WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
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◈ A Gacha Addict's Life in Fusionpunk ◈
Chapter 58: Treasure Hunter (2)
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1.
Even before all this, I tried every kind of job to build up fresh seed money whenever I got wiped out.
Then I ended up in another world, and it felt like my portfolio had grown even more impressive.
Human-trash cleaner, hired gun, Yowppi to a Triad executive.
And now, treasure hunter.
“Still, treasure hunter is an S-rank profession.”
I didn't have to uneasily beat innocent homeless people to death.
Nor would low-ranking fixers band together and come after me for revenge.
All I had to do was steal the forgotten True Progenitor’s secret funds.
It couldn't have been better suited to a second-run strategy of stacking the deck.
But if you think this strategy means easy money, you're mistaken.
To summarize once more.
1) This is Necropolis.
2) Nothing in Necropolis comes free.
3) If something looks like it comes free, immediately remember rule 2.
That was how it worked.
.
.
.
Five days after the treasure hunt began.
We were at an abandoned shrine in C Sector.
At the end of an alley where green smog pooled like fog stood a wooden building left to rot like an eyesore.
The red pillars had lost their paint, and someone had stolen the incense burner.
It had once been a place to honor noble souls, but now it was little more than a toilet for the homeless.
So what was I doing in this place that somehow felt sacrilegious?
First, I lifted Shion.
“Fuck! Hurry up and find it, Boksun!”
“Stop rushing me! Move a little to the side, human!”
“This way? Here?”
Careful not to step in shit, I cautiously shuffled sideways.
Shion clung to my shoulders, reaching beneath the rafters again and again.
“No! A little farther left...!”
“Left? Ah...”
“What is it?”
“Fuck... I stepped in it.”
“Human! Put me down at once! Filthy human! Get away from me immediately!”
After about ten minutes of searching, even stepping in shit along the way, all we found were mummified rat corpses.
“Nothing? Again?”
“Ugh... I-I am certain it was here...”
“Did you forget because you’re an idiot?”
“That cannot be!”
I set down the shrieking Shion.
“Haah, fuck.”
Well, of course.
Two hundred years. Two hundred years.
As the saying went, ten years were enough to change mountains and rivers.
Maybe even the great Faker wouldn't be winning Worlds two hundred years from now.
I wasn't some soft-hearted newbie who expected two-hundred-year-old ownerless secret funds to still be sitting untouched.
Before arriving at this shrine, we had already spent five days investigating locations throughout C Sector.
But there had been no special haul.
Someone had already taken the money.
The place had changed so much that a search was impossible.
Or the surroundings had changed too much to identify the exact location.
It had to be one of those three.
Some lucky bastard had probably swiped this shrine’s treasure too.
“Why the hell would you take it?!”
This was pissing me off.
I needed to vent.
“Get over here.”
I crooked a finger at Shion, who had wisely retreated far away in advance.
“This is not my fault, is it?!”
“I’ll give you three seconds. Three, two, one...”
“A-all right! I am coming! I am!”
Shion hurried over and squeezed her eyes shut.
“We failed again, right? C Sector is all searched now. Right?”
“So this is not my fault...”
“Why is your tongue so long? You think that means you won’t be punished?”
When I threatened her, Shion heavily lowered her head and spoke.
“I-I will accept punishment. I will...”
“Lift your shirt.”
“Uuuugh... Be gentle, I beg you...”
Shion carefully lifted her top to her solar plexus.
Her pale stomach and long navel were exposed.
Until now, Shion’s punishment had been a headlock, but people got used to the same stimulation.
To keep Shion from getting uppity whenever she had the chance, I needed a different kind of corporal punishment.
Pbbbbt!
So I gave Shion’s pale belly a fierce barrage of raspberries.
“Kyahah! Kyahahahaha! Stop! Stop it, human!”
Shion was ticklish, and she shrieked with laughter until tears welled in her eyes.
About three minutes later.
“Phew. That relieved some stress.”
“Human... How long do you intend to treat me like an idiot...?”
Shion grumbled, her hair tousled and her face slightly worn out.
