WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 4: Life in the Gutter
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1.
A tinny broadcast spilled from street loudspeakers all over the city.
“Proud workers of Necropolis, did you sleep well last night? Another lively morning has dawned. The current time is 5:00 a.m., just right for grabbing a pickaxe and heading to work.”
“To cheer on your vigorous day, today’s selection is ‘O Labor!’”
“Labor’s great, labor’s great, we are, we are labor’s standard-bearers!”
My eyes flew open.
I could say without hesitation that this was worse than a military wake-up call.
“Fuck... That woke me right up...”
I shot up from the hard bed and checked my fingers and toes first.
The insulation in this safehouse room, which reminded me of British workers’ lodgings during the Industrial Revolution, barely kept out the wind and rain.
I needed to make sure I hadn’t frozen overnight or developed signs of frostbite.
I regretted how I’d laughed at Hong Kong apartments on YouTube, calling them chicken-coop apartments and whatnot.
Compared to this place, they were chicken hotel apartments.
Once my hands and feet thawed a little, the sensation that had gone stiff overnight returned.
“Whew...”
I put one of my precious cigarettes between my lips and lit my last one.
As the acrid smoke stung my eyes, an indescribably shitty feeling slowly rose within me.
“So it wasn’t a dream.”
The safehouse where I’d been abandoned through a magic device was in one of Necropolis’s slums.
So, what kind of place was Necropolis?
Aden was an Ark city built to prepare for Black Dust and beasts, but humanity hadn’t been satisfied with walls alone.
They’d erected every defense imaginable outside the walls as well.
They transplanted sacred giant trees whose leaves hadn’t fallen for thousands of years.
They loaded siege weapons onto enormous islands and floated them through the air.
They built mazes that made beasts devour and kill each other.
They dug massive moats around the walls, as deep as canyons.
The moat north of the wall had become the predecessor of Necropolis.
Time evaporated the water gathered in that moat. The beasts clinging close to the walls were subjugated, and the outer areas were developed.
The result was a wonderful city where the lives at the bottom pooled and rotted.
“Arbel, you fucking bitch.”
People could get the wrong idea sometimes.
Did she really have to throw me into a place like this just because I kissed her?
Still, they said humans were adaptable creatures.
It had been a week since I was abandoned in this chicken-coop safehouse. I’d managed to survive, at least.
But there was another, more serious problem.
Grrrrowl.
“I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I’m cold...”
The food stored in the safehouse had been meager.
Four compressed biscuits that needed three minutes of soaking in my mouth before I could barely swallow them.
Three bottles of water that tasted like disinfectant.
I’d run out of everything long ago.
There was no food-delivery app, and I didn’t have a single coin.
If I wanted to live, I had to go out and earn money.
“Can I really go outside?”
Even so, apart from occasionally looking around outside, I’d stayed shut in for a week.
Because of one possibility.
What if this exile hadn’t been Albert and Arbel working together, but a real attack?
What if I hadn’t been abandoned, but emergency-ejected?
In other words, what if Albert’s story about an “attack” had been true, and I really did need to hide my identity?
I had to consider that pursuers might come after me at any moment.
If I carelessly wandered outside, my identity might be exposed, and the risk of that was impossible to measure.
But I couldn’t starve to death.
I had to go out and do something.
“Are there no Cedric moms out there instead of cat moms...?”
Just as I lamented my tumultuous life, which had suddenly changed genres into a survival game, a line from that tiresome morning broadcast caught my ear.
“Next is an announcement regarding food rations. Free food rations are being distributed at City Hall for the workers. We hope for your interest. We repeat...”
Damn it! There really was a Cedric mom!
This was no time to waste.
“Food!”
I grabbed a ragged cloak, pulled it over my head, and ran into the street.
======
::: New Area Entered (NEW!) :::
Buildings of glass and steel.
Trash endlessly raining from the sky.
Thick steam and dark, murky green smog.
Lively citizens heading to work again today so they can live tomorrow!
