Ch.101[Chapter 101] Ruins…?

“Good Lord.”

Dick Tracy muttered in bewilderment.

A meteor tore through the gloomy sky, revealing a pointed edge like the tip of a spear.

That edge was slowly tearing through the smoke and fog of the battlefield, gradually revealing its form, but it was so massive that even after quite some time, its complete form had not yet been revealed.

This ultimate skill with the crude name [Rock!] was a collaboration between witches and gremlins.

When witches drew massive magic circles on the ground to provoke cosmic entities, these cosmic beings would throw meteors to punish these primitive mortals.

Then the gremlins would attach incredibly powerful but completely unstable rockets to the meteor and spray it with superstitious red dye to make it descend three times faster.

The meteor falling at tremendous speed causes serious damage over an unexpectedly wide area, inducing strong knockback and inflicting stun and dizziness status effects.

This ultimate skill was a masterpiece born from the synergy between witches and gremlins.

[A meteor is being guided to the test site. 3 minutes remaining.]

The skill was so powerful that even the system window displayed a warning.

“…Three minutes should be enough, right?”

“If we run as fast as possible…”

Some quickly calculated the distance between their current position and the finish line.

Those with faster speeds didn’t even think before turning around and flying toward the finish line.

They weren’t afraid of dying.

In GachaLand, you could always come back to life as long as you had value.

What they feared was just one thing.

The repair costs of their vehicles and the hassle of having to retake the test.

The meteor would clearly cause tremendous damage.

And given GachaLand’s characteristics, a message to repair would appear after the major damage effect occurred.

The dragons and space battleships they were riding were all expensive luxury items.

Considering that repair costs are typically set at about half the value, the cost to restore their completely or severely damaged vehicles would easily consume about half a year’s budget of an entire country.

Of course, most people here were wealthy enough to pay such amounts willingly, but everyone is reluctant to spend money they don’t have to.

This was no different for Dick Tracy.

“Captain. What kind of damage will we sustain if the meteor hits us?”

“If it grazes us, half damage; if it hits us directly, severe damage. Since this is a latest model battleship with good overall specs. If it were an older model, it would be completely destroyed.”

“I see…”

Dick Tracy asked the captain about the expected damage.

And with that level of damage, she could still pass the license test.

“For now, position us to take as little damage as possible. Let’s accept some damage.”

The repair costs… Father will cover them.

With this carefree attitude, Dick Tracy sank into her seat.

[1 minute remaining.]

While people were in confusion, the meteor had already fully revealed itself.

Looking at the meteor that seemed to be descending in slow motion due to its enormous size, Dick Tracy quietly cursed.

[30 seconds remaining.]

Of course, Dick Tracy chose to endure, trusting the durability of her new battleship, but those with exposed cockpits like dragon riders or those with precarious durability in older battleships couldn’t be as relaxed as Dick Tracy.

Those who fled passed through the finish line and left the test site, but those who couldn’t escape could only pray for minimal damage.

[15 seconds remaining.]

Here it comes. Dick Tracy muttered as she watched the meteor that had fallen almost to ground level.

[10 seconds remaining.]

She stared intently at the meteor, but perhaps because of this, she failed to notice a flying vessel that appeared beyond the meteor.

[5 seconds.]

That vessel was spewing enormous smoke and flying toward the meteor like a spear, which didn’t seem like a normal situation.

[4 seconds.]

Dick Tracy momentarily saw a flying ship rushing toward the meteor like a moth to a flame.

[3 seconds.]

And that ship instantly collided with the meteor.

[2 seconds.]

The meteor exploded, triggering damage assessment.

And the meteor that fell on the terrain changed the landscape, but for some reason, it fell as single-target damage rather than area damage.

Was it a bug? Or was the trigger simply in a loose state?

In a normal world setting, this would never happen, but GachaLand was a world with coding and triggers.

A trigger that normally wouldn’t activate did activate.

[1 second.]

