“Exactly! This is Astralyte Core! These are the kind you see at guilds. It activates with a touch, projeg holographic dispys of information in mid-air. I bought it at a sketchy bck market with a cheap price of only fifty gold s two hundred years ago!” Catherine’s red eyes lit up as she leaned closer towards me, waiting for my rea.
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 fortueller used that I went to with a cssmate 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 awo hundred years old witch, she would probably be jealous, I thought.
“Wait a miwo hundred years?!” I screamed in disbelief. The red haired wit front of had the appearance of a twenty years old erhaps older, but definitely no older thay five. “Miss Catherine, how old are–”
A gring 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 unfortably as I preteo whistle away an idol song. I took a peek at Catherine, and as her expression calmed down a little, I tihe versation.
“Fifty gold s… 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 dies when it es to money. Listen, it took me almost two entire years to save up for this! I’ve never pleted 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 oable. She looked me straight in the eyes, and started to examine my dress, my ears and tails, and my attitude. Being looked at thhly, 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 on 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 oop left er of the card.
“Um… What is this?” I said as I tried to read the words written on the card without success.
“Adventurer card, ’t you read?” The moment Catherine fihat retort, she immediately spped 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 ’t read human nguage. Since you could speak it, I just assumed you could also read it.”
I ughed 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 preteo cough and looked back at the Astra something in front of me. Catherine blinked as she tihe 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 advehat could plete 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 hire us adveo do all kinds of jobs like sying monsters, colleg herbs or expl dungeons. Do you have any questions?” Catherine asked.
I thought for a moment before raising my hand, “How do I bee one?”
“Well, you ister at adventurers guild, but…” Catherihought for a moment before answering, “There’s no adventurer’s guild here sihis is a desote location with a small vilge.”
“I see…” I muttered.
I would need a job to live indepely, but I could just think of that ter. Afterall, right now being Catherine’s apprentice would be the highest priority. Since I just got reinated 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 ba track to this Astralyte Core. This is a radiant crystal ball infused with swirling, lumi energy that dispys detailed stats, skills, and status effects. In order to use it, just put your hand and touch the core,” Catherine expined. She made a haure tellio 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 dispy of information in mid-air materialized.
Name : Mashiro Shimizu MikanLevel : 1 (EXP 0/100)Css : Gacha PyerAge : 19Race : Fox Girl
[STATS] Health Points : 100/100 [100%]Mana : 20/20Physical Attack : 10 (+3)Magical Attack : 0Defence : 2Agility : 12
[SKILLS]Identification Lv. 1 (on), The Circle of Butterflies Lv. 1 (Legendary)
[TITLE]Gacha Addict!
[ONS]
“This is incredible…” Catheritered as her eyes were glued to the holographic s in front of me. There was a sense of sarcastic yet excited emotion inside her muttering. She kept on gng the s up and down, especially at the stats se.
Following her suit, I also stared at the game-like interfa front of me. It looked like any other stats that I usually saw while pying RPG games. There was a sense of excitement swelling inside me, my gamer side, to be specific. Even though I mostly pyed rhythm games and other casual genres, looking at the s still made me pumped at this RPG-like world.
“I ’t believe it, I’ve never seen such low stats before. Even the children from the vilge have better stats than this. You must really be one sheltered and pampered princess without any world experience,” Catheritered in disbelief. Even with her mog tohere was a hint of pyfulness in it.
“Hey! That’s not–” Just before I could tinue, 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 ing to college after her sed semester for unknown reasons. She kept herself shut inside her room, for months. I could vaguely remember a panel of her g alone on her 19th birthday inside her dark and messy room with a broken guitar that had its neapped, which matches my age and tally, the age on the bubble text of information.
Besides having the same age as the spin-off ahe [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 co, wanting to break out, wanting to start living, wanting to escape the darkness inside ahe outside world. The episode ended with Mashiro singing the song with her bandmate as she smiled.
“Shaddap! Anyway, how did you read this?” I poi the floating panel with all of my information i, with the text written on the panel clearly Japanese. I asked with a small, but hopeful anticipation, “Do you know this nguage?”
“No. Astralyte Core only dispys the nguage you’re familiar with. I don’t know what nguage you’re seeing, but the one in my point of view is the human nguage of the try I grew up with.” Catherine expined as her eyes were still glued to the floati on top of the crystal ball, especially oITLE] parts. “Though, it’s not perfect. For example, I don’t know what this ‘Gacha Pyer’ means, could you expin?”
Without missing a beat, I stood up and spread my arms wide as I expined with added fir, “Gacha pyer? Oh, it’s simple! We’re modern-day digital treasure hunters, but instead of digging fold, we sacrifice our wallets tods for JPEGs of anime waifus and overpowered pixel idol outfits. Imagine gambling, but instead of winning money, you wiential dread and a 0.001% ce 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 subsciously. It was an expression that I’ve known for a long time.
“I see, so it’s a css for a mentally unstable crazy person.”
‘I’m not crazy!”