EXTRA CHAPTER 1: JULES THE GAMER

Yep, this was Jules’ Garden, alright. He must’ve summoned me to his place once again. Last time he told me, he’d bring me here the moment he had learned something about that incident with the howitzers and bolt-action rifles. Walking amidst the white, opulent Corinthian columns and the well-kept greeneries, soon the former god came into my view.

“Hm? Why so serious always, Kuro?” Jules asked the moment I appeared before him. His laptop was open, and it seemed like he was doing something with his Ste*m account. “Can’t I just call you here with nothing in mind?”

“Seriously? And here I am, thinking you got information about those advance weapons from before.”

“Nah, I’m just kidding,” he quickly retorted. “Yeah, I summoned you here because there’s something important that I want to ask you.”

The air between us had noticeably went grim. Jules remained silent for a few moments, as he typed and clicked something on his laptop. And then…

“Tell me Kuro, how do I buy Ste*m credits?”

“Excuse me?” I shook my head and told him, “I think I didn’t hear you right.”

“Ste*m creds; how do you get them?”

“H-Hold on, let me get this straight,” I massaged my temples. “You summoned me here just because you don’t know how to buy Ste*m credits?”

The former god nodded.

Being a deity and not knowing such a basic process was unbelievable for me already. But what took it further away was, “And you play games from Ste*m? How the heck did you get your games then?”

Jules leaned for a bit and whispered, “It’ll be a secret between us two but, I used my remaining god-powers.”

“That’s swindling!” I blurted out, and upon checking his Ste*m level, “And you reached level 100 with that? That’s a fraud! Apologize to those game developers that gave up a ton of effort in creating good content!”

“Good content?!” Jules was taken-aback, “I mean, well, I usually play FPS games like Call of Responsibility and Field of Battle series, so…yeah, I can’t say it’s that good. It’s fucking repetitive. Heck, and that Outfall 56 is just a terrarium of bugs and shit! How can you say it’s good?”

“Yet, you’re playing them.”

“Playing them and actually liking them are two different things,” the former god explained. “I play those for the lolz.”

“The lolz, huh? Like it or not, you’re still playing them!” I jokingly retorted, “You still have to pay!”

“Those stuff aside, are you going to help me or not?”

“Well, why can’t you buy credits?”

“I don’t know how.”

Is heaven that ‘traditional’ for the gods not to know how to do digital stuff? Well, in any case, I should ask the more important questions, “Got a bank account then?”

“Gods don’t need that.”

Of course. The person who made the world they’re managing would obviously be the richest guy in that place. Or so Jules thinks. Nevertheless, Earth wasn’t his territory; it was for someone else. Got to make him realize that…

“Ste*m credits do, however, needs a bank card. You should create one on Earth and I’ll setup your account.”

“As in, right now?”

“Yep, if it’s this urgent.”

“Alright,” Jules then fished something in his pocket. A few seconds later, he gave me a card, “here’s my brand-new ATM.”

I was surprised by what he just did, “F-Fast!”

“I’m a god, even if it’s in the past,” somehow, his face had that annoying smug. “Things like this are trivial to me.”

“Is this even legal?”

“Don’t sweat the smallest of details, nitpicker! What are you, my mom?”

“Okay, chill dude! I’ll need your account details,” I examined his ATM card for information while typing. A few tweaks, clicks and typing, and soon, I got his account up and ready.

“Alright, how do I get credits then?”

“We’ll buy it in this part over here. Enter the amount you want and then click ‘OK’…”

“Great!” he slapped my back. “Get me some good stuff over there, Kuro.”

“How much will you buy?”

“10k would suffice, do you think?”

“What the—don’t you think it’s too much?”

“I don’t care. Just get me that amount!”

So yeah, I had no choice but to follow Jules’ instructions. It’s his money, anyway. The next thing I knew, he was on a game-shopping spree.

----------

Well, I think my spirit lingered in the former god’s garden for a while, looking around the place and admiring it. I guess he still needed me, for if not, I would be on my way back to my mortal body in Chersea. In any case, while the surroundings outside the gardens looked inviting, I didn’t venture far out. Jules’ garden was bordered by a fence of well-kept shrubbery, so it’s easy to know that you’re already outside the limits of the place.

By the way, this was the first time I saw that there was a little pond nearby filled with koi fishes and lotus plants, and since I love scenes like those, I stayed in that spot for a while.

I’m tempted to dip my feet in that crystal-clear water and play with the fishes for a while.

“…”

However, Jules soon destroyed my peace…

“Hey, Kuro.”

“You got your games?”

He shook his head, “Well, I’m not exactly buying for games when I asked you to load my account with credits.”

“Err…what’s it for then?”

