“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.