WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 49: Big Brother (2)
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Like an enraged bull, Yiming rampaged ahead.
Compared to him, Rowan was feeble, but somehow managed to cover the gaps.
We fought the jiangshi back to back, like Zhang Fei and Guan Yu.[1]
Of course, I was Guan Yu. Since I was the more cowardly and weaker one.
“If we go to the eastern edge of F Sector, there’s a cargo lift connected to Aden. We’ll head there and get out of Necropolis.”
“Sounds good, Brother! Let’s go to the Blue House!”
We had one goal.
Escape to Aden.
Yeah, yeah, I knew.
This iteration was fucked anyway.
Ceres Mama said she would take care of Arbel, so I was not too worried about being forced into a clear...
Even if we somehow made it to Aden after all this, in a few days it would be Dormammu all over again.
Rationally speaking, as a regressor, I should have gone:
‘Hah, did this iteration fail? (Bitter smile.)’
‘The next one will be different. (Solemn resolve.)’
Then I could stick a cigarette in my mouth, strike a cool pose, and die.
But...
“Rowan! I’ll take the lead!”
“Yes, Brother! I’ll follow you!”
How could I give up?
Big Brother Yiming had not given up yet, and I was supposed to say, ‘Let’s just go next round’?
Could I still call myself a man with two balls?
I did not want to be that pathetic.
Even if a reset awaited me.
I would burn my life alongside Yiming of this iteration until the very end.
So onward, onward, and onward again.
From the butcher district to the residential area packed with cage-like homes.
From the residential area to Pawnshop Alley, lined with pawnshops.
From Pawnshop Alley to Iron Cauldron Street, where herbalists made elixirs.
We had made it from Iron Cauldron Street to C Sector Plaza.
But then...
Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.
As if to prove they were chinks, the Gold Carp Family scum kept throwing human-wave attacks at us like the Chinese Communist army.
“Big Brother Yiming! More are coming!”
“Fuck, again? The fifth wave is getting rough.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“The Gold Carp bastards have hit the jackpot. They have their pretext, and they have a chance to legally carve up a Xuan Family Incense Master.”
I did not know what mechanism moved those jiangshi or who controlled them.
But by this point, I could clearly feel their purpose.
“Pant... Pant...!”
A war of attrition.
More precisely, Yiming’s attrition.
Yiming had charged around like an out-of-control train, but his breathing had already grown ragged.
Sweat poured from his forehead like rain, and he was visibly slower than before.
“Brother, are you all right?!”
“You little shit! I’m not tired. I haven’t even shown my full strength yet. I’ve got plenty left!”
“Wow... As expected of Big Brother Yiming! But please be honest!”
“Actually, I’m a little tired!”
The matchup was bad.
No matter how gently Yiming threw each punch, it was like using a cannon to kill mosquitoes.
Like a fortune slowly disappearing to a trivial casino fee.
He was steadily being worn down by the forced expenditure.
Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle.
I looked at the jiangshi, whose numbers did not seem to be falling at all.
I looked at the carp heads still watching us from pools of stagnant water everywhere.
Was this the terror of Necropolis?
Could even a second-tier mage not defy the city itself?
It felt like falling into an antlion pit.
Hmm, honestly...
Big Brother Yiming did seem to be struggling a bit much for a second-tier mage...
“Gasp!”
I quickly cut off that train of thought.
How could I have such irreverent thoughts while Big Brother Yiming burned with fighting spirit?
It could not be helped.
Yiming had risked his life for me.
Then offering my life was both righteousness and duty.
Burning Life, the artifact I had obtained last time that granted power for three minutes in exchange for lifespan.
It was SR rank, after all.
I had to try using it at least once.
“Equivalent exchange!”
.
.
.
My field of vision changed in an instant, as if someone had switched the TV channel.
There were no jiangshi. No chaotic, cluttered Chinese-style buildings of C Sector.
“...What?”
A world drained of color.
Oppressive silence.
Everything in sight was black and white.
White ash fell from the sky like snow.
I looked around.
On endless hills made from gathered ash...
Countless candles stood planted like gravestones.
“Whose birthday is it?”
The candles were all in different states.
Some had burned black to the wick, leaving only their shape. Some had melted halfway and hardened. Some gave off only thin trails of smoke.
