The screen of my laptop was so bright it was probably burning my retinas, but I couldn't look away. My heart was pounding, a frantic drum solo against my ribs. My dorm room was a mess, empty ramen cups, discarded textbooks, and clothes I was pretty sure I hadn't seen in a week. None of it mattered.
All that mattered was the screen.
On it, a ridiculously-armored anime knight held a glowing sword to the sky. This was it. The final boss of the "Crimson Citadel" raid in Arcane Summoners Online. My guild, a bunch of randoms I'd been playing with for two years, was screaming in my ears through my headset.
"Leo, he's charging his ultimate! We're gonna wipe!" a voice shrieked. That was Sarah, or "Healer_Chan99."
"My mana's dry, dude! I can't tank another hit!" That was "TankyBoi420." Real original, I know.
My eyes weren't on the boss, though. They were on a tiny bar at the bottom of the screen. The boss's stagger gauge. It was at 98%. We'd been whaling on this guy for forty-five minutes straight. My fingers were cramping, my eyes felt like sandpaper, but I knew. I knew the patterns. I knew the mechanics.
This was my world.
"He's locked in the animation," I said, my voice probably way calmer than it should've been. "He can't change targets. Everyone, ignore the adds. Full burn on the boss. Now."
It was a gamble. If I was wrong, the adds, the smaller mobs that spawned, would tear through our backline and we'd wipe for the tenth time tonight. But I wasn't wrong. I'd spent weeks on the test server, analyzing every single frame of this boss's animation. I knew his moves better than I knew my own chemistry homework.
My character, a nimble rogue named "GachaGod," zipped behind the boss. I hammered my keyboard, a flurry of clicks and clacks that sounded like a hailstorm. My skills flowed in a perfect rotation, each one landing with a satisfying shing and a flash of yellow crit numbers.
The stagger bar hit 100%.
A massive CRACK echoed through my headphones. The Crimson Knight buckled, falling to one knee.
"STAGGERED! GO, GO, GO!" I yelled, and my guildmates unleashed hell.
Spells flew, axes fell, and the boss's health bar melted like ice cream on a hot sidewalk. Ten seconds later, he exploded in a shower of golden light and loot.
Silence.
Then, chaos. Cheers erupted in my headset.
"WE DID IT! WORLD FIRST!"
"LEO, YOU'RE A LEGEND!"
I leaned back in my chair, a goofy grin spreading across my face. My heart was still racing, but now it was from the victory high. A flood of purple and orange item names filled my screen. We'd gotten the Mythic-tier drops.
"Alright, loot distribution," I said, falling into my role as the raid leader. But my eyes were already on my own inventory. The raid was just a means to an end. It was the currency I needed.
"Hey Leo," Sarah's voice cut through the celebration. "You gonna do it?"
I chuckled. "You know it."
I clicked over to the in-game shop, the real heart of Arcane Summoners Online. The new banner had just dropped an hour ago. "The Celestial Dragon Empress, Xylia." Her art was insane, a beautiful, silver-haired woman with dragon horns and a dress that looked like it was made of starlight. Her pull rate was a disgusting 0.5%.
But I had a plan. I'd been saving up my premium currency for months, and I'd spent the last week pulling on the standard banner, getting nothing but trash. Why?
Because I was priming the pump. I was building up my pity.
In most gacha games, the "pity system" is a safety net. If you pull, say, 90 times without getting the highest-rarity item, the 90th pull is guaranteed to be one. I had spent days mapping out the pity counter in ASO. It wasn't advertised, but it was there. I could feel it. I was at 89 pulls without a single SSR-rank character.
My next pull on any banner was guaranteed.
"Dude, you're crazy," TankyBoi said. "Just save it for a banner with better odds."
"There are no better odds," I muttered, my eyes glued to the screen. "There is only the guarantee."
I clicked on the "Limited Banner" tab. Xylia stared back at me, her expression serene and powerful. I clicked the "Summon x1" button.
The screen went dark. A single golden comet shot across the sky. It wasn't the flashy, rainbow-colored animation that screamed "you got the banner character!" It was just a simple, single SSR animation. But I knew.
The comet landed, and the silhouette of a character appeared. It wasn't the flowing dress of the Dragon Empress. It was a bulky, armored figure. The game had given me a random, non-banner SSR character from the general pool.
My guildmates groaned. "Aww, dude, you got spooked! Unlucky."
I just smiled. "No. This is exactly what I wanted."
They didn't get it. I didn't want to rely on luck. I wanted to beat it. By getting a random SSR, I had just proven my theory. The pity system was real, and I had just reset my counter back to zero without wasting it on a banner I didn't care about. Now I could save my guaranteed pull for a character I truly wanted. I was the god of garbage pulls, the master of the pity system.
I leaned back, feeling like a king. I'd beaten the game, both in the raid and in the shop. Life was good.
I decided to celebrate with a trip to the 24-hour convenience store for a soda. It was almost 3 AM, but the victory buzz was too strong to sleep. I threw on a hoodie, slipped on my sneakers, and headed out of the dorm.
The night air was cool and crisp. The campus was dead quiet, streetlights casting long, lonely shadows on the pavement. It was peaceful. I was so lost in thought, replaying the raid and planning my next gacha strategy, that I didn't even look both ways when I stepped off the curb.
I heard the screech of tires first.
Then came a blaring horn that seemed to shake my bones.
I turned my head, my eyes wide. Two blindingly bright headlights were rushing towards me, filling my entire vision. It was a massive truck, the kind that probably delivered produce or something. The driver's face was a mask of panic.
My gamer brain, honed by years of dodging telegraphed attacks, screamed at me to move. But my body was frozen. Time seemed to slow down, just like when a boss enters its final phase. I could see every detail on the truck's grille. I could see a little bobblehead dog on the dashboard.
My last thought wasn't about my family, or my friends, or any of my life's regrets.
It was, embarrassingly enough: 'Man, I never even got to pull for that new swimsuit banner.'
Then, everything went white. And then, nothing at all.