" ..... "
After he managed to calm himself, the young man who raged earlier finally let out a sigh.
Thinking that there was no use to be angry at someone who couldn't even answer him in such a scenario, it's not like there was one way to contact the helping team or the admin in those commands he read previously.
On top of that, it was written black on white, that he will have to spend the rest of his life here, and that the little accomodation the creator of the game prepared for him was the only thing he could do to help.
Of course, the content of the wooden box that stood at the end of the bed was also written in this message, it was just plain clothes from this world and a bit of money, something that couldn't be put inside the inventory, as after creating it for him, he couldn't put things that wasn't from the game inside of it.
And at last, right now, inside his inventory, was the only and last gift he received besides all those commands, a single card to start his journey, though the rarity of it wasn't written anywhere, as if saying ' Try your luck '.
" Something like that... "
Keeping the light book in his hands and erasing as hard as he could the thought of throwing it away once again, he slowly lowered it to the table before letting go of it, only to speak once again, using one of the many key words written inside of it.
" ... Inventory. "
It was just a simple command, and this time, he didn't have to wait a certain moment or just to blink for a result to appear, this one being a white and semi-transparent game panel.
[ Inventory ]
- All ( 1 )
- Gear ( 0 )
- Items ( 0 )
- Consumables ( 1 )
- Shards ( 0 )
- Inscriptions ( 0 )
Just as he remembered, it really was the same inventory as the game, and while the first four categories were the most commons to someone who at least played a few games, as there was nothing too hard to understand, the last two might be a bit complicated if one never played a gacha game before.
In this situation, the shards here were mostly for the cards that could be merged together once there was a certain number of them, but it also served for various rare items or consumables and even gears that needed to be merged and couldn't be obtained normally, relying on luck or various events to get them.
As for the inscriptions, it was something different altogether, but not strange for every gacha players that knew a bit about the games they were playing, especially since every games had them, although the name may vary depending on the game.
But to put it simply, those are the ones and only dupes ressources, obtainable solely when getting the same character twice or more in most games.
And this dupe, or 'inscription' in this case, would serve to awaken, strengthen, or any other name it may be given to that process, a character that was already pulled before, making it stronger one way or another.
However, in 'Erotic Card Maestro' , besides getting the same character card twice, there was another way to awaken them, after all, it wasn't a pure gacha rpg, but an eroge !
Meaning that the other way to awaken a character and obtain various resources was to raise their affinity, with each level of affinity offering different things, and the higher the level, the best the rewards obviously.
As for the question of how to raise this one, it was also quite simple, since be it by offering various gifts, playing the game by using the said characters or even by having small but interesting dates with them, those three options were the only choices the player had.
Yet, for someone like Arthur, with the in-game name of Arthurion, who put too much time, not so many efforts and way too much money in the game, something like the affinity level of every available character, it has been a while since he was done with that, but now it seemed that he would have to start again.
" Seeing my inventory in this state.. I really went back to the start, haven't I ? "
Sighing at the thought of having his efforts be scratched to the point of going back to the very beginning, he looked at the only item in his inventory, a black card.
That's right, the card here wasn't the usual white meaning a three stars or less, a golden one for a four stars, or even the rare rainbow one, being a five stars character.
However, it wasn't like he never saw a black card before, and although those didn't exist at the first launch of the game, that black card that was introduced much later had only one remarkable particularity.
Unlike any other cards with a fixed rarity, this one could actually give any character from a 1 star to a 5 one, so everything would be based on his own luck and the tags he would put in.
But first, raising his hand to tap on the small card icon inside his inventory with his index finger and selecting the ' take out ' option, the black card which suddenly was in his hand appeared out of thin air, proving once again that the options given to him were real.
" Now now, which tags should I put to have the biggest chance of having a good five stars... "
Ignoring the cold and metallic touch of the black card against his fingers and palm while he lightly played with it, he just kept looking at it, this one being completely empty, devoid of any illustrations or texts, just like in the game.
But unlike in the game, where he could put the tags easily as it was proposed to him once he selected to use the card, as of now, there was no such options that appeared in front of him.
" ... Should I just say them out loud.. ? How embarassing. "
Of course, as a hardcore player of the game, one that had unlocked every cutscenes, he knew which tags to use for his favorite characters, but also which to use for the strongest ones too, so at least, he could somewhat put the statistics in his favor depending on what he wanted, but there would still be a certain amount of characters with the same tags as the ones he could use.
And in the end, what he needed the most right now was still to be fortunate enough, just like when he finished that damned game.
So stopping himself from playing with it any further, he looked at it for a moment in deep silence, staring at the card that stood between two of his fingers, its darkness mesmerizing, but his thoughts running faster than anything else as he soon made his choice.
" ... The tags are ; female, beastkin, stockings, corruption.. emotionless sex. "
Just as he started speaking once again, the tags he then listed out loud started to appear against the back of the the black card, being properly displayed and separated, where he began from the easiest and headed towards the hardest to say while keeping a straight face, a bit nervous as he said the last one.
The choice he made in the end was but to aim for a wolfkin using a short shield and a one-handed sword, one that wore a maid costume and seemed expressionless at all time, even during the first few sex scenes.
But as one would reach a higher affinity, the more things they could do with her, and the mask she wore would soon degrade until she would let place to her ' true self ' , explaining about how genuine the game felt about their five stars who had the most sex scenes, deepest stories and personalities.
However, because of such traits, on top of being the rarest and harder to get, they would also wear a larger number of tags, and that's why it was so hard to aim for a specific one.
With the game having six combat classes, warrior, archer, priest, mage, support and assassin, even by allowing the player to cut the probabilities by one sixth, those tags couldn't be of much use to get the character he wanted with a black card, so this is why he choose to put two tags that weren't seen together often compared to the vanilla ones.
But those were just not seen often together, since after all, for a hentai game that wanted to brag about its variety of content, even if each scenes were different, the tags were bound to be the same on some characters, and there wasn't a single character that had a unique set of tags for themselves.
So praying for his luck to favor him, the text on the card started to shine, expanding to the whole front side of the card, almost blinding him as he was forced to close his eyes.
And when he opened them...
" ..... Rainbow.. ? "
He saw it, what he yearned for.
That one specific color palette, covering the edges of the metallic card he was currently holding, this one letting place to a single but realistic illustration in its center.
A gorgeous woman with an hourglass shaped body, having both hands resting on top of her stomach, as if maintaining a proper attitude.
Keeping her eyes closed, with a soft white skin like milk, and silver colored hair cascading on her shoulders with fluffy ears that possessed the same color, except for the fact that they were darker on the tips.
Wearing a maid dress with black thigh highs stockings, those clearly hiding her body, but not her charming and inviting curves.
" Bingo ! "
And looking at the card in his hand, he admired every single detail from such a front side, from how vibrant the colors became and how the pixels that could be seen on his screen disappeared once it became the real deal, with him really getting excited about the fact that he could get her from the get go.
However, when turning the card around with a light and proud smirk on his lips, his body then suddenly froze out of surprise.
If the front side showed a picture of the character, their name and rarity by those edges of various colors, the back side would show more details about them.
Starting by the full name, then age, specific race, combat class, level, skills, a hint of her past story and obviously, the full list of tags.
But that was far from everything, as among those details, there was also another thing, a pink colored heart that stood at the bottom right of the card, with usually a number at the center of it, starting from 0, and going up to 50, which was the max for a five stars card.
This heart represented the level of affinity the player had with those, but unlike the usual zero when getting a new card, there clearly was something strange here...
" ... Why is it maxed already ? "