? There are only four runes, right?"
"Yep. Although I drew two "Yang" runes, I indeed drew all four of those runes. But…"
"But?"
"I didn"t draw the exclamation mark! The d.a.m.ned exclamation mark was required for part of the runes as well! I needed a total of five runes, including the punctuation!"
"…You could have kept drawing. You would have drawn it sooner or later."
"Heh heh, just where do you think that 418 Justice Point random draw package deal idea came from? After that, I drew "?", ","".", ":", ";", and even "…" and "¿". The System must have been trying to torture me! San, Yang, Kai, and Tai? Why was there only no d.a.m.ned exclamation mark!?!"
"I can understand how you feel. But please don"t stress out about it—that"s just how random draws work. Some people win, and some people lose…"
"Haha, but I"ve never won! Relax. I already know how to make myself feel better. Whenever I"m feeling terrible, all I have to do is make someone feel even worse. Heh, I"ve already made arrangements with the Justice Points system. They want to obtain my treasures? Sure, but they"re going to have to make random draws! The 418 Justice Point random draw package deal is only the basic package. There"s also 688 and 1088! My goal is to make others draw till they quit or go bankrupt!"
"Why don"t you learn how to quit first?"
Author"s Note:
Today is New Year"s, and it"s quite noisy in my home. I don"t want to write anything, nor do I know what to write. My chronic laziness is here again, and I really want to take a break like all the other authors... But since it"s New Year"s, I"m sure there are many readers with free time waiting for the next chapter who"d be disappointed upon seeing no new chapter. That"s why I still wrote something. After thinking for a long while, I thought that it is, after all, New Year"s, and it"d be rather boring to push the main plot along. So why not write something fun? I hope this chapter gives you a good chuckle—that"ll bring a smile to me as well!
Finally, Happy New Year"s to everyone! I wish you all stay healthy and happy together with your families! San Yang Kai Tai![2]2(This time, it"s not the wrong words!)
Note:
[1] TL/N: Reference to Kratos from the game G.o.d of War.
[2] TL/N: (San Yang Kai Tai) means auspicious beginning of a new year!TL/N: Reference to Kratos from the game G.o.d of War.TL/N: (San Yang Kai Tai) means auspicious beginning of a new year!