WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 41: Premium Fever! (3)
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1.
The fight had been far more anticlimactic than I’d worried it would be.
Really, this had been an experiment to see just how effective Growth Acceleration was...
“I can’t tell.”
Once I stopped holding back and let Death Sentence rip, the fight was already over.
The guy who tried to evade it died in no time too.
It also felt like Death Sentence triggered much more easily than it had against Sunming.
And I could fire it in every direction now.
“How do mages even grow stronger in the first place?”
It wasn’t as simple as killing eighteen Grade 8s and gaining experience.
Since I used death-aligned magic, did killing more people make me stronger, just as dying more made me stronger?
“Still, I’ve learned something.”
The battle just now had made a few things clear.
First, the cause of death I set and the form of my mana needed to share a degree of similarity for its power to increase.
For a slash, crescent-shaped mana that seemed to cut.
For a bullet, mana shaped like a bullet.
To snap someone’s neck, it had to wrap around their neck.
Second, it was weak against cover.
Death Sentence ultimately manifested the “death” I imagined.
It could cut through a hem of clothing because it was part of that image of death, but the place where we fought had barely been damaged.
If I’d fought inside a warehouse with enough cover, the outcome might have been different.
And third.
“I, Cedric, am undeniably the king of Grade 7. Proof complete.”
I possessed fighting power that couldn’t compare to some Level 1 augmentation.
In this barbaric place where strength was everything, I had the power to protect myself.
If I made good use of Growth Acceleration and learned magic from Mama Ceres...
Maybe I could aim for Grade 6 fixer before this Premium was over.
First, I had to do what I came here to do.
“Ugh, dust.”
I thoroughly searched the filthy office.
Unlike my place, which had Arbel as a natural air freshener, this office full of bachelors smelled stale and musty.
“I miss Arbel’s sweet, nutty scent.”
She was probably asleep right now, scratching her stomach.
Lucky bastard.
My loot consisted of five packs of cheap cigarettes, a transaction ledger, twenty thousand Bios in total, and two cans of synthetic oil.
“They really had fuck-all.”
It couldn’t be helped.
Fixer offices in places like this usually kept only the bare minimum of supplies since they were common raid targets.
The only decent find was a burgundy leather long coat that fit me perfectly.
It was heavy and inconvenient to move in, but damn, it looked cool.
“But where’s the merchandise? I should’ve kept one of them alive!”
Only after overturning the sofa and even tearing up the floorboards did I find it.
A paper-wrapped package, hidden deep inside the attic.
It looked suspicious at a glance.
“Here goes.”
Once I removed the paper, I found a large glass jar full of brown ointment-like stuff.
“Is this the British Empire’s prized export...?”[1]
It weighed around ten kilograms.
When I opened the lid, a sweet smell, like boiled herbal medicine, hit me in the nose.
“Should I skim half and sell it?”
If I put it on the F Sector black market or sold it to addicts, it seemed like it could earn me some decent pocket money.
But I didn’t deliberate for long.
Getting targeted by an organization and dying because I tried to move merchandise like an amateur was a cliché of clichés.
Besides, I still had things to squeeze out of Yiming.
“Next, destroy the evidence?”
I shoved the large jar into the bag I’d brought.
Then I poured the oil I found in the office evenly over the bodies scattered outside and gave them a joint funeral.
The bodies burned well, sending up acrid smoke.
The smell of cooking meat mixed with the stench of burning flesh. It was pretty disgusting.
Sizzle.
I lit a cigarette and tossed a pack of cheap cigarettes I’d found while looting into the flames.
The cigarette pack shriveled black in an instant beneath the roaring fire.
“Phew. May you attain paradise.”
That was the limit of the kindness I could offer others.
After all, Necropolis was such a nice place to live.
2.
When I retrieved the goods and returned to the Drunken Red Pavilion, Yiming’s office was crowded with organization members in all kinds of outfits.
Thinking something interesting must be happening, I walked closer.
“Mm! Mmmph!!!”
A naked man was tied to a chair covered with a tarp.
“Slice him up here and there, then feed him to the dogs. Cut off his head and hang it in the gambling den.”
