WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 57: Treasure Hunter
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The prophets’ predictions came true.
On the day of the Great Erosion, when Black Dust covered the world.
Black Dust swept in from the farthest edge of the horizon like a desert sandstorm.
The endless column of refugees was already being swallowed from the rear by the encroaching erosion.
Before Ark City, refugees pouring in from across the continent had turned the place into a living hell.
“Please! Please open the gates!”
“At least take the children! Please, take the children!”
“Help! Someone’s dying here!”
But the city gates stood firm.
There was no mercy for those who had not been chosen.
“Aaargh! It’s coming! It’s coming!”
“Help! Help me! Get away from me, bitch!”
Amid that despair.
A girl fell into the Void, a rift in the fractured world.
It was a place where the world’s rules did not apply.
The laws of physics twisted, while ideas and natural order tangled like discordant notes.
The refugees swallowed up alongside the girl instantly lost their forms and vanished like dust.
Yet for some reason, the girl did not die.
Instead, she slowly decayed in that hell of chaos, where there was no up or down and time stood stagnant as though it had pooled.
It took what felt like centuries for even a single fingertip to crumble into dust.
An unbearably slow dissolution.
That horrific weathering began to strip away the girl’s memories and emotions, layer by layer.
In a world where everything was collapsing.
The girl held only one mad wish.
‘I want to live.’
I don’t want to die like this.
I don’t want to disappear.
I don’t want to return to nothingness, to emptiness, to dust that is nothing at all.
‘I want to live forever.’
The absurd delusion the girl recited at death’s door.
To that distorted prayer...
The world answered.
Eternal life took root in the girl’s body.
When she stepped out through the torn Void, what rose in her eyes was...
A red-glowing moon.
“This was the beginning of the first vampire, the True Progenitor, Shion Tsukimiya.”
I stared at Shion as she gave that grand explanation with her brows drawn together.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Skip.”
“Why?! It’s only starting now!”
“Who asked about you? I asked how strong Kisara Yagyu is. What kind of woman she is.”
“This is where the explanation must begin!”
You’re changing the subject because you don’t want to talk about your own shitty story, aren’t you?
Anyway.
That was the origin story of the first vampire, the True Progenitor.
The True Progenitor shared her blood to create servants and built the Tsukimiya Family.
The superiority of vampires.
Absolute worship and loyalty toward the True Progenitor.
Bound by that close connection, the Tsukimiya Family spent centuries working its way into the heart of humanity’s final Ark.
It earned a place among the Twenty-Eight Great Houses that ran the Ark.
However.
One night, beneath a red moon.
The True Progenitor suddenly destroyed the family she had built with her own hands.
She sat upon a bloodstained throne and swore a Commandment.
In exchange, she obtained perfect immortality.
“Why did you kill your family?”
“I do not remember.”
“Are you going to keep lying? Are you actually a guppy? How do you kill your whole family and forget why?”
“I-I truly do not remember! My memories are incomplete! Everything before Necropolis is hazy...!”
Well, she didn’t seem to be lying.
And it wasn’t that important right now.
Anyway, after that incident, Shion gained the cool title of the Only Red Moon, left Aden, and headed alone for Necropolis...
Then, within three days of moving in, she swallowed the RCD Foundation whole.
It wasn’t that strange.
Looking at the fake Progenitor in her current sorry state made it hard to imagine, but...
She had been Rank 7. Rank 7.
Just watching Big Brother Yiming throw a serious punch at Rank 2 had made me shudder.
I couldn’t even imagine what kind of monster Shion had been at the height of Rank 7.
At least in Necropolis, she had been an invasive species with no natural enemies.
A bullfrog, nutria, and largemouth bass all rolled into one.
After reigning as the king of the ecosystem for over a decade.
‘You are Shion Tsukimiya, correct?’
‘Oh? What a bold little girl. What is your name?’
An Executor of the Paradise Administration Bureau came to see her alone.
‘Kisara Yagyu. I’ve come to purge you.’
Kisara Yagyu.
“Was she famous before that?”
“No, that was the first time I saw her.”
“Huh? If she beat the True Progenitor, wasn’t she at least Rank 7? Are people at Rank 7 and above that common?”
“At the time, Kisara was not Rank 7. She was Rank 5.”
“Huh?”
Not every Mage excelled at combat.
But in a battle between Mages, Rank was an absolute difference in weight class.
And according to Shion herself, she had been a monster tempered through countless brushes with death.
That peak Rank 7 Shion lost to Kisara, who had only been around Rank 5?
“Hmm.”
My cold gaze questioned her performance.
I expected Shion to say:
“I-I was simply careless for a moment...! If we fought again, I would crush her, so just wait!”
Then I would have replied:
“Carelessness is a skill issue, bitch.”
And we could’ve traded a little banter.
But Shion’s response differed from what I expected.
Shion, whose pride was as lofty as a True Progenitor’s, did not offer a single excuse.
“Kisara Yagyu is a monster.”
“Even if I returned to that time and fought her hundreds of times, there is not a single possible outcome in which I win.”
She admitted it plainly and cleanly.
A trace of awe, or perhaps fear, appeared in her eyes as they grew slightly distant with memory.
“No, does that even make sense?”
She had been overwhelmed by a pure gap in skill, not a difference in Rank?
Not a narrow win, either. A complete stomp?
Want to hear something even scarier?
This happened two hundred years ago.
I couldn’t even guess what Rank Kisara was now, or how strong she had become.
So did I feel bottomless despair?
“Anyway... my story ends here.”
“That was helpful, fake Progenitor.”
