WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 55: Taming a True Progenitor (3)
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1.
I’d known Isis for quite a while.
Every loop, every week.
I came here to have Arbel treated and pick up her medicine.
Between the small talk during treatment and using Jokers, I knew more about Isis than she thought I did.
Her full name was Isis Yozora.
A beautiful woman with a strangely decadent air and an intelligent impression.
Dark green eyes and hair, the latter slightly wavy.
She always wore a wrinkled white coat and favored turtlenecks that showed off her assets.
One of this city’s rare freelance Mages with no affiliation.
She had a Commandment never to reveal patient information.
Basically, she was a dry pragmatist.
I’d tried the devastatingly handsome-man routine every time, but it had never worked.
She didn’t seem particularly extravagant, but she was crazy about money.
Still, it seemed there was a side of her I’d never expected.
For example, the fact that Isis immediately recognized Shion’s true nature.
“This is a True Progenitor doll, right? The Gold Carp Family was supposed to be keeping her. Why do you have her?”
“Uh…”
Wait, she knew that much?
I was genuinely shocked.
Her first reaction had made it seem like she knew something...
But I hadn’t expected her to know such details.
Even Yiming had been mistaken, unaware that the Gold Carp Family had been keeping the fake Progenitor.
How did Isis, an unaffiliated unlicensed doctor, know this?
What was going on?
Was Isis also a key figure in the scenario?
Had no notification appeared because I already knew her?
Haah... This was going to mess up my plans.
Just as my thoughts tangled together, Shion started shrieking beside me.
“You know who I am, yet you’re still so presumptuous. Should you not serve tea and snacks?”
In that moment, I saw it.
Isis’s face twist sharply.
“Oh, I failed to educate her properly. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Hey! You apologize too!”
“S-sorry.”
I quickly grabbed Shion by the hair and forced her to bow over and over.
But all I got in return was silence.
“...”
When I cautiously raised my head, Isis stood with her arms crossed, wearing a complicated expression.
“...You still haven’t answered me. Why are you with the doll?”
“I rescued her. The Gold Carp Family had her locked up.”
“...”
Isis stayed silent for a long time.
Huh?
What was this?
This hadn’t been my plan.
First, I would have Isis examine Shion.
Then I would use a Commandment to guarantee absolute secrecy and explain the situation.
She would probably try to throw me out after that.
From there, I planned to improvise.
Paltry Indulgence, the Exhumation Monocle, or the Mysterious Contract Seal like I’d used with Ceres.
I planned to use every Joker I had to draw her deeply into this.
If that didn’t work, I was even ready to sell out Ceres and Yiming, threatening, “If I get caught, I’ll say you told me to steal the fake Progenitor!!!”
But...
Isis’s reaction was unusual.
She silently turned around and walked toward the door.
Click. Click. Click.
Isis fastened several additional locks.
Wait, those hadn’t all been locked before?
More importantly, I was getting a little tense.
I’d seen this in a movie.
Manners maketh man, right?
I kept my mana ready in case of an emergency, but Isis gave me a look that said, What are you doing? Then she spoke.
“Come this way. Bring that one too. It would be troublesome if anyone saw us.”
“...?”
Maybe it was just my imagination.
But Isis looked a little depressed.
2.
As you could tell from the fact that she stayed here outside business hours, Isis Clinic also served as her workshop and home.
“Excuse me.”
Counting repeat visits across loops, this was probably nearly my tenth time here.
But this was my first time entering Isis’s private living space.
Heh heh. What would our gloomy, busty lady doctor’s room be like?
I stepped inside with a little excitement...
“Hm. It is messy.”
Shion was right.
Isis wasn’t the tidy type.
Three points off my bride score.
Her room, like the clinic, had low ambient lighting.
Even through that dim light, its unorganized clutter stood out.
Medical charts and unidentified books lay scattered across her desk.
Pajamas she had taken off carelessly, even underwear, were strewn over the bed.
Still, it felt strangely cozy.
Was it because the smell of disinfectant mixed with the faint scent of coffee?
“...Of all times...”
Isis, who always wore such a stony expression, ruffled her hair and muttered to herself.
I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but one thing was certain.
Isis’s reaction was not normal.
“Cedric, do you know what you’re carrying around?”
“Yes. It seems you know quite a lot yourself, Isis.”
I questioned her in return.
Isis suddenly pressed her lips together and frowned.
That reaction alone was strange.
The fake Progenitor project had been in the classified documents Yiming gave me.
Like Project Z, it had been fairly confidential.
Yet before I even explained the situation, Isis had called Shion a True Progenitor doll.
She knew Shion was connected to the Gold Carp Family, but still let us inside without much resistance.
I was suddenly getting nervous.
Whenever Cedric’s life went this smoothly, some bullshit was bound to be waiting.
What was this?
Was Isis actually a Gold Carp Family collaborator?
Probably not.
While serving as Yiming’s zuobi, I’d heard a fair amount about the Gold Carp Family’s internal affairs.
The name Isis Yozora had never come up even once within the organization.
“So why did you bring her to me?”
Isis asked, staring intently at me.
Should I use the monocle now?
No.
I only had one use left.
It wasn’t too late to be more careful.
