Gachapunk 2076 1 (Patreon)

Tags: chaos gacha, cyberpunk 2077/edgerunners, reincarnated self-insert, plot and “plot”, the gacha is modified, mc is not benevolent

Gachapunk 2076

Chapter 1

-VB-

Alan Marris

Night City, Santo Domingo

I stared at the screen hovering above my head while I was laying down. 

I’d just woken up and found this thing floating there. 

I smacked my lips. 

I wanted to be snarky about it. After all, I have been living in the Cyberpunk universe for the past decade and a half (I didn’t remember the first five years). I would have appreciated it if I got this earlier. It certainly would have helped my ma and pa when they had cancer. 

I took a deep breath in and let it out, and began reading. 

[Welcome to the Chaos Gacha, your purveyor of all things unpredictable and messy! We don’t want you to succeed nor do we want you to fail. We simply want to watch you enjoy yourself or suffer, whichever that comes to you first and more frequently, as you drown under the unending tide of all things chaotic. So enjoy it where you can, hate us where you can’t, and we hope to see you perform. Just a bit of note, though. Your Gacha is biased toward Tech. You can summon as many Familiars, Items, and Traits as you want. You start with one Ability slot and gain another slot for each three additional abilities you roll and retain. You can reroll anything, but we will downgrade it by two ranks, which means you cannot reroll anything below Uncommon rarity.  

[You received three Random Gold Tickets. Please say or think “Roll.” To gain more tickets, make achievements or get involved in the plot.]

No other explanation other than this casual and dismissive introduction. 

“... Roll,” I said as I got out of the bed. 

TRRRRRRRRRRRRR

“FUCKING LOUD!” I hissed as I jerked away, surprised by the loud ass sound that had to be a wheel spin. 

Ping. 

[Stockpile]

|Uncommon Item|

A Simple cardboard box that contains a seemingly infinite amount of mundane raw materials like wood, stone, ore, rope and other such materials that the average person could get their hands on. Only 50kg of materials may be taken out every 24 hours. If the box is somehow lost or destroyed, you will be able to stumble upon it in perfect condition if you go searching for it.

I stared at it. 

Thunk.

I jumped, eyes wide and locking onto the object that had just appeared to my left on the floor by the foot of the bed. 

It was … it was a nameless, brown cardboard box. 

I hesitantly reached out and opened it.

I saw nothing inside of it. 

Raising an eyebrow, I closed it. 

“... Metal sheets?”

I opened it again, and there it was. Metal sheets. There were copper sheets, iron sheets, aluminium sheets, and even a silver sheet. 

I closed it again and opened it while thinking of gold nuggets. 

I opened it and found gold nuggets inside of the box. I slowly closed the lid. 

Okay. 

Okay.

I just saw a million eurodollars worth of gold nuggets inside! 

I gulped and closed my eyes as beads of sweat started to form everywhere on my skin.

‘... “materials that the average person could get their hands on,”’ I re-read the line. Even though the message about the item was already long gone, I knew the description like it was right in front of me still. ‘And gold is something that the average person could get their hands on. It’s just expensive. And the box only limits me by weight.’

A pause.

My stomach sank.

‘There were fifty kilograms worth of gold nuggets sitting inside a cardboard box.’

Fuck. If anyone ever finds out about the box, then I am dead.

I took a deep breath in.

‘Roll,’ I thought. 

Ping!

[Tinker - Drones]

|Rare Ability|

Allows you to build technological constructs or contraptions related to drones, be it surveillance drones, turret drones, building drones, etc.

I stared at it. 

Drones. 

That’s… a pretty good ability. Even if I didn’t do much with it - ‘like making the droid army, hue hue hue,’ a corner of my mind immediately supplied - I could still make drones that could easily help me with finding information, providing back-up, and a lot of other things. 

Sure. 

‘Roll,’ I thought for the final Gold Ticket.

Ping.

Thunk.

I stared at the giant metal ball that suddenly found its way into my room, materializing into existence in the blink of an eye. Like i was staring into that space and it just existed without any prior alert. 

I looked back at the screen.

[Hydrogen Bomb]

|Rare Item|

A Hydrogen Bomb and a remote detonator for it, simple as. Try not to end up in the blast zone.

“Oh fuc-.”

-VB-

I let out a gasp of relief as I finally broke down the last of the nuke’s components and tossed them into the box. 

And, to my surprise, I watched all of the components, rendered down to their most basic parts, dissolve and disappear into the cardboard box’s bottom. 

I didn’t know that the box had that function. I tossed it in there because it was convenient.

Ping!

I looked up.

[Achievement created. Dismantle a nuclear bomb while under pressure and close to discovery.

1 Silver  Random Ticket acquired.]

… What? 

Close to discovery? 

What do you mean close to discovery?

BANG BANG BANG!

I jolted up and hurriedly reached for my third-hand Rook pistol and aimed it at the door of my apartment.

“Who is it?!” I demanded.