“Yes, Incense Master!”
Yiming had been lighting a cigarette without expression, but he spotted me and came over with a broad smile.
“Rowan!”
“Big Brother! I found the goods.”
“You already finished?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I’d be back before the drink got cold.”
“Bwahahaha! Rowan, you’re really something! A big something, too!”
“Of course. Back in my day, I was a hero who brought home foreign currency.”
I flashed a bright smile and set down the heavy glass jar with a thud.
Yiming burst into hearty laughter as if nothing vicious had happened moments ago.
“Boys, did you cut up that bastard just now?”
“Huh? We’ve only cut off one arm so far, sir.”
“Let him go. We can’t spill blood on such an auspicious day.”
“Yes, sir!”
The organization members looked confused, but untied the man they had caught.
“What did he do to end up like that?”
“He got caught dealing from the bottom at my gambling den.”
“Hm. Shouldn’t we just cut him up?”
“Should we? Boys! Cut him up after all!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Mmmph!!!!!”
While they sent the cheating gambler to a better place and cleaned up, I gave Yiming a rough report.
Yiming nodded in satisfaction with the smile of a father watching his three-year-old daughter read a picture book.
“Come to think of it, is this your first time handling work for the organization?”
“It is.”
“Well, well. I can’t let my adorable little brother go without a gift!”
“Really, Big Brother?!”
“Of course! Follow me!”
I really liked this guanxi[2] culture.
You didn’t have to refuse gifts.
A gift both elevated Yiming’s standing and acknowledged me as zijiren, one of his own.
Refusing it would be rude. All I had to do was give a good reaction.
Yiming took me to a room with a huge vault.
Calling it a vault was a stretch. It was practically a room by itself.
“Rowan. This is truly precious. Even I could only obtain one.”
Really?
I’d been excited from the moment I was brought to the vault.
He was giving me something so precious for such an easy quest?
The more I saw of Yiming, the more he seemed like a decent person.
In Necropolis, shikku, corpse-dressing that was all the rage these days, cross-dressing without bothering anyone, and collecting women’s clothes were honestly pretty damn wholesome hobbies, weren’t they?
“B-Big Brother.”
“Open it. You can check it here.”
What Yiming handed me was a wooden box the size of a Bible.
I opened it eagerly.
Inside was...
“What is this?”
“The underwear of Junior House Head Li Xingfei, the precious jewel of the Gold Carp Family.”
It was a pair of delicate underpants woven from fine silk.
“What do you think? It took a lot to get it.”
“...”
...Fuck. What was I supposed to do with this idiot?
I stared at Yiming, who smiled shyly.
“Why? You don’t like it?”
But this was a gift Yiming had given his little brother.
If I showed that I didn’t like it, I’d embarrass Yiming.
Ha...
This was why I fucking hated guanxi culture.
It was primitive garbage culture for shit-eating vermin.
But that was that.
Sniff!!!!!!
I immediately buried my nose in the underwear.
“Wow, Big Brother! It smells like peonies!”
“Right?!”
“I’ll never receive another gift this memorable in my life!”
“Right?!!!!”
Maybe they used good fabric softener, because it did smell nice.
Later, if it fit, I’d make Arbel wear it.
3.
That night.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come unless it was absolutely necessary?”
Ceres greeted me with clear displeasure.
She’d finally lifted the Commandment, but she was in Mama mode again today.
I found this more familiar too, but hadn’t she said she wanted to let loose?
I thought she’d be in her Ines form at home.
“It’s absolutely necessary.”
“What is it?”
“I missed you.”
Flick!
“Argh!”
Still, a forehead flick earned me the right to come inside.
Well, I knew it too.
It was better to minimize contact with Ceres, and I was the one who would be in danger if Yiming found out about our secret meetings.
But this iteration was based on the premise that I would regress after death.
I’d given up on saving Arbel in one go.
If I got caught, I’d just die once.
Of course, I hadn’t come to see Ceres without a plan.
“You’re asking whether there’s magic other than Death Sentence?”
“Yes.”
That was my real purpose.
In this Premium Route, I had three lives of twenty days each.
If necessary, I could use the remaining Misfortune-Warding Talismans and die two more times.
