A fortune teller crystal ball? I thought. “Catherine, is that…?” However, just before I could finish the question, Catherine chuckled. With a tickling smile, and lovely laugh, Catherine touched the edge of her witch hat as she started to explain. Her tone shifted from a usual adorable demeanor into an excited mentor.
“Exactly! This is Astralyte Core! These are the kind you see at guilds. It activates with a touch, projecting holographic displays of information in mid-air. I bought it at a sketchy black market with a cheap price of only fifty gold coins two hundred years ago!” Catherine’s red eyes lit up as she leaned closer towards me, waiting for my reaction.
I could only awkwardly muster, “Is that so…” as I stared at the crystal ball. Astralyte Core, is it? I learned a new word today. Though, the crystal itself had the same appearance of the one fortune teller used that I went to with a classmate who was into occult stuff in high school. I wonder what she’s doing right now? If only she knew I’m hanging out with an over two hundred years old witch, she would probably be jealous, I thought.
“Wait a minute, two hundred years?!” I screamed in disbelief. The red haired witch in front of had the appearance of a twenty years old woman. Perhaps older, but definitely no older than twenty five. “Miss Catherine, how old are–”
A glaring hot stare from Catherine's red eyes struck me with a terrifying smile. Even her already red color in her eyes felt even more red as she slowly opened her mouth, “Age is just a number, Miss Mashiro Shimizu Mikan.”
I immediately shifted my eyes uncomfortably as I pretended to whistle away an idol song. I took a peek at Catherine, and as her expression calmed down a little, I continued the conversation.
“Fifty gold coins… is that a lot?” I asked, which was met by a disdainful look from Catherine.
She sighed as she answered, “Ugh, This is why I hate rich sheltered ladies when it comes to money. Listen, it took me almost two entire years to save up for this! I’ve never completed so many A to S-rank requests during that period in my life.”
“What do you mean by requests?” I asked as I tilted my head quizzically.
Catherine shook her head in disbelief, so much so that she put her witch hat down on the table. She looked me straight in the eyes, and started to examine my dress, my ears and tails, and my attitude. Being looked at thoroughly, I could only avoid her gaze with an awkward smile.
“Wow, you’re really sheltered, aren’t you? Well, I did say I won’t probe your circumstances. As my apprentice, I’ll teach you the common sense of this world,” Catherine said as she took something out of her pouch. It was something of a thick silver card with a bunch of white scribbles on it, alongside with a witch hat on the top left corner of the card.
“Um… What is this?” I said as I tried to read the words written on the card without success.
“Adventurer card, can’t you read?” The moment Catherine finished that retort, she immediately slapped her own forehead. A nervous smile appeared as her eyes were drooping down with guilt. I noticed that she took a peek at my ears and tail. “My apologies, that was rude of me. I guess it makes sense you can’t read human language. Since you could speak it, I just assumed you could also read it.”
I laughed awkwardly as I tried to shift my eyes away from her guilt ridden stare. The letters on the card closely matched Latin and other runes I used to see at fantasy movies. I pretended to cough and looked back at the Astra something in front of me. Catherine blinked as she continued the lesson.
“As I was saying, this is an adventurer card. It’s a sign of proof that I, Catherine, a witch, is an A-rank adventurer that could complete quests ranging from F to S-rank difficulty. However, in order to take higher than my rank, which is an S-rank quest, I must also be on a party of four with at least one S-rank adventurer. A quest is a job that someone posted so they can hire us adventurers to do all kinds of jobs like slaying monsters, collecting herbs or exploring dungeons. Do you have any questions?” Catherine asked.
I thought for a moment before raising my hand, “How do I become one?”
“Well, you need to register at adventurers guild, but…” Catherine thought for a moment before answering, “There’s no adventurer’s guild here since this is a desolate location with a small village.”
“I see…” I muttered.
I would need a job to live independently, but I could just think of that later. Afterall, right now being Catherine’s apprentice would be the highest priority. Since I just got reincarnated to this world yesterday in Mashiro, I’d prefer to take things slowly and learn more about this world first.
