I Became a 6★ Gacha Character

Time flowed as the suspicious horse-butt-obsessed viewer mingled with Han Se-ah's clownish antics.

Meanwhile, viewers wrote analysis posts until their eyes turned bloodshot thanks to Han Se-ah's gambling den. When she opened betting on how many centaurs would fly, most bet around 10, leaving everyone broke.

And Han Se-ah, true to her born entertainer nature, not only fanned the flames but poured oil on them and summoned an east wind. She opened another kind of betting, saying memories should come full circle.

"Look here. On floor 55 we got fences and orc javelineers evolved into orc longbowmen, right? Why orc longbowmen? Don't know, Roland called them that. If teacher named them, just assume he's right and move on. He even names bugs from underground, calling them this-and-that crawler."

"Orcs evolved from regular to javelin throwers to longbowmen. Centaurs evolved into stealth scout centaurs on floor 56. So on floor 57, won't the goblin infantry evolve? Maybe, maybe not."

"Last time I got warned for exchanging points for pizza gift cards - they said points for physical prizes would make it real gambling. They let it slide with a warning since it was my first time, but I almost got in trouble. So write your floor 57 monster predictions on the fan cafe instead. Most liked correct answers get pizza sets."

"The criteria are either exact correct answers, lots of likes, or if I just find it hilarious enough to burst out laughing."

The problem was our bomb maniac seemed to have ignited her own intelligence too, forgetting she had millions of live viewers.

Unlike stream forums where you could post with just a viewer ID, the fan cafe required personal verification to join, yet still had millions of members.

Though the prizes were just chicken, pizza and burgers, all you had to do was post something online.

While some couldn't be bothered to participate in such a minor event, for the rotting cyber ghosts, it was like getting chicken just for blinking. Posting online was as natural to them as breathing for humans or swimming for fish.

The result was this mess:

[Event] Comic about goblins evolving into ogres and building harems.manwha

[Event] Se-ah show that card, is it Sakura?

[Event] Why Koreans are the real descendants of dwarves

[Event] What if I bet against goblin evolution here?

[Event] Think I saw goblin variants in the south, could this be it?

From people posting unfunny memes with no intention of getting the right answer, to folks bringing in D&D and Warhammer to explain fantasy monster genealogy.

Some normal posts occasionally appeared - field reports from adventurer-type users who explored the kingdom instead of climbing the tower. Since Han Se-ah was world #1 and Kim Seok-hyun world #2 at tower climbing, earning the "fucking kimchi gamer" label, information about outside the tower naturally drew interest.

"Southern goblin variants? ...We didn't see any last time we were there, but they must be rare. Or maybe a witch raised them? But insect specimens? They went all the way to the southern jungle in Heroes Chronicle just to make those?"

Past the Korean dwarf theory about mountain-dwelling gunpowder-obsessed Koreans being legitimate dwarf successors, Han Se-ah naturally clicked on the goblin variant post.

It contained a gif of a young goblin, a head taller than the elementary school-sized regular goblins, covered in dye and waving decorated ritual tools. Since even I'd never seen one like this in the south, it had tons of cafe member likes.

Really, the world is wide and there are many weird gamers. Who'd have thought someone would skip climbing the tower to crawl into the southern jungle's depths researching fantasy world insects?

"Roland, what are you thinking about so hard?" Katie asked.

"...I get that these monsters are building an army, but it's strange and fascinating how they keep bringing magitech devices. With them making crystals from human souls too, I wonder if they have something like a Magic Tower?"

Since the most liked post was an insect enthusiast's infinite revival southern jungle exploration diary, most following posts were from wandering souls endlessly roaming the harsh north, west and south. Though I'd wandered for 10 years myself, I'd always headed toward populated areas for requests, so I got absorbed reading these posts without realizing.

Seeing me staring blankly into space, Katie rushed over from cleaning her sword, probably thinking my excitement from battle had faded into complicated feelings again.

But what could I do? A fucking goblin using rituals? To me, steeped in 11 years of fantasy world common sense, a goblin with ritual tattoos was like an orangutan handling Excel.

If an educated orangutan got Excel certified and organized files as precisely as an office worker, who wouldn't find that fascinating?

※

Exploration on the 56th floor was both faster and slower than expected.

The earthen walls were too low to slow down 21 high-rank knights, and the shockwave mines that sent enemies flying just needed Earth Control to compress the soil before they exploded. The only real threat was the stealth-skilled centaurs... but what good was a cavalry unit becoming scouts through stealth?

We weren't playing a stealth action game - we were smashing straight through everything. Though they might be nightmarish against mid-rank armies, these tactics didn't work against superhuman guerrillas destroying outposts with small numbers.

"Hmm... which number is this?"

"Exactly the fifth. There are more camps than expected."

But easier opponents didn't mean faster exploration. The number of camps clearly increased as we went up, as if proving the fortification process.

If we had earthen walls on floor 56, would we find actual fortresses on the prairie before floor 60? Or maybe the floor 60 boss had built something like a demon lord's castle from Lord of the Rings? The constantly discovered enemy camps made me think that.

By now I understood why the Goddess gave us the quest to bring the Ice Cross Knights. Even with 21 extra workers it was this annoying - how much more troublesome would it have been with just our party members? We should have predicted this pattern since we were facing an army.

Seems these BB Games bastards didn't want players crushing everything with small parties. Whether kingdom or empire, they were steering us to work with other NPCs and command like generals.

"Seems pointless to continue in this direction. Let's stay here today, then go back for supplies and try north," I said.

"That sounds good. We've come further than expected dealing with these camps," Katie replied.

Remove mines, with Han Se-ah sneaking some into her inventory, jump the walls, break the fence, charge in. Kill all the tower monsters who charged without thought of retreat, collect mana stones, then rest.

By now everyone moved in perfect sync on tasks that felt more like labor than adventure.

The only annoying task was distributing mana stones, but true to their noble upbringing, these young masters with expensive magitech gear, sleeping bags and tents seemed ungreedy. Besides food supplies to continue exploring, they didn't even ask for mana stones.

Well, exploring the tower's front lines with the hero party was already an enormous intangible benefit. These nobles burned gold coins just shaking hands - fighting together against the demon army was worth more than money could buy.

'Maybe I should collect participation fees from nobles later? Give some to the temple as donations... would that make this a crusade?'

While I watched the Ice Cross Knights busily doing chores instead of me, setting up tents and lighting campfires, Katie jumped onto the fence past the barracks and plopped down beside me.

Seems I got some strange misunderstandings from browsing Han Se-ah's event posts too intently. Just as Han Se-ah accidentally got the image of a "genius beauty mage hero who's naive about the world due to her rural origins," I got branded as a "knight throwing himself into danger to forget his tragic past."

The reality was I'd been wandering around trying to learn anything I could, feeling like an isekai protagonist in this fantasy world, and working to secure a comfortable retirement comparable to modern life by buying magitech devices with plenty of gold coins. Yet here was this misunderstanding.

"It's beautiful scenery anytime. Different from the northern snowfields," Katie said.

"True. Great neighborhood except for needing eye masks to sleep," I replied.

"And except for monsters kidnapping people for black magic sacrifices."

Still, it wasn't a bad feeling having beautiful women freely showing their worried love. Katie's aegyo of playfully bumping her head against my arm as we sat side by side on the fence had enough power to melt even the most wooden man.

It would have been quite a nice atmosphere if not for that ghostlike approaching camera.

Damn, she's really persistent.

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