WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 37: Save Point
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1.
We raised our glasses to success.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you’d get this far.”
“I didn’t either.”
“You can take a little more pride in it. Your methods may have been ridiculous, but you stopped a project Twilight Resource Development was carrying out. I’m genuinely interested in you now.”
Ceres swirled her wineglass with an elegant motion.
It was almost like she was desperately denying the disheveled state she had been in just moments ago.
Man, I thought this every time, but that gap was the best.
“Thanks to your support, Ceres.”
“Shut up.”
Ceres scrunched up her face at my flattery.
Anyway, looking back on this iteration.
This body had performed well enough for Ceres to consider remarrying.
There had been too much overlap with the previous iteration, so I had only earned 22 pt from Challenges over fifteen days, but...
I hadn’t used a single Joker.
In other words, my expenses were zero.
And the results?
A dream job at Ceres’s Haeng House.
Becoming Xuan Yiming’s unofficial right-hand man, Yowppi, and joining a secret cross-dressing club.
Learning the fucking cool Rank 0 magic 「Death Sentence」.
Parking Arbel in a C Sector two-bedroom that put a luxury condo to shame.
And finally, stopping Project Z.
I had accomplished all that with nothing but the three-inch tongue, stockings, high heels, and anklet Ceres had given me...
It was practically the miracle of feeding a crowd with five loaves and two fish.
Hallelujah!
All that remained was breaking Ceres’s Commandment and wrapping up this iteration.
“Then we should settle matters between us too, shouldn’t we?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. You mean breaking the Commandment, right?”
“It’s true that I find you cute, but... if you’ve lied to me, you’ll regret it deeply.”
I knew.
Even if she had been especially good to me this iteration, Ceres Cassian was still a Twilight Resource Development director without blood or tears.
I didn’t trust Ceres.
I told you, didn’t I? Professionalism meant giving them the body, but never the heart.
I wouldn’t repeat the foolishness of trusting Akitt and Areng ever again.
The only person I could trust in this city was Arbel.
But separate from that, Mommy Ceres was clearly getting worked up at the thought of finally breaking the Commandment she had longed to escape.
Until we went through with breaking it?
Cedric had the upper hand, and Ceres was beneath him.
“Heh heh.”
“...Why are you smiling like that?”
Do you know how incredible this was?
Ceres, we need lots of bunny girls to break your Commandment.
If I said that, she might even put on a bunny girl outfit.
I wanted to see Mommy turn red and squirm in embarrassment!
‘Hmm, it seems I’ve been too lenient with you.’
She would glare at me murderously, then grit her teeth and put on the bunny suit anyway.
‘W-What could possibly be so good about this that you want me to wear it?’
I wanted to see Ceres tearfully insult me!
If I wanted to see it, I had to do it.
“To break the Commandment, we need lots of bunny girls. You can wear one, Ceres.”
“Hmm, really? Shall we see if that’s true?”
“Cancelcancelcancel!”
Ceres picked up the wine opener and stared at my eyeballs, so I withdrew it quickly.
“Could you close your eyes?”
“I have.”
“You mustn’t open them.”
“Am I a child?”
Instead, I pulled the seal from my pocket.
「Mysterious Contract Seal」
- Rank: R
- Description: Makes promises with the world, or breaks them.
- Effect: Can form a new Commandment or break an existing Commandment.
- Note: Can also be used on others. Remaining uses: 2.
“Uh... could you tell me the contents of the Commandment first?”
“There’s a restriction that prevents me from speaking of it. I only have one Commandment anyway, so just break that one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The moment I used the seal, a change came over the room.
It was like replaying a video at 0.0001 speed.
Every sensation and action slowed.
The classical music playing in the room sank into an unrecognizable murmur, and the rain outside the window stopped in midair.
Hmm, it felt like experiencing Quicksilver.
Except I hadn’t paid for the upgrade, so my own movement speed stayed the same.
The Status Window appeared.
[Would you like to break Ceres Cassian’s Commandment through 「Mysterious Contract Seal」?]
“YES.”
