“Howdy
there! I’m ready to serve!” a four-inch tall squire declared, standing atop the
screen of a smartphone.
“Goddammit,
not another one,” the woman looming over him said, swiping him off the edge of
the table her phone was situated on. After a long drop, the tiny squire crashed
into the tile floor, breaking several bones. As he screamed a canned death cry,
the woman’s foot came down on him, mashing him into a red and flesh-toned
paste. Thirty seconds passed and the viscera vanished in a bright blue flash;
three crystal fragments were added to the woman’s account.
It was June
1st, the day Millia had waited years for. The “Summer of Summoning”
event had just gone active on her mobile-gacha game of choice, Tiny Strategy.
Ever since her friend recommended it to her, the young woman grew dangerously
addicted to it, spending thousands of hours playing and thousands of dollars
rolling for the colorful cast of characters, referred to as summons. Tiny
Strategy was a tactical RPG where players commanded the summons they acquired
against virtual armies. What set it apart from its competition was its use of
tactile holographic technology, creating lifelike reproductions of the
characters that could be seen and touched as if they were really there. Gameplay
would play out in the real world, like a digital game of chess where four-inch
tall warriors fought each other on the floors of bedrooms, train stations,
classrooms, or anywhere users decided to play.
Millia was
playing on her kitchen table that morning, having started as soon as the banner
dropped. She had called off work that day and hadn’t bothered changing out of
her pajamas: a loose-fitting tank-top and a pair of sweatshorts. She pooled
together all the money she could gather from paychecks, side hustles,
commissions, birthday presents, and what little she could squeeze out of her
family, and spent it all on crystals, the in-game currency used for summoning. Millia
needed every chance she could get to acquire the object of her absurd,
gambling-addled desire: the swimsuit variant of Lumella, Dark Queen of the
Billion-fold Emerald and one of the franchise’s most popular villains. Lumella
was Millia’s favorite character, a white haired, busty sorceress with
heterochromia and a god complex. She already had five maxed-out copies of the
normal variant, but the swimsuit version showed off a ton of underboob, and
Millia couldn’t be the character’s number one fan if she didn’t have every alt
(obviously, she already had the child variant, the hero variant, the Santa
variant, and the variant that fought with a bow). And to make matters more
dire, the character hadn’t reappeared in any future rerolls on the JP server
which was three years ahead of NA. There was no way she could wait that long;
Millia would have Lumella, even if it drained her checking account dry.
“Howdy
there! I’m ready to serve!” another squire declared. Oliver Lancesomuch was a
three-star summon who had become a joke among the fanbase; he looked like a
dunce with his dumb bowlcut and green tunic, and he appeared so frequently when
rolling for other characters that he was memed to death across social media. Millia
wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed, snapping every bone in his torso. She
pressed her thumb down on his head, popping it like a grape. In an interview
with the devs, the game’s director explained that the summons were given
ultra-violent death animations as a form of catharsis.
“It gets so
frustrating when, no matter how much you roll for them, you don’t get the
character you’re hoping for,” he explained. “We’ve seen people throw their
phones or destroy their property out of frustration playing similar games, so
we wanted to address that in Tiny Strategy. That’s the inspiration for the
disposal system.” By disposing of unwanted summons, players received crystal
fragments, an in-game currency that could be turned into summoning material.
The amount of crystal fragments received was based on the rarity and level of
the summon. For example, a three-star summon at level one was worth three
crystal fragments; one crystal allowed for one roll on the summoning board, and
it took one-thousand crystal fragments to form a crystal. Millia rolled again,
having already burned through much of her funds. Maximillian Sawbuck, a
three-star cowboy appeared from her phone.
“Woah
Nelly! Perhaps I’m the huckleberry your lookin’ for.” Millia placed the cowboy
onto her palm, examining his model. He had an attractive design, and his stats
were pretty good for a three-star, but Millia decided his crystal fragments
were more valuable. She crumpled him against her forehead like an empty beer
can. Blood dribbled down her face before returning to the ether. As she tried
to roll again, a text notification popped up on her phone.
OMG I
got Lumella on the first roll!! It was the friend who recommended the game
to her. She was F2P, though you’d never guess it from the amount of five-stars
she had. I wasn’t even aiming for her. I thought I’d toss a few crystals in
and see what I got. You’re trying to get her, right? Too bad the game doesn’t
allow trading. Millia ignored the messages and rolled again.
This time
it was Glimmer, a two-star slime girl. “I’m goo-rateful to be summoned by you.”
There was a rumor going around online that the latest update gave her a blue
raspberry flavor. Millia slurped the slime up, swishing the gelatinous creature
around in her mouth. Alas, the rumor was bull; the character had no flavor at
all. She swallowed her anyway, knowing it was the simplest way of disposing her.
The sensation of autonomous Jello flailing against her esophagus was a new one,
but it felt weirdly pleasurable. As the character dissolved in Millia’s stomach
acids, two crystal fragments were added to the woman’s account.
Having
spent nearly all her crystals, Millia only had a few remaining chances to get
the elusive summer summon. As she activated the next roll, a shimmering golden
light beamed out of her phone. A rainbow gradient lined the summoning graphic
on her screen, a special animation for rolling a five-star. Millia leaned
forward, her pupils dilated, as she bore witness to her dreams finally coming
true.