If I called those new first, second, and later iterations...
I had decided to invest this entire first iteration into training.
No matter what I did from now on, the Cedric enhancement event was essential if I wanted to survive in this shitty place.
My rough goal was Grade 6 fixer.
“You’ve mastered Death Sentence already? If you run before walking, you’ll trip. Don’t get cocky. Focus on the basics.”
“I’m not being cocky. I’ve already used it twice in real combat.”
“In real combat?”
Ceres raised an eyebrow and took me to the workshop.
“Show me.”
“Then I’ll use it with the goal of earning praise from you, Ceres.”
“When you put it that way, it makes me not want to praise you.”
Whoosh.
I showed Masquerade Cedric’s ultimate move, a barrage of Death Sentences.
Dozens of straight lines sharply swept through the room.
The mannequin summoned as a punching bag became ragged chunks in an instant and rolled across the floor.
“...What do you think?”
Ceres’s response was neither shock, praise, nor a declaration that I had talent.
“Ahahaha!”
“Mama?”
She laughed long enough for her neat teeth to show, then wiped away the tears in her eyes.
“Sorry, sorry. You live long enough, and you get to see something this funny.”
I was startled.
It was the first time I’d seen her laugh that loudly.
“So Death Sentence can be used like this too?”
“Don’t people usually use it this way?”
“They don’t. If someone could do this, they would be Rank 1 or higher. There would be no reason to use Rank 0 magic.”
Mages had no sense of romance.
How could they resist such a fucking cool technique?
“The last time I saw you, you were very good at bringing up your mindscape, but your technique was clumsy. Now, it seems to fit together well. The precision of your technique is still lacking compared to the depth of your mindscape, though.”
She smiled in satisfaction.
“How much did you practice?”
“Actual combat is the best practice.”
When I answered Mama Ceres honestly...
“...You’ve only done it twice?”
The amusement faded from her face.
“You can’t practice this without people, can you?”
Wasn’t that right?
Surely cutting up homeless people to practice wasn’t the standard?
Had I made another blunder because I still couldn’t adapt to Necropolis?
After a brief silence, Ceres nodded.
“Fine. If you’re used to it, that’s good enough. Today, I’ll teach you how to assign a different cause of death.”
“I’ve already tried that.”
“What?”
“Like this, right?”
I fired bullet-shaped mana at the mannequin just as it was about to regenerate.
Thump!
With a burst, the mannequin collapsed again and trembled.
“And this.”
I fired a round, sphere-shaped mass of mana at it.
Crunch!
The mannequin, which had only just gotten up, burst like a bug under someone’s foot.
Ceres narrowed her eyes.
“Can you use other methods too?”
“I can, but...”
“You can?”
“Yes, but the power is terribly weak. Why is that?”
I had intended to ask about it because this one cause of death, unlike all the others I’d experienced, had never worked properly on others.
I tried snapping the neck of the stubbornly reviving mannequin.
Crackcrack!
“Huh?”
This time, it definitely worked.
Its neck twisted nearly 290 degrees, putting on a cervical spin that would have instantly killed any human.
I stared blankly at Mama Ceres and sought her wisdom.
“Why does this suddenly work?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“It didn’t work well before.”
Could this be Growth Acceleration?
Was that what “500% gain to all proficiency” meant?
Yes! This was it!
The effortlessly overpowered, one-click genius necromancer Cedric!
This was the kind of genre I wanted!
“Ceres. Please praise me and give me head pats.”
I puffed up slightly and shrugged.
“Could you look at me for a moment?”
Ceres suddenly began unfastening my clothes.
“Ceres, should we shower first? I sweated a lot.”
Our Mama Ceres!
When did she become so bold?
“Shut up, dear.”
After feeling over my body for a while, Ceres gave a hollow laugh.
“That’s it.”
“What is?”
“It’s been engraved. An Engraving.”
Engraving?
Footnotes:
[1] British Empire’s prized export: A reference to Britain’s historic opium trade, suggesting the jar contains a valuable addictive drug.
[2] guanxi: A Chinese system of reciprocal personal relationships, where gifts and favors establish obligation and belonging.
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