Chapter 8
“Oh, what? Why is a Field Management Team employee here?”
An employee noticed me staring at the empty body bag and spoke up.
“I came to participate in entity management.”
“Huh? An employee? What, did you kill a civilian or something?”
“I’m a new hire who came in through the Human Rights Renunciation Track.”
“Good grief, what did you do out there to end up here?”
The curiosity on his face melted into pity.
“Just wait five minutes. The N-grade personnel will be here then.”
“Yes.”
Another agent beside him zipped shut the body bag with the last corpse in it.
“Hey, even so, you’re pretty lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah, you idiot! Three teams got wiped today. Normally there would’ve been a survivor from the second team.”
“You idiot. If this guy were lucky, a survivor would’ve shown up long ago and he wouldn’t have ended up here.”
“Ah, right!”
What kind of comedy routine are you doing among the corpses? That’s terrifying.
“Oh, there they are.”
When I turned around, a line of people in white clothes was walking toward us.
Every one of them had a vicious look on their face…
Should I say I could pretty much guess what kinds of people they pick for N-grade personnel.
Agent A looked at the man at the very front.
“Huh? Jang Tae-sik, why are you here again?”
“I volunteered because if I get my sentence reduced this time, I’ll be released.”
“You bastard, you think the fourth time will be easy just because you survived three times?”
“But I heard I hold the record.”
“That’s true.”
If he can survive three times, how lucky—no, unlucky, no, lucky—what even is it?
When the man called Jang Tae-sik turned around, the four N-grade personnel following him pulled their cellphones out of their pockets.
A moment later, different Japanese phrases came from each phone.
[I’ll shut the service down because I released a new title!]
[I’m a dog-meat company, but I’ll make an otaku game!]
[I’ll blatantly plagiarize another game!]
[I’ll release only BM and no content!]
What kind of games are these if even the opening lines are like that…
I figured I should do the same, so I launched the game I’d installed.
[The best money-making tool in the world!]
A hearty Chinese voice blared out.
“Hey, I get the others, but what game is that?”
“Oh, this one? It’s a pretty old game. It’s in its eighth year of service.”
No, I only just found out about it today too.
“You already know the explanation of management, but once you go into the quarantine room, the entity will explain the details to you.”
“The entity will?”
“Yeah. Among the low-grade ones, there are cases where the self-aware ones explain their own management conditions; this one is one of those.”
So considerate.
“Go in!”
Using the dissonant mash-up of assorted music as BGM, I entered the triple-layer quarantine room.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
One door opened and I went inside, then waited a moment.
The door I had come through closed, the front door opened, and I waited again.
Even though they were low-grade, the control here was strict.
Do high-grade entities get locked up with diamond or something?
In the center of the quarantine room sat a desk and a pair of chairs.
On the desk sat a tablet that seemed to read 'Why Are You Luckier Than Me?'
And seated there was a human-shaped black something holding it.
[Come closer! Come closer! I’m in a very good mood today!]
The black figure spotted us and waved.
A low-grade entity that had already claimed 15 lives today.
“Let’s go.”
Jang Tae-sik said that and naturally walked over to it.
[You’re here again? My unlucky friend?]
“Somehow that’s how it turned out. Still, today is the last day.”
[Aha! You’re leaving? You’re leaving?]
Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!
An unknown sound came from Jang Tae-sik’s side.
What is it?
“You know I’ll die if you say any more.”
[Right! Right! You do it last!]
It was a little hard to follow the situation from just a sidelong glance.
This is when you need the gallery.
[I’m going to handle ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’]
Author: GalleryShitpostingIsEasy
This bastard’s conversation with an N-grade personnel is no joke.
And there’s some notification-like sound coming from the N-grade personnel’s body, too. What is that?
So he gives them homework.
When you get back, make sure to post the N-grade personnel briefing and the TMI on self-aware entities to the hot-post board.
Please.
[Comments]
TrappedAtHome : He’s talking like he’s already handed us the job lol
ㄴ EntityFreak : If he dies, there won’t be anyone to give us dopamine anymore
ㄴ TrappedAtHome : That’s why I’m writing the N-grade personnel explanation lol
ㄴ AutoSaveIsAMust : I’m into self-aware entities
ResidentGhostNo.1 : Ah, there goes my hot-post material
As expected, he’s incredibly reassuring.
I have to live long enough to keep these wraiths’ spines straight.
[Start! Start!]
While I was writing the post, one N-grade personnel sat down across from the black figure.
[How many pulls to pity in that game? What’s the rate?]
... 90. 1.4%
[Nice!]
The black figure tapped the tablet a few times.
[You and I are going to take turns doing ten-pulls. Whoever draws the highest-rarity character first loses!]
ㄴGayWeirdGayya : That’s all there is to it. If you’re lucky you die; if you’re unlucky you live.
The comment I saw before I learned what the creature was.
That was the alpha and omega of that entity.
With the same odds and the same number of trials, if you draw the highest-rarity character later than it, you live; otherwise, you die.