This is the graveyard for the refuse cast aside by the Ark, and the front line of humanity’s territorial expansion.
Necropolis.
Oh, watch your lung health.
Toxic smog always hangs over Necropolis.
TIP
- Fairy meat is a Necropolis specialty! Be sure to try some!
- Beware kindness without a reason. There is a high chance they are not welcoming you.
- Fixers kill vagrants as a hobby. What a wonderful hobby. Corpses are an excellent source of pocket money in Necropolis.
- Search the garbage dumps carefully. You might find a decent meal.
- When visiting an augmentation clinic, always check for City Hall authorization! The side effects of illegal clinics are serious!
2.
I pulled my cloak low enough to hide my face and headed out of the slums toward City Hall.
Finding my way wasn’t difficult.
Necropolis had been built to fill a moat. The entire city stretched in a straight line, like a sandwich squeezed between cliffs.
I only needed to follow the central avenue toward City Hall.
Buildings rose wildly on both sides of the avenue, with no regard for coverage ratios or floor-area limits, creating a maze. Along the moat walls, I could even see buildings carved into the cliff face and clinging to it like barnacles.
The moat was less than a hundred meters wide at its narrowest points, so they seemed to use space however they could.
The mess and disorder were a problem, but...
The population density was worse.
“Is this Line 1 or what...?”
The Ark had apparently gone full Seoul and sent both its garbage and its human garbage here.
NIMBY.
That was a serious social problem.
This really was dystopian dark fusionpunk fantasy.
How many genres had this world mixed together?
The crowded streets were hazy with murky green light and the glow of gaudy signs.
Then a brutally real smell of food intruded upon that unreal scenery.
I stopped walking.
A row of drinking stalls and street vendors lined one side of the road. It looked like a Chinese-style night market.
Noisy voices tangled beyond the steam rolling along the ground.
“Fresh fairy meat!”
“Fuck... I need to get out of here soon. This neighborhood is fucking awful.”
“Make enough today, live today. Make enough today, live today. Make enough today, live today...”
“Boss! Another drink! Can’t you see my glass is empty, bitch?”
“Why’s there so much stuff in this today?”
City Hall was in that direction anyway, so I wandered inside as though entranced.
People of every sort were greedily shoveling down food.
“What is that?”
I frowned.
None of the food looked remotely normal.
On the stalls were skinned rats with their heads still attached.
Chunks of meat marked “Fairy Meat” hung from hooks, dripping blood.
Picking cigarette butts and shards of glass out of stew with their fingers before eating seemed to be basic common sense around here.
It was an utterly nauseating sight.
But...
Grrrrowl.
My stomach, which had survived on nothing but water for three days, quivered at the smell of food.
...Some things did look acceptable if I looked closely.
There were odd crustaceans called sewer plate crabs.
There were whole, strange fish that looked like deep-sea creatures, fried in oil.
Prices ranged from a few hundred to five thousand Bios.
Even the most expensive-looking steamed sheep’s head cost no more than ten thousand Bios.
The price of one oyster cocktail could feed someone well for a month.
But with no money at all, it was all out of reach.
“Do you have free samples here?”
“What? Beat it, you little beggar.”
Of course they didn’t.
I turned away in disappointment and continued toward City Hall.
A large crowd had already lined up in front of the building.
“Excuse me. Is this the line for food rations?”
“Get lost unless you want to die, runt.”
Hmm. Looks like I was in the right line.
People got nasty when they were hungry.
The people in line looked so miserable that I became certain those I’d seen at the drinking stalls earlier were this city’s middle class.
After waiting in line for about two hours, it was finally my turn.
The City Hall employee lazily tossed me a food ration wrapped in cheap paper.
“Here. Next.”
“Thank you.”
It was heavier than I expected. It felt like I was carrying a wrapped brick.
“Hey.”
A deep voice stopped me as I lowered my head and turned away.
It was the City Hall employee who had just thrown me the ration.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. The one with the cloak.”