Immediately after the damage assessment trigger, the crowd control trigger activated.

Since the stun and knockback effects were [after the damage assessment trigger successfully occurred] and [to targets that received damage], the flying ship was merely floating in an ambiguous state where it was unclear whether it had received status effects or not.

[0 seconds. Error. Error. No target found.]

And due to this subtle timing difference, a trigger bug occurred.

Originally, the end of the countdown would trigger damage assessment, calculate the damage, and apply knockback and stun, but in a situation where damage assessment and crowd control judgment were already misaligned, no effect would occur no matter how many triggers were activated.

“What on earth is happening?”

“Well, one thing’s for sure. GachaLand is a place with many bugs.”

As those in the know would have realized, the owner of this flying ship was Sir Dominic.

Sir Dominic, who entered the test site as soon as he became somewhat familiar with the controls in the practice area, increased his speed with all his might.

However, having underestimated the environment of the license test site, Sir Dominic lost control when suddenly caught in a gust of wind.

And the out-of-control flying ship was drawn into the meteor, collided with it, and created the current situation.

This situation would never have occurred if he had followed the proper procedures, but had Sir Dominic ever followed proper procedures?

“Still, it’s strange. Why is he fine even after touching that huge meteor?”

“I wonder that too.”

Sir Dominic tried to deduce this situation in his own way.

But it wasn’t easy to understand this situation.

Sir Dominic had already experienced two bugs, but bugs are always new and fresh.

In fact, this was indeed a trigger bug.

A bug that allows you to avoid damage and even ignore crowd control if you counterattack at a specific moment, in a specific situation.

It was a bug that occurred because of the loose connections in this hastily created synergy ultimate skill.

But Sir Dominic had no way of knowing that.

Eventually giving up on understanding, Sir Dominic suddenly felt gazes upon him and looked around.

Everyone was staring blankly at Sir Dominic.

Except for the witches and gremlins, of course.

The witches and gremlins had long since disappeared to avoid the meteor.

…

“Impossible…”

Dick Tracy stared at the flying ship that had shattered the meteor yet remained intact.

The massive flying ship, decorated with a series of flags that seemed familiar from somewhere, was still spewing steam and moving forward.

In fact, this was just gradual movement due to inertia, but being focused solely on the fact that it had destroyed the meteor, she couldn’t think that far.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

To them, Sir Dominic’s flying ship was a monster itself.

Unable to realize it was a bug, they could only see Sir Dominic’s ship as having withstood tremendous damage, ignored status effects, and was now leisurely floating away.

Dick Tracy carefully observed that monstrous flying ship and suddenly remembered something about those flags.

The anachronistic knight.

They were similar to the flags that knight used.

No, they must be the same flags.

After all, those who used flags in GachaLand were few and far between, so there was little chance of overlap.

“The effect was… damage reduction.”

Dick Tracy could even recall the effect by searching her memory.

She couldn’t remember the exact numbers, but that effect could have allowed him to endure.

Above all, the stats of a vehicle follow the rider.

With the [Tank] trait and a record of fighting dozens of people, wouldn’t he have grown enough by now to withstand a meteor?

Tanks are rare. And high-ability tanks like this are even rarer.

I should probably offer him a clan invitation soon.

Of course, this was just an assumption, but her evaluation of Sir Dominic was rising a bit in her heart.

…

Sir Dominic was concerned about the gazes upon him, but realizing they were just watching without interfering, he took the helm of the flying ship again.

“That was quite an interesting situation, by the way,” said Alice.

Who else has ever collided with a meteor!

“Indeed… hm?”

Sir Dominic was moving the ship away from that place when he saw a system window appear before his eyes.

[Due to repeated situations, a new trait is awakening. Passive trait [Cinematic] is activated.]

[[Cinematic]: Your actions create ‘dramatic’ situations. Your cost increases by 1.]

Sir Dominic looked at this new trait that appeared in this chaotic situation and thought:

Wasn’t a person supposed to have only one trait?