“Now that all your questions have been sufficiently answered, let us move on to the ability selection. Please activate the interface on the guide device that is being distributed.”
In my hand appeared a small, clear gem-like object that swiftly melted into my skin and vanished. My vision then began to display a UI very similar to one you would find in video games on Earth, with separate options for displaying stats, map, inventory, etc. It seemed that what the figure had said earlier about it being modified to resemble our technology had been true. All options were currently greyed out, except for a glowing one labelled “Pull of Destiny ☆”
After selecting it, a virtual gumball machine filled with round capsules appeared, with a small lever attached to it. I began to reach for the lever before hurriedly stopping myself. No, there’s something very important I had to do first. Everyone knows that before you do a gacha pull, you need to perform your good luck ritual first. Jupiter has to be aligned with Venus, it has to be exactly 6:14 PM and I have to sacrifice 3 of my precious toilet paper rolls to- wait there’s none of that crap here. I guess I’ll have to settle for plucking one of my nose hairs. The excruciating pain I suffer will in exchange guarantee me an omega rare ability surely.
Taking a deep breath, with a slight tremble I reached out and pulled the virtual lever. With a small plop, one of the capsules fell down and began rolling down the spiral. Please, if there’s a god watching over the Earth, just give me something good. I’ve never had luck with these things, but just this one time please let me hit the jackpot.
Tink! The capsule fell out and opened with an explosion of golden light and fireworks. Holy crap! This must be an ultra-rare right?
Grade: F
[Substances or entities regarded as foreign will instead be seen as friendly by your body if chosen]
Hm, I wonder how much coffins are going for nowadays. Ah but, the prices of land plots have gone up quite a bit as well, so I’ll have to consider that as we- Good luck ritual my ass! I should have known it couldn’t have been trusted after the last 754 times. What the hell was I going to do with this useless ability? I didn’t even understand what it meant. Foreign substances as friendly?
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Looking around, I saw that everyone else had also finished their pulls and were excitedly discussing their results while also demonstrating their abilities. One person was shooting fire out of his hands while another was leaping dozens of meters into the air without issue. Damn, it looks like they must have gotten at least B-rank abilities or higher compared to mine.
But, as I began to listen to the hubbub around me more, my brows gradually began furrow deeper and deeper. I couldn’t find a single person around me that had received an ability grade greater than “F”, even the guy with the fire ability. Was the ability gacha rigged? And if even those seemingly strong abilities had been deemed to be the worst grade, how strong were those at the higher tiers?
I’m not one to usually complain and make a scene, but I was already feeling quite wronged over my ability and with a mentality of having nothing to lose, I angrily shouted to the figure,” Hey what gives? I don’t think a single one of us here got an ability higher than F! You can’t tell me that out of a thousand pulls, every single one happened to be the lowest! There’s no way this thing is fair!”
The figure paused for a moment. Then it slowly began to smile, wider and wider, almost splitting its face from end to end.
“Indeed, you are correct. The ability pool for your world has been specially curated to only contain those of the lowest quality. There is a finite number of abilities that exist to be distributed, and it would be of the utmost waste if a lowest tier world was given anything higher than an F. As I stated earlier, your world is only here to fill the remaining spots. Your world’s participants have been calculated to have a 99.87% chance of complete annihilation within a mere 7 solar days. Tell me, what would be the point of gifting a high-grade ability to such a lowly world destined for destruction, instead of one that has an actual chance of winning?”
And with that, for the first time, the figure began uproariously laughing, as all of us stood there in cold shock and fear.
Ah, I get it now. Why that thing had been so patient and answered all of our questions without responding to any of the threats. The bastard had been enjoying seeing us fill with hope and calm, before brutally thrusting us into the abyss. When it had previously said we here to simply make up the numbers, I been naively hoping that it meant something else, or that we could find a way out of it. Maybe it had been lying about our chances, but somehow I knew it wasn’t. Come to think of it, it had smiled like this too when it first appeared on Earth, giving its condolences to the world. So this is what it had meant.
But, the chance of total failure had only been 99.87% within 7 days. In my mind appeared the words of a certain very smart man-” So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”