“It’s me, Pablo, you dipshit! You are way too fucking loud in there!”

I blushed and hurriedly put my gun away before walking up to the door. Opening, I found myself standing in front of three men. And the man standing in the middle of the trio was Pablo Silva, a 6th Street gang member. 

“Sorry about that, Pablo. I got my hands on a good thing and had to take it apart quickly.”

The older man with a perpetual sneer on his face sneered even deeper. “Well, you woke up my family with all of your banging,” he grunted. 

But he and his friends didn’t reach for their guns. 

I did something instead. I reached to the side and pulled out a rough bar. It was as long as my fingers and as thick.

“Um… for your troubles.”

He took it and looked at it. His sneer softened slightly into a curious inspection. 

“What is it?” he asked as he flipped it around. “Doesn’t feel like iron. I’d smack you over the head if you gave me junk.”

“I-It’s silver.”

He paused. 

He looked at me. 

“Silver?”

“Yeah. You know that I run a little smelting operation, right?”

He didn’t know because I, Alan Marris, did not run a smelting operation of any kind. But it was something a few people did to try to turn the scraps into something more valuable.”

“... Didn’t know that,” he grunted. The other two 6th Street gangsters also didn’t know that. 

At the same time, I knew that I wouldn’t have to worry because I was, technically, a member of the 6th Street gang simply by the fact that I was allowed to be here in Megabuilding H6. 

He looked me up and down. “... Can you smelt shit if me and my boys bring shit?” he asked me. 

“W-Well,” I grimaced. “My smelter is really small. Like I would have to fit it into a small cup and it would take a lot of time. You’ll have a better time just handing cyberware over to ripperdocs.”

He grunted, disinterested now that he understood this was a hobby, not a job. 

Not that I had a hobby.

“... Fine. Keep it down next time, got it?” he said as he pocketed the silver bar and left. 

The other two looked at me before following after their boss. 

After seeing them go around the corner, I closed the door and let out a sigh of relief.

Okay. 

That was close. 

I groaned as I got up. 

… then I remembered that I just got a Silver Ticket. 

‘Roll, please. And please, for the love of God, give me something that’s not a nuke, literally or metaphorically.’

[Tinker - Ecology]

|Rare Ability|

Allows you to build, construct, and design contraptions or machines that deal with Nature, utilising, helping and benefiting from it. You can create Bio-Domes, incredibly efficient fertilisers, animal lures and foods, very efficient solar panels and geothermal reactors, terraforming equipment and much more.

“Oh,” I muttered. “That’s actually very nice.” The Cyberpunk universe, as I’ve come to learn before and after my reincarnation here, was a post-nuclear/biowarfare hellhole. This tinker ability was a very good one… but one I can’t use right now because I already had Drone Tinker slotted in. And it would remain there for the foreseeable future until I built myself up.

I also won’t be able to use it until I get more abilities, which means getting achievements … or getting involved in the plot. As the Gacha declared. 

I looked at the clock on the wall. 

[02.05.2075 Tuesday 0917]

I blinked and laughed. 

Tuesday! 

Of course, it’s Tuesday! 

Tuesday was a good day to start as any day!

-VB-

I sniffed. 

I quit my job. Told my boss that “hey, thanks for being a great boss, which is kinda rare around these parts, but it’s time for me to go my own way.”

My boss, a great man but one with a mouth closer to a gatling gun than a proper human mouth, told me to fuck off and hung up but not before telling me “hope you do well.”

Swell guy. 

He was probably gonna get chancla’ed though, considering I heard children giggling behind him and he was cussing a lot and out loud. 

And I made my latest rent pay from money I made from selling scrap metal made from the Stockpile Box. 

Yes, scrap metal. 

I didn’t make silver, gold, or any other precious metals. I just made scrap metals that were slightly more valuable than actual scrap and sold that to a scrapper who lived in Megabuilding H5, the same building I had my apartment in. 

Yeah. 

Instead of doing something great, I sat in my apartment all by myself. 

Twisting copper wires into a fake bonsai tree. 

For a full week.

I loved it. 

-VB-

Eventually though, I did need to leave the house, if only to go grocery shopping. 

I grumbled as I waited for the bus with two large bags, one in each hand. 

Ping!

[Achievement created. You actually just went back to normal life after getting The Chaos Gacha. That is a first. 1x Random Bronze Ticket gained.]

I snorted. 

‘Roll.’

[Novice Blunt Weapon Mastery]

|Common Skill|

You are reasonably talented in handling blunt weapons such as hammers or clubs. You know how to move your body to do damage with the instrument you are holding, but there is only so much finesse to handling a large stick.

Oh, cool. Something I already knew how to do. Lame.

Oh, the bus was here. 

-VB-

Ping.

[Chat request from management.]

I blinked. 

“... Huh,” I muttered. I glanced at the clock. [03.06.2075 Wednesday 1103]. “They waited exactly one month.”

I accepted the chat request.

[... What are you doing?]

