Lucky Rabbit

Pandy thought, staring down at the piece of paper pinned beneath her ink-stained paw. It was only faintly illuminated by the tiny Spark she’d cast more than an hour ago, but Pandy didn’t need light to see the words that formed before her eyes.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: 1/1

Mana: 82/82

Stats▾

Strength: 18 Intelligence: 12 Agility: 20 Pain Tolerance: 1Skills▾

Hop: Lv. 20 (5/190) Bite: Lv. 19 (44/100) Scratch: Lv. 11 (2/28) Minor Heal: Lv. 22 (255/370) Wings of Glory: Lv. 1 (1/2) Verdant Surge: Lv. 1 (1/2) Vita Herbalis: Lv. 1 Spark: Lv. 1 Shifting Faces: Lv. 2     00:00:02Boons▾

Ismara’s Blessing IMark of KerosCorruption Points: 176

Silently, she contemplated the numbers, especially the last one. Today, as she used one skill after another, openly, for the first time since arriving in this world, she realized that she’d been making a fundamental error.

She’d been treating her new life like, well, her old life.

Pandy had figured out long ago that she had little to no control over her own life, and therefore the best thing she could do was, in fact, to do the best she could. When she was kicked out of yet another foster home, she just hoped that the next one would be better. When her homework got blown off the table and eaten by the neighbor’s mini goat, she simply redid it. When she stepped off a curb into a pothole the size of Dallas, drenched herself in mud, twisted her ankle, and showed up limping, late, and filthy to a job interview, she just accepted that that was the way it was, went home, and took a shower.

But now, Pandy was living in Gacha Love. She knew that, of course. She’d been leveling up her stats and skills, finding secrets and hidden items, and enjoying being near the characters and places she knew so well – or at least ones adjacent to them. And yet…she also hadn’t been using her Corruption Points. Not the way she should, anyway. It was true that she’d had to save up in order to buy Shifting Faces. No, she didn’t want to be sent to Hell for running out of Corruption Points, either. But now that she knew it was even a possibility, that really shouldn’t ever happen. She was hoarding to hoard. To have options when the world ate her homework and splashed mud all over her. But in doing so, she was limiting herself.

She was still acting like she was helpless in the face of fortune, and that simply wasn’t true anymore. She knew every spell used by Clara and all four of her love interests. Which meant that all of those spells were available to her. If she was actually playing Gacha Love, she wouldn’t end a day with a single point of Stamina remaining – she would be getting every skill and spell she could, and leveling each of them to at least ten.

Yes, many of Clara’s skills, in particular, were ridiculously unhelpful to a rabbit. She didn’t need to Dance, and she definitely didn’t need things like Fashion or Graceful Presence. Though, on second thought, Graceful Presence might be useful, simply because Pandy’s current presence was anything but graceful.

In any case, the important thing was that every one of those useless skills could raise Pandy’s stats, or give her more Mana. Rather than continuing to hoard Corruption Points, Pandy needed to spend them. Oh, not all of them, but many. Most, even. And rather than focusing on the top-tier, late game skills, she needed to get the first ones. The cheap ones.

Pandy needed to stop reacting, and start acting. Which sounded like the catchphrase of a self-help pyramid scheme, but since she’d thought of it herself, hopefully she wouldn’t end up at the airport handing out flowers or calling all of her friends to see if they wanted in on a Very Special Opportunity.

She knew herself well enough to realize that she wasn’t going to change the habits of a lifetime overnight, but she could start small and work her way up. So Pandy had spent the last hour figuring out how much it would cost to unlock each and every skill in Gacha Love, then laboriously scratching that number out on a piece of paper she’d taken from Thaniel’s school bag. The letters looked like someone had tied a stick to a chicken and then set the bird loose in a dusty pen, but if she squinted just right, she could read them, which was all that mattered.

Each of the male love interests had five named skills or spells. Three were combat-related, one very definitely wasn’t, and one could go either way. Of the three combat skills, one was available from the beginning, one was gained halfway through the game, when he and Clara began entering dungeons, and the third was his Ultimate Skill, learned as he battled the final boss. The neutral skill was usually used in the first interaction Clara had with them, while the non-combat skill appeared after Clara chose to dance with them at the midwinter ball.

