It was a wet afternoon.
The world was bleak and cold and the skies veiled by tainted dark clouds brought with it an abundance of rain.
StompStomp
A squishy sound echoced across the streets, the sound originating from the soles of a pair of sneakers worn by a handsome teenager.
His hair originally pure blonde had been dyed a shade of white. He wore a dark causal T-shirt along a pair of grey trousers cut short at his kneel.
His apperenace was striking but not eye-catching enough to warrant much attention. A situation in which he found pleasant.
Currently his attention was divided into two activities. One was firmly holding the umbrella he carried on his left hand whiles the other was on the game displayed on his phone.
"Finally the update is complete."
Watching the almost eternal white loading bar finally reach it's mark, he cheered, quickly tapping on the game menu that followed.
[Aurora Grander]
The game was a new craze of his.
As a gamer, he had an interested in the now expanding genre of Gacha games.
The type of games were players collected in-game currencies and spent them on character, weapons and even familiar banners to gain the grandest of price.
Those types of games demanded commitment and lot's of money which he fortunately was too stingy to spent.
As a gacha gamer he believed in the principal of being a free to play. He never one's gave the game his money and never would.
Anyway [Aurora Grander] was the least of those games he was so fan off.
It had a shitty pity system ranging from almost 300 to 500 pull, stingy devs too greedy to cough up in-game currency, impossible banner rate system all bundled together with the most retro of graphics that left one question how the gaming industry had devolved.
So basically it was a traditional gacha game.
No fast pace combat like most of the new gen, no 3D graphic which insanely good models just png not even polished.
Character design was a mess, music ranging from agonizing from how repetitive they got and occasionally really good one's.
[Aurora Grander] was the type of game that looked so outdated that playing it for a long period of type would mess with one's perception of the world.
One time after hours of playing the game, he found the world appear black and white like in those old movies.
Anyway with the exception of the story almost everything about the game was trash but the story wasn't memorable enough to grab his attention.
It was good but he didn't waste days of his summer school break for some outdated trash all because of it's story.
Nah he did it because he liked rolling for characters in the game.
He was the kind of person that played games to collect and that particular gacha game seemed so hell bent on not making him fulfill his goals.
As said before to gain character you had to pull on them from character banners.
Event, limited, standards and permanent.
They had so many that just opening the banner site lead to overloading the brain.
Anyway with how atrocious the rate of gaining characters were the young boy had set himself a goal of unlocking atleast twenty SSR, the highest rated characters before he quit the game.
A few months had already passed and after hours and days of grinding he was finally at the climax of his goal, having successfully gained nineteen SSR both from the limited and permeant banner which each had their own pity system.
Now he had 300 stellar saved, the currency of the game.
A single pull costed 3 Stelllars and ten cost 30 hence with all he had gathered he could only provide 100 pulls not even a half of the pity system but...
"All of nothing."
Grinning intently like a masochist awaiting their pain, he clicked on the one of the characters banner.
[Imperium Solace]
[Sol]
[Rate:SSR]
[Element:Star]
On the banner was displayed a handsome honey brown haired youth. Their hair long and luscious was done in a single rat tail that passed their shoulder and they wore an extravagant white noble attire whiles striking a commanding pose with a golden star hovering over his palm.
He was Sol, the currently pushed character and the strongest Star elements DPS, quickly taking the crown form Aria whom held it two versions ago.
"Powercreep much!" He mused wondering how long Sol would last.
Male character were rare and their fans unhinged. He doubted the devs wanted more drama after the recent gender balance ratio in the game so he predicted Sol would be the strongest of his class for about a year before the next pushed character arrives.
"Sol I glaze you like my wife. Please come home."
With 100 pulls and a wishful mindset, he clicked on the ten roll icon below Sol's banner and confirmed the roll.
His phone screen blacked and soon, a shooting star purple in color streaked across his screen before exploding in a purple mess to reveal his disappointing rolls.
"Don't lose hope."
Keeping he composure he rolled again, a similar phenomenon taking place.
"99% of gamblers quite before they hit it big."
Remembering one of his iconic saying, he rolled again. Spoiler: He didn't strike it big.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Soon a hundred pulls was reduced to a measly twenty.
"What the actual fuck!"
If not for the fact that he was holding his umbrella he would have been ripping his hair in anger.
"Just one more."
Clicking the roll button again, his heart stiffed and soon a golden shooting star streaked passed his screen.
"OH MY GOD!"
Screaming like a possessed demon he began to hop around due to the sheer joy he felt.
He was getting an early SSR, something he only saw others achieve.
This was his first and one's the golden light had exploded to revealed he had in fact received Sol did all his pent up frustration disappeared.
An early SSR and the one he actually wanted.
"Fuck, I knew the gambling mindset was true."
Giggling like a highschool girl inlove, he whispered, the novelty of his roll disappearing.
"Meh... time to delete it. Takes too much space."
Just as he existed the game a flash of white blinded his eyes, a loud honk followed and his body moving in instinct tried to shift away but...
BOOM!
A sensation unlike anything he had every felt shoot through his mind.
Too frail to understand what had happened, he died.