“^%#$*^%$(W#!”
the abstract art piece writhing on top of the phone cried. Rsqnvrn was supposed
to be an otherworldly entity, designed by a guest artist whose art style
clashed with the rest of the game’s aesthetic. As much as Millia hated looking
at the thing, it did have useful skills that were helpful on challenge
missions, so she decided to keep it. A level one five-star was only worth ten
crystal fragments anyway. With a couple taps, the monstrosity was deposited in
her catalog, thankfully out of sight. She kept rolling, and rolling, and
rolling, and rolling, getting nothing for her effort but disappointment after
disappointment.
This was
it, her last crystal. She had accrued 1627 crystal fragments over the course of
that morning, enough for one final summoning. It was all riding on this, the
faintest sliver of hope. Millia tapped the summon icon and closed her eyes. The
few seconds it took for a character to appear lasted an eternity.
“Howdy
there! I’m ready to serve!”
“Son of a
bitch!” Millia yanked the squire off the table and hurled him across the room,
his tiny body splattering against the drywall. As his body disintegrated into
useless crystal fragments, Millia returned to her phone and scrolled through
her catalog of summons. There was only one option left; disposing a maxed out,
five-star unit would net her five hundred crystal fragments, giving her enough
for another summon. With remorse in her heart, she pulled up Bernard, a burly
barbarian and the first five-star she ever summoned. She never cared much for
his character, and having been around since launch, his kit was made obsolete
by later, superior additions to the roster, but he held plenty of sentimental
value to Millia. This was the kind of sacrifice an evil goddess required.
“Forgive
me, my loyal warrior,” she said, lowering the summon into her cleavage. She
wanted to give him a pleasurable death; it was the least she could do for him.
“May we
meet again on the battlefield,” he vowed, “as allies.” She pressed her breasts
together, suffocating the barbarian between her soft flesh. He struggled for a
bit, but as he went limp, his body dissipated. Five hundred crystal fragments
were added to Millia’s account, giving her a total of 1127. She didn’t waste
any time on ritual or superstition, slamming her finger on the summon button.
The summon circle graphic spun around, light shot forth and an anticipatory fanfare
played.
“Howdy
there! I’m ready to-” Her hand fell down on the squire, mashing him against her
phone screen and covering her palm in virtual blood. That was it. There was no
justice in this world, no all-loving God to bestow gifts to the deserving.
There was nothing but cold, hollow despair. Millia sat there, her eyes glazed
over. Another text popped up on her phone.
OMG I
rolled another one!!
What point
was there in going on? All that money she worked so hard for, wasted on some
gacha game that’ll probably shutter its servers in a few years. Was this a
sign? To stop throwing away money and time on this garbage and actually do
something with her life? It wasn’t too late; sure, she was broke, but she was
still young with her whole life ahead of her. That’s it, she thought. After
today, I’m done with this game. I’m going to go outside and do something
meaningful with someone. Millia picked up her phone and attempted to log
out of Tiny Strategy, but the screen froze. After a few seconds, an error
message popped up, and she was booted from the game. Curious, she tried logging
back in, but she was greeted by a message: “Unexpected Maintenance. Estimated
time of completion – one hour.”
Everything
changed. A ray of hope shined through the dark tunnel of despair. After every
surprise maintenance period, players were gifted an apology crystal. That was
her ticket to hapiness. While the hour passed, Millia prayed to every god she
could think of, desperate that at least one of them could bother to do her a
solid. She went on the game’s wiki and read through Summer Lumella’s stats for
the hundredth time. She rewatched the thirty second PV for the event on loop.
She still hadn’t brushed her teeth or changed out of her pajamas.
Millia
returned to the game’s homescreen. An apology crystal waited in her mailbox.
Without hesitating, Millia spent her crystal and waited as the summoning
animation played. This moment would be the deciding factor that determined the
route she’d carve through life. Everything rode on this fortuitous instance of
developer oversight. Golden rays burst from her screen, accompanied by a
rainbow gradient and triumphant fanfare.
“Even the
Queen of Darkness needs to have some fun in the sun.” A pale woman with white
hair and heterochromia appeared out of the brilliant light. Her cropped t-shirt
was soaking wet and tied up high enough to reveal an unreasonable amount of
underboob. The only clothing adorning her lower body was a crimson bikini
bottom and a stylish ankle bracelet. After persevering through a truly arduous
ordeal, Millia had finally acquired Summer Lumella. She was left speechless,
admiring the villainess’ perfect figure from her view up above. “You there,
summoner, your first job is to clean the sand off my feet,” she commanded,
pointing straight to the woman towering over her.
With a snap
of her fingers, Lumella materialized a gothic beach chair and a mai tai. The
Dark Queen put her bare feet up as she lounged, showing off the intricate
detail the modelers put into her soles. With how predominantly they were
featured in promotional art, it made sense her feet had more polygons than some
one-stars had in their entire character models. Millia lowered her head onto
the edge of the table and kissed the tiny sorceress’ feet, her massive lips
enveloping the puny soles.
“Your
appreciation for the refined is exquisite, for a mortal,” Lumella recited. It
was a unique dialogue quote for when a player examined any of her assets in the
model viewer. Millia squealed, content to have attained the character she
worked so hard for. She’d spend the rest of the day admiring the latest
addition to her collection.