Chapter 32: Shelter Week 2/2
Monday morning arrived too quickly.
The Shelter timer still had several hours left, but hours no longer felt like time.
They felt like sand.
With nothing better to do, I stared at my remaining points.
Thirteen.
A pitiful amount, but still enough to be careful. Enough to survive.
And, most importantly...
Enough to be stupid.
To absolutely no one's surprise, stupid won.
I did not know why, but the number thirteen offended me. Maybe it was gamer instinct. Maybe it was gacha-related brain damage.
Whatever it was, I suddenly wanted to round it down.
Three final pulls.
That was the limit.
No pretending. No one-more-after-this.
Unless I wanted to destroy what little remained of my safety net, I needed to stop after three.
The first pull happened quickly.
Trash.
13 POINTS → 12 POINTS
"Okay."
Still fine.
Then came the second pull.
Also trash.
12 POINTS → 11 POINTS
"Shit."
I looked between my balance and the Shelter timer.
"Come on, man."
One more.
That was it.
I could stop at eleven. I should stop at eleven.
But ending my final protected day with two duds felt awful in a way I did not want to examine too closely.
I placed my thumb above the button.
"Please."
I was not sure who I was speaking to. The game, the snake, or whatever god handled gambling in this world.
"I am practically begging here."
I dropped dramatically to the floor and stared at the screen like my life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
I pressed the button slowly, as if careful timing could somehow change the result, then closed my eyes.
The familiar sound reached my ears.
Except this time, it was heavier.
Curious, I opened my eyes.
"Huh?"
What I saw left me a little confused.
The egg on the screen, unlike the usual ones, was black.
Not colorful or glowing.
Just black.
Then it struck the bottom of the screen without bouncing. A crack spread across its surface, dark light spilling through before the shell finally broke.
MYTHIC
11 POINTS → 10 POINTS
My fingers stopped moving.
"Mythic?"
Then it finally registered.
I got a MYTHIC, the supposed BEST reward in the entire GACHA of this GAME.
"AHA—AHAHAHA—"
I shot to my feet so quickly I nearly reached the ceiling.
"I won! I actually fucking won!"
I was too busy celebrating to notice the item's name appear.
BLACK MERIDIAN
Amidst my celebration, something heavy materialized behind me.
The sound was not quite a crash.
It was more like my table suddenly remembering that it was cheap furniture.
I flinched and turned.
The table had collapsed beneath a wide black case.
For several seconds, I stood there with my phone in one hand and my mouth half-open.
Only then did I check what I had actually pulled.
"Black... Meridian?"
The app showed nothing except the name.
"What is that?"
No picture. No helpful item card. Even the Beginner Field Kit had shown a small, harmless-looking box before surprising me with enough explosives to level my entire apartment.
This one gave me nothing.
"Wait. What was Mythic again?"
I quickly navigated to the rarity descriptions, which showed the details for each gacha reward tier.
__
MYTHIC
Rewards of this tier are selected according to what the system judges the user currently needs most.
They are chosen based on the user's condition, abilities, and compatibility.
__
I read it twice.
"So... this is for me?"
After reading that, the case suddenly became much more interesting.
It seemed that D-Game had not merely thrown something expensive at me. It had specifically chosen an item it believed suited my ability and current situation.
I crouched beside the remains of my table.
"Let's see what the snake thinks I'm missing."
The locks opened with two solid clicks.
Inside, dark foam had been cut around a single circular object.
After seeing what was inside, it did not take me long to figure out what the Black Meridian was supposed to be.
"Is this a... shield?"
Matte black, with a dark-silver rim and faint concentric grooves that appeared whenever the light shifted across its surface.
Simple.
Clean.
Almost annoyingly elegant for something that had just murdered my table.
Regardless...
"..." My expression while looking at this Mythical shield could not have been more underwhelmed, to say the least.
Because that was it for my Mythic reward?
D-Game had examined my Sigil, weapons, habits, and whatever else it could see, then decided that what I truly needed most right now was a legally distinct Captain America shield?
"If this is your idea of life advice, you're being very weird about it."
As I sighed heavily, I noticed a folded sheet of paper tied inside the lid with a black cord.
Curious, I untied it and unfolded it, revealing what seemed to be a note.
__
BLACK MERIDIAN
Forged by Tharion Veyr, the greatest craftsman in all of Elyndra.
Its metal is said to have been taken from the heart of a dying star that fell across the vast cosmos.
The shield's final bearer was General Aedric Vael, who stood alone at Meridian's western gate and held back the invading Dravaryn Empire for seven days and seven nights.
It is said that its wielder may receive the full blow of an ogre as though it were nothing, and that not even the breath of a dragon can pierce its face.
However, Black Meridian is not a shield that just anyone can wield.
For the burden it carries is too great for any ordinary warrior to bear.
__
Squinting, I read the note again.
A dying star. A legendary craftsman. A general defending a gate for seven days.
Ogres.
Dragon breath.