“You still call me a fake Progenitor after hearing that?! How insolent!”
Yeah, honestly, I was scared shitless.
But I quickly changed my mind.
Why should I suddenly feel despair?
Would I stand a chance just because Kisara had only barely beaten the True Progenitor?
Cedric was a Rank 0 weakling anyway.
This wasn’t a game I cleared by beating the boss. I just had to avoid her forever.
Still.
“Fuck!!!! Then why is she chasing me?!?!”
“That woman is pursuing Master?”
“Yeah, she smashed up my house. She comes after me whenever I touch Universal Currency. Do you know anything?”
She seemed to remember bits and pieces of what had happened in Aden, so I asked.
“I have never heard of Universal Currency having such a function.”
Sadly, I got no answer.
Universal Currency tracking technology.
What the hell was it?
Why was someone skilled enough to beat a True Progenitor head-on chasing Rank 0 piece-of-shit Cedric?
“This is driving me crazy.”
A sudden sense of dread came over me.
Even if I somehow cleared the Premium Route and everything went well...
Would I just get hit by a Kisara Beam and die the moment I went to Aden?
Was I supposed to live in this shithole for the rest of my life?!
New Choices had appeared when I met Kisara before...
“Ah, fuck it. I don’t know.”
Making long-term plans was for people who could afford to live comfortably.
For now, just clearing the Premium Route was hard enough.
Which brought me back to the question of how to earn 125 million Bios...
As I agonized over it again, Shion poked my side.
“Master.”
“What?”
“I... have an idea.”
“You?!”
The fake Progenitor’s cheeks went puff~.
Her reactions were so good that I kept teasing her.
She had such a tiny hitbox, yet got tilted so easily.
“I will no longer tolerate being ignored!”
“Come on, I’m joking. We’re close, aren’t we? Our fates are tied. We’re even going to sleep together every day, right?”
“How far do you intend to mock me?!”
Still grumbling, Shion held out her palm.
“If Master offers me tribute, I shall reveal the method.”
I immediately put her in a headlock.
“W-wait... Master, I understand... I understand...! I’ll speak! I’ll tell you!”
The fake Progenitor tapped out quickly.
Clutching her head, Shion spoke.
“Anyway, Master’s goal is to carry out servant conversion on that woman, is it not?”
“Right.”
“And Master is gathering money to buy a ruby from that female doctor?”
She understood that much, at least.
Our fake Progenitor wasn’t completely brainless after all.
“And I need it within nineteen days.”
“...Why must Master gather it within nineteen days?”
“Because I’m impatient.”
Shion’s brows twitched as though she had never seen such an absurd creature.
“If Master makes one promise, I’ll tell Master how to earn money quickly.”
“Oh-ho.”
“W-wait! There truly is a method! It’s something impossible without my help!”
The fake Progenitor flinched when I moved to put her in another headlock.
“What promise?”
“If my method proves helpful, take me and flee to Aden.”
She was offering me a deal.
A serious deal.
Which meant...
It was a fairly solid plan.
“Tell me.”
2.
Why hadn’t I thought of this?
The shock from Kisara Yagyu must have stopped my brain from working properly.
I hurried to the black market and bought a few things.
“I got them!”
Shion proudly raised her chin.
“Did Master bring mochi too?”
“Here. Eat plenty. You’ll need strength.”
“Hmph. Massage my shoulders too.”
I immediately put her in a headlock.
“I-it was a joke... a joke....”
This brat had gotten faster at tapping out.
Anyway, now that I thought about it, of course.
Her memory was incomplete, like an old person with dementia, but Shion had inherited even the True Progenitor’s memories.
At least the memories from before she was sealed.
Her memories of Necropolis were comparatively clear.
Now, let’s consider a way to make a large sum of money in a short period.
You have ten seconds.
If you get it right, you too are an excellent citizen of Necropolis!
The answer is.
Ta-da! A treasure hunt for the True Progenitor’s hidden riches!
Even if you didn’t get the answer, that was fine.
Necropolis citizenship was open to everyone.
You could take the test again later.
Now, let’s go over this step by step.
Necropolis had no banks.
It was a city where trust itself did not exist as capital.
Therefore, the default method of managing money in this city was physical concealment. Extremely primitive.
That was why Mama Ceres and Yiming each kept a safe.
But even that wasn’t enough to feel secure.
This was Necropolis.
Even someone like Yiming could lose their head after a single lapse in caution.
It was also important to bury emergency funds somewhere unknown to everyone else, in case your main base was raided.
Like Yiming’s secret cash warehouses scattered throughout the H Sector landfill.
Apparently, the True Progenitor had hidden golden acorns all over Necropolis, like a squirrel preparing for winter.
“You hid enough, right?”
“Of course.”
“About how much emergency money did you stash away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then who does?”
“Do not measure me by petty human standards. My treasures transcend comprehension.”
Shion answered while diligently chewing her sweet rice cake.
“...”
“Ah... ahh... ah... Give it back!”
When I took the sweet rice cake she had been holding so dearly, Shion obediently continued.
“There should be no less than 200 million Bios hidden in any one place...”
Well.
Twilight Resource Development and Overnus Pharmaceuticals had split off from the RCD Foundation.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Shion’s acorn warehouses, as the one who had stood at the top of that organization, the Gate of Necropolis.
If I properly looted even one location, it would be a jackpot.
A complete reversal of fortune.
Cedric, Arbel, and Shion’s harem otherworld life would begin!
Shffft!
I unfolded the long map I had just obtained.
It was a detailed map of all Necropolis.
“Now, mark every place you remember.”
The treasure hunt began.
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