======
【Ceres Cassian, First Commandment】
〔Alteration〕
Ceres Cassian can incarnate in 「Thousand-Faced Comedy: Masquerade」.
〔Restriction I〕
She must remain incarnated for six days out of every seven, with only one day excepted.
〔Oath I〕
The existence and conditions of this Restriction must never be disclosed.
======
“Break it.”
The instant I recited it inwardly.
Krrrack.
Space suddenly tore apart as if a strip of film had warped, revealing a black void.
Darkness with no end in sight.
Beyond that curtain swayed hundreds, thousands of chains.
The chains writhed like snakes and slowly advanced toward Ceres, trying to coil around her body.
I knew instinctively.
That was the world’s punishment.
I had just learned Ceres’s Commandment.
That meant I had violated Oath I: The existence and conditions of the Restriction must remain secret.
Waitwaitwait! Boss!
What happened in a case like this?
Wasn’t the Contract Seal supposed to break the Commandment?
Crackle!
A pure white wave burst from the seal like a camera flash, and the chains scattered like dust.
Time, which had stretched to its limit, instantly returned to its normal speed.
“Whoa...”
I felt like I had just seen something incredible.
[Ceres Cassian’s [First Commandment] has been broken.]
[「Mysterious Contract Seal」 Remaining uses: 1.]
Still dazed, I saw the sight before me and felt my heart drop in terror.
“Kyaaaaaah!!!!”
Mommy Ceres, who had definitely been standing in front of me just moments ago!
Had turned into a horrifying 2.4-meter mannequin!
You know, that thing!
The stitched doll I had used as a punching bag when I first learned Death Sentence!
“Eeeek! C-Ceres Mommy! Mommy!!!”
As I screamed like a duckling that had lost its mother.
Click.
The room door opened behind me, and Ceres’s little daughter, Ines, appeared.
“N-No way... This, this was really possible...? Breaking a Commandment...”
Her face was as white as her hair.
Even pale with shock, Ines-chan was pretty!
“You came at the perfect time! Help me! Ines, help! Mommy Ceres is...!”
I was about to dive into Ines’s skirt like an ant in a panic when I finally noticed something.
A Commandment. Thousand-Faced Comedy: Masquerade. She had to remain incarnated all but one day of the week.
A mannequin the same height as Ceres.
Ceres, who had wanted to break the Commandment. Ceres, who had thrown away her high heels.
Ines, Ceres’s daughter. The differently sized bed in Ceres’s Haeng House.
“Ah.”
Before the horrifying truth, I collapsed like a child.
“What the fuck... Give me back my mother-daughter threesome...”
2.
Two hundred and thirty years ago.
Necropolis was ruled not by Twilight Resource Development or Overnus Pharmaceuticals.
It was ruled solely by the R.C.D. Foundation, established in Aden to cleanse, isolate, and develop the moat beyond the Wall of Humanity.
They said Necropolis had been an even more horrific hell back then.
Less developed, flooded with more garbage, and more savage than now.
It was an age of raging waves, when rifts surfaced whenever they pleased and claimed anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of lives overnight.
Even then, it seemed Aden had a long tradition of throwing its losers into Necropolis.
“My family was a fallen marquis house that had been pushed all the way down into Necropolis. We barely managed to survive by cooperating with the R.C.D. Foundation.”
But the Foundation had consisted of three factions.
When two factions joined forces and purged the remaining one, it split apart.
Unfortunately, Ceres’s family had supported the faction that got purged, leaving them crushed beneath the rubble of the throne.
Young and immature Ceres formed a Commandment to survive.
She would incarnate in her innate magic, 「Thousand-Faced Comedy: Masquerade」, and change her appearance.
“The rest of my family was executed, but I escaped the disaster.”
Ceres survived by becoming eight feet tall and steadily increased her Rank.
Like me, she adapted to the city and took revenge on the people who had slaughtered her family, one by one.
At last, she rose to become a director of Twilight Resource Development.
But.
