My Life Can't Be This Gacha

[X] Form alliances with...
- [X] A bunch of small, weak guilds. They can't contribute as much, but there's little threat of them backstabbing you.
[X] Attack the guilds nearer your level - take out your competition while you can.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Snail shells and various other fetch quest stuff distributed, you type a quick "brb cooking" into the group chat and head off to make yourself a quick sort-of-dinner: instant noodles, boiled eggs, and various leftovers tossed in the microwave and set to reheat. By the time you're back at the computer with your hot bowl of assorted food, your eyebrows are climbing.

You've never seen your guild hall so crowded, or the group chat so... busy.

10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: wahlao what happened
10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: so many ppl
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: lol ye
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: maxed out ally guild slots
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: 25 guilds in one hall lololol

25 guilds. You stare at the player avatars roaming the hall (not easily, with so many avatars around getting in each other's way).

10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: eh wtf
10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: some of them still beginners outfit eh
10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: sure die one
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: lolololololol

You roll your eyes. Cannon fodder is nice to have, but a crowd like this is just begging to get wiped by one of the AOEs. You get ready to tell them so, except they're apparently faster at typing than you.

@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: oh also we r atkng SASUNARU 4EVR
10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: wtf
10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: who
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: ikr so 1990

But then they attach a screenshot. SASUNARU 4EVR, despite their terrible and outdated taste in ships, is right next to yours on the leaderboards. And also their customised guild icon is terrible fanart of that terrible ship.

You nod as you type.

10_manda_panda_01 TO @green18271: murderdeathkill

The event goes live in a ringing of bells, the UI frames turning an ugly shade of red, and a large, slightly see-through PVP ZONE banner appearing off in the corner of the screen.

@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: woot gogogo
@green18271 TO 10_manda_panda_01: vcvc

Sure, yeah. You alt-tab out just long enough to join the voice call, and then get back into the game.

~*~*~

It's bedlam out there: your guild hall disgorging hordes and hordes of players surging across the landscape towards the SASUNARU 4EVR (you are never going to get over having to say that name out loud in your head) guild hall, while watching them empty their hall out as well. There's a lot more of them than you'd thought there would be, but they probably got allies too.

You notice, slightly sourly, that none of their allies look like they're fresh off the Beginners Island boat; your advantage is that they look like they're headed for somebody else, and so they don't notice your guild and allies advancing on them until you're within attack range.

Everything goes loose in moments: their team turning to face you while your own team opens up a volley of gunshots, arrows, and magic spells. The freshies on your team are instantly wiped out by the counterattack, but that's enough time for the teams to close into melee. That includes you, because Aunty 24/7 is a melee fighter wielding a giant slipper that was an event-only item from a couple years ago.

(Sure, there are weapons out there with better stats. The giant slipper is just more fun to see.)

But the double-sided onslaught of spells and consumables wears away the lower-leveled or under-equipped characters quickly, and in between the buffing and healing and dodging and slippering people you find yourself banded together with six other players who've made it past the first few waves of attacks.

@green18271 is there, of course, he's optimised his character and equipment to pretty much outlast anything at the cost of having rotten damage output, but only one of the other five is from your guild. You guess the other people must be from the ally guilds.

You glance over your little ad-hoc team. There's you - slipper-wielding fighter - and @green18271 - ridiculously immortal alchemist -, but other than that... well, the other players managed to not get instantly killed off, so they're probably pretty high up too.

"Running low on health pots," pipes up one of them. The barbarian. She sounds Australian. Yeah, that's understandable for a class that runs in and burns HP for special effects. "Back to base?"

"Everybody's gonna be doing that too," says the druid, whose accent you can't quite place. Their character sits on a black bear mount and dwarfs all the rest of you. "No point letting Sasunaru rest and restock."

Oh god, you're going to end up saying that name out loud too at some point.