Clara herself had far more skills and spells, many of which were used in school, while others were only useful in wooing a certain boy. As a Light elementalist, most of her spells were used for healing, but she had some combat spells that were specifically meant for fighting demons and undead. Unfortunately, Pandy just wasn’t certain what would happen if she tried to use those spells, given that they were Light-based. She had a suspicion it might involve more Pandy-bits being splashed around, so she was understandably hesitant.

But now, Pandy had a list, – albeit a barely legible one involving acronyms only she would understand – and she was developing a plan.

Each of the boys’ original skills cost somewhere from thirty to forty Corruption Points to unlock. More useful skills tended to be more expensive, while weak skills like Edgar’s Spark cost less. Clara’s early skills ranged anywhere from ten to thirty Corruption Points to unlock, though Pandy couldn’t see any pattern to which ones cost more.

The second combat skill and the neutral skills had a much broader ‘price’ range. Bastian’s Chef’s Surprise skill – which imbued his baked goods with random power-ups – was at the top end, costing a whopping one hundred and eight points. In contrast, Dorian’s Glacial Gladius was only sixty-seven points, but it was also completely useless without a gladius to apply it to.

The end-game skills were absolutely ridiculous, of course. Edgar’s Area of Effect spell, Arcane Inferno, cost three hundred and six Corruption Points. Three hundred. She didn’t even want to think about how much Mana it probably took to cast it. But Pandy’s favorite ultimate attack, Kaden’s Aetherial Sovereignty, cost more than twice that, at six hundred and thirty-eight Corruption Points. Yes, it was powerful, but that really was excessive.

Fortunately, Clara’s skills were much more reasonable. Her ultimate attack was off the table, of course, which was a shame. A spell – actually more of a prayer, at least as it was portrayed in the game – calling down Ismara’s Divine Retribution was something that Pandy should probably avoid on general principles. Most of her early skills were both reasonably priced and not elementally aligned, however, and should be safe enough.

Pandy had already asked about Graceful Presence and Shield of Light, so she knew they were thirty and twenty-one CP respectively. Graceful Presence was so cheap, and hopefully easy to level, that it seemed like a no-brainer. Shield of Light could be targeted, which meant that as long as simply using it didn’t make Pandy go splootch, she could use it to protect Thaniel. That put it high on her wish-list, and the only reason she hadn’t purchased it already was because of the non-zero chance of implosion. Or explosion. Bad either way, really.

Artistic was the cheapest skill Pandy had found, costing only ten Corruption Points. That made it an obvious pick, but Pandy already knew that it would only increase her Talent stat, which was probably invisible right now because Pandy had exactly zilch in the way of talent. This was another stat that was needed to succeed in various events, but whose actual effect was vaguely defined, at best.

The mid-game skill, Politics, cost a surprising forty-eight Corruption Points, and Pandy not only had no use for it or its associated stat, Reputation, she had no idea what would happen when she tried to level it up. Politics was helpful in Edgar’s path, and necessary in Prince Kaden’s, but honestly, even if she had a use for it, Pandy would rather not have any kind of reputation right now, good or bad.

The list was long, but besides Graceful Presence and Shield of Light, Pandy saw three other skills she wanted to unlock right away. First was Innate Magic. In Gacha Love, it granted an extra point of Stamina with every level, and Pandy hoped it would give her something equally useful now. It only cost twenty points, so it was right in the middle of the pack as far as expense.

The next skill was Dance. Pandy had absolutely no use for the skill itself, but it should increase either Agility or Strength, and she could always use more of those. She should be able to raise it quickly, and it only cost eighteen Corruption Points, so there really wasn’t any reason not to take it.

