When in doubt—pause.
Rita didn’t rush to deal with Dull Ga. Instead, she pulled out her Ga Addict’s Console and began logging the current ga—the one packed with rare crafting materials.
[Ga Detected: It’s Not the Craft That Sucks]
[Loading ga data... please wait... please wait...]
[Upload progress: 3%... 21%... 56%... 99%...]
[Upload complete]
A new icon appeared next to the Defend the Gacha title on the console interface.
It showed a giant, brightly-colored board like a giant ga of Ludo, scattered with Block-shaped players. At the center sat a glowing-winged Block figure cross-legged, hugging a capsule machine, surrounded by egg-shaped capsules. She was stuffing one more in with eager hands, clearly in a rush to hoard as many as possible.
Off to her two o’clock, a Fat Duck pointed at her with one wing, while speaking into a phone with the other. Its beady black eyes were deadly serious, its beak slightly open—who knew what it was croaking into the receiver.
Rita felt a tinge of regret that she hadn’t recorded the ga when she t her two "teachers." At the ti, all she could think about was catching up on lessons—not ga logs.
A sha...
Putting her console away, Rita turned back to Dull Ga.
She opened the cylinder—no golden bullet.
"Every ti you make a choice that goes against your instincts, a consud ’Stupidity’ bullet will be reactivated."
A choice against instinct.
She clicked the cylinder back into place and swept her gaze across the ga board, eyeing the players and activity packs.
Instinct... what was her instinct? And how could she go against it?
Rita flew to the center of the board, threw her arms wide, and shouted:
"I, BS-Rita, have tons of Divine Relics!!!"
Every Fat Duck froze.
She waited three seconds, then looked down and checked the cylinder again.
Still no bullet.
"I, BS-Rita, am the rising star of the Divine Ga! The gods’ favorite student! The chosen wielder of the Divine Relics!"
The Fat Ducks twitched.
Their webbed feet curled involuntarily.
"Teachers! Show yourselves! Teach ! I’ll give you my life!"
Still nothing.
Rita glanced around, locked on a random Fat Duck, and flew straight at it. She landed in front of it, threw her arms around it, and whispered:
"Let’s get married. I don’t care who you are—I’ll love you forever. Every coin I earn will be yours."
Silence.
She flicked her wrist, spinning Dull Ga open in the air.
Still no bullet.
Rita let go of the duck and folded her arms, sinking deep into thought.
Apparently, talking nonsense—even insane nonsense—wasn’t enough.
"A choice that goes against instinct..."
She stood there, slowly turning the nearly complete revolver in her hands, tracing every line, every Block that made it whole.
The gun’s color sche was red and white—elegant but brutal.
Though it was a revolver, usually compact by design, this one wasn’t small at all.
Even Blockified, Dull Ga was as large as the Wrathful Moon—likely both about 17 centiters in real size.
The barrel was long and thin, pure white with golden vines swirling around it. The gold threaded through the red cylinder, into the gilded trigger, and wound up across the white grip, forming an intricate magical glyph.
It already looked complete. She had no idea where a ninth piece could even go.
After a long silence, she flew back to her spot on the board and canceled the ti-stop.
The world resud.
Rita closed her eyes. She could hear skill explosions, multilingual player chatter, so intelligible, so not. She could even hear the sizzle of frying food from a nearby food cart.
Ti ticked forward in her mind.
At the 119-second mark after the Renovation was completed, she opened her eyes, pointed Dull Ga at the giant material mass she’d created...
Pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
Success.
She’d let the seconds slip by without trying to confirm the bullet’s status, gambling on a sliver of a chance at the last possible mont—sothing she’d never, ever do.
And at that very mont, "Stupidity" reactivated.
It was a blank.
The fifty fused materials scattered into individual pieces.
Rita holstered her gun, packed the materials into capsules, and stuffed them into her Magician’s Wisdom Tooth.
[Gods & Devils Main Chat]
"Let’s get married, Stupidity!"
"Let’s get married, Stupidity!"
"Let’s get married, Stupidity!"
"What happened?? What’s going on?"
"HAHAHAHA I was there! I recorded it! Who wants to see?!"
"Maangmaang, send it to !"
"Post it in the group!"
"I want it too!!!"
[Video sent]
"..."
The collective IQ in the group had dropped below room temperature. Factions didn’t matter anymore. Even Captain and Deceitful Bloom were in the chat.
Stupidity double-checked to make sure they were in the main group chat—not the small, private demon one.
They tried steering the conversation back on track.
"She’s going to strip the ga of materials at this rate."
"I’ll love you forever, Stupidity!"
"I’ll love you forever, Stupidity!"
"I’ll love you forever, Stupidity!"
"..."
A room full of lunatics.
For the first ti ever, Stupidity actually missed the days when the chat was dead.
Blank — blank — "Stupidity."
Dull Ga was once again unusable.
At least she’d fired the "Stupidity" bullet at herself. And since she was still inside the crafting space, she had ti to figure out how to reactivate it again.
But the previous thod wouldn’t work a second ti.
Doing sothing when you already knew the result wasn’t a gamble. It wasn’t a risk. It wasn’t "against instinct"—not for soone like her who hated uncertainty and loved stability.
And there was no room for error either.
She’d already received a notification over an hour ago:
[Temporal Disturbance: The river of ti in Month The Park is becoming agitated from repeated tampering. It is angry. Players who have used ti-based skills during this event will be penalized. Please revere ti the way you revere fate.]
[Detected: 4 uses of ti skills. Your skill Master Thief Dragon will be on a 24-day cooldown. This cooldown cannot be shortened.]
All four uses had been inside the labyrinth.
One use = 6 days cooldown.
That ant she wouldn’t be able to use it again until two full rounds of Divine Ga had passed...
But instead of despair, she felt excitent.
She’d used Wasteland Manual—a ti-freeze skill—far more than four tis, and that wasn’t penalized at all.
So maybe it didn’t count as a ti-based skill?
That made no sense.
There was only one explanation.
Cat’s Ideal was different.
Divine Relics were different. And so were their rules.
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