"Raiding the guild's a lot harder than fighting out here," points out @green18271, and you roll your eyes amusedly. They're famous in the guild for grinding low-level dungeons just because they're the safest, even though they're probably equipped to solo some of the mid- to high-level ones if he'd take the risk. And it looks like they're about to extend that reputation to your allies, too. "They're pretty high-level, too."

"Most of them are dead," says the druid, sounding irritated even though his avatar is currently running its idle animation. "We'd better decide quickly anyway - we're sitting ducks out here."

"I'd still rather not," says @green18271, their character inappropriately performing the shrug emote. "It's too dangerous."

"Not if we pull in more of the survivors." And that's the mage.

"It'll take time."

The mage sighs loudly. "Portal scrolls, hello? Besides, we're taking time standing here arguing."

You sigh, facepalming. Guess it's up to Aunty 24/7 to solve this.

~*~*~

4 SPINS REMAINING!

~*~*~

A/N: Opinions expressed are solely those of the player character and do not reflect the author's personal opinions, pls no bully.

~*~*~

You took SASUNARU 4EVR by surprise, but a large part of your coalition is wiped out/ running low on consumables, and also you're in the middle of a strategy argument at the Worst Time Ever.

[ ] Side with the barbarian and @green18271: pull back to the guild hall to restock and heal up. SASUNARU 4EVR and their allies will also have time to recover from the attack, but you'll also be able to get more people in on the follow-up attack.
[ ] Side with the druid and the mage: the six of you, plus whoever feels like it and has a teleport scroll, can launch a quick blitz on SASUNARU 4EVR and catch them while they're trying to recover.
[ ] You have a bright new idea. (Write-in.)

It's the Worst Time Ever. The six of you are out in the middle of a battlefield, exposed now that all the low-level players have been cleared away in the first few minutes of combat. The six of you are low on pots - at least you and the barbarian surely are - and SASUNARU 4EVR have retreated into the safety of their guild hall. In the time it takes you to get there they'll surely have restocked on pots, healed up, and generally become a massive pain in the neck to handle.

On the other hand, it means they will totally not be expecting a bunch of you to portal scroll right onto them and unleash hell. You're grinning ear to ear as you hit the "nod" emote.

"Aw hell aunty no," groans @green18271 even before you follow it up.

"Aw yes," you say.

"We're going to die," says the barbarian pointedly, though she doesn't turn around and bugger off the way she would if she really didn't want to come along. Besides, barbs have that thing where they do more damage the lower their HP gets, she'll be fine. "You realise that."

The mage giggles. "But it'll be awesome! Right? Right?"

"Look, you pass out your health and mana pots, mage and druid load us up with buffs, rogue sticks a beacon on their place for us to port into, we'll be fine," you suggest. "We've done this a bunch of times before, green."

"We don't usually do it when we're all low on everything," he grumbles, but he starts emptying his inventory: health potions, mana potions, defense boost potions, teleport scrolls, haste potions, regeneration potions, invisibility potions -

"You're a goddamn pharmacy," says the barbarian in awe, picking up items as fast as they can.

"Ridiculously immortal alchemist," you grumble, though you pick up potions too. "Bomb no have, firework no have, just mountains of buff potions."

"And debuff potions," says @green18271 defensively. "And poisons."

"Slow poisons," you say, filling your inventory up.

The rogue pauses. "Have a beacon?"

@green18271 makes a loud, exaggerated sigh, and drops an unactivated beacon. The rogue picks it up and disappears.

~*~*~

The beacon appears on the map and seconds later the rogue pings the global group chat to let them know it's up.

"Nice knowing y'all," says the barbarian.

"Arr eye pee in pepperoni," returns the druid.

"Eff," mumbles @green18271 distractedly.

"Here we go!" says the mage happily.

