Chapter 60 The Gacha Banner Pity System Can't Possibly Fail Me, Right?

An unexpected development left Rein completely dumbfounded.

"Wait, it can actually refuse? The Heroic Spirit Compendium can actually reject me?!"

Rein's astonishment met with no response.

Yet this very silence perhaps implied tacit agreement.

The Heroic Spirit Compendium was a simulated personality constructed from memories, so of course it could refuse—it could even completely ignore you.

This was a rather magnificent hero card. The lion-beast hero depicted upon it possessed red hair and a red beard, standing unflinching before a surging torrent of blazing fire.

A ferocious dragon claimed one corner of the card, its breath of fire flooding the entire frame.

Yet the hero roared into the heavens amidst a ring of fire, cleaving the flames apart entirely by himself. The sparks from his cleave extended all the way to the edges of the card, serving as its decorative border.

It was a strikingly handsome hero card; even through the paper, one could feel his unyielding spirit and wrath. Behind him, standing his ground because there was no path left for retreat, were the silhouettes of several children and elderly folk.

Even at death's door, the hero's pupils remained pure, his expression confident and resolute, devoid of even a shred of fear.

Perhaps this was the passion and purity a fairy-tale hero ought to possess.

His sword, the dagger at his waist, and even his crown were all deeply familiar to Rein. He would have been even more pleased if this face hadn't looked so remarkably like his own.

[Do not awaken me. Please forget me—Rex Thorne.]

The other party's stance was direct: he simply had no desire to deal with Rein and casually tossed him three conditions instead.

At just a single glance, Rein felt his scalp tingle.

[Complete either of the next two tasks to be considered as having fulfilled the hero's commission and dying wish, thereby meeting the threshold for a forced link with the Heroic Spirit.]

[1. Investigate and uncover the truth behind the destruction of the kingdom's old capital.]

[2. Secure an audience with the kingdom's "Princess."]

[Note: Under the current state, completing commissions will still increase the Heroic Spirit's satisfaction, but the points will only accumulate and be tallied upon the Heroic Spirit's actual possession.]

Of these two tasks, the first was blatantly a massive trap. Didn't this practically broadcast that there was something shady about the officially sanctioned "Great Kingdom Calamity (Great Dragon Disaster)"?

As for the second, finding the kingdom's princess, that was at least achievable. After all, Shaliman seemed to be connected to the princess, and the princess supposedly resided in this very city.

Arranging an audience through her probably wouldn't be too difficult, except...

"Is this princess really the current princess...?"

This was the dying wish of the Heroic Spirit. The current princess consort was seemingly named Dainya, born half a year after the catastrophe—meaning she was a posthumous child. Theoretically, her father might not even have been aware of her existence.

Could "the princess" in question refer to Her Majesty the Queen? That seemed quite plausible, considering they were husband and wife.

Still, Rein sensed a trap hidden within. Otherwise, why would this fellow refuse the link? Wouldn't it be easier to just look at his wife through Rein?

For all he knew, staring at her a couple of times might cause his satisfaction rating to skyrocket.

Was there a third condition? Indeed there was, but Rein took one look and immediately abandoned the thought.

[Should you fail to complete the Heroic Spirit's commission and secure their permission, you may still override their will to force a connection. However, this requires your physical body and soul strength to reach at least one-tenth of the Heroic Spirit's prime condition to prevent catastrophic loss of control... Current diagnostic: unqualified. Please continue striving.]

One-tenth? If the rumors were true that the hero could shatter city walls with a single slash and crush giant dragons to death with one stomp, even one percent wouldn't be enough. Better to give up immediately.

"What on earth happened back then..." Rein estimated that unless the princess wasn't the current Princess Dainya, investigating the truth of the past events was probably the more reliable path.

Besides, Rein himself had grown somewhat curious about those bygone days.

Previously, he hadn't cared in the least, but now, it seemed he had somehow become an involved party?!

"Rex, the First Hero..." Ever since arriving in this kingdom and this city, Rein had been repeatedly badgered by this name and title.

Whenever locals chatted among themselves, the conversation inevitably drifted back to this man. It wasn't that they genuinely cherished his memory, but rather that they yearned for the era when he was around—that powerful quasi-empire and those safe, stable, prosperous days.

