I Became a 6★ Gacha Character

It felt strange seeing the usually quiet upper floors of the tower bustling with people.

Normally very few adventurers explored the highest floors. Most preferred steadily earning money in safe areas rather than gambling their lives chasing instant riches.

Better to safely hunt slow undead beside priests than flee from suddenly appearing 10m-tall berserk ogres.

But that was adventurers' reasoning. The situation differed for trainee commanders forced into the plains tier by Imperial Empress's orders, their future evaluations held hostage.

In military terms, it was like a unit commander directly ordering a fresh lieutenant. Slacking off due to difficulty could make not just them but their entire house fall from the Empress's favor.

'So, how are the latest orders progressing?'

'Most commanders are gaining field experience, but the behavior of some, like House Artua's second son...'

'Hmm, Artua? I'll certainly remember that.'

--In medieval fantasy's class society, cutting corners could destroy not just your life but your whole family's.

Plus, conquering the tower and handling monster waves was humanity's divine mission from the Goddess herself. At this point, disobeying the Empress wasn't just like defying the President - you'd risk being branded a traitor to humanity.

So the usually sparse tower was now crawling with people like a hunting ground during a burning event.

"There's fighting in the northwest. Not adventurers, looks like more Imperials with mercenaries."

"Grace, how can you tell mercenaries from adventurers?"

"Well the main thing is multiple bowstrings being drawn in unison? It's not individual skill shots but coordinated fire on command. Plus adventurers wouldn't have over ten pathfinder archers."

Running into others fighting monsters every third encounter said it all. A bit more frequent and it'd be half human, half monster rather than half water, half fish.

Even the mighty Han Se-ah seemed tired of it, muttering more to herself. Of course, not muttering to our group but whispering where NPCs couldn't hear to bait viewer reactions. She had to say something when Imperial troops kept interrupting their hunting for merits.

So the chosen topic became Grace's pathfinder senses. Seems they found it fascinating how she could tell not just enemy directions but numbers and types with uncanny accuracy.

"By the way, Hanna."

"Hm?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Are you interested in Roland?"

"Ack, what?!"

But starting gossip meant dealing with the consequences.

Grace's sharp question made Han Se-ah jump as everyone's attention instantly focused on her. Setting aside Katie and Irene who'd been with me, even the Ice Cross Knights seemed interested - perhaps from watching Olek and Alisa. ɽã

Over twenty pairs of eyes watched her with interest while tens of thousands through the camera prepared to pounce.

"I asked if you're interested in Roland too. Because... it seems that way?"

"Of course I'm interested. You're all so close to Roland, I can't help watching sometimes?"

"Hmm..."

But Han Se-ah was a streaming veteran. She smoothly deflected the pointed verbal arrow and redirected the topic.

With viewers already scenting blood like piranhas, she openly brought up my love life. Naturally discussing my relationships with Grace, Katie and Irene rather than herself.

Grace, unaware of the tens of thousands of starved maniacs eagerly waiting behind the camera, nodded lightly.

"What's so interesting? Wouldn't you be interested in a guy like Roland building a real-time harem? How could you ignore a fantasy harem party straight out of an otaku manga happening right in front of you?"

-She's right lololol how could anyone resist watching that lololol

-This bitch's no different from neighborhood gossips lololol

-So this is Teacher Roland's harem party? They seem close but how far has it gone?

-lol Ignoring the orcs to dig into NPC romance drama lol

-Why are you hogging the show watching alone then lololololol

As the topic instantly shifted from "Han Se-ah's suspicious glances" to "Roland's fantasy harem party," everyone laughed and chatted while Han Se-ah sighed in relief outside camera view.

The kid was clever enough to make good excuses at least.

※

The day after Han Se-ah smoothly deflected Grace's curiosity about our relationship with the excuse "Well, I am the hero..."

Imperial commanders hungry for merit massacred orcs, outposts were razed, and their aggressive advance blurred the line between demon invasion and human conquest until the path to floor 60 finally opened.

The Demon King's army's strategy of blocking our movement with gates was long since naturally defeated. Whatever the Kingdom and Empire's Magic Towers did, the gates were blown wide open to steadily push people toward floor 60.

"We thought it just reached floor 59, but it barely took days to reach 60. Lots of people must have come up."

"Probably because everyone hired mercenaries to sweep the plains. The orc numbers are too much for adventurer parties, but easy for mercenary bands."

The same applied to our party. Though Han Se-ah's intuition revealed no gates in the north, that was no reason not to climb to floor 60 when we couldn't find gates.

Thanks to the merchant group handling food contracts with the Ice Cross Knights, we fortunately heard about the floor 60 gate discovery in time. Thinking this as we crossed the gate, we saw mercenary bands scattering in all directions.

"Is there even meaning in picking directions when everyone's spreading out like this?"

"With people scattering beyond cardinal directions, which way should we go?"

People hurried past with stiff faces, not even casual greetings like passing bus drivers. Their faces twisted with jealousy and impatience, apparently over some Imperial trainee commander discovering the gate from floor 59 to 60.

A stark contrast to the grinning mercenaries showered with gold just for killing orcs. What orders had the Empress given these trainee commanders to make them rush around while tolerating being marks?

As I pondered this looking around, Han Se-ah tapped my elbow.

"Roland, which way should we go this time? I was wrong on floor 59, so I want to trust your intuition this time."

"Let's go north then. No particular reason."

Seems failing to reset after our night of passion made her anxious, desperately deflecting viewer attention with nonsense until she drew aggro about her bad luck and intuition.

How to put it - I'd deliberately blocked the reset to hint I wasn't an NPC... but Han Se-ah seemed completely unaware I'd stopped her hand from reaching the reset button, perhaps due to the pleasure she felt that night.

Like, didn't she record herself enjoying it? If she watched that back she might notice I prevented her from pressing the game system button.

"North is this way. At least it seems we won't easily lose credit for subjugating the boss monster."

"Why's that?"

"Maybe because it's floor 60, but there seem to be quite a few enemies. They're coming from the east now."

Moving north where there seemed to be fewer people, an attack soon began. Though many Imperial trainee commanders had come up, monsters must have respawned even near the gates since it was the first day.

The now tediously familiar sound of hoofbeats approached as centaurs trampled the plains in the distance.

With strange monsters riding their backs.

...What were those?