Their lengths and thicknesses varied, but they had one thing in common.
None of the candles were lit.
Except for one.
Fwoosh!
At the exact center of that gray cemetery.
Something was the sole bright light in this colorless world.
A burning candle set in a golden candlestick.
Ding!
======
“Burning Life” activates.
Checking remaining lifespan.
▶ Remaining lifespan: 58 years.
[Select the amount of lifespan to incinerate.]
【 Incinerate 7 years 】
- For an instant, surpass your limits.
【 Incinerate 17 years 】
- Gain the power to bridge the difference in rank.
【 Incinerate 57 years 】
- Burn everything you have left and create a miracle.
※Warning※
- Consumed lifespan will be permanently deducted from your base lifespan in future iterations.
- The status condition “Soul Ash” will be applied to consumed lifespan.
======
Burning Life’s description had included the option, “Cannot be removed.”
I had never expected each iteration to give me a separate lifespan.
But I was not too worried.
“I can win it back and pay it off!”
Mages could replenish their lifespan with Universal Currency.
Still...
“What the hell is Soul Ash?”
I would only get a feel for it if I tried it.
I had to use it at least once if I wanted to use it again later.
It would not hurt to estimate my future stats while I had the chance.
There were three choices. Seven years, seventeen years, or fifty-seven years.
“Fifty-seven years is too much, and seven years is too little, so let’s go with seventeen.”
I chose a number worthy of answering Yiming’s blazing brotherhood.
Fwoooooosh!
The candle burned as fiercely as the brotherly bond between Yiming and me, rapidly melting away.
Seventeen years of lifespan vanished in an instant.
And in return, into my body...
“Oh! Ooooooh!!!!!”
A god descended.
Mana.
Overwhelming, indescribable mana.
Sticky mana, like tar, filled the mana circuits that had been drying out as if struck by drought.
The Engraving of Death Sentence grew hot as though branded by a searing iron, spreading and taking root.
When the process ended...
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
“R-Rowan? What is that? What did you do? Your mana suddenly...?”
My body and mind had both returned to reality.
“Whew...”
Gray ash fluttered through my pale breath.
Mana containing death boiled endlessly within me, as though a massive reactor had formed inside my body.
I understood instinctively.
Ah.
Was this it?
Was this the sight seen by a first-tier mage?
And I realized something else.
What I could do now.
“Brother, take a moment to rest.”
I took one step forward.
Death Sentence declared upon its target the cause of death from the mindscape I envisioned.
At a glance, it seemed like a cheat skill, but the process was not simple enough to deserve that name.
How would I kill them? What shape would I cut them into? How deeply would I stab?
I had to squeeze out every detail of that image and layer it over reality.
But now, that was unnecessary.
All I needed to prepare was the result.
I formed hand seals.
The sticky mana erupting from my body scattered toward the sky.
Like dew gathering on a ceiling, the mana condensed and soon took the shape of a dish.
From below, it looked like a black surface of water reflecting the earth.
I needed only one thing.
A fucking cool chant.
I lowered my voice into a deep register.
“Ah, God. What an ugly city this is. On this colorless earth, nothing but sin lingers.”
“Behold, ignorant lambs. Behold the weight of the sins you have piled high.”
Whether or not Yiming stared at me with shocked eyes, I continued my chant with the solemnity of an undertaker reciting a requiem.
“I am He Who Brings the Rain.”
Because there were only so many days in a man’s life when he could stand proudly and recite such cool lines.
“Your weightless souls cannot bear even a single drop’s weight.”
“Accept it. And be crushed...”
“...Heaven’s Lament.”
When my freestyle chant ended.
The sky shed tears.
Thick, pitch-black drops of liquid fell to the ground like tar.
Drip. Drip-drip.
At first, only a few drops.
The black liquid did not seem particularly dangerous. It just looked like something that would make your hair fall out.
But the instant those raindrops touched the jiangshi...
The cause of death embedded in my mana was forcibly carried out.
Crunch! Splat!
The death carried out was my first cause of death, death by falling.
The tightly packed jiangshi were crushed flat and burst apart as though they had been thrown from high-rises onto asphalt.
Shhhhhhh!
Then came a black downpour, fierce enough to erase the colors of the world.
Splat! Crunch! Crack!