Well, it seemed that this shield was actually Mythical in every sense.
It had wandered in from an entirely different genre.
My attention then returned to the final line.
"For the burden it carries..."
I nodded knowingly.
"Responsibility. Sacrifice. The emotional weight of defending a kingdom."
Heavy indeed... Good thing I did not have a kingdom.
I set the note aside as I prepared to check out the Mythical shield.
"Let's see..." I muttered casually as I grabbed the shield's rim and pulled.
"..."
Nothing happened.
I adjusted my grip and tried harder.
"?"
Still nothing.
"Okay?"
Thinking I simply had not tried hard enough, I planted both feet, grabbed it with both hands, and put nearly all my strength into lifting it.
Thankfully, with that, the shield finally moved.
Well, barely...
One side rose several centimeters.
"Ugh!"
Along with the immediate protest from my shoulders.
Thud!
Less than a second later, it slammed back into the case hard enough to shake the floor.
The smile left my face.
"What in the actual fuck?"
After staring at the shield with an incredulous expression for a couple of seconds, an idea came to mind.
I remembered two of the duds scattered around my apartment.
A compact hydraulic jack.
And an industrial platform scale.
Several frustrating minutes later, the shield rested on the scale.
The numbers climbed past one hundred.
Then two hundred.
Finally, they stopped.
301.6 kg
I reset the scale and tried again.
301.6 kg
"Well, I'll be damned..."
Just then, one line from the note surfaced in my mind.
"That's one heavy burden."
I sat back and stared blankly at the shield.
"Does Elyndra have forklift knights or something?"
The frustration arrived properly after that.
"Just great. How the fuck am I supposed to use that?"
I continued staring at it for a minute or two with clear disappointment in my eyes.
Eventually, realizing I would get nowhere like this, I started thinking of possible uses it might have.
Recall might move it. Guide might help once it was already moving. Worst case, I could drop it on someone's head and use it as the world's most dramatic anvil trap.
Useful?
Maybe.
A shield?
Absolutely not.
"Haa, damn it."
I sighed heavily, clearly out of ideas and quietly resigned for now.
I lazily stood up and walked over to the shield. Placing my palm against its matte surface, I decided to claim it.
Mine.
The claim formed immediately.
Heavy.
Dense.
Clearer than most objects, as though my awareness had hooked onto something impossibly solid.
I ignored it, though, as I grabbed the rim of the shield, intending to move it toward the jack.
Once I had a secure enough grip, I pulled, keeping its weight in mind.
Hard.
Too hard.
However...
This time, for some reason, the shield came up like it weighed nothing.
"Eh?"
I quickly noticed what was wrong and tried to adjust myself.
Unfortunately, my body had already committed to lifting something that supposedly weighed three hundred kilograms.
So, to make a long story short, I stumbled backward and fell to the floor. As for the shield, given the force, it obviously flew up from the scale, spun across the room, and struck the edge of the open veranda door.
Then... it quietly disappeared outside.
For half a second, my brain refused to process what had happened.
Three hundred kilograms.
Falling from my apartment.
Outside.
"OH FUCK!"
I scrambled upright and quickly activated my Sigil.
Recall.
Thankfully, the connection snapped tight.
The shield instantly stopped falling and shot back through the veranda.
Fortunately, it hit nothing on its way.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized that a three-hundred-kilogram star-metal shield was now flying directly toward me.
"Wait, wait, wait—"
With nothing but pure instinct, I braced myself with both hands and closed my eyes.
Hoping and praying for nothing but the best.
To my surprise, nothing dramatic happened.
The shield I had expected to hit me like a speeding car landed safely in my palms.
I caught it.
Easily.
No shattered arms. No floor-shaking impact. No sudden death by legally distinct superhero equipment.
It felt heavy, but normally heavy.
Like an actual shield rather than three hundred kilograms of cosmic metal.
"What?"
In disbelief, I slowly lowered it.
The moment I let go, its full weight returned with a deep groan from the floor.
I quickly grabbed it again and lifted it.
The difference was immediate and noticeable.
The shield had not become lighter. The world still treated it like three hundred kilograms.
It seemed that my Sigil was doing something to the shield, allowing me to carry it normally.
I turned it carefully.
Left.
Right.
Up.
Down.
Not quickly.
Not after what had nearly happened near the veranda.
Still, it moved.
"A shield, huh?"
An amused laugh escaped my mouth.
A shield that no ordinary person could wield unless they possessed an ability that allowed them to ignore that limitation.
A person like me.
It was too specific. Too compatible.
I stared at the black surface.
"Did you know?"
The shield did not answer.
Neither did the game.
I sighed heavily once more as I pulled out my phone.
The Shelter timer displayed on the screen continued counting down.
Nearing its end.
"I gotta move soon."
Then I glanced around the room.
"But I gotta fix this mess first."
Right after that, to my neighbors' dismay, my room became even noisier.
As if it wasn't already.
End of Chapter 32