"Chiong aaaaaaaaah!" you exclaim, activating your teleport scroll. The casting animation spins up, the world around your avatar dissolves into black for a brief loading time

(oh god, you think for a split second, UniFi please don't do shit)

and then you're there, rushing for the guild hall of SASUNARU 4EVR alongside all the other players who were confident or hopeful enough to come along. The slipper starts to piak as soon as you get within attacking range, throwing the nearest enemy back and cancelling their attack animation.

Yup, that's why you love The Slipper. You rush in, waving it like a madwoman. As long as the double haste effect lasts on you, you're undefeatable in one-on-one melee, because 100% stunlock on attack? Godlike.

The enemy fighter loses half his HP before he ragequits and disappears. You grin in satisfaction - hey, that's all the more time left on your haste effects - and turn on your next unlucky target, who looks like they were in the middle of swapping equipment sets when you got in.

Your heart bleeds for them, but you beat them up anyway.

"Whee!" exclaims the mage into the voice channel. "Boom! Boom!"

"Please no," sighs @green18271.

"But this is awesome," they breathe into their mic. "We totally got them with their pants down!"

You glance over at the mage, who is hanging by the door throwing mana bolts at enemies. She's barely visible, thanks to the blur potions she got from @green18271, which is why all the enemies' mana bolts and arrows are missing her. It wouldn't protect her from AOEs, of course, but @green18271 dropped a bunch of poison bombs that are keeping the casters out of range of her.

"Yeah well, they're getting dressed a lot faster than I want," says the druid, bursting through a line of enemies to stand behind you. You watch his HP bar slowly refilling. "They're pulling back anyway, think they got a plan?"

You frown. SASUNARU 4EVR and allies, all in one room? They'd be sitting ducks for poison clouds and AOE spells (and bombs, if @green18271 ever made any of those), even if they have resistances and buffs and potions on. It's why @green18271 is running hindrance on your mage, and why the lot of you are trying to spread out. "Dunno eh," you say. "Get ready I guess?"

"Yeah," says the druid, his HP bar full up. "I guess they just want to try to force us all through that tiny door."

"Maybe," says @green18271 noncommittally. "Wards?"

"They tried shooting me," says the rogue. "So yes."

"Okay, well." @green18271 lobs a poison grenade through the door and the green poison cloud comes up; SASUNARU 4EVR forces mill out of the way, and @green18271 gets hit by a bunch of attacks and spells before he can get back to safety. His HP bar is barely dented, though, and that's weird: he's ridiculously immortal but not that ridiculous.

"That's crazy!" says the mage, who must have noticed the same thing. "What's his damage reduction, 99.9%?"

"Just 85%," says @green18271 as if he hasn't already reached the maximum damage reduction the game will allow. "Cooldowns ready?"

"Yeppers," says the mage, popping her p's, an attack boost pot, a defense boost potion, and another blur potion. "Hold my potions."

There's still something weird about the situation. "How many people do you see in that room, Green?"

"...hundred, hundred fifty, dunno?"

"Because map only got a few left," you say, and then it falls into place. "Most of them are dead!"

"What," says the mage.

"Not dead. Killed." You hurry to explain the sudden intuition. "When they got killed outside they got sent back here, that's why they disappeared from outside, but their attacks don't hurt us."

"Do our attacks hurt them, because that's the important thing," says the mage. "Blur potions aren't infinite duration, yanno."

"Yes but only a few of those people in the room are actual targets!" You frown, checking the map.

"Darn, you're right." @green18271 is clearly seeing the same thing as you. "Most of them are chaff. Can't tell from just looking at them, though."

"Look, it's okay to hit the chaff as long as I get the actual ones too, right?" says the mage. "And there's only a few of them left, right?"

"Ye-e-es," says @green18271.

"Then that's fine, right? We can just go in at them?"

"Ye-e-es," says @green18271.

"Yay!" says the mage. "Druid? Barb?"

"It'll be harder when you can't tell which of them is real," says the druid, but he rides into position anyway.

"Just hit the ones who don't have the big skull and crossbones beside their name," says the barbarian.

