NOVEL FROG Ex Ch 17 – Jackpot
A disfigured humanoid is kneeling, his hands clasped together as if praying. From his rat mouth, although very low, is possible to hear him muttering something.
“Oh, please, gods of luck and monsters. Today, your most devoted follower asks for your compassion. I don’t ask much, the only thing I ask of you is to help me achieve my dream. Please, grant me the jackpot. For once, I want to win! I can’t keep accepting such losses, but I can’t stop playing, either!”
Having finished his prayers, the man stands up. In front of him, there are several capsules, the contents of which are unknown, even to him.
He walks to the leftmost capsule. “Please, jackpot. Jackpot, or at least not a complete failure…” While hesitating, he pulls the lever to open it. Fog pours out, blinding him for a moment. “Sigh… A complete failure yet again.” He lowers his head and shakes it. “Only once! I’ll be satisfied with one! I’m not asking much, I just want one Stitched with an amazing skill!”
The camera shifts to show the empty contents of the capsule. A few organic remains clumped at the bottom are the single clue as to what it once contained.
The man proceeds to open the rest of the containers, one by one. But every time he pulls the lever, his expression contorts into a frown. By the fifth, he starts screaming.
“Come on, this isn’t fair! I’ve watched videos and most players get at least one success every ten tries! How am I so unlucky that I’ve only got a single Stitched with Echolocation so far? It should be impossible!”
While denying reality and the fact that chance games always make people believe all the odds are against them, the man resigns himself to pull the last lever.
“I’m not expecting anything… Not anymore…” He mutters.
But unlike all the previous pulls, this time, when the fog clears up, the man can see a disgusting humanoid resting inside the machine.
“Huh? No way… A second success, finally!? Hell yeah! It’s a success! A success!” He jumps around, swinging his arms around uncoordinately. “I must know what skill it got, quickly!”
There’s a moment of silence as the man manipulates the game menu. His eyes open wide in surprise as a grin starts growing on his face.
“This… This is… No way, this can’t be true, I must be dreaming…” He slams his head on the wall to make sure he isn’t. “Ouch, it hurts. But this means… Fufufu! Hahaha!”
He prostrates on the ground and starts praying.
“Oh, thank you gods of fortune and monsters! From now on, I’ll make sure to pray every single day to you!” He adds in a lower voice. “If I remember to do it…”
The man stands back up. He gets close to the only successful experiment. With a trembling hand, disgust mixed with affection, he caresses the humanoid.
“I was saying it as a joke, I never imagined a Stitched to actually get this skill! Oh my god, this is amazing! I’ll have to find a way so the Stitched can use it, by raising their EP and MP, but for now…”
The man turns his head to the other side of the room. There, there are two machines with a clear distinct shape to the ones he was using until now. Machines he built but never got to use.
“It’s time to do some cloning. Fufufu! Hahaha!” The man cackles. “Nobody’s going to expect this! It’ll be LEGENDARY!”
“In the game, the only sign of a successful ‘pull’ was the fact that there was some monster inside the Mutation Vat. But when editing the video, which he called ‘Jackpot! It’s a Jackpot!’, Andreu made sure to add a light show and sounds, followed by the clinking noise of hundreds of coins.”