“Anyway, now let’s get back on track to this Astralyte Core. This is a radiant crystal ball infused with swirling, luminescent energy that displays detailed stats, skills, and status effects. In order to use it, just put your hand and touch the core,” Catherine explained. She made a hand gesture telling me to touch the crystal ball in front of me.
I followed her lead, and touched the Astra whatever it was. The moment the palm of my hand barely touched the ball, a holographic display of information in mid-air materialized.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Name : Mashiro Shimizu Mikan
Level : 1 (EXP 0/100)
Class : Gacha Player
Age : 19
Race : Fox Girl
[STATS]
Health Points : 100/100 [100%]
Mana : 20/20
Physical Attack : 10 (+3)
Magical Attack : 0
Defence : 2
Agility : 12
[SKILLS]
Identification Lv. 1 (Common), The Circle of Butterflies Lv. 1 (Legendary)
[TITLE]
Gacha Addict!
[WEAPONS]
Physical Attack +3
“This is incredible…” Catherine muttered as her eyes were glued to the holographic screen in front of me. There was a sense of sarcastic yet excited emotion inside her muttering. She kept on glancing the screen up and down, especially at the stats section.
Following her suit, I also stared at the game-like interface in front of me. It looked like any other stats that I usually saw while playing RPG games. There was a sense of excitement swelling inside me, my gamer side, to be specific. Even though I mostly played rhythm games and other casual genres, looking at the screen still made me pumped at this RPG-like world.
“I can’t believe it, I’ve never seen such low stats before. Even the children from the village have better stats than this. You must really be one sheltered and pampered princess without any world experience,” Catherine muttered in disbelief. Even with her mocking tone, there was a hint of playfulness in it.
“Hey! That’s not–” Just before I could continue, something clicked inside my head.
I’m Mashiro, not… me, Mikan. I thought. Although Mashiro was supposed to be a high schooler in the game of Luminous Dream that I was obsessed with, there was a small spin-off anime where the characters inside Luminous Dream grew up.
In the episode, Mashiro stopped coming to college after her second semester for unknown reasons. She kept herself shut inside her room, for months. I could vaguely remember a panel of her crying alone on her 19th birthday inside her dark and messy room with a broken guitar that had its neck snapped, which matches my age and coincidentally, the age on the bubble text of information.
Besides having the same age as the spin-off anime, the [SKILLS] list also showed something that only appeared in that episode. The Circle of Butterflies… It’s a song name from the band Mashiro was in. It was written for the sole purpose of breaking Mashiro out from her shut-in state.
The lyrics of the song described a cocoon, wanting to break out, wanting to start living, wanting to escape the darkness inside and see the outside world. The episode ended with Mashiro singing the song with her bandmate as she smiled.
“Shaddap! Anyway, how did you read this?” I pointed at the floating panel with all of my information inside it, with the text written on the panel clearly Japanese. I asked with a small, but hopeful anticipation, “Do you know this language?”
“No. Astralyte Core only displays the language you’re familiar with. I don’t know what language you’re seeing, but the one in my point of view is the human language of the country I grew up with.” Catherine explained as her eyes were still glued to the floating text on top of the crystal ball, especially on the [TITLE] parts. “Though, it’s not perfect. For example, I don’t know what this ‘Gacha Player’ means, could you explain?”
Without missing a beat, I stood up and spread my arms wide as I explained with added flair, “Gacha player? Oh, it’s simple! We’re modern-day digital treasure hunters, but instead of digging for gold, we sacrifice our wallets to RNG gods for JPEGs of anime waifus and overpowered pixel idol outfits. Imagine gambling, but instead of winning money, you win existential dread and a 0.001% chance at happiness!”
The red haired witch stared at me with a bewildered expression, followed by pitiful eyes as she sighed. That look on her face made me gulp my saliva subconsciously. It was an expression that I’ve known for a long time.
“I see, so it’s a class for a mentally unstable crazy person.”
‘I’m not crazy!”