Whale? But Youko was flat broke. She couldn’t very well spend money she didn’t have. It didn’t even seem like this world had a currency system.
But then a button floated into Youko’s mind that said, “Purchase Points.” It was like seeing a particularly vivid dream while still wide awake. Normally, dreams were unstable things, soon flitting off to some other association, but this button stayed firm, maintaining its shape. In fact, it seemed to be getting steadily more real to her.
What would happen if she pressed the button? It would clearly extract some sort of payment. Youko had spent a year supporting herself in the real world, and she knew just how tough life could be. She hesitated for a moment but felt like she had no choice but to press the button. A single press would hardly have fatal consequences. She might as well give it a shot.
The moment she made up her mind, it happened. A part of herself was torn out, leaving her thinner than before. A wave of exhaustion hit her. Not physical exhaustion, but mental exhaustion. The kind of fatigue that comes from doing the same thing over and over and over again. Like what she was doing wasn’t even any fun any more but she was too addicted to stop herself. She felt afraid and yet apathetic, like she was just responding robotically to the inputs she was given.
What the? What was this? A moment later, warmth returned to her heart. Points. She’d been given points.
Whaling. That was the cause. She’d paid a price far more dangerous than she’d imagined. To test it she hit the button one more time. Oof, this was definitely bad. It felt like she’d died. She was sure she was sacrificing part of her lifespan. Come to think of it, the gacha was warning her about this. It was written right on it. “Warning: Purchases may have a negative impact on your health, lifespan, volition, and existence.”
But warnings like this were lost on Youko. She was a mobile game junkie. In her last life she’d worked herself to the bone earning money only to blow it all on the gacha, heedless of the psychological toll. Negative influences on her health, lifespan, volition, and existence weren’t no thing.
At any rate, she’d obtained enough points to pull from the gacha a few times. She may have significantly shortened her lifespan, but a strong start was critical in any mobile game. If you didn’t spend money right off the bat and get some high rarity cards, you’d just increase the time you wasted. It might seem foolish, but it was a practical choice! Rationalizing her actions real hard, Youko pulled that gacha.
Jing-a-ling-a-ling-a-liiiing! A fanfare played. Music only played for SR or above. Now this was the premium gacha! This exultation! No normal card could ever provide it. The card’s illustration appeared in Youko’s heart.
SR: Multicellularity
When she equipped the card, a rift ran down her body, and she split in two. Two became four and four became six. The extra cells were encased in a larger cellular membrane. This was good. This body would let her fight Dyaus on even ground.
She put points in again. Unfortunately, this time there was no fanfare. Just a Rare.
R: Extrusome
An illustration of a round monochromatic thing with more round things inside. This did not help clarify what sort of function it might serve. Most mobile games would have explanations, but this world was not that generous. Oh well. She’d just have to equip it and see.
She equipped the card and a change occurred near the roots of her cilia. The cytoplasm writhed, generating countless little hollows. She didn’t know what those were, but they didn’t seem harmful. Maybe they’d be useful later. She let them be.
She pulled from the gacha a third time. Another fanfare. Excited, she flipped the card, only to be disappointed.
SR: Multicellularity
This again? Getting herself that many extra cells didn’t really seem all that useful.
The fourth pull was the big score. Getting a card like this early was a huge win.
SR: Explanations
This card added functionality to the cards themselves. It was a meta card. Like the name suggested, this card must add explanations to the other cards. This was something she’d definitely wanted. And it was a passive skill that would work without being equipped. There were explanations on her other cards already.
To test this out, she took a look at that Extrusome card again.
Extrusome: A membrane-bound structure located just below the surface of a cell. In response to certain stimuli, they discharge their contents to the cell’s exterior.
Was that it? What the hell was that good for?
Youko spent what felt like a few days doing this. She’d pull from the gacha, gather points, and pull from the gacha again. It was an unglamorous life compared to her previous one. She could get points from any old algae or bacteria or really anything living around her. Sometimes she sensed a presence like herself within the organisms, but when she spoke to them they never answered. Had they originally had minds, but their souls had been long since eroded by their bodies? If you remained in this primitive body without pulling on the gacha maybe your mind would slowly diminish to the level of your body. She was lucky. If she’d picked her lifespan over the gacha, she’d have lost the last trace of her humanity.
Youko’s body was changing with incredible speed. The biggest change came when she got the SR card Segmentation. This card appeared after she’d leveled up her multicellularity cards and fused them. Segmentation allowed the creation of segmented structures of similar cells. By enlarging these stable constructions, she could easily make herself larger. And the segments allowed for redundancy. Even if she lost one segment, as long as she had another segment performing the same function, the damage wouldn’t be fatal. And she could easily grow another segment.
Youko now looked like a caterpillar. She had a number of units connected in a row with cilia sticking out everywhere, and she was crawling through the mud on the sea floor using peristaltic movements. She tried covering her entire body with a shell to increase her defense, but this was a waste of time. Her body was simply too big and having the shell over it made it hard for oxygen to flow and she nearly suffocated. Clearly, the cards she put together had hidden compatibilities. Just throwing all your strong cards on may not actually make you stronger. For the same reason, it seemed like you couldn’t just make yourself infinitely larger.
What she needed was respiratory organs. There was a limit to how much oxygen she could absorb through her exterior, like she’d been doing. Her total size was her length cubed, but her surface area was only her length squared. If she could only absorb oxygen through the surface, the oxygen needed by the interior cells would never reach them, and they’d perish.
At times like this, it would be nice to have a specialized gacha. In mobile games it was quite common to have limited time gacha that would give cards of a particular affinity. If only there was a respiratory gacha.