“What is it?”
“First time in this city, right? I can tell at a glance.”
Fuck.
I’d been glad nobody checked my identification, only to get caught like this?
“Tch. It sucks, but hang in there. Don’t carry that around in the open and get mugged. Hide it well. Use this to cover up and sleep when it’s cold.”
The employee tossed over what looked like a cheap waterproof tarp along with the food ration.
Was this humanity?
Maybe Necropolis wasn’t such a harsh place after all.
“Thank you!!!”
Following the employee’s advice, I wrapped the ration tightly in the tarp and returned home.
I also scooped up some water pooled in a rain gutter.
It was disgusting, but I had no choice.
I’d let the impurities settle before drinking it.
My home looked even smaller after being outside.
There was no sign that Albert had come and gone.
That wasn’t important right now.
“Food. Food!!!”
I’d gone three full days with nothing but water.
Just thinking that food was right in front of me made my mouth ache with saliva.
“The ration given by the mayor... I will never forget it for as long as I live...”
The moment I peeled away the strangely sticky wrapper, my fingertips stiffened awkwardly.
Right.
I hadn’t expected a city dripping with dystopian vibes to hand out decent food for free.
But...
“...This is too much...”
It was a black, glossy block with the texture of yōkan.
Chunks were visible through the opaque block.
Long antennae, hairy legs, gleaming chitinous shells.
It was a protein block whose ingredients were obvious to anyone.
“You fucking bitch!!!!”
At least they ground the cockroaches up well enough that the freeloading bastards in the tail section wouldn’t know what they were eating!!!!
Thud thud thud thud!
“Shut the fuck up!”
The neighbor kicked the wall in protest, but I couldn’t contain my fury.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Arbel, you bitch. I’ll definitely get revenge.
My empty stomach filled with vengeance.
As long as I’d been born human, I’d rather die than stay alive by eating something like this.
That wasn’t a human life. It was a pig’s life.
.
.
.
“...They say cockroaches are shrimp’s friends.”
======
::: Challenge (NEW!) :::
- Try Necropolis’s specialty, the Nutrient Block. +1 pt
======
3.
Late that night.
I was holding my adorably swollen stomach and tossing in the cold, just about to fall asleep when...
Click.
I heard a lock turn.
On my front door.
This place was tiny. There was no way I’d misheard it.
Sleep vanished, and every nerve in my body tightened.
A pursuer.
The faceless being I’d always been wary of pricked at my nerves.
But at the same time, hope blossomed within me.
Maybe...
The person behind that door could be Albert or Arbel.
Maybe they’d come to take me back, thinking, “He’s reflected enough by now.”
No matter what, we were family. Would they really abandon me in a place like this?
Creeeak!
The door opened with a sound like its hinges were about to break.
A dim room without lighting.
A familiar silhouette.
The person who stepped in through the entrance was Arbel, the one I’d resented so deeply.
You’re just who I was looking for.
But a gentleman’s revenge wasn’t too late even after ten years.
“Sis...! I’ve really reflected a lot...”
I froze in the very position where I’d been about to fall to my knees with tears in my eyes.
“...Sister?”
Arbel, standing blankly in the doorway, was visibly not normal.
Her clothes were badly wrinkled and torn, and dried bloodstains covered her in places.
Of her golden eyes, usually sharp with intelligence, the left one was completely unfocused.
She looked precarious.
Like a cherry blossom at the end of its life.
“Cedric...”
Arbel quietly called my name, then collapsed as though crumbling apart.
Nice catch!
If I hadn’t slid forward to catch her, she would have hit the floor headfirst.
My eyes narrowed as I held Arbel in my arms.
Her breathing was faint.
Cold sweat flowed thickly despite the freezing weather.
Her unexpectedly small, slender body felt as though it were burning up.
Even with nothing but the knowledge of tourniquets and CPR I’d learned in boot camp, I could tell.
“What?”
Arbel was dying.
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