A smart phone then appeared on the god’s hand, “Actually, I was playing this cool game, Shiny Impact. And I wanted to buy crystals so I can continue with my draws. However, though we bought a lot of Ste*m credits already, it’s not showing on my account here.”

I could only stare at him in disbelief. “What? Shiny Impact? It’s not even a Ste*m game! What made you think that if you buy credits from Ste*m, you’d get crystals for Shiny Impact? It’s a different game company!”

“Huh? I thought Ste*m is the source of all games on Earth?”

“Of course not!”

“So…we’re going to repeat the process all over again?”

I nodded, “But this time, we’re going to get the credits from the right company. Log me in to your account.”

“Well, here,” he gave me his phone. “Load it with another 10k; you got my card details, anyway.”

Wow…I guess being a god was that convenient. I mean, you could create things on a whim, and even bulldoze your way to SSR or 5-star draws by loading your account with tons of credits. Heck, back when I was playing another similar game (I think it was Faith/May Smite), I had to juggle my budget, so I still had some money left to burn for piles of unlucky draws…which made my day even worse.

Ah, that’s in the past; I’m a sober guy now. Things like that will never faze me anymore, since I decided to drop gacha games even before I was summoned here.

“Here are your credits,” I handed him back his phone. “Do you still need help in getting crystals? You might end up buying nuclear missile codes if you just kept on hitting buttons without actually knowing what they are for.”

“What, are you taking me for a fool?” Jules snapped back. “Of course, I know that much!” But he still gave the phone to me, “However, you can still help me by buying those crystals for the gems.”

“Heh, just say you’re afraid of doing it!”

“We all got our prides, Kuro. You get me?”

I waived him off, snickering at the former god’s stubbornness. In any case, I did what he asked me to do. Soon, his account in Shiny Impact was overflowing with gems, ready to burn it all off in the game lottery. Jules felt like he had just conquered the universe.

“Heh, with these, I’ll show to those bastards!” he triumphantly declared.

“Bastards?” It looked I knew where he was coming from, buying those ungodly amounts of credits and gems, “Did you get into a fight?”

The former god nodded while never taking his eyes off the phone screen, “Heh, there’s this one meta-idiot and his friends that called my characters ‘noob class’ and that I should just play kiddie games, instead. Now, I’ll burn all those credits and acquire the strongest character this game has to offer, then find them and beat their sorry ass red.”

That’s quite a goal, isn’t it? Well, it’s not like I don’t understand where Jules was coming from. If that happened to me, I’d just take a deep breath, fix my collar (if I had one), search for my troll, and destroy him like the utter garbage he was.

“…”

Ahem, of course, though I’m a casual player, I can hold my fort when it comes to these games. I won’t go down with a fight, see?

“Look, Kuro,” the former god continued, “I think it’s pretty stupid to always rely on the stats of a character or a weapon. A true gamer relies on his skill, not on his tools.”

“Just say you just can’t pull a 5-star character.”

“Come on, man, I’m being philosophical here.”

We both laughed at ourselves, while Jules kept on burning his gems in every draw. So far, he had no luck…which I found strange.

“Hey, Jules, I was just curious.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re using your god-powers in acquiring gems for your game. I mean, what made you decide so? If you can make the impossible happen, why don’t you just get yourself a strong character with your god-powers and be done with it?”

The former god’s eyes never left the screen of his phone as he asked, “Kuro…you’re no gambler, are you?”

“I’m not. I always move with careful calculation of consequences.”

“Heh, what a boring guy.”

I guess I’m just careful of not wasting the limited resources that was entrusted to me. My mother raised us that way, see?

“Here’s why I decided to buy credits,” Jules continued on his talk while playing. “They say that when you love something, you’ll have to sacrifice everything, right?”

Whoa…are we getting philosophical again over a game?

“You see, I love this character in this game…” he showed me his favorite character, complete with fancy sparkles on his eyes. Err…Jules seems to love (not that) old ladies, eh?

“Well, I guess it’s alright,” I told him. I mean, there were times I also fell in-love with a fictional person. There was even a time in my teenage years when I adopted the mantra, ‘2D is salvation’.

“Yeah, and that’s why, I aim to build this character to the best of her abilities, and crush those who hated her,” the former god declared. “And our victory would even be sweeter if I did that in the old-fashioned ‘grinding’ and ‘farming’. Soon the entire Shiny Impact world would know of our power!”

Right, notwithstanding that you are a (former) god, everything that you did is normal, I guess?

“Fuck! My gems are already used up, and not one lucky draw!” Jules gave me his phone once again. “Get me some credits again, Kuro!”

“…”

Well, I guess deity or not, each had their own poison they wanted to consume. It’s just that, for Jules, it’s his game. As long as he’s happy, who am I stop to him?