“Boksun, if you weren't at least cute, we'd cut you from our team immediately. Got it?”
“Urk...”
“If you understand, accept it.”
“...A-all right.”
That was enough messing around.
This wasn't something I had failed to anticipate from the start.
Even at a European cafe, leaving your phone on the table for ten seconds was enough to lose it. In Necropolis, it would be even worse.
I took out the map I had carefully folded away.
A few dozen secret-fund hiding places Shion had painstakingly recalled through her hazy memories were marked on it.
Not all of them actually had money buried there, of course. They were only places with a high chance of it.
“So C Sector is a total loss. Fuck.”
I marked the map with X after X.
Another complete waste today.
Starting tomorrow, it looked like I'd have to search E Sector.
2.
First, we went home.
There were fourteen days left in the Premium period.
I was full of impatience, but managing my condition was essential.
If I got sick for even one day, that day would be completely wasted.
After boiling water and scrubbing myself squeaky clean...
“Boksun, you wash too. I left some hot water for you.”
I dove straight into bed.
“Haaa...”
The sigh came naturally.
My mind wasn't at ease, and the impatience of being chased was unpleasant, but the moment I lay in bed still felt like paradise.
“Arbel... I stepped in shit today. I almost lost heart, but I endured it.”
“...”
“You'll praise me, right? Kissy kiss.”
“Ugh... Urgh...”
While Shion washed, I hugged Arbel, who made sounds whenever I squeezed her, and told her about my day.
Bang!
The door opened, apparently because Shion had finished washing.
Shion now slipped under the covers as though it were natural.
Warm in front and behind. This felt nice.
“Sleep well.”
Since tonight was a night for sleeping while hugging Arbel, I greeted the fake Progenitor with my back turned.
“Master.”
Then Shion suddenly spoke.
“What?”
“...”
“What? If you called me, say something.”
“...”
“Are you hungry again?”
“...”
“There’s a blood pack over there. Crack one open, brush your teeth after, and go to sleep.”
Then.
With a rustle, a hand slipped beneath my armpit.
At the same time, Shion pressed tightly against me.
I was slightly flustered.
Shion’s warmth soaking into my back felt far too bare.
The soft, yielding flesh pressing against my back was as vivid as a glutinous rice cake.
Only the pajamas I wore separated us.
What was with her all of a sudden?
As I was bewildered...
“A-am I... useless?”
A weak voice came from beside my ear.
Shion, who demanded glutinous rice cakes eight times after getting put in a headlock seven times, was saying something so weak?
This was the first time I had seen her like this.
“What is it? Why have you suddenly gone all limp?”
When I tried to turn around, Shion tightly wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed closer.
“I-I know Master has shown me mercy. I also know I have failed to meet Master’s expectations.”
As if trying to stop me from looking back.
Or clinging to me.
“B-but do you know? I... am very useful.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“If you too... are a man... then you know what I mean, do you not?”
Shion continued haltingly.
“I-I do not think badly of Master. I like you. It is not as though I have no feelings of affection for you, either.”
Her clumsy, sweet voice tickled my collar.
“...Will you take me?”
Ah.
Only then did I reconsider the situation from Shion’s perspective.
Shion and I had made a contract.
I would hide Shion and send her to Aden.
Shion would perform servant conversion on Arbel.
From my perspective, this was a perfectly reasonable equal exchange.
I was desperate too, in my own way.
But what would it look like from Shion’s perspective?
For her, converting Arbel into a servant was merely one of my bizarre whims.
And an expensive whim that cost 125 million Bios.
The reasonable choice, as Shion saw it, would be to give up servant conversion, treat Arbel cheaply with one Universal Coin, then sell her to Twilight Resource Development or the Gold Carp Family.
Well, that was true.
That was Necropolism.
That was why she said things like:
“I-I know Master has shown me mercy.”
Let us recall Shion’s past here.
A Twilight Resource Development laboratory.
Torture disguised as experimentation, drug administration, and a verdict of disposal deferred.
To Shion, being useless was no different from death.
But the treasure hunt had already been a complete waste for five days.