“Livin’,” I replied as I hummed to the music playing on the radio. Radio was one of the few things that this dystopian future didn’t ruin… too much. Radio was hard to stop, so when people wanted to talk, they did it over the radio a lot.

Pirate stations and whatnot. 

[You have been given the Chaos Gacha, and you have done almost nothing with it.]

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” I replied with a drawl. “I mean, have you seen my apartment?”

I know that they did.

Instead of the dreary and tainted olive green surface that used to cover everything because I didn’t decorate my place, there were now all sorts of decorations. Like my copper bonsai trees. They meshed well with the olive walls, ceiling, and floor. 

Oh, and over a thousand kilograms of materials I had pulled out of the Stockpile Box. 

[Most people who gain access to one of the most powerful tools in the universe would go out and make something happen. You were chosen because you would have maximized chaos as well. But you aren’t doing anything. Why?]

I hummed. I supposed they were being direct and blunt, I should be direct and blunt with them, too. 

“I’m just waiting.”

[Excuse me?]

“Waiting.”

[Why?]

I sniffed. “It turns out that fifty kilograms of stuff isn’t a lot, especially when I have to sell a chunk of it into discrete materials like aluminum, brass, and copper so that I can get enough eddies to buy microchips, motherboards, and everything else like that. Because going to the dump in hopes of finding those things is dangerous and low possibility of success and because getting silver and gold and selling those is asking someone to come and flatline me.”

There was no response. 

[So you weren’t going to stay here all day everyday for the rest of your life, living off of the scraps offered by the Gacha?]

“What? No! I was just waiting and preparing! Did you think I was some kind of savant who could fix broken motherboards!”

[People who got Drone Tinker tried.]

“Well, yeah? How did that turn out?” I asked irritably. “Oh, right. Being a Drone Tinker doesn’t mean you know exactly how to fix motherboards, microchips, and RAMs. As far as I got around to messing with Drone Tinker, it only helped me with making and improving softwares and designs, not the actual materials used to make them,” I grumbled. “And would you look at that, you need money to buy good hardware, but if you buy too many of them as a former low end service worker, then you get flagged, especially in this city where everything gets tracked, even the dead body parts. And I don’t have any superpower that keeps me alive and safe from the absolute insanity of Night City. So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to sit here in my room for another few weeks, get money as safely as I can in this God damned city, and then do something once I have enough money to make a few drones that could attempt to keep me safe. Yeah?” I asked at the end of my rant.

It took a while for the response.

[If we offered you a free Random Gold Ticket, then would you start moving now?]

I snorted. “Are you allowed to bribe me like this? It’s not chaos if you direct the flow of the agent, you know?”

[... Very well. I will consider this problem solved. Have a good day.]

And then it ended.

I hummed before taking my metal snipper and twisted another copper wire just a tiny bit so that the fan of copper branches and leaves on the other end left less empty space between other leaves and branches. It wasn’t quite equidistant but it was, I think, a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

After that, I moved onto my next copper bonsai tree. 

-VB-

I checked the clock.

[03.11.2075 Monday 0611].

Today, I wasn’t going to be working on my bonsai trees. Instead, I was going to finally put all of those stocked materials and purchased hardware to work. 

But what did I want to make first? 

It would have to be a drone that can do a number of tasks: resource collection, bodyguard duty, reconnaissance, deep assault, asset protection, self-defense, and more. If I made a drone that could do two or three of those tasks, then I would be satisfied. It wasn’t like I would be able to make something on par with HK series assassin droids or Protoss probes.

… Right? 

I quickly checked with myself. 

Right, I can’t make those with what I have right now, and even if I had more stuff, I wouldn’t be able to make the latter. The former was possible, but the work needed to make it could be used to create close to a hundred simpler drones or even a dozen adequate drones capable of self-defense and a number of other tasks. 

There were plenty of other drones I could copy, though. The Dead Man’s Switch, Girl’s Frontline, Horizon Zero Dawn, Automatons… Hell, I could probably make mech versions of Battletech mechs. Those weren’t too awfully complicated, just resource and time intensive to make (because they weigh dozens of tons at a minimum). 

The Cyberpunk universe, my home now, also had dozens of drones that I could probably copy rather easily with Drone Tinker. Those Arasaka Robots had to be pretty easy for me to make. 

But if I made any “mega” drones, robots that were as big as a motorcycle at the very least, I would go through all of my carefully curated resources in one-go. If I made something like the Stalker from Horizon Zero Dawn, then I would be resource broke. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if I had enough stuff to make a Stalker. 

… Anyways, what do I need? 

I needed… a way to keep me safe. Yes. So what was the minimum “safety” that a drone could offer? 

Automated flying turrets? 

Yeah, sure. Why not? 

… Or.

Or.

Spider-turrets.

-VB-

A/N: this thing has been cooking for 3 months. I’m not sure if I did well. 

Anyways, welcome to Gachapunk 2076, where the Chaos Gacha is stingy.