The final skill was one that also had no use at this time, but it was one of Pandy’s favorites, and when she realized she could afford to unlock it, she absolutely had to do so. It was one of the few reasons Pandy ever took Dorian’s path, since he taught it to Clara after they began investigating the murders together. What a rabbit was going to do with Dual Wielding, especially given that she had no weapon proficiencies, Pandy didn’t know, but she was willing to create carrot-nunchucks or celery swords if that was what she had to do.

Unfortunately, Dual Wielding cost fifty-three Corruption Points, which brought Pandy’s metaphorical shopping basket to a total of one hundred and forty-two Corruption Points, leaving her only thirty-four CP for emergencies. That seemed like a lot, especially given the fact that she should be able to ‘refill’ just by hanging out near Suzanne, but what if Keros’ magic suddenly kicked in again, the whole school started to burn down around their ears, and Pandy had to save everyone?

While Pandy needed to grow, she also still needed to be able to react when life assaulted her with a fully-automatic potato gun. It was just that without a definite plan, like when she’d been saving up for Shifting Faces, holding onto too many points was like stuffing money in her mattress, rather than investing it in stocks, or bonds, or a savings account, or whatever rich people did with all of their extra money. Not that Pandy ever had any physical money to stuff into a mattress, but Ms. Wellington had, and look how much good it did her.

Staring down at the smeared and crumpled page, Pandy thought,

Graceful Presence successful. Graceful Presence is now level 1.

Pandy’s Corruption Points ticked down, and her fur stood on end as something shifted inside her, possibly her spleen. Absolutely nothing else happened. She didn’t suddenly feel more graceful, nor did either of the sleeping boys stir or react in any way. That was all right, though. In fact, it was perfect. Pandy had chosen this one partially because she hoped no one would be able to tell she was using it. Now she just had to find out what stat it would raise when it leveled up. She suppressed the urge to do exactly that, however, and went on to her next skill.

Innate Magic successful. Innate Magic is now level 1.

This time, the effect on Pandy was significantly more pronounced. One moment she was sitting up, staring into the darkness, and the next she was lying on her side, grateful that she didn’t need to breathe, because if she did, it would probably hurt. If Graceful Presence required only a small or localized change, gaining Innate Magic felt like she was being microwaved. Heat expanded from her middle, and just when she thought an explosion was imminent, the timer went off, the turntable stopped, and Pandy shuddered, legs spasming involuntarily.

She lay there for a while longer, listening as Thaniel’s bedside clock ticked away the night. She counted one hundred and twenty ticks and zero tocks before she felt like she might be able to stand up again. She didn’t, though. Instead, she lay there for a while longer, vaguely wondering who came up with the idea of tocks in the first place, because clearly they didn’t actually exist. At last, still without moving, she thought,

Dance successful. Dance is now level 1.

Her paws began to move. Furry hips swung, causing Pandy to wiggle across the floor like one of those flopping, singing fish toys people kept regifting each other at Christmas until no one remembered who had originally bought it, and therefore whose responsibility it was to exorcise the thing. This skill didn’t hurt, not really, just felt incredibly awkward right up until it stopped. Well, that was one never to use in public.

And now for the one she was really looking forward to. Or had been, until she was reminded that gaining new skills could be awkward, uncomfortable, or outright painful.

Dual Wielding successful. Dual Wielding is now level 1.

This time it wasn’t her back paws that were in motion, but her front ones. The toes splayed, then curled into tight, painful balls of fur. Something rippled up her arms, through her chest and shoulders, down to her belly, and, strangely, buzzed up through her head and ears, leaving her whiskers quivering. That…wasn’t too bad, really, though she had a sudden urge to find a pair of rabbit-sized pickle spears just so she could test it out. It was almost too bad Ms. Wellington’s Poisoned Pigsticker was so dangerous, or she might have tried using it.

Which left her with one spell left to gain. It was the only one she was really worried about, but she truly believed that it was worth the risk. After all, it was an early game spell, just like Dispel, and Lian’s Dispel had only made her fur stand on end.

Casting of Ƨhield of ŁįƌĦŧ successful. Shield of Đȋɓɦɚϧs is now level 1.

The world flared around her, and her Spark went out.