The secret funds she had bragged about with such confidence were gone.
The moment her worthlessness was proven, she must have felt fear instinctively.
That was why she was doing this.
Taking off all her clothes and swallowing her pride.
Anything to avoid being discarded.
Hmm. This was difficult.
Was this the time to close my eyes, go along with her misunderstanding, and finish off the mochi?
Honestly, Shion had made up her mind too. She wouldn't hold a grudge later and turn Arbel into an undead, right?
She said she had feelings for me.
And even setting aside the bad blood from the previous round, it was true that I had been showing Shion agape.
I fed her, gave her a place to sleep, washed her, and never laid a finger on her.
Wasn't I? I was!
I was Cedric.
I had lived by one simple creed: never turn away a woman who came to me.
“Sniff... Sniff...”
Suddenly, I heard sniffling.
No. No!!!
Fuck, I hadn't even done anything yet!
“Boksun.”
“Sniff... Sniff... I-I have made up my mind. But... sniff... what am I supposed to do now...?”
After a long time thinking, I finally opened my mouth.
“Go to sleep, woman.”
“Huh...?”
“I said, go to sleep.”
Ugh, fuck.
If she had been just a little less pitiful, I would have...
“Put your clothes on and sleep, you bitch.”
3.
Since opening her eyes, memories of the past had always been blurry, as though filled with static.
The only memories that remained clear without fading even a little were the cold feeling of the operating table.
The pain of needles piercing her veins.
And the eyes of researchers stripped of emotion as they looked down from beyond a glass wall.
Perhaps those memories were painful because they were, in the end, memories of a fake.
This Shion Tsukimiya was no True Progenitor.
Mediocre magic.
Mediocre abilities.
A failed creation that could only bypass the Commandment to create servants at enormous cost.
Nothing more than a poorly made doll marked for disposal.
The derogatory name fake Progenitor might not have been a derogatory name at all. It was a coldly accurate title.
She knew.
It was nothing new.
Life had always been cruel.
Even after disposal was decided, while she fell into a long sleep of unknown duration.
Even when she was saved by the hand of a strange man.
Even when she deceived him, pretending to be a True Progenitor while looking for an opportunity.
Even when her identity was exposed and this helpless body came to be used.
She did not despair anew.
Life had always been harsh.
The first man she formed a bond with after waking from her long sleep.
Cedric Montraven was a crazy bastard.
A man who lusted after his blood-related older sister.
A man who whispered about his day every night into the ear of a vegetative patient, muttering something about Afuru Mango Bingsu.
A detestable man who forced strange clothes onto her, tormented her whenever he could, used her like a servant, and stole her mochi.
He was a strange man who did not look normal from any angle.
And that was not all.
He did not touch the sister he openly lusted after so much.
He willingly took the life-threatening risk of hiding a fake under the pretext of saving his sister.
He dressed her in the bizarre outfit called a bunny girl and always held her in bed, yet never once spoke the common demand that she offer up her chastity.
In this cruel world where exploitation and violation were ordinary.
He was the only predator who let her remain at his side without any real demand.
Shion found that unbearably strange.
And today.
“Boksun, if you weren't at least cute, we'd cut you from our team immediately. Got it?”
For the first time, this man had spoken of discarding her.
She was seized by fear.
The fate of a tool that could not prove its worth was obvious.
Once it was no longer needed, it was discarded.
She clearly understood that the brief respite she had possessed for the first time since coming into existence depended solely on this man’s whim.
And.
“...Will you take me?”
She understood the only value a fake could offer in exchange for that respite.
The silence was long.
The answer was short.
“Go to sleep, woman.”
“Huh...?”
“I said, go to sleep.”
The pajamas landed on her face with a flop.
“Put your clothes on and sleep, you bitch.”
Cedric’s broad back turned away, as though telling her to stop doing pointless things and sleep.
Shion stared blankly at that back for a long time.
“...”
This Cedric really was...
A strange man.
Footnotes:
“Faker” is the online name of Lee Sang-hyeok, a legendary League of Legends player. “Worlds” is the game’s world championship.
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