The wave of jiangshi filling the alley collapsed like dominoes.
The sounds of flesh and bone being crushed mingled with the rain, creating a bizarre harmony.
A grotesque chain of deaths.
Red flowers blossomed brightly through the gaps between the black raindrops.
They unfolded, bloomed, and fell again.
The deafening bells could no longer be heard.
Not the jiangshi. Not the rats crawling across the ground. Not even a single baby cockroach.
Nothing could escape.
After the black shower swept across the land, only death remained.
All clear.
I had done it, but my chest was fucking swelling with pride.
More magnificent than Mama Ceres’s H-cups.
“Is this... a real mage?”
Could this truly be the power of a mere human?
After three minutes, the omnipotence filling my body vanished.
An indescribable emptiness settled over me.
But the situation was too complicated to indulge in such feelings.
“I cleared the road, Brother. Let’s run now.”
I smiled at Yiming, trying to recall every sensation remaining in my mana circuits.
“You little shit! How much have you been hiding from your big brother?!”
Yiming, who had been standing there with his mouth open, gave me a thumbs-up.
::: Challenges (NEW!) :::
- Use first-tier magic. +5 pt
2.
“Rowan, you punk, how did you do that just now? That wasn’t seventh-grade level. Was it an artifact?”
“Brother, I have a few hidden cards too. I can’t do any more now.”
“Fine! You saved us, so that’s enough!”
Of course, it was not that I was stronger than Big Brother Yiming.
It just meant that, given the matchup, Cedric could do a far better job of crushing the weak.
In any case, the obstacles were gone, so we no longer needed to move at a slug’s pace.
And so we reached the final stage of this story.
Atlas, F Sector’s famous cargo lift terminal.
A steel framework clinging tightly to the cliff.
Steel cables thicker than an adult man’s waist.
It was less like a building...
And more like the spine of a massive mechanical creature parasitizing the cliff.
Rumble. Rumble.
The sound of engines from somewhere struck the walls of the moat and echoed like thunder.
Blue remnants of mana mixed with choking smog, blanketing the sky over F Sector in its distinctive color.
I craned my neck until it nearly snapped as I looked up at the magnificent sight.
“That’s fucking incredible.”
“Right?”
Necropolis’s sky was entirely covered in Black Dust.
That meant Void lay scattered throughout the sky.
In other words, Atlas was the only path to Aden.
Naturally, the Gold Carp Family knew that too.
“You have come a long way. You must be tired.”
A man appeared as though he had been waiting for us.
He wore an immaculate changpao.
Golden carp densely covered the embroidery over his chest.
A soft-featured, slickly handsome man.
He looked openly treacherous.
He was definitely scraping out a miserable living by scamming innocent women.
“It’s been a while, Xuan Yiming.”
“Hey, Li Cheng. That’s right, we’ve known each other a while, haven’t we? Send us off nicely just this once. Next time we meet, I’ll give you a lively welcome.”
“That would be difficult. You are the ones who messed with my property. Thankfully, I was able to recover it, but things nearly became very troublesome.”
Ding!
A notification sounded.
[ Fated Encounter effect activates! ]
[ You have encountered a key figure in the scenario! ]
Ah, I could roughly see the picture now.
Was that bastard the one who had abandoned the fake Progenitor in the basement?
Either way, the notification must have appeared because he was deeply connected to the “dolls.”
I knew roughly who the Overnus Pharmaceuticals executives were.
Li Cheng, the Gold Carp Family’s Red Pole.
Li Cheng’s name had stuck with me because it somehow sounded like a your-mom joke.
And a Red Pole was...
An executive responsible for an organization’s combat power.
“I will send you off comfortably, in memory of old times.”
Li Cheng was the Gold Carp Family’s greatest fighting force.
With a high chance of becoming the final boss of this Premium Route.
A third-tier mage.
Footnotes:
[1] Zhang Fei and Guan Yu: sworn brothers and famed warriors in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, evoking loyal comrades-in-arms.
- “Dormammu” references Doctor Strange, where the name evokes being trapped in a repeating time loop.
- The Blue House was South Korea’s former presidential residence. Cedric’s sudden suggestion is deliberately absurd.
- “Red Pole” is a Chinese triad title. The narrator’s crude joke about how Li Cheng’s name sounds does not carry directly into English.
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