"..." say @green18271, the druid, and the mage.

"Oh, duck me," says the barbarian.

"On three?"

"Right."

"One, two -"

You, the druid, and the barbarian charge in first, followed by @green18271 and the rogue, and then the mage steps out, and then you're up against the dude who ragequit earlier.

He's at full HP now, wearing a whole different set of armour, and practically bathed in auras. The Slipper does nothing to him this time. Special resistances against knockback and stun, you guess, before he whacks you and one third of your HP disappears in a giant crit.

Ouch. You pull back, but he closes in on you, his weapon pulling back for his next strike. You smack him again with The Slipper, his HP going down some but not enough, even with the buffs you've got up. He smacks you again, and you pop a regen potion and a HP potion, but it's obvious what's going to happen in a couple more seconds -

-and then the mage's spells land, and he's the first to get wiped away in the fire and lightning. Yup. Maximum resistance to knockback and stun, almost no magic resistance at all.

He reappears in front of you, his HP bar full, but now there's a big skull and crossbones beside his username.

"...oh my god," says the mage. "That was awesome! Awesome awesome awesome!!"

"Oh wow." You glance at the map. It's empty, because all of SASUNARU 4EVR is wiped out, and you didn't even have to speak that name. "We really did it."

That's when you realise the bunch of you are kind of just standing around in the middle of a guild hall full of the game equivalent of angry ghosts.

"See you at the guild hall?"

"Nah," you say, looking out the window. It's getting close to evening, and your eyes are going a bit dry. "Gonna effkay for a bit, get dinner and stuff. Teetee why ell."

"Why do you say teetee why ell and not ayy eff kay?" says the mage, but you're already logging out and rubbing your fingers.

Damn, you think. That was fun. But your fingers hurt anyway.

~*~*~

4 SPINS REMAINING!

~*~*~

You beat up all of SASUNARU 4EVR and didn't die! Yay! At least, you didn't, but your guild is pretty badly weakened and most of the weakling ally guilds you partnered up with are gone, too. That said, the event is still going and you need to figure out what to do next...

[ ] Keep up the pressure on other guilds - Aunty 24/7 never rests and neither can they.
- [ ] Hit and run: get rogues to set up beacons, teleport in with a small group, beat up a bunch of people, teleport out. Risky, but you maintain the advantage of surprise, and if the small group is wiped - well, the larger body of the guild is still there to try again.
- [ ] Big army: lead a large part of the guild out to battle. Less individually risky, but a wipe here means your guild is out of the event.

[ ] Turtle, like @green18271's natural instincts say to do.
- [ ] Spend some time to mine, trap, and ward the guild hall and its surroundings. Anybody trying to teleport or fight their way in will get a nasty surprise.
- [ ] Get all the ghosted guild members and allies to farm potions, scrolls, and other equipment for the few living members. There's no point defending the guild hall if everybody in it is dead, after all.

[ ] Write-in. (Subject to approval.)

The first day of the event, after those first few hours of frenzy, dies down into something comparatively more sedate - or at least it does for your guild and the allied guilds still remaining with you.

@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: eyy
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: wb
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: only 1h lor k
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: guild hall so empty le

You wonder if most of the other players are just taking a break or something. Or going to sleep, because not everybody who plays Omima Online is a NEET like you.

@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: ya
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: dead guilds left

Ooooor it could be that too, and it does make sense, you guess. You glance at the ally list. It's definitely a lot less than 25 now.

@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: neway gonna start work
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: oh ok bye
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: no i mean
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: grind

Right, you think, watching @green18271 start organising things on the guild global chat. That's what he's good at. You suspect he's some kind of manager in his day job - you've never asked - but in minutes he's got people sorted up and traipsing off to farm crafting materials and other things.