One could say that his fall served as the dividing line, after which the kingdom went into a continuous tailspin.

Though a so-called Second Hero had been cultivated later on... based on feedback from all sides, there simply was no comparison to the First Hero.

"His personal strength must have been at the absolute apex of the continent, and combined with those two signature artifacts, he probably possessed the might to trade blows with actual gods."

The Sword of Courage drastically heightened his power and fortune in desperate situations, while the "Blade of Court Death" pinpointed the opponent's fatal weakness, allowing him to deliver a killing blow.

"The Blade of Court Death even imposes its own countdown to death. If someone swings that sword at the very last second, right at the precipice of doom, heaven knows just how far it could amplify their strength."

Based solely on these two pieces of equipment, Rein could glimpse the sheer absurdity of this hero back in the day.

His innate abilities were at least top-tier on the continent—otherwise, how could he have earned the title of Continental Hero? Coupled with an infinite, temporary scaling of combat power when facing formidable foes, who could possibly withstand that fatal slash delivered at death's door? For a man like that to die so inexplicably reeked of trouble no matter how one looked at it.

"The campaign that made him a hero also had some fishy elements..."

Information regarding this was public knowledge; it was impossible for Rein not to know even if he tried.

Between street-corner bards, tavern ditties, and red-light district tunes, as long as one lived in this city, escaping this epic of heroism was impossible.

For the kingdom's citizens, they fondly adored the poems and legends of the past.

That was both praise for the hero and nostalgia for their former strength and wealth.

"On the day the world faced destruction, the hero took up the Sword of Courage, rallied the coalition forces of various nations, successfully subjugated the Demon King, and saved the world... Very classic, very cliché, but the more you look, the more problems you find."

The hero subjugating the Demon King was fine, but where did the Demon King come from? Did demons even exist in this world? Whenever someone asked, nobody seemed to know.

The coalition forces were described in painstaking detail—the elite legions of various nations, the Seven Heroes and Three Monarchs, the most dazzling sun, the invincible Continental Hero Rex. Yet from beginning to end, there was never a clear description of who exactly he fought, what race they belonged to, or who they specifically were.

"Detailed information about the opponent was intentionally blurred."

No matter how fiercely their own side was praised, whenever the adversary was mentioned, terms like "Demon King" or "monsters" were used as substitutes, and the Demon King's army was simply described as mammoths and giant beasts blotting out the sky.

"Intentionally obscuring the details... Could it also have been a 'Beast'? An ancient Beast that had broken free from its shackles...?"

Having just experienced such entities, combined with the basic intelligence surrounding Beasts, Rein naturally made the connection.

A fully manifested Beast truly possessed the capacity to destroy the world, and information concerning it could never be allowed to leak.

The more Rein pondered, the more plausible it seemed. Put this way, the events involving the former quasi-empire suddenly made complete sense.

"The Beast awakened, plunging the nations into crisis. Hero Rex and the coalition joined the war, ultimately succeeding in slaying the Beast and earning the continent-wide recognition of the Hero title... Ancient Beasts supposedly cannot die, so at the very least, it was sealed."

"Following that, his and the kingdom's public prestige soared sky-high. He then leveraged this momentum to enter a political marriage with the princess, securing the legitimate royal bloodline of the kingdom. With that claim established, he could attempt to annex the surrounding nations."

"At that point, preparing to declare himself emperor and elevating the kingdom into an empire was entirely within the realm of possibility. However..."

The more Rein deduced, the more subtle and complex things felt.

From this perspective, if Rein's malicious speculations were true, plenty of people must have wanted Rex dead back then, and everyone had a motive.

If that was the case, the hidden currents behind the past events were truly numerous. For all he knows, when the kingdom fell into decline, the surrounding lesser nations probably broke out the champagne.

This also explained why, following the destruction of the old capital and the death of the hero, other nations threw friendship to the wind and immediately seized the opportunity to kick a man when he was down.

From their standpoint, they probably truly wished for the complete ruin of the kingdom that had once threatened to swallow them whole.

Yet, laying out fairy tales and epics side by side for analysis made Rein feel increasingly pathetic.