“I want to use Shion to turn Arbel into a vampire.”
I chose my words carefully.
“As you seem to know already, she’s a fake. It seems she needs life force to perform servant conversion, but she ends up dying herself.”
“Th-then we need a way for this concubine to perform servant conversion without dying.”
Shion suddenly cut in.
Her life was on the line too, so she seemed to be trying to help.
She was only getting in the way.
“Hey! The grown-ups are talking.”
I already felt like I was walking on thin ice!
“...Ugh... Stop touching my head.”
Shion whined as I pressed down on her head and sat her on my lap.
Isis touched the corner of her lips before continuing.
“If it’s for Arbel, there’s no need to make this complicated. I told you I’d rebuild her magic circuits if you paid me. There’s no need for servant conversion.”
That was an entirely reasonable objection.
This was the truly frustrating part.
Would people even believe me if I properly explained everything?
No matter how much this followed genre conventions, did revealing that I’d regressed really have to be blocked?
“It’s hard for me to explain the details too. I trust your skills, Isis. But for certain reasons, servant conversion is absolutely necessary. We can’t let her die, can we?”
“Th-that is true! Hurry and come up with some kind of solution!”
After thinking for a long time again, Isis asked:
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
Isis looked unable to understand.
Well.
It would be hard for her to accept.
This time, it was finally time for a Joker to do its work!
Just as I thought that, Isis’s lips moved.
3.
On the way back to my studio from Isis Clinic.
As always, C Sector at night was choking and noisy.
Damp green smog hung overhead.
Red lanterns dangled among it like drops of blood.
The smell of cheap spices and foul drains.
Even sweet purple opium smoke rising from deep within the alleys.
This damp scenery, which I had once found fascinating, had become somewhat familiar.
Well, I was a C Sector resident now.
But this city...
“What is this?”
I couldn’t understand any of it, from beginning to end.
“What is this, seriously?”
I’d talked about clearing things quietly without getting tangled up with Gold Carp and other whales...
But that didn’t mean I’d expected to breeze through the second loop.
Did Necropolis look like a joke to me?
The moment you tried to coast through things, norovirus, salmonella, vibrio, sepsis, liver flukes, and anisakis would be waiting for you.
Even persuading Isis had seemed like a huge obstacle.
No, look.
A Commandment only guaranteed secrecy.
Logically, Isis had no reason to help me willingly.
That was why I had prepared myself before coming to see her.
But then...
“Ten Universal Coins.”
“Huh?”
“Ten Universal Coins or 125 million Bios. Bring them, and I’ll make you a Ruby.”
“Huh?”
“You said you needed servant conversion somehow. Pay me, and I’ll do it.”
She had agreed far too easily.
Her answer itself was questionable.
How did Isis know about the Ruby?
How could she make a Ruby when even Twilight Resource Development had given up on it?
There were too many things I didn’t understand.
“...You’re not going to take the money and run, are you?”
Even then, I doubted Isis’s intentions.
It was only natural to doubt others in Necropolis.
But Isis kept making one outrageous move after another.
“Take these. Make sure the doll wears one at all times. You wear one too.”
“What are these?”
“Necklaces enchanted with recognition-suppression magic. They’ll keep you out of Turbid Water Fish’s sights.”
“...?”
First, she gave me a way to escape the surveillance that had been my biggest concern.
“Be careful of the Gold Carp Family’s Red Pole, Li Cheng.”
“?????”
Then she even reminded me of Li Cheng, the final boss of the previous loop.
“If you need blood, buy it from me.”
“Why?”
“If you buy it through another route, someone might trace it.”
“Who are you?! You’re not Isis!”
She even told me what to watch out for.
No matter how I looked at it, this was high-quality information only an insider could provide.
“Thank you, seriously, seriously, seriously. But why?”
“...You don’t need to know.”
Things were progressing remarkably smoothly.
The frustrating part was that she still wouldn’t tell me why she was helping.
“Seriously, something is definitely going on here. Do you know anything?”
I asked Shion, who had been walking beside me.
There was no answer.
What? Where the fuck had she gone?!
I looked around in alarm and saw her some distance away.
Shion stood motionless in front of a rice cake shop.
“Ah, this bitch.”
Her sparkling gaze was fixed on the glutinous rice cakes.
I strode over and smacked the back of her head.
“Didn’t I tell you to stick right by my side?”
“Eek!”
Shion flinched, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the rice cakes.
“Th-those rice cakes look truly delicious...”
“So?”
“Do you not intend to offer this concubine tribute?”
I remembered Shion from the previous loop.
The way she threw outrageous tantrums and caused a scene because she wanted glutinous rice cakes.
“Want to die?”
Shion tightly grabbed my sleeve.
“Th-this is the last chance. Do you truly have no intention of offering tribute?”
“Quit your bullshit. You’re really going to die.”
Whenever you treated someone politely, they thought you were a pushover.
Look at this bitch.
I’d gone a little easy on her in front of Isis, and she was already trying to push her luck.
Still...
“Three glutinous rice cakes, please.”
I should build up some favorability so she wouldn’t make trouble at the end.
“Five thousand Bios.”
Fuck me.
Still fucking expensive.
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