What, so if you’re better at gacha than me, everybody dies?
Once you learn what that entity is, there’d probably be plenty of people who’d want to become it.
Me first.
Bling! Bling!
A flashy sound effect rang from the N-grade personnel’s phone, and the screen turned chaotic.
Stars were falling from the sky on the screen.
Eight purple, two yellow.
Phew.
Seeing the N-grade personnel breathe a sigh of relief, it seemed there was no highest rarity.
Well, if it came out in 10 pulls, that’d be a person…
Ting! Ting! Ting!
Huh?
All at once, one yellow star shone brilliantly and turned orange.
Rarity-change animation.
A gimmick that makes you feel the legendary rush of a last-second rarity flip when the gacha preview failed to show the top rarity.
For some gacha players, it’s practically a blessing—something everybody wants.
Unfortunately, the miracle was now working less like a wallet-saving device and more like a death sentence.
[Today is your last day.]
A chic blond elf swordswoman appeared with flashy effects.
Six stars.
[You got it on the 10-pull? You got it on the 10-pull?]
The black figure tapped the tablet and showed the screen to the seated N-grade employee.
The screen displayed only the plain result, not any graphics.
It looked like one of those gacha simulators you sometimes see online that only ask you to input the rates.
If anything, it felt like it hadn’t even been given the bare minimum of graphics.
Ten square cards appeared on the screen.
Each card showed only the star indicating its rarity.
Eight 4-stars, two 5-stars.
[I didn’t pull it?]
Crunch!
Thud.
The moment the creature finished speaking, the N-grade personnel’s neck was torn off in an instant.
The black figure’s face instantly grew huge and bit straight through the N-grade personnel’s neck.
Gulp.
[I overate today! Overate!]
The bright, cheerful voice echoed through the quarantine room.
I feel like the blood in my entire body has dried up.
If I hadn’t gone through the Backrooms, I would have panicked, pounding on the quarantine room door and begging to be let out.
A human life vanishes this easily, this absurdly.
A few seconds ago, I thought that thing was kind of amusing.
I thought a low-grade entity couldn’t do much.
Why had I thought that even after seeing the corpses outside the quarantine room?
Noticing that some part of my mind had broken, I steadied myself.
That thing is a monster. One that has taken countless lives.
[Next! Next!]
“When are you going to do it?”
Jang Tae-sik asked me.
Still, it seemed he was giving me the courtesy due to a superior because I was staff.
“I want to do it as late as possible.”
“… Understood.”
Jang Tae-sik couldn’t keep his expression in check and made a fierce face.
That was understandable.
If the person in front succeeds, the rest will survive, so the later the slot, the better.
Besides, I was an agent and had casually snatched the entity-guaranteed final slot, so it was only natural he was angry.
But what was I supposed to do?
I don’t want to play Russian roulette either.
Other people’s lives matter, but how could they compare to my own?
1% with a guaranteed pull at 200.
[Confirmed! I’ll set it up!]
The second N-grade personnel began the gacha.
A game with lower odds than the first person to die.
“Could I maybe do it later?”
The trembling voice suggested changing the order.
‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ tapped the tablet a few times, then shook its head violently.
[Good! Good! Do whatever you want!]
‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ showed the screen first.
Three 3-stars, four 4-stars.
This game seemed to have 5-stars as the highest rarity.
[It’s your turn! Your turn!]
“Ah, yes.”
The second challenger pressed the gacha button with trembling hands.
[Hyaaah!]
A shounen-protagonist-looking character appeared, taking a punch-ready pose.
[Aja!]
As the finger sliced across it, the punch shot toward the screen.
“Huh?”
A brilliant golden light burst, revealing a sturdy robot.
Five stars.
“Why… why!? I’ve never once gotten a lucky pull in this game!”
[He got it? He got it!]
Crunch!
Had he used up all the luck in his life here?
The second challenger was killed the same way as before when ‘Why Are You Luckier Than Me?’ tore his head off.
… Because of the blood flowing from the severed necks of the two people, the fishy metallic stench filled the quarantine room.
I quietly walked over to the desk and picked up the phone of the person who had just died.
Two lucky 10-pulls in a row.
No matter how I thought about it, the odds were too low.
Because I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the entity was manipulating it.
But staring at the gacha screen, I soon had no choice but to drop that thought.
Even if there had been manipulation in the 12 deaths so far, I couldn’t doubt it in this person’s case.
[Since the gacha has reached 200 pulls, the featured character has appeared as a guaranteed drop.]
Because the second challenger hadn’t checked how many pulls he had already done.
It was suicide.
notes":"Adjusted the title to match the nearby chapter pattern by keeping the direct meaning: '목숨을 건 가챠' -> 'Life-or-Death Gacha'. Fixed a few awkward literal phrasings for natural English, and preserved the source’s repeated gag phrasing where it was intentional. Also normalized one pronoun-neutral reference to the N-grade personnel by using role-based wording."