10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: so where we going to farm
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: angel fields ah

The Angel Fields is @green18271's latest favourite camping ground for a few reasons. There's a decently high spawn rate, the Angels drop some of the better defensive potion reagents, and if you've got the right equipment on you can one-shot them (which is important because the buggers can and will fly away when their HP drops into the red).

So it's entirely a surprise when he says no.

At least, not until all your inventories have gotten back to their pre-event levels at least, because - well, there's no because, his turtling instincts have just taken over because having any less than fifty times his max HP in healing and regeneration potions in his inventory gives him the shivers.

10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: so abt 2 weeks then /s
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: na jz 3 days
@green18271 to 10_manda_panda_01: sooner if u train newbies

You narrow your eyes at the screen.

10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: hw 2 train if kenot go out

You've barely hit the enter key when you realise you know the answer, and he knows you know the answer, and you know he knows you know.

~*~*~

The dungeons are a newly introduced thing. They're basically basements to the guild hall except they spawn monsters. @green18271 spent a week in your guild dungeon when they were introduced and became a minor celebrity for publishing a walkthrough on how to cheese them.

The long and the short of it, though, is that if you bring the right mix of classes and levels in, the dungeons become a farm for some potion materials (not all, because even the Omima Online developers realised people like @green18271 exist). @green18271 calls them a miracle of safety and efficiency, also because it's very difficult for people to get into other guilds' dungeons. You think it's boring to repeatedly beat up enemies one-quarter your level to gather materials until your inventory is full of random animal parts. You'd much rather be out there beating up on whatever guild comes after SASUNARU 4EVR.

But you also know you can't do that before (sigh) stocking up on potions until you have some quantity of them that @green18271 won't consider suicidally small.

And that's why you're herding groups of low-levelled newbies, all of whom died super early in the event, into the dungeon and telling them to stay near the exit so the spawns won't instantly kill the lot of them.

r u gg 2 solo all the spawns? asks one of them.

In response you one-shot five of the spawned green lesser dragons, picking up the dropped scrolls and potions and leaving the raw materials behind for the newbies to pick up. Let them fill their inventories up, you figure.

yup, you respond, waving The Slipper in the air like the god-slaying machine it is.

Well, when the gods in question are spawning at a ridiculously low level, anyway.

The fun of showing off for the newbies wears off about ten minutes in. The fun of standing there waiting for you to wave them in and collect drops wears off for the newbies at about the same time.

That's the second part of the training newbies thing, because that's when you start forming them into two ten-player groups and send them off to try attacking the spawns.

It does mean getting less drops overall, since the newbies use up pretty much every health or mana potion the lesser green dragons drop, and as they level up so do the lesser green dragons.

But to you it's worth it for the newbies to not keep complaining.

~*~*~

Three days later you screenshot your inventory and show it to @green18271.

10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: nah see enuff anot
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271 inventory full liao
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: all potions also hv
10_manda_panda_01 to @green18271: u hw?

And his screenshot is just as full as yours, which of course it would be.

Which means it's finally time to go actually do something again. You rub your hands.

~*~*~

A/N: @_@ 15 days between updates ugh must increase output

~*~*~

7 SPINS AVAILABLE!

~*~*~

@green18271 has finally been appeased... but what now?

[ ] What worked before, will work again. You'll gather allies and attack close competitors until you're ready for the big leagues.
● Everybody's done or is doing it, and by now the meta has caught up with countermeasures.
[ ] Somebody suggested doing hit-and-runs on the big guilds' forces whenever they go out on raids. It's probably safer than taking them head-on...
● ...but the first big guild you do it to thinks you're an ally of their closest competitor, and (un)expected consequences follow.
[ ] @green18271 thinks it would be a good idea to set up camps at various farming spots and deny them to other guilds. Who needs direct attack when you can starve them to death?
● Spreading your forces across multiple maps, when there are so few of you to begin with, leaves you rather thin on the ground - and not all of you are quite as ridiculously immortal as @green18271.
[ ] (Write-in, subject to QM approval.)