"How did this hero end up looking like nothing more than a disposable tool? Just sitting around waiting for Beasts or whatever weird things to crawl out, only to be pushed to the front lines as cannon fodder..."

At that moment, Rein felt an even stronger urge to stay far away from this whole hero business. It was utterly a colossal deathtrap.

Obtaining this power meant that whenever something went wrong somewhere, you would likely be dispatched as expendable ammunition.

No wonder the kingdom was in such a desperate rush to find the Second Hero, Lena. Another Demon King could appear at any moment, yet their "nuclear deterrent" had gone missing.

"Sigh, it looks like Rex's card can't be rushed. I'll treat it as a long-term quest and take it slow... Fortunately, Brother Sul came through for me this time and gave me a second card."

Without a second card, would he have been forced to bite the bullet and solve those riddles? Rein checked, but the compendium still offered no reply.

Right now, however, he didn't need to dwell on that. He just had to believe in himself.

"This time, it's definitely a mage. Definitely a Heroic Spirit who's easy to get along with..."

Rein muttered to himself as he prepared to draw a card... then stopped. When your luck is ice-cold, you shouldn't force consecutive pulls while heated.

He headed to the restroom to sit and calm down, splashed water on his face, and washed his hands three times over.

Finally, he sat back down and initiated the card draw...

[Heroic Spirit activation initiated... Random process complete. The Heroic Spirit 'The Most Humble Greatness' Kuku has descended! Soul module loading in progress...]

This... why did that sound slightly ominous?

[Ah! It's a Paladin!! My most hated stinking tin can! Scram! ——Kuku]

No, please don't! Absolutely not!

At that moment, Rein finally understood how extraordinarily lucky he had been to pull Brother Sul on his very first try.

Brother Sul, I am truly indebted to you! Before, I used to complain that you practically killed me for fun, but looking back now, what was a little pain compared to this?!

Yet, this might precisely be the spellcasting Heroic Spirit card Rein had been longing for!

The cluttered room was piled high with all sorts of bizarre magical items. A short figure draped in a cloak, whose face was obscured, gripped a staff taller than himself with two pale red little claws while stirring something in a massive cauldron.

Hovering above his head were a blue gemstone, a flame crystal, and an icicle orbiting in a circle.

This matched Rein's mental image of a proper mage to a T.

The more he desired it, the more anxious he grew, terrified that the other party would also issue a refusal to link or demand three impossible conditions.

[Heroic Spirit Kuku is displeased that you are a Paladin. Current satisfaction: -10%.]

Uh... this thing could actually go into the negative?!

Yet Rein still breathed a sigh of relief. Not refusing the link outright was already a massive blessing.

Alas, he had rejoiced too soon...

[A dragon! Dragons are even worse!! The dragons I hate most! Bad dragons! ——Kuku]

Rein was genuinely on the verge of tears.

Please don't, whatever you hate, I'll change it.

You can't change your race? Uh... should I pretend to be a giant lizard for you? I can do it super convincingly, the local guards wouldn't even be able to tell it's fake.

Fortunately, perhaps Rein's humble self-deprecation touched this senior, because despite stepping on numerous landmines, the other party still didn't refuse the link... Perhaps the requirements for refusing a link were simply quite high.

Thinking about it that way, that Lord Hero must have genuinely had some deep-seated issues.

[Heroic Spirit Kuku expresses extreme displeasure at your Dragon-blood lineage. Current satisfaction: -30%.]

At this juncture, Rein was utterly numb.

In any case, as long as there was no outright refusal, it was a good thing.

He no longer expected to gain anything beneficial from this wizard who loathed him so thoroughly. Judging by his tone of voice, he didn't sound entirely stable either; he just wanted to hurry up and move on to the next one.

[Confirm activation? Note: Current satisfaction is -30%, which may lead to unknown possibilities... It might not be all that friendly.]

Yet did Rein honestly have a choice? These two grandpas today made him profoundly nostalgic for Brother Sul, who had just departed.

He genuinely suspected there was some sort of beginner's protection at play, ensuring his very first pull was such a friendly Heroic Spirit bro.

Right now, however, options were nonexistent.

"Activate it. We're all human souls after all, how bad could it possibly be..."

In the days that followed, he would regret this decision countless times.