“When I passed Rank 5 and reached the wall before Rank 6, the Commandment became my prison. The body that warped every week was stopping me from reaching Rank 6.”
She had faced a powerful restriction in the Body of Mind, Skill, and Body.
“Besides, a height of 240 centimeters is too tall for an attractive woman like me, isn’t it?”
That was why she researched how to break the Commandment.
And at last, she met Cedric and succeeded in breaking it.
And they all lived happily ever after.
That was the end of her magnificent tale.
And having learned all the circumstances, I was feeling cosmic horror.
My teeth clattered together.
“Then... all this time, I...”
I looked at the mannequin sitting on the sofa beside me.
Its eyelids were sewn shut with wire, its teeth sharp as nails, and the entire front of its face had been ground away, leaving white nostrils like Voldemort’s.
So...
“I was doing it with this thing all along!! Fuck!!!! You’ve got to be kidding me!!!!”
“I finally told you the truth, and that’s your reaction? How infuriating.”
Mommy Ceres, who had transformed from the Eight-Foot Widow into a silver-haired, white-eyed beauty, answered indifferently.
“Ceres! It’s not that simple!”
I was the only one who had been sincere again!
I had been rubbing myself against a horrifying love doll while wearing VR goggles, saying I wanted to be held in Mommy’s arms!
It felt like my soul was being torn to shreds!
“Sigh, it depends how you think about it... My Masquerade is magic that controls a soulless body. Put another way, the moment a soul enters it, the vessel changes too. Though this is still my true body.”
Ceres said this while poking her own cheek.
So the moment Ceres possessed that mannequin, it became the Mommy Ceres I knew, a sort of clone avatar.
“Then did it feel good for you too, Ceres?”
“...”
Ceres did not answer.
Since I was a philosophical idealist who could embrace even Arbel, my disgust faded a little.
But my despair did not end there.
“...”
It might have been something in the very distant future...
But I had wanted to spend some quality time transcending the family tree with Ceres and Ines.
I had dreamed of that apricot-colored future...
“Why are you so disappointed? You don’t like this form more than some stupidly huge woman?”
“You don’t understand anything, Ceres.”
“...?”
Mommy Ceres tilted her head, apparently confused.
Wait.
It felt like I had overlooked a crucial fact in my despair.
Ceres, the Eight-Foot “Widow,” had used that identity as a cover to introduce Ines, her true body, as her daughter.
Then?!
“Ceres. You’re not actually a widow?”
“...Cedric, you always ask the most pointless questions.”
Really? You really aren’t?
Wait a second...
I recalled the big data gathered over countless iterations.
Ceres had always tried to take the lead with me.
She acted relaxed, scanned my body with sultry eyes, and constantly said things like, “You’re better than my husband~.”
But despite that attitude, her skills had been pretty awful.
And to add to that, I had never once seen her bring another man into her bedroom.
Until now, I had interpreted Mommy Ceres’s clumsiness as, “Maybe it’s been a while for her~.”
But.
If I removed my preconception of her as “a widow who had been through hell and back, and the witch of Twilight Resource Development.”
And replaced it with, “a woman who had deceived everyone her whole life to survive.”
Then?
With growing suspicion, I asked.
“Ceres.”
“Yes?”
“Am I your first?”
“First at what?”
“Um... that.”
I curled my finger into a circle and pushed it in and out.
Ceres’s expression turned icy.
“Be quiet. How could that possibly be true?”
I pressed down the corners of my mouth, which wanted to rise like the Joker.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Hey, I haven’t started laughing yet.”
“You take me far too lightly. I spoiled you from the moment I picked you up. I should have gouged out your eyes from the start.”
“Heh heh heh.”
Ceres, who couldn’t lie, desperately tried to smooth things over with a serious face.
This was quite the delicacy.
“Anyway, now that this has happened, we need to discuss what comes next.”
Ceres, the silver-haired, white-eyed beauty whose ears seemed a little red, fanned her face with one hand before speaking.
“Cedric, do you intend to keep working with me?”
Ding!
A notification sounded.
